Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2710: Demigod Godson’s Fail Safe

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Southern Region, Blossom District, Sky Blossom City, TSR Guild Headquarters

While Corey and the Saintess argued, my attention shifted elsewhere. I was far more interested in learning more about the New Age Merchant Guild.

Saintess Catherine’s revelation had flooded my mind with questions, but whether the Demigod Micheal Angelo was a devil merchant, wasn’t one of those questions. It couldn’t be because I was the first merchant from Card World.

The Devil Merchant Code’s counter for merchants from card world confirmed that I was the first merchant from it. It even counted for the dead. I.e. death would not remove a merchant from the count. The Devil Merchant Code categorized the deceased as offline in its networks and records.

That meant if demigod Micheal Angelo Godson had been a devil merchant under the Devil Merchant Code, then when I joined, the system would not have displayed that there was only a single merchant from the Card World. It would have shown two. Since it did not, and now that every demon or devil merchant from the Card World had been accounted for, after confirming that Pax Whiteburn Godson was a demon merchant, I was certain of one thing. Before me, there had been no demon or devil merchant from the Card World.

Soon, Hive Spirit accessed the Demon Codex and extracted every trace of information it could locate on the New Age Merchant Guild through the inter-realm network.

The New Age Merchant Guild was one of the oldest merchant guilds established by non-native demon or devil merchants in the Devil Merchant Code. From its inception, every recorded member had been a non-native merchant. Even so, the guild had managed to grow steadily over the years.

At present, it had firmly established itself as a semi-ruler-class force within the inter-realm city and its vast network. For a merchant guild composed solely of non-native merchants, such a rise was nothing short of extraordinary.

The founders of the New Age merchant guild had all come together under a single purpose: to protect their native worlds from demon invasion. That shared resolve shaped everything the guild became. Its track record spoke for itself. Even now, it adhered unwaveringly to its founding principles. For a merchant guild formed entirely of non-native merchants, it was no small achievement to endure this long and continue to thrive.

However, the fact that they protected their native worlds from demon invasion did not mean they refrained from acting as invaders themselves.

The Hive Spirit had carefully tracked the items the New Age Merchant Guild was known to trade. The pattern was unmistakable. Many of those ingredients could only have been obtained through large-scale incursions, the kind that left civilizations fractured and worlds stripped bare.

The evidence pointed to a troubling conclusion: while safeguarding their own realms from demonic forces, they had conducted raids across the myriad realms, conquering and devastating other worlds to secure the very goods they later sold.

Moreover, the inter-realm network hosted numerous discussions claiming that the guild’s protection extended only to the native worlds of its members, and even then, strictly according to the merits of the individual in question.

Given the guild’s scale, such claims were not difficult to believe. Over time, the New Age Merchant Guild had expanded into an entity too vast to be governed by sentiment. An organization of that magnitude could not afford to operate on emotion alone. It required profit, structure, and calculated allocation of resources to sustain its massive framework and prevent it from collapsing under its own weight.

”Baem, get that bitch!” Corey’s shout shattered my train of thought. I snapped back to the present just as she ordered Lil’ Baem to act. I instinctively unleashed my Limitless Celestial Domain, separating Lil’ Baem and Saintess Catherine by a limitlessly stretched space, as I sternly commanded them, ”Stop.”

”What the fuck, Corey? This is what you call not creating trouble?” I sharply snapped at Corey after getting the situation under control.

Even though I was lost in my thoughts, going through the dossier on New Age Merchant Guild, I heard their argument in the background. So, I knew that this entire situation had spiraled to this point because Corey refused to stop insisting that Demigod Godson was a devil merchant even after the Saintess explicitly warned her not to. Her persistence had turned suspicion into confrontation, and confrontation into open escalation.

”Wyatt, I did nothing wrong. I was just stating facts. But her sectarian mind couldn’t comprehend it and attacked me, so I had to defend myself.” Corey framed her actions as purely defensive, distancing herself from any responsibility for how far the situation had escalated.

Saintess Catherine offered no rebuttal. She simply glared at Corey. Her silence was far louder than any argument could be. There was a finality in her gaze, as though she had already resolved the matter within herself and was prepared to kill Corey or die in the attempt.

I exhaled and shook my head before correcting my employee, ”Corey, Demigod Godson couldn’t have been a devil merchant. I was the first merchant from the Card World. Either Pax or Gideon was the second. Then the rest of you guys came.”

Listening to me, Corey’s eyes condensed and confirmed with me, ”Are you sure? How do you explain the devil merchant quota among his possessions?”

”I’m guessing one of the devil merchants from the New Age Merchant Guild gave it to him, likely with the intention of recruiting him someday. But Demigod Godson never used it. Instead, he left it behind for his descendants as a fail-safe in case of his absence. As for why he didn’t use it himself, I don’t know. Maybe he refused to become the very thing he had spent his life fighting. Whatever his reasons, one fact remains clear. He was never a devil merchant.”

I explained, but in truth, I was thinking out loud. The inconsistency had been bothering me too.