The moment I stepped into the Seawave Guild as an official member, something strange happened:
Nobody gave a shit.
Not the staff.
Not the officers.
Not the merchants bustling around.
Not even the guards standing like decorative statues.
I'd expected whispers, glances, maybe even fear.
Instead?
Nothing.
Just another kid with a guild badge.
And that was perfect.
Because monsters are most dangerous when nobody sees them coming.
A Tiny Desk and a Huge Insult
"Your desk is here," said a bored clerk, pointing at a corner room the size of a shoebox.
I stepped inside.
It was pathetic.
A wobbly stool, a chipped table, and a half-broken lamp. Even rats would've rejected the place.
The clerk handed me a stack of papers.
"These are low-level tasks. Deliver these reports. Stamp these forms. Don't get in anyone's way."
"Sure," I said. "I'll be a good boy."
He left without looking back.
The old Montig might've complained.
The new Montig?
He smiled.
Low-level tasks meant access to low-level information.
And low-level information was the best kind of weapon.
The Guild's Underbelly
Over the next week, I quietly delivered reports.
Stamped forms.
Filed requests.
Nodded at officers.
Pretended to be harmless.
But while doing these useless chores, I learned three things:
1. The guild's branches barely communicate.
Each department hoarded information like treasure.
2. The guild's middle officers hated each other.
Petty rivalries everywhere. Beautiful.
3. Most guild decisions were made without checking facts.
They acted fast, blindly, stupidly.
In other words…
The Seawave Guild was a massive, shiny ship with holes drilled everywhere, held together by ego and band-aids.
If you pushed the right hole at the right time—
The whole ship would crack.
I grinned at my chipped desk.
"Well, well… look at this buffet."
The First Bite
My first target wasn't a person.
It was the shipment records.
I noticed something while stamping cargo forms:
Every department kept its own numbers.
All slightly different.
All slightly wrong.
It wasn't corruption — just incompetence.
And incompetence is the tastiest meal.
Using my "nobody notices me" invisibility buff, I collected tiny discrepancies:
An officer who always inflated cargo weights.
A merchant who rounded down values.
A shipping clerk who forgot to record damages.
A guard who ticked boxes randomly.
Individually? Nothing.
Together?
A red-hot pipe bomb.
I compiled the errors into a small report.
Not big.
Not flashy.
Just a tiny piece of paper.
"Departmental discrepancy summary: Month 1."
Then I placed it on the guildmaster's desk.
Didn't sign it.
Didn't leave traces.
Just walked away.
Two days later, the guildmaster's roar shook the building.
"WHO THE HELL FILED THIS!?"
Chaos.
Meetings exploding everywhere.
Officers screaming.
Merchants panicking.
Records being dragged out.
Clerks crying.
I sat at my tiny desk, sipping tea I stole from the break room.
Delicious.
The Snowball
Once the guildmaster saw the errors, he demanded corrections.
But correcting errors meant exposing who made them.
And exposing mistakes meant losing influence.
Suddenly—
Every officer was blaming someone else.
Every merchant was terrified.
Every clerk was shredding documents.
And no one noticed the quiet teenager who caused all the trouble.
That's the trick:
Don't make yourself a threat.
Make the truth the threat.
Let them fear each other.
Let them suffer.
Let them break themselves.
The Second Bite
A week later, I targeted the guild's inventory flow.
Not with sabotage.
Just… observation.
I watched who moved crates.
Who signed papers.
How often they checked stock.
Who cut corners when no one was looking.
Then I "accidentally" pointed something out to a senior officer:
"Sir, why does Warehouse 3 report 212 crates but Warehouse 1 only received 187?"
The man froze.
"…Say that again."
I repeated it.
He stormed off.
Within hours—
Warehouse officers were yelling.
Merchants were screaming.
Someone got suspended.
Someone else fainted.
And once again… I sipped stolen tea.
"Oops," I whispered.
Rumors Begin
By the end of two weeks, the guild was swirling with gossip.
"Someone is exposing everything."
"It must be a spy."
"No, it's an officer trying to climb ranks!"
"I heard the guildmaster hired an outsider to test us!"
Beautiful.
They were so busy blaming ghosts and rivals…
They didn't look down at the new kid in the corner office.
The smallest one.
The quiet one.
The harmless one.
Me.
But Power Has Eyes
One evening, as I finished sorting papers, someone knocked on my desk.
Not the table.
My desk.
I looked up.
It was the same silver-badge woman from the bird-feed shop incident.
Her eyes were sharp.
Smarter than the rest.
Suspicious.
"You're Montig, right?"
"…Yeah."
She leaned in.
"Someone's been stirring up trouble in the guild."
I shrugged. "Sounds messy."
"It is. Very messy."
Her eyes narrowed.
"And I don't like messy."
She held my gaze.
For a moment, I thought she'd figured everything out.
Then she said,
"The guildmaster wants to see you tomorrow."
My heartbeat stuttered.
Shit.
I forced a smile. "Good news?"
"Maybe," she said.
Then she walked away.
A Quiet Promise
As I sat alone in the tiny room, the system chimed softly.
Ping.
[Progress Update: Guild Consumption 4%]
You have begun eating the Seawave Guild from within.
Do not stop. Do not slow.
Predators only grow when unseen.]
I grinned.
Four percent already?
Good.
Tomorrow, I'd step into the guildmaster's office again.
Not as a scared street kid.
Not as a test-taking nobody.
But as the quiet monster crawling through his walls.
"And I'm not done eating," I whispered.