Chapter 21: Walking Into A Setup
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Standing close to the board on the other side of the room are five scruffy looking dudes. And when I say scruffy I mean they are an inch away from becoming as disheveled as the bandits, the only thing these guys have going for them is that their gear is properly maintained, albeit quite stained. I glance at Lyn, and I practically feel her ready to knock these guys out. 

Practically at the same time, Claire and I voice out, 

“No, go away.” (Claire)

“No, no need.” (Me)

Grinning, the guy who spoke first continues, “Oh, the twins are so rude to us, we might just have to take a mission to take our mind off this tragedy.” 

Four of them go and completely block off the board before any of us can get closer. Trying to prevent a scene of Lyn brutalizing fellow adventurers, I speak up again, “Can you stop crowding the board please? There's no need to take up all the room.”

Putting on a big, fake, over emphasized pout, the man says, “But since I am too sad to make a proper decision, I have to let the boys decide, but since we are all solo boys, they may all want different requests. And they are all very stubborn.” He lets out an exhausted, and painfully dishonest sigh, “If only there were two beautiful twins who could lift my mood, I could end all this indecision, since I do have the most experience.” 

This creep! I wish they just tried to harass or attack us instead of this crap! At least then we could beat them up in self defense and be done with it. 

Turning to Claire, I loudly ask, “If people are taking up the whole board doing nothing, are we allowed to just remove them?”

Frowning, she replies, “It’s courtesy to have only one member to go up to the board and look for jobs, but they are all claiming to be separate, so they technically aren’t doing anything wrong. Usually there's a guild member here making sure things like this don’t happen.” She ends while staring at the man.

He gasps, looking hurt, “You look like you want to blame us? We’re doing nothing wrong, you can’t blame us for being indecisive.”

I can actually see Lyn’s purple mana gathering above her as she simmers. Well, instead of making a fuss might as well let Sif handle it. “Sif, can you make some room for Claire to grab a quest?”

Unfortunately for everyone, Lyn disappears in a purple flash, a small thunder echoing in the room as the four blocking the board collapse to the floor, unconscious.

Reappearing right before us, she taunts, “No need Robin, I picked up a request. I snuck around those rude idiots without a hitch.”

Jaws open, Claire and I are speechless. That’s not sneaking!! 

The man, also slack jawed, recovers, and his sleazy confidence is replaced by anger and fear, “You BITCH! Why did you attack them!? We haven’t done anything!! HELP!! STAFF, THESE PEOPLE ARE ATTACKING US!!!”

Lyn tilts her head innocently to the side, “Attack? I didn’t do anything. I just snuck around to grab a quest.”

The door adjacent to the board burst open, with two more men coming out. The man first out the door is an elderly gentleman who is more ripped than half the noblemen who were awarded my works. Behind him follows a man with the same oily and scruffy ascetic as the nuisances with us.

Seeing the men on the floor, new sleazy dude exclaims, “You’ve heard my man! Look, these barbarians knocked out four of my friends! They need to be punished immediately!”

Fortunately for us, the official looking dude speaks up, “I didn’t hear anything. For all I know these guys knocked themselves out fighting over requests. All I heard was one of these people screaming for help.” He pauses and stares at sleazeball #1, “And there better be a reason there are no signs of a fight here with you making such a ruckus.”

Sleazeball 1 stutters, sounding scared (to be fair he probably is) and wounded, “We were minding our business, and I let the boys go grab a request. You know how solos are, so they all had to go look at things before deciding.” Pointing to Lyn he cries, “Then that one explodes in a burst of purple lightning and my team collapses as she reappears with the thunder!”

The official looks confused as he turns to us, but sleazeball #2 stares at sleazeball #1 with anger. The official turns back to sleazeball #1 stating, “In the room we heard nothing but your screaming.” Glancing at Sif, she just smiles softly at me. Guess I didn’t see her soundproof the room when Lyn attacked, the purple flash of mana being waaay brighter than Sif’s gentle twinkle. 

Gesturing to us the official continues, “Though it would be easy for Mage Claire there, a silver ranker, to wipe the floor with all of you, there are no signs of any of her signature magics. There would be fire marks, or we would have heard the signature whine when invoking combat wind magic. Of course earth and water are out of the picture here. So that means you’re just making trouble for the only adventurer mage in this city, probably because you wanted to hit on her and her companions.” 

Towards the end his tone drops, fuming with controlled anger. Only mage in this entire city huh, I guess mages are as rare as they have ever been.

Sleazeball #1 looks at #2, but #2 ignores him. Poor #1, nobody believes him, even though he was right about Lyn. Not that I care, he is a jerk.

Losing his injured and scared tone, he shifts to anger and yells, “I’m not lying, they must have used magic to silence the room! She’s a silver rank mage, so she must be able to do something like that!”

Claire smiles, though it does not reach her eyes, “And nobody heard me chanting, not to mention you’re talking about non elemental magic, something that’s beyond my humble origins of spirit mountain, so heavily tied to the spirits.”

The uniformed man replies to her warmly, “Nor are you expected to know lost secrets of the Ancients. The fact that we were the city you decided to start your career as an adventurer is an honor to us.” His voice sharpens as he talks to sleazeball #1, “I know your group of miscreants is relatively new, but there will be an investigation on all of you.” 

Sleazeball #2 hurriedly joins the conversation, “But sir, you bring up a point, we don’t know if the mage lady here was hiding her attack with magic. If we are going to be unjustly accused, our noble backer won’t let this stand!”

The official fumes silently at this threat. Luckily for him, Lyn opens her mouth in anger. I just hope she doesn’t screw us over…

“No need to investigate, he has been telling the truth, kind of. He just doesn’t want to admit that his friends over there passed out when I released my aura to take a pick at the board. I thought it was common for powerful people to emit their auras to clear their path. I just didn’t think they would be so weak as to pass out.”

Sleazeball #1 screams, “THAT WAS YOUR AURA!?!” 

#2 more calmly presses the advantage of knowing Lyn knocked out the others, “But you also have to know not to overdo it. As the senior adventurer, it is my job to teach the younger generation, which miss silver mage obviously did not do. As a silver rank myself, my team and I shall instruct these newcomers to show respect and restraint! We challenge you to combat to resolve this issue!”

Even after seeing his guys (still) unconscious on the floor he still challenges us, I wonder what he has that we don’t know. Luckily, he answers for me.

“Of course without the mage. She should know how it feels to have the people close to you abused by somebody more powerful than them.” Turning to Lyn he sneers, “You should at least come up with a better lie. Even when controlling themselves, the strong have an easily recognizable aura, and you lack it. It was stupid of you to try to defend that mage with lies you can’t even back up.” 

Lyn confidently smirks, “You don’t need to worry, I wasn’t lying. You’ll have plenty of time to regret messing with us! I accept your challenge!”

Sleazeball #2 looks confident, but #1 looks like he wants to run.

The older guild gentleman sighs, “Well if you accept, lets go to the courts behind the guild. I will explain the rules of guild challenges.”

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