So this is Ridley. 

Pompous, dressed gaudily, clothes that do not work with his hair, and he was clearly one of those third rate sons of a rich family only kept as a spare. 

I already don't like him. 

Lenore shuts him down immediately. "No thanks, I'm already drinking with someone else." she said politely. 

He shamelessly pushed. "Come on, drinks are on me." 

I cough awkwardly, bringing his attention to me. 

He shoots me a disdainful look. "What, you're her husband?" he asked as he scrutinized me carefully.

"No her friend." His gaze lose interest immediately, as he goes back to harassing Lenore. 

"Look, why don't we talk a few things out, I'm sure you and I could have a fun-"

Lenore rolled her eyes. "I wasn't clear the first time. Screw off." 

"And I guess I wasn't either. You should come with me. I am quite the big shot. I could help protect you and your friends" he declared, as the guards let off a bit of their killing intent, as if to threaten her. 

Rather blatant threat especially in front of an A-rank with mere C rank guards.

He's got a stupidly large head, which should be quite the cushion for a blow.  

Sigh

Alright.

I shoot Lenore a glance, as I send her a telepathic message. 

'It's alright if I bop him, right?'

'Sure, if I get a turn after I take out the guards.' 

I walk up to the little brat.  

"Hey!" 

"Yes?" He says, with that smugly confident look. 
Crack!

With that single blow to the face, the little prick drops to the ground. Not dead, but his pride was shattered for sure. 

The bar erupted in cheers after I dropped the bastard to the ground. 

The guards reacted immediately as they pulled out their weapons to attack, only for Lenore to step forward and pull out her blade, knocking down one guard and locking blades with another. 

Before the guards can react, I tell ore to form a blade, which I promptly threaten the brat with. 

"If you ask me young master, tis you who ought to come to us to protection. Your guards do not seem quite up to the task. "

He glares at me, yet all I do is merely chuckle. 

"Sharp eyes are of no use if they are sharper than your blade." 

Ridley looks around, clearly looking for some help, but none of them look at him, pretending to see nothing.

Seems Ridley has made quite the impression with the folks around here if no one is stepping up to help him. 

"Barkeep, aren't you going to do something about this!?" he practically screams. 

Dudley sighs, before jumping over the bar, and for a second, hope shines in the young man's eyes, and  grow prepared to be thrown out. 

To my surprise, he indicates for me to move as Dudley grabs the man with one hand, as he clicks his fingers. 

The large serpent from outside slithers in, grabbing the guards with its tail, before dragging them out shortly. 

"We don't appreciate people who disturb the peace here Ridley, background be damned. "

Bam!

The sound of a firm kick and the scream of three men rang out as Ridley blasted off, two guards in tow. Dudley wiped off his hands, and as he walked past his familiar, he commented. "Don't let those pests back in. I don't appreciate the rude kind of customers in my establishment. 

As he walked to the bar, he stopped by us. "Next time you make trouble..." he didn't finish the sentence, but jabbed at the door with his thumb to indicate we would go flying out just like the former customers. 

We nodded in understanding. 

As he walked away, Lenore walked over, sighing. "I never even got the chance to hit him." she said sadly. 

Chip walked over. "Nice job, I'm quite envious." he commented, and indeed, there was a look of envy on his face.

"Why?" Lenore asked curiously. 

Chip sighed, lamenting his position as a guard.

"Unfortunately, as guards, we can't be doing stuff like taking sides like that. He might file a complaint, and if it escalates, well..."

I understood. Things like this could easily blow up, especially in cases where people with big families got involved. It didn't take Lenore long to quickly understand either, as she shot him a sympathetic look. 

"It's a shame you took him down so fast. Had he rampaged just a little bit longer, I could've taken him in for public affray." He chuckled at the thought.  "It is getting late now, so we should probably be heading back to our homes." he said, clearly choosing to wrap up the day, and I agreed. 

"Indeed, it has been quite the eventful night."

"I mean, I could go for another drink-"

"-No. I promised Servante that I'd limit your drinks, and I already indulged you with twenty drinks you know."

Lenore pouted, but made no other comment on this. 

And with that, they parted for the night. 

Returning back to the hotel, they found the kids and the skarpans asleep, though Borsch seemed to find himself distracted by a book he had found in one of the stalls.

It wasn't a magic book, but that hadn't stopped him from being invested. Perhaps the sage title refers to more than magic. 

Servante in particular, was there, waiting impatiently for us. 

"Done, I assume?" he asked dryly. 

"Yeah, it was amazing! The drinks were great!"

Servante shrugged. "I'm glad you got it out of your system." His eyes focus on me. "How many drinks?" he asked.

"20"

Servante scowled. "Thats twice the amount!" he blurted out, clearly upset.

"I didn't buy 20," I assured him, and his expression loosened up a bit. "We won a bet, and she got 10 drinks extra."

He looked relieved, though he didn't forget to grumble. "Fine, but don't let her get too hooked on drinking. She doesn't get drunk, but she will burn a hole in our wallet if we let her." 

"Alright, alright, no need to nag so much." she complained as she began to head for bed, before being stopped again. 

"What?" she snapped. 

"You didn't cause any trouble, did you?" he asked. Though Servante didn't see anything, it was clear he still felt the need to ask. 

"Nothing worth mentioning." she said as this time she forcefully pushed through, clearly just wanting to head to bed. 

Servante helplessly turned to me instead. 

I explained what had happened, and thankfully, he wasn't unreasonable. 

"It's not her fault if someone harassed her."

"Let's just hope this doesn't come back to bite us in the ass." I comment, and Servante merely had a dry look on his face.

"What?" I ask.

"Well, it's just that last me and Lenore had a similar conversation, it just so happened to be before we were chased to snowsberry village..."

---

"Dammit!" Ridley cursed as he threw a vase at the wall. The guards merely stood still, clearly just used to this kind of annoyance, and no longer willing to put up with the temper tantrum. 

"That damn bastard! Who did he think he was, to treat me like that!" he said, breathing heavily as he seethed with anger. 

He had merely threatened! He hadn't done anything! If the elvish bastard had just hit one of his guards, he would barely have cared. 

But he hit him! He touched his precious body!

This was intolerable!

Unacceptable!

"You!" he said, as he turned to the guards. "Contact the higher ups. I want those bastards dead!" he said irrationally. 

The guards frowned, and one of them stepped forward to speak. "I understand your frustration. However, you must understand, he higher ups in the area are busy right now, searching for-"

"I DON'T CARE! THE ONLY REASON YOU'RE GROUP HAS BEEN ABLE TO MAINTAIN ITS OPERATIONS WITHIN THESE LANDS IS BECAUSE MY FAMILY IS HELPING YOU!" 

The guard's face flushed with anger, but he did not respond. The face of the young man twisted as he continued to speak, clearly enjoying the influence he had over the guards.  "Now contact them, or that little 'network' of yours suffers a severe disconnect." he threatened cockily. 

The guard was frustrated, but couldn't argue with the brat, simply choosing to bow in understanding, before swiftly leaving the room. 

Outside of the room, the guard took off his helmet, revealing his long, tipped ears. 

Activating the communicator, he called his local handler.

"This better be important." Came the cold voice, the tone making the guard extremely uncomfortable, yet he knew he could only press on now that he had contacted the handler.  It was a cold high pitched voice, a man's voice, one that made the skin crawl with every word. 

Not responding would be worse than wasting his time. He hated inefficiency.  

"The young sire is acting up. He wants a group of elves killed off." 

A clicking of the tongue could be heard. 

"Then do it yourself. I am busy tracking the traces of the target.Or are you telling me that you are incapable?"

The emphasis on the last few words made the guard shiver. He knew how hils handler got when things did not go his way.The last set of guards who were unsatisfactory had been sent on a mission to the north, where they died quickly thereafter.

"I would sir, truly, but the people in question seem to be B-ranks sir, and they seemed to be well favored by an A-rank." 

There was a silence, that seemed to carry on forever, until a few curses could be heard through the communicator. 

"Damned humans and their shortsightedness. Fine, the trail went cold a while back. You're stationed at Skip village correct?"

"Yes sir."  He responded as quickly as possible. 

"Fine. We'll head there shortly. Perhaps we'll find traces of the high elf there. Yes, this could be a good thing.We'll be there in 10 days time. I trust you'll have properly investigated these elves by then?"

"Yes sir!"

"Good. Then this call is finished." 

Beep.

The elf sighed, wiping sweat off his brow. He was just happy that he wasn't getting stationed somewhere else now.

---

Somewhere else 10 days time

The room was a cold and damp room, the stench of blood and black moss permeating in the air. 

In the center of it all was a squirming body, desperately trying to escape the grasp of another, his screams muffled by the loss of air and the gag around his face. 

"Mmmph!" came the panicked muffle voice, silenced by the sound of steel cutting flesh, as the body went limp.

The poor girl began dying before the indifferent eyes of her killer, as her eyes slowly went dull.

The tall, gangly elf sighed, as he cleaned his blade. 

"They seem incapable of fulfilling the task. Perhaps I should restation them somewhere else where they could be more useful, proper sacrifices for the family." he mused, showing a dismissive attitude towards the guard. "I hear a serpent and a crocodile pair have taken up one of our routes, and started attacking ships. Perhaps they could go investigate."

His subordinate complained. "The house head already asked you to stop killing subordinates like that."

"I'm not killing them." he said dryly. "I'm merely making sure that they do something properly."

"Yes of course, but you are wasting our resources this way. May I remind you that it takes centuries to train people to the head's desired level? You can't keep killing them at this rate, or no one's going to come to this region anymore." the subordinate complained, pushing up their glasses. He kicked the body, before haphazardly dripping healing potion onto the female elf. 

"Oh, very well." said the older elf. "I suppose you would've wanted me to keep this one alive too?" he asked, pointing at the dying elf. The subordinate with glasses tsked, as he called a healer over.

"It's fine, she'll still sell. I would've preferred her in better condition, but she'll live,no thanks to you. You really have to stop ruining assets like this you crazy old man."

"Fine, fine." he said, shaking his hand dismissively. 

The younger elf sighed, before asking about his bosses orders. "So we're heading to Skip village then? " 

The gangly elf nodded. "Yes, we're off to kill ourselves a bunch of elves then."

It was time to head out for Skip villagee.