I Was Not Banished from My Party

“Rejected.”

I blinked rapidly, attempting to push both the drowsiness and the surprise away.

“But the fees—”

“You’ve fulfilled them, yes,” Sanela said, returning my parchment. She parted her bangs to reveal an expression of sympathy. “Just around last week, we established a new regulation to these kinds of businesses. May I suggest that you open up a burek snack stall instead? It’s the rave lately; I am sure we can find you suitable offers.”

“I must decline.”

“Or a school for the orphanage!” Sanela raised her index finger. “I remember that the old orphanage’s children frequently nagged at you to play ‘What Time is It, Mr. Werewolf?’ constantly. We appreciate your ingenuity, teaching children math and the like by applying folk games. We offer charity programs to the underprivileged, too.”

“No, education is already within our director’s calculation. Besides, that’d not be how I flourish my orphanage,” I countered. “If it’s just a snack stall, one month of plowing the field is enough. I didn’t need to come here, looking for a sponsor. What I want is to make an adventurer’s guild!”

Sanela pursed her lips. I know she was considering whether it was worth it to drop off her professional mask.

“Krasimir,” Sanela called my name, her professional mask dropping. “It is not like you to be so stubborn. You must know that the rejection is nothing personal. We bankers have our own baggage to deal with, too.”

“Yes, they’re all talking about it in the queue line,” I said, crossing my arms as Sanela returned my form once more. “All the more reason to establish a guild, right? Who else will connect the regular people with the hero and support both fronts except an adventurer’s guild?”

Sanela peeked behind me. Seeing there was no other in the queue line, she answered, “Those with Q-level skills.”

I pinched my nose’s bridge. “Not them again.”

“Like it or not, they exist,” Sanela countered. “One appeared recently inside our ranks, too. It is bad for business. All the years studying the rules of accounting and, boom, someone with a skill to multiply coins over time suddenly crashed the market.”

“Isn’t that just usury?”

Sanela waved a hand dismissively. “Just an example of how the Qs can affect day-to-day office work. For adventurers, though, I am sure discovering a Q will benefit you. Aren’t you an adventurer yourself? Why bother making an agency to hire them?”

I looked away from Sanela’s squinting eyes.

“You are injured,” Sanela guessed.

“Fit as fiddle.” I flexed my biceps. “May I see the new regulation?”

Sanela gasped. “You were banished from your party!”

I sighed. “I was not banished from my party. If anything… forget it. The regulation, please? It is still within my right, yes?”

Sanela huffed her bangs. She flicked my form off the table and retreated to a drawer. When she returned with a pristine white scroll, she looked at me crossly.

“Who was it?” Sanela asked. “Mister Arystan? No, he was not the type to betray you—he is more to the street smart type. Unless, Miss Vesile was involved.”

“I was not betrayed!” I took the scroll from her hand. “Do not slander them, please. They are my friends.”

Sanela returned to her seat, studying my face as I read the new regulation. I could only make up the things about having a headquarter and at least three members when I could not hold it anymore.

“Being stared like that is distracting,” I said, closing the scroll. “You want to gossip.”

Sanela blushed. “Well—I was just wondering whether there was, you know, a love triangle between the three of you.”

It was my face’s turn to flush. “Of course not!” It took a while for me that not everybody knew who Arystan and Vesile—not that the two knew about themselves anyway. “We are still good friends. Our party was disbanded. While a part of it was due to my own incompetence, Arystan and Vesile vouched for me. The party disbanded on a mutual agreement. Now that they are out of commission, it’s only right I seek a job for them. And it has to be through a guild.”

“Oh.” A knot from Sanela’s face loosened. “I apologize for speaking ill about them, then. I still won’t apologize about your self-deprecating nature, however. Your skill may be niche, but you have made this far. You are among our top earners.”

“My party was.” I looked at the ceiling, wondering all the what ifs on Arystan’s and Vesile’s behalf. “Being smart is not enough nowadays. Brute forcing provides a safer solution.”

Sanela squinted. “Only Mister Arystan has the skill of brute forcing. Has something happened to him?”

“Not him, but to our healer.”

Sanela raised an eyebrow. “That girl? She seemed too timid to brute force anything.”

“Then she discovered that her skill is Q-level and can play around the boundary of life and death,” I finished. “Just in case, Sanela, can I have the burek funding offer, too?”

***

I sat on a bridge, feet kicking the chilly air flowing on the Netsuretsuva River. The burek tasted better in autumn—the black pepper-laced fowl within the potatoes heated me awake. A traveling vendor waving just at the end of the bridge, responding to a customer yelling for snacks. Netsuretsuva reflected the setting sun; its green surface turned hazel as it rippled.

“Confound it!” I exclaimed, realizing too late as my snack’s filling slipped my fingers and fell into the river. I held Sanela’s scroll tighter as I finished the remaining burek’s crust. “Mmho honher hie heheched mhe.”

Far down the Netsuretsuva River, I saw the multi-colored spires of Yuugovalcania’s capital city. Fluttering on top of the spire like flies, I deduced, must be adventurers guild flags. Beneath, I knew adventurers of every class just returned from completing quests, the guilds’ receptionist stamping their commendation.

“A headquarter,” I recited aloud from Sanela’s scroll, ignoring a child who pointed at me, “at least three members, and a sigil of recommendation from a kingdom’s official institution.”

Those were the requirements to formally establish a guild. It sounded simple until I saw the fine prints, since they had specified minimum measurements, structures to be built, roles for the members, and all things that made my burek tasted like sandpaper. Just like the snack’s filling, my chance was also slipping away.

Dejected by so many reasons, I returned to the burek stall. The queue line had increased from zero to four including me. I waited with my mind unfocused, ignoring a mother who led her boy further for me. It was the same boy who pointed at me before for reciting out loud.

Headquarter… I could not involve my orphanage. Sigil for recommendation… that’d depend on our reputation. What did ‘our’ mean? Arystan and Vesila had to carry on their lives, and I did not have the heart to employ them in administrative work. If anything my guild existed for them, the heroes.

Those with Q-level skills, I remembered Sanela’s account.

Having reality-warping skills would disrupt so many things. Cases against the Qs would rise. That’d be a marketing point, but who’d be so stupid entering a den of wolves?

“Wolf!”

I jolted, instinctively peering towards the woods. Then I heard the howl was closer, in front—

“Duck!”

That was the shopkeeper’s and he hadn’t meant the snack’s filling. An arm swung so quick it made a lashing sound in the air in front of me. The shopkeeper’s warning had allowed me to pull down the customer in front from being decapitated by claws.

“Mama’s the werewolf!”

I would have joined the boy’s excitement if his mother did not really turn into a werewolf. A snout now replaced the lady’s face. Her powdered eyelids were pulled to reveal golden hungry eyes. White fur covered her arms, which lunged at her own son.

I flung my mace’s chain, bound the boy and pulled him towards me just in time the she-wolf raked a huge cross mark on the stall. The shopkeeper ran like a duck; waggling his sorry bum towards us.

“Hey, Mister!” The boy wheezed gleefully under my arm. “Do it again!”

I ignored the boy and pointed my mace towards the shopkeeper. “What did you put inside the snack!?”

“Nothing!” The shopkeeper countered. “You ate it and you didn’t transform!”

I saw a huge shadow flickered on the ground and leaped to the left. The she-wolf barely scraped her fangs against my leg. She stared at the boy, who flailed happily under my arm. “More, Mister! And quicker! Before my dinner time!”

“Flee, you rascal!” I pushed the boy away from me, as I baited myself in the she-wolf’s field of vision. I peeked the gash on my leg. Blood rushed as I anticipated the lycanthropy happening. Five seconds… Ten seconds… Nothing happened.

“Look out!”

This time, it was the other customer that I pulled who shouted. I dove to the ground, managing to escape decapitating claws. I waited for any follow up aggression—but the she-wolf just froze, focusing on the boy.

“Mister, mister!” The boy did not run. “What time is it? Is dinner time close? Mama will be mad if I miss dinner!”

“It’s five!” I snapped, making a mental note to dump him into the river. “But at this rate, we’d be her dinner! Run!”

The other customer, thankfully, had raced to the boy’s side, shielding the boy from his own mother. They walked several steps sideways to the she-wolf’s blind spot. This gave me the time to drag the shopkeeper’s again with my mace.

“Sir, please confess!” I insisted, pinning his apron with the flanges. “You are a Q-level skill user, right? You imbued your own cooking with your skill!”

“I don’t know!” The shopkeeper was sobbing. “I did switch premium chicken with wild duck meat, but my skill is to conceal their cheap tastes! I didn’t know anything about the—”

“IT’S DINNER TIME!”

That was the she-wolf, leaping like a catapult. I managed to deflect her claws with my mace, but I could not save the shopkeeper from being slashed. The shopkeeper bled, but the blood immediately latched on his face, and suddenly, I was facing two howling wolves.

“Mister One! Mister Two!” That son of a wolf still had the gall to clap. “What time is it?”

“Calm down, Milos…” The other customer soothed. “That man was wrong. The sun is about to set, so it is six. It’s close to dinner.”

I crawled towards the two to give them my piece of my mind. At my sixth… crawl, the two wolves stopped moving.

Oh, I told myself, being enlightened, so it was a game.

“It’s our chance!” The other customer said. “Let’s run, Milos! And you, too, Saviour!”

“Don’t call me that!” I howled in anger as I counted the other customer’s pace. Five… Six… Seven… “Duck!”

At the man’s seventh step, the two wolves leaped in two different directions. I tripped the shopkeeper-wolf’s leg with my mace, while the other customer threw Milos and himself to the ground. Then the two wolves stopped.

That was our chance. “Milos!” I shouted. “Ask us the time again!”

Milos was pouting when he picked himself up. “Don’t wanna. Mister One is scary.”

“Oh, come on!”

“IT’S DINNER TIME!”

That was from the shopkeeper-wolf. Luckily, he lunged at me. If Milos turned into a wolf himself, it was game over for all of us. Unluckily, I still had to deal with claws and fangs that pummelled me to the bridge.

“Mister Two!” I panted, the shopkeeper’s fangs inching closer to my jugular. “Please!”

Mister Two did not pout. He embraced Milos again, perhaps trying to whisper, but it came out as a panicked stutter, “Milos, please ask us again.”

“You’re a good man, Mister Two!” The boy clapped. “What time is it?”

“It’s three o’clock!” I mustered the last of my breaths to shout just these three sentences. “Take three steps and hug your Mama, Milos! It’ll be fun!”

Fun overriding his annoyance, Milos complied. At his third step, the two wolves stopped moving. Milos hugged the she-wolf’s leg. She glowed in golden light, before returning to a regular, judgemental mother. She blinked furiously, perhaps readying herself to blame the claw marks upon unemployed people like me.

“Mister One was right!” Milos jumped. “I have fun with Mama!”

I took my own three steps and touched the shopkeeper’s wolf. The same golden light bathed the feral vendor, before turning him back to the cheapskate, sly man.

“I didn’t do it!” The shopkeeper continued, before catching himself. He looked to the returning mother, who was just as confused as him on what to judge. “Wait… What did I do?”

“Other than skimping your ingredients, nothing,” I said, sighing with both exhaustion and relief. I pointed to the kid. “That kid’s the troublemaker. A Q-level one, at that.”