Chapitre 23: The Guild

"Wouldn't you rather take off your hood?" Nathalia questioned Luke as she took off her hood, revealing beautiful, shiny hair.

The half-wolf wondered about it, as the Guild's inside was so hot that his ears were sweating. But if he pulled back, the whole street would probably be alerted, and some idiot would be looking for trouble.

The best way to avoid bigoted assholes was to stay quiet and hidden, it might seem like something a coward would think, but this was a pretty effective way to keep out of the spotlight. If Luke wasn't unlucky, this would still be right.

"Wow, what a cute thing we have here..." A knight in green armor approached Nathalia and put his drink on the table, a gesture known to all as extremely rude.

"What you want?" Nathalia said and glared at the man, who flinched at how fierce she was.

"HAHAHAHA!" An entire group of men laughed out loud at the sight of that scene. All drunk, sitting at a circular table.

There was a bald man wearing mail armor, another red-haired guy, who was wearing leather armor, and a big guy, who by the quiver on his back, looked like an archer. The other five in the group didn't look any different from mercenaries, which can be 'rented' on any street corner.

By Nathalia's judgment, they weren't much of a threat, and the girl let that show when she drew back her lips and nose, a distinct expression of disgust.

The man in green armor walked back to his group, and they were suddenly quiet.

After a few seconds, the man wearing mail armor shouted, "Hey, elf! How about having fun with us? We could share—"

A knife slashed the air between several tables and thrust it into the bald man's ear. Bye! The ear, like the knife, stuck to the wooden wall.

It wasn't hard to find out that Luke had thrown that knife, for shortly after doing so, he said, "Put yourself in your shoes and learn to respect a lady."

Although he trusted enough that Nathalia could take care of her problems, the half-wolf wouldn't always be silent; after all, he had little patience with assholes, so he also stayed away from them.

He was still sitting at the table, his expression so full, that he didn't even look like he'd nearly killed anyone.

"Arggh! Bastard!" The right man roared in pain.

"HAHAHAHA." The bald man's allies just started laughing frantically, as if this was the funniest thing they had ever seen. "You're really good, man!"

No one in every Guild understood such behavior from the group, but the distinctive clang of the drawing of blades interrupted all other noise in the hall. The men at the round table drew their blades and were suddenly serious.

"You're not from the Guild, are you? So, we have complete freedom to kill you."

Luke didn't get up and decided to wait for the men to come to him. Nathalia wasn't apprehensive either, considering that mere knights in ragtag armor wouldn't take care of Luke.

"Mr. Luke and Mrs. Nath?" The old receptionist called from the counter.

The half-wolf and the young lady rose in response to him.

"The Guild Master is ready to receive you."

That came as a shock to everyone present, as the Guild Master was rarely seen within the Guild itself; only very important people could talk with him, like High-Class Adventurers that may request a meeting.

Rumors flooded the entire lobby, which was full of people eating, drinking, and sheltering from the blazing sun.

Ignoring all this, Nathalia and Luke went to the receptionist.

"Why do we need to do an interview? I've never heard of this procedure." The elf asked curiously.

"Sorry about this. We take our work seriously, especially when it comes to newcomers. So we're looking up one by one and rejecting some."

For Luke, that was bullshit. A city never had too many adventurers; being a high-risk and high reward profession, many died, and many entered every day.

The serious look of the half-wolf scared the receptionist a little, especially now that he'd seen him throw a knife at someone's ear.

"A-anyway, you can follow Eliz, the Guild Master's secretary." He pointed to a dark-haired woman standing on the bottom step of the stairs.

The pair of newbies walked over to her; she gave a pretty smile and started to speak. "Will you come with me, please?"

Luke and Nath just nodded grimly. Both were much more focused and stressed that afternoon than they were in the morning. Especially the half-wolf, who hadn't had such a busy morning like this in a long time.

First, he met Nathalia, The Mansion, discovered that his good friend Shiro was alive, and on top of that, he kissed Ayumi. It was such a crazy sequence of events that he would not have been surprised to wake up suddenly in his traditional bed of straw.

After climbing several flights of stairs, Eliz stopped on a floor with only one door and said: "Can you guys talk a little loud? Master Zion doesn't listen very well."

'Nathalia won't fall for this old story, will she?' thought Luke, impressed that the attendant didn't even blink as he lied.

"All right." Nathalia nodded.

When receptionist Eliz opened the door, a blue-skinned, long-eared elf greeted the two with a cheerful smile. He was shirtless and had a very defined body; it was something unusual to see on the elves Luke was used to.

"Let's go in!" Zion said excitedly.

The baffling pair of novices stood still for a few moments before they managed to move again.

'The Master of this Guild is an Ainveldibra?' thought Nathalia. "Hello, Guild Master!" The girl screamed.

"Why are you screaming?" The elf questioned, confused but still smiling.

"Ehhh, Eliz…" At that moment, the receptionist closed the door while giggling. "Sigh…" Nathalia huffed, disappointed that she had fallen for such an apparent prank.

The half-wolf held himself back to keep from laughing at her disgusted expression.

"Anyway, do you want to join the Guild? Of course, they can! Stroguehers can do anything!" From the blush on the elf's face, he looked like he'd had some drinking.

"Then let's go," Luke said seriously and turned to open the doorknob.

"No, no, no! I'm kidding!" Zion said desperately, throwing himself on top of his expensive eucalyptus table.

The half-wolf knew more than anyone about free-spending assholes, and while he didn't think Zion was one, he sensed that Zion had some problem he couldn't solve.

"What do you want us to do?" He said, turning to hear the blue elf's proposal.