Chapter 2008: Vengeful People

"...Tough crowd," Veshara sighed. She, too, did not care much.

’What an aloof woman.’

He sheathed [Soul Reaper], and Veshara rose from her knees with a cheerful rumble, brushing brick dust from her armour.

"I knew you were worth another look when you stepped off that ship. I didn’t expect your name to reach our queen’s ears so quickly, though."

Several faces turned toward her.

"Already...?" Ayame muttered.

Somewhere upstairs, beneath the broken furniture, lay the maps they’d been discussing when the captain arrived. Their agreement to get stronger before involving themselves with the continent’s rulers had survived a remarkably short time.

"Did she send you here to challenge me?" Quinlan asked.

"Oh, no." Veshara’s long serpentine tongue reached out, licking her lips with immense satisfaction. "That was just to satisfy my curiosity."

Of course it was.

Ayame rested her katana against her shoulder, studying the tall woman with renewed interest.

"What level are you, Scaly?"

Veshara leaned toward her, smiling.

"Scaly? I didn’t know we were at the nickname stage, Cutting Board Girlie."

Ayame’s fingers closed tighter around her katana’s hilt.

"...Hah?"

"It didn’t stick? How about Little Tittie Wonder?"

"Okay, I like her," Iris decreed, grinning at Ayame’s expression.

"I love you too, Crazed Psycho Baddie." Veshara blew Iris a kiss.

"I take that back," Iris decreed, drawing her blade again.

"I asked you a question, bitch." Ayame wasn’t one bit amused either.

"Where are you all really from?" Veshara countered with a question of her own, smiling with perfect innocence as two black-haired beauties were getting ready to conduct a brutal execution.

"Somewhere with better-mannered guards."

"Why don’t you go home, then?"

Ayame’s mouth curved despite herself. "So that you can follow us?"

"I wouldn’t dare. Unless you need an escort?"

"Can Scaly fly on her own?" Blossom asked. "Or was she going to keep falling until she hit the street?"

"Can you do that disappearing trick through anything, pupper? Or do walls stop you?"

The dogkin’s ears tilted back.

"Blossom asked first!"

Veshara spread her hands, apparently delighted that they were all getting along so well.

"And I’ve been wondering about your homeland since the harbour. I’ve waited much longer."

Quinlan stepped over a fallen roof beam to join her, leaving his women room to gather beside him.

"What exactly caught your attention?"

Her eyes travelled down his armour before returning to the red glow of his visor.

"Would you take that helmet off if I asked nicely?"

"Would you answer a question if we asked nicely?" Vex purred.

"You could try~"

"What level is Scaly, please?" Blossom asked immediately.

Veshara burst out laughing, her thick tail sweeping brick fragments out of the way as she bent toward the dogkin.

"Oh, I like you."

"The feeling is not mutual."

"I’ll have to work on that."

"You could start by answering Blossom," the dogkin suggested.

Veshara straightened and offered Quinlan her hand instead, though she was still addressing Blossom.

"Perhaps over a drink? I’d rather like to sit down with you and your master."

"Scaly had a chair upstairs."

"That was a truly unfortunate freak accident. Could’ve happened to anyone, really."

"Scaly is a bad girl."

"Eh?"

"She refuses to take responsibility. Blossom doesn’t like her."

"Okay, okay, I’ll pay your ransom money, just stop being mad at me, cutiepie~" Keeping one hand offered to Quinlan, Veshara pressed the other over her heart. "My heart couldn’t take that..."

Blossom looked ready to spit on the utterly shameless woman.

"So be it." Quinlan left her offered hand waiting. "You may pay us now."

"Right now?"

"Yes."

"What if I don’t have the money on me?"

"Then you’re welcome to leave."

Her hand remained between them for another moment before she withdrew it with an irritated breath. Veshara unfastened a leather purse from her belt and loosened its drawstring, watching him as he named the compensation for each woman, then his own fee.

Blossom held out her palm. With a muttered curse, Veshara counted dark crowns into it, and the dogkin promptly used her supposedly injured arm to help check the payment.

"Blossom feels much better!"

"How wonderful," the captain replied through her teeth.

After Veshara paid Scar and Quinlan, the innkeeper emerged from the ruined entrance at his call and accepted what remained in her purse with a worried glance at the building.

"The repairs will cost more than this, Captain..."

"Send me the rest of the bill..." Veshara grumbled.

Once the innkeeper had retreated with the deposit, the captain upended her purse over her palm. Nothing fell out.

"There." She tied it back onto her belt. "May we talk now?"

Veshara offered him her hand again.

Quinlan accepted it, his grip hard around her fingers. "Depends on the topic."

The answering squeeze made the plates of his gauntlet creak. Veshara met his eyes with unabashed pleasure.

"My company is preparing to storm a fortress, Adventurer Black. Would you and your party care to join us?"

"No."

Quinlan and Black Fang answered at the same instant. At his left, the assassin watched Veshara with her serpent blade still in hand.

The captain looked from one to the other, her smile lingering while she waited for someone to laugh.

"You haven’t even heard the reward. There’s quite a generous-"

"Nobody asked." Vex waved Veshara toward the courtyard’s exit. "Shoo, shoo. Go back to sniffing crates at the port."

A vein throbbed on Veshara’s forehead. Her golden eyes settled on the white-haired woman dismissing her.

"I’m speaking to your husband, witch."

"My husband said no, lizard," Vex smiled at her, taking obvious pleasure in the vein throbbing on the dragonkin’s forehead.

Quinlan released the captain’s hand while Ayame lowered her katana from her shoulder.

"You broke my women’s arms," he said. "If your queen asks why we refused, you can tell her what amazing recruitment pitch her representative threw."

"...I gave you so much money..."

"For the damage you caused. Doesn’t mean I’ll trust you with my women’s backs."

The captain’s smile faded as she looked at the wreckage behind him.

"We’re Grade Three adventurers," Ayame spoke up. "There are much stronger parties you could hire."

"I’ve just fought you and I know you’re what the job needs. Your badges hardly tell me what you’re capable of."

"Then why have you spent this whole conversation fishing for information?" Seraphiel spoke up, replicating the dragonkin’s earlier perfectly innocent expression. "Sounds to me that you’ll spend the whole quest trying to gather information on us."

Quinlan was in full agreement with the girls.

They had plenty of places to find strong opponents. Following Veshara into unfamiliar territory would give this woman far too much say over where his family fought and who stood behind them.

Whatever she wanted to learn about them, she could keep wondering from the other side of Sarthal.

"You’ll have to hire someone else," he told her.

Veshara glanced from Black Fang to his closed helmet.

"Very well. For what it’s worth, I apologize. My boredom and curiosity got the better of me."

"Apology accepted."

Opportunity instantly shone in the dragonkin’s eyes. "Then-"

"No."

"...Tch." She turned toward the courtyard entrance, but paused to look at Seraphiel, her head tilting.

"By the way..."

The healer looked up at her.

Veshara pointed to the arm Scar held against her side with a grin forming on her lips.

"Why haven’t you healed her?"