Chapter 2012: Chivalrous Lord Black

"With us?"

The short-haired adventurer looked past Adventurer Black at his companions, waiting for someone to explain what she’d misunderstood. The women of Unbound appeared perfectly content to stand there while her brain made a very poor effort to catch up.

"If you’ll have us," he replied.

"Yes!"

Her freckled friend answered so quickly that she turned to stare at her.

"I mean..." The woman brushed her hair behind an ear, smiling up at him. "We’d be delighted. Obviously. Wouldn’t we?"

"Of course we would."

Beside them, their third companion drew her thick braid over her shoulder and studied the contract again. She ran a finger down to the grade printed beneath the heading, then glanced at the badges on Unbound’s chests.

"But this is Grade Two."

"So I see."

"You’re Grade Three now."

He waited, and the short-haired woman found herself coming to her friend’s assistance.

"You were already taking Grade Three work before you even had the badge, Lord Black. We watched you come back with those contracts while you were still officially Grade One."

The clerk had needed an entire tray to carry out their new identification badges. Her own little promotion had taken considerably more effort than walking up to the counter and making everyone stare.

Now he could choose stronger opponents, better rewards, all the work they’d been watching him do anyway. Yet here he stood, asking to spend his afternoon on their ordinary greenskin extermination.

"There’s nothing special about this one," she continued. "We were just going to clear a nest of filth. You’d get much more out of the contracts farther along."

She pointed toward the higher-grade postings, hating herself a little for being so helpful. Her freckled companion caught her wrist and lowered it.

"I think he knows where they are."

"You said you wanted to do women a favor," Black spoke up.

His open hand indicated the beauties gathered around him.

"As you might have noticed, I’m quite fond of women myself. I share your opinion of greenskins."

"A very sensible opinion," Ayame agreed, resting a hand on her hip.

The short-haired adventurer’s amusement faded as she looked back at the notice. Goblins, hobgoblins, and their larger kin made wretched neighbors wherever a nest took hold. Farms emptied, roads became unsafe, and women learned to fear being taken alive.

Many greenskin races had no females. They kidnapped women, raped them, and forced them to bear their young. Every village girl dragged away could become the mother of the next band of raiders.

She’d meant what she’d said about wanting them dead. The thought of those creatures getting their hands on her or either of her friends made her stomach turn.

"I’d rather be there to help you than hear afterward that the three of you never came back," Black continued.

Her fingers went slack against the edge of the posting.

"You..."

She had been preparing to assure him that they wouldn’t take up much of his time. Instead, she found herself staring at his helmet, unable to get the rest of the sentence out.

He was worried about them.

The realization filled her with a warmth that made speaking even harder. He’d heard them laughing at their table, seen them wave at him, endured her friend’s offer of a drink. Somehow, that had been enough for him to care whether they returned to it.

Her braided companion looked just as overwhelmed. The woman had spent her last quest’s income buying a room at his inn so she could speculate about his household; now she stood before him with both hands clasped around the end of her braid, visibly struggling to answer.

"That’s... very kind of you, my lord."

For once, their shameless friend sounded shy.

"I’m your colleague, not your lord," Adventurer Black replied, though his words instantly fell on deaf ears based on the starry eyes the women of the entire guild hall gazed at him with.

Across the aisle, the clerk had stopped arranging the papers on her counter. A colleague at the adjoining desk leaned closer to ask what had happened, and the clerk touched her sleeve while keeping her attention on Black.

Whispers carried his offer from table to table across the hall. Adventurers turned in their seats, and those with their backs to the boards found reasons to stand. A woman with a drink still in hand wandered over to inspect a notice beside him, holding it low enough to keep him in view.

Adventurer Black had been the Guild’s favorite subject for the past week. Today’s double promotion had made him even harder to ignore; everyone wanted a look at the man whose entire company had skipped Grade Two.

Some preserved the appearance of being busy, eyes fixed on forms while they strained to catch his next words. Others abandoned the pretense and edged closer, smiling at one another when they realized how much company they had.

Even the staff were listening. Farther down the counter, a clerk kept his finger on the sum he was supposed to be checking while his client leaned sideways for a better view.

"He’d really go with them?" one murmured to her companion.

"You heard him."

She wanted very badly to thank him properly.

Then her eyes fell to the badge at her own collar.

Oh.

He’d just asked whether they were adventurers at all. She could hardly blame him for wondering. Their usual table was still visible over his shoulder, empty mugs waiting where they’d abandoned them to search for work.

The warmth in her chest acquired a painful little twist.

He clearly thought that...

"We’re not completely useless, you know."

"Drop the attitude!" Her friend’s hand tightened around her wrist.

"That’s not what I meant," she hurried to add, mortified by how ungrateful she’d sounded. "We appreciate it. Very much. But we can do our jobs. I know it doesn’t look like it, but we earned these badges."

"We do leave the building occasionally," the braided woman offered, with considerably less conviction than the statement deserved.

"You haven’t exactly caught us at our best," the freckled one admitted.

That hurt because it was true. Black had seen them lounging about while his people came and went with completed contracts, and now he was offering to keep them alive on a job they should have been able to manage themselves.

The short-haired woman looked up at him, her embarrassment deepening.

"Is that why you’re offering this? Do you think we’ll need you to save us?"

"I think a greenskin nest can hold more than the reports may indicate," he answered. "I’ve had a rather unpleasant experience with that myself."

"You have?"

"I encountered my first goblin when I was level one."

The three women forgot their wounded pride with remarkable speed.

"Level one...?" the freckled adventurer repeated.

Black inclined his helmet toward her. "Killed those little pests with a spear, if you’re curious."

Her braided friend had moved closer. Of course she had. All that money spent watching who went into which bedroom, and here was Lord Black offering to tell them about the beginning of his adventures.

The short-haired woman wanted every word.

She knew he’d been a beginner once. Everyone had. But this was Lord Black, the mysterious foreign noble whose homeland they couldn’t even name, telling them about his first encounters with monsters.

She tried to picture him before the armor, setting out with a spear to face his first goblins. Had he been this tall already? Had he been excited, or frightened? What had brought him out there?

"What happened?" she asked before either of her friends could interrupt.

"The goblins had been raiding caravans and villages. Killing people, taking their women, hauling everything they could steal back to a camp with caves behind it. We followed them there."

Ayame’s amusement eased as she listened.

"We’d questioned a scout," Quinlan continued. "He told us about three hobgoblins leading the tribe. Ayame was dealing with those while I tried to stay ahead of the smaller ones. Then their actual leader came out of the forest."

"Another hobgoblin?"

"A war troll."

The woman with the braid let out a strangled breath.

"At level one?!"

"I’d reached four by then. The troll was twenty-two."

His listener’s mouth remained open. Beside her, the short-haired adventurer had stopped trying to imagine what he looked like with a spear.

She knew enough about trolls to picture the rest without help. A creature with that much strength could have crushed a level-four beginner before he managed to raise his weapon. Surviving its first blow would only give it the opportunity to swing again.

"How did you get away?"

"That was rather difficult. It could outrun me."

Black turned his helmet toward Ayame, who had come to stand beside his arm.

"She told me to finish the goblins in front of us and run while she kept it occupied."

"He stayed," the samurai said.

"You were coughing blood. I wasn’t going to leave you there."

For a moment, Ayame watched his visor without answering. Then she slipped her hand around his arm, holding it against her side.

"And I was trying to keep you from joining me."

The short-haired woman glanced between them, suddenly conscious of how close she’d leaned. Ayame was holding his arm while they spoke about a fight that could have killed them both. It was difficult to reconcile their present affection with the blood and desperation he was describing.

He’d nearly died.

Knowing he could laugh about it now did very little to soften the thought. She looked at Ayame with a gratitude that embarrassed her; the samurai had helped bring this man far enough to be standing in front of them.

"Blossom was there too!"