The Hands and Master

He growls and takes his other hand and pulls me up in the air and hoists me up in the air pulling me up. I then take both of my arms bring them up and slam them down on his forearms making him pull me close enough to his face.

I take my right fist and swing it in a sideways strike into the lower left side of his jaw causing him to let go of my shirt briefly. I then kick him back with my leg with a front kick.

He staggers back and rubs his face where I struck and snarls

"Uh, dude..." the caiman says behind him looking in a different direction.

"Shut up, I am done with this elf sucker up."

As he straightens his back he gets ready to unsheath a dagger from his right hip in which a familiar wolven man in plated armor walks right behind him.

He places his shoulder right on the brown-furred wolven and the wolven turns in a fury but then freezes. He is taken aback for a moment and walks backward toward me.

"S-sir!" he says removing his hand from the dagger he was getting ready to draw.

The man standing at him with an intimidating posture is the Right-Hand member of the guild, Carvil One-Eye.

"I hope there are no trouble..." he says with a deep but monotone voice.

"Uh...uh...N-no! Of course not sir! We uh...We need to go" the wolven says waving over his caiman partner to follow with him.

They both run off quickly and I straighten myself up and adjust my shirt a bit since he misplaced it. Damn...I think he also stretches it out...

Carvil begins walking over to me in a stomping manner over to me silently with a blank but menacing look on his face. Maybe it is the eye patch.

As he gets right up to my face and looks down at me, he just eyes me with his remaining eye. Mostly my face.

"Not a bad right curve strike kid. Very effecient in knocking a beastmen's jaw out of place. I would know some have done it to me. Only they don't survive trying a second time. Now I got a question for you kid." he says placing both hands behind him and grabbing the wrist of his left hand with his right hand.

"Try it on me, I want to see how good it is," he says standing away from me by about 4 feet.

"Uhm..." I turn my head to Arla looking for guidance and then realize Lara is nowhere. I turn around looking for Lara and I don't see her anywhere. Did she get bored and walked off?

"Hey kid, I don't got all day even when I am patient. Busy man I am. Besides, I like avoiding writing paper work."

"Uhm...Okay..." I say reading myself in a stance to strike him in the same way I did before.

"Hya!" I swing my right arm into the lower left side of Carvil's jaw and turn his head, but his body does not change position. That is...intimidating.

He then turns his head back into its previous position and moves his lower jaw a bit and stops

"Not bad, you got some speed in that strike, but the power behind it needs some work. Keep trying and no doubt you might be able to knock out someone like him whom you just did it to."

"What?"

"I saw you going over to those two and I was quite interested in how it would turn out. Since I am the Right Hand of the guild I don't get to experience combat myself as much. Too much damn paper work, and reports needed to be done. Hand gets more tired from writing than actually swinging a battle axe."

"Okay...So why did you tell me to strike you though?"

"Meh, Been a while since someone hit me, and put in the effort. Also because the aura you present is oddly strange. I can't put my damn finger on it, but your aura is a mix of curiosity, idiocy, and also danger. But something else I can't tell exactly. Plus, you handled a situation like that very differently than most beastmen in the guild. Most would relish in a fight but you didn't seem to want it until he made first contact. Let's just say the wolven was right about a few things. Your facial scars and broken horn don't match your stature or behavior. So now I have a personal interest in you."

"Oh...I see...Well, I am single but I have no intention of getting into a serious relationship"

"Heh, no. That's not what I meant, but clever. No, what I am speaking of is that you resonate something odd, yet I see something familiar in you."

"Huh...Okay?" I say still unsure what he means by that.

I mean I have been commented on my appearance as not matching my personality. But he speaks as if there is something alien about me. The only thing I can think of is the fact I can transform, though not at will often, into a larger hind-legged reptilian lizardman. Since this is a fantasy world I am in, I doubt me telling people this I have this ability openly will be good since for all I know I will be hunted like in the shows I watched.

"Well then, I will take my leave then. You've gotten, my attention kid." he says walking away.

"Huh..." I turn away to Arla who seems to just be as confused as me. Guess the mystery about me will be a while from now.

"Say where is Lara?" I ask Arla

"She walked behind the stand over there, "she says pointing to where the Hands and the guild master were.

We both walked over to the stage where they stand stood and I see Lara speaking with none other than the Guild Master herself. How did she get an audience with her?

As we both get there I notice a small cut on Lara's cheek. It is slightly bleeding but not by much. She didn't have that before so.

"Hey uh, what are you guys doing?" I ask

"Oh hey, this is Miranda Carter. Guild Master of this district of the Adventurers Guild."

She bows her head slightly down while keeping her arms crossed over her.

"Pleasure to meet you, ma'am." I say bowing down a bit

Arla also does so as well behind me

"So what do you have a slight cut on your face, Lara? Did you fall over tripping on your clothes? Figured that would happen eventually HA!"

She then elbows me hard into the ribs which silence me.

"I had a brief duel with the Guild master and it was 'whoever draws first blood is the victor'. She managed to slightly cut me and thus won by default. This surprised me since I figured since I am not wearing plated armor I would be more agile and faster than her. If anything she had the advantage."

"Ah...So in simple terms, you got your ass whooped"

"Grr..." Lara growls at me.

I then give a smug smile and look at the Guild Master, who seems to be looking at me with curiosity.

"Uh...Hi?"

She looks at up my face and then begins darting her eyes examining every part of my body and face.

"You're...Strange kid..." Miranda says

"Uh, thank you. I will treat that like a compliment."

"You know, you remind me of my relationship with Carvil and Yoshina." she states

"Oh?" I say looking at both Lara and Arla

"Yes, they were an odd couple. In fact, before they started a relationship they were enemies. I and Carvil were both in the guild as senior members for a while and we were on a contract to hunt down a dangerous criminal who'd escaped custody many times. He proceeded to be more elusive until me and Carvil caught up to him in an old ruin."

Why is she giving me a backstory on how she and Carvil met Yoshina? Seems out of place. Random exposition dump on me of the past?

"When we caught up to him we were encountering traps and other forms of stalling methods. We got through almost all of them until we were in the old dining room. We got ambushed not by the convict, but by a member of the Mercenary Guild. An arrow was targeted at me, but Carvil was able to hear the sound of a bowstring, where it was, and shield me. Idiot. Got shot in his eye."

Well, that explains the eye patch. Arrow in the eye does that to people.

"An explosion in the room occurred just after that and something struck me in the forehead. Putting me nearly unconscious. I saw him dueling with a 2 handed great sword against someone wielding dual weapons. I then fell unconscious seconds later."

I don't know why she is telling me this somewhat lengthy story. But I am entertained at least.

By the time I came out of my slumber, do you know what I saw when I awoke?" she asks

"Uh...They are both bloody and still fighting?"

"No, they were both naked and Carvil was thrusting his hips into the Mercenary with her face on the floor, and her ass pointed up receiving..."

"EH?!" I instinctively react to the absurd change in story and look at Lara who is looking away from me, likely blushing, and then at Arla who is simply looking at her fingernails.

"Uh...That is not what I expected the story to take a turn to."

"Indeed. It was so absurd that he was fucking a mercenary who just shot him in the eye that I thought I was having a hallucination. It wasn't. When I called out they both yelled at me to shut up and not 'ruin the moment' they said. So I had to look for the convict myself. Either way, I acquired the target and had to break a couple of his bones to do so. And got paid."

Now I am really confused about what the point of this story was. Sounds like the plot of a high-quality porn animation.

"By after we got back to Arcadia and Carvil was healing, we had a new member walk into the guild. The same mercenary Carvil decided 'get it on with' and she became a member. Apparently, she had a liking for Carvil. Which she fully denies and says it allows her to observe Carvil and find a weakness for her to exploit. Bullshit. But whatever."

"I am sorry, but where was this story going? I don't even remember what we were even talking about."

"Where this was going kid, is that all three of us were an odd pairing. So you three reminded me of Carvil, Yoshina, and me. That is quite an interesting thing to be reminded of by random kids."

"I see..."

"Anyways, I assume since all three of you were here you're all young members."

"Well...I am the only one out of all three of us now. You see My friend Arla here," I say gesturing to her behind me with my hand, "resigned a while ago. And Lara whom you've met was never a member."

"Ah..."

"Yeah...Which means if war does come about I might be the only one to be deployed."

"I am sorry to hear that. But as I said, there has been no confirmation that war will be. But issues like this are the spark that could ignite. Until then, I suggest you make the most of it. The Hestiaan Empire even though they might be going into decline in power and influence in the years, their army is still a force to reckon with. They also are known to mistreat prisoners of war, specifically beastmen prisoners. Bad blood as you would know. Until then, hope you are in good health." she says bowing her head one last time and walking away.

Damn...