Where The Wild Things Are (5)

The rest of the journey is quiet, and we all make it to the guild. Amanda and Neji lay Scott on one of the tables while my party stands to the side. Several guild staff members run over to check on the injured adventurer.

"What happened?" A male guild staffer asks. I can hear a hint of panic in his voice.

"We were attacked by a Dracoterra!" Amanda's voice cracks as she responds.

"Did it follow you? Where is it now?" His brow furrows. I can tell he's worried the town might be attacked.

"In the forest." I interrupt them to help calm the air. I don't want to cause a scene. I pull the large Monster Core from my bag as a sign of proof. It's about the size of my head and weighs at least twenty pounds. "We killed it."

Not wanting to hold the sphere, I place it on the table beside me.

'Clack'

I drop the core too sharply, and a loud noise echoes through the hall. I realize I've made a mistake as several eyes begin to fall on me.

[I know I said I didn't care about the attention anymore, but this is still annoying. Hopefully, people will just leave me alone. I could overplay our strength as a bluff, but I said I was going to lay low.]

I cough to dispel the awkward tension in the air, but the silence continues. Desperate to fill the void, I change the subject.

"Anyway, can you do anything about his legs? I think they're broken."

"What happened exactly?" the guild staffer asks.

"We were about to finish it off, and Scott got a little too close. We let our guard down, and it nailed him with a swipe of its claws." While I'm talking to the guild staff member, I see Jezabel approach from the back rooms.

"Oh, hi." I smile and wave to the grumpy-looking guild master.

"Can you go one day without causing a commotion?" She asks. Her tone is somewhere between amusement and exasperation.

"It's not my fault this time, I swear. We didn't have a choice. It attacked us first."

"Killing a Dracoterra, what can I say? I'm impressed. It's obvious that I didn't work you hard enough during our private lesson this morning because you still had enough energy to play the part of the reckless hero." We had our workout with Jezabel earlier, but we've started growing used to it, so we still had energy to spare. I have a feeling that will change soon.

"Thanks… Hey, wait a minute–"

"Where are the remains?" Jezabel ignores my question and starts her own line of inquiries.

"In the forest. We were worried the battle may have attracted other monsters, so we decided to leave it for now. We could gather a team to take the corpse back to town. It was pretty big, so there was no way we could've carried the whole thing on our own anyway."

"Hmm." Jezabel crosses her arms and thinks for a moment. "That's fine. We can organize an expedition with several parties to dissect the monster on the spot and bring anything usable back to town. That being said, your party will only be able to get a small cut of the profits."

"That's fine." There isn't any downside even if we get nothing from the expedition, so I agree immediately. I turn to my party to check with them, and they both nod as well. "Can some of the profits go to Scott and his party? We really couldn't have done it without them."

"Fufufu, do you want to make the hurt go away for him as well?" she asks mockingly.

"So you heard about that?" My face flushes with embarrassment as I think back to what I said in the last class. "In my defense, I was barely conscious and had just been struck by lightning; I don't think those words should be held against me."

Jezabel just laughs as I try to defend myself. I'm sure she enjoys watching me squirm.

"Fine then. The guild will cover the cost of Scott's treatment in order to make the hurt go away in exchange for a larger cut of the profits. Scott's party will also get a smaller cut as well to supplement costs.

"I'm never going to live that down, am I?" I grimace. The worst part is that I promised myself not to do anything I would regret to this degree now that I had a clean slate, and I've already broken that pledge.

"No."

I take a deep breath to calm down my voice before responding to Jezabel.

"Then that plan works for me."

"But our party took the most damage. Shouldn't we get a bigger cut?" Scott bites at the hand that feeds him. I don't really care what happens, so I keep my mouth shut, but he's clearly out of line.

'Tsk'

Jezabel's good mood vanishes in an instant. From where I'm standing, it looks like a vein is pulsating on her forehead. She takes a deep breath before walking up to the injured men.

"I should kick you out of the guild for that little remark."

"What?" Scott sits up in surprise.

"Nothing good will come from keeping you here. You're a parasite. You hang on to children to survive and ask for more when you achieve the least. I've watched you scrounge these halls for two years now, and you haven't grown an inch." She stops her diatribe and stares at the man in front of her. "I really hate cowards. You leech off others because you can't stand on your own two feet. I'll keep the cuts the same, but one more comment like that, and I'll make sure you never show your face in these halls again."

With that, Jezabel whips around and marches out of the room. The hall was quiet before she got here, but now it's completely silent. I'm pretty sure no one is even breathing. After several seconds we release our collective breaths and continue about our business. Shelly walks up to us, seemingly unperturbed by the tension in the room.

"Why don't you head home for the day? We'll hold onto the Monster Core for now and work out the payment later. I don't think you want to bother her over something small like that at the moment." I look over at the basketball-sized sphere on the table and rethink my definition of small.

"Okay, that's fine. Do you two need anything else while we're here?"

"No."

"I don't think so."

"Then we'll meet here tomorrow, bright and early."