Chapter 2031: Women’s Intuition

Della became aware of her hands, which she’d lifted off her knees while speaking. Beyond them sat the man responsible for her standing in the Guild, with a captain of Sarthal’s dragonkin guard beside him.

She’d just told both of them to look at themselves.

Brena slowly withdrew her hand from Della’s sleeve. Tavi stared at the desk, unwilling to meet either official’s eyes.

Della lowered her hands to her lap. Then, the three adventurers whispered in perfect, sheepish sync:

"...With all due respect, sir, madam."

*Clap!*

Veshara clapped her hands together, making all three women jump.

*Clap!* *Clap!* *Clap!*

"Well! I’ve been thoroughly scolded."

Della opened her mouth, but the captain continued before she could make another apology.

"Rightfully, too. I already apologized to Black for my uh... lackluster introduction, and I intend to do so again when the opportunity presents itself. I made quite a mess of things."

"You did," Brena agreed, then looked horrified that she’d said it aloud.

Veshara laughed.

"So everyone keeps telling me! Her Majesty was particularly unhappy."

Her golden eyes grew wet. Della watched in disbelief as the dragonkin dabbed beneath one with a fingertip.

"Captain..."

"So here I am, working tirelessly to regain her good graces. Asking questions, following up on reports, making certain our dear city remains safe. Even accepting criticism with grace!"

She spread her hands toward the three adventurers.

"Aren’t I the greatest of all loyal minions?"

The women stared at her with profoundly wry expressions. Whatever sympathy Della had been about to offer died before it reached her tongue.

"You certainly seem very busy," she managed.

"Thank you for noticing~"

The tears had already disappeared. Beside the captain, the Guildmaster rubbed his forehead while she happily moved on.

"But enough business. You’ve had a rough day, and we’ve kept you long enough. Thank you for your help, ladies. You may go."

"Thank you, Captain. Sir."

Della rose with her friends, relieved that they would be leaving with their badges intact. Tavi had already reached the door when Veshara spoke again.

"Just one more question."

All three stopped. Tavi’s hand remained on the handle as she turned back toward the desk.

"Yes, Captain?"

"Just between us ladies..."

Veshara glanced at the Guildmaster. Her gaze traveled pointedly to his ears, then back to his face, where she waited with an encouraging smile.

He made no move whatsoever.

After giving him another moment to discover some manners, the dragonkin shrugged and returned her attention to the women.

"On a scale of one to ten, with one being that you’d rather slit your own throats, and ten being that you’d gladly enter lifelong debt..."

The three adventurers swallowed, wondering what the hell they were about to be asked to do.

Veshara leaned forward in her chair.

"How badly do you want to go down on Lord Black?"

"Captain?!"

Della’s gasp escaped alongside her friends’. Behind the desk, the Guildmaster closed his eyes and released a long, tired breath.

"Yes?"

The captain waited pleasantly for an answer.

She was asking them that here? With their Guildmaster sitting right beside her?! Della couldn’t believe the nerve of this woman.

Then she considered the question.

Lord Black’s smile returned to her memory, and her outrage became rather difficult to maintain. She glanced toward her friends, finding both of them looking back with sudden, thoughtful seriousness.

"Ten," all three answered with perfectly straight faces.

Veshara’s grin widened in immediate delight.

"Thank you, ladies. I knew I could count on my fellow women."

Tavi opened the door. Della and Brena hurried after her, and the three adventurers left without risking another backward glance at their Guildmaster.

...

Veshara was still chuckling when the door closed.

"Lovely girls."

The Guildmaster lowered his hand from his face. "I hope you enjoyed yourself."

"Immensely." She turned in her chair to face him more comfortably, her copper tail unwinding from its legs. "Tell me, since when is it customary for your adventurers to address their colleagues as lords?"

"You know perfectly well it isn’t."

"And do they often lecture their Guildmaster and a guard captain on behalf of someone they’ve accompanied on one expedition?"

"Veshara..."

Her smile invited him to continue. After a moment, he looked down at the account he’d been recording.

"They were fond of him before they left. You’ve heard how the women downstairs greet him."

"I have. But those three were ready to bite me."

"What can I say? Perhaps you have a punchable face? Not that I would know."

"Eh???" she gasped, mortified. The tears returned. "Everyone is so cruel to me... What have I done to deserve this...?"

"..." The Guildmaster was not moved.

Seeing that, the dragonkin shrugged, tears nowhere to be seen, grinning jovially. "Still, you must admit it’s interesting."

The Guildmaster set his pen beside the report.

"Grade Six and above might be called lords and ladies by lower ranked ones, perhaps. Adventurers with reputations that precede them can receive that sort of deference. People hear what they’ve accomplished and hope to work beside them someday."

Veshara rested her cheek against her knuckles, listening with undisguised pleasure.

"Our Mr. Handsome at Grade Three is doing rather well for himself, then."

"As for inspiring such devotion... Perhaps someone like Calamity..."

He stopped, considering the comparison. Veshara’s eyes brightened at the name.

"You’d compare him to Avaranth’s only semi-active Grade Ten? How flattering."

"...No. I take that back. On second thoughts, it’s different."

"Hmm. Is it?"

"Calamity hasn’t been seen in centuries, and the name still commands reverence. People barely know anything about the demon beneath that armor, whether they’re a man or a woman, yet they speak about them with awe."

"And Black?"

"Those girls care about him. Personally. They were angry on his behalf, enough to forget who they were speaking to."

His gaze moved to the door through which his adventurers had just left.

"Della thought she’d put her standing here at risk. You saw her face once she finished. She was frightened, but she still didn’t take back what she’d said about him."

"Yes..."

Veshara’s answer came softly. The more she heard about this man, the more she wanted another conversation with him. Preferably one in which he spoke to her willingly, with that damned helmet off.

She’d made obtaining either pleasure considerably more difficult for herself.

"Are you satisfied now?" the Guildmaster asked.

"Very."

"Then I hope you’ll be satisfied with this being the last such favor. I haven’t forgotten your help two millennia ago, and I respect who you represent; that’s why I agreed to let you sit in while I spoke with them."

He drew the report toward himself, bringing her attention briefly back to the desk.

"But the girls were right. Black may be strange, and he certainly keeps his affairs to himself. He’s also fulfilled his contracts and brought people home who would otherwise have died in those caves."

"Mhm..."

"I won’t let the Crown ruin the Guild’s relationship with its adventurers. Nor will I let you use an old debt between the two of us to keep meddling in our affairs. If you want to know more about him, you’ll have to find a way that doesn’t involve me calling my people upstairs for you."

Veshara watched the door, wondering what Black would say when the women told him about their conversation.

All of it, presumably.

The thought made her smile.

"Captain."

"Hmm?" She looked back at the older man, who was waiting with his hands folded over the report. "Oh, yes. I heard you. You don’t want me involving the Guild again."

"I mean it."

"I know."

He regarded her for a moment before reaching for his pen. Veshara remained beside the desk, her thoughts already wandering back to the man who had refused her so thoroughly.

There were things she ought to be doing. Instead, she was sitting here smiling because three women had told her how much they adored him.

’Why am I so interested in you, mysterious man from far away?’

She gasped with far too much cuteness for what she truly was.

"Wait, am I addicted? Am I going to become like those hopeless women in the books who have a strange man enter their lives uninvited, then completely upend everything to chase after him?"

"Please leave my office."

*Sniffle.*

"I’m in danger. For the first time in my life, as a woman..."

"Now."

"Hmph! I can’t even romanticize in peace..." she pouted, stood, and snapped the door closed behind her with enough force to make Miss Clerk yelp at her station.

As the clerk’s rapidly beating heart was calming down, Adventurer Black was up to no good!