Terry turned to glare daggers at Kelima. She visibly wilted beneath the look for a few seconds before she drew herself up.

“What?” she demanded.

“You know what,” growled Terry.

“Enough, children,” said Heletina. “There’s no time for this. You two need to get moving.”

“What?” said Terry and Kelima in unison.

Terry did notice that while they said the same word, their reactions weren’t identical. He was mildly baffled and a little alarmed at the noblewoman’s words. Kelima looked happy and excited. Terry just knew that could not be a good thing for him. Heletina looked at them with an expression of perfect equanimity. Terry’s alarm deepened.

“Terry, you need to leave. Immediately. Since you caused this mess, dearest daughter, it’s on you to make sure he arrives where he means to go safely.”

“Of course, mother,” said Kelima, inclining her head.

Terry could see the corners of the girl’s mouth twitching as she tried to keep a smile off her face. Eyes narrowing, Terry looked from Kelima to Heletina. She met his eyes calmly. He wasn’t sure that this whole thing had been a sprawling conspiracy involving the entire family and all of their servants, but it sure could have been. Minimally, he was quite sure that Heletina was doing her best to make sure her “dearest daughter” got her own way. He could respect that but… No. Fuck that very much. Terry didn’t know if it was a formal trope, but unwanted companions did seem to crop up a lot in any kind of adventure story. Sure, those people usually redeemed themselves by the end of the story, but the sheer mountain of hassle and annoyance that they brought with them was not worth it.

A chilling thought struck him then. Unwanted companions were even more common in romantic comedies. If there was one thing that Terry wanted even less than being stuck in Chinese Period Drama Hell, it was being in the middle of a romantic comedy plot while being stuck in Chinese Period Drama Hell. No sin he had ever committed could possibly justify railroading him into that fate worse than death. Especially if the other lead in that story was going to be this entitled rich girl. He tried to imagine what that would look like in practical terms, and his brain was seemingly incapable of coming up with anything. That was all he needed to know.

“I’ll have to decline,” said Terry.

Heletina, Kelima, and the baronet all gave him equally surprised looks before the expressions changed in different directions. The baronet, who Terry was starting to think might be the only other sane person in the entire building, looked relieved. Heletina pursed her lips like she was annoyed. Kelima gave him a vaguely confused look like he’d spoken in some foreign tongue she’d studied in high school and hadn’t thought about in years.

“Well, you heard the man,” said the baronet in a cheerful voice.

Heletina gave her husband a sharp look, and he lapsed into silence with a resigned sigh. Heletina turned a smile on Terry that made his skin feel like it wanted to crawl away.

“Terry,” she said in the voice of a parent explaining simple things to a confused child, “traveling alone is dangerous. That’s particularly true if you have people looking for you—”

Terry cut her off, “When I left the Adventurer’s Guild earlier today, I already had more difficult problems in my life than I knew what to do with. But I was finally starting to get them under the tiniest semblance of control. If I’d been able to leave when I wanted to, it might have even been enough to buy me some breathing room. Then, the princess over there had to throw her little tantrum.”

“I didn’t throw a tan—”

“By the way, princess, did you see me put up a want ad looking for an aggravating helper monkey?”

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“What’s a want ad?” asked the Baronet.

“What’s a helper monkey?” asked Heletina.

“I did not throw a tan—” Kelima started to say again, only to be cut off again.

“You did not see me post that want ad,” said Terry, answering his own question. “And even if you had seen me do that, I still wouldn’t have chosen a spoiled brat who doesn’t know how to take no for an answer.”

“Terry,” started Heletina, her eyes flashing with anger.

Terry was surprised when the baronet put a restraining hand on her shoulder. He’d kind of thought that the man was henpecked, but the stern look he gave his wife shut her down. She closed her mouth and looked back to Terry. There was still intense dissatisfaction in her eyes, but she didn’t speak. Terry stabbed a finger at Kelima, who snapped her mouth closed and took a step back.

“Everything you did today accomplished nothing but making my life harder. I can’t even imagine the messes you would make when things didn’t go your way out on the road. Why would I ever knowingly consent to having you around?”

“I—” she stammered.

“I wouldn’t,” Terry snapped.

The same anger that had fueled his door-kicking escapade earlier in the day was surging inside him again. He wanted to kick open a few doors right then and there. Maybe he could break some other stuff for good measure. Feeling like he needed to say something else before he stormed out of the place, he lifted his hat up so everyone looked at it. It wasn’t smoking anymore, but there was a very obvious, very charred, circular hole in it.

“And you ruined my hat. I loved this hat,” he growled before throwing the wounded headgear at the girl.

She almost fumbled it but managed to catch it in the end. Hauling on the leash that was still tenuously connected to his anger, he faced the Baronet and Heletina. He gave them a stiff bow.

“Baronet. Lady Silventar. Thank you for dinner,” he squeezed out through clenched teeth in a vague bid to at least not make these people his active enemies.

Turning on his heel, Terry swept toward the front door. He could tell that his eyes were blazing by the way the servants at the door leaned back. He saw them look to the noble family behind him for some kind of instruction, but he spoke first.

“Move.”

It wasn’t a request. It wasn’t an invitation. It was a command. One of the servants flinched and then rushed to open one of the doors. He strode over the unobstructed threshold and into the cool night air. It took him a few moments to orient himself, but he was swiftly stalking toward the front gate of the pseudo-castle. Terry knew that he’d steamrolled them with shock and momentum, but that wouldn’t last forever. He needed to be out of this place and out of this town before they regained their composure. If he didn’t, that girl would be hounding him with a million-and-one reasons why she wasn’t a spoiled one percenter and demanding he explain why he was such a big, fat meaniehead to her. God save me, thought Terry. He almost said it aloud before thinking better of it. He cast a suspicious look at the sky. All things considered, he was pretty sure didn’t want any attention from any god involved with this world.

The guards at the gate must have mistaken him for either a guest or a servant who was done for the day. Either way, they swung open a smaller gate designed for people on foot and let him make good his escape. Again, it took him a little while to get oriented. If it had still been daytime, he would have had a better sense of where he was and where to go, but things never looked the same at night. Windows became shiny beacons of light and warmth. Alleys became shadowy caves. The entire sense of the town was just different. Still, he spent enough time navigating by the position of the moon that he was able to make his way toward the south gate. He was leaving tonight, one way or the other.

There was only one hiccup along the way. A couple of burly guys who looked like they might have failed out of an MMA school for being too violent appeared out of one of those alleys. Terry decided that they must not be that bright if they were hassling a guy with not one, but two swords strapped to his hips.

“You shouldn’t be out at night,” said one of the thugs who scratched his cheek with a long knife. “Dangerous at night.”

Terry couldn’t believe it. While he hadn’t been looking for someone to vent his spleen on, he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity when it threw itself at him like this. He smiled as he closed on the two without even breaking his stride. Both of the thugs froze when they realized that he wasn’t slowing down, trying to run, or doing anything that a scared person should do. Terry’s foot slammed into the chatty thug’s stomach and sent him flying. The man landed in a heap a good twenty feet away and didn’t seem inclined to get back up. The other thug decided that discretion was the better part of valor and started to back off, but Terry grabbed the man’s shirt and hauled him up short. With a twisting motion, he hurled the thug back into the darkness of the alley. There was a truly appalling racket as the man crashed into or possibly through some things. He even heard some cats yowling. He peered into the darkness of the alley for a moment, trying to pierce the gloom.

“Do they even have cats in this world?”