The Adventurer’s Guild Hall turned out to be a modest affair. There were just a few scattered tables with a bare smattering of people sitting around them. Terry was surprised to discover that while they all tried to look tough, none of them gave him that sense of danger he’d come to expect from anything that posed a real threat to his life. They reminded him a bit of a guy he’d worked with for a while that he’d dubbed Señor Edgelord. The guy had been one of those programmers who spent way too much time working out, getting tats, and trying to shock people. It had worked. He was big enough that nobody really wanted to get into an argument with him. Except, he’d been weak. Terry had heard the guy getting chewed out at the end of work one day, only to spot Señor Edgelord crying in his car a little later.

Of course, not being a mortal threat in no way excluded them from being a hassle later. To make matters worse, one of those smug bastards was wearing a rice hat. He’s not being smug, Terry told himself. He’s just looking at the group like everyone else. Even so, Terry had to resist the urge to go and take the damn thing from the guy. Then, a thought occurred to him. He hadn’t actually made any enemies in this town. At least, he hadn’t yet. He stopped in his tracks and looked at the guy with the hat. Apparently, his gaze had been a little too intense because the guy choked on his drink. Oops.

“Hey, friend,” said Terry in his most friend-ish tone. “Where did you get that hat?”

The man froze in place and paled at the question. I guess I didn’t quite hit that friendly tone I was going for. The silence threatened to become oppressive until the woman sitting next to the rice-hat-wearing guy kicked him under the table.

“Answer him,” she hissed in a harsh whisper.

“I… I… At… At the market,” stuttered the man.

“Hmmm,” said Terry with a frown.

He didn’t recall seeing anyone at the market selling them, and he was very certain he would have noticed those hats. Maybe whoever makes them doesn’t go every day? I guess that makes sense. It's probably a lot of work to make those things. He might need to go back assuming a catastrophe didn’t strike in the meantime. He noticed that the guy was giving him a terrified look and sweating bullets. Geez, what is that guy’s issue? I just asked him a question. Terry shook his head a little and walked toward the counter. He saw Haresh reach into head sack and realized he needed to shut that shit down in a fucking hurry after what had happened last time. He raced up to grab the man by the wrist. When Haresh gave him a confused look, Terry just shook his head. He looked at the woman behind the counter.

“We’d like to do this in private if you don’t mind,” he said giving her his best smile.

“Of course,” said the woman in a strained voice.

Terry wasn’t sure what that was about, but he supposed it didn’t matter that much. He’d be satisfied as long as they could conduct their business behind closed doors. The woman gestured for them to come around the counter. They followed her to a back room where the woman asked to see Terry’s guild identification. He handed it to her. She did something, and it gave off a faint glow. She didn’t immediately hand it back. Instead, she stared down at it and then moved her nervous gaze to him. He just held out his hand. She, almost reluctantly, handed the identification back to him.

“Is there a particular reason that your group wanted this done in private?” she asked.

While her question was, theoretically, for everyone, she focused her attention on him like he was in charge or some stupid shit like that. Then again, he had been the one who asked for privacy, so maybe it was his job to answer.

“I’ve drawn unwanted attention from other adventurers in the past,” he said.

The woman looked like she wanted to ask him a lot of questions. It seemed that his expression was sufficiently uninviting that she kept them to herself. It did, however, look like it might have cost her something to keep them behind her teeth. Terry decided all of that fell into the glorious realm known as Other People’s Problems and promptly put it out of his mind. When the woman mercifully turned her attention back to Haresh, Terry did have to repress a sigh of relief. He strongly suspected that he was never going to like being the focus of anyone’s attention.

“Well, let’s see what you have,” said the woman.

Haresh started emptying out head sack. A few things led to a raised eyebrow but otherwise went fine until he pulled out the man-goat thing’s head. The woman’s expression went briefly slack before she turned disbelieving eyes on Haresh.

“You killed this?” she demanded.

That was when Terry learned that Haresh was a terrible actor.

“I… Yes, of course. It was, um, a very difficult, um, battle,” said Haresh in a stumbling voice. “But with the assistance of, um, my brave, that is, very brave students we, um, we slew the beast.”

It was all that Terry could do to stop his eye-roll. The man could not have been less convincing if he tried. Ekori and Jaban did a better job of keeping straight faces, but even they looked vaguely guilty. The woman stared at them for a long moment before she pierced Terry with a gimlet eye. He did his best to put on a bland expression. She pressed her hands flat on the table and pushed herself up into a standing position. Her eyes never left Terry when she spoke in a series of clipped words.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“May I speak with you in private,” she commanded in the form of a question.

I’ll take pissed-off authority figures for a thousand, Alex, thought Terry. He saw Haresh giving him an apologetic look. Shaking his head, Terry followed the woman out into a short corridor. She whirled on him, her eyes furious, and poked him hard in the chest.

“What game are you playing? Do you honestly expect me to believe any of this?”

Terry got the distinct impression that she wasn’t just talking about the man-goat thing. The unfortunate truth was that he really didn’t know for sure what had her bent all out of shape. There had been a lot of lies, but he was pretty sure they were all white lies. He also didn’t want to provide her with information or ideas that she didn’t already have. Just play dumb, he advised himself.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” he said.

“Oh, really?”

“Really,” said Terry, doing his best to come across as sincere.

“Where should I start? First, there’s that fantasy that those three rank four adventurers killed that thing.”

“Wait a second. Haresh is solid. I thought he was a rank three,” said Terry.

It was even true. He hadn’t met a lot of adventurers yet, but he thought that something must have gone very wrong if Haresh wasn’t a rank three. Then again, he didn’t really know how they decided such things, so maybe there was some kind of objective power assessment. If that was the case, maybe Haresh just didn’t quite make the grade. It was possible. Terry just didn’t know. I guess this is one of the pitfalls of blackmailing my way into the guild instead of applying properly. Not that the bitch who took my application was going to let me do it properly.

“He isn’t,” said the woman in a sharp tone before she softened a tiny bit. “Although, he might actually be qualified. Regardless, he didn’t kill that thing. You did. Which brings us around to the second fantasy. The one in which you’re a rank three.”

“I am a rank three. You saw that,” said Terry, being careful not to confirm or deny his role in the killing.

“Yes. I saw your identification. I simply have no idea how you convinced the guild to pretend that rank is accurate.”

Terry frowned at the woman. He truly didn’t see the problem or why this woman was so worked up about all of it. Since she was looking at him expectantly and he didn’t have anything better to say, he charged forward.

“Look,” said Terry, “I really don’t see the problem or why you’re so worked up about all of this.”

“You don’t see the problem?!”

“I don’t. Let’s say that everything you suspect is true. Let’s say I did kill that monster. Let’s say that I might, technically, be a tiny bit stronger than your average rank three. What difference does it make?”

“We keep records of these things.”

“And?”

“They’ll be credited for killing something they didn’t kill,” she said in an exasperated voice.

“I’m still not seeing the problem.”

“The first problem is that we take kills into account when determining advancement between ranks. It’s not the only thing, but it’s one of the things.”

Terry could maybe see why that was a little problematic, but it didn’t seem like that big of a deal.

“The next problem,” she continued, “is that the guild doesn’t look kindly of higher ranked adventurers trying to inflate the records of lower rank adventurers.”

That was definitely more problematic. It wasn’t what he’d set out to do, but it would certainly look like that was what had happened. It could also see how something like that might be abused. In fact, he was certain that it had been abused. It was probably why they started keeping records and checking things. He didn’t want to make trouble for Haresh, Ekori, and Jaban when it came time for them to advance if they ever did.

“The final problem is that if this goes into their records, it’s going to cause an uproar.”

Terry frowned and asked, “Why?”

“Because we’ve been trying to recruit a rank two to come here and kill that thing for the last six months.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. So, if I put it in the records that three rank fours killed it, no one will believe it. And they shouldn’t believe it because it’s absurd. After that, there will be an investigation. Of me. Of them. Of you. It would take divine intervention to keep us all from getting kicked out of the guild. I’m not getting kicked out of the guild for you.”

“Well, fuck,” said Terry. “Damn bureaucracy kicking me in the balls again.”

The woman seemed a little appalled at his profane pronouncements. He carried on before she could start yelling at him.

“Fine. I killed it. I don’t care who gets credit. I just wanted them to get the reward.”

“And another thing—” she started to say. “What? You just wanted them to get the reward?”

“Yeah, I killed something they meant to hunt. I was just trying to balance the scale.”

“Then why not just give them the money?” she almost shouted at him.

“That’s—” he hesitated. “Reasonable.”

She gaped at him and said, “Are you an idiot?”

“I might be,” sighed Terry. “So, now you know. Can we go back in and settle up.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you are not a rank three.”

“I most certainly am. It says so right on the special, special badge thing you guys gave me.”

She just held out her hand and stared at him. He had the grim certainty that he was either going to walk out of this place with a rank two identification and some money, or he was going to walk out with head sack stuffed full again. Is this a trope? Is getting screwed over by other people’s honesty a trope? If not, it should be, Terry grumbled mentally. He debated leaving, but he had no idea how much farther the next guild hall was. He also had no way of knowing how honest the next guild representative would be. He could find himself facing this exact same situation. He’d been lulled into a false sense of confidence about dealing with the guild. If he’d been thinking it through, this scenario would probably have looked inevitable. He was bound to find sticklers for the rules at some point.

“Fine,” he said in his best grumpy old man voice.

He handed over his identification. The woman looked satisfied before giving him a quizzical look.

“Why wouldn’t you want to be rank two?”

“Because I hate people. I hate heroes. And I especially hate people who want me to be a hero.”

“Oh,” she said in abrupt understanding and immediately ruined it. “Well, that’s what you get for being strong.”

I need to go find another monster to slap, thought Terry.