“Actually, could you just hang on to that for me for a few minutes?” asked Terry.

He’d gotten so caught up in the idea of making Captain Crossbow pay for the hat that he’d neglected to deal with the rest of the ambushers. He thought most of them had run away, but there was always that one guy in the books. The last thing he wanted was to get another hat just to have some idiot destroy it, and they would. It was practically inevitable. Hell, one of them might even do it on purpose. The woman who made the rice hats nodded.

“Sure,” she said. “I guess.”

“Thanks. This shouldn’t take too long.”

After he stood there for another thirty seconds, the hat lady lifted an eyebrow at him.

“Are you going to go do something?” she asked a little hesitantly.

“I probably should,” he admitted. “I’m just not very motivated to go do it.”

“Why?”

“Because these things always get worse before they get better.”

“They do?”

“In my experience, that’s how it goes. But, as long as I just stand here, I won’t incite the incident. It won’t kick off until I actually try to do something.”

“What?” she asked in clear confusion.

“Don’t worry about it. That trope is probably only true for me.”

“What’s a trope?”

“A pain in the ass,” said Terry as he turned and started to walk away. “A huge pain in the ass.”

It took four steps. Four measly little steps before the world’s trope activation sequence went into action. The holy douche knight crashed out of the building he’d been knocked into. The man was bellowing about something or other. Probably his untarnished honor, thought Terry. The man looked the worse for wear through. There was a spiderweb pattern of cracks radiating out from a massive dent in the man’s breastplate. All of the engravings looked charred, almost like they were a circuit that had burned out. There was an ugly gash across the man’s cheek and a wild look in his eyes. He was still holding his stupid shiny sword. Yeah, this won’t turn into a mess.

“You heathen!” shouted Douche Knight Extraordinaire.

“You say that like it should bother me,” said Terry.

Terry was a little amused to see the other man struggle to find a response to that. While the other guy opened and closed his mouth like a fish, Terry looked around for another rock. He couldn’t find one that was as big as the first one he threw, so he settled on picking up a few smaller ones. I really should make a habit of picking up good throwing rocks. It’s not like carrying them around will be any kind of a burden for me. It might be a bit cumbersome, though. I’ll have to be selective about which ones I keep. He saw that the knight was eyeing him warily.

“You won’t even face me with honor?” demanded the Douche Knight.

“I don’t care about honor. Besides, it’s not like your corrupt little church has any honor anyway. What kind of church sends out assassination squads?”

“You cultivator trash must be wiped from the face of the world. You’re abominations.”

“Wow. Trash and an abomination but you want me to fight with honor? You’ve taken a lot of blows to the head, haven’t you? No. Don’t answer. It’s not good for you either way,” said Terry.

“I don’t fear your kind,” sneered the Douche Knight.

“That’s entirely up to you,” answered Terry as he whipped a rock at the guy.

The knight let out a shriek of pain as the sword tumbled from the hand that, unless Terry missed his guess, now had many broken bones in it. A guy with a crossbow popped out from behind some cover. Terry beaned him in the head. He tried to dial it back enough not to brain the guy, but this was something else he hadn’t practiced. The knight tried to charge during Terry’s moment of distraction and got a rock to the thigh for his trouble. The man collapsed letting out a yowl of pain. A few more crossbow heroes tried their luck and got rocks to their heads for their trouble. The knight lifted his good hand and started chanting. A glow started to gather around that hand. Terry had seen that trick before and didn’t much feel like dealing with it, so he beaned the Douche Knight. There was a small spray of blood and the man dropped to the ground. Terry stopped walking and looked around at the mostly abandoned market.

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“If you run away now, I’ll let you.”

There was pin-drop silence for a few seconds before one guy cautiously rose, shot a panicked look at the unconscious knight, and took off. Two more Church thugs followed on his heels. Terry crossed the remaining distance between him and the knight and nudged the guy with his foot. Satisfied that the man really was unconscious, he walked back over to the hat lady. She was standing there with his hat held limply in her hand. He smiled and held out his own hand.

“Okay, I think I’m ready for my hat now.”

She put it in his hands with almost mechanical motions. I guess this kind of thing isn’t normal for these parts.

“You should go now,” she said. “The Church will—”

“Oh, I’m sure the Church has all kinds of dastardly plans for me. I suppose I should go discourage them. Where is the local branch of the church?”

He did manage to get directions from the hat lady but only after she reiterated several times that he should flee. Like fleeing had done him any good. He’d been trying to get away from them for a while now and that just wasn't getting it done. If he ever wanted it to stop, he’d have to tell them to stop and be at least a little convincing about it. As he walked out of the market, he grabbed the Douche Knight’s breastplate and very noisily dragged the man across town. He knew the Church as soon as he saw it. It was big and kind of gaudy, which seemed to be the theme for those places. Of course, the two dozen guards arrayed in front of the entrance to the Church were also a subtle clue he’d found his destination. Bravely leading from behind was a guy who gave off priest vibes to Terry. The priest thrust a finger at him.

“We will strike you down for this heresy.”

Terry nodded and then lifted the still-unconscious knight. He held the man in front of him like a shield.

“Okay,” said Terry. “I’m ready to be smote. Called down your hypocrisy lightning on me! Or do you prefer sanctimony brimstone? Either way, I’m ready.”

“You mock our faith!”

“So, no hypocrisy lightning? Well, that’s disappointing. Here. Catch.”

Terry spun to get a bit of momentum and threw the knight at the church entrance. The guards scattered. The priest screamed, actually screamed, in terror and dropped to the ground. As for the airborne knight… Terry stopped and thought about that. That would be kind of cool, thought Terry. The Airborne Knights. No, that sounds seriously badass. Like a medieval SAS. While Terry was thinking about knights parachuting off of dragons with automatic weapons, the Douche Knight hit the doors of the church and just kept going. Terry heard some vague shouting and crashing from inside the building. Damn. I need to stop throwing people into places where I can’t see. I’m going to kill some bystander one of these days. Taking advantage of the confusion, Terry walked over to the priest. He planted a foot in the middle of the man’s back and drove him flat to the ground. He glared around at the guards who looked like they couldn’t figure out what to do.

“Leave,” he commanded. “I won’t ask twice.”

He must have sold it because they left. Terry crouched next to the priest. He was about to say something when Dusk decided to make her presence known. She had remained curled up inside his robes for the entire debacle with the church people. Terry suspected she’d slept through most of the excitement. Now, though, she poked her head out, looked around, and then leapt onto the priest’s back. The man let out another manful scream of terror at the minuscule pressure. Terry watched with some amusement as Dusk briefly wandered around on the man’s back before hopping down to the ground. She circled around the priest’s head until she could see his face. She studied him with her adorable little kitten face, and then she hissed at the priest. He tried to recoil. Terry’s hand slammed into the man’s back and drove him flat again.

“You know,” said Terry. “I’ve been trying really hard to stay out of your Church’s way. I don’t like hurting people. I like killing people even less. I came south because I didn’t want to fight a war. But you’re making it very hard for me. You keep sending people to kill me. Most people take that kind of thing personally.”

“You murdered a priest of the church. There is no forgiveness for that.”

“You mean that rapist? Yes. I killed him because there’s nothing else to do with people like that. You should be thanking me. As for that whole ‘no forgiveness’ thing, is that the hill you want to die on? Really?”

Dusk made her thoughts known by raking her claws across the man’s nose.

“Foul creature!” shouted the man.

He tried to take a swipe at the kitten. An action that ended with Terry’s fist crashing down on the man’s hand like a hammer. There was a lot of shouting and crying after that.

“You’re going to send a message to your superiors for me. I just want to be left alone. That’s it. If that seems unworkable to you, well,” Terry pulled out his shiny new Adventurer’s Guild credentials and showed them to the priest.

“Rank two,” whispered the man.

“Yeah. You can either leave me alone, or I’m going to start truly living by rule number two.”

“What’s rule number two?” asked the priest.

“Human life has no value. It’s not how I want it to be, but I’m tired of looking over my shoulder for you people. Leave me alone, and I’ll extend you the same courtesy.”

With that, Terry picked up Dusk and walked away. Man, I hope that works.