“Oi! I’m talking to ya!” yelled the large ruffian. “Got your ears clogged or somethin’?”

“Well, if you want to get technical about it,” said Balthazar, “I don’t even have ears, on account of being, you know… a crab.”

“Smartypants thinks he’s funny,” the goon said, before turning to the cowering man behind him. “This the crab that did it, Georgie?”

The soaked lowlife nodded, his hand still holding his swelling cheek. “Yeah, Brig, that’s the one.”

“Seriously,” Balthazar said, “how many giant talking crabs do you guys get around here that would warrant asking that question?!”

Balthazar looked around, evaluating his situation. Despite being in the middle of a busy street, the passing people seemed determined not to pay any mind to the exchange taking place between the man and the crustacean. The merchant did not yet know how much trouble he was in, or how to tackle the situation, so talking his shell off to buy time was his best bet.

Why did that girl have to leave so soon?! There are more muggers to smash jugs on!

“You got a lot of nerve,” said Brig, strolling forward. “Sticking around after what you did, instead of skipping town. That was your mistake.”

He flexed his fists menacingly as he slowly approached the crab. Druma and Blue stood at the ready behind him, but Balthazar did not wish them to make a scene, at least not yet. He knew they were very far from home, in a city where nobody knew him, and getting into a street fight minutes after arriving was not the best way to make a good first impression.

What really was bothering him was the fact that these ruffians were being so brazen, rather than sticking to the shadowy alleys and hidden parts of the city. Why was this guy so confident about making threats in broad daylight? Why was no one from the passing populace batting an eye at what was happening?

And where the hell is a town guard when you need one?!

“Looking for someone to help ya?” the bully said with a chuckle, noticing Balthazar’s eyes darting around the passing crowds. “Yeah, you really must be new around Marquessa.”

Suddenly, a head in a helmet popped up above the flow of pedestrians, trying to peek over them.

Finally, an officer!

“What’s going on here?” the guardsman in armor said, making his way through the passing people. “I heard the—Oh, Brig. I didn’t realize it was you.”

The fiend smiled at the other man. “Yeah, just taking care of some unpleasant business with a rowdy tourist. Don’t you worry about it, officer. It’s all under control.”

The guard eyed the crab and his companions. “I see… Well, if you say it’s all under control, I’ll trust there won’t be any trouble for me to deal with later. Right?”

“Ah, o’ course not!” the thug exclaimed, giving the officer a pat on the back. “Tell ya what, in fact, stop by the club later, and I’ll offer you an ale, along with the usual… arrangement.”

Balthazar watched the unfolding scene with a growing frown as the guardsman nodded at the criminal with a slight hint of discomfort in his smile.

“Alright then,” said the armored man. “I’ll get back to my beat now. Carry on.”

With another quick glance at the crab and his party, the officer turned and left, mixing and disappearing into the passing crowd.

I can’t believe it. I thought the guards from Ardville were bad because they were mostly useless, but the ones here are even worse. They’re corrupt!

“You get it now, little guy?” said Brig, his focus now back on the crustacean. “There ain’t no guard coming to protect you. They know where their loyalties lie. Just like none of these sheep around us is going to stop and risk their necks for ya. People know their place in this city.”

Crap, I don’t like the look of this…

“Now, about my buddy Georgie over there,” the big man said, returning to his knuckle cracking. “You really made a big mistake blindsiding him with that strike to the face, ya know that?”

Wait a minute…

“Excuse me?” Balthazar said, raising an eyestalk. “You think I attacked him?”

“No use denying it, crab. Georgie didn’t do that to himself, and my guys saw you leave the alley.”

The merchant chuckled mockingly. “Oh, no, I’m not denying that. He very much got beaten, and I was certainly there. The part that’s not true is that I didn’t lay a pincer on him.”

Brig frowned at the crab, his brow forming a solid balcony of meat above his eyes.

“Don’t ya try to deceive me, wise guy,” he said. “We know it was you. He even still has the ink he said you squirted all over to blind him and land a cheap shot.”

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“My what?!” exclaimed Balthazar. “Mate, you do understand that I’m a crab, not a squid, right? Totally different invertebrates, with one of them being much more handsome than the other—I’ll let you work out which one on your own. And that stuff all over him isn’t even ink, it’s milk!”

The thug’s solid unibrow arched slightly on one end, and he glared back at his smaller underlings.

“Huh… Is that why I’ve been smelling cheese all this time?” said one of the other two muggers next to the bruised one.

“Georgie?” said Brig with a menacing stare.

“I, uh… Yeah, I remember now!” said the cowering coward. “It wasn’t ink. He hit me with one of those big milk jugs you see the dairy farmers sell around the market. It must have been the blow to the head, got me all confused.”

Balthazar scoffed. “Well, that’s unlikely, isn’t it? Look at my pincers. How do you figure I’d pick one of those things up?”

The ruffian rubbed his chin as the brawny cogs in his meaty head turned.

“Little fella does make a good point,” he said, looking back at Georgie again. “Your story isn’t really adding up.”

With a milky sweat building up on his forehead, the other lowlife retorted, “Don’t listen to him, Brig! You two saw him leave the alley and everything, right, guys?”

The other two exchanged glances and a half shrug.

“Yeah, I did, after you came running to us smelling like a dairy farm.”

“But I never really saw the crab do anything.”

Standing in the middle of that busy sidewalk, Balthazar watched the scene unfolding before him, tension running down his shell.

Come on, just gotta keep it going a little further. Sow confusion, plant doubt, reap the chaos.

“Ya know,” said Brig, turning back to the crab. “That still wouldn’t explain who beat up our buddy over there, would it?”

“That’s simple, you could have just asked me from the start,” the calm and collected merchant replied. “It was a girl.”

“A girl?!”

“Yes, she left the alley a moment before I did,” Balthazar explained.

“T-that’s a lie, Brig!” exclaimed Georgie. “You know I wouldn’t let some girl beat me up. It was that creature over there. That monster. He probably came out of some freakish dungeon, or something!”

“Zip it, Georgie!” the thug chief ordered, pinching his index and thumb together back at his underling without taking his gaze off Balthazar. “Ya trying to insinuate that some girl could do that to one of my guys? That’s some big disrespect, little guy.”

“Call it what you will, but by the time she was done with him, I almost felt sorry for him,” Balthazar said. “He really picked the wrong person to mug. She had some anger to let out, that one. Her name was… Olivia, I think?”

Brig’s eyes widened at the crab before he suddenly turned and paced angrily towards the milky thug.

“Is that true, Georgie?!” he yelled. “You let bloody Olivia beat you up again?!”

“N-no!” pleaded the cowering underling. “It ain’t true, I swear! The crab is making it all up to make me look bad in front of you guys!”

The mugger-in-chief turned his angry scowl back to the crab.

“Hey, don’t look at me,” Balthazar said with a casual shrug. “You said so yourself, I’m new in town, how would I even know who this Olivia was or that your buddy over there has a history with her?”

The large ruffian snapped his scowl back to the scrawny one.

“Freak or not, the bloody monster keeps making a lot more sense than your version of the story!”

Georgie’s eyes darted between his boss, his fellow thugs, and the crab, his lips trying to mouth a few words, but no sound coming out.

“I can’t bloody believe it, Georgie!” Brig yelled, throwing his arms up. “I told ya to stay away from her. It was bad enough the last time, and you had to go and get your head rung in again. It’s downright embarrassing, ya know that, right?!”

“I… I’m sorry, boss,” the coward muttered.

“You’re making the whole operation look bad!” exclaimed the bigger man.

“I fought back, ya know, but… but… she had help! Yeah, the crab over there was helping her. It was two on one. No, it was four on one, the crab’s little freaks were helping too!”

Balthazar let out a scoffing chuckle from the other side of the sidewalk.

“Help?” he said. “I wouldn’t have been able to find a chance to get a hit in even if I wanted to, with how relentless her kicking was. You’re right, it was downright embarrassing to watch. Really, how are you guys taken seriously around this city?”

Brig’s face was turning scarlet and Balthazar could swear steam was about to blow out of his ears.

Which was exactly the merchant’s plan.

“I mean, I watched the entire thing…” the crab said, leaning forward with a smirk. “Do you think that’s all milk soaking his pants?”

[The Gift of the Crab: success]

“Come on, Georgie!” the ruffian yelled out, turning back to the cowering mugger and raining an angry spray of spit on him as he lashed out. “Ya promised me you wouldn’t let me down anymore. I gave you a chance, and you’re making me look bad in front of the whole city? How’s the boss ever gonna let us move up within the operation if I can’t even show that I can run a proper crew, huh?!”

While Brig was busy disciplining his underling, Balthazar gestured for his friends to move and the three of them slipped away into the crowd.

As they put some distance between them and the muggers, the merchant could still hear Brig’s yells echoing over the busy buzzing of the crowds moving through the streets.

“…It ain’t just about you or me either! This makes the boss look like a laughing stock to that bloody baroness too, you idiot!”

“Hey, where did the crab go?” one of the accompanying thugs could be heard asking in the distance.

“I don’t give a toss about the crab!” Brig shouted back. “This is about Georgie letting bloody Olivia Marquessa make a mockery out of our crew!”

The thug’s voice faded into the background as Balthazar got away and back to the main city square, making sure to take a wide detour on his path to the guild headquarters.

“Phew!” he said, wiping his forehead. “That could have gone a lot worse. I should have known this big city was too good to be true. This place is a hive of corruption, it looks like.”

Shaking his shell, the crab slowed back down to a regular pace as he continued up a sidewalk.

“Alright, enough, I’ll just get to this city hall, get some directions, and then leave. No more distractions.”

After the words left his mouth, a sign above a shop to his left caught his attention, and his jaw nearly dropped as his widening eyes read the words inscribed on it.

“No way…”