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Today was another fulfilling day of explora- I mean questing in the capital, and me and the boys were on our way back to the Adventurer’s Guild to turn in our quest and then go try out a small mom-and-pop eatery we found the other day.

Most would say it was just like any other day, but I noticed a difference. It was halfway through our temp job in a warehouse today, that I noticed that two of our three minders were currently missing, and the only one left was the ‘laborer’ minder, but he was acting weird.

Besides his usual stony face, his body language was telling a different story. Where once his hands were either by his side or in his pockets, he now had his arms folded and his finger constantly tapping on his bicep, and he also had a fidgeting leg.

And ever since his pals went missing, he seems a lot more twitchy when checking corners and blind spots, losing out on many of his actions' subtleness.

As we walked along, I had my hand on my dagger and kept my eyes peeled while listening to Dave and Sam argue about which girl in our class was cuter, and I was replying with monosyllabic sounding agreements.

All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, our last minder became still as he looked down a side alley, and I could see his stance ready for combat. This meant that the situation was not good, not good in the slightest, and it did not help that we were currently traveling through the part of the capital that did not see heavy guard presence.

“Hey guys, I am kind of hungry, can we pick up the pace so we can go for an early lunch?” I asked while trying not to show the urgency in my face. All while keeping our minder in my peripheral vision, at the moment, he was currently speaking, but I was too far away to pick up anything, and he had a hand in his vest.

“Seriously? Are you hungry already? We had a rather large breakfast.” Sam asked.

“What can I say, I’m a growing boy, now, hurry it up!” I said as I pushed the boys forward, and from the corner of my vision, saw our last minder dash down the alley, wrapped in a tightly controlled aura, which did not bode well at all.

After a few seconds of light jogging, I caught some movement from the roofs far behind on my right, it was just flashes of a head peaking over the roof ledge, but there was definitely someone running along the roof and was catching up fast.

We are not going to make it if we keep at this speed, and the boys will get caught up with whoever this is that our minders are engaged with if I do not do something.

I held my stomach and put on a pained face, “Guys!” I called out and they turned around, “Go turn in the quests first, my stomach is not feeling so good.”

They quirked an eyebrow at me and Dave asked, “I thought you said you were hungry less than a minute ago, what gives?”

“Just shut up and go!” I shouted, “Go, so you do not have to see me do unspeakable things to that alley.” I said while gesturing to the alley beside me.

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They looked at each other, then turned to me and saluted me, “May you survive your battle with your anus in that alley, you have our thoughts and prayers.” Dave said. “And if you get caught by the guards shitting in public, we do not know each other.” Sam said as they dropped their salute and ran down the path.

“Sam, you bastard! I will remember this!” I shouted back in mock anger, as I held my stomach and walked into the alley.

The moment I broke the line of sight with the boys and the rooftop guy who was almost on top of me, I dashed to the end of the alley and cast some darkness magic to cloak myself in the darkness of the poorly lit alley.

A few seconds after concealing myself, a figure lands at the entrance of the alley, and when it stands back to full height, the only detail I could tell from the silhouette was that it was a lizardfolk, it was very distinct from its tail and the snout I saw when I looked from side to side.

The lizardfolk then started walking toward me as he… she? I don’t know… lizardfolk lay eggs and, therefore they do not have any breasts, so it is still a bit hard for me to tell, but I will go with he for now.

He walks down the alley while looking around, so that is a good thing, he does not see me. Then he starts flicking his forked tongue out a few times and then smiles.

“I know you are here little boy, make this easy and come out, I just want to have a little chat.” he said, and now that I hear his voice, I am more confident it is a he. “Giving me the silent treatment are you? That's not very nice, if I need to come and get you, things are not going to be very pleasant, and here is nowhere to run… I can smell you.”

Well, fuck, I guess I know what that tongue-flicking was about now. He can taste me in the air.

When the lizardman was halfway down the alley, his head which was constantly moving around while flicking his tongue out, slowly narrowed in on my position. “There you are, little boy. I was told you can do magic, but you can’t hide from me, and now we are going to do this the hard way.” he said as he drew a sickle from behind him.

Well, fuck this guy, I shot an earth bullet I had been prepping and found out he had excellent reaction speed as he turned his body to the side, avoiding my earth bullet, flaring his aura, and pouncing at the dark corner I was in, all in short order.

As he was mid-pounce, I sent a second earth bullet that he blocked with his aura-coated sickle, but the force of the impact was too strong, making him backflip in midair.

Before he had the chance to touch down, I flared my own aura and charged out from my concealment with my sword drawn, zoomed to where the lizardman was going to land, and lunged to pierce his long neck.

But once again, the lizardman displayed his impressive reaction speed and perries my blade just before he landed, and when he did land, he performed a front kick at my chest, forcing me to twist my body to avoid or risk flying back due to him being a lot bigger than me.

We both quickly got back into our stances and I made the first move by slashing from where my sword was parried to, and from there, we exchanged around five moves before he hit me with something I never had experience with.

On the next exchange, I managed to get his sickle into a good position for me to disarm him and threw all my strength to swipe to the left, if he held on to his sickle, he would be put off balance and be opened to me, or he could release the weapon and be disarmed, either was a bad choice for him.

What I did not expect, was for him to follow my flow and spin his body, revealing his back to me, the other thing I did not expect was getting whipped in the face by a tail.

I spun twice on my feet, but quickly oriented myself to once again face the lizardman and raise my guard.

As we looked at each other, I could feel the sting of pain on my face and the taste of iron in my mouth, I must have been tail slapped hard enough to cut the inside of my mouth, if I did not have my aura on, that tail slap might have very well knocked me out. And if there is one thing I have learned from our exchange, it is that this guy is good.