8. The more the merrier?

-o-

"Horses are creeeepy."

"Okay this, this is entirely unexpected from you, Monika. I thought all gi… okay, most girls liked ponies."

"Ponies, cute and snuggly, not whatever long-faced drooling abominations these are. Their mottled fur even makes them look like cows."

"These are good draft horses, don't insult them!" Elze replied fervently.

"They are forest camels. Rude spitting beasts."

We had been on the road for about three days, and the experience exposed how much of both Monika and I were still spoiled city children. My hiking days were spent in mostly sterile efforts fending only for myself.

Horses ate from buckets of oat provided with the cart. Horses that could walk for hours and hours also needed to poop. Sometimes while walking. Onto buckets.

Monika hearing the 'flooorp' of a horse pooping while on the move quickly robbed her of the romance of the stagecoach age. Meanwhile, I had no idea how to handle horses at all and they would not follow my directions. Elze and Linze, being old farmhands, took over driving. With Water and Earth magic at least we could quickly remove the waste and the smell.

The carriage we hired was actually more of a cart, lacking a roof. That was fine, it didn't usually rain in summer, though it was hot. Easily resolved with some poles and a thick linen sheet. With water magic, it was not like we'd ever have a shortage of cool drinks. Our own needs for privacy and sanitation at night were just as easily met.

Monika applied [Amplify: Endurance] to them so they could walk a little faster for longer. While they might not get tired so quickly, that still consumed energy and they needed to eat and drink more when we stopped. We figured we were making about 25% better speed than the usual.

Even so with the girls taking the reins that left me with nothing to do but to sit on the wagon feeling like so much useless baggage. I'd long finished reading through the magic books, and Monika was able to keep herself (mentally) busy trying to compile new ways of transforming her digital powers into real-world ones.

My magic practice would simply freak out the horses. Elze and Linze, being born of a society not designed around instant gratification, were fine with the usual plodding state of affairs.

"Monika, I'm boooored!" I whined, kicking my legs out. "It's been so long. Write me some poooems!"

"Mister Zah!" Linze looked disapproving at my rare expression of immaturity. I've been childish and silly at times, but never before had I shown taking Monika for granted.

"It's another stupid reference," Monika said out loud. "Now hold on there, Ming the Merciless. You know how this works. I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

"Is this really the proper time and place for this sort of thing?" Elze asked, looking faintly disgusted.

"I wrote a poem about you too, Elze!"

"Ooh? Now I'm somewhat envious. Let's hear it."

"I call this, the Death of Vanity.

After some heavy rains, a great boulder fell from the mountains
It tumbled down the slopes, crushing all with its stony wrath
Then it came to a stop, blocking the winding road into the plains
No one could budge it from their paramountly important footpath.

A thousand men tried, and none could shift its mass
A hundred magicians tried, but even their power availed them not
Until there one day forced to a stop was one young lass,
Unstoppable force met immovable object in one fateful spot.

And so SHE PUNCHED THE HECK OUT OF THAT SMUG BOULDER.
Once more through the road good people could pass through.
And that is the true tale of the Elze the Rocksmasher,
One day she hoped to become Elze the Castlecrusher too."

"…"

"… let's not have any more poems," Linze said after a while.

"Fair enough. This isn't the Literature Club after all."

Elze turned back to peacefully driving the horses onward. "… Castlecrusher, eh? That doesn't sound so bad, actually," she mused with a nice little smile.

Monika stared at me for a few more moments, then stepped back and sighed again while rubbing her forehead. "I really have no reason to be confused about why you and Elze are such besties all of a sudden. You're both such memelords this is why I unfairly favor Linze, you know?"

Elze had already named her metal greaves, left and right, Shinsplitter and Necksnapper. Honestly, she terrified me sometimes.

-x-

-o-

Beyond Reflet there was another small farming town named Nolan. Then past that heading north was a larger walled township named Amanesque. We only slowed down once we saw other carriages approaching on the road.

We entered Amanesque before the sun had gone down completely. After leaving our horse and cart to care of stables near the entrance, we sought a slightly more upper-class inn than Silver Moon. I mean, no offense meant to Micah, but her service was only slightly above perfunctory.

Following the recommended path, we found our way blocked by a bunch of onlookers crowded around the road. The magic track finder refused to change the route though.

"You know, I quite forgot that we had this thing," said Monika. "For all how reasonable everyone else's behavior, I forgot that we can still be guided by destiny."

"There is no fate but what we make."

"Unless you're talking about a self-fulfilling prophecy. Well, I accept that you'll probably choose not to depart from this route either. Last time we followed the plot we got Elze and Linze, and I don't regret that."

So we pushed through the crowd to the clearing on the other side. There was a group of large, rough-looking men surrounding a girl with odd foreign-looking clothes.

"What's happening here?" I asked the random citizen near me.

"I don't know, " he replied. "Some sort of street performance, maybe?"

"That girl… is wearing some pretty strange clothes…" Linze murmured.

I nodded. She looked like a samurai girl, with a bright pink kimono, a dark blue hakama, white socks over wooden sandals, and a pair of swords by her belt. Her hair was tied up into a straight ponytail and the fringes cut to just above her eyebrow.

Around ten men surrounded her, and they had dangerous expressions. Some of them had already drawn swords and knives, while others carried long hitting sticks.

"Why do you block my path?" the girl asked them.

One of them sneered and pointed with his naked dagger. "We're here to show our 'thanks' for that little incident earlier, girlie! Didn't you hear?"

"I have no recollection of what you might might, this I do not," she replied neutrally.

"Don't play dumb with me, ya little whore! Don't think you can get off safe after doin' a number on our buddies like that! We're going to teach ya good yer place on yer knees."

"Aa. Then you must be the companions of those ruffians I had handed over to the town guard earlier this day. That incident was entirely their fault, it is so. They should not have been going around drunkenly flaunting their violence and harassing young women in the middle of the day, yes, this is true."

"Enough of this! Grab her!"

They charged as one, but nimbly she dodged every single one of their attacks. She grabbed one of them by the arm and swiveling on one foot threw him over her shoulder. He was flung into another man, and both collapsed to the ground, groaning.

Aikido? Interesting!

She moved back and slapped away grabs by pushing at their wrists, kicked at the back of someone's knee and tossed another man down. This one didn't get up anymore, knocked unconscious by the slam. But then she staggered a bit, and narrowly avoided being hit by a wooden pole.

She slid back, out of their encirclement and rubbed at the side of her mouth to disguise her heavy breathing. Her movements had grown sluggish.

"This… doesn't look like a street performance," I mumbled.

"Player?"

"Playa?" Elze looked at me from the side and asked liltingly. "Should we?"

"Why did you even have to ask?" I grinned back. "Of course!"

One of the men had managed to get around to her back and swung with his sword. I took a step out from the crowd and shouted "Come forth, Water!"

"Blargh!"

He was tossed aside by a strong water jet coming out of nowhere.

And so the three of us stepped out to join the strange samurai girl. I raised my hands and tugged at each of my white gloves. With a small smile I addressed the men "Ten on one… is not very sporting, is it? What big tough men you are that you need to crowd around just to handle one girl.

"Oh wait, actually I should call you cowardly weaklings instead. Not only are your strategies pathetic, but you fight like amateurs."

"Don't stick your nose in where it doesn't belong if ya know what's good for ya…!" their leader snarled back. "Don't think you'll get away after sayin' those things too! The girl's we're keepin', but I'm just gonna gut ya!"

What the hell is even up with this town and its police force if goons like this could goon around this openly?

"Heh. Tough guys who can't take having the violence they use to terrify others being competently inflicted on them in return. Treat others as you would like yourself to be treated, the crushing wheel of karma meets all in the end! None of you are even worthy of seeing me draw my blade."

I clenched my fists and charged forth. "Come on then, show me what you've got!"

I planted my right foot down and kicked off the ground, the stones shattering under my boots. "Air, Burst, [Leap!]"

This world's magic spells worked as such:

Force magic through magic stone amplifier - Call out the Element ("Come Forth, Water") - Specify the effect that you required ("Become a shining blade") - Speak the spell name (["Aqua Cutter!]). This meant that certain spells required a longer chant.

I wanted to do as much with basic spells that made the most use of my obscene magic capacity with as short a casting time as possible.

"Air, Hammer, [Kick!]"

I kicked one of the thugs in the gut and blasted him all the way across the road.

"A magician! Get him!" the thugs cried out and rushed me.

"Earth, Pillar, [Stomp]!" My next step drove my heel into the ground, and a rock pillar rose up from the ground and smacked into my attacker's chin. He was lifted up into the air, and pinwheeling around, and crashed back into the ground all knocked the fugg out.

"Water, Whip, [Lash!]" I said next, making a slashing motion with my open hand. The stream of Water emerging from the magic stone became a more viscous, fast moving water whip that slapped away whole groups of people and sent them flying.

The difference between the wand-waving magicians of this world and me was that I watched Avatar (The Last Airbender) and its martial-arts bending styles. A melee magician was not a thing they were prepared to face!

"[Boost!]" And then Elze zoomed past me and began wrecking faces. Whump. Shortly half of them were planted face down in the ground.

"[Come forth, Water! Rain of frozen stones, [Hard Hail!]" Linze shouted out.

"[Multi-Track!]"

With Monika's assistance, hailstones were precisely applied to people's heads to knock them out. Along with the samurai girl's own efforts, the rest of the thugs were down and out.

I breathed in and out. The battle didn't even get my pulse up as far as usual. Odd as it felt, I had no fear or regret fighting normal humans compared to monsters. They just weren't a threat compared to the things we've been fighting. It almost felt like bullying.

Except that they had this coming. As I said before, the Golden Rule. Don't whine to me if you end up being treated the same way you were abusing others.

"Woops." It was only then we could realize the devastation we had caused.

Rock pillars poking out of the flagstone road, plaster walls cracked by thugs and water whips crashing against them. Footprints were punched into the city street. Cracked pieces of ice littered all over the place.

"I'm not paying for this," I mentioned. "Let's skedaddle!"

And so we fled the crime scene, fast and forthwith. The samurai girl followed us.

-x-

-o-

We only stopped when we were in the safety of some obscure alley.

"Y-you okay?" I asked. "Everyone okay?"

We panted for breath, and then began to introduce ourselves.

"Thank you for your assistance. Truly, I am in your debt. My name is Kokonoe Yae… ah, yes. My apologies, Yae is my given name and Kokonoe is my family name, that it is."

"Oh! Are you from Eashen?" Linze asked. "Um, I'm Linze Silhoueska… and this is my sister-"

"I am Elze."

"Silhoueska is our family name," Linze finished.

Yae bowed slightly. "Indeed I am from Eashan, that I am. I am honored to meet you, Elze-san, Linze-san." Then Yae stared up at me quizzically.

I grinned. "Then I am Zah Playa Von Chara, Von Chara being my family name, Zah Playa my own name." I poked at my own chest with a white-gloved thumb. "You may refer to me a Playa-san… easier to say than Zah-san, eh, Kokonoe-san?"

"This is happening. This is really happening isn't it? We are going max weeaboo. I was dreading it, but I knew this would someday happen."

"Ah! You understand the rules of Eashan speech? It is indeed an honor to meet you Playa-sa-" Yae bowed and said and but then suddenly -

"GRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOWWWL!"

We looked around to find out where that noise was coming from, and then realized that it was coming from Yae's stomach. She was frozen, mortified, in a half-bow. Her hungry stomach betrayed her by grumbling again.

I laughed weakly and scratched at my cheek. "Aheheh… why don't we continue this somewhere else? It's always better to do this thing over a spread of munchies."

"No, no, I would not dare!" Yae replied swiftly. "Though it shames me to say that I lost my travel funds on the way here, I could not possibly place myself any more in your debt, my apologies, I cannot!"

She held her palms out open as if to push us away. Then her stomach growled again.

She looked away, cheeks puffed out in embarrassment.

"Eheheh, no big. We haven't eaten yet since we've arrived either. Things like this happen. No need to feel embarrassed, we've all been there at some point along our travels. Let's go eat something and trade stories like the daring travelers that we are!"

"Said the city boy."

"Which one among us here had any real experience with air travel, eh? Eh?" I turned around, leaned facing the wall and mumbled under my breath.

"I am fairly sure flying first class doesn't count anywhere as any sort of adventurous travel."

"Being audacious with your wallet is also a part of experience!" I shouted out to nowhere.

Elze sighed and beckoned to Yae. "Just go along with it. He's a weirdo but he doesn't mean any harm."

-x-

-o-

We found a high-class place that served buffet-style. We were seated around a large table that normally sat six, and every bit of it was filled with food of all kinds. There were meats and breads and soups and skewers and salads and things that were salty and crunchy and things that were soft and creamy, and all sorts of seafood and vegetables and fruits.

A discreet question to the waiter answered that it was also an eat-all-you can, within limits, and it would cost us three silver. Thirty copper, or thirty percent of a gold coin, and equivalent about 270 USD. It was… not the most expensive meal I've ever seen, but it certainly had all the others beat in sheer amount.

It could possibly be worth it if your stomach could contain that much grilled crabs, and Yae was making a good try of it. She was gulping down food with every other word out of her mouth, and while Elze and Linze boggled at first now they were just happily enjoying their own meal talking with Yae about her home and Eashen and her long journey all the way to Belfast.

"So you're on a journey to make yourself stronger?" Elze asked. "A warrior's journey?"

"Yes… (nom nom) that is so. Mine has been a warrior family for generation, we have. My elder brother is to inherit the house, and so I have left in a journey to improve my skills. Yes, that is so."

"Whoa, that sounds rough! You're quite considerate for your family, huh?" Elze had a somewhat starstruck gaze. Unlike her and Linze, who left home for money, Yae had a much more purer and more heroic motive.

There was also the delight in how there was apparently no problem in women in Eashen being expected to be strong on their own rights. In Belfast, if you're not a noble and in training to be a knight, or an adventurer, a strong woman was no lady. Society disapproved, as much as it subtly disapproved of adventurers as an unruly lot even with how completely necessary they were for their society's existence.

"A rurouni, eh? A wandering swordswoman?" I said. "You are very very far from Eashan. It's an island on the opposite side of the continent, isn't it? How long did it take to get here?"

"(nom nom nom) It hash been… less than half a year? I took a ship to the Knight Kingdom of Leshea and sought to know more about their swords. It was most interesting to discover the difference in fighting with longswords and in full armor, that it was. Then I boarded a ship to pass through the Great Gao River to arrive here."

I nodded. "I suppose long straight arming swords are useful, but not really exceptional in any particular angle. I imagine you would aim for weak points in their armor or tire them out, but in the end I've found swords of all kinds were pretty weak against plate." I raised my hands and made some swinging gestures, "... even those two-handed swords mostly rely on blunt force to batter the person inside the armor."

"Yeah, but plate is expensive, isn't it? If you're fighting against a noble you've got bigger problems than just trying to get through their armor." Elze had a faintly mischievous expression on her face, because she knew her own blunt force punches was the best way to cave in some idiot's expensive chestplate.

Unless there was protection magic applied to it, but really even that could be overcome with enough force.

"You did not draw your sword, Playa-san. But from what I can see… is that similar to a nagamaki?"

"Correct, Miss Kokonoe. An anti-cavalry weapon, but with a less curved blade that could still be used for thrusting."

Yae nibbled down on fried breaded shrimps and nodded. "You know much about Eashen… have you not visited it before?"

"Well there's still nothing like hearing things from a native. A lot of what I know is from really old stories, you know?" I gestured towards Elze and Linze. "We have never gone to the East, so hearing things from you about all you've seen heading West is also terribly new to us."

"Yes, please continue," Linze added.

"Yes, player. Things you learned off anime are not exactly reliable."

Hey, now. That's not the main source of my information. That would be Shogun: Total War.

And then while the girls resumed conversing, a waiter approached and softly asked me about what more I would like to order. He apologetically noted that the restaurant will have to start charging for extra dishes. I had a feeling he was wondering if we had the money for what we had already eaten, and I reassured him that we could cover it.

Yae was now speaking of the warrior's philosophy she was taught by her father: train as hard as you can, eat as much as possible when able – this is the road to strength!

Well he wasn't wrong.

I asked the waiter to bring out some low-alcohol wine. We were adventurers, there was no such thing as age limits for drinking here.

If the girls ever heard of the price of what we were having they would probably have thought it nothing short of robbery, which really begged the question how could this town have so much economic activity for this and yet have a public crime problem?

Well, that was not my problem.

Well that was what I thought, until we noticed a commotion by the entrance. A group of people in dingy old breastplates and leather were arguing with the restaurant staff, until one of them – wearing civilian clothes – pointed towards us. That person then decided to leave quickly as the town guards approached our table.

Because this was a high-class restaurant, we were obliged to leave our weapons to the care of the restaurant's storage room. This also meant that we couldn't just cut and run.

Elze's hands tightened into fists, and she placed her palms under the table's edge ready to flip it over for cover. Yae's expression gradually shifted from caution to outright horror, and she began to chow down even faster while keeping her attention on Elze.

-x-

-o-

The town guards swaggered over to us. The waiters and attendants of the restaurant moved instead to soothe the other patrons of the restaurant about the disturbance.

One of the town guards, a broad-faced man with a rough mustache and stubble chin, pulled at an empty chair and pushed it over towards our table. He sat on it, facing backwards, and grabbed a chicken leg off the spread.

He munched on the meat and then pointed with the bone at Yae, "I remember you. Didn't I tell you to keep out of trouble? I see you've found yerself a whole new set of troublemakers."

Yae frowned slightly. "They were the ones to accost me, what was I supposed to do? It was self-defense, that it was."

"I'm not talking about some little crooks. You should just have ran away instead of makin' a show of it! Violence is not a solution to everything!" and then he pointed at me, "And you… what's your excuse?"

I smiled. "It was crazy, officer! There were these idiots who just wouldn't let us go until we allowed them to run their faces into our fists! Repeatedly!"

He scoffed. "A joker, huh? You'll find we have no patience for jokes in this here parts. No one asked you to butt in, you lot did more damage to the town than anyone."

"They were threatening to do things to Yae!" Elze shouted out. "You can't blame us from DOING YOUR JOB FOR YOU! What sort of town guards are you anyway? Where were you when all of this was happening?"

"Hey, what we know is what we can do about. If rascals want to rumble in the streets, that's not something we can fix until someone tells us so we can go there! You know how big this town is? We were actually just about to get there when you lot just all decided to run away! Don't you play dumb now, there's lots a' people who saw you fighting recklessly in this here good town!"

"Hmm? Why is damage to the town more important than criminals accosting people out on the street?"

Monika pulled up relevant info about town guards. When thinking about town guards, what immediately leapt to mind was Sir Terry Pratchett's novels about the City Watch of Ankh-Morpork in Discworld.

"But that itself was inspired by the Rembrandt Van Rjin's painting of the Night Watch, which itself was commissioned by Captain Banning Cocq and seventeen members of his Kloveniers – civic militia guards! So… town guards might not actually be directly employed by the local lord or mayor!"

She looked at the town guards. "Yet volunteer militia would certainly be better dressed, better equipped, and better motivated for crime prevention. I think maybe they're less police officers than the more structured protection racket of the local government."

Wait.. that brought up a strange idea. Could… could the whole thing actually have been staged, and the town guard were about to swoop in and show themselves being all protectors of the peace? The deliberately leaked Yae's location as bait as an excuse to show off and gleefully and justifiably break some heads? Remind the shopkeepers about how much they were 'needed', maybe?

I shrugged. "So what's the problem?"

"The problem is that you used magic in town. That's against the law. You damaged town property! And that's gots its penalty!"

"One could also argue that being under fear for our lives, NOT resorting to magic would have been dumb as hell going four against about, what, ten armed and hostile criminals? Criminals who had some strange courage to commit such violence in the middle of the day, threatening rape and death, and people were just watching interested at seeing a young girl beaten down."

Then I shook my head sadly. "I do not have much sympathy for this town."

"Who needs yer worthless sympathy? Two gold penalty for ye," and he looked at the girls, "each of ye, or ye spend a month in the clink!"

"Ha! Good lu-"

I reached under the table and patted Elze's knee to keep her from resorting to violence. She glared at me, pop-eyed, from the side. I shook my head gently. We did not actually have the budget to pay for an interesting restaurant floor fight scene with tables and plates and fleeing diners flying all over the place.

I had a thing against ruining other people's honest business for no good reason. I was always on the side of the poor innkeeper on those kung-fu movies and wished they had a decent bouncer to toss these hot-headed idiots out on the street.

"I guess that just leaves one question, then…" I reached into my chest pocket and flashed my purple Adventurer's Guild card. "Am I being detained?"

Monika groaned and palmed her face.

The town guard tsk'ed. "Just like I figured. You lot always think you can get away with anything. Just a Purple? Don't get too full of yourself, boy."

"There's nothing wrong with taking free legal advocacy that comes with being a duly licensed adventurer. The Guild does not usually interfere, but that doesn't mean they can't be asked to intervene. Some of us choose to follow laws as much as possible – and expect that the law treat us fairly as well."

"Just for that, it's three gold and if not we're bringing ya in right now!"

I raised my gloved hand up, still urging Elze or Yae not to move. The town guard flinched a bit, but then there was that flash of eagerness passing across his face?

I held that pose for several long agonizing seconds. I measured how much hassle it would be to just fight our way out of this joint. The guards had their hands on their swords and bent down slightly ready to move, but as the seconds passed no one budged.

I stared at the guard in front of me, meeting his eyes with the blankness of my own plastic-shelled visage until I could see him sweat. His face broke open in a contemptuous sneer.

"You… you don't even actually want to do that, do you?" I murmured. "You want me to swing the first punch…!"

I closed my raised right hand to one pointing finger. "[Playback], please."

Then I had Monika replay the recording of what he had just said for the past thirty seconds. The sneer slowly faded from his face as he realized we had some magic to accurately replay events as evidence to his own superiors. Null magic was personal magic, it was not something they could stop just from denying access to magic stone.

"Oh. Right! I forgot, you did say you could perfectly remember and repeat again everything you could see and hear!" Elze gushed out melodramatically.

All the way back at the start, I had asked for and read the Guild guidebook. Reflet Guildhouse was happy to assist, it was always good to see new adventurers treating their new career seriously.

There was actually a very strong precedent for this and helped to protect the Guild's neutrality across different nations. Trumped-up charges was the best way for local lords to try make adventurers 'learn their place', until they learn that the adventurer they were hassling just so happened to have strong ties to an army or well capable of blasting through their town walls all on their own.

The Guild usually did not interfere with their adventurers unless what they were doing impacted the reputation of the guild as a whole. It actually turned out that local puissant lords thinking they could push around the guild and threaten adventurers was a threat to their neutrality. If their kings had already granted the Guild their grace to operate, from where do these petty tyrants get their arrogance?

Adventuring was also an old past-time of royals sending their sons to more directly gauge the mood of the populace and ferret out malingering lords. As the history of the Adventurer's Guild stated, not just a few adventurers became nobles in their own right, even kings. The monarch of a certain northern neutral kingdom was even a Guild Grandmaster.

"Is it just because we're adventurers? Do remember that there is nothing that prevents nobles and royalty from becoming adventurers as well, town guard. I know that you don't know who I am, so let me just ask you this – are you feeling lucky?"

I smiled thinly. You want to hassle me with legalese for dealing with your job of failing to keep the peace from criminals in your own town? Then be prepared for me to hassle you back with politics.

"Feth!" he spat aside. "You adventurers are all the reason we have this problem in the first place! You all think you can just walk into town and cause trouble? We have to live with the mess you all leave behind!"

"I would normally be much more sympathetic with the damage we caused, but really it's a good reminder that there are some people whom stupid untrained criminals can't just push around. If they had any real strength, they'd have been adventurers instead."

He grit his teeth. Implied of course, was that anyone with any real strength would be an adventurer instead of a mere town guard.

"So what if we're just town guards? You're going up the whole of Amanesque! You're just another criminal if you try to fight us!"

"And if I actually don't, you're just another crooked servant trying to steal good coin from their lord by under-reporting income from fines! I get to spend time in jail and get this whole thing made into a scandal for your master and then win money from him! You get to lose your head!"

I laced my fingers together in a Gendo pose and grinned. "Some property damage is nothing compared to evading your lord's rightful dues! I think we should be talking about how much you should be paying me to keep silent about this instead."

"You…! You won't get away with this!"

"Wait, why have the roles seem to have reversed so suddenly?"

I kept pushing. "You won't get away with lying about anything, town's man. That eight gold you're trying to extort from me, I could pay a whole lot of adventurers and barristers to swarm this town instead. You know you don't have the personal strength to bring me in, and if you wake up the knights they're not going to thank you for it.

You're vastly overstating the damage you're using as an excuse for this. I could easily prove that it was nothing more than some broken flagstones on the road and some scratches on the wall. That would be trivial to fix even by the shop guilds nearby. Why don't we go talk to the actual magistrates about the proper fines, hmm?"

"Oh, I get it. All of this – it's a provocation. It's funny, maybe they actually were going to try to frame you or scam you through the Guild but you accidentally used their very own tactic against them first!"

He scowled back at me for a few long moments, and I feared we'd have to resort to violence anyway.

But then he spat at the floor. "…. feh. I've no time for this noise. Lord Klass is nae impressed with any dang adventurers, you'll see. But I'm not gonna be stupid enough to get his attention, it's always in a bad way."

He seemed to weigh the risks of me making some official ruckus versus the ruckus he wanted to get. Without a wrecked restaurant, he wouldn't have as much excuse for the hefty fines and the pleasure for seeing us on the rack. Once outside, adventurers would be far more easily able to overpower them, escape, and leave town with minimal damage. Just some adventurers roughing up the town guards... that was not worth the knights' time, making them chase down some miscreants on command.

The tail should not wag the dog.

He grabbed at a sandwich and motioned for the other guards to start plundering our table as well. "Count yerself lucky it's too late in the evening for me to bother dragging all of youse all the way down town!"

"Yes, that certainly is a believable excuse not to do anything," I replied neutrally.

The town guard snorted again, and then spat out a glob of phlegm at my face. "Wind," I uttered. The snot-ball was deflected off to the side. A waiter yelped out in disgust and dismay at the stain on his uniform.

"Whatever, boy. I'll be watching you. One more step out of line, and I'm tossing you into a cell, see if I don't!"

"We're just passing through, we'll be out of your hair by tomorrow." Or what's left of it, I didn't say. "And if we do meet again, I will remember you too."

Grumbling, they left the restaurant. They took whole dishes with them, and I meant including the dishes. They could probably pawn those off somewhere too.

"Honestly, such ruffians!" the waiter snorted in their wake. He glanced at our purple card and his nostrils dilated in barely-disguised disdain, but a Purple could become a Red or Silver eventually (and thus earn far more). A town guard would always be just another trumped-up commoner.

I exhaled roughly and slumped in my seat.

… yeah, this place needed a Sir Samuel Vimes far more than it needed a Batman.

-x-

-o-

Yae looked with some awe at the card that made the lawman just go away. Wandering heroes usually had problems with corrupt lawmen, because fighting back from corrupt charges would turn them into criminals. Why would the local lord believe some random stranger over their own insider?

"That was still a stupid plan, Player, because what would you have done if he called your bluff? I know you won't risk being put in jail where they would risk taking me from your face…" Monika hissed through clenched, nervous teeth. "Though I guess there really isn't anything anyone can do if we just decided to blast and run. There may be plenty of other stronger adventurers than us, but probably none of them can FLY.

"It would still be very unscrupulous and cowardly though. I think the girls would have been very disappointed in you."

I was not so sure about that. I had a strong feeling Elze would enjoy the infamy. I agreed that it would have been much simpler to pay them off, but setting a precedent like that… well, what sort of person do I want to become? It is one thing to obey the law, it is another to mistake petty functionaries as the law.

If I allowed myself to be intimidated by just that, then how could I expect to stand up to greater evils? I wore the face of a man who sought to topple whole governments, and for all his faults one could not say Char was not brave in the face of overwhelming odds.

Besides, they're not getting any of my damn hard-earned money! I was willing to pay taxes just fine. With them I buy civilization. Corruption can just bite my ass!

My attention pulled back to what Yae was saying. "We have heard of the Guild cards even at Eashen. In some ways, I am traveling because of the tales told in my homeland about adventurers, that is so."

"There's no Guild at Eashen?" I asked.

"There is no such thing nor any need for it. Lords and town councils post bounties sometimes, but the ronin have no protections, they do not."

I nodded. This was why the Guild would have great difficulty expanding into Eashen, the local lords would not see any good incentive to diluting their authority.

Linze hesitantly commented "I think that was kind of mean, Sir Zah. They were just doing their jobs."

"Were they? I'm not sure…" I said with frown. "I have a strange feeling there's something deeper going on here, a rich town like this should not be having troubles out in the street. Lack of peace is not a problem with the town guard, it's a point of shame for the mayor or the lord in charge. This sort of thing… should not be happening at all."

Crime gangs actually taking territory would ironically also manage to keep the peace. Swaggering toughs like from earlier would swiftly be taken out, no one gets to challenge them on their own turf. If Yae had caused trouble in, say, a Yakuza or Mafia place – they wouldn't make such a public display out of it. That's just exposing their shame.

The case to recover their standing would only have been once they found her broken mutilated body in the morning.

Adventurers should not be a problem, since competent crime syndicates would seek to recruit adventurers into their ranks. Even the police force should have retired adventurers too.

No, this place made no sense on both on the criminal and the legal level. What drives a ruffian flash mob, really? Maybe there was some cultural imperative in this other world that I was missing.

But even if this place was some fantasy Gotham, it was still not my problem. I magicked some ice cubes onto the red wine on my glass and swirled it around before taking a few thoughtful sips. We had a job to do.

Why was that waiter cringing at me? What, is something wrong with putting ice on red wine?

"So what's your plan going from here? You said earlier that you wanted to head to the capital…?" Elze asked Yae.

"Yes, there is someone in this country's capital who did a great deal of help to my father in the past. I was considering going to meet this person myself, this is so."

"Then why not come with us? We're actually heading for the city ourselves for a quest. There's still room in the wagon, and that would be easier for you too, right?"

"Truly?" Yae perked up. "In truth I could not ask for a more appealing offer, but…" She looked hesitantly towards me, "are you truly fine with someone like myself?"

"Elze, a word if you please?"

"Sure."

We both stood up and went over to stand next to a wall. There, I whispered to her hurriedly "What are you thinking?!"

"What's wrong? We're headed the same way, and I think it would be useful to have another fighter in the group. Linze ends up being unprotected when we both end up charging in."

"That… is a valid point," I had to agree. "But my point is that with bringing along a stranger Monika can't talk openly with us anymore. I won't force her to shut up, not again."

Elze tilted her head to the side. "Why not? Why can't she just keep on talking openly with us?"

"Why? Because…"

Huh.

"I don't think Miss Monika needs to hide herself at all!" Elze added. "Yes, it would look crazy to be talking no one, but it's slightly less crazy when that no one is answering back instead of just talking to yourself. Miss Monika sounds like a spirit following you around, and if she's a spirit then no one will think there's anything of her that they can steal…"

Then she pointed at my face, "and if they try anyway, they're going to be trying all the wrong things to capture a spirit!"

That… that was a very good point, actually.

Running through the possible arguments in my head, it sounded like I was just being selfish trying to keep her to myself and as few I dared let into my inner circle of friends than trying to protect her.

"Good job, Elze. You certainly convinced me," said Monika.

I put my hands on her shoulders and sighed, bowing slightly. "Thank you. Thank you, Elze. You're such a good friend."

"Y-yeeeees. That is certainly why I'm doing this. Yup."

"We've discussed it, and it would be our honor to have you as a companion." I made a little waving gesture towards Linze, because she was giving me a doubtful look probably just as concerned about the issue I had raised with Elze earlier. "It's fine, we'll deal with all problems as they arise."

"Thank you, Playa-san, it is indeed an honor to join you as well, it is."

"We should leave as early as possible," Elze added. "Where are you staying?"

"I was… planning on staying under the stars tonight?" She didn't look away, but firmly matched our gazes. She didn't have a penny to her name, but she would not be ashamed of it either.

"Unacceptable," I replied instantly. "Look, let's all take the same inn. It will be safer that way."

"It's dangerous to sleep outside by yourself," Linze muttered slowly.

"No, not at all. I could not possibly place myself even more in your debt, I could not. I do not wish to impose." Even if we tried to lend her any money she would just refuse to take it. It was less stubborn pride as much stubborn self-reliance… she was still a samurai daughter, after all. Putting herself in someone else's debt curtailed her freedom.

I shook my head. Maybe there was a way to speak to her sense of values. "I know how to manage a mercenary company-"

"… well I guess that is something that you could indeed say, MechCommander," Monika interrupted with a mocking grin.

"… and it is my responsibility that every member of my unit is combat-ready. The comfort of a good sleep is the most basic of my obligations. Don't try to fight me on this, I won't have any of us at anything less than full fighting strength. If you try to sleep outside the walls, that's splitting our forces."

Never split the party. Never. It doesn't matter if you're adventurers or a lance of BattleMechs. Concentrate force and cover each other's sixes!

"Being an adventurer is nice," Elze noted. "You get to fight strong enemies of all sorts and you get paid for it. We could show you how to register once we reach the capital, if you'd like. The Guild doesn't really expect much from its adventurers, you know – there's no oath of loyalty or anything. It's actually very simple!"

"That… does sound appealing, yes it does." Yae looked at me for a few long moments. "Very well, I will obey the needs of our battle plan, Playa-san. I understand when we must move under one command, that I do."

The restaurant vastly overcharged us for the trouble we brought in, of course, but I was happy enough to pay that. At least they provided a tangible good for us to enjoy.

-x-

-o-

"You haveta pay an exit toll!" the gate guard said with a heavy scowl, and several others around him laid their hands on the hilt of their swords.

I nodded and replied "Four bottles of house wine from Petrov's Place." I brought out four wine bottles from last night's restaurant, all securely bound together by rope.

The guards looked at each other, and the one on the far left shrugged. Sure, money would be the norm but there were things that even their money would usually not buy due to the merchants refusing to do business with people who looked too scruffy.

"Good enough," the guard in front of us accepted the bribe. Yae urged the horse forward. Elze and Linze sat at the back, our baggage mainly packed restaurant take-out in magic ice boxes.

And that was how we safely left Amanesque very early in the morning.

"I was really worried we'd have to fight through all the town guards and then anger the local lord and then have to fight through his forces until we needed break through into his manor and hold him hostage and then afterwards have to deal with bounty hunters."

If we had been the typical hot-headed egotistical adventurers, that might have happened. They might have had fun watching the knights, who trained specifically to defeat other humans than monsters, beat us down.

Phft. But I am like Jackie Chan and I don't want no trabble. Who has time for that bullshit? Now here I am, free and clear to enjoy my life as I wish, and none of us are wanted criminals.

"Monika, might makes right escalation only works when there's no centralized power or authority like a King or an Emperor to force lesser nobles to at least pay lip service to certain bounds of decency or common law. Failure to keep the peace also makes them lose face from being unable to control their own subjects. Don't meet force with force, meet force with blackmail."

Yae eeped and started looking around. "What was that just now?!"

-x-

-x-

- end The More the Merrier end -