I feel the knife collide with him and can feel him step back from the strength I put into the strike. But what I didn't expect was that he was able to move his shield fast enough to put it in the way.
Disheartened, I know that this match is over and call it, shaking Gavins hand as he was able to guard well against me. I feel slightly depressed as I know that while I learnt to fight, this world takes it a lot more seriously than I might have before.
Shortlisting Gavins group as a possibility I move onto the next three groups, each with similar outcomes. Against the ranger I was able to almost dodge the arrows aimed at me, but I came out with bruises instead for thinking I could succeed in dodging them more than once by luck and against a buff guy who focused on heavy weapons I managed to fight equally but being unable to block I never got in any sort of hit as I didn't want any broken bones by the end of the test.
Loreena seems slightly impressed that I could hold my own in some cases as I suppose I showed that I'd be able to fight and probably beat an Iron rank member with a bit of a struggle, I suppose she saw me originally as some weaker merchant who had more wealth than strength.
In the end I select two parties as my favourites and consider hiring both for a total of 15 mercenaries, one being a group of 6 with Gavin leading them and the other group being the remaining 9 led by a woman named Bimaya Farpetor who seemed to prefer relaying her thoughts through another woman in her group rather than talk to me directly.
In total the two groups have 11 males and 4 females, 3 of the girls coming from Bimayas party called Madshields. With a force this strong, I should at least survive the trip to a safer, more populated are right?
I'm left with the final question, do I find a stronger party to guard me, or do I keep these people? These groups will take most of my money eventually, but if I hire a better party I could go further depending on what happens.
After inquiring, apparently there is little need for parties above Silver to even show up when trouble occurs usually, so having two Steel parties is probably safe enough.
Afterwards the two parties I kept are gathered in the courtyard again.
"You might all be wondering, so I will begin to answer you. I am Emyr Esgynnwr, This is my younger sister Elyn Esgynnwr. For a few different reasons we find ourselves away from our homeland and wish to return. Hence I need to hire reliable and skilled people such as yourselves. The time of employment will be undecided but you will be paid the same wage all the time.
My only rules are that Elyn is to be protected before me, and that everything you do while employed by me is under my name. This also means you must respect my name or face a penalty. While I'm not against drinking, I will take it as a personal offence should someone run around like an idiot when they are working for me. As well as that, anything gained from working with me, will be given to me, and I shall give a bonus based on the task. You are bodyguards, and will guard me as such, killing my enemies such as monsters means you get paid a bonus, that doesn't mean you can take the rewards off my enemy without my approval even if I require help harvesting things.
As long as these are terms you can abide by, we can negotiate how much each person gets paid before writing up a contact that this guild can help enforce should the need arise."
I notice everyone seems to be a bit dumbfounded with me talking about conditions only for Loreena to walk over and whisper to me. At the same time Elyn drags me slightly away from Loreena as if not wanting me to get close to her.
"The guild already is treating this as a bodyguard request and most of what you said has already been mentioned to them before, Sir."
I stop for a moment realising how stupid I must have sounded while looking so confident.