"Who the f*ck let giant wolves inside town?!"
An angry voice was heard from outside the guild's door. Hearing this, Ein quickly stood up and ran outside. Since it mentioned wolves, the voice was probably referring to their pet wolves.
After Ein reached the door, he saw the scene to the side of the guild and almost laughed.
The three wolves were still sitting down the same way they did when he left them. However, in front of them, there were idiots holding sharp-bladed weapons who had their heads buried under the ground. Their feet stick out high towards the sky, like plants growing upward from the gravel.
There's now a field of about a dozen or so human flowers praising the sky. The last man was shaking in his boots as he faced the three seated wolves. The man, noticing Ein's appearance, quickly ordered
"Hey! You! Quickly call the guards and have them kill these wolves!" he shouted in his panic-stricken voice.
Ein, instead of listening to him, surveyed the surroundings. Many of the passersby were snickering as they pointed at the group. Without even straining his ears, he heard the actual events from the gossip all around him.
The group tried to surround the three wolves, claiming that the wolves were wild and needed to be eliminated. Thinking that three domesticated wolves were easy prey for dozens of them, they attacked without hesitation, only to instead be planted into the ground. Their leader, who ordered the other guys to attack, was the only one left standing since he stayed put during the whole ordeal. All his underlings were buried in an instant.
Ein, after hearing the whole story, slowly came to the poor guy and said, "Sorry, but those are my wolves."
As he spoke, the three wolves who stayed sitting down quickly moved to Ein's side. Seeing this, the man gave a surprised look before a wicked grin appeared on his face.
"Your pets injured my poor and innocent party members! You should pay us for the damage you caused!" he claimed hysterically. "Don't worry, we won't take much. Just about 1,000 gold for each of us is fine."
Ein just learned the value of money a little bit earlier as they were ordering food from the guild. There, he learned that a family could usually spend a year peacefully with 60 gold coins to spend. In short, this guy just wants to claim an exorbitantly large amount as compensation.
Unfortunately for him, Ein wasn't really spending his time just waiting and eating.
"Adventurer's Guild Code Section 12 Article 5-c. In case of killing a fellow adventurer, whether intended or not, they will need to pay 10 gold to the family of the deceased," Ein recited. "In short, if I just kill you guys, I'll be spending 100 times less money, right?"
"What the f*ck are you on about, huh?! If you don't pay us 1,000 gold each, we'll be teaching you what pain is instead!" The man shouted.
"Really... Adventurer's Guild Code Section 1 Article 3: All conflicts between guild members are under the surveillance of the guild. Unless the conflict leads to damage to public facilities or threatens the innocent, the local authorities do not have the right to interfere."
Ein recited another line from the Guild's code. However, even after hearing this, the man seemed to not even realize that Ein was threatening him.
"Are you deaf?! You wanna die?!" The man instead threatened Ein.
Ein himself was confused. 'Where did all his bravado come from? Is it that he has backup coming for him? If there were, would they make it in time to save this guy?' Ein didn't want to wait and see anymore.
"Let him join the others." Ein quietly ordered the wolves.
The three wolves quickly moved, and in the blink of an eye, another human flower was added to the field. Ein, after petting the wolves' heads in appreciation, returned inside the guild and sat back down at their table.
"What's going on outside?" Melina asked, curious.
"Nothing. Just some idiots playing with my wolves," Ein replied offhandedly. "They even donated some coins for us," he added as he piled up the coin pouches he got after picking them off the guys outside.
However, as he expected, they only had copper coins in their purses. Even if Ein added them all, it wasn't even enough to cover the food and drinks Ein and the two had ordered earlier.
As he felt that it wasn't enough compensation for the trouble, he instead pulled down their pants to display their junk to passersby. The humiliation they would receive should be enough to deter them from doing such things again... Or so Ein thought.
...
Night came, and the adventurers' guild got busier and busier. The empty guild slowly became overflowing with vitality, like a market during the day.
With more people, more gossip could be heard here and there. Ein, Nayta, and Melina, who were all wearing deep hoods to hide their faces, were gleaning information from the surrounding voices.
"Mythril Flag did it again! They managed to take down the Cyclops Lord!"
"Have you heard? A noble was attacked by the gates."
"Noble? Who cares about that? Rather than that, I heard some elves come by today. It's pretty rare to see elves nowadays; I hope I can see them later."
"Raven finally ranked up to A-rank, I heard. Our guild finally has a real A-ranker."
"You guys saw the wolves outside? Wonder who owns them?"
"Yeah, but rather than the wolves, I was more amazed by those Poison Fang guys. Seeing them like that gave me a good laugh."
"Yeah, those rotten bastards got what they deserved."
"I heard Poison Fang's leader is coming back tomorrow. I wonder how that wench will react to this? Hahaha!"
"The guys outside would be dead for sure. Hahaha!"
More than half of the gossip going around currently is related to the three. Still, there was some useful information here and there. Like how the guild only has A-rank as their highest strength or that there's a group called Mythril Flag that was able to take down a strong-sounding monster, to the fact that the guys Ein took care of were part of the Poison Fang Group and that their leader was coming back tomorrow.
After spending a few more hours listening to the voices around him, Ein finally determined that in the whole city, only a handful had battle power reaching A-rank and that no one had reached S-rank.
Ein was already satisfied with his current gains. However, by the time he noticed it, the outside of the guild was already veiled in darkness. The ones left inside were adventurer parties celebrating their successful quests and those who returned from their expedition.
"Nayta, Melina, let's go and look for... an inn..." Ein, who was just about to stand up, noticed the two were slumped on the table. They were dead drunk and fast asleep.
Ein didn't notice how the two were following his pace of drinking. Since the beer he ordered was lukewarm and honestly didn't taste really good, he just downed one tankard after another in a single chug. He was drinking it like it was plain water.
Nayta and Melina, who did the same, were downed about a dozen tankards later. They fell face down on the table about an hour before Ein noticed. He just shook his head as he stood up, paid for their total with a single gold coin, and carried the two on both sides.
After going outside and admiring the still-standing field of idiots, he loaded the two elves on a wolf's back. Then, after riding the last one, they slowly paced around the town in search of an inn. Since he also had wolves with him, he looked for an inn with a large enough stable. However, after searching around for a few minutes, he still didn't find one.
Leaving him with no choice, Ein turned around and headed towards the guild again. There, he asked the receptionist about some inns with a large enough stable. After getting the direction, Ein quickly returned to the wolves and set off.
The inn was large, and beside it was a really large stable with a lot of horses and carriages parked. However, just a single glance at it would let others know that it's a high-class inn. Ein was worried that he didn't have enough gold on hand but was told that he had enough for one room with a double bed and a single bed.
Having no choice, he took the room and quickly rested the two on the double bed. Ein then went down and led the wolves to the stable, where they stayed in a far corner away from the horses to avoid scaring them.
After everything was done, Ein returned to the room they rented. There, he used a small stand and hung a canvas from the tent to act as a curtain between the two beds. After confirming that the two were already asleep, Ein too laid down and tried to close his eyes and rest.
However, as if he were the main character in a detective novel, trouble keeps happening around Ein. Just a few minutes after lying down, the sound of glass being broken followed by a shrill scream was heard, and it was coming from the room right above theirs.