“What’s your secret?” Balthazar whispered to himself. “How are you getting in their good graces so easily, you ugly green croaker?”

  The grudge-filled crab peered through his spygss once more, his mouth twisted into a frown as he observed the toad across the road, sitting atop her booth, cheerfully chatting it up with a pair of adventurers.

  He had twisted and turned inside his shell, rag his brain trying to figure out what could possibly be her trick to wiupid humans favor so easily, but nothing made sense.

  A spell, a magical item, some hidden skill. He couldn’t figure out a sure answer for it, and it was only riling him up even more.

  Adventurers were barely even stopping by his bazaar since she arrived, and if Balthazar did not figure something out quick, his tele would be reduced to nothing.

  “How dare she?!” he grumbled, dug behind a boulder to make sure none of them saw him spying. “Setting up business right outside a busy area to take advantage of the passing adventurers in order to trade junk at a profit. That’s just dirty!” The crab snapped his right pincer angrily. “That was my whole shtick!”

  Raising his eye stalks over the rock, Balthazar checked if the two adventurers were still there.

  “Thanks, Hea!”

  “See you ter, have a nice day!” the adventurers yelled, waving at the toad as they left.

  “Bye, dears. Be safe out there,” the dy toad said.

  “Pfft, they never wish me a nice day when they leave,” the crab begrudged.

  Just as soon as the other two walked away, a new adventurer came down the road, strolling her way from the town gates.

  “Damn it, they just don’t stop ing today, do they?” Balthazar pined, bringing the spygss back up to one of his eyes. “e on, e on. Maybe this one will ignore her and turn this way.”

  The crab’s hopes were swiftly dashed as the amphibian mert called out to the human adventurer, and, much to his dismay, the woman stopped and approached her.

  Balthazar groaned and rolled his eye stalks before fog ba his spygss.

  The adventurer wore long, fancy vestments of multiple folds and colors. She did not look like the fighting type, so Balthazar’s guess leaowards a magical type, and oh deep pockets, judging by her attire and accessories.

  Ihan a mihe two of them were already happily chug away at each other like they were old friends exging the test juicy gossip.

  “She’s a slimy frog, and you just met her!” the incredulous and exasperated crab excimed to no ohat could hear him. “How are you already so cozy with her?!”

  Redoubling his attention, Balthazar watched as the toad said something he could not hear from the distance he was at and then pulled her Bag of Holding up onto the ter. Propping the bag open, she peered into it and with a suddenquient shot her long tongue i.

  “What the…”

  With another quick move, the toad pulled her tongue bad stuck to the tip of it came a blue potion bottle, which she skillfully pced on the wooden surface.

  The adventurer was smiling and nodding as she retrieved a few gold s from her purse and pced them in front of the toad. She said something unintelligible and took the mana potion.

  “Eww, her sticky tongue was just toug that!” the disgusted crab said. “But then they look at me sideways frabbing a cookie with the same pihat was ting their money. Who uand these idiots?”

  Just as with all the others, the adventurer waved at the toad as they said their goodbyes, all smiles and ies.

  “Bye-bye, honey! Good luck with your butterfly colle,” Hea said to the woman as she walked down the road.

  Balthazar felt his stomach turn. Even with the high tolerance for sweetness he had built up through copious amounts of pastries, there was only so much he could take before feeling sick.

  “Bh! How she keep that act up so well?” he asked, throwing his to in disgust. “Pretend to care and like them like that? How is she not barfing up yet?”

  He looked through the spygss again, sizing up her market stall. It was simple, not very big, and crudely assembled, but still far beyond something a mere toad could have built on her own. Balthazar wondered who helped her setting it up.

  “Surely there’s someone else behind this toad,” he mumbled to himself. “I just don’t believe a toad popped up out of nowhere and started doing business with a stall, , items, and even a Bag of Holding just like that. There’s got to be more to this.”

  He had no answers, and all he wanted was for her to go away from his road.

  The obsessed crab pondered on what he could do to rid himself of the toad, but all options led back to the same problem: she was already too beloved by the adventurers, and any a he took against her would almost surely turn him into a pariah.

  “And I don’t even know what a pariah is, damn it!”

  Bouldy could have easily smashed the eall, but now that Balthazar had overextended himself and attempted to do that in front of everyone, he could not risk doing it anymore, as it would immediately be linked ba.

  He also sidered having Blue torch the whole thing up te at night when nobody was around, but the stall turning up burnt to the ground in the m would also be too obvious. Everyone khe crab had a pet drake. He would easily be caught with the motive and the smoking snout.

  “No, it has to be something else,” he poo his buttons that he did not have. “Something that would rid me of her without being linked bae.”

  As if a ntern had lit up above his shell, the crab snapped his pincer and ran dowh and around his roofed ptform, searg for his goblin assistant.

  “Druma! e here,” he called, spotting the small worker rummaging through a few crates.

  “Yes, boss?” the goblin answered, running to the crab, wizard hat boung up and down on his head.

  “I got a very important task for you,” Balthazar said.

  “Boss t on Druma!” the other said, standing to attention like a soldier responding to a superior. “What boss need Druma to do?”

  “I need you to take this.” The crab reached into a nearby crate and took a small wooden box with a sliding cover, barely rger than a matchbox, and gave it to the goblin. “Now go look around the grass and find some bugs, big ohings like tipedes, termites, slugs, the more disgusting the better. Put them in that a bae when you’ve filled it.”

  The goblin looked down at the box and then back up at the crab, an ugly expression of disgust on his face.

  “Eww, Druma no like bugs. Why boss need nasty things?”

  “Seriously? You’re the most backwards goblin I’ve ever heard about,” Balthazar said. “Don’t worry about it, just collect a few bugs and I’ll tell you the rest after. Go, go!”

  Leaving the unwilling assistant to his task, the crab hurried back to his watg spot.

  As he popped his eyes over the boulder, he spotted yet another small group of adventurers gathered around the toad, happily trying s, putting hats on, and cheg her sele of potion bottles.

  “Curse you, foolish idiots!” he said. “I’ve got all that stuff too, and it doesn’t e with toad spit all over it!”

  The increasingly manic crab tinued watg as adventurers came a, some buying, a few selling, shiny gold s being exged right in front of him, none being spent with him. His ire and jealousy growing and gnawing at him in such a way he had even skipped his mid-afternoon tart.

  Balthazar never skipped his mid-afternoon tart.

  “Boss, boss! Druma got bugs boss want!”

  “Shhhh! Keep it down!” the agitated crab said in an angry whisper.

  “Sorry, boss,” the goblin sheepishly said, l his voice. “Druma has bugs for boss. What boss gonna do with bugs now?”

  “Me? No, no, it’s you who’s going to do something with them.”

  Druma looked with reluce at the closed box in his hands, his frown quickly spelling worry.

  “That Hea across the road doesn’t know you yet,” Balthazar tinued, ign his assistant’s expression. “I want you to take a couple of s and go to her, pretend you want to buy some refreshments or whatever. It doesn’t matter. Just keep her distracted, and then, when she’s not looking, dump all those bugs arouand, make sure they get everywhere. I want that stall to look like a bug . Once you do, just get out of there quick so the adventurers who e by get a nasty surprise.”

  The goblin looked at his boss with a befuddled expression. “Why boss want to do that?”

  “Because that stupid frog is taking our jobs, Druma!” the manic crab excimed, his eyes widening towards the goblin. “Do you want to bee an unemployed goblin? In this ey? No, you don’t! Now get out there and do what I told you! And don’t leave through the main gate. It would be too obvious!”

  The gobliantly walked away, cradling the small box in his hands, as Balthazar turned his attention back to the spygss and the rival mert oher side of it.

  Tapping his foot impatiently, the crab watched as his assistant approached the Toad Stand from down the road, the box of bugs held behind his back.

  “Yes, there you go, Druma. You do this,” Balthazar whispered, eye stalk firmly stuck to the smaller end of the spygss.

  Too far away to hear their exge, he watched as the toad greeted the goblin, who was looking sheepish and shy as he respoo her.

  “e on, little guy, don’t be so spicuous! Aatural.”

  They tinued exging words bad forth for a while, the amphibian looking endearingly at the goblin, who slowly seemed to grow more fident and talked to her with a wide grin on his face.

  “What the hell is taking so long?” muttered the impatient crab. “I told you to distract her, not have her adopt you.”

  Hea smiled and said something to Druma, before hopping to the other end of the stall, where a small keg stood, surrounded by a few cups. Pushing one cup uhe tap, the toad began filling it with a clear yellow liquid.

  “That’s your ce! Bug her pce!”

  Balthazar watched with anticipation, but the goblihe box tucked in the back of his pants as he took the cup and sipped from it with a big smile on his face.

  “What are you doooooooing?” the deranged crab howled under his breath.

  The other two exged a few more words and smiles before the gobli, hopping away with a happy grin on his face.

  The fuming crusta got down from the boulder and circled back to where his assistant was ing from.

  “Druma!” Balthazar yelled, startling the gleeful goblin who was scampering his way into the bazaar with the cup still held in his hands. “What the hell? You didn’t do any of what I told you to do!”

  “Sorry, boss,” the assistant said, ears sagging as he looked down. “Toad dy too nice, she offer Druma free lemonade, don’t even take . Druma couldn’t put bugs iand. Druma feel bad to be mean to oad.”

  “Even you, Druma?” Balthazar said in a defeated tone of someone being stabbed in the back.

  “S-sorry, boss. Druma bring some lemonade for boss…”

  “Do I look like I want her damn lemonade?”

  “Druma is sorry,” the goblin said, with a guilty look in his eyes. “Druma no want to make boss mad. Druma think toad dy maybe is just nice.”

  Balthazar took a deep breath and brought a pincer up to his face.

  “No, no, I’m not mad at you. It’s not your fault. It’s her, she’s the problem. I should have knowrickery would be too much for you. You’re no match for whatever ing scheme she has going on.”

  “Boss not mad at Druma?” the small goblin asked, perking up slightly.

  “No, buddy, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have sent a goblin to do a crab’s job,” Balthazar said, angry determinati up in his eyes. “If I want something dht, I o do it myself.”

  H0st