“Oi! I’m talking to ya!” yelled the rge ruffian. “Got your ears clogged or somethin’?”

  “Well, if you want to get teical about it,” said Balthazar, “I don’t even have ears, on at of being, you know… a crab.”

  “Smartypants thinks he’s funny,” the goon said, before turning to the c man behind him. “This the crab that did it, Geie?”

  The soaked lowlife nodded, his hand still holding his swelling cheek. “Yeah, Brig, that’s the one.”

  “Seriously,” Balthazar said, “how many giant talking crabs do you guys get arouhat would warrant asking that question?!”

  Balthazar looked around, evaluating his situatioe being in the middle of a busy street, the passing people seemed determined not to pay any mind to the exge taking pce between the man and the crusta. The mert did not yet know how much trouble he was in, or how to tackle the situation, so talking his shell off to buy time was his best bet.

  Why did that girl have to leave so soon?! There are more muggers to smash jugs on!

  “You got a lot of nerve,” said Brig, strolling forward. “Stig around after what you did, instead of skipping town. That was your mistake.”

  He flexed his fists menagly as he sloroached the crab. Druma and Blue stood at the ready behind him, but Balthazar did not wish them to make a se, at least not yet. He khey were very far from home, in a city where nobody knew him, aing into a street fight minutes after arriving was not the best way to make a good first impression.

  What really was b him was the fact that these ruffians were being so brazen, rather than stig to the shadowy alleys and hidden parts of the city. Why was this guy so fident about making threats in broad daylight? Why was no one from the passing popuce batting a what was happening?

  And where the hell is a town guard when you need one?!

  “Looking for someoo help ya?” the bully said with a chuckle, notig Balthazar’s eyes darting around the passing crowds. “Yeah, you really must be new around Marquessa.”

  Suddenly, a head in a helmet popped up above the flow of pedestrians, trying to peek over them.

  Finally, an officer!

  “What’s going on here?” the guardsman in armor said, making his way through the passing people. “I heard the—Oh, Brig. I didn’t realize it was you.”

  The fiend smiled at the other man. “Yeah, just taking care of some unpleasant business with a rowdy tourist. Don’t you worry about it, officer. It’s all under trol.”

  The guard eyed the crab and his panions. “I see… Well, if you say it’s all under trol, I’ll trust there won’t be any trouble for me to deal with ter. Right?”

  “Ah, o’ course not!” the thug excimed, giving the officer a pat on the back. “Tell ya what, in fact, stop by the club ter, and I’ll offer you an ale, along with the usual… arra.”

  Balthazar watched the unfolding se with a growing frown as the guardsman the criminal with a slight hint of disfort in his smile.

  “Alright then,” said the armored man. “I’ll get bay beat now. Carry on.”

  With another quice at the crab and his party, the officer turned a, mixing and disappearing into the passing crowd.

  I ’t believe it. I thought the guards from Ardville were bad because they were mostly useless, but the ones here are even worse. They’re corrupt!

  “You get it now, little guy?” said Brig, his foow ba the crusta. “There ain’t no guard ing to protect you. They know where their loyalties lie. Just like none of these sheep around us is going to stop and risk their necks for ya. People know their p this city.”

  Crap, I don’t like the look of this…

  “Now, about my buddy Geie over there,” the big man said, returning to his knuckle crag. “You really made a big mistake blindsiding him with that strike to the face, ya know that?”

  Wait a minute…

  “Excuse me?” Balthazar said, raising aalk. “You think I attacked him?”

  “No use denying it, crab. Geie didn’t do that to himself, and my guys saw you leave the alley.”

  The mert chuckled mogly. “Oh, no, I’m not denying that. He very much got beaten, and I was certainly there. The part that’s not true is that I didn’t y a pincer on him.”

  Brig frow the crab, his brow f a solid baly of meat above his eyes.

  “Don’t ya try to deceive me, wise guy,” he said. “We know it was you. He even still has the ink he said you squirted all over to blind him and nd a cheap shot.”

  “My what?!” excimed Balthazar. “Mate, you do uand that I’m a crab, not a squid, right? Totally different iebrates, with one of them being much more handsome thaher—I’ll let you work out whie on your own. And that stuff all over him isn’t even ink, it’s milk!”

  The thug’s solid unibrow arched slightly on one end, and he gred back at his smaller underlings.

  “Huh… Is that why I’ve been smelling cheese all this time?” said one of the other two muggers o the bruised one.

  “Geie?” said Brig with a menag stare.

  “I, uh… Yeah, I remember now!” said the c coward. “It wasn’t ink. He hit me with one of those big milk jugs you see the dairy farmers sell around the market. It must have been the blow to the head, got me all fused.”

  Balthazar scoffed. “Well, that’s unlikely, isn’t it? Look at my pincers. How do you figure I’d pie of those things up?”

  The ruffian rubbed his as the brawny cogs in his meaty head turned.

  “Little fel does make a good point,” he said, looking back at Geie again. “Your story isn’t really adding up.”

  With a milky sweat building up on his forehead, the other lowlife retorted, “Don’t listen to him, Brig! You two saw him leave the alley and everything, right, guys?”

  The other two exged gnces and a half shrug.

  “Yeah, I did, after you came running to us smelling like a dairy farm.”

  “But I never really saw the crab do anything.”

  Standing in the middle of that busy sidewalk, Balthazar watched the se unfolding before him, tension running down his shell.

  e on, just gotta keep it going a little further. Sow fusion, pnt doubt, reap the chaos.

  “Ya know,” said Brig, turning back to the crab. “That still wouldn’t expin who beat up our buddy over there, would it?”

  “That’s simple, you could have just asked me from the start,” the calm and collected mert replied. “It was a girl.”

  “A girl?!”

  “Yes, she left the alley a moment before I did,” Balthazar expined.

  “T-that’s a lie, Brig!” excimed Geie. “You know I wouldn’t let some girl beat me up. It was that creature over there. That monster. He probably came out of some freakish dungeon, or something!”

  “Zip it, Geie!” the thug chief ordered, ping his index and thumb together back at his underling without taking his gaze off Balthazar. “Ya trying to insihat some girl could do that to one of my guys? That’s some big disrespect, little guy.”

  “Call it what you will, but by the time she was doh him, I almost felt sorry for him,” Balthazar said. “He really picked the wrong person to mug. She had some ao let out, that one. Her name was… Olivia, I think?”

  Brig’s eyes wide the crab before he suddenly turned and paced angrily towards the milky thug.

  “Is that true, Geie?!” he yelled. “You let bloody Olivia beat you up again?!”

  “N-no!” pleaded the c underling. “It ain’t true, I swear! The crab is making it all up to make me look bad in front of you guys!”

  The mugger-in-chief turned his angry scowl back to the crab.

  “Hey, don’t look at me,” Balthazar said with a casual shrug. “You said so yourself, I’m new in town, how would I even know who this Olivia was or that your buddy over there has a history with her?”

  The rge ruffian snapped his scowl back to the sy one.

  “Freak or not, the bloody monster keeps making a lot more sehan your version of the story!”

  Geie’s eyes darted between his boss, his fellow thugs, and the crab, his lips trying to mouth a few words, but no sound ing out.

  “I ’t bloody believe it, Geie!” Brig yelled, throwing his arms up. “I told ya to stay away from her. It was bad enough the st time, and you had to go a your head rung in again. It’s dht embarrassing, ya know that, right?!”

  “I… I’m sorry, boss,” the coward muttered.

  “You’re making the whole operation look bad!” excimed the bigger man.

  “I fought back, ya know, but… but… she had help! Yeah, the crab over there was helping her. It was two on one. No, it was four ohe crab’s little freaks were helping too!”

  Balthazar let out a scoffing chuckle from the other side of the sidewalk.

  “Help?” he said. “I wouldn’t have been able to find a ce to get a hit in even if I wao, with how relentless her kig was. You’re right, it was dht embarrassing to watch. Really, how are you guys taken seriously around this city?”

  Brig’s face was turning scarlet and Balthazar could swear steam was about to blow out of his ears.

  Which was exactly the mert’s pn.

  “I mean, I watched the ehing…” the crab said, leaning forward with a smirk. “Do you think that’s all milk soaking his pants?”

  [The Gift of the Crab: success]

  “e on, Geie!” the ruffian yelled out, turning back to the c mugger and raining an angry spray of spit on him as he shed out. “Ya promised me you wouldn’t let me down anymore. I gave you a ce, and you’re making me look bad in front of the whole city? How’s the boss ever gon us move up within the operation if I ’t even show that I run a proper crew, huh?!”

  While Brig was busy disciplining his underling, Balthazar gestured for his friends to move and the three of them slipped away into the crowd.

  As they put some distaween them and the muggers, the mert could still hear Brig’s yells eg over the busy buzzing of the crowds moving through the streets.

  “…It ain’t just about you or me either! This makes the boss look like a ughing stock to that bloody barooo, you idiot!”

  “Hey, where did the crab go?” one of the apanying thugs could be heard asking in the distance.

  “I don’t give a toss about the crab!” Brig shouted back. “This is about Geie letting bloody Olivia Marquessa make a mockery out of our crew!”

  The thug’s voice faded into the background as Balthazar got away and back to the main city square, making sure to take a wide detour on his path to the guild headquarters.

  “Phew!” he said, wiping his forehead. “That could have gone a lot worse. I should have known this big city was too good to be true. This pce is a hive of corruption, it looks like.”

  Shaking his shell, the crab slowed back down tur pace as he tinued up a sidewalk.

  “Alright, enough, I’ll just get to this city hall, get some dires, and then leave. No more distras.”

  After the words left his mouth, a sign above a shop to his left caught his attention, and his jaw nearly dropped as his widening eyes read the words inscribed on it.

  “No way…”