“Balthazar!” Suze called, pointing at the man’s feet. “His shoes!”

  The mert, still moving forward slowly, looked at the boots.

  His shoeces were tied together.

  Balthazar did not know how she did it, but the girl sure had quick fingers.

  “Huh?!” the ander excimed, looking back at the crab and then down at his ow.

  As if realizing that his boots were tied together suddenly made it more real, the man staggered back while trying to take a step to the side.

  His momentary loss of bance was the opportunity the armored crusta needed.

  Putting all his power into it, Balthazar took a jab at the ander.

  The guardsman still ma his shield forward to block, but this time it wasn’t enough to stop the mighty pincer of justice.

  The iron cw punched right through the wood of the round shield, shattering it into a thousand splinters and making the human lose the already precarious bance he still had.

  Unfortunately, and in a bizarre twist of fate, losing his band falling backward as Balthazar’s strike pierced through the shield also made him go just slightly out of reach of the crab’s pincer.

  The cw grazed past the man’s belt just as Balthazar closed it, snapping the buckle off.

  What felt like a disaster pying in slow motion sped back up to normal speed as the ander fell back, rolling into a tangled heap along with his cape.

  His baton had gone flying off his hand.

  What remained of his shattered shield fell to the floor.

  And also, his pants had dropped to his ankles.

  “Oh! What the hell!” Balthazar blurted out as his eyes met the sequences of his uional belt snipping.

  “What is—Oh, goodness gracious!” excimed Olivia as she stood up and quickly averted her eyes.

  “What happened?!” Suze asked as she got back up behind the irl.

  “Nothing!” Balthazar hurriedly excimed as he moved in front of the little girl and pced his front of her eyes. “Don’t worry about it!”

  As if on a terribly timed cue, several steps came rushing up the stairs to the third floor just as the dazed aarted staggering bato his—still tied together—feet.

  A group of city guards appeared oher side of the double doors to the corridor, seemingly ing to the ander’s aid.

  “Chief! We just came from town when we saw the front door busted open. Is everythi—Oh!”

  The guards all skidded to a sudden stop as their gazes met the embarrassing heap of a man hopping back up onto his feet with his pants down and his undergarments on full dispy.

  “Aw, man, I didn’t o see that!” one of them said as he turned his head.

  “That just ain’t right,” said another with a pained expression.

  “Did the crab do that?”

  “Are those… heart prints?”

  “Why is there a yellow stain?!”

  The aood awkwardly in the middle of the corridor, eyes dartiween the crab’s group and his guardsmen, his cape still caught over his shoulder, ensuring he had no modesty no matter the angle.

  “Oh no…” he muttered in a suddenly much higher pitched voice. “This is like the recurring nightmare I had every day before school!”

  Tears began to well up in the man’s eyes as his expression turned into an ugly cry face.

  “This is so embarrassing!” he cried out. “I ’t look her in the eye after this! I’ve made a fool of myself outside her bedroom door! She’ll think I’m a joke!”

  Breaking into a sobbing mess, the ander ran—or rather, awkwardly hopped—away, hands c his fad pants still around his ankles, disappearing dowairs after the guards stepped aside to let him pass.

  [Bewitched ander of the Marquessian City Guard defeated]

  [You have reached level 21!]

  Bewitched, eh? Iing. Still, no time to be p stats right now. I’ll have to do it ter.

  With a flick of his eyestalks, Balthazar swiped the notification aside.

  Meanwhile, the group of guardsmen stood around exging g one another.

  “Well, I don’t think I ever look at the ahe same way again,” one of them ented.

  “I used to fear that man, you know?” added another. “Kind of hard to take him seriously after this.”

  Their gazes met the crab and his group.

  “So, uh…” Olivia started. “We’re gonna fight or… are we good?”

  The men mumbled and awkwardly averted their eyes for a moment.

  “Uhm, no, no,” one of them finally said with a ed frown. “There’s no need for that, Ms. Marquessa. We were just following our superior’s orders before, we have no issue with you. Or your friends. Or anyone else, really. We’re just grunts, you know? I’m sure you will tell your aunt that. Right?”

  The mayor’s niece pced her hands on her hips and scowled at them.

  “You’re lucky we’re busy right now,” she said. “It’d probably be smart of you to get out of here before I have time to memorize your faces.”

  The guardsmen bumped on each other a few times as they quickly turned back to the staircase, trying to leave as quickly as they could.

  “Of course, Ms. Olivia! Right away! Thank you, Lady Marquessa!”

  As they also left dowairs, the crab and the girls were once again alone in the long corridor.

  “Well, that was somehow even weirder than the previous floor,” said Olivia.

  “Yeah,” Suze said. “The ander, Onion Jake… What is wrong with all those guys? Do all grown boys act that stupid over a woman?”

  The irl clicked her tongue. “Oh, sweetheart, you have no idea…”

  “It’s a witg charm,” Balthazar said with a sigh.

  “What?!” Olivia said.

  “Or at least I think it is.”

  “How do you know?”

  The iron crab turned—slowly—to the curtained windows.

  “I’ve seen it a while back,” he expined. “I wasn’t sure before, but the signs keep pointing to it. ‘She’ is a witch, and her signature move is charming others with some kind of hex to get what she wants while their on sense is clouded.”

  “Bleh, I don’t like witches,” said Suze, stig her to in disgust.

  Balthazar g her from the er of his eye. “Heh, you reminded me of someone just now. You two would probably like each other.”

  “Well, witch or not, that doesn’t ge much,” Olivia said. “We’re here now, a few steps away from that door, and we’re going to put ao this, are we not?”

  “Sure,” the crab said as he stiffly put his backpack ba with Suze’s help. “Just don’t leave me alone in the room with her and it should be fine.”

  “Scared?” the young woman asked with a cocked eyebrow.

  “Pfft, no, of course not!” the slightly embarrassed crusta excimed.

  Slowly stomping forward, the iron-cd crab reached the double doors that—acc to the blueprints he got from the Thieves Guild—would lead into the master bedroom.

  “Alright,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Let’s face that witch.”

  Pushing both handles down with his cws, the mert flung the doors open and fidently stepped into the room.

  “It’s over, Velvet! We have… Huh?!”

  Balthazar’s triumpharance died down as his eyes sed the bedroom.

  The pce looked perfectly normal. It had a big bed, windows, curtains, ms and tapestries, dressers, a mirror, some chairs, and even a crag firepce off to the side.

  But there was no woman there.

  Just a gehrum ing from the armchair in front of the fire.

  “What the…”