Chp.13: The trade guild

While the party to celebrate the victory of the humans over the beastmen was taking place in the royal palace, it was much calmer in the rest of the city. The noble district had been completely emptied, since all the aristocrats had gone to the party organized by the king, and therefore only a few servants remained, most of whom had already gone to bed to rest, since the next day they would have to work as usual. Only a handful of servants, generally butlers or housekeepers, had stayed awake to await the return of their masters. Therefore, the noble district was completely silent and only a few lights came from the villas that made it up, and the only real signs of life were some owls that occasionally cooed as they flew over the houses.

In the common district it wasn't much different. The people who lived there went to sleep around midnight at the latest, since the next day they would have to wake up early to go to work. After all, crops couldn't be left without care, animals couldn't be left to fend for themselves, shops couldn't stay closed for too long. Ordinary people had too little money to afford a day off, so their schedules were strictly timed to allow them to work each day without overtiring themselves. Consequently, even in the common district, there was no one on the streets; occasionally a drunk could be seen returning from the tavern, but nothing more.

It was also very quiet in the merchant district: by midnight, most everyone had already gone to sleep. After all, merchants also had to work, so they took every opportunity to rest efficiently. However, there were many more lights still burning in the merchant district than in the other two districts: this was because some merchants had so much work to do that they had to stay up late to get it done. It could be for any number of reasons: an imminent deadline, a wrong delivery, an evaluation error, or simply the person in question wanted to view the catalog of his latest income and expenses.

Furthermore, in the merchant district there were some places where work literally never stopped: at night there were people who took the place of those who worked during the day to allow them to rest. These places were of course the guilds: no matter what their purpose, they could never remain closed, even when no one was left, since someone could need their assistance at any moment. For example, the adventurer guild always had to have someone ready to welcome the adventurers back from their duties and pay them, who could also return very late due to their difficult work.

A similar situation was true for all other guilds. This was particularly true for the trade guild: given that almost all the agreements between the various merchants had to be viewed and archived by the guild, it had to always remain open in order to be able to offer its services even to those who struck a contract in the middle of the night (and there were not many). That arrangement to view and file all merchant agreements had been an arrangement of the previous King Junio, who had created it in order to decrease contractual cheating and corruption, since many people would have seen the contract and could have reported the guilty. Before that law went into effect, it was not uncommon for experienced merchants to take advantage of the foolish and ignorant common people; after that event, the number of cheating had dropped a lot. They hadn't disappeared, of course: if there was one thing merchants were good at, it was finding loopholes to get the most profit. But at least they had decreased, and this was a great good in everyone's eyes.

Therefore, the trade guild had to stay open for this reason, and that night was no exception: there were only a few employees, but they were working hard even though there were no customers. They would stay there all night and only in the morning would they take turns with the employees of the day, while they would go to sleep and return late in the evening.

None of them expected any customers at this late hour, so they were somewhat surprised when the door opened and a group of people entered the guild building.

The employees leaned over from their desks to see them. It was impossible to tell their faces because of the hoods they wore, but judging by their weapons and armor they were clearly adventurers. Behind them was something like a fully tethered bipedal reptile that had a sack over its head and was being dragged by a rope. One of the people made his way to the guild reception and finally took off his hood, revealing the face of a young dark-haired man. "Hello. Forgive us for the late hour and the inelegant appearance, but we have just returned from a mission and it is quite cold outside, so we protected ourselves with these hoods"

The receptionist was finally able to recognize him. "Oh, Mr. Efren! It's you. Forgive me, I didn't recognize you"

Efren was an old acquaintance of the trade guild: he and his comrades often came there to sell the results of their hunt. That's because they were very good at their job... and they knew how to make money. The adventurer guild in fact paid the adventurers based on the missions they performed: if the mission was to bring a live animal, it paid if the adventurers brought a live animal; if it was to kill a beast, he paid if they killed the beast; if he was to get his skin, he paid if they carried his skin. Everything else the adventurers obtained during their mission was their property: for example, if the mission was to bring the skin of an animal, the guild kept the skin, but the meat and the bones belonged to the adventurers and they could resell them as they wanted. Since Efren and the people he usually accompanied were very skilled at hunting, they used to bring back far greater results than the guild required, and therefore often came to the trading guild to sell meat, hair, claws, teeth, and any other material they could obtain.

"Long time no see, Efren" continued the receptionist, who seemed very interested in the young man in front of her. "Has the hunt been lean this days?"

"Oh, no, my companions and I just haven't been back to the capital for a while. We spent a lot of time hunting along the border, and then we had to go to different cities on personal matters" Efren explained.

The receptionist looked at the people behind Efren, who had also removed their hoods. They were a man and two women. The man was tall, much more than Efren, and he was clearly more muscular, but his face and eyes vaguely resembled those of the young adventurer. He, too, had black hair, but unlike Efren, he also had a thick beard. As for the women, they were both lean and stocky and showed clear signs of their strength: their legs and arms were very thick due to their large muscles. They had softer, more feminine features, but it was clear they were related to the man in the center, since they had the same hair color and eyes. All of them wore very particular clothes: the man was covered almost completely in a thick gray armor which, rather gruesomely, was stained with blood in several places and seemed to be made of bones. The two women, on the other hand, wore only protections to defend the chest and belly, also similar to bones, leaving the arms and legs free to move with agility. The only other clothes they wore were cloaks with hoods that were probably only used for protection from the cold or rain.

The receptionist looked at them for a moment, then her eyes widened: "Wait... I've heard that a wandering warrior in an armor made of great basilisk's bones had recently appeared in other cities! Is that you?"

The tall man nodded. "It's me" he confirmed.

"Hey, we exist too!" one of the women protested, clearly offended by the lack of attention.

"Of course, of course, I didn't mean to offend you!" the receptionist exclaimed. "May I know what is your relationship with Mr...?"

"They are my cousins" Efren replied. "They've just started to be adventurers, and this is their first time visiting the capital, so I took the trouble to accompany them here"

"Oh, I see" the receptionist said. Now it was clear to her why those three individuals had a face so similar to Efren. "So what brings you here?"

"On our way to the capital, we captured this one. We would like to sell him in the city bullring" the shorter of the two women replied, pulling the sack off their prey's head.

The receptionist was somewhat surprised at what she saw. It was a bipedal lizard at least two meters tall, with slightly paler red scales on its belly, a long tail and clawed feet. It had a long snout and a few small horns on the back of its head, and its eyes were yellow and had very small, vertical pupils, like a reptile's. "A red lizardman? That's quite unusual"

A multitude of different races existed in the world: elves, humans, beastmen, dwarves, and many more that would take too long to list. However, each of these races was not uniform: there were in fact many different ethnic groups, which experts generally called 'sub-races', which differed in height, skin color, eye shape, and many other traits. For example, among humans there were some with very light skin, while others who lived in other parts of the continent had darker skin, while still others who lived on another continent had olive skin. And the same was true for all the other races, such as the lizardmen.

In that corner of the continent the lizardmen that one could normally encounter were green lizardmen, so called because of their green scales. The red lizardmen, like the one Efren and his cousins ​​had just brought, were mostly found on one of the continents to the north. They were sturdier and better suited to extreme conditions, and unlike their local cousins ​​they had red scales. As a result, it was unusual to find a red lizardman near the Jurao Kingdom, though not impossible. Perhaps he was a solitary traveller, or perhaps he had come to help his distant cousins ​​in the war against humans: judging by his look, he didn't seem that he loved them very much.

However, what the receptionist couldn't help but find absurd was the lizardman's physique, which was extremely muscular, to the point that his biceps were as large as a closet. Lizardmen were known for having small, agile bodies; even the strongest among them rarely had noticeable musculature, preferring to focus their workouts on improving speed and accuracy rather than brute strength. This lizardman, on the other hand, was so big that he looked like a mountain of muscle.

"We were going to sell him as a slave, but he has considerable strength, so we would like to sell him to the arena" the tall man with the armor made of bones said. "Since he's quite handsome and a rarity around here, I guess you could give us a very good price, right?"

The receptionist nodded. She also thought that lizardman was suitable for the arena. However, Efren and his cousins ​​could not sell it directly to the bullring, since it was under the jurisdiction of the king: anyone wishing to sell a slave or an animal to the bullring had to do so to the trade guild, which would intercede for them with the higher circles of power. "I'll give you a great price, mister... oh, sorry, I haven't even asked your name yet"

The man didn't seem irritated at all. "It's my fault, I didn't introduce myself" he said with a smile, then he put a hand on his chest. "My name is Rhaegal Neytirison, and these are my sisters, Corgorin and Serengal"