Neko pushes back into the Adventurers Guild, the same blood-streaked bundles from the shell-beasts swinging at his side. Conversations thin. Eyes turn. The counter is still buried under ledgers.
He drops the two heads onto the desk with the hunter's tag beside them. The Guild Recipient goes still, recognition draining the color from his face.
Guild Recipient
That tag... no, that cannot be here.
His hand drifts to the ledger, then stops. The page is already open where the Baron’s records lie tucked beneath contract slips and tally marks.
Guild Recipient
Where did you find this tag?
He flips the ledger wider. Names line the page, crossed out in neat ink, with holdings marked over to the Baron. The pattern is ugly, deliberate, and old.
Guild Recipient
These are not debts. They are seizures.
A nearby mercenary leans in, but the Recipient snatches the ledger half-shut, staring at Neko and then at the tag again, as if weighing how much truth can fit inside one room.
“I ask the Recipient process my payment for these kills immediately. And tell him where I found the hunter and here to turn in his tag.”
SUCCESS (Superb Willpower, rolled +0)
Neko keeps his voice level and the Guild Recipient’s panic tightens into a grim, public sort of duty. The ledger stays open between them, but the man reaches for the brass tokens instead of the page.
Neko
Process my payment now. I brought back the kills, and the hunter’s tag. I found him out in the marsh.
Guild Recipient
...Then the dead must be recorded, too.
He draws the tokens toward him with one hand and uses the other to mark the ledger. His eyes flick once to the nearby mercenary, then back to Neko, as if choosing words that will not spill.
Guild Recipient
State where you found the body, exactly. If this tag is his, the Guild must enter it before the Baron’s men ask questions.
Neko gives the marsh landmark and the Recipient writes it down, jaw set. The hunter’s tag is set beside the contract slips, and the payment coin is counted out at last.
Guild Recipient
Take this, and keep your voice low. These contracts are not merely bad bargains, Neko. They are part of a pattern that reaches beyond monster work.
“I collect my payment and simply state i do not want to get involved with man killers nor do I want assassination contracts.”
SUCCESS (Superb Willpower, rolled +0)
Neko takes the coin purse without hurry, letting the guild floor breathe around the counter. The Recipient does not interrupt him this time.
Neko
I do not want man killers, and I do not want assassination contracts.
Guild Recipient
Good. Then keep your blade for beasts and the unlucky dead.
He closes his fingers over the ledger, not hiding it yet, just resting a palm on the open page as if weighing a vow.
Guild Recipient
Those slips come through in whispers, and whispers carry coin. Enough coin to make honest work look slow.
The nearby mercenary still watches, but the Recipient angles his shoulder between them and the book.
Guild Recipient
If you want steady work, take contracts that name a beast, not a victim. That is the cleanest road left here.
The payment is now in Neko’s hand, the tag beside the slips, and the open ledger quiets under the Recipient’s steady palm.
✓ Quest Accepted
Secure steady beast-hunting work
“I leave to finish my last beast contract for a boar.”
SUCCESS (Good Agility, rolled +0)