Kirk stopped, put his papers aside, and steepled his hands. He looked at Zig with a gaze so sharp it could cut through lies. Nothing Zig cooked up would work on him; the difference in experience was far too great.
“So, how many did you save?”
“Three,” Zig reported bitterly. “All under thirty.”
The results were made even more embarrassing by his initial bravado.
Kirk sat pensive, expression unreadable, before nodding and writing something down in his papers.
“As promised, that will be forty thousand orth for each of the three survivors, totaling to one hundred and twenty thousand orth. You only claim half of it which makes out to sixty thousand.”
“Yeah.” Zig could only nod at the announced amount.
It wasn’t worth the trouble, but results were results.
He wasn’t going to make excuses about how he ran into some problems, refusing to embarrass himself even further by laying out the complications after he had taken an obviously disadvantageous contract. He would simply have to accept his shame.
Kirk continued as Zig hung his head. “Also…”
What mattered more was trust. He could get by with losing his reputation and take on more work if he were dealing with an ordinary client, but Kirk was the vice president of the guild. Losing his trust wouldn’t just be a matter of lost standing; working for the guild would become a lot more difficult.
Zig probably wouldn’t get banned thanks to his contract, but it would still be more difficult for him to get more jobs. Maintaining a good relationship with Kirk would help him stay out of trouble if adventurers tried to pick a fight with him. Zig could only sigh after considering the benefits and drawbacks.
The situation continued to develop as he brooded.
Kirk got up, holding a small piece of paper, and sat across from him. Zig remained silent, prepared for any sentence Kirk would pass on to him.
“…An extra eight hundred thousand orth for diverting the blade bees and eliminating them. That makes a total of eight hundred and sixty thousand orth.”
“What?”
Zig couldn’t believe what Kirk was saying. He looked up to him, dumbfounded, and found Kirk shoving the piece of paper in front of him.
Zig sat with his mouth agape. He remained silent, unable to grasp the situation.
“Take this to reception and they’ll pay you what you’re owed. Not now, of course. I believe you can tell, but it’s best to wait until things settle down a bit. Lives are still at stake, after all. Besides, I doubt you want to cross our murderous staffers.”
Kirk’s words entered in one of Zig’s ears and came out the other.
If his eyes weren’t mistaken, on the paper was an invoice of eight hundred sixty thousand orth for Zig in Kirk’s name.
“Are you not satisfied with the pay? We don’t have an infinite amount of money, you know.”
“That’s not the problem…”
Slowly recalling the terms of his contract, Zig turned to Kirk for a clarification.
“I only rescued three survivors. I thought I was just getting paid for every adventurer I saved.”
“Are you stupid?”
The barefaced insult caused Zig to flinch. Kirk narrowed his eyes in obvious exasperation and pushed up his glasses with a sigh.
“I did say your reward depended on how many lives were saved but what kind of rating do you think an idiot would get if he got in the way of others for the sake of fattening his pay? You thought the best way to save the most lives was to divert the blade bees’ attention, correct?”
Kirk neatly laid out his logic.
“Not only did you distract the blade bees, you also managed to kill them. It would’ve been much easier for you to do the opposite if you were only concerned about your own score. The fact that you did what you did meant that you were concerned about saving the greatest number of survivors.”
He tapped his desk twice to punctuate his point.
“You said you would deliver and you delivered,” Kirk continued. “You saved a total of three people. No more, no less. But I also said that I would be rating your overall performance, and you were free to decide on the terms of completion.”
Kirk pointed to the piece of paper, repeating what he said to Zig when he took the job.
“I’ll only say this once. Good job. On behalf of the guild, thank you for saving our adventurers,” Kirk said with a serious face as he bowed his head so deeply that it almost touched his desk.
“Now, regarding the incident.”
Kirk’s grumpy demeanor returned as he lifted his head again. It was over so fast that it was as if him thanking Zig never happened.
It didn’t feel like Kirk was only paying lip service. He really was doing what was best for the guild. Kirk looked at everything through a lens of profits and losses, meaning he was no friend of Zig’s. However, Zig didn’t hate that side of him.
Kirk narrowed his eyes, suspicious at Zig’s shift in mood. “Yes?”
“Nothing, I just wasn’t expecting you to bow your head like that.”
“Hmph… I do whatever is necessary when necessary. Praise only matters when given by someone in a higher position than you.”
Zig had to smile at how forced Kirk sounded.
Although Kirk seemed annoyed, he didn’t regret bowing his head to Zig. His attitude toward his work was evident in the way he refused to let his ego get in the way of doing what was best for the guild.
“Back to the point… We don’t know who it was exactly that fired the spell at the nest.”
“Norton said that too. Is wind magic so common?”
The lack of certainty was surprising considering the guild had information on all their adventurers.
“There are more wind users than other elements, but the difference isn’t too big. And that’s if they’re being honest.”
“You think people weren’t being forthright when they signed up?”
Kirk’s eyebrows furrowed, and he nodded. “People don’t want everyone to know what they can do. You’re in the business of violence, you understand.”
“Of course.”
Tactics could be devised against a particular fighting style as long as the opposition weren’t complete fools. When fighting against archers, it was best to avoid open areas and look for zones that made it difficult to get a clean shot.
Against spearmen, fight them in cramped spaces and corner them so they would no longer be able to turn. Having this information was enough to make or break a battle.
“But that only applies to mercenaries and bounty hunters since we fight people. Wouldn’t it be better to advertise your strengths as an adventurer?”
“Precisely. You would get jobs which suit you more according to your supposed strengths. However, there will always be people with devious intentions. Fortunately, they’re rare. But the thing with wind magic…is that it leaves very little evidence.”
Zig pursed his lips.
Earth, lightning, water, and ice magic all left traces, with fire being the most obvious one. However, wind was different. Whatever it left behind could barely be distinguished from a sword cut.
Zig put his left hand at his side.
There was a man in Elsia’s party who used wind magic… Zasp, Zig thought his name was. The cuts his wind blade made felt very similar to that of a sharp sword. Zig could understand the concern.
“With its silence and lack of a trail, wind mages tend to commit more crimes compared to the other elements. The stereotype doesn’t apply to all of them, obviously. Maybe the problem is with having just the right tool for the job when the opportunity to do mischief arises.”