The tall young man, who appeared to be very young with a handsome face, stood on top of the handle with the weapon pierced into the ground. He first looked at the wolf monsters in front of him and then looked over his shoulder just as the woman in beast form spoke to him.

“It’s you! What are you doing here?”

“Gemini,” the man said, speaking in a familiar tone as he freely used her name, “is that how you greet your fellow guild member?”

“How can I when you randomly shot down from the sky like lightning!” She exclaimed in her monster voice. “Anyway, what are you doing here? Did you perhaps…?”

“Don’t get any wrong ideas,” he cut her off swiftly before she got another word out. “My quest was in this direction and since I was on my way back, I heard monster roars and your shouts, so I thought you may need my help.”

Then he turned to her and smiled coldly as he added, “I’m not as heartless as a certain someone that never did what they were asked.”

“Huh?” The monster girl, named Gemini, asked while blinking in surprise. “You’re talking about me?” When he nodded, she tilted her head in confusion and asked, “I didn’t do what you asked me? When? Where?”

“During the times when I asked you to pretend to be my girlfriend to ward off the attention that the girls are showing me, but you end up getting side tracked whenever you see or smell food!”

“Hey. I’m sorry, but the food was just that good. Honest.”

There was a moment of pause when she, in her monster form, appeared to be pleading with cute eyes. This made him breathe a sigh when the wolf leader roared at them.

“Do you mind, stupid mut? We’re currently having a discussion here?” The young man asked, turning to face the pack of wolves coldly.

The wolf leader growled at them and gave them a fearsome look that was filled with mad rage.

“Wow. Your eyes are turning red,” the young man remarked, spotting how red the monster’s eyes were becoming from rage. He glanced over his shoulder at the monster form girl and asked, “Hey, you mind telling me what you did to them to make them this pissed off at you?”

“I’m on a quest to help a local village handle some monsters that were hunting their sheep as well as some children that they took.”

“Oh…!” He said and turned back to face them. “Hunting sheep is fine. It’s the natural order of things, but kidnapping humans? That’s a no, no, no,” he finished by waving his forefinger side to side.

“RRRRRROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!”

With a loud roar from the larger wolf, the smaller wolves roared as well and charged straight towards them.

The young man leaped forward and landed on his feet. Then he spun on the spot and grabbed the handle of the weapon with one hand and pulled it out of the ground. He continued to spin in the same movement and turned back to face the monsters before slamming his halberd against them. In the process, he five monsters were hit with one strike and they went flying only to smash into trees before falling limply to the ground.

“Naughty dogs need to be disciplined,” he said with a smirk on his face.

In an instant, the halberd was surrounded by powerful emitting lightning, and he raised it into the air.

“Wait! Don’t do that here!” His guild member, in her beast form, warned urgently.

Not listening to her, a grin spread across his face as he said, “Thunder Down,” and swung the weapon firmly down.

The moment he spoke the technique name, a small burst of lightning shot off into the night sky. Then the sound of heavy rumbling followed in the murky clouds above before a massive bolt of lightning soared straight down and struck the wolves.

All of the wolves roared with pain and agony from the incredible attack. Suddenly, there was a flash of light and it was immediately followed by a massive explosion that erupted in a dome like shape, destroying the nearby area in the process.

***

The very next day, the young man and the young girl, who had returned to her human form, stood in a line that was slowly moving forward to enter a large town. They stood there with the sun shining brightly above them and the line being long as it took time for the guards at the gate to check and verify their reasons for entering.

After a few minutes, they reached the gates where the guards were checking and they handed over their adventurer guild cards. The guard looked at their faces first and recognised them, but made the effort to take a glance at the cards before giving them back to their owners and gestured for the two to enter.

As they passed him, the guard warned the young man, “Don’t cause any trouble while you’re here, alright?”

To that, the young man defended with, “Don’t look at me. I’m not the one that starts the trouble.”

The guard shook his head and turned back to continue his duty while the young man and the young girl entered through the gate into the town.

The entrance to the town was filled with either sides of shops, stalls and stores for people and adventurers to make purchases. The shops contained things like weapons, armours, accessories, jewellery, decorations, and many other random minute things.

The two of them passed by the busy streets and continued to head straight towards a tall building. As they grew closer, they could make out the large guild sign labelled as Spectres of The Lion.

“We’re home,” they said in unison as they smiled at their guild building.

They walked forward and entered through the large entrance to hear a loud booming voice shouting about something.

“Again, again, and again! Why do you guys always bring trouble to me in the most unexpected ways?!”

The two people entered and saw that a man stood on the second floor and was shouting down at two people. The man shouting was a tall beast-man who appeared to be quite strong and built with a tough looking body. There were a pair of glasses perched on his noise as he eyed furiously at the two people down in the centre while everyone else stood around in a circle and watched in complete silence.

“Hey, Bert. What’s going on?” The young man curiously asked the nearest person standing closest to the entrance.

“Oh. You’re here,” the man named Bert replied, looking surprised and happy to see him.

“Yeah, but what’s up with the guild master? What did they do for him to shout at them for?”

“It’s not just them that he’s shouting against,” said another man who looked remarkably similar to the man named Bert.

“What do you mean, Bort?”

The man named Bort, just grinned and turned to call to his guild master, “Guild master! Theodore is back!”

The moment that name was mentioned, everyone turned to face in their direction and all eyes rested on the young man. The two individuals being berated and their guild master turned to look at him, with the two giving him sympathetic looks while their guild master glared a them.

“Theodore Conroy!” He addressed the young man with mounting fury. “Get the hell over here!”

A little startled by the anger he saw in his guild master, Theodore quickly walked over and stood next to the other two. They glanced at him with smiles on their faces, which was contrary to the atmosphere that surrounded the guild hall.

“What’s up?” The beast-man casually asked him while acting as if nothing serious was going on.

“Did you get back just now?” The girl asked curiously in the same manner as the man.

“Yeah. I just got back, but—!” Theodore began when, “Silence!” caused him to go quiet and made the three turn to face their guild master.

Their guild master looked down at them angrily and turned to the man first and asked, “Seb Simhara, tell me why did you destroy a dungeon?”

“Isn’t it written there?” Seb asked his guild master coolly. “I was on a quest to save some people that were trapped in there.”

“Seb. You are an S-Ranked Adventurer, so with your power and might, couldn’t you have gone through the dungeon like the other adventurers far more quickly than causing so much damage?”

“I was going to do that,” began Seb in a reasonable voice, “but I sensed their life-forces vanishing and decided to blast the floors down to rescue them.”

“Fair enough, but how did it end with you punching the bloody hell out of an A-Ranked Adventurer, two B-Ranked Adventurers and a C-Ranked Adventurer from the Crab Rockers guild?”

“After I saved the trapped people, those idiots started speaking nonsense. They were being very rude about our guild such as our standards, quality of members and popularity. It went on and on that I got angry and kind of punched the lights out of them.”

“More like beaten them so badly that they need weeks to recover,” his guild master corrected him, which made Seb smirk without care.

Their guild master then turned to the girl and asked, “Iliya Tate. You are a beautiful and well-respected S-Ranked Adventurer from our guild, so how did you come to the conclusion of collapsing a Labyrinth Tower, throwing seven men into the ocean and stripping a nobleman naked and publicly humiliating him?”

There was a round of “Woah” expression made by everyone around them. Theodore and Seb turned to look at her in amazement, but she merely smiled at the two of them before looing back at her guild master.

“Guild master. You are right that I am a beautiful and well-respected guild member, but I didn’t feel the case when I was hired for a quest to go into a Labyrinth Tower for its treasures. The men, including the nobleman, treated me rudely and did not even show me any curtesy deserving of me being a girl. I may be a witch, but I am a dignified woman, so I purposefully collapsed the Labyrinth Tower, the seven arrogant men into the ocean and publicly humiliated the nobleman by stripping him off his clothes.”

Once again, there was a round of “Woah” at her speaking so firmly without any hesitation or regret.

“Those seven men and the nobleman are quite angry with what you’ve done since the tower collapsed into the ocean and with it went all of its treasures,” the guild master said critically.

“They should count themselves lucky that I even bothered to fish those seven men out and give back the nobleman his clothes,” she replied with a sigh.

Breathing a sigh, he turned his attention to Theodore and scowled at the paper before looking up at him.

“Do you have any idea what trouble you got yourself into?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” replied the young man innocently.

“This,” began the guild master as he waved the paper in the air, “is a list of things you did wrong in the past two days.”

“What did I do?”

“You seriously don’t know?”

“Well,” began Theodore hesitantly. “I know I got into an argument and had a fight, but that’s about it.”

His guild master looked at him with raised eyebrows before looking at the paper and began speaking out the list of things Theodore Conroy did wrong in the past two days.

“During a quest you’ve taken up, you destroyed the home of a wealthy contractor, fought and crippled two S-Ranked Adventurers from the Storm Strikers guild, demanded money from the quest giver and finally, you somehow ended up destroying an entire forest.”

The entire guild hall seemed to gasp for breath by the shocking news of what he had done.

“Correction,” said the young man promptly, “I destroyed and restored the forest back to normal.”

“This isn’t funny!” The guild master thundered on him, which made the young man go quiet. “Putting aside the forest for a moment, not only did you destroy an expensive house of a wealthy man, you also crippled two S-Rank Adventurers from the Storm Strikers guild! To make matters worse you apparently demanded money from the quest giver? And yet, somehow a forest getting destroyed made it into this picture. Please explain because all of this is confusing!”

“Destroying the forest was completely an accident,” the young man explained. “Ask Gemini for proof. She was there when I did it.”

“What accident?” Gemini asked back, looking alarmed at the sudden attention. “I was on a quest, and I could’ve been fine by myself, but you showed up out of the blue and used Thunder Down on those monsters.”

“Oh.”

“He did it again.”

“What can you expect when you use such a powerful spell other than the forest getting destroyed?”

“Oh really?” He asked her back, raising an eyebrow and looking irritated. “Is this how you repay me? In that case, the next time you’re in trouble, I won’t lend you my help.”

At his threat, the girl fumbled with her words by saying, “I… Um…” She glanced around at all the eyes upon her before stammering, “W-Well… i-it was an accident as h-he was just… trying to help me,” she finished in a feeble voice.

The guild master shook his head exasperatedly and asked, “Fine, but how do you explain other things that you did before going to the forest?”

Theodore turned to look at his guild master with a serious expression as he began to explain.

“Guild master, I took up the quest but the quest contents were unclear as it only said they needed help with taking care of a deadly monster that took shelter near their home. When I got there, I found out that the Storm Strikers were also there on the same quest and they demanded I leave as they’ll take care of it and me being there was an eyesore to them.”

There was a round of murmuring that went around the guild hall, where the members were speaking rudely and irritably about the Storm Strikers guild. It was evident that their guild, Spectres of the Lion, did not get along very well with the Storm Strikers guild.

“Just what did they do for you to cripple those two S-Ranked Adventurers and demand money from the quest giver?”

“First of all, the money I demanded was the compensation money for the trouble I took to get there, the mental agony I suffered at the hands of those Strom Strikers guild members, for the misleading quest the wealthy man had given out and lying about there being a monster in the area. There was no monster in the first place, it was a rude set up by the Storm Strikers to attack me for what happened to their guild member last week.”

“Huh? Last week?”

“What happened last week?”

“You know when that flood happened, Lucky was holding off the tide when a few of the Storm Strikers’ guild came up to him and annoyed the heck out of him?”

“Oh right. Theo got very angry and punched them all in the face, breaking their teeth, noses and their backs as they got sent flying into several buildings.”

“Damn! Then this was a trap!”

“Yeah. It was.”

“Damn those Storm Strikers…!”

“They’re dirty!”

“One of these days… they’ll pay back dearly!”

“How did you handle them, Theo?” Asked one of the people surrounding him.

“I took care of those two morons and then demanded compensation from the quest giver, but the man refused. So, I did him some good by destroying his house, restoring it and once again destroying it,” said Theodore, which made the other guild members laugh our loud. “I did that several times and left it in ruins. Besides, I didn’t feel guilty at all considering he and those guild people were speaking very badly about us!”

“Yeah!”

“Nice going!”

“You showed him!”

“That arrogant rich person got what he asked for!”

As the people around him spoke angrily about the quest giver, the guild master asked, “What about the two crippled members of the other guild? Will they ever recover?”

“They’re not crippled,” he said, which surprised his guild master. “No matter how I may seem, I won’t cripple people unless they are absolutely evil. I just placed a curse on them so that they wouldn’t be able to use the Force for a month. It’s the least they deserve for bad mouthing our guild even though I did beat them to a pulp.”

“You’re too soft, Theodore. You should’ve crippled them for life!” Seb said firmly. “I too hesitated when those four idiots from the Crab Rockers also spoke badly about us and kept belittling our members! I just can’t stand rude people speaking badly about our guild.”

“Me too,” added Iliya with an approving nod of her head. “This is my home and everyone here is family to me. I won’t stand for it being insulted!”

Her words touched the hearts of everyone there, and their fellow guild members began to support their actions and asked their guild master to overlook them. Their guild master was eying them with an expressionless face before a grin broke out over his previously angry face.

“I knew you wouldn’t have done those things without strong reasons!” He boomed, causing everyone to go quiet and look at him in surprise. Then he winked at his guild members and asked, “What? Was everyone here so startled by my apparent anger?”

“You seemed to be,” remarked Seb, to which their guild master let out a loud laughter.

“No, no. I wasn’t angry at you, at any of you in fact,” he said while he jumped off the railing and slowly descend to their floor. “It’s just the council being a pain in the neck.”

“Ah!”

“Them again?”

“The Guild Council really have it in for us or something.”

“Let me get. They give you an ear full,” Theodore said in an exasperated voice.

“Plenty,” the guild master replied with a sigh. “They took longer than last time before giving me these papers and letting me go.”

He raised the papers up to them to see. It was a bunch of papers that cause Theodore to roll his eyes in exasperation.

“I guess we should put ourselves in line or something?” Theodore asked with a chuckle.

“As if!” Their guild master replied firmly. “These papers,” he began and ripped the bunch of papers in half and tossed them into the air, “are a bunch of waste of complaints that the council threw at us. They know our strength and know what we stand for, but they don’t like how go about it.”

“Listen, you three. Not just you, but everyone else as well!” He boomed, addressing all the members present while waving a finger in a circular direction. “We are Spectres of the Lion guild, and we act with honour and pride like the lions of the jungle! It is what made us renounced around here as well as making some rivals along the way. They know that despite the damages we cause, we do the right thing and for the greater good of others and that’s what matters the most!

As for the Guild Council. To hell with them! You don’t care too much of what they say when you know what you did was the right thing. What if they have higher authority than us? So, what if they restrict us? It’ll be on their heads to set things straight if we are restricted, and they know it. Remember last year when the nearby swamp overflowed due to the heavy rainfall? It was us that acted first and rescued everyone there and managed the situation while the other guilds provided the bare minimum.

So, don’t care what others might think because the majority know what we are. You must do what you can to help others and bring evil to justice! It’s the right thing to do! There is no better way to live a life than to live with honour and principles than to live like a pig that lives off of the wealth and fat they built in their bellies. That is why we will be… you all remember our motto, right?”

“Yes!” Everyone else replied in a loud chorus.

“Then say it with me!” The guild master said and thrust his fist into the air while shouting, “Lions Forever!”

“Lions Forever!”

Everyone roared with him, and the entire guild hall burst into roars of laughter and the air was filled with joy as the tension no longer had any no room to remain in such a joyful place.