For a long while, the crowd of onlookers, Adventurers, and Guild staff stared in silence. Carnivac picked up Ryoma’s fallen spear and raised it above his head, looking out at the crowd.

“Anyone else?” he challenged.

Princess Relena hopped down from her perch in IronHide’s hand and started clapping, soon the rest of the audience was shouting and screaming. It was hard to get a handle on, but it felt like half the shouts were cheering the downfall of Ryoma while the rest were screams of incredulity.

The minibots picked up a number of arguments about what it would mean for the guild if this weird new comer was the Guild Master, or just what the connection was between this wolfkin ninja and the princess’s automata knight. Was the ninja a subordinate or a champion or something? Don’t be stupid, magic tools can’t have subordinates. Maybe the knight is actually a halfling mage in full armor, pretending to be an auto. What about that giant one? Have you ever seen an auto that big, no way? Gotta be some sort of golem, right? That ninja was amazing though, probably a high ranked adventurer from one of the other guilds. He had to have burned through all of his mana, right? I’ve never seen any of those spells and they all looked high-tier. Yeah, definitely, after a boss-fight like that he’s gotta be just barely standing. Yeah, totally. You should challenge him now, if he's weak! Yeah, next time, I've got stuff to do...

Nearly everyone was thoroughly confused and had no clue what they’d just witnessed, other than the former Guild Master losing, spectacularly, in a leadership match against someone they’d never heard of. I was banking on the confusion, and general incredulity of it all, to mask Carnivac’s true nature for a bit longer if possible.

I had no idea who all in the guild actually knew that Carnivac was an Automata. Certainly those in Ryoma’s office when we’d been brought in, knew, and it was possible that the news had spread from there. Still, it might be best to operate under the notion that it wasn’t common knowledge just yet while doing a bit of research to get a handle on it.

No new challengers stepped forward, not that Carnivac could blame them after what they’d just seen. The din was starting to die down a bit so Carnivac spun the spear around and stabbed it into the ground for attention.

“While Princess Relena has sanctioned, and borne witness to this event, I’m sure most of you might take issue with an unknown taking over the guild,” he began. “Therefore, I will be designating a proxy that you will refer to as your new guild master in the intirem.”

The audience stirred back up again, wondering who would be named. Who did this guy even know? Carnivac pulled the spear out of the ground and pointed it at the Guild dismantler, the four armed naga, Najii.

“Najii, I name you,” he commanded.

Najii’s eye bugged and she jerked her head to look at me, then back to Carnivac, then back to me and attempted to bore a hole through my armor plating with her glare alone.

“Chipkali kamine!” she cursed, before slithering over the barricade and directly up to Carnivac.

She placed a set of hands on either side of Carnivac’s face, holding his head inches from hers and the other set grabbing the front of his armor. She reared up on her snake body, in order to be able to look down on him.

“Prime ullu ka pathe!” she hissed. “What, what?? What are you doing??”

IronHide walked over to Carnivac in a handful of steps and set me down near Najii. He then took a step back and sat down in the dirt. Najii’s glare snapped from Carnivac to me and locked on, though she didn’t let go of his face.

“Good to see you again Najii,” I opened. “Look, we both know that right now there’s no way an Automata could possibly be the guild master, even if he did beat the previous one in a sanctioned match.”

“Yeah, I know that,” she said, loosening up a bit. “But why me?? I don’t know the first thing about running a guild! I just chop things up!”

“Iii might be able to helllp withhh that,” a high but raspy voice, like dead leaves, said.

I looked away from Najii’s piercing glare to see Pythona, the Guild’s top mage slithering up to us. Najii looked mostly human-ish from the waist up; if you ignored her second set of arms, slitted gold eyes, and the faint split line that stretched from the edges of her mouth to her ears.

Pythona, on the other hand, held no discernible human traits at all other than, maybe, the skeletal structure of her arms and torso. Everything was very clearly snake. A snake head; giant snake body; and thin, elongated arms that ended in three fingered, claw tipped, hands. She did have some hair on her head, though, in the form of a white mohawk with bloody red roots that extended down her back. At least I thought it was hair, it could have been something more like thin feathers.

“Pythona,” Carnivac greeted, though warily.

Najii had partially released Carnivac, though rather than holding him to her face, she had wound her lower half around his legs and was partially hanging over his shoulder with her arms around him as if to say “this is mine, you can’t have it.”

“Ifff you will allow me to remain... Until now, I wasss the viccce guild dirrrector. I would beee happy to ssstay on to guide misss Nagina.”

“Najii, what do you think?” Carnivac asked, tapping one of her arms that had crept up around his neck.

“I guess you haven’t given me much choice here... I accept,” she said reluctantly.

“Excellent!” Princess Relena said, clapping her hands once. “You there, Talios, was it? Come. This must be properly documented. Master Prime, we have a schedule to keep.”

“Yes, your highness,” I smiled inwardly, giving a slight bow.

Like a whirlwind, she gathered up Carnivac, Najii and anyone else she thought should be involved and headed back upstairs to ratify paperwork and wrap up any sort of legal things.

At some point as the crowd thinned, Ryoma and his goons had disappeared. I was a little surprised to see Pythona still hanging out like she was waiting for something. Her offer to help Najii was also a surprise, I would have expected her to high-tail it along with Ryoma.

“Guild Massster,” she hissed, addressing me directly.

“Not me,” I winked, “Carnivac.”

“It’sss all the sssame. Isssn’t it? Or ssso I underssstand it.”

“I thought you would have slithered out with Ryoma.”

I instantly regretted my wording. She stared, unblinkingly and flicking her tongue, then shrugged, slightly.

“I’mm a maaage for the guiiild... not for Ryommma.”

“Hey, um... sorry about that hit back then. I heard you were hurt pretty badly...”

“I wasss hossspitalizzzed for ssseveral daysss.” Again, she shrugged, “but that’sss ssshed ssskinsss. We werrre trying to keel you, affter all. To keel, one mussst be prepared to be keeled.”

“That’s a very... logical way to look at it. And I appreciate the acknowledgement that we are alive and can be killed.”

Again, she shrugged. “It isss my nature. Ssstill, I would not mmmind a proper remmmach againssst you. Though... I sssenssse you arrre cheating sssome how...”

“Maybe,” I shrugged, “maybe not."

She gently tilted her head back a bit and opened her mouth wide, revealing two rows of several needle-like fangs. She made a clicking sound that reminded me of an electric starter trying to light a grill. I had no clue what the expression or sound meant, but then it occurred to me that this was her laughing... maybe.

I gave her a slight bow, imitating the one that Shiro liked to use.

“If you’ll excuse me, while I would love to spend the rest of the day speaking with beautiful snake women, I do have the princess’s schedule to keep.”

She leaned over, her face inches from mine and flicked her tongue out a couple of times, staring at me with those unblinking snake eyes. Her tongue lightly flicked across my face, gently, like a feather. Was she tasting me? What was this gesture?? Is she kissing me somehow?? Then, abruptly, she pulled back and folded her arms, making that clicking sound again, though without the fang display.

“Ffflirting will rrrarely work. Though... it’sss not entirely inefffective. Interrresssting combat isss far more efffectivvve... to capturrre a sssnakewoman’sss heartsss.”

She placed a claw-tipped finger to my throat and gently dragged it across as she slid past me.

“Fffight me again sssometime... guild massster.”

What. The. Hell...

Clearly, she was physically very non-human, but maybe that went for the way her brain worked too. I made a mental note to never flirt with her again, or fight her— if I could help it. Honestly, she terrified me in a primordial way, but I had been trying to go with the flow and strengthen the not an enemy thing. I’d have to pay more attention in the future so as not to lead anyone on, unintentionally.