"You bastard! Do you know how expensive that thing is? Your horse is a bloodthirsty animal, pay up or I will get the damn guards!" The man in fancy clothing pointed at Marc; obvious furiousness can be seen on his face as he began to look around at the people surrounding.
"Pardon me, what's happening here?"
After pushing through the gathering crowd, Pearl and the rest, still confused, tried to get a grasp of the situation: It seems obvious by the sight of another horse whimpering on the ground, red on its calf that it's been attacked by the team's own horse.
"Tuna kicked the guy's horse… I did warn him but he didn't care, can we just pay up?" Marc whispered, knowing it's a very bad idea to cause unwanted attention, especially when they don't exactly know how to keep a low profile while on the run.
"Our horse's name is Tuna? Was mom in charge of naming?"
Esmeralda turned to look at Marc in disbelief, remembering well the time he tried to name her... What was her full name again? Veldrielynth Manao Elisabeth Sinner Omal Emerald Wazowski Cuteness V? One heck of a tongue twist, she was gonna be. He still called her Vel and Pearl called her Veldrielynth so that name stuck somewhat.
"What is this, are you mercenaries?" The man took a look at everyone of the Freedom's Group, from an armored guy like Marc, to an elf who is armed with a wooden bow, and an exotic looking pet; Mei and Pearl did not stand out that much, concealing most of their gear.
"You want to gang up on me? Revenge? Everyone, look! They attacked my horse and tried to intimidate me! Call the guards! Get these criminals off of our town!"
Without getting a word in to explain or defend themselves, the crowd started to speculate, pointing fingers, not in the favors of the Group whatsoever.
"What are those gears? Are they travellers?"
"How vicious of them to disturb the neighborhood!"
"I'm getting the guards."
"That's one ugly lizard."
"Krek!" Esmeralda spoke (squeaked) up, which translated to "I heard that!"
The situation got uglier as time passed, Pearl shook his head in disbelief. This was not the first time things like this happen, but this surely was the first time they're in an actual bad situation, being fugitives and all, not having any leverage over that rich man. Even so, he had to make something happen, so Pearl walked up, trying to make an offer of peace.
"My name is Pearl Magmal, I believe we could make something work. I apologize for all of this commotion between you and my friend here. Do tell me what you need."
The man eyed Pearl up and down; from his distinct blue hair, well dressed and demeanor, the man knew right at that moment he struck gold.
"You are lucky I got no carriage on, so you have to pay for medical treatment, medicine, bandages, physical and emotional damage, loss of my time and my energy to raise my voice. That comes out to 100 gold coins."
The moment the man finished his sentence, even the civilians watching was shocked; Esmeralda herself started to make sounds which resembled growling as she tried to launch forward to claw him with that absurd request, luckily having Rina holding both her smol head back. Meanwhile the elf was whispering something to Marc, and he nodded.
"Well that is a outlandish reques-"
"What is going… on here?"
Mei tried to speak up and call the man out for his absurd behaviour, but then an eerie voice cut her off mid sentence. It was the second time today already that someone didn't respect what she had got to say, the fact made her quite frustrated, but the young mage decided to keep it to herself.
"Ah… An AAA, even better! You people are so doomed!"
The rich man voice seems to be raised in pitch, like squeaking almost from bliss, knowing he'll about to make easy bucks.
"Excuse me, sir. These people have done nothing but cause ruckus, trouble and property damage, look at my poor horse! That fierce horse of theirs has attacked mine and they are refusing to pay up! Send them to jail immediately!"
The man who arrived was a tall man, he would be around 180 centimetre from first glance; yet he was thinner than expected, almost not normal-like. He was wearing a darker red suit with the word "AAA" printed on the back, smaller text below spell out "Above Authority of Alcray" and no visible weapon. Upon hearing all of the merchant's blabbering, he turned towards the rest of the team, fixating his eyes on Esmeralda as Rina noticed and hugged the girl tighter onto her chest.
"Everything…. he says… are correct… Adventurers?"
With the weird pattern of speech, the man immediately started asking questions, before he turned around and waved his hand, signaling some town guards in chainmail armor and spears to disband the crowd.
While that was happening Marc sent Rina a confused look of expression after their secret conversation. The sly elf then simply winked, handed Esmeralda to Mei, and took the responsibility to answer the question.
"I'm sorry sir, our only witness when that happened was our swordsman here, but he's born deaf, he could not tell his side of the story, so it is unfair." Lying with a confident smile and blank stare she was.
Esmeralda, Pearl and Mei instinctively turned their heads towards Rina, as Marc awkwardly smiled and started to wave random hand gestures as if trying to imitate bad sign language, even holding up a peace sign at one moment.
Pearl was staring at Marc, he knew the his leader knew sign language, and yet was throwing random stuff to throw off anyone looking. So he quickly concluded this is an act. Pearl patted Marc on his shoulder and nodded:
"I can confirm that is true, yes. It is unfair for him to testify without the ability to talk."