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Already happened story > Merchant Crab > Chapter 160: Criminal Crab

Chapter 160: Criminal Crab

  Balthazar winced as the pieces of broken gss hit the floor, followed shortly by the bandit’s .

  Blue—with Druma on her back—had e in through the skylight above like a mage whose levitation spell had just run out, the weight of both of them dropping right on top of the man holding the crab captive.

  The thug let out a loud oof as the air was forcibly pressed out of his body uhe pressure of Balthazar’s rescuers and he passed out from the blunt force.

  Jumping off the drake’s back with his staff tightly gripped in both hands, Druma started hopping around with a menag look on his face—or at least his best attempt at one.

  “Arrrgh!” he yelled, shaking his staff around at nobody. “Let boss go or Druma magics you!”

  With a slight frown, Blue looked around and then down at the unsan under her. With a small growl, she called the goblin’s attention to her before nodding at their defeated foe.

  Druma looked at the bandit, staff still at the ready and fusion on his face.

  “You got him already,” Balthazar finally said.

  “Yay!” the assistant cheered, holding his staff up horizontally above his head and doing a little celebratory dance. “Blue and Druma beat bandits!”

  “I mean…” the crab started with some annoyao his tone. “He was already about to cut me loose, so…”

  The goblin ceased his dance. “Is boss mad at Druma? Blue and Druma shoulda waited outside?”

  His expression had quickly shifted to sad and apprehensive, his ears shagging like a dog who had just been caught chewing the cushions.

  “No. No, no. It’s fine!” Balthazar hurriedly said. “You guys did good! Who knows what would have happened if you hadn’t shown up? I might have had to actually offer that guy an insurance program or some other nonsense.”

  Druma’s expression ged back to joy and he resumed his victory dance, while Blue awkwardly climbed down from her bandit nding pad.

  “But we celebrate ter,” the mert warned. “Now get me down before the other bandit es ba—”

  With a sudden sm, the backdoor into the storeroom flew open.

  “What was that noise?!” the smaller bandit who had goside yelled as he rushed inside. “Grug, are you—”

  His eyes widened as they met his rade’s body sprawled on the floor, a drake standing over it alongside a goblin frozen halfway through his dance.

  “What the hell?!” the man excimed as he reached for the kached to his belt.

  “Watch out!” the hanging crab shouted.

  But his panions were already ahead of his warning.

  With a high-pitched yell, Druma pointed his staff forward at the ruffian, unleashing a volley of small green bolts at him. The projectiles hit him straight in the chest and stomach, making the man stumble bad grunt in pain.

  Before the bandit had time to know what hit him—a spell from an unlikely wizard—Blue had already leaped forward, usiucked back wings to glide smoothly over the room, closing the distaween them in the blink of an eye. As her ded on the floor in front of the dazed human, she spun around for a massive hit with her tail, sending him flying several paces into a pile of wood panels and pallets over by the er.

  Seeing their sed foe down and out for the t too, the goblin and the drake cheered loudly at each other, Druma hopping in circles around Blue as she nodded with a toothy grin that Balthazar couldn’t remember seeing very often.

  [Bandits defeated. Assist experience awarded.]

  [You have reached level 20!]

  “This is nid all, but I get down from here now or…” the party-crashing crab said from his least favorite hangout spot.

  As if suddenly remembering his presence, Blue quickly put away her grin and resumed her more serious and ung expression, looking at the sed bandit with a raised brow and a few sniffs, cheg if he was really out.

  Meanwhile, Druma rushed to his boss after grabbing the khe bandit had dropped befoing for his impromptu nap time.

  “Yes, yes!” he said. “Sorry, boss! Druma get boss down now!”

  “Ow! Watch the antennae!” pihe crusta as his assistant unceremoniously climbed up his upside-down body to reach the rope, pg one foot on his shell and the other awkwardly close to his face.

  With a swift swipe, the goblin sliced the rope from the ceiling beam and immediately hopped off the crab right before he nded on his shell.

  “Ouch,” Balthazar said. “That hurt.”

  “Sorry, sorry, boss!” the greeure excimed as he hurried to cut the ropes holding the mert’s legs and cws together.

  “It seems Onion Jake knew I was ing to check this pce,” said Balthazar as he stood up and shook the dust off his shell. “So that must meaher pces are being watched too. We o find Olivia and Suze to let them know, before they get in trouble as well.”

  Druma shook his head vigorously to every word. Even if he didn’t fully uand everything that was going on, he was more than happy to oblige and just gd to go along, and that was good enough for Balthazar.

  “My backpack,” the crab said, looking around the room. “Let’s find it a out of here before any more bandits show up.”

  The goblin looked around until he spotted the bag nearby on the floor. He hurriedly grabbed and ha to his boss with a big grin on his face. “Druma find bag!”

  “Thanks,” Balthazar said as he took the Backpack of Holding into his pincers, eyestalks frowning slightly. “Noas that guy saying there was nothing in here?”

  Putting one to the magical bag, the crab rummaged for a moment.

  He searched, pinched, and grabbed. At every turn his pincer fouly the stuff he expected. Tris, baubles, and other unsorted junk. Various bottles, some empty, some filled with potions. A few books and pieces of part. Even his retly acquired iron ingot was there.

  Was that bandit just stupid?

  Shrugging his shell as he realized the obvious ao his question, Balthazar closed the backpack again. He had no time to waste w about that. He and his friends o leave. Both to avoid more bandits and also to go find Olivia and Suze before they ran into an ambush of their own.

  “Alright, help me put this ba quickly a’s skitter on out of here,” the mert said to his assistant.

  As the goblin prepared to pull the backpack’s straps through the crab’s arms, a rumble of footsteps echoed from outside, several pairs of boots rushing closer to the building while the trio inside looked at each other with wide eyes.

  Before any of them could react, two city guards kicked open the double doors at the front while awo rushed through the still open backdoor, all of them with their ons out as fully strapped.

  “Everybody freeze!” the o the front shouted, spear firmly poi the crab’s party. “We got reports of a scuffle ihis pce. What’s going on here?”

  Druma immediately dropped the backpad threw his hands up.

  Blue simply looked at the men surrounding them with a displeased gre.

  Balthazar, oher pincer, showed some relief.

  “Oh, thank goodness it’s you guys,” he said, wiping the top of his shell with the back of his cw. “For a moment I thought you were more bandits rushing in.” He pointed his pi the two knocked-out men behind him. “Don’t worry, my panions and I already took these guys out. All nid ready for you to take them in.”

  The guard pulled his on bad looked at the full se in front of him with a deep frown.

  “They’re Onion Jake’s men,” another one of the guards said to the first after getting closer to check their pulses and look at their faces.

  “Damn it,” said the leading guard, exhaling sharply as he shook his head. “The boss isn’t gonna be happy about this.”

  “Wait, what do you mean—” the fused crab started.

  “You two,” the guard said to the two remaining guardsmen, “arrest these creatures. At least we deliver them to him to appease his anger.”

  Oh, crap! Corrupt guards!

  As the humans poiheir spears forward at the group and started ing closer, Blue assumed a ready stand bared her fangs with a threatening snarl, while Druma readied his staff agaie his apprehensive expression.

  “No,” Balthazar said to his two panions. “Don’t attack them. We’re outnumbered and fighting the town guards could nd us in even worse trouble. Let me try to talk this out.”

  Holding his pincers up, the mert stepped forward to the approag guardsmen.

  “Hey, fels, there’s no need for all this. Let’s just—Woah!”

  “Zip it, crab!” the guard in and said as the other two pushed the crusta against the floor and started putting a pair of shackles on him. “We had very specific orders t you in if we caught you stig your nose where it doesn’t belong again.”

  “I don’t even have a nose!” Balthazar excimed, his face pressed against the dusty floor. “Hey, watch the moneymaker, will you? I just got out of some ropes, must you really bind me again?!”

  A few steps away, the drake stretched her wings open and roared angrily as a dangerous blue glow started f from inside her open mouth.

  “Blue, no!” the crab shouted. “Don’t hurt them! It will make things worse! Just get Druma out of here, don’t let him get put in s!”

  Balthazar had little hope of her doing as he said. She hardly ever did. But to his great surprise, the winged creature looked him straight in the eye—her golden gaze as if pierg straight into his—and the fire building up inside seemed to subside as she turo the goblin.

  “What are you doing?!” the anding guard shouted to the remaining man not currently holding the crab down. “Seize them!”

  The guard held his spear in front of himself, looking scared to e too close to the fire-breathi as she he goblin onto her back.

  “Boss!” the anguished assistant called. “Druma no want to leave boss!”

  “Just get yourselves out of here!” yelled the mert. “Go and find help. And call my wyer!”

  The goblin finished climbing onto the drake and she wasted no time beating her wings forcibly, kig up a cloud of dust toward the nearby guard as she took flight.

  “Boss!” Druma yelled from atop the azure creature. “What is wyer??”

  “I don’t know!” Balthazar yelled back. “I just keep reading that’s what you should get when arrested!”

  “Shoot them down!” the first guard shouted as he pulled out his own bow.

  “Go!” the crab yelled.

  With a powerful thrust upward, Blue flew out through the broken skylight, disappearing from sight before the guards could ready their arrows.

  “Argh!” said the guard. “Whatever, we got the crab. That’s what matters. Pull him up a’s take him in.”

  “Why are you doing this to me?” Balthazar excimed, struggling against the attempts to close the shackles around his cws.

  “You are under arrest,” one of the guards said. “Now stop resisting!”

  “For what reason? What is the charge?” the indignant crab said. “Eating pie? A suct sliango pie?!”

  The guard in charge came iweeher two, putting his knee against the mert’s carapace as he tried to help with the s. “Just… stop… struggling!”

  “Get your hand off my gills, sir!” Balthazar shouted with profound e.

  Despite his protesting aance, he was no match for the guards, and soon after, the crab was being hauled in shackles to the Marquessian dungeon.

  The guards unceremoniously threw him into a cell, log up the door and leaving Balthazar seeing the sun through a set of iron bars, like a on criminal.

  Ah, crabapples… What do I do now?