“What took you so long?” John, while clenching his eyes, asked Luke who had just arrived in the kitchen.

He saw the half-wolf coming up to take his daily shower and shortly after, he noticed Meredith’s disappearance. For a moment, he was shocked at the idea that the two were dating, however, he decided to remain quiet.

“Ann… I was brushing my tail.” Luke replied nervously.

John had decided not to say anything, but that didn’t apply to the other four, who now stared at the half-wolf with dirty looks.

“What is it?” Luke questioned, trying to play dumb. At the same time, his racing heart almost came out of his mouth.

“You… and Meredith? Since when?” A short, handsome man asked. He had a beard and large hair. Among his brown strands, there was a considerable amount of white hair. He was also missing his left arm because he lost in a tavern bet.

“Me and Meredith? An… What are you talking about, Matthew?”

“Forget it, guys. We have more important things to discuss. And you guys know that Luke is not like us.” Ynosuke appeased the situation for Luke’s side.

“True.”

“Makes sense.”

“Could be, right?”

Nevertheless, Ynosuke whispered in Luke’s ear afterward: “Just avoid having sex in the bathroom, bro. It must be uncomfortable.”

Pretending not to hear Ynosuke, Luke asked Matthew: “What happened? John said you had good news.”

For a few minutes, Matthew recounted his entire day. He is the kind of person who doesn’t spare even the smallest details when he is going to tell some story, so everyone listened patiently.

“Then, around six o’clock, I was discouraged that I hadn’t found any useful information, so I went to buy a moon muffin to try to distract myself, and next to the stall were two guards. While buying my cookie, I overheard one of them say that the Strogueher family has requested a gene supply for three months from now.”

“Really?!” yelled big Zack.

John stood up and tapped the table. Tum! “No fucking way! A gene pack here for Oukiwa?! These guys are underestimating us!” John said excitedly.

Luke and Ynosuke remained quiet.

“What about the handsome guys over there? Do you agree with this robbery?” Meredith, who had arrived at the end of the story, asked the two.

Ynosuke stood up, looked at the girl, and said: “In my experience, the wagons are protected with five or six guards. That factor triples because we are talking about the Strogueher family. This will be a gene supply, meaning we can take the tripled amount and triple it again.”

“That is, in the best-case scenario, we would have to deal with forty-five guards at once. And at worst, it would be more than fifty-four.” John said.

Luke still tried to count multiplication on his fingers, however, he was easily lost. He never had the chance to study mathematics.

“Each of us would have to deal with at least nine guards. Since I can’t fight, I would only go to open the carriage locks.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier if we robbed the whole carriage? Then we’d get all the genes.” Zack proposed.

It was common knowledge that stealing an entire wagon was dumb. Outside the city, most of the roads are dirt, and inside, the only streets that could hide the wheel tracks would be the main ones, which are always packed with adventurers.

What Zack had big, he had dumb, so he was ignored.

“Nine guards is too much stuff for any of us except Luke.” Meredith said as she pulled up a chair at the table. “We can try working with another gang. But the last one didn’t work out, because you guys betrayed them when you found out they were slavers.”

Silence hung over the room. All six of them knew that they didn’t work well with other gangs, which was also why they opted for smaller robberies.

“What if we infiltrated the family by being bodyguards?” Zack said as he put a spoonful of the stew into his mouth. Everyone looked surprised at the big guy as if for the first time in his life he had a good idea.

“How would we do that?” Matthew asked, confused because he knew that bodyguards were difficult for noble families to hire.

Usually, the security for these families is done by retired knights, and when many security guards are needed, they hire some outsourced security service.

However, as if by fate, a messenger from the Strogueher Family had announced that they were looking for someone capable to become a bodyguard.

“Okay. That’s good, but why did they announce that in a tavern like the Lemon Barrel?”

Everyone thought for a while and Meredith was the first to think of an answer: “They are probably looking for some talented young knight. Some days of the week, it gets crowded there with young people coming out of the academy and going for a cheap drink. But they must have got the hours mixed up because, at night, only the merchants and coachmen drink there.”

*

The next day, Luke woke up a little later than usual because the group had been discussing until dawn the possible plans to steal that shipment from the noble family.

Through his bedroom window, he could hear the shouts coming from the fish market that was set up every Tuesday in the harbor. Luke was not excited about today, in fact, for the first time in years, he felt he would have a bad day. 

He washed his face, brushed his teeth, cleaned his ear, and took off the clothesline his characteristic thief’s uniform that was based on just a brown tunic and a black cloak over it, which had a hood big enough so that it could hide his ears well.

Luke was the only one against the plan to steal the gene wagon, which surprised everyone, after all, Meredith also refused to draw much attention, but even she believed that this was too perfect an opportunity.

Since all that mattered in the gang was democracy, Luke had to accept. He knew that the chances of something going wrong were absurdly high since this was the main noble family that runs the city. 

Therefore, he made a deal with everyone: he would be the only one to take the test for bodyguard; if he didn’t pass, everyone gave up this plan.

The gang accepted this condition, not least because Luke was the strongest among them, so there was no need for the others to try too. If Luke didn’t succeed, none of the others would even come close.

Even though Luke was the only one in the gang who would know the true outcome, he didn’t think of frittering away or limiting himself, because that would be the same thing as betraying the trust that everyone placed in him.

And since the chance of Luke failing was huge, he didn’t worry too much about it. He just decided that he would do his best, even if he doubted that he would stand out among the dozens of aspirants that would show up.

During the drizzle, the half-wolf walked to the second mansion of the Strogueher family, without requiring any help. The place, which could be seen from any high point in the city, looked like a municipal building.

Just as he expected, when he reached the street of the indicated place, he saw more than a hundred aspirants. He was upset because this test would probably drag on for the whole day, but since they had stolen two bags of currency the day before, he was unconcerned about the lost time.

As he walked up the street from the mansion, Luke heard many comments that pleased him:

“Have you heard? That S-Class Knight who retired last week is here.”

“Really? I’ll get his autograph later.”

“A S-Class in Oukiwa? That’s something I never expected.”

“Yeah, the first Dungeon was discovered less than 10 years ago here, so there aren’t many high-Class Adventurers.”

“Hey, did you hear? The Champion of the Tournament of Legends showed up too!”

“The Champion?! What the hell is going on here?!”

The Strogueher family messenger didn’t even in his wildest reveries dream that making that announcement in a third-rate establishment would attract so much attention. He certainly underestimated what a bunch of drunks is capable of doing.

The Matriarch of the Strogueher family, Ayumi Yamazaki Strogueher, was so furious that she was about to fire Jonathan for such a grotesque mistake. She had planned something more discreet and secure, but now it seemed that half the city’s Adventurers and Mercenaries were at her Mansion’s door.

“Jonathan, if there is no one I like among everyone in front of my house, I will make sure you never get a job in Broteforge again! Now go, get out of my way!” She shouted at the chubby man, who was in a cold sweat.

In all his years working for the family, he never imagined that Lady Yamazaki, would treat him this way when he made his first mistake. As he walked out one of the side doors of the main hall, Jonathan sketched his characteristic perverted smile, as if he had loved receiving insults from the Matriarch.

The old guard who watched the whole scene quietly, also noticed the fat man’s expression when he left. However, he didn’t tell on him because he could understand him, because he didn’t want the woman to waste any more of his time with this trash.

Ayumi had long golden hair that extended to knee height and although her body was beautiful, and she had huge breasts, everyone felt she must be older than she looked, not least because someone young would not have the chance to command such a prestigious family.

“Oliver, today you will have the chance to personally choose who will or will not enter this house.” Ayumi said, returning to the composure they usually have.

Oliver, the guard, nodded in agreement and said: “Yes, ma’am. Any preferences?”

“You know what it is.”

The big guy, wearing his huge obsidian armor, marched into the backyard of the mansion.