Now he was here, under the blazing sun.

He had shown up for the briefing, or presentation, or whatever the hell it was…like he had been asked to, even coming early as that guy from yesterday suggested. And nothing was happening. Aside from him forming a permanent case of swamp arse, that is.

You would have thought that an enterprising merchant would have set up a food stall or something, but no, the people just had to sit and wait as they slowly roasted alive. A huge mistake on the part of whoever had organised this whole thing as it would result in temperatures running high; he was not referring to the heat.

Aside from his snazzy sunglass eyes, his shadow powers had all been turned off. As he adjusted the creation speed of his shad-B.O to compensate for the freed up power; a smoky-grey haze surrounded him in a smog-like shroud.

Feeling the sweltering heat diminish ever so slightly, he leant back, enjoying the sweet relief while it lasted.

Earlier, he had tried covering himself with a thin coating of shadow stuff, similar to the rubbery-type substance he had used in his morning rituals. The material, like all his summons, partially absorbing the light. It had worked to cool him down at first, but then the morning heat started to rise. Adding in his own body heat, he soon started sweating like a pig. With little choice, he could only disintegrate the stuff, a strange ticklish sensation running along his skin as it all turned to dust.

He was tempted to keep wearing it though, his insecurities assaulting him in full force. To escape the heat, he had sat himself down beneath an old tree, the shade a welcoming relief from the sun above. There were a few other trees in the area, each fully occupied by locals and adventurers alike, but beneath this one, he sat alone.

The voices at the back of his mind kept telling him it was because he reeked, that people did not want to come near him for fear of his overwhelming body odour. It was unlikely the case as he was obsessive about his morning cleaning rituals and knew he smelt far better than most of the people around here. But most was the keyword there, he just could not know for sure, that uncertainty feeding his negative emotions.

On the other hand, he really didn’t like crowds. And in this heat, the locals were sure to smell equally as bad, if not worse than he may have been. The city might have placed importance on hygiene. But the village’s residents seemed to consider it a form of opulence, nice but unnecessary. It was probably for the best that they were avoiding him, then.

The sounds of voices approaching him from behind eliciting from him a groan.

“Of course…”, he sighed.

A group of people had approached the tree. With the exception of one old guy, they were all young. Some were even younger than him. Nine people in total. Judging by their attire, they were adventurers, not locals.

As they sat down, their intent to stay becoming more than obvious, Goodie made the decision to ignore them. He had far more important people focus on.

Specifically, that prick, two trees over. Goodie…actually, Her Majesty, had spotted him mingling with the various groups that occupied the area. The man had been chatting them up all morning, drifting back and forth, but never going far from the tree that Goodie sat beneath.

He would not have been able to describe him, were it not for her majesty. The guy was covered in simple clothing, easily found in any market, and a large leather hat that Goodie would have mistaken for the type belonging to a cowboy were it not for it being too floppy. He could have easily been mistaken for any of the other locals that wandered about, and probably would have been if Goodie had not asked Her Majesty to sneak up and look beneath that wide brim of his.

The man was average looking, with brown-hair and brown-eyes. But Goodie recognised him. He did not remember from where, though, and that worried him.

From what he could tell, the man was alone. Which should have made him far of a threat than the other two groups that had been tailing him.

The two groups were clearly with Mr. Mayor. The first and more visible of the two, being the village’s guards.

There were few of them overall, probably using the excuse of being here to keep the crowds in line; most seemed to indeed be here to keep order, but a few had been wandering around the area had been blatantly giving him ‘casual glances’ the entire time. Goodie considered that it might have been a trick, a method to distract him and draw his attention away from the real threat, but no, they were just incompetent.

That was the thing with corruption, Guards who had been taught to half-arse things would rarely ever be capable of doing more than just that.

The other group comprised of the street thieves that tried to rob him.

Not the same three that had accosted him, however, probably for fear of them being recognised, which was pointless precaution as Goodie had Her Majesty Keeping tabs on anyone and everyone who came within proximity of Mr. Mayor.

He did not have her spy on the man himself as he knew that the guy possessed at least one magical trinket. Even if all the man could do was detect her, it would probably have triggered an aggressive response of some kind, but not knowing the extent of magical enchantments, Mr. Mayor might have something that could have destroyed her outright, or possibly affect him personally through their shared link.

His memory was not good enough to be able to memorise anything about them, but the vague tingling of recollection was sufficient enough for him to place their allegiance and roles.

The group of thieves had dispersed themselves throughout the area, the young ones playing with the children of villagers and visitors alike, the elder ones taking up disguises of various sorts. Enough in number that each one would only have to look at him once in a while to confirm his location and actions. Presumably passing on that information through some unseen method as they passed each other, their game of espionage, having them twirl about the grounds in an intricate dance that only they were aware of.

Or so they thought.

While they had operated with far greater skill and efficiency than the village guard, their one mistake was concentrating on him when they should have been paying attention to the villagers.

Most likely thinking that they may have been working to relieve the crowd of their valuables as they would normally be doing. The villagers, who knew who they were, probably having grown up beside them, hell, probably being related to some of them, had begun to react. First, guarding themselves and their precious items. Then, most likely from the impatience of waiting for the thieves to either act or leave, yet instead, finding themselves in a state of limbo as the group spied on him, they first began harassing the guards to drive them off. Said guards, being the ones that were milling about the place, the very ones who were also supposed to be spying on him.

The sight of the guards faces as they forced to make a decision on whether or not to do their job, or do their real job, had brought a smile to Goodie’s, a feeling of mirth that he had not felt in a long time.

Unsurprisingly, they chose money over integrity.

Seeing them do nothing, the villagers then set about harassing the thieves themselves. Driving them off with threats of, and in some cases actual, beatings. Even the children were not spared. Actually, when he looked at it properly, it seemed as if the villagers focused on them more than the adults.

But it was not because of their incompetence that he concerned himself with the lone man more than them, it was because he did not know where that man had come from.

Who the hell was he?

The worst-case scenario that he could imagine was that the man was an agent of that noble fop he had run into back in the city.

He felt them before he heard them, footsteps, someone was approaching him from behind.

He did not react, for fear of giving himself away. He did, however, recall Her Majesty.

He mentally tore himself a new one as she made her way to him.

He needed a second summon! If only to watch his back.