Chapter 3: Our Journey is Just Beginning

Chapter 3:
Our Journey is Just Beginning

OUR CART JOSTLED as we traveled over the grassy plains to town, and a gentle breeze traveled with us.

My name is Yoshida Shuta, thirty-two years old, and these days I’m a hunter in this fantasy world. I was traveling alongside a man named Gimul as his escort on orders from the chief of our village.

“How much farther until we reach town?” I shouted to Gimul from the back of the wagon. It was a peaceful day, but our backs were turned and we had to speak up to hear each other.

“We should make it there in about three days at this pace. If we run at full gallop, we’ll be there by evening, but there’s no reason to rush.”

“Gotcha. What are we going to do about sleeping arrangements? The village chief didn’t mention anything about that.”

“We’ll be roughing it outside. It probably won’t rain, so I’m not planning to sleep at some nearby village.”

The Gimul I remembered was a man of few words. He would’ve told me to “put up with it” at any question, or maybe just shut every question down with a plain “no,” but he seemed so much calmer now. There were plenty of reasons for that, I was sure, one of which being how I once kicked his ass after he got drunk and tried to murder me, another being how much the village chief praised me for my efforts fighting the wyvern.

The main reason, though, had to be how the village chief had taken an interest in me. If you can get yourself in good with the top brass of any kind of organization (say, for example, a medieval fantasy village), then suddenly everyone finds they can’t talk smack about you anymore.

Way back when, I was working at a place that made crappy packaged convenience store meals. There was a younger guy supervising our production line, but the one I had my eye on was the old lady in charge of all the part-time workers. She’d been in the business for twenty-five years, and had been making mediocre C-store rice balls while the younger workers were pooting away in diapers.

A friend invited me to work there as a quick part-time job, but I stuck out like a sore thumb. I also colored my hair back then, so everyone treated me like some kind of stranger from another world. (Part-time jobs prepare you for all kinds of weird stuff, huh?) Anyway, I did everything the old lady in charge of the part-timers said, even if it contradicted the young guy supervising the line.

If you get in good with the higher-ups, no one can say anything against you. I made sure to do the same thing with the village chief, doing everything I could to get on her good side. Of course Gimul chilled out. Imagine if I tried to suck up to Gimul, of all people. Nah, I put my experience from before to work and made sure that if there was one person I was never going to disappoint, it would be the lady with power.

“Hey, Gimul?”

“What?” he shouted back at me from the driver’s seat.

“It looks like someone’s been following us for a while now.”

“Someone’s been what?”

He pulled hard on the reins, brought the wagon to a grinding halt, and whirled around to look in my direction.

“Right over there. See them? They’ve been following us ever since we hit the road.”

“Yeah, I see them. Who is that?”

“Not a clue. Maybe a bandit?” I offered.

“No, it can’t be. It would be a different story if we were taking the highway frequented by merchants, but this doesn’t make sense.”

Despite what he said, Gimul placed a hand on the sword he wore at his waist. He may have been born in the same village as Cassandra, but he definitely didn’t have her sharp eyes. Gimul gave a frustrated snort—he couldn’t make that hazy figure out—and turned to look at me.

“Want to use my sword?”

“No, I’ll be fine using the one I got from Ossandra.”

I had some experience from sword-fighting competitions, so I was well versed in the fine art of wielding inflatable plastic blow-up swords. My shortsword was just around the same length as them, so, you know, close enough. I don’t know why, but karate guys are usually also sword guys, and I was no exception.

“You’re not gonna use a bow?” asked Gimul.

“I’m still practicing with it. We’re better off if I use a sword, unless you don’t care whether I hit my target.”

We tensed up, preparing for a fight. As the figure got closer, though, I saw that they were…waving?

“What, someone you know?”

“Seems like it,” I said. “They’re waving and everything.”

“I can see that much, you idiot!”

While we were talking, we heard the figure shout something as they continued to run at us. “Hey, guys! You gonna give me a lift to town or what?”

Our mysterious pursuer was none other than Nishka, all dressed up in her best traveler’s clothes. Okay, it was more like her usual clothes—a cloak over the blouse, vest, and hot pants that made up her usual outfit—but hey. She was panting slightly as she pulled herself up into the wagon, before she shouted an order to Gimul.

“C’mon, what are you waiting for? Let’s get this show on the road!”

Gimul wasn’t happy to hear that. But Nishka was an expert wyvern hunter, and she played a significant role in the battle taking out ol’ dry bones in the back of the wagon. She earned the village chief’s praise for her efforts just like I had, which was why Gimul was having such a hard time flat-out telling her to get lost.

I decided to feign ignorance to the whole affair as Nishka explained herself.

“I was getting jealous you were the only one going to town, Shooter, so I decided to tag along. I’ve never been, ya know?” she said. The wagon jostled. So did her massive chest.

“This isn’t a vacation,” I said. “Gimul and I are going on business.”

“I’m coming along to watch you work, then. Besides, it’s better to have two people on escort duty rather than one, right? All agreed? Great. Let the road trip begin!”

Yeah, it didn’t matter what any of us said, did it? She wasn’t listening to me at all. At first, Gimul was vehemently against the idea and kept telling her to go back. That was until Nishka came up to the driver’s seat and leaned against him.

“C’mon, you’re a man, right? Don’t be such a killjoy,” she cooed. “You’re not gonna find a wife that way, ya know?”

That made Gimul shut up, most likely because she was pressing her absurdly huge assets against the back of his head and gently wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Lucky bastard.

With that settled, we set off again on our way to town. It was a pretty uneventful journey, all things considered. We were traveling in a wagon with two full-grown men, a girl, and a pile of wyvern bones all being pulled by a single horse, so we weren’t exactly moving along at a breakneck pace.

I decided to ask my two other travel partners a question to kill the time.

“So, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask for a while now,” I started.

“What, you want to know something about hunting?” Nishka nodded. “Ask away. Wyverns are my specialty.”

“No, not that. Can we move past the wyvern stuff, please?”

“Then what? You wanna know what kinda guy I like? Sorry to say, but you aren’t my type, Shooter.”

Nishka was clearly not interested in listening to what I had to say. Gimul just stayed silent up in the driver’s seat. He didn’t really seem to know how to deal with Nishka.

“No, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about breakfast! Nobody eats it in the village! I can’t get used to that. Even if they only have enough to eat two meals a day, wouldn’t a morning meal give you more energy to tackle the rest of the day?” Honestly it was one thing I was still completely unable to get used to since I got to this world.

“C’mon man, ain’t it obvious? Skipping breakfast makes lunch taste even better, doofus,” Nishka answered with absolutely no hesitation.

Gimul, on the other hand, did an audible spit-take and broke into a fit of coughs.

“She’s lying,” he said, whirling around. “We skip breakfast to strengthen ourselves against starvation, which makes our bodies store extra nutrition.”

Nishka blinked. “Y-y-yeah, I mean, obviously. I-I was just messin’ with you, Shooter! Ha, I can’t believe you, uh. Fell for. That. Heh.”

As one might expect from the son of the village chief, Gimul really knew his stuff. Nishka, on the other hand…didn’t.

I remembered reading somewhere that even though tons of people skipped breakfast nowadays, it wasn’t worth it. Going straight to work after waking up just caused nasty hunger pangs. People in this world went without breakfast on purpose, though, in order to train their bodies against that very phenomenon. The same problem tackled two different ways by different worlds with their own traditions…and now I was wondering which one was right.

Our meals for the road consisted mostly of preserved foods. I ate the meal Cassandra packed for me first, but now I was down to nasty biscuits and smoked wyvern jerky for dinner.

Gimul did his best to chew through the tough wyvern jerky, looking miserable all the while. Once he noticed I seemed to be choking mine down relatively easily, he spoke up.

“You seem like you’re enjoying that wyvern meat.”

“Ha, like hell. I’ve just had tanuki jerky before, and this tastes more or less the same as that.”

Out of all the meat out there, nothing was more hit or miss (mostly miss) than tanuki. The taste changed depending on what it had been fed, but all the tanuki meat I ever tried was just awful. It was dry and tough as leather, which was just about the same as wyvern meat.

Nishka wasn’t bothered in the slightest as she dug into her portion of wyvern. Made sense, given her specialties.

The next two days played out in about the same way, camping outside as we made our way toward town. When nighttime came around, we took turns crawling into the back of the wagon to sleep. On the third day, right when we were all reaching the point of exhaustion from our back-to-back nights roughing it outdoors, we finally made it.

We had arrived at the town of Bulka.

“This place is huge!” Those were the first words out of my mouth upon seeing Bulka. I was imagining something a few sizes bigger than the village, but the town blew it out of the water. “Wow, there’re walls going around the whole city. How many people live here?”

Gimul shrugged. “What, you never seen a town before? That’s just how they are. The population is over ten thousand, which is more than ten times the amount living in both the village and the nearby settlements combined.”

“Dang, I guess that’s the city for you.”

Of course, back in my world Bulka would’ve been a dinky little town, but it was a virtual metropolis in this one. Watching all the people streaming in and out of the gates had an almost exotic feeling from my point of view. Japan isn’t exactly brimming with roads and buildings of stone, after all.

Nishka, meanwhile, was practically picking her jaw up from the ground.

“There’s more people here than that huge herd of deer we saw back in the forest!”

Well. We all have our unique ways of seeing the world, I guess?

***

I tried to get my personal appearance in order as we prepared for the border inspection outside Bulka. I was wearing a vest that once belonged to Cassandra’s father (one of three), the beautiful g-string underwear she knitted me, and my fox-fur loincloth.

Aside from that, I wore a cloak as part of my traveling gear and a few bare necessities for any decent hunter—namely, a shortbow and shortsword. (I’d left my spear behind, since I decided I probably wouldn’t need it in town.)

I may have seemed a bit lightly dressed for springtime, but at least I wasn’t buck naked anymore. Yeah, I’d fit in just fine in town! Probably! Hopefully?

I spun around like a fashion model as I checked myself out, earning a wary peer from Gimul. “You got off the wagon just to twirl around like an idiot? The hell are you doing?”

“I was just wondering if my outfit looks weird or not.”

“Funny coming from a man who used to be naked all the time.”

“It’s not like I wanted to be naked or anything. N’aniwa took all my clothes, so I didn’t really have a choice.”

“Don’t be stupid. You’ve been naked ever since we found you wandering around the forest.”

“Huh?”

Now that I didn’t know. I could’ve sworn I arrived in this world wearing the same shirt and work pants I had in my old one…but nope, apparently the only suit I’d been wearing had been my birthday suit. So what, was I reborn here? Was God making me start over as a middle-aged dude? That didn’t seem fair, come on—couldn’t I just start over from the beginning?

“I thought you were part of some clan that took pride in being nude or something,” said Gimul.

“As if. Back where I came from, being naked in public is a crime.”

“Hm. Then you better be careful in town too. The only ones wandering around naked there are slaves and the crazy folks they call ‘wise men.’”

Wise men? What the hell? At least being naked wouldn’t be a crime here. Considering my (awful) luck with clothes, it was nice to know that.

“Wait, are we planning on going into town now?” Nishka whimpered. “Just like that? My heart’s not ready for it yet!” She trembled and clung onto me.

Which squished her humongous melons into my innocent arm. There were no such things as bras in this world, either, so I could feel everything through her clothes. My little buddy downstairs raised his flag high, the patriotic little perv, so I tried to calm her down and get her boobs away from me.

“Don’t worry, Nishka, just play it cool. You are cool. A badass, matter of fact, a wyvern-slayer. Be proud! Hey Gimul, what exactly happens during these inspections?”

“Usually they levy taxes on people coming through, but we’re exempt from tariffs on authority from the village chief. They should just do a simple check to see what we’ve got.”

I turned to look at the line ahead. There were about thirty people waiting to try and get through the town entrance. Some were travelers loaded with bags, others merchants using horse-drawn carts, and there were even some with fancy, properly covered wagons who were probably nobility.

I passed the time till our inspection trying to calm Nishka down, and it still seemed to take forever.

“Where are you coming from?” the guard asked Gimul finally.

“The village by Apegut Forest. We have business with the adventurer’s guild, on orders from the village chief.”

Nishka and I jumped out of the wagon and lined up beside Gimul. The guard went to pat us down for a body inspection. He was all business when he worked on Gimul, but was, shall we say, very thorough when it was Nishka’s turn. There could be anything hidden in her cleavage, he said, or certain spots that only a girl could hide things in.

She shot him a glare befitting a wyvern-slayer, though, and the guard backed off. After a relatively quick pat down of the rest of her body, she was let go without any problems. There he went, from creeper to trying to get it over with as quickly as possible.

I understood the mentality behind the strictness, since people bringing weapons could be interpreted as trying to incite a revolution against the local authority. That said, carrying weapons for personal protection was fine. It was just having tons of magic amulets or cursed weapons that got the guards’ hackles up.

Speaking of curses, even though I was cursed with being naked most of the time, they let me in with no problems—can you believe that? I didn’t really like being touched by guys, so it was a real win-win if you ask me.

“Listen up, here’s the plan,” Gimul told us. “We’re taking the bones to a trading company we’ve reached an agreement with and selling it to them. Once that’s done, we’ll find a place to park the wagon and find an inn for the night. I know a place that people from the village always use.”

“All right, got it,” I replied.

“We’ll head to the adventurer’s guild after that.”

“Who cares about that stuff?” Nishka butted in, chronically shitty at reading the room. “Let’s go look around town!”

Countless rows of stone buildings stood packed together like sardines along the main road. They reminded me of the rows of tchotchke shops at tourist destinations, and they were almost as crowded as one during the heavy midday traffic. It was like a bustling shopping district from back in my world.

While we only had a single wagon in our entire village, this place was so built-up that vehicles were an everyday sight.

Gimul brought the cart to a stop in front of a trading company. I jumped off the wagon and pulled away the sheet covering the bones. When Nishka followed, her two girls jumped around when she hit the ground. Nice.

As that was going on, a goblin had come out of the trading company and already started negotiations with Gimul.

“It’s been a while.”

“Good to see you, heir to Apegut.” That was apparently what our village was called in Bulka, along with the Forest.

“It’s still too early to call me that. My mother could always end up marrying someone else, which means the title would fall to them.”

“Surely you jest. You’re the legitimate child of the previous chief, aren’t you? Not like you’re going to have any competition, either—they say Alexandricia’s barren.”

“Keep your voice down, dolt!”

Gimul shot a glance my way, and I grabbed a few of the wyvern bones from the back of the wagon. The meat had been scraped away from the bones before cleaning them, and they’d been taken care of as well as you could expect. You were usually supposed to use these bones to make new weapons, armor, magical potions or whatever in your average fantasy world, but look. These are goddamn bones we’re talking about. Hollow bones that have to be light enough to fly. What’re you going to grind these up to fashion, a thimble?

Maybe they could be used for medicine, though? Dinosaur bones were an extremely valuable ingredient in herbal medicine, people told me, so why not?

However, wyvern scales surely had to have some use in armor-smithing. They were sturdy, lightweight, and I could guarantee how effective they were after fighting the thing they came from.

“Aside from its head, we’ve got all the bones here,” said Gimul.

“And what happened to the head?”

“I left it with my mother as a testament to the strength of our village. We made sure to bring its scales though, so make sure to get a good look at them.”

“I’m sure they’ll make some fine armor once you finish getting them prepared, when you find some folks who can actually manage that,” the goblin said with a laugh. Then he climbed into the back of the wagon and started looking over our wyvern bits, turning over the bones, squinting and hmphing and inspecting.

“How much can we get for them?” Gimul asked.

“Much more if you had the head, I can assure you.”

“I see.”

“With what we have here, I’m looking at twenty gold Bulka coins and five silver Church coins. Yeah, that seems about right.”

“All right, we’ll take it.”

Wasn’t there supposed to be bartering involved? I expected a little grumbling out of Gimul, maybe some hard-to-get for a few extra gold coins.

While I worried over Gimul’s apparent lack of haggling talent, a bored Nishka opened the top of her blouse a bit and started to fan herself. She eventually caught on to me ogling and shot me a look of disgust.

“Eyes to yourself, man.”

“Wait, you mean you weren’t doing that on purpose? I thought you wanted me to see or something.”

“Conceited much? Ugh, now I’m all self-conscious.”

Wait, did having big boobs actually bother her? “Speaking of not-that-at-all, why do you think Gimul isn’t trying to bargain with this guy? You’d think he’d try and haggle for a better deal or something.”

“Are you kidding? Twenty gold coins is a ton of money! That’s enough to eat fluffy bread and meat stew every day for the next decade!”

“Is it? And how much would that cost?”

“You could buy a whole twenty sets of full-wyvern armor with that much cash! That deal’s ridiculous!”

“C’mon, really? I mean, the only thing you know about is hunting, so…”

“Wh-what, you making fun of me? Anybody can count money, ya jerk!” As Nishka got worked up, her chest got to jiggling, and naturally, Shuta Jr. started getting worked up as well.

Getting off the topic of jiggling, before long the goblin went back inside the shop and Gimul turned to face us. “I heard you wondering why I didn’t barter. There’s a reason for it. Listen to their demands now and you can leverage them later, use your knowledge to make better deals.”

“Like a loss leader, sort of. Take a hit now, make a gain later.”

“Right. The village gets all the supplies it needs from this company. What’s more, even if they tend to undersell us, they listen if we really need something big taken care of. We can’t get that with other shops.”

Just like that goblin said, Gimul was really brushing up on his leadership skills for when his turn came up.

I had experience working to get a payment system in place for a startup company. Well, I wasn’t working on the payment system—my role there was to clean up the place where the actual team worked. Still, I remembered something one of the bosses said:

“There’s a reason we charge a higher handling fee than our competitors—so we can offer fuller support. We’re the only ones working Saturdays to get their payments processed. We’re there when our clients need us.”

And that’s why Gimul picked these traders—because they helped out the village when they truly needed it, even when other shops wouldn’t comply.

“Expensive or cheap,” I muttered, “there’s always a deeper reason than you think. Today’s losses are tomorrow’s profits. I think I got a bit smarter today.”

Gimul looked at me with a curious expression on his face as I said this to myself.

“Wh-what?” I started, flustered. “Does my hunter outfit make me look weird after all?”

“No, you dolt. I was just making sure you weren’t about to do something stupid, that’s all,” Gimul snorted as he looked away.

We left the trading company behind and found a place to park the wagon. After paying a small fee to the attendant, we headed for the inn.

Gimul, being gigantic, was a great human bulwark to push our way through the crowds of people. The main roads were built wide enough to allow carts to pass through, but the alleys were cramped and packed full of street stalls.

“From what I can see,” I said, “it looks like there’s only humans and goblins here. Are there no other races around?”

“Yeah,” Nishka piped up, “I thought there would be other long-ears like me around, but I’m not seeing any.”

There were goblins everywhere in Bulka. Most of them looked like they worked as employees at shops, but some were decked out in fancy armor—they looked like warriors.

These must’ve been the goblins talented enough to make it into town that Wak’wakgoro told me about. The ones who’d chosen to leave their families. They might even be working as adventurers.

“Are people with long ears especially uncommon?”

“No,” Gimul answered, “you can find elves in the settlements.”

So long ears meant they were elves after all. Nishka didn’t look too elf-y, though, especially with her head of violet hair.

“They are a bit rare to see around town, though,” he continued. “Most elves live somewhere around the Apegut Forest.”

“Do elves stick to the forests and mountains because they hate city life? And they don’t get along with dwarves, either, right?”

Gimul snorted. “Slow down, brain-damage. There’re tons of elves if you head toward the capital. Even the royal family has elf blood in it.”

I turned to Nishka, a quizzical look on my face.

“Th-that’s just because people like me are a bit special! Yeah, that’s gotta be it,” she said. Well, she didn’t seem all that special compared to us humans, aside from that ludicrous rack.

“Bulka is a town way out on the frontier,” Gimul continued, “so you won’t find any elven nobility or city dwellers here.”

“I see. So elves like Nishka are savages, then.”

“Am not!” she shouted indignantly.

Soon enough, we arrived at the inn. That’s what they called it, anyway. I hadn’t expected anything as fancy as a hotel or travel lodge or something, but I thought we were headed toward something at least a little better. Maybe a place to kick back and relax. Like, tiny but roomier than a capsule hotel or something.

No such luck. The Sound of Joy Inn was as barebones as you could get. Gimul was the only one to get an actual room, while Nishka and I were shoved into a tiny twenty-square-foot room with two beds. Well, I say beds, but I mean hammocks.

Gimul got to take it easy, and we were stuck with the hammocks. Discrimination! Socioeconomic disparity, bourgeois oppression! With hammocks!

“We’ll grab something to eat after we drop off our stuff,” said Gimul. “Make sure to bring anything valuable with you.”.

“Like what? I’m pretty much naked all the time back at the village, so it’s not like I have anything more valuable than the fur loincloth I’m wearing.”

“Can it. Just make sure to bring your sword.”

Obviously. I was supposed to be guarding him, after all. No way was I letting go of that blade.

***

We left the inn a little bit after noon to go find something to eat. I thought we were going to a restaurant or something, but we just grabbed cheap eats from a food cart. We sat down on empty barrels, drinking vegetable soup from a cup and scarfing sandwiches that were nothing more than meat packed between slices of hard bread.

Just a bit of trivia about this world, but you were never supposed to eat vegetables raw. They could contain parasites or viruses, so they always had to be cooked.

“I thought food in the city would be crazy delicious, but this isn’t anything to write home about,” Nishka grumbled.

“I bet we could find some better stuff if we went to a good restaurant,” I said. “I’d love to try going to a bar or something.”

“Hell yeah, a bar!” Nishka (chest and all) bounced up and down excitedly at the idea, but Gimul shot her down on the spot.

“Not happening. There’s still daylight to burn, so we’re heading to the adventurer’s guild after this.”

“C’mon, don’t be such a buzzkill! I’m talking one drink, we’ve got time for that!”

“No. You came here without a coin to your name. I’m already paying for you to stay at the inn.”

I sipped on my wine, watching the two of them go at it.

“How come Shooter gets to have wine?! Let me have some too, damn it!” she complained. So much for neutrality.

“I bought this with my own money,” I said, “so that’s a no.”

Money earned from backbreaking work at the village, thank you very much, right from the village chief’s coffers! Like hell I was spending my hard-earned paycheck on this barfly.

“Listen, buddy, this is, uh, that thing, with the, ah, profits that are tomorrow, and today we’ve got losses! But that’s fine, because later we’re gonna be at tomorrow. Yeah, that’s it! So hey buddy, come onnnn, just buy me a driiiiiiiink.”

I blinked. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“You might feel like you’re taking a loss now, but you can ask me for something later, and right there? That’s all it, baby. That’s when you get happy.”

“Uh huh. You’re talking about what I said back at the trading company?”

“Yeah! So you make me happy first, and I’ll owe ya.”

Wow. All right, can’t say I expected that from the supposed “Scalesplitter.”

Slightly dazed, I picked up my wine bottle and offered it to her. “Fine, fine. I already had enough to drink. She’s all yours.”

“Really? Wait, really? You know that I’m gonna just drink this whole thing, right? Man, you can’t take this one back. I will decimate this wine.”

“I won’t ask for it back. I will ask you for the ‘profit’ part of the deal soon enough, though.”

Eyes twinkling, Nishka practically snatched the bottle from my hands and started guzzling down the wine. Oh, I was feeling downright diabolical now. What should I have her do for me? The possibilities!

“Ahhh, this hits the spot!” she cried.

“They don’t just call her ‘Scalesplitter,’ you know,” said Gimul. “A lot of us just call her ‘Tipsy Nish.’ She loves her booze, if that wasn’t apparent.”

“Yeah, I can see that. This right here does not look like a ‘Scalesplitter.’”

“What’s worse is she can’t hold her liquor, so keep a close eye on her.”

With that little misadventure out of the way, it was time for us to get back to work. Next step: find some capable hunters to bring back to the village with us.

“Hey, heyheyheyheyhey!” said Nishka. “I heard they’ve got a bar at the adventurer’s guild, can you believe that? Let’s grab a drink there, Gimul!”

Well, I thought, here we go.

The image I had in my head for the adventurer’s guild was something like to a saloon from old Westerns, but that was only half right. It was closer to the inside of a bank, which made sense—I mean, apparently this place started out as an agency to help people find jobs. Sure, they called it an adventurer’s guild, but it catered to shifty-looking mercenaries, adventurers, and even laborers and hunters. If you worked day-to-day, this was your place.

There were shades, too, of a brothel from an old Western movie, but a lot of it was a partitioned counter and bulletin boards posted along the walls. There weren’t any receptionists waiting behind the counter like you might find in certain popular game franchises about being a monster-hunting guy—more like merchant and trader types. There were also a few people advising patrons from behind the counter.

I expected this to be a place full of adventurers who looked pretty much the same as those Vikings who helped take down the wyvern, but that wasn’t the case. Just a healthy mix of men and women of all ages. Some of them were probably looking for adventure, but it looked like a lot of them only wanted to put food on the table and were willing to take whatever odd jobs needed doing.

“Where’s the bar at?” Nishka groaned. “I’m not smelling any alcohol here.”

Gimul and I ignored her.

“I’m going to talk with one of the consultants here about our request,” said Gimul. “It’s going to take some time. Keep Nishka occupied.”

“You’re talking our request for more hunters and stuff? I’d actually like to see how that works instead.”

“Understandable, but I don’t think we should leave her to her own devices right now.”

“Heyyyyyyy, bar? We are going to the bar, right? We can drink if it’s just a little bit! C’mon, pleeease?” Nishka said, tugging on my arms.

“I guess you’re right,” I said, sighing. “Let’s go then, Nishka. It was just next door, right?”

Nishka practically dragged me out.

“Hey Shooter, did you know you can get beer in town? The village only has wine and the stuff made from potatoes, so I want to drink some of the good booze for once!” she said, and then unleashed her very best puppy dog eyes.

“Fine, whatever. But just one, got it? I’ve got my own expenses, you know,” I said, jingling my wallet to emphasize the point.

“Y-yeah, I got it, I got it. Just one beer. And maybe something to eat, too. Then I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Yeah, yeah. But teach me how to use wind magic next time as payment. Which, by the way, doesn’t count for the other favor you now owe me.”

“Fine by me—if you can learn to use it, that is.”

Not that I really needed to buy her this beer for her to teach me—Nishka replaced Wak’wakogoro as my hunting instructor after he became leader of the hunters. It was more of a personal favor.

Without further ado, we headed to the bar adjoining the guild. I paid for our beers and some beef jerky, and then we sat ourselves at a table carved from a log.

The beer was crap. The stuff was room temperature—I mean, come on—and there were all sorts of impurities floating in it. Totally undrinkable. If only it tasted like some kind of German beer. I lived on lagers, maybe even Belgian beer if I felt fancy. Whatever this frothy concoction was, it wasn’t any beer I was used to. It even had a cherry on top for some inexplicable reason.

“Damn, this is great!” Nishka roared, slamming down her glass. “It doesn’t taste like grapes or potatoes at all!”

“Happy to hear it, I guess. Ah, hell, take mine.”

“Seriously? Hell yeah!”

Nishka didn’t hesitate for even a second before she took my beer and started guzzling as I chewed on a strip of the beef jerky. Even that didn’t taste right. It tasted like…dried squid? The hell? What a letdown.

I grabbed the water bottle Nishka left on the table and took a gulp to clear my palate, but ended up spraying everywhere as I spit it out instead.

“This is potato vodka!”

Nishka wasn’t called “Tipsy” for nothing.

After a while, Gimul joined our table, his own mug in hand.

“You finish everything?” I asked.

“Yeah. They pinned up a notice with all the people we’re looking to recruit.”

“Well that’s good to hear. Are we heading back to the village, then?”

“I’d like to, but I was told that we’d need our own branch of the adventurer’s guild in the village if we wanted to get serious about building the place up.”

“A new branch location in the village?”

“Mm. They said it would be more convenient having people there already rather than sending people from town every time, like what happened with the wyvern attack.”

Gimul took a few gulps of his beer, wiping the foam from the drink on his sleeve. We ignored Nishka, who (as always) crowed about how great her drink tasted.

“We could end up running into more wyverns as the village continues to develop,” I said. “It happened to Cassandra’s father, too.” I thought of a considerably more sober Nishka telling me how villages developed and displaced wildlife, even butting heads with them from time to time.

“Exactly,” said Gimul. “That’s where you come in.”

“Huh?”

“My mother and late father spent the last thirty years building the foundation for the village, expanding it, putting everything into it. If we want to keep pushing, we’ll need to recruit more people to come live in the village, and we’ll need capable adventurers to protect them. But not just anyone will do.”

“You want me to become an adventurer?”

“That’s an option if the village chief gives the okay. More specifically, a warrior of your skill should conduct interviews for potential candidates.”

“I see.”

“By fighting ’em.”

“Wait, what?” I exclaimed. Niska munched her beef jerky obliviously “Fighting who?”

“Them. Whoever you think might do. Pick a fight with somebody, see how they do. Simple.”

“Simple?! Easy for you to say! These guys are adventurers!” I shouted. (Gimul took a couple swigs of beer.) “Listen, man, I don’t even have the guts to try getting to second base with my wife! My hands? Completely unboobed. And you think I can just swagger on up to an adventurer and pick a fight? I’d be dead in no time flat! Nishka, back me up here!”

“Uh, listen bud, no matter how much you ask, don’t you even try to feel me up! Not happenin’! You are not gonna touch these sweet puppies!”

Cool. Thanks for the help, Tipsy Nish!

Gimul shook his head. “What are you getting all scared for? You beat me with nothing but a laundry pole. Just do that again. The people you’re interviewing are going to be coming at you with everything they got, so all you’ve gotta do is take them down.”

“You’re serious? A friggin’ laundry pole? Can I not use another weapon?”

“Nah. And don’t you worry about hurting them. We can just get them healed up by the guild’s priest while their wounds are still fresh.”

Ah, shit. This was revenge for beating him up earlier, wasn’t it?

“You’re strong,” he said, “I know that much. As the number one warrior in our village, I’m expecting some good things from you.” Gimul grinned. The hell was that supposed to mean? I-believe-in-Shuta grin? I-can’t-believe-I-get-to-see-ass-kicked-Shuta grin? Aw, hell.

There I was, standing alone with only a laundry pole in my hands.

“C’mon, let’s do this!” shouted a bearded middle-aged guy with one of those fake fantasy-Viking vibes to him. He was naked from the waist up, rippling with muscle. Think of a pro-wrestler with a Thor-vibe and you’re on the right track.

We stood in an open area behind the guild, me with my laundry pole, my opponent with a goddamn broadax. Just a tiny difference!

Not like my laundry pole will snap in half because this is a broadax meant for choppin’ oh wait that’s exactly what axes do never mind!

“All right!” Gimul shouted. “Go get ’em, Shooter!” Acting all innocent, like he had nothing to do with this! Like he couldn’t be the one holding the laundry pole. And Nishka just kept pounding down beer, not helping at all.

“If you’re not comin’ to me,” Thorwrestler roared, “then I’m comin’ to you! Hraaagh!” He hoisted his broadax over his head and at once this hulking giant was bearing down on me.

Way back when, I worked as a trainer and sparring partner for an athlete at this one karate organization. The guy was a beast—he even competed on a national level—but training with him from dusk-till-dawn was a real pain in the ass. Sometimes literally. Here I was, this nobody who won third place in a regional tournament once, and I specialized in form over combat to boot.

Still, the fact that I was so diligent in my form meant that I stayed faithful to the basics. Comparing my own movements to a guy at the national level helped keep his techniques on point. Maybe it was the right choice for me to “interview” adventurers for our village, see what they were made of.

Wasn’t hyped about the constant, horrible pain, though. I was so bruised and sore from sparring with that guy back in the day that I constantly needed special ointments to take care of the pain. I’m talking zoo-animal-strength stuff, that’s how bad it got.

That was what worried me about this guy too, but the whole mess ended up super anticlimactic.

The adventurer was a hulking monster of a man, that much was true. His broadax was real, too. Considering his body type, he probably chose the weapon because he had the power to put his all into it, just like my own physique made long-handled weapons right for me.

But you can’t just rely on power. His movements were rough and unrefined, and he was slow bringing his hips down for a strike. Watching carefully, I dodged his first attack.

“You trying to kill me?” I shouted.

That strike could’ve taken my arm clean off, so I was getting desperate quick. If I got scared I’d freeze up, so I told myself it was going to be all right—just fine, just keep telling yourself it’ll be fine—and took a step forward to fight back.

Broadaxes are large-headed axes, and their long wooden handles give them a decent reach. If I could just get in close, he wouldn’t be able to use the weight of the weapon to its full potential, halving the power behind his hits. Then I could sweep his legs and send him sprawling.

As I thought through my plan, my body acted on it. All that practice really stuck with me. I swung the pole for a wide sweep, stepped back, took another step forward. Right when it looked like I’d make another sweep, I jabbed the end straight into his stomach instead.

The adventurer let out a grunt of pain as I leaned into him with the full weight of my body, pinning him to the ground.

“Nice one, Shooter!” Nishka shouted gleefully, and she raised her mug in the air. “Looks like you’re strong enough to live up to that warrior name after all!”

Ignoring her, I went to help the adventurer up.

“Oof, that stings. Thanks for the help.”

“You did good. Try working on your footwork a bit more, it’ll make it easier for you to switch up your tactics when you fight.”

“Footwork, eh? Got it.”

“Yup. It’s the basis for using any kind of weapon, after all.”

After finishing our small post-battle chat, I shook the man’s hand. Guys like him were a dime a dozen, so I’d hold off on deciding whether to take him. Huh. Being an interviewer was kinda fun.

“Something like that?” I said, shooting a quick look at Gimul.

“Yeah. Next up is a girl who uses a rapier. You want to keep going with the pole?”

“A girl? Seriously? No, I’ll switch to my shortsword, thank you very much.”

From a giant of a man to a girl, eh? I didn’t think there’d be too many female adventurers, given what I’d seen of the Vikings back at the village, but I suppose that was just me.

Right, so I was wrong to think she was going to look like a Valkyrie or something. Nah, we were looking at an Amazon. A really, really butch Amazon.

She had short hair, and though her body was slender, she had the build (and face) of a guy. Could’ve sworn I even saw a beard. And her chest might as well have been padding for her massive pecs!

“I just need to beat you to pass?” she asked.

“Try and go easy on me, if you would.”

“Hmph. You really think you can take me down? You must be dreaming.”

The words hardly left her mouth before she delivered a lightning-fast rapier thrust. She was light on her feet, weaving effortlessly between offense and defense. I hurried to get into the right stance to deal with her barrage of thrusts and slices.

A circle…that was it, I could think of a circle around her. When she came close, I took a step to keep myself in front and just a little to her side. If I kept circling just a little, I could dodge—

And her rapier came whizzing towards my vest.

“What, you not going to fight back?”

“Eep! Is everyone trying to kill me?”

“Listen, you keep running away and I’ll slice those cruddy clothes of yours to shreds!”

“Like hell you will!”

Her rapier went for my throat, but she changed direction—just a feint. She aimed the tip of her sword at my stomach. I deflected it…right down to my loincloth, which scattered to pieces, just like she promised. Another goddamn piece of clothing ruined! Again! Again! “Wait, hold it!” I cried. “Time out!”

“What, you giving up?” she cackled. “You surrendered easier than I thought.”

“No, not giving up. Just need a quick time-out so I can strip down, then I can go all out against you!”

Quickly I slipped out of my vest and loincloth. My wife lovingly wove me this underwear, and I’d be damned if I lost her gorgeous, vaguely sleazy handiwork.

“All right,” I said, balling up my clothes. “Now I’m ready.” I handed them to Nishka. She was already red from the alcohol, and now she was even redder. “Hurry up and take these away, Nishka. My opponent’s waiting.”

“Okay, yeah—but I don’t get why you’re handing me your friggin’ underwear! You just took those off, man, they’re all fresh with, uh, dick energy! Dickergy?”

“Yeah, yeah, just hurry.”

I went to face my opponent once more, now much lighter, wearing only a red scarf and my shortsword.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. Now, bring it on!”

But Nishka wasn’t the only one turning red. “Eeek! You pervert!”

Huh. City girls were a lot more sensitive than I thought.

And just like that, I’d faced off against the adventurers—all two of them. As we made our way back to the inn, Gimul and I discussed whether we should pick one or keep looking.

“Let me get this straight, Shooter, you’re asking what we’re looking for in an adventurer?”

“Right. If we just want someone strong, then that butch girl with the rapier, what’s-her-face…?”

“Electra.”

“Yeah, Electra, she was hardcore. I think she’d be the best.”

Personally, I wasn’t so sure about how we were measuring these guys. Fighting one-on-one was one thing. Fighting monsters around the village was something else entirely.

“Well if we’re going by specific criteria,” said Gimul, “then we would want to hire someone who won’t cause trouble.”

Nishka cut in, “Aren’t all adventurers pretty rowdy?”

“I suppose you’re right,” Gimul grumbled. “But beggars can’t be choosers.”

I shrugged. “Those two were fairly civilized after I finished interviewing them, so I guess they wouldn’t be so bad.”

“True, though Electra seemed a little…jumpy after your fight,” Gimul added. We were just about back to the Sound of Joy Inn. “I’ll let those two know they passed come tomorrow. All that’s left is to find a few other people we might be able to use.”

“Got it. How much longer are we planning on staying in town? I’d like to buy a present to take back home to Cassandra.”

“Yeah! It’s only been a day since we got here, and I haven’t done enough sightseeing yet!” Nishka sighed and sulked and generally made it blatantly clear that she wasn’t ready to leave.

“I’ll head back with the two adventurers,” said Gimul. “You two can stay here a bit longer.”

“Huh?”

“Like I said, make sure to prioritize finding adventurers. You won’t just magically stumble upon new hunters and new residents for the village, so stick to recruiting from the guild. Just don’t invite anyone suspicious, you hear me? Really ask yourself who would do well in our village.”

“Y-yeah, of course.”

“If you make any progress, use a messenger bird to let me know. They’ve got a coop at the guild.”

“All right, but shouldn’t I be guarding you?” I asked.

“I’ll have those adventurers with me. There shouldn’t be any problems.”

Gimul handed me a heavy hide pouch. It was full of those silver Church coins, along with some other silver coins I didn’t recognize.

“There’s some money for your stay. If it’s not enough, I’m sure you’ll find a way to make some more. And if you turn in good work, the village chief will likely give you some kind of reward.”

“Are you sure I can take this?”

“Just don’t run away. I’ll send people after you if you do.”

I shivered, remembering Ossandra’s plan for me to escape the village. This…complicated things.

“I won’t.”

Gimul then turned his attention to Nishka, who lazed at the entrance with her hands folded casually atop her head.

“What are you planning to do, Tipsy?”

“Think I’ll go ahead and soak in the sights a bit more before I head back.”

“What about money?”

“Shooter has some, right?”

“But Gimul said this was my pay…” She was going to mooch off me even more, then? Really?

“Figure out a way to pay for yourself,” Gimul told her.

“What, why? This is discrimination! It’s because I’m an elf, yeah? How come only Shooter gets some?”

“Those are public funds, Tipsy.”

Nishka looked devastated. She trudged back to the room we shared as if I’d killed and ate her puppy. Well, let her whine all she wanted. I wasn’t going to sympathize, and I definitely wasn’t going to buy her a drink!

***

We all headed back to our rooms at the inn. Gimul got the nice spacious room that had a bed, desk and chairs, the whole shebang. Meanwhile, Nishka and I were stuck in a room the size of a shoebox with double-decker hammocks for beds. We didn’t have the luxury of furniture. We didn’t even have our own light outside of the open window; it let in the waning city noises of the early evening and just enough streetlight to see the floor.

“How do you wanna handle these hammocks?” asked Nishka. “I think I’ll top!”

“Whatever, man. I’ll be bottom if I gotta.”

You know, with the hammocks and such. It’s not weird. It’s not weird.

Once upon a time, I lived at one of the restaurants I worked at. The veteran chefs always took the lowest bunks, since climbing up and down the tiny ladders was always a huge pain in the ass after a long day’s work. Not to mention, if they went out drinking and got smashed, they couldn’t even climb the things properly by the time they got back.

So yeah, of course the other chefs immediately requested the lower bunks whenever it came time to change rooms. That, or they’d claim it the instant another veteran chef left and their bunk was up for grabs.

The beds at the inn didn’t even come with a ladder, and you had to hoist yourself up to the top bunk. Definitely easier for me to drink if I was bottom.

“Then I claim my rightful spot on top! Live your life with the knowledge that I’ve won and that I’m always looking down on you, Shooter! Mwa ha ha ha ha!”

“We had a saying back where I came from. ‘Two things like high places: smoke and the stupid.’”

“Hold on, whaddya mean ‘stupid’?”

“Oops, sorry. Maybe it was ‘idiots’? Fools? Morons?”

“Making fun of me? The greatest wyvern-slayer Apegut’s ever known? You know what they call me.”

“Tipsy?”

“Mrrraaaaaaaghhhh!” Nishka bopped her fists against me in frustration. I just stood up, headed out to the hallway, grabbed the barrel of lukewarm water, and brought it inside.

“What the hell? Why are you taking off your clothes?”

“Because I’m gonna wash up.”

Earlier, I paid the goblin at the front desk for a bathing set that included a clean cloth, a sponge, and water to wash myself with. I wasn’t about to let the bathwater I paid for go to waste. I was always naked in the village, so there was no way it bothered her that much. Plus, I wanted to mess with Nishka a little.

“You’re right,” said Nishka. “We’re gonna get sick if we don’t use that water before it goes cold.”

“Yeah…I mean, uh, what? Wh-what are you—?”

Because now Nishka was stripping along with me. She threw her vest onto the top hammock before sliding off her hot pants, then undid her blouse button—and by button I mean a small monster fang, whittled down to function as a button.

After undoing her blouse not-button, her hands suddenly stopped. Instead of continuing to take it off, she started on her panties. She just tossed ’em on top of her other clothes. Another thong. So that was just what everyone wore here, huh? How…interesting.

Finally, the blouse came off. Boing.

Now here we were, naked in the same room together.

“Sit down,” said Nishka. “And I’ll wash your back.”

“B-but I have a wife.”

“Mmhm. And now you’ll get home all clean for her. Oh yeah, we should get you some new clothes in town before we leave.”

“Yeah, some new clothes for me and a present for Cassandra. But um, right now…I mean, is this really okay? This isn’t exactly chaste, ya know?”

“Just sit your ass down already! The water’s gonna go cold.”

There weren’t any chairs in our tiny room, so I sat on the edge of the barrel, gritting my teeth and bearing it as the hard wood dug into my butt. When Nishka lifted up her arms to fasten her hair with a pin, I got an eyeful of her armpits—and the forest of hair there. Looks like people in this world didn’t shave their underarm hair…and, well, damn, I guess I was developing a new fetish.

“You’re on your own washing your front,” she said.

“Yeah, uh, I got it.”

I wrung the water out of the sponge and handed it over to Nishka. She started scrubbing.

“Um.” I swallowed. “You’re going awful gentle on me. If you keep that up, I’ll, like…feel good, you know?”

“Well, duh. Everyone feels good after getting clean. You’re just gonna have to put up with it if it tickles.”

“And why are you just focusing on the same spot?”

“To get all the dirt off, doofus. Your back is stupid huge though, Shooter.”

“Well, yeah. That’s just a guy thing, right?”

Thank goodness the room was dark. Would’ve gotten way too excited if it was brighter…but then again, things were already getting pretty wild down there, and maybe that was because it was dark.

I wondered if this was the norm in this world. I’ll admit it—I never spent time messing around with girls I didn’t know too well back in my world. You shouldn’t play around with women, honestly, and entertaining “friends” seemed expensive to boot. Part-timers like me didn’t have that kind of money.

“All right,” she said—and I heard a quick splish—“time to switch. I scrub your back, you scrub mine.”

“You sure? I mean, I’ll do my best and all, but—”

“’Course I’m sure. After all I did for you, you’re not gonna scrub my back? C’mon, man.”

I turned around, and there they were: Nishka’s hulking knockers in the dimness of the room. The accursed darkness—I raged against it, raged I say! Even if I wasn’t quite sure…

“Nishka, what is this, even? I’ve never even touched my wife, and yet here I am washing your back.” Up and down, up and…down…

“Nah, this stuff’s normal. It’s not like we’re doing anything lewd, and anyway, you’re the one who walks around naked all the time.”

“Y-you’ve got me all wrong! I don’t wanna be naked, I just wanna see naked! Women, that is!”

When I finished washing Nishka’s back, we dipped our feet into the water and started to scrub them clean.

Then came the knock. I could hardly prepare before it flew open and whoever it was saw the both of us, completely naked! Which, I mean, was fine for me, but—but Nishka!

I panicked and turned to see the intruder—what kind of ass would be so lacking in any semblance of privacy?

“G-Gimul?!”

“Hey. I need a word with you, Shooter.”

“Yo, Gimul. We’re in the middle of a bath right now, so if you’ll just give us a minute…?”

“Sure. Come to my room when you’re finished.”

The door creaked shut, and Gimul left the room as if nothing at all had happened.

“Y-you don’t think he’s got the wrong idea about us, do you?” I stammered. “I have a wife, after all.”

“I don’t get it. Is there some kind of problem?”

“Of course there is! How could there not be?!”

Overwhelmed, just thoroughly done, I jumped out of the barrel and hurried to get my clothes back on.

***

With my surreal bath extravaganza behind me, I went to visit Gimul’s room. I couldn’t say what time it was, exactly, since there were no clocks I knew of in this world, but my gut told me that since the sun had set about an hour or two ago, it was probably around eight in the evening. I knocked.

“Enter,” came a reply from the other side, so inside I went.

“Hey there.”

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Erm. I’m sorry you had to see that earlier.”

“You walk around in the nude all the time. I didn’t think you could get embarrassed.”

“I just felt a little, uh, guilty about the whole thing, I suppose,” I said, and awkwardly shut the door behind me.

Gimul hunched over a small desk, on top of which was a candle and some paper.

“I was writing something to give to the guild.”

“Up writing this late? How exhausting. Is it about those two adventurers we’re accepting?”

“No, we can just tell them in person. Take a seat,” said Gimul, gesturing at the bed. I sat myself down and listened.

“This is a recommendation letter for you to give to the guild.”

“Huh? Don’t we need the village chief’s permission first?”

“If you’re staying here, you need a way to make money. If you’re going to be recruiting adventurers, I figured it would be better for you to experience what it’s like to be one. I’ll be sure to tell the village chief as well, so no need to worry about that.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for doing all this.”

“Letters are how small communities like our village stay in contact with the guild. I’m used to it.”

Gimul handed me the sheet. Considering this was a fantasy world, I kind of expected it to be written on sheepskin or whatever, but it was more like some crappy recycled paper made out of hemp. In fact, I think it was somehow even worse quality than recycled paper.

I remembered reading somewhere that the process to make papyrus back in Egypt was too complicated for it to be mass-produced, so I wondered what this could even be.

There was something else I noticed as I looked at the words on the paper.

“I can’t read this. What does it say?”

“It says that I’m leaving a hunter named Shooter and a girl named Nishka in the guild’s care, and that they’re both away on work. As such, they’ll need a way to earn money for themselves while they’re here in Bulka. I’m really putting my reputation on the line here for you, you realize, so make sure you don’t do anything stupid.”

“Y-yeah, of course. We’ll be sure not to cause any trouble for you,” I said with a nervous smile. “Actually, since you’re headed back and all, I was hoping you would pass on a message to my wife for me.”

“Hm? Let’s hear it, then.”

“But, erm…can she read?” I asked, fidgeting uncomfortably.

“You don’t even know that about your own wife? Of course she can’t read.”

“We are just newlyweds, after all…”

“Tch. Illiterate hicks, the both of you.”

Despite the vitriol in his words, Gimul took out a new piece of paper and dipped his pen in the inkwell on his desk before turning back to me.

“Tell me what you want to say. I’ll write it for you.”

“B-but she can’t read, right?”

Gimul sighed. “I’ll read it for her. Just talk already.”

Back and forth between being supportive and snarky. If Gimul were a girl, the hot-and-cold routine would be a little cute, but come on.

“All right.” I cleared my throat. “‘Dear Cassandra, I hope all is well with you. Bulka is a regular metropolis, dotted with faint midnight streetlamps, and though the city can overwhelm the senses and leave one flailing in uncertainty, at times I recall the comfort that your magnificent cooking brings me after a hard day’s work. Upon Gimul’s orders, I have agreed to stay longer here, so—’”

“Too long. Paper is precious. Shorter.”

“O-okay…”

“Now.”

To my beloved wife: My stay here is going to be longer than I expected. I want to see you again, but this is part of my duty to the village.

“How’s that? Ha. Ha?”

“’S’all right.”

“Good. I’m going to buy her a present tomorrow, so could you give it to her when you read it out? What do you think would make a good souvenir?”

“Ask Nishka.”

Gimul set the letter aside for the ink to dry, then pulled out a bottle of booze.

“Now, then. I said I needed a word with you.”

“Y-yeah? What is it?”

Gimul looked so profoundly serious. Freaked me out. I was half expecting him to tell me how he’d always hated me or something. I mean, sometimes it felt like he had it out for me ever since I arrived, and that he might not have been happy about me catching the village chief’s eye. Now would be the perfect time for him to make that clear.

“Drink?”

“Sure.”

“I took your wine back then. I’m sure you recall. Well, this is my apology. Drink as much as you want.”

“Yeah, I remember. I just figured we were even after you got hit in the face.”

“We both know that wasn’t enough.”

He offered the bottle of wine to me. It would be rude not to take him up on the offer. I wasn’t used to this world’s beer yet, so crappy wine with stuff floating in it suited me just fine.

As Gimul watched me drink, he began to speak. “Our village has grown over the course of thirty backbreaking years thanks to my father, and then due to the efforts of my mother after his passing.”

“Yeah, I remember hearing something about that.”

“As long as things stay the course, it’ll either be me or one of my siblings who take the reins and continue that work.”

“Yeah, that seems about right. You have siblings, Gimul?”

“I don’t…for now. It may not always be that way.”

“Huh? I’m sorry if this comes off as rude, but isn’t the village chief…” I swallowed, made myself finish the sentence, “infertile?”

“Did my mother tell you that?”

I shrunk back from Gimul’s withering glare. The goblin from the trading company said it earlier, and Wak’wakgoro knew about it, too, so I thought it was fairly common knowledge. Gimul’s face hardened when I looked away from him.

“That damn apeman couldn’t keep his mouth shut, could he?”

I examined my hands.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Gimul finally. “What does matter is that it isn’t the truth. My mother probably spread that rumor herself to keep potential suitors away.”

“So you’re saying that she can actually have children?”

Gimul snorted. “Of course she can. If she couldn’t, she could’ve just gone to the church to be healed.” He paused. Took a drink, let out a long sigh.

“Let me be frank with you. I hate outsiders.”

What could I say?

He continued. “The village was where I was raised, and the villagers there were my family. Outsiders have only ever sought to steal that away from us.” He spoke with a quiet fury. I could only imagine what could have happened to him to fuel that rage.

“My mother is still young,” he said, “and so there were other governors. Other village chiefs, all trying to court her. There was even an idiot that called himself a ‘knight’ who tried to get in close. I disposed of that vulture.”

Gimul may have been an amateur at sword-fighting, but he was still absolutely ripped. Some fake knight would’ve been nothing.

“So,” I said, swallowing dryly. “That’s why you were so wary of me?”

“I do feel sorry for that. You were just, what, some naked man wandering around back then?”

“Yeah, and just wandering aimlessly around the forest…”

“Shooter, I won’t tell you to help me. I don’t know if you would. What I want is for you to help my mother. There’s no one I love or respect more than my parents. We have to be the ones to build up the village, and I have no intention of letting anyone else have it.”

And there we go, there’s that Oedipus complex. But hey, I could hardly blame him—she was a quick-witted and gorgeous woman, and still probably more like his older stepsister than mother.

He wanted me to help her, huh? What was I even good at? Hunting, maybe. Teaching karate? I squirmed under Gimul’s intense gaze, when all of a sudden—

“Hey, doofshit, really? If you really wanna help out your mom, then get yerself a wife! Make a grandkid or two or nine or whatever, ah hell!”

There she was, flinging the door open, waltzing in—Tipsy Nish, flushed to hell and back and back again to hell a few more times. She was in full-on casual mode, wearing nothing but her yellowed blouse and panties.

“Wh-what are you saying?” Gimul roared. “And why are you here? This is a man-to-man conversation!”

“Maybe you’d do better with the wifin’ if you got that stick outta your ass! Yo, Shooter! This is a guinea pig dumpling I got from the restaurant downstairs. And beer, too!”

Paid for by who? Was that all on her tab, with me footing the bill?!

Nishka brought her spoils from the restaurant over to the bed and plonked herself down on it.

“Y’all,” she groaned, “are being unfair. Leaving me out of all the fun? You gotta invite me if you’re drinking!”

Gimul shook his head. “Tipsy Nish, eh?”

“Shut it! Do you wanna apologize to Shooter, or do you want him to help you? Stop pussyfooting around and make up your mind, damn it!”

Nishka winked at me and flashed a smile. A…wink. Hold up, what about that eye patch? Didn’t she have an eye patch?

“What happened to your eye patch, Nishka? Are you, uh. Cleaning…it?”

“Heh. I guess so, eh. I washed it when cleaning my face, then left it out to dry. Who cares about that, though?”

“I do, a little.”

“Never mind that, look at this muscley doofus!” Nishka curled into herself, screaming with laughter. “Aww no! I sure hope nobody bangs my hot mom! Better turn that into my entire motivation forever! Holy shit, what a drooling hyperdweeb, how can he even take himself seriously? What a loser, goddamn!”

It was hard to describe just how unhappy Gimul looked as Nishka mocked him. Every time she laughed, her bountiful bosom bounced along with her, and she tried to wrap her arms around me, too…

And just like that, the three of us spent our first night in town drinking together in the candlelight until the break of dawn.

***

It had been a while since I pulled an all-nighter, and in a fantasy world no less. Candles, firewood, and lanterns were all valuable commodities here, so usually I’d just eat dinner and get ready for bed as soon as the sun went down back in the village.

I had been hitting the booze hard last night, but I somehow managed to wake up when the sun came up…though I think I was the only one who managed that.

I rose to the smell of burning dried herbs coming from a corner of the room. Incense wasn’t anything too fancy in this world, since it was just a way to keep bugs away. The ingredients to make them were pretty much the same as what you would find in one of those mosquito-repellant coils.

As I stretched out and yawned in my cramped hammock bed, I heard my body pillow mumble something next to me. Wait, my…my what?

Sure, the thing was soft and comfortable enough for me to fall right back asleep—but the problem was, the Sound of Joy Inn didn’t provide a body pillow.

That soft sensation? It was Nishka. Or, to be more specific, one of her boobs.

I tumbled out of the hammock, crying out without thinking. “Why are we sleeping in the same bed?” Not a bed, just a hammock, but my brain was all over the place and, Oh god how was this why were we what did I gahhhh…

I mean yeah, okay, I helped Nishka back to our room because she was drunk out of her mind, and somehow even managed to get her into the top bunk. I even remembered throwing a raggedy blanket over her. But hey, Nishka, why the hell was Nishka in the bottom bunk?

“Hey, Shooter! Gimme one more shot, will ya? Just…one…more…mh…”

Even in her dreams, Nishka was still drowning herself in booze. She flipped over, taking up all that space I left after getting up out of bed, her leg dangling off the side.

Taking another look around the room, I saw that our bathroom pot was nearly overflowing. Nishka had most likely gotten up to use the toilet in the middle of the night, then crawled into bed with me after she finished.

Hmm. Here I was with a pretty girl, maybe with a chance with that pretty girl, and…I hadn’t taken that chance, had I? I mean, I was a newlywed and hadn’t even shared a bed with Cassandra. I hadn’t let my libido get the better of me…right?

Nope. Underwear still on. I was in the clear.

I sighed, grabbed my vest and loincloth off the bed, and got dressed.

“Jeez,” I muttered, mostly to myself, “you sure know how to scare me first thing in the morning. You keep playing with me like that and I actually will make a move on you sometime. Can’t keep holding myself back forever.”

“Pssh. Sure you will, ya coward…blugh…”

Oh no, had she heard me? My heart skipped a beat, but the next moment her mouth was hanging open and she was snoring away.

I was only half-joking there, but it was true that for a wyvern-slayer, Nishka looked more like a hard-partying slob. She had a few of the eye patches she washed yesterday hanging off the top bunk, as well as her panties.

Speaking of her eye patch, I remembered seeing both her eyes practically sparkling last night as we drank together. Maybe she only wore it for fashion’s sake, or maybe she really was an overgrown junior high edgelord. Who knew?

At that moment, there was a knock on the door and Gimul pushed his way inside.

“You’re up? Good. We’re going to the adventurer’s guild.”

He wore the same tunic as always. He had a knapsack slung over his shoulder packed with all the things he needed for his trip back home and his sword hung from his waist.

“Nishka’s still asleep, though.”

“And how useful she’d be. No, she can stay here. We’re going to the guild to find those adventurers, then we’re going to do some shopping.”

“Gotcha. I’ll leave my stuff here, then.”

“Make sure to tell the counter you’re going to be staying longer before we leave. You need to pay up front.”

Gimul and I made our way to the front of the inn to pay up, then set off for the adventurer’s guild.

It had only been about an hour since sunrise, but the townspeople were already becoming a crowd. People set up vegetable stalls, meat and fish stalls, even a few chicken cages. We dodged between carts and wagons, cutting through the throngs before reaching the guild.

“I’d like to hire the two adventurers who the guild introduced me to yesterday,” Gimul told the person at the counter, “can you put me in touch with them? One of them is a woman named Electra, and the other’s a man called Dyson.”

I was hoping to take the letter he wrote me and get my adventurer registration done while he talked on and on, but I remembered that Nishka wasn’t there with me. Might as well wait till later, I supposed.

“Dyson and Electra? Those two always show up sometime in the morning. I’m sure they’ll be in soon, so I’ll tell them to wait here if I see them.”

“Please do. We’ll be running a few errands, but we’ll be back in a few.”

“Understood. Then I’ll be sure to pass on your message.”

“Thanks.”

With that done, Gimul called me over.

“Do you think we can find a good souvenir this early in the morning? I want to get something Cassandra will really like.”

“The craftsmen start pretty early, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

After we left the guild, we took a different road that led away from all the food stalls. This street was lined with all sorts of odd stalls selling bits and baubles, including makeup.

“You seem to know where all the good stuff is, Gimul.”

“My mother asked me to get her souvenirs before.”

“Ever the loving son, I see. I think the best gift you could get her would be finding a wife and grandkids.”

“Shut it,” he barked at me, and blushed as he gazed at the ground.

Heh. I’d feel the same way if my parents didn’t already have grandkids, but I wasn’t gonna say that out loud. See, the older of my two younger sisters had already married. She wasn’t planning on having children for a while, so that did worry me just a bit. She and her husband were both going to save up a little first. I didn’t even have a plan, and here she was saving for her future. Good for her!

Wow, that bummed me the hell out. I decided to take a look down the rows of shops to get it off my mind.

“A hand mirror, maybe?”

There were some covered in decorations, others simpler but far more polished, and all manner in between. Our house didn’t have any kind of mirror in it, since we didn’t really need one. But hey, Cassandra was a girl, so maybe it’d be nice for her?

How long had it even been since I picked out a present for a girl? I reached into my coin pouch and told the girl at the stall which one I wanted. At two silver Church coins, it wasn’t exactly cheap, but I was willing to splurge a little for Cassandra.

“Decided on something?” Gimul asked me when I came back.

“Yeah, I bought this hand mirror for her.”

“Pricey. You gonna be all right, money-wise?”

“I should have about two silver coins left from what the village chief gave me. I’ll have to find a way to earn enough money to buy my own clothes, though, especially when I have inn fees to consider.”

I handed the mirror to Gimul as I counted out my cash. The mirror had a tortoiseshell design to it, and while it may have seemed a bit plain to me, I wasn’t from this world. Cassandra didn’t wear the fanciest or most stylish clothes, and we didn’t have much, but what she wore looked great on her all the same. Plain didn’t matter so much.

Yeah, we were forced together by the village chief. But I wanted it to work. I wanted to trust one another, to care for one another, to build something worth having.

But what I really wanted was to get Ossandra out of the back of my mind.

After meeting up with the two adventurers at the guild, the four of us swung by the village wagon before heading to the gates of the city.

“I’m counting on you to recruit more adventurers,” said Gimul. “If anything happens, send a message by carrier pigeon.”

“You got it. Electra, Dyson, I’m leaving Gimul in your capable hands.”

Electra beamed. “Of course, honey. I might not be as strong as you, but I’m pretty confident I can handle myself in a fight.”

“Yeah,” Dyson added. “The only things we might have to worry about are kobolds on the way there, but we can handle them.”

I took a deep breath. “Gimul, please pass on my best wishes to my wife. It’s important to me.”

“Will do.”

“And give her the souvenir I bought her ASAP, okay?”

“Ah, can it, ya corny old sap,” Gimul grinned as he cut me off.

After saying my goodbyes to them all, we finally parted ways. On my own, I decided to head back to the inn for now.

It was probably somewhere around nine in the morning, and there were even more people in the streets than before. In an effort to avoid the crowds, I went down a back alley Gimul and I had taken earlier.

This place had a “red light district” kind of vibe to it, and there were barely any people around so early in the morning. Empty, filthy wine casks were littered here and there, as well as boxes piled full with rotting vegetable scraps. The only people I saw were guys who looked like they’d been out drinking until morning, and girls of a certain “profession” hanging around. It didn’t exactly feel like the safest place in the world, but at least I had my sword at my side.

Once upon a time, I used to work as an assistant manager for a strip club at a sketchy red light district not too different from this one. The manager usually took two days off a week, and I’d cover for him.

There were a couple reasons I was hired. One was because of my customer service background, and another was because of my experience with karate. I was pretty sure they picked me because they thought I could handle any customers who got violent.

My first night on the job, there was this young guy who was kind enough to pick up another customer’s dropped wallet and try to give it back. The older man he tried to return it to shouted that the nice guy stole it from him and sent the poor dude flying with a punch, then had the gall to demand his punching bag pay him for the trouble he caused. This all happened five minutes into my very first shift. Someone called the cops, I got questioned about the whole thing—it was a big mess. It was a crazy experience, no doubt about it, but all that had happened back in my old world, not here.

While I was lost in thought reminiscing, I bumped shoulders with a group of guys I could have easily taken to be a bunch of street thugs. The impact caused one of them to drop some kind of vase onto the ground. Ugh, looked like a bunch of drunks out early in the morning.

Despite what I thought of them, I immediately started bowing out of reflex.

“I’m sorry about that. I’ll be more careful next time.”

“The hell you think you’re doing, asshole?” one snarled. “You’re dead, you hear me?”

Though I kept bowing, I made sure not to take my eyes off him and his other goon friends. There were five of them total, all adventurers wearing chainmail armor. The one I bumped into dropped the vase he held, which now lay shattered on the ground. Anything could’ve been inside that…

Stopping to look at the vase was a huge mistake. The yelling man swung his fist faster than I could see, catching me square on the chin.

Out cold.