Chapter 26 - My first job interview

  We spent another three hours hunting various animals. Nothing as exciting as the moose though. The last one was a good-sized deer. No obvious weapons on that one. I brought it back with me to the village, instead of eating it. My way of doing an initiative job-application, kind of.

  We arrived at the village around late afternoon. It was walled, of course. I requested access, but the guy manning the gate wasn’t the same from this morning, so he didn’t recognise me. He told me, firmly yet politely, to fuck off back where I came from. I felt inclined to oblige.

  I jumped up to about half the height of the wall and stuck to it, making my palms and knees sticky with internal mana. Even one handed and carrying a carcass, climbing was trivial for me.

  When I jumped down I heard the guards start to scream again. “Stand down” this and “Don’t move” that. I really wasn’t in the mood for this, but as I was a guest, so I wanted to be courteous.

  “I am no threat. I even brought a gift” I pointed at the deer over my shoulder. They were less than impressed, so I tried it another way. “Look, just get Emma. I left with her, I just stayed out longer.”

  One of the goons scoffed: “Yeah, right. We don’t know you. You are an intruder. Get out or be skewered.” I looked down at their spears. The temptation to prove to these goons how much they weren’t threatening to me was very strong, but I remained calm, barely. “Just get Emma, mate. Or her father George, the Hunter. Or her mother Greta, the mage.” That gave them pause. The spears lowered a bit and both of the men seemed less certain.

  “How do you know that?” The one from before asked.

  I sighed and said “Look. I am obviously not an immediate threat, right? You have your spears trained at me, while I am completely unarmed. Why don’t you have someone get any of the mentioned people, while I am going to have a nice little sit down right here.” They got more relaxed, as it appeared that my conflict resolution skills were unparalleled.

  The one that had remained silent so far looked at his colleague. After a nod from him, he turned around and ran off towards the direction of Emma’s house … well, hut. Boy was I glad that they didn’t ask themselves how I could kill a deer, if I was ‘unarmed’. A deer that clearly had multiple slash and stab wounds.

  After a few minutes, George showed up, flanked by two guards. I waved at him, smiled and said “Hi, George! I brought a gift.” I hoisted the deer for emphasis. “Can you tell your goons to not stab me? Wouldn’t end well for anyone.” Before George could answer, the Guard which was still posted near me, poked his spear into my side. I didn’t look at him while saying: “You just try, buddy. I’ve been itching for a good scrap.”

  There was a pregnant silence in the air, until George put up his hand in a placating gesture. “Hey, now! No need for that. Kyle put that spear down! This is James, my daughter’s new … friend. He isn’t going to hurt anyone, right?”

  He gave me a pleading look. I decided to have a little fun with this: “Sure, I am soooo peaceful. The peacefullest of all.”

  “Cut the shit, James. He is messing with you, Kyle. As for your itch … I think I can scratch that.” He smiled predatorily.

  “What do you mean, exactly?” Could it be? Is he challenging me?

  “You want to stay here during the winter?” I nodded.

  “You going to earn your keep?” I nodded again.

  “Hunter?” I nodded a third time.

  “Allright!” he cracked his neck with a fist to his chin. “Then consider this your Job Interview. We are going to have a good old fashioned brawl. One v. One. Afterwards I’ll decide whether or not you are fit to be a hunter.”

  As the situation seemed resolved, I called on Skadi. It’s OK, you can come over now. She climbed the wall easily, she wasn’t much of a shapeshifter, but she was pretty good at Internal Mana. Making her paws sticky was trivial. As she jumped down, the guards became agitated again, however George dispelled it, by greeting her: “Ah, Skadi was it? Good to see you. Want to watch your friend get beaten up?” She started wagging her tail. Traitor!

  George ordered the others around, mostly to get the deer to the butcher’s and to re-man the gate. Then he took me deeper into the village.

  “Ground rules: No active perks. No Mana usage of any kind, you can decide on a form before the fight starts. This a brawl, so no weapons, that includes your claws and everything of the sort. This is going to be non-lethal, so no biting, no slashing, no stabbing. Understood?”

  I affirmed him. All considered this was an understandable set of rules. Kind of limits me, in my methodes, but that is sort of the point. It was a brawl, not a fight to the death. And not everyone had Val on standby to heal deadly wounds filled with even deadlier toxin.

  We reached an area that was filled with sand and marked off by stones. It was a slightly elliptical circle and about 20 metres across on the short side, maybe 23 on the long one. George got to one side and I went to the other. He took off the garments on his upper body and started to wrap his knuckles in cloth. Since he was bare chested I decided to join him. I removed the fur on my upper body, obviously I was extremely ripped. I mean … My body literally isn’t capable of putting on weight. Everything I eat becomes Biomass, so my appearance very much is just exactly how I want it to be. I raised my height to match George and implemented an Idea I had on the walk over. I made bone plates all along my fingers, just beneath the skin. It restricts movement, but I wasn’t going to use more than a closed fist anyway. On the plus side it would eliminate the vulnerability of the thin bones in my fingers. Not entirely sure, if it was a worthy trade off, but that is what experimentation is for.

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  Some lady came between us to judge the thing. “This is a fight to surrender or unconsciousness. Say ‘I Yield’ out loud, or tap the ground twice to surrender. Going outside the ring is surrendering. Now approach each other and touch fists to begin.” She walked back out of the ring.

  George and I approached and touched fists. I immediately tried to get him with a right hook to the face. He dodged nimbly beneath it and punched me in the stomach, before standing back up and raising his arms. “Too slow!” He taunted.

  Next time I tried a simple combination of left hook and right straight. He moved out of the way with minimal effort and every dodge was accompanied by a quick jab.

  I tried a trickier approach. I pulled my right arm back, as if to throw a huge right hook, but then I kicked sand up instead. He was dodging out of the way of the sand cloud, before I finished kicking it up. “Nice try, but predictable.” He was beginning to get on my nerves. OK, so not as straightforward as I thought. Maybe a more aggressive approach. I tried to wail on him, throwing out punch after punch. He moved out of the way by just millimetres each time. That is, until he got my rhythm and started to counter every swing with a slap on the insides of my arms. “Sloppy!”

  I could really do without the feedback.

  He had enough of being reactive, as he started to actively swing at me. I dodged a good 80% of those, and another 10% I managed to block. However, that still meant one in ten were hitting me with full force, and I wasn’t good enough to counter-attack while dodging. I really didn’t like this.

  After 5 more minutes of us going back and forth, I decided on a new strategy. If I couldn’t out-fight him I would out-endure him. I resolved to bring George to exhaustion, by making sure every punch I threw would be exhausting to dodge. Wide swings, and overheads, that meant he couldn’t move a tiny amount, but had to actually step away. A nice effect of this was that he couldn’t punish such attacks either, as he had to step away from me. I enacted the plan. After a minute he chuckled at me “Switching strategy are we? Where is your fighting spirit boy? Trying to tire me out isn’t all that monsterly.” For some reason that really irked me. More than it should. It was like something deep down inside of me was telling me to silence him. To destroy all who would deny my rightful place at the top. I squashed that voice down. Not everything had to be taken so seriously.

  We continued on for 20 minutes. I never got a real hit in, but I got a few partial successes. Dodges that were just a hair too short and the like. He got me repeatedly, however nothing that wasn’t instantly healed. After said 20 minutes we had just disengaged. George had once again found my rhythm, forcing me to change things up. We were both panting and absolutely dripping in sweat. Steam was actually rising from our bodies. After having caught his breath once again George came with an offer: “How about this: Sudden death. The next one to land a clean hit wins.” The judge didn’t seem to mind, so I thought about it. I didn’t see a reason to let him off the hook, I would win in the long run. However Skadi gave me a telepathic suggestion, she had found a loophole in the rules. Now this just had to work properly.

  I suppressed a smile and agreed to George’s terms . Then I sprinted at him while extending the blades in my right arm. It wasn’t shapeshifting, as I always kept them in my arms, even though the werewolf claws were superior. George and the Judge were yelling, but I didn’t listen. I raised my blades as if to swipe through George’s face. He raised his arms in an ‘X’ shape above his head to protect himself. That was when I punched my left fist straight into his nose. My blades never touched him. A fraction of a second later the judge tackled me to the ground, however I simply said “I won!”

  As I lay with my face in the sand I started to wonder. How do they keep the sand so free of snow? Also, how is it not frozen solid? I didn’t get a lot of time to ponder, as George said: “You shifty little Bastard! Krea, let him go.” The judge released me. Then George roughly helped me to my feet, or rather pulled me up. He was mostly interested in my right arm, especially the tiny holes for my blades.

  “Extend them!” I complied. He took an intense interest in the musculature in my arm.

  “Gods dammit, that is clever. Prepared before the fight?” He looked in my face for the question. I realised I had managed to break his nose. Woo!

  “Yeah, mostly out of habit honestly.” He started to chuckle. Then he started laughing. He became almost manic as he started to lean on me for support. I was feeling pretty awkward. The Judge and I had a silent moment of camaraderie, as we shared an extremely uncomfortable look.

  After a minute or so George finally got a hold of himself. “I’m sorry! It is just too perfect.” He started to chuckle again, but quickly regained composure. “I was trying to show you one of the flaws in monster classes, but you turned that around on me. I thought I had you beat with “No Mana of any kind”. Didn’t expect you to have gods damn hidden back up weapons.” He stopped leaning on me and stood up straight. “Still, I think my point stands. You need to work on your skills. Monster classes compensate a lack of a support system with powerful perks and the whole trial-by-fire thing. 90 out of 100 die in the fire, nine and a half of the others die because of a fault in their fundamentals. If that were to happen to you, Emma’d kill me. And she is a lot scarier than you think.” He had a far off lock in his eyes as he said that last part.

  “Fair enough. So, may I be a hunter now?”

  “Are you kidding? Obviously you can be a hunter. I was just using the premise to have a brawl.” That was unexpected.

  “Oh. OK. You know you could just ask for a fight. I am very eager to learn and I get very antsy, if I am not in mortal danger. Fighting helps release the stress.”

  George shook his head and muttered something about “Damn monster classers.” More out loud he said: “Alright, but next time we change up the rules.”

  I gave him my widest smile “Can’t wait. And now I am going to go to your daughter for a quick …” I couldn’t finish, before he broke my nose.

  “I’ll gladly be a teacher, but I am a father first, scumbag.”

  With a majorly distorted voice I relented: “Fair enough. I’ll be more bolite.”

  I wiped the blood off my face and felt my nose. It had healed already, but it paid to make sure the break didn’t cause any lingering damage.

  “But seriously though. What exactly is my job description?“

  The Judge was doing something to George, I guessed she was casting some healing spell. “If you can bring about 50 kg of food to the village a day, then I will be happy. In return you get free room and board, or I guess in your case just free room. Also any services the village can provide. We don’t much go for money in these parts. Merchants rarely visit, so we just keep a bit of it for them and share anything else.” That seemed like an exploitable system, but I wasn’t going to start an economic debate, so I said instead: “50 kgs should be doable. Onto another topic, where is Emma? I would like to talk with her.”

  “She’s at work.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  He looked exasperated: “Didn’t you talk about anything except … On second thought, I don’t wanna know. She’s a carpenter’s apprentice. Six houses that way, on the left.”

  I thanked him for the information and left. Carpenter. Didn’t expect that. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I didn’t expect her to be a carpenter.

  I followed George’s instructions and arrived at a small house. Two stories and a sign out front, with a little table burned into it. I had arrived. I knocked on the door, which prompted a Burly man to open. Beard to his navel and shaved head. Greying hair and a muscular body with a bit of paunch.

  “Hmmm?” he asked

  “Uhh. Hello? Is Emma here? I’d like to speak to her.”

  He responded by turning around and grunting: “Hmm Hmm. Hm Hmmmm!” Emma soon arrived to replace him.

  “Oh hi James!” She greeted me with a hug. “So did daddy beat you up?”

  I didn’t even try to untangle myself. “How do you know that? And yes, kinda, sorta. I did win on a technicality, but boy did I struggle.” She released me from her grip and booped me on the nose with her finger. “The fight was my Idea, silly. I’ve seen you fight, you lack fundamentals, but you have great endurance and versatility.” She winked at the last bit, which made me blush a bit. Or at least it felt like it should. I wasn’t entirely sure if my biology supported blushing. Anyway, I tried to ignore her double entendre.

  “The reason I came here was this: I wanted to ask how things will go on now. Like what are we? Are we dating? Am I just your stress relief?”

  She looked at me like I was stupid. “You are good-ish at sex and I like sex. You are also the first one that can keep up with me. I would like to continue sleeping with you. If you are amenable to an actual relationship, then all the better. So I put the ball in your court. Are we dating?”

  I thought about that for a few seconds. I was staying here anyways and I did like Emma. Just on a gut-feeling-level. Ahhh, fuck it! “Eh, why not.” I quickly kissed her, then said “Later, girlfriend. I’ll be at your house at sundown.”

  There was a short pause while Emma was processing that, until I realised what she had said. “Wait, good-ish?” Then she grinned and slammed the door. That little minx.

  I smiled to myself and walked away. Time to pay some attention to my companion.