After an hour or two of having my ass handed to me by Annabell in various card games, I gave up as I have no more pride left to lose. As I made my way upstairs I could hear the patrons who were watching me lose. They probably fell to Annabell schemes as well and lost much more than I had. Honestly, she could probably cheat a Clan Leader out of all of their assets and make them owe her one, it’s scary how good she is at gambling.

I quickly slumped into bed and let sleep take me, man today has been a roller coaster but it ended up in my favour which is what’s important. But the fact that the landlady is from the front lines makes sense as no one dare makes trouble in the tavern and the fact that they would leave quietly after Annabell manages to cheat them out of their wallet and underwear. I don’t know if this is a good thing or not but I might as well make the most of it.

I wake up before the sun rises as per usual. One personal hygiene routine later I see the landlady was there already, but I wasn’t surprised as she always wakes up at these obscene times probably because of her military training.

“I see that you’re, it’s good to know that you have good habits. You’ll need to be strict with yourself if you want to survive. Go to the back and I’ll meet you there.” I nodded even though her back was turned and went outside.

I began to limber up with some lunges and torso twists. The landlady came out as I finished my stretches and smiled,

“I see you finished your little kiddie exercises, now I will show you how to really stretch” A small glint went through her eyes as she cracked her knuckles. I have to say the next 10 minutes were hell, my body was twisted, bent and contorted like never before. My body felt as free-flowing as a blade of grass and I feel as strong as one now. I quickly fell to the ground due to the loss of all strength in my muscles, until I was literally kicked back to my feet by the landlady.

“Is that all, you do a few stretches and you’re down for the count?” I steeled my eyes and steadied myself,

“Good, at least you have some gumption, time to put you to work. Summon your daggers and shield.” I summoned the buckler and the guardsman dagger rather than the hunting knife due to the superior reach despite the lower quality. The landlady led me through some simple moves and tactics because it’ll be the simplest thing for me to learn in comparison to my more ‘exotic’ weaponry. The moves she taught me were simple and without any flair, but they would provide a solid foundation to build my own style upon.

After I got used to the moves she put me straight into the ringer and fought me, well mostly it’s me getting my ass handed to men again and again. She would tell me where my blind spots are by hitting into them, correct my lack of proper stance and technique by punishing me for it. It forced me to actively correct my technique as we fought. Her methods were effective if not overly harsh.

After an hour or two of constant sparring with some breaks in between, she stopped the training.

“Overall, you’re shit, you would be the first one to die in a battlefield and would drag your entire unit down with you as well. At Least you have a decent danger sense which would keep your sorry ass alive long enough for you to escape.” I only gave her a thumbs up as I was rendered breathless by her spartan training.

“That’s it for today, go to the guild and do a job or something. Tonight is still free but after that, I’m not letting you leech off me any longer.” With that she went back inside, I spent a couple more moments fighting to catch my breath. I go back inside and clean myself down and then look through my coin purse. There's only a lone silver and in the company of 5 other coppers. I sigh to myself, a night in the inn is 5 silvers which are very good for the quality of service you get but it’s still out of my price range at the moment. I guess I’ll need to go back to the guild and apply for another job.

As I was contemplating my poverty, Annabell crept into my room. Bewildered I looked at her as she doesn’t usually come to my room, maybe she heard that I’m about to be kicked out and came to either comfort me or laugh at me. For an 8-year old she is very hard to read as she remains expressionless most of the time. She quickly jumped onto my bed with me and handed me a small wooden box, I then raise my eyebrow towards her,

“Open it,” her small voice spoke, I shrug my shoulders and did as she said. I pulled the lid off and underneath was … a pack of cards? Is she trying to nurture a gambling addiction in me? I picked up the top cards and noticed it much heavier than a typical card, I turned it over and noticed it had multiple clumsy indents as if someone hammered it out. I Looked back at Annabell as I ended up with more questions than answers.

She, in turn, took the card out of my hand and threw it. It flew making some slight slicing sounds as it made a wicked curve and embedded itself into the door. I did a long whistle,

“Is this a present for me?” She shook her head,

“Fifty silvers, I don’t do charity.” My eyeballs flew out their sockets at the sky-high price, she’s trying to extort me.

“Annie I can’t afford that, I can barely afford a night here”

“I’ll lend it to you until you can pay up, it would normally be 60 silvers but I knocked down because I like you.” I roll my eyes at her ‘generosity’ but who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth. As I admired the handiwork I asked,

“Did you make these?” She nodded her head.

“Where did you do it as I remember there isn’t a forge in the house.”

“Secret” she replied cutely while winking, well I think it was a wink as it was more of an awkward blink.

“Oh so little miss has secrets, well don’t worry you have bought my silence” We talked a bit more while I bound myself to the deck of flying death cards. A weapon like this more my speed as Cassie and I used to throw cards as she got bored with the games really quickly, so it’s safe to say that I have some skill with these. As I practice I got tired of picking up the cards, so I unsummoned them which collected them all, which is pretty convenient and also mitigate the disadvantage of losing a weapon.

After cutting ourselves a fair number of times playing a spirited game of snap we decided to go to sleep.

After waking up and going through my usual routine I join up with Mathias on his way to the adventurers' guild. Mathias bonded a bit during my stay in at the Cricket’s Nest, and we could now be considered warm acquaintances, anyway I asked Mathias for some advice on what jobs to take, and he said he’ll recommend me to a couple decent beginner parties but I’ll have to do a job or two to show that I have some ability. We get to the guild and Mathias retreats into the office area leaving me stranded in front of the message board.

I surveyed the board for a quick moment and quickly look to the bottom for the easiest and quickest jobs. The options were as follows; gather some herbs and plants for the local clinic, hunt wild boar and an escort mission. Seeing how I need to hone my combat abilities beyond flailing my weapons and hoping for the best I choose to take the wild boar mission and the escort mission which is in a weeks time which also gives me plenty of time to prepare.

I take it to the desk and get signed up, apparently for the escort mission there’ll be other adventurers as well since it’s a merchant caravan they’ll need a lot of manpower to cover all of it. Afterwards, I walk out beyond the city walls to hunt me a boar. I venture past the city limits and straight into the woods. After some thought, I summon Mathias’ axe as it doesn’t require as much strength as the warhammer and needs less skill than the scythe.

Plop

Ugh, I just stepped in shit. As I was scraping the crap off my boots I heard some stomping behind, slowly I turned around what greeted was raging figure storming towards me. I quickly jumped into action by jumping out of the boar's path, after I landed got a good look at the boar my jaw dropped. This was no normal wild boar, it was a fucking magical beast boar variant. You can tell the difference between wild beasts and magical beast due to them having a slightly visible aura and physical differences.

Anyone can kill a wild beast provided that they’re not an idiot but to kill a magical beast, even the lowest level, one needs to be at least be a first circle mage or first core warrior. This is because magical beasts have tough hides that are very difficult to pierce and usually to kill this level of beast people use first circle spells or can use the strength provided by the first core. However, I have neither strength nor spells, so what do I have?

Before I could think of something do boar comes back for another charge with an even higher speed this time. Leaping to the side again and I tried to scrape the axe against its side, unfortunately, it bounced off harmlessly. I looked again and could see that there is a small earthen layer on top of its skin, could this day look down on me any more?

I dodge a couple more wild charges in the hopes that it will tire itself out but stupid swine seems like it wouldn’t run out of juice anytime soon. My body is getting a bit sluggish due to the high-intensity bursts of movement, panting I think of a crazy plan that’ll either work or get me killed.

As the boar readied itself for another charge I run towards it at the same time with a battle-cry. Before we crossed paths I used the axe to vault myself above the boar, while airborne I switched the axe out for the hunting knife, I didn’t use the guardsman dagger due to it probably won’t even penetrate the thinnest amount of earthen armour. The reason I vaulted over is that the least armoured part of the boar is between its brow ridge. Quickly I plunged the dagger the ridge before getting thrown away by the boar's muscled body which then crashes into a tree.

Coughing, I bring myself to my feet and walk towards the boar which is still fucking alive. Fuck this thing is tenacious. It was leaning against the tree struggling to get to its feet but it was having trouble due to the knife sticking out its left eye. I stumbled me towards it and I summoned the warhammer into my hands. I bring it up and slam it into the pommel of the knife, effectively severing the boar's lifeline.

The sickening crunch, the fleeting fire in the boar's eyes, the cascading blood.

After taking a moment to take it all in I unsummoned the warhammer and the knife and summon the knife again which didn’t have a speck on it despite being 8 inches (20.32 cm) deep in the boar's skull just a moment ago. I clumsily disassemble the boar which would fetch quite a bit more than just a normal boar. I took a small stone from its chest and held it towards the sun, in my hand was a marble-sized, cloudy, brown stone. Now, this is the money maker, beast cores have a plethora of uses ranging from alchemy to batteries for mana tools.

I quickly store everything of use into my pack before making my way back to the city not quite understanding the gravity of the feat I just accomplished.