The magnitude of shits I could impress upon a person in that moment almost reached into the fabled negative numbers. Not that this society had figured out negatives yet…though I didn’t actually know that, mathematicians weren’t a class of people I interacted with. Most were happy just being capable of counting their coins, and calculate the worth of whatever it was they planned on buying. Which makes me a practical savant in the realm of numbers, a skill I unfortunately had to keep to myself, considering I was seen as a child. Annoying ass society with their witch burnings, the Romans didn’t even do that! At least I didn’t think so, I wasn’t a history buff.

  Maybe I’d pretend to be a wise old sage once I reached adulthood? No one would be able to tell my real age, and it wouldn’t technically be incorrect, considering the knowledge forever resting dormant in my mind. It was weird to not be capable of forgetting something, elven memory is good, but what I had from my past life was something unchanging. Always there, always the same, always so easy to pull on.

  It was how I even recognized the game I was stuck in, six years after being brought here, and what a blessing that was. I wondered if the gods had something to do with my reincarnation? If I survived the End then perhaps I’d gain some divinity and ask them myself. Though, interactions with gods didn’t sound like a pleasant endeavour, if my mythology was any reference. Mraringa in particular I’d rather never have the displeasure of meeting.

  Though that was for the future, and the future was quite bleak indeed. Better to focus on the present and deal with the stupidity in front of me first rather than bandy about my fantasies.

  Displayed in my vision was a thing that only bleeding eyes could appreciate. Ornate purple toga embroidered with greens, golds, and crimsons. So many stories marked his sleeves, each filled with creatures that were considered myths even in this world. On each finger was a ring, encrusted with random fucking jewels I couldn’t name to scream their wealth to the world. All of it decorating some ostentatious bastard who looked like the human equivalent of a peacock.

  The boy was trying so hard to display regal countenance, and failing dramatically with uncontrollable shaking alongside a crimson blush.

  Fucking hell, I could barely muster the will to hold back a sigh.

  “I present Argyle, son of York, of house Rhombal!” a soldierly looking type announced to me from beside the boy.

  Argyle brought up a hand and waved at me. “Hi.” He said without a stutter, somehow.

  The absurdity in front of me was punctuated by the fact that I just carved out the liver of a deer, and was staring at the both of them with plenty of blood on my apron. I put down the knife, rubbed off some of the blood from my hands and stared at the boy.

  That seemed to irk the soldier. “It is only good manners to introduce yourself when spoken to, elf.”

  I flicked my gaze to the man, then back to the boy, still washing my hands. The silence of the butcher's tables was deafening.

  “The names Yir, daughter of Yormir and Asna Smith.” I nodded, “To what do I owe the…pleasure?”

  “Uhm, well. We don’t get elves often. Thought I’d say hi?” Argyle said a little too fast for me to believe a word of the bullshit. Clearly the soldier wasn’t impressed by his charges' social skills either, if the slight cringe in his posture was any indication.

  “Sure,” I nodded, as polite as I could manage. “Anything else?”

  That got a fire smoldering in the soldiers eyes, but Argyle seems to actually perk up at my faux pas. “Well, uh, do you like tea?”

  I blinked at the boy, then tilted my head. “Do I like tea?”

  Argyle gave a quick nod, staring at the ground without making eye contact before the storm of a blush overtook his features once more. Great. This would've been so much easier to shut down if the little scion was a cunt. How to do this politely?

  “I’m not much of a tea person, no,” I lied. “Why?”

  “What about confections?” Argyle hastily added.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “Never had, sounds like a nobles meal.” I waved off.

  “W-would you like to try it?”

  “Nah, thanks for the offer though.”

  The soldier was visibly about to blow his fuse, which was probably the appropriate reaction for a terminal yes-man. But the boy seemed oddly…unperturbed? He didn’t seem to be taking the hints, thinking instead of some other way to convince me to spend time with him.

  “Look, I’m a little busy, deer won’t disembowel itself after all. Can I get back to work?” I said.

  That lit his eyes bright like two suns. “Would you like some help?”

  I, who was at that point starting turning away from the boy, snapped my head back to stare at him, alongside the soldier who seemed to have gone pale in the face. “My lord! This is a peasants duty, there’s no need to dirty yourself—”

  The boy raised an arm to silence the soldier with surprising confidence, and continued to stare at me like his gaze was filled with magma. Was his awkward attitude just a show? People didn’t flip that fast, at least not any that I’d had the pleasure of meeting.

  I, for the first time in a long time, was genuinely speechless, and the silence stretched for a while as all the bystanders stared at the two children.

  I grumbled and shrugged. “Sure.”

  The smile he gave me was annoying.

  Butchering was a smelly as fuck job, mostly because of the entrails, but also all those lovely chemicals that a corpse released that stuck to my clothes. I wondered how the noble boy was going to explain to his parents why he smelled like a cadaver, but that wasn’t really my problem now was it? I showed him how to deal with small animals, something I sped through with impressive speed, and got back to carving up my deer.

  I’d been butchering for a few weeks alongside my training with Aira, spliced with intermittent socializing when I could. I didn't see the slum kids often but it was always fun when I did. Totally not the reason I was still going, not at all.

  Aira tried to teach me the basics of archery, but found out quickly that I had absolutely no talent for the bow and gave up in favour of teaching me more of the sword. Which was fine with me. Arrows were for animals, proper monsters surpassed the need for the projectile. My first few hunts were affirmed by Aira to be animals though, which begged the question of how the fuck?

  Was I going to chase them? That’d be funny if it wasn’t so insulting.

  I already killed a Muri-Ursi! Why couldn’t she let me fight proper monsters? I knew why, and hated the impression my age gave to people, but I needed to get stronger now. If there was one guarantee, it was that life threatening scenarios were great for growth, so long as I survived.

  But no, instead I had to dig through entrails for the sake of this dumbass apprenticeship. Calm…calm.

  I had time, although it felt dwindling with every passing day. Learning basic survival skills wouldn’t be the end of the world. That honour belonged to the gods. I dumped the intestines in a bucket to clean through later. It might've been a vessel for shit, but wasting premium meat was simply anathema to the pre-industrial way. I’d go about washing the meat noodle until it could be made into some kind of stuffed delight.

  All to be sold by the vendors associated with the guild. Monster meat was ridiculously expensive because of how the guild kept a monopoly on the exotic, though I didn’t see it in the market much. Probably a noble’s meal. I could ask Argyle but he seemed engrossed in his pile of rabbits, tearing off their skin and seemingly surprised by how easy it was.

  It was kind of funny, he wasn’t even squeamish about disassembling the little buggers.

  Took me a week to go from bunnies to proper ungulates, and that was entirely because of my capacity to give no shits about stamina. Mana for the win once more! Hoorah!

  Eventually I found the sky turning orange, and had to get my new noble friend to stop with his butchering because the soldier was too much of a pussy to bother him. “Hey, sun’s getting real low. You should head on home before it gets dark.”

  “What?” Argyle said as he wiped blood from his hands onto his apron. He looked up and seemingly deflated. “Already?” He whined.

  I felt a bit bad for the boy, he was surprisingly receptive to peasant work and I had a feeling it didn’t have much to do with trying to woo me. “You can always come back for some more butchering. My master will have me doing this for a while, and I don’t doubt that the guild would let you participate even without my presence.”

  “Really? His eyes sparkled, which stopped the guard from doing something exceptionally stupid. I gave a passing glance at the man before looking back at the boy.

  “Of course,” I said. “Now go on, wouldn’t want your family to worry.”

  “Okay!” he chirpped. “See you tomorrow!” he says as he skips for the exit, and I gave him a wave.

  “Looking to get in the robes of a Rhombal?” a voice said from beside me once Argyle left the guild, and I turned to glare at Trakas.

  “What do you want, jackass?”

  The man chuckled and handed me a mug of ale. “Thought you’d want one after having to deal with one of the magistrates' brats.”

  “That’s…surprisingly considerate.”

  He shrugged, and I mimicked the gesture before grabbing the ale.