The Fighter - Day 14
Arriving in Medley was a familiar experience for Cutter by now. Riding up to the town gates made him feel more like a part of an old Wild West movie than something out of the Middle Ages. As Lita’s bike-arranged body began to slow, Cutter swung a leg from over the construct and took the ground, running to disperse his momentum. Lita, practiced by now, snapped back to his regular form.
Cutter made finger guns to the guards at the gate as he passed. “Fellas.”
Lita hummed over to hover alongside him. “So, bruh. We really going to help that farmer out? Don’t get me wrong, dude, you’re a seriously nice guy. Ever since we got out of the tutorial dungeon you’ve been, like, totally going out of your way. But, dude, this is cash we’re talking about.”
Cutter waved a hand. “It’s a loan. We’re not giving it away. We’ll help him out and we’ll get our money back. We’re still a long way from sword-money. We can keep working while he’s getting the funds together, and I bet we still won’t have a grand by the time he pays us back. Costs us nothing.”
They moved up Main Street, approaching the turn for Spinner’s.
Lita said, “I dunno, bruh. What if he doesn’t pay us back? You don’t know him, like, at all.”
Cutter said, “He’s in the same boat as me, and he seems like a nice guy. Relax, Leets. If he doesn’t pay us back then”—he slapped a meaty fist into the opposite palm—“we can give him a pounding. Oh, and shit, speaking of a pounding, would you look at that…”
Cutter’s gaze fixed on an extensive pair of legs attached to a toned and muscular posterior. The female, coming from Spinner’s, was decidedly female. Cutter had to actively suppress the urge to let his tongue loll. She was dressed in fighter gear, sporting a deep helmet that completely obscured her head save for the flowing curtain of blonde hair that blew in the breeze, plates of light metal adorning shins, knees, forearms, and chest. But between those plates was an excessive bounty of bare flesh, her cleavage and inner thighs flashing across Cutter’s vision, provoking his basest instincts.
“Heh, gotta love this fucking dream. That’s some Soul Calibur-level impractical fighting attire and I fucking love it! OOF!”
Cutter stopped short. His head, rotated at what seemed like 180 degrees to track the progress of the female warrior, had failed to see a pedestrian, and they had collided. While Cutter was only mildly interrupted by the impact, his co-collider sprawled back from the collision, landing in the dirt.
Cutter turned to see a tangle of dirty, ragged robes and flailing hands.
“Hey, sorry, buddy, didn’t see you there.”
A voice from beyond the flailing pedestrian. “Yeah, no fucking miracle at that, you fucking genius. How the fuck you supposed to see anybody fucking there when you’re walking around like a fucking owl, spinning your head like a cocksucking dipshit!”
Cutter’s brows leapt at the outburst, and his eye tracked to the speaker.
“Ha!” Cutter guffawed. “Is that SpongeBob SquarePants’ homeless uncle?”
Standing before him was a brown book with spindly arms and legs, tired-looking yellow eyes, and savage-looking yellowed teeth.
“The fuck you looking at, cockweed!”
Cutter was almost, but not quite, beyond being startled by receiving streams of profanity from a walking, talking book.
The figure on the ground came to a sitting position, and Cutter became even more startled.
“Hey… let me see those ears. Holy shit! You’re not an elf, are you? You’re a fucking—”
The man on the ground cut him off. “You’re a human!”
Cutter laughed. “That’s what I was going to say! Ha! Here, let me help you up.”
Cutter offered a hand, and the robed man let him help him to his feet.
Cutter was vibrating with excitement at the discovery. “Holy crap. Two in two days!”
The man said, “There’s more?”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Cutter shrugged. “Well, one more at least. Shit, sorry, name’s Cutter.”
“Reader… Um, was your name always Cutter?”
Cutter shook his head. “Bet yours wasn’t always Reader. Can’t remember what your name used to be, huh? You get isekai-bullshat into Scape as well then?”
Reader said, “Yeah… I guess you could put it like that. I… I was starting to think I was the only one…”
Cutter said, “No, doesn’t look like it. So far it looks like we all got shot into new bodies in this strange new world. Well, if it is a strange new world and not just a dream. I’m still leaning pretty hard towards dream, the absence of busty French pornstars notwithstanding.”
Reader looked confused. “Huh?”
“Never mind. Shit, this is huge. Only—ah, fuck, I’ve got some shit I really have to get after. Life and death. Saving the other guy from being eaten by ogres, actually.”
“Oh shit!”
Cutter stretched, flexing. “Yeah, all in a day’s work. But seriously, we can’t let this be a missed connection. The other guy, farmer type, has a spot outside of town. Just go south, I mean like dead south for… uh, how far, Leets?”
“Stone robot dude… and it’s… mmmm… probably a four-hour walk, bruh.”
Cutter turned back to Reader. “Right, about four hours thataway. I get the feeling Tiller’s there most of the time, and I’ll be back out there as soon as I kill a bunch of monsters and get some cash. Hey, what are you anyway? Are you a wizard, ‘Arry?”
Reader tried not to appear flustered by the bombast of his interlocutor.
Cutter said, “You hear the narration bullshit too?”
Reader nodded.
Cutter said, “Sorry if I flustered you with my bombastic interloc…ulating?”
Reader smiled weakly. “No, no, it’s okay. It’s just a shock to see another human. It’s been… kind of lonely.”
The book by his feet glanced savagely at him. “THE FUCK is that supposed to mean, dickhead? Fuck me, that’s how it fucking is, is it? I swear, you never go a fucking hour without making me regret pulling you out of that fuck well. You’d be fish shit by now if I hadn’t, and I’d be happily… well, all fucking alone trapped on an island in the sky… fuck it.”
Cutter looked back to Reader, smiling with curious fascination. “Well, I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I gotta fly. Seriously, if it wasn’t life and death I wouldn’t be jetting like this. But head out to Tiller’s farm, yeah?”
Reader nodded. “Of course.”
“I’ll be out there tomorrow. Shit, man, this is so cool. Take it easy!”
And with that he left the shell-shocked adept standing in the street and plunged into the familiar dankness of Spinner’s tavern.
“Hey, Buck! Did ya sort those little golem things out? Ha, knew ya would! Oh, Anastasia, looking lovely, as always! Aha, Flubb, you still owe me a pint, I haven’t forgotten!”
Cutter made his way across the floor of the tavern, eye-groping the serving girls and prostitutes, until he arrived at the bar.
Spinner stood behind the counter, two arms occupied with drying a glass with a rag while the other four independently filled tankards and placed them on the bar or waiting trays. “How wassit with the other hoo-man then, Cutter, lad? You flew right outta here, didn’t even collect on the last contract.”
Cutter flashed a grin, accepting the offered pint without hesitation. “Just the one, I need to be gone as fast as I came.”
“Whazza rush?”
“Need cash and need it fast. I will take the payout on that last one now, and a fresh one too. A big one if you got it.”
He lifted the pint to his lips and took a deep draught. He wiped his lip and exhaled happily.
Spinner said, “Them what payout big come with the biggest danger, Cutter. You wanna take your choosing.”
Cutter said, “I won’t be stupid. Need to live long enough to collect too. What’s the richest one you got?”
Tiller reached under the counter and produced a bundle of sheets of paper. He rifled through them. As he did this, four other arms continued to serve and manipulate glasses as if they each had their own mind.
Spinner slapped a sheet down in front of Cutter. “This here is a special one. It’s not critters or little monsters this time. This one’s proper people that need doin.”
Cutter’s brows lifted. “Like NPCs instead of mobs?”
Spinner chuckled. “No knowin what you’re talkin about sometimes.”
Cutter said, “Well, give me a look.”
Spinner slid the sheet over. “Finality cultists been organizing a ways out to the west.”
Cutter said, “Finality… that’s an opening act for Black Sabbath, isn’t it?”
Spinner said, “That gets less cute the more you do it. Finality is the crew with Lord Eater, a ways off. Cultists ain’t part of the Finality, they just wish they was.”
Cutter said, “Wannabes, eh? So what, they dance around sacrificing babies and all that shit?”
Spinner just stared with as deadpan an expression as an anthropomorphized spider could summon.
Cutter read his blank expression. “Holy shit! They really do go around sacrificing babies? Are you serious? Someone should do something about that!”
Spinner tapped the flier. “That’s what you’re for, if you wanna.”
Cutter said, “Oh yeah, I guess so. But… shit, it’s pretty fucked up when there’s no police force to tackle that kind of shit. Really, babies?”
Spinner said, “Ayup, some of the time. Dunno about these uns. They got up to some shit that got a hit put on ‘em, and that’s good enough.”
Cutter floored his pint. “Put that on my tab, I’ll be back in a jiff.” He started to slide the flier off the counter, but a hairy spider arm landed on his hand.
Spinner said, “Can’t give this un to you exclusive. It’s a bounty, not a contract. You go on out there and you’ll get 20 gold for every head you bring back.”
Cutter said, “So I’ll have competition?”
Spinner shrugged, an odd gesture with his complicated shoulder arrangement. “Might have.”
Cutter said, “How will you know I have the right heads?” He flashed a wicked grin at the suggestion.
Spinner pointed to the small portraits on the flier. Cutter nodded. “Six of ‘em, eh? Shit, a hundred and twenty bucks? Like the sound of that.”
“Have a care, Cutter.”
Cutter moved away from the bar. “I’m always careful.”
Lita, drifting behind him, said, “Bruh, that’s just not true.”
