Luke slowly dropped his left hand to rest on his sword’s pommel. He still held out the troll core the orcs wanted, but this looked like it was going to end in violence. The three orcs were staring at him and giving him hard looks.

  Bumblebee made placating motions and said, “Neniu Batalo, Neniu Batalo.”

  The orcs ignored him and continued to spread out. Then all of a sudden, they stood up straight and pointed their spears to the sky. They slammed a fist to their chests and then started walking away.

  Luke shook his head in confusion. “What was that? You don’t want the core anymore? I have it here if you want it.”

  The orcs didn’t respond. Luke could see one of them twitch when he talked, probably because the greenskin could understand him. Still, none of them turned around, they marched twenty feet away and kept their back turned.

  Luke turned to Bumblebee and said, “What the hell?”

  He shrugged. “Beats me.”

  They stood like that for a bit before Luke said, “I think they are waiting for us to clear out so they can take care of the dead. Let’s head back to Bona Urbo.”

  The two men in power armor slowly walked west, occasionally looking over their shoulders. The orcs didn’t move until they were almost out of sight.

  The eastern road met up with the other two in front of the portal. Luke gave it a glance before turning north. A few minutes later, Bumblebee snapped his fingers with a clank.

  “I know what it was. Your skill. You put your armor back together with your repair skill. That let them know you had a class. I bet none of those orcs had a class. It’s like peasants and nobility. You were supposed to hand over the core, but you can bend the rules since you have a class,” Bumblebee said.

  “So, now that I have a class, I’m like royalty?”

  “Nah, but you’re a step above commoners. It goes forsaken, commoners, classers, and then nobility. The three lords around here are top of the chain locally, but Kruro told me once they are the bottom of the nobility ladder.”

  “Huh. Can’t say I didn’t just benefit from being a classer, but not sure if I like living in a classist society. Monarchy was abolished for a reason back on Earth.”

  “Heh. Sometimes you act all smart, but then you say stupid shit like that. Earth is classist too, maybe worse. Nobility have to follow some rules here, but can you honestly say there is a single rule that Billionaires have to follow back on Earth?”

  Luke tilted his head back and forth. It was a good point. He didn’t feel like debating politics though, so he activated his legs and started jogging. He didn’t want to run full out though, his ribs still hurt with every breath. Bumblebee was easily able to keep up with him at first, but started flagging as his mana ran out. They still made it back to the estate village magnitudes faster than normal.

  Kruro was talking to a customer when they arrived. It was the first time Luke had seen anyone visit the shop. A dwarf handed over a half dozen metal coins with a hexagon hole in the middle. The naga took a tea set from the top shelf and packed it into a straw basket. Luke had no frame of reference for if that was expensive or not.

  While they were talking, Luke took off his helmet and checked the workbench. Kruro had completed the power armor suit she started this morning. That brought them up to four suits of armor plus his own. Hopefully Shepard and the others would come back for a shift now that he had suits and money sorted.

  Once her customer left, she turned her attention to the humans. “?? ?? ???”

  Luke said, “Sorry, we’ll have to speak English. My translator device broke. I think the mana got to it.”

  Kruro hissed and said in English, “Any repairs needed?”

  Luke shook his head, but Bumblebee pointed to several spots along his upper arms. “We are losing definition to most of the upper movement runes. The elbow one is completely out, just listen to those pistons whine.”

  “Leave it in the corner. I’ll get to it after lunch.” She turned to Luke and said, “I got one suit made this morning, I probably won’t get to another today. It’s market day and I need to restock almost everything. Tomorrow is my day off, so don’t expect to get any repairs done. I’ll still be home most of the day, so you can retrieve your suits.”

  Luke nodded. “Thanks for the heads-up. Do you mind if I use your workshop tomorrow anyway? I need to get more sets of power armor made as soon as possible.”

  She looked away in disappointment, but still gave him jazz hands. “As long as you bring Jinx along with.”

  “I bet she would like that. She doesn’t like being left alone these days. Speaking of which, where is she? I’ll be taking her back to Earth.”

  “She’s sleeping in my burrow. She had an eventful morning. A pair of ???, pests, tried to invade and she killed them in glorious battle. I had to pamper the conquering hero of course. Jinx is still recovering.”

  “Was she hurt?” Luke said and started walking towards the trap door to her burrow.

  “A warrior like her? The ??? didn’t even break her skin. I had to repair some of the runes on her legs, but she was uninjured. Ask me about those legs when we are not busy. I have ideas for improvements.”

  “Sure. As long as it’s easy for her to adjust to the changes, I’m sure she would like better legs.”

  Kruro gave him jazz hands and slithered into the burrow to collect Jinx. She returned shortly with an aloof cat in her arms.

  Jinx hopped up to Luke’s armored shoulders and snuggled up to his exposed head. He said, “Aww. Did you actually miss me, Jinx?”

  Jinx gave him a look and turned away. She had an earthy smell with a faint coppery tang. Luke checked over her, but she was uninjured just like Kruro had said.

  Bumblebee sat down and climbed out of his power armor and walked over to a different set that was fully repaired. Luke had decided they would both wear the suits back to Earth and store them there. It would mean that he would have to pay taxes on the magical mechs, but it was a necessary expense. He didn’t have a ranged attack like Cormac, so Luke didn’t feel like he could adequately protect an unarmored human.

  While Bumblebee suited up again, he turned his attention to his stat screen. His class had leveled up from the fight with the troll and he had another choice to make. He needed to assign two more stat points.

  Two points wasn’t enough to bring any of his stats up to a multiple of six. Those multiples were qualitative jumps in ability, he needed to work towards the next one over a few level ups. Strength was his first thought. If he had been stronger, he would have been able to knock the troll off of him and not gotten so injured in the fight.

  He considered Acuity next. It would help him think faster and really take advantage of his higher Dexterity. It would also help him refill his mana quicker. He always felt like he was running out. Having more mana might be better than having more strength. As he considered his choices, he noticed that his Machine Bond skill had leveled up. That must have been the notification he ignored earlier.

  Then he noticed his Health. Two out of five. That was low. Too low after some cracked ribs and a bruised back. He needed more Constitution now and in the future. He pushed both free stat points into his Constitution. His health pool immediately rose to six, but his current total stayed at two. No magic healing for him. He did start to feel a bit better though, slightly more fit and hale.

  Bumblebee was ready to go then and they said goodbye to Kruro.

  She stopped them before they could head out and said, “I’m afraid you will have to leave the swords here. They are on loan from the Inner Runewright and I can’t allow you to take them offworld. I am sorry.”

  Luke tsked and removed the swords from his hips. They would probably be fine, but he hated going out into the wild without a weapon, particularly with Jinx only protected by a bag. At least he had just combed that forest already, there weren’t any unknown monsters out there.

  He made a mental note to inscribe his own swords before they returned in a few Earth days. He had taken pictures of the full set of swords, so he should be able to figure out something. If not, he could get himself a pair of sledgehammers.

  They jogged back to the portal together. Luke made sure not to jostle Jinx in the cat backpack. On the other side of the portal was the predictable hassle.

  ???

  “Do you enjoy giving me headaches, Mr. Moore?”

  Luke rolled his eyes. “What exactly is your complaint? I am willing to pay taxes on these two suits of power armor. Just tell me how much.”

  “Exactly! How am I supposed to evaluate an armored hodgepodge of metal and monster parts?” The harried taxman said and threw up his arms.

  “What about the power loaders? Those things are basically the same. My suit just has more armor.”

  “Those are made on Earth, they don’t have to be taxed.”

  Luke shrugged and sat back against the concrete wall. It wasn't his job to figure out the taxes. The man in the black suit near the portal kept glancing towards their conversation, and it was starting to weird Luke out. His job was to scan everyone as they left Kalibutan, but something about Luke and Bumblebee wearing power armor had really caught his interest. It was creepy. Thankfully, he didn’t do more than stare and Luke shifted his attention to his cat.

  Jinx had gotten bored earlier and he had let her out of the carrier. She was wandering around the portal room at a leisurely pace, occasionally wandering close to the Marines manning the gun emplacements.

  At first the Marines had ignored Jinx, but now they seemed to be playing a game. She was continually getting closer and closer to the HMGs before they gently shooed her away. After a few minutes of the taxman grumbling one of the Marines called out to Luke.

  “Sir? Can you please come get your cat? It’s not safe.”

  Luke climbed to his feet and walked over to Jinx. He scooped her up to her loud complaints.

  The Lance Corporal said, “Sorry little kitty. You can’t get too close to the Ma Deuces.” He looked up to Luke and said, “It’s the magnets. I’m worried about the little guy’s legs.”

  “I’ll keep her with me. Thanks for looking out.” Luke said.

  He pulled out his emergency cat treats and started feeding them to her one at a time. He occasionally fumbled because the metal gauntlets didn’t give him a sense of touch, but his higher dexterity made it possible to get one treat out of the bag at a time.

  While he played with her, Luke wondered about the heavy machine guns in the corner of the room. He had shot that model before, he knew the M2A1 didn’t have magnets in it. There weren’t any electronics at all, normally. Why had they retrofitted it with magnets? Ones strong enough to cause a danger to Jinx would surely impede the gun’s normal operation.

  The taxman came up with a number then, and Luke was able to pay and leave. He also paid his taxes on the mana cores he had brought with him. He had briefly considered sneaking them in, since their security wasn’t heavy, but decided it was better to not have to worry about it.

  Once everything was paid up, Luke led Bumblebee to his old place of work. It hadn’t been that long since he was here, just over a week, but it already felt like a different life.

  He poked his head in and saw two things that made him smile. Mr. Kruger was in his office, looking miserable. The bastard deserved it for firing him. It didn’t matter that Luke was happier and richer now. His old manager should have fought for him.

  The other thing that made him brighten up was the fact that Allen was still here. It was just after 6PM on Earth, so his friend could have already been gone by now. But apparently overtime was necessary to make up for Luke’s absence.

  “Hey buddy. Isn’t it quitting time?” Luke said.

  Allen looked up and up. “Luke? What are you wearing?”

  He laughed and said, “Like it? Made it myself. It’s a badass mech I’ve been using to kill monsters.”

  “...What?”

  Luke laughed again and said, “I’ll tell you about it over dinner. My treat. But first, can you log us into storage? Two power loaders, we’ll pay the storage fee. This is Bumblebee, by the way. He’s an alright guy.”

  Bumblebee nodded, “Hey.”

  “Those are decidedly not power loaders.”

  “Yeah, but they can be on paper, right?”

  Allen ran a hand through his curly black hair. “Alright, fine. But then you gotta tell me all about this.”

  Allen led them to the attached warehouse. It was where they kept the repaired mechs before the different companies came to collect them. Usually there were a dozen repaired mechs in the room, but today there were three. He led them to the back of the room and unlocked two bays for them.

  “What company name should I mark down?”

  Luke said, “I guess it doesn’t really matter. But why not use Jaeger Inc?”

  Allen snorted. “Nerd. Besides, that’s power armor at best, not even a tiny mech.”

  Luke sat down in the bay and popped open his chestplate. “Where exactly is that line between mech and power armor? Is it a specific height or something else?”

  He climbed out of the mech and was hit with a wave of exhaustion. He missed whatever Allen was saying. His ribs were agony again and the world was dimmer. He had lost his buff.

  “Ugg. Maybe I’ll take you out to lunch instead.”

  Bumblebee walked up and said, “Ah, Skywalker. The troll wrecked you, didn’t it? You gotta take it easy, man.”

  “Troll?” Allen said, concerned.

  Luke waved him down. “It’s fine, it’s fine. I will be better by morning, I promise. I’ll swing by for lunch and tell you everything.”

  “You better. You gonna be ok driving home?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll be fine. Come on Jinx, let’s go,” Luke said and grabbed his bag.

  The cores clinked together. He’d have to figure out how to sell them in the morning. For now, he needed rest.

  Today’s chapter title comes from Titanic (1997)

  Shoutout to qustom, william wallace, The Human, Silberwolf325, striderfighter, Fay-of-lostland, Neoseedman1, and Kolerog. I haven't even announced my Patreon yet, and they have already signed up. You guys are the best.

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