“I would never presume to tell the Indomitable what he should do,” the advocate said obsequiously. “I am only pleading for a ruling on the fate of my charges. They have given up their old lives, sold everything to risk it all on a single roll of the bones. They risked death to find life. And now that the duel is over, will they find neither? Most of them cannot afford an escort back to the capital, and none of them have a job waiting for them there. Ignoring their plight is sentencing them to death anyway, a slow one instead of a glorious one.”

  The Indomitable looked over the people who had assembled to fight in the Malamon. They were looking at him intently, some with hope, others with fear. They stood there with ramrod straight backs that tried to distract from the fact that their clothing was brown and threadbare.

  “Continuing the Malamon at this point is no longer possible. There isn’t an appointed lord to serve. Besides, Lord Edobar’s sacrifice was more than enough, the gods do not require another sacrifice today. My duties as the Finger of the Gods are complete here. I will not rule on the challengers' fate because it is no longer my concern. Farewell.” The Indomitable jumped away, heading north. Presumably he would transfer Edobar’s soul energy into the portal to power it.

  The assembled former staff and challengers watched in shock as the government representative fled instead of trying to solve things. They looked at each other, unsure where to turn next. Eventually most of the challengers turned to their advocate.

  Advocate Onioni sighed and turned to Lord Momoh. “I assume your nephew is here today? Perhaps he would like to interview my charges and select some of them to be his staff. I understand if he doesn’t want all of them, but I assure you, many of those with me today would make superior servants to their existing counterparts.”

  “Yes, excellent idea. Perhaps you could offer advice on particularly advantageous selections. Provisional Lord Imohi, come over here. Celebration must wait, your duties call. It is time to select your staff.”

  Momoh’s nephew had been excitedly talking with a group of his peers. When his uncle called him, he strutted over with his head held high. He tried to affect a noble bearing, but he couldn’t hide his smile.

  Luke looked over the people he had just saved, and then to the challengers that were going to try and take their place. A job interview with their lives on the line. There had to be something he could do. Momoh owed him. Maybe he could convince him to keep the original staff. But that would be dooming those that were just trying to earn a better life out here.

  On the one hand, that had been his plan the whole time, even when he was planning on participating in the Malamon. On the other, he saw them now, he couldn’t pretend they were some faceless evil.

  Luke cleared his throat and walked over. “Staff and Challengers. There is another option, if you want it. None of you are bound by oaths, you don’t have to stay here and work. I understand the alternative of returning to the capital would be dangerous and there aren’t good opportunities there. There is a third option. You could come to Earth.”

  “Are you trying to poach my staff, human?” Imohi said angrily. He stepped up to him and leaned his six foot frame over.

  Since Luke was weak, bloody, and unarmored, the attempt at intimidation wasn’t entirely ridiculous. But it wasn’t smart either. Jinx phased through the elf and rubbed up against Luke’s legs. Since he was the size of a panther now, the move was actually intimidating. Imohi stepped back and ran into Bumblebee, who was standing close,

  Vanessa said, “I’m sure your uncle would agree that Luke of Machines has earned himself some goodwill today. We can all hear what he has to say, yes?”

  Imohi glanced back at Momoh who was giving him a death glare. “Uh, yes. Luke of Machines, you may proceed.”

  Luke rolled his eyes and turned back to the crowd. “I am not offering to be your new lord on Earth. I am ... offering to be your sponsor, much like how Advocate Onioni led you here. Earth has no monsters, none. Food is plenty and comparatively cheap. I imagine your skills would be in demand on my world, or at least your exotic qualities.

  “Now, that’s not to say there are no downsides to Earth. We have no native mana. It will feel dry to those with classes, and runes will be difficult to power. There are many humans that hate anything that isn’t like themselves, you will certainly face prejudice. You will have to find jobs on your own and work hard to support yourselves.

  “But for some of you, that tradeoff will be worth it. You can take your fate in your own hands and write your future. If you want to talk further, I’ll be over here. I promise to answer any questions you have,” Luke said and walked a few dozen feet away.

  The other Monster Jaegers followed him, but no one else did. The elves, orcs, and dwarves talked amongst themselves, but no one walked over to him. Luke was more than a little disappointed. He had done his best to save them, but they weren’t helping themselves.

  The only group that moved were a group of well dressed elves. They were wearing golden robes and copious amounts of silver jewelry. Luke hadn’t seen them before, but their identity soon became clear. The group somberly walked over to Edobar’s body and several of them started crying. This must be his family. Luke hadn’t met them before because they hadn’t been present for any of the royal court meetings.

  Bumblebee waited as long as he could out of respect for them, but eventually turned to Luke and whispered, “Dude! You summoned a tank! Straight bussin’. The damn dragon didn’t have a chance. Oh, and the flying bomb. Shepard never knew what hit him.” He clapped Luke on the shoulder.

  Luke stumbled forward and cried out in pain. “Dude, still healing.”

  “Sorry, sorry.”

  Vanessa climbed out of her slim negotiator armor and gave Luke a gentle hug. “I was so worried. Everything was so fast. I was sure Lord Edobar had killed you. I cried when I saw you climb out of your mech.” Tears were still staining her face.

  “Heh, me too. I was in a lot of pain,” Luke joked. “What happened to you guys? Looks like you were in a fight.” He said and pointed to the cracked and dented armor.

  Sandwich coughed and turned away.

  “Don’t worry about it, bossman,” Bumblebee said. “We’re fine.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “I’ll repair the armor, no worries,” Allen said.

  No one wanted to meet Luke’s eyes so he said, “Now I’m worried. Seriously, what happened?”

  “It’s no big deal,” Sandwich said, perhaps too casually. “When you killed Shepard, we celebrated. Maybe we were too loud. His buddies were upset. They attacked us. I think they have powers from worshiping the Kalibutan gods. One turned into a rock golem, another one made his suit light on fire. The third one started lobbing ice bolts.”

  “They were seriously attacking us,” Bumblebee said.

  “Yeah, but the problem is that there were three of them and twelve of us. We fought back and won,” Sandwich said.

  Angela cleared her throat. “No, we destroyed them. They were beaten and broken in moments. Jinx appeared then and started slashing through their armor, cutting their mechs open like tin cans. We had to stop and convince her not to kill them.”

  “Did it work, are they still alive?”

  “Yes. But we had to purchase healing potions from the elves to keep them alive. We need to repay them before the end of the week.”

  “Vanessa and I can pay them back today, don’t worry,” Allen said.

  Luke nodded, not really sure how he felt about his team curb stomping the rest of Shepard’s team. He’d have to talk to the sheep at some point, make sure that didn’t turn into a serious grudge.

  “Excuse me, Luke of Machines. May I please ask you some questions?” a timid dwarf woman asked. She was leading a group of five people, orcs and dwarves.

  Luke turned to her and smiled. “Of course. Happy to answer anything you want to ask.”

  “I’ve heard the treaty between our worlds won’t allow us to leave. Are you able to smuggle us out through the portal?”

  “No, you can emigrate to Earth, no problem. I looked into this last month. Part of the treaty is to not accept anyone fleeing their lord, but you all don’t have a lord right now. You are free to go wherever you want.”

  She sighed in relief. “Praise Mal?ojo. That is a relief. Another question involves mana. You mentioned your world does not have any. Do you know if those without classes still need mana? I don’t want us to move to your world and then wither and die.”

  “No, you won’t wither and die. I promise. People from Kalibutan have moved to Earth before, your peoples have dozens of embassies and thousands of vacationers. None of them have been harmed. Besides, this wouldn’t be a one way trip. I have portal passes and I can allow you to return home often.”

  Luke continued to answer questions for more than an hour that day. Vanessa joined in and talked with other people that came to ask questions. Jeff and Gina joined the efforts as well, but the rest were content to let the others talk. Luke tried to give everyone a realistic expectation of what life on Earth would be like, while still encouraging them to save themselves. They agreed to meet at the portal in three Kalibutan days so he could escort anyone that wanted to emigrate to Earth.

  Before they were done, Luke sent Angela to harvest what she could from the two monster corpses. She returned when most of the crowd was heading back home. A tier eight core and a tier nine core were tucked away in her storage. The Rust Drake’s hide was no longer valuable, having lost both its magic and durability when it died. However, she had still been able to harvest something useful. The drake had been big enough that it produced an artifact. The process would normally take a full day, but her Reaper class allowed her to speed up the process.

  She handed over a large triangular paintbrush. It had burgundy paint on its tip, slowly dripping onto the ground. Luke made sure it didn’t drip on him. It was clearly magical, but he didn’t know what it did yet. He would need the help of a Seer to find out.

  Serendipitously, Momoh’s blabbermouth Seer was still there, advising Imohi on which candidate to hire of the available choices for each position. Momoh was there too, but seemed to be taking a hands off approach. Luke waited for a break in the conversation and joined in.

  “Provisional Lord Imohi, I wanted to offer you the same deal I gave your predecessor. Instead of hiring monster cullers, please allow us to complete the job. My team of Monster Jaegers will do it for free in exchange for keeping all the cores we harvest and one healing potion a week. It’s an excellent deal for you, with the small caveat that we will not be swearing any oaths. You can ask the previous Seneschal and he will attest that we did an exemplary job.”

  The young elf stood a little taller and looked down on him. “Yes, I believe I will keep you on for now. We can revisit your employment after the next shuffle when I am no longer provisional.” He sniffed and turned away.

  Luke rolled his eyes. The kid was trying his best to seem regal and failing badly. He ignored him and walked over to Momoh.

  “Luke of Machines. I waited to talk to you until now to let you gather your own glory. You deserve every scrap of praise, you are truly a formidable fighter. From the tips of my ears to the soles of my feet, I thank you.”

  “You are welcome, Lord Momoh. I hope that this is the beginning of a wonderful relationship between us. My negotiator, Vanessa, said that she mentioned we wanted to expand. Would you be interested in having Monster Jaegers do your culling?”

  “After your showing today, I have no doubts about your skills. Yes, I would accept the same offer. You will need to wait until after the shuffle in a month because my current cullers are contracted until then. Once they leave, I would be happy to have you and your staff take their place. I assume you want the same payment terms, and I am sure I can arrange a healing potion every week. My nephew will need my help and now I know what I will ask for in return.”

  “Excellent. One last thing. Could you have your Seer identify this artifact? My staff are talented, but we don’t yet have Seers of our own.”

  “Naturally. After today, I suppose I should give you a favor or six. Seer Romanie, come tell us what this dripping brush does.”

  The dwarf walked over obediently and carefully examined the triangular brush. “It’s a Fortifying Brush of Plenty. That means its paint will never run out and whatever you paint with it will be strengthened. Judging by the mana hue, I would say the effect is minor.”

  Momoh seemed uninterested, but Luke was elated. He could make whatever he painted stronger? Every single set of mech armor was getting a fresh coat of paint today. This was great. He headed back over to the group to give them the great news.

  ???

  “Everyone ready? Ok, let’s walk through. Don’t worry, it’s nothing to be afraid of,” Luke said and strode through the portal.

  He was leading a group of fifteen Kalibutan expatriates on their way to settle on Earth. He had researched the laws and arranged sponsors and places for everyone to live. They were literally carrying their lives on their backs, so each one had a large pack or two with them.

  Most of them were people he didn’t know, but one of them was very familiar. Kruro slithered at the head of the pack. Luke was her personal sponsor, and had arranged a place for her to rent. They had also discussed buying land near the portal so she wouldn’t have to go without mana.

  Luke was eager to get everyone settled on Earth because he had plans soon. He had finally arranged appropriate sacrifices and was going to pass his threshold after this was all over. New skills and more buffs awaited him. He was so excited.

  He led the procession along the corridor between worlds and nodded to the guards and SPEAR agent. He had arranged everything with them over the last few days so they were expecting him. There was only one person in the gate room surprised to see a group of aliens. Federal tax agent Hector Moralez.

  Hector stood up from his table in the corner of the room. “Mr. Moore. What have you done?”

  “These people are immigrating to Earth. We have an appointment with a customs agent, but she said to meet her in building B. She did say you’ll need to handle the taxes for their belongings though. Don’t worry, I’ll be paying the bill so you don’t have to create multiple receipts.”

  Hector looked at the assembled elves, orcs, dwarves, and naga. His eyes widened with each unique bag of belongings he saw. This would take a while. He turned to Luke and narrowed his eyes. “Fuck you, Mr. Moore.”

  Today’s chapter title comes from The Sixth Sense (1999)

  I consider my book to have a PG-13 rating, which means I can have one F-bomb. What do you think, was this a good use of my one big curse word? Or should I take it out when editing for publication?