I’d had a fair few fights in my life. Four on one wasn’t exactly new to me, either.

  That said, I wasn’t used to my opponents being mutated monsters.

  I brought the rock down on the head of the mouse still defiantly clinging to my arm. I kicked the creature away and dragged myself to standing just in time to throw myself to the side, narrowly avoiding the leap of another mouse that looked ready to try and burrow into my guts.

  I brought the rock up and swung again, braining the mouse before it could get another frenzied leap in.

  Three to go… Standing was easy enough, but I struggled to advance with the trap still sticking in the back of my foot. My hand throbbed in pain as I clutched the hard rock, my knuckles bleeding.

  All three of the remainders went for me at once. I felt one dig into my shin as another latched onto my thigh and the third leapt straight at my chest.

  I tried to grab it out of midair, ignoring the pain as best I could, but the creature was made of more muscle and heft than I’d anticipated and all I managed to do was knock it back to the ground.

  I instead focussed on the ones that were latched onto me, smashing the rock against their skulls as hard and rapidly as I possibly could.

  Getting a clean shot while they were biting into me was difficult. Each impact reverberated through me and only added to the pain. I felt woozy as blood leaked from my body, and began to wonder if this was the limit of an Unclassed like me. I imagined that even Carrow the big stupid brute could smash these rodents like bugs if he were here, but me, with my weedy body and my lack of physical strength…

  Screw that. I’ll consider my limits defined when I’m dead.

  I reached forward with my left hand and hooked my thumb into a mutant mouse’s eye. I felt it squelch beneath my grip until the creature screeched in pain and loosened its grip on my thigh. As soon as it hit the ground, I redoubled my efforts on destroying the right one, striking it with the rock over and over until it finally fell limp. The creature died still biting into me, and even with its jaw slacked, I had to prise its maw apart to make it fall to the ground.

  Two left. One was injured and couldn’t seem to see properly. The other had been jumping up and trying to nip at me for the last ten seconds.

  I still had traps on my belt. Hurriedly, I armed one, my blood-coated hands slipping as I pulled it open again and again until the mechanism locked. I thrust the trap right over the final mouse’s neck, slipping it on like a noose just as it found purchase on the end of my arm.

  With a sickening, satisfying snap, the trap sprang on its unsuspecting victim, and the light left the final mouse’s eyes.

  Well, unless you counted the half-blind one stumbling its way into a wall. I didn’t.

  I slumped to the ground, my hands shaking.

  Somewhere outside of my focus, notifications flashed in my mind, notifying me of skill increases—I forced myself to check them, rereading until the words stuck in my brain.

  [Fortitude: 8 >> 9.]

  [Throwing: 5 >> 6.]

  [Unarmed Combat: 5 >> 7.]

  Not bad… it was faster than I’d ever levelled skills until now. Rereading my notifications kept me alert. It kept me awake. Beyond my anger and fear, I still felt a rush looking out at the improvements I’d all-so-suddenly made.

  I was wracked in pain and covered in blood. None of the wounds seemed particularly deep, but they were painful and stung like hell. The worst was the mouse trap I’d managed to embed in my right heel. That took multiple attempts to pull off; I could feel the blood beginning to leak down into my shoe as I painfully squelched and hobbled my way a few steps from the bodies.

  I clapped my hands over my face and took a couple of breaths. I rubbed at my eyes, attempting to resist a forming headache.

  With a few ragged pants, I managed to regain most of my breath and at least some of my composure.

  The mice in the storage room were dead. That was half of my morbid task dealt with.

  As for the other half…

  I could see a few more gems glinting around the room. I hadn’t managed to detonate all of them.

  A part of me didn’t want to go through with the rest of this. I’d been lied to, or at the very least had information deliberately withheld from me. It was clear I’d been thrown down here to die, and that very likely could’ve happened if things had shaken out any differently. They hadn’t even given me a weapon.

  And I was meant to clear out the rest of these explosives then go upstairs and beg for a real job? Who did these people think they were?

  I made a conscious choice then. I didn’t just attempt to blow up the remaining stones from a distance…

  I attempted to store them.

  After all, I might need one for what came next.

  ***

  Storing the explosive gems turned out to be simple. I picked them up easily, and as soon as I did, alongside the glow came a prompt:

  [Would you like to store B Grade Resonance Crystal (unstable)? Y/N.]

  Four times, I selected yes, and four times, a glowing gem was added to my [Hoard]. Two B Grade, two C Grade.

  Once stored, I read their descriptions. Apparently, these little gems could serve as spell conduits, or batteries for advanced mana-powered items. However, these crystals had been overloaded with mana, and, as such, were highly volatile. Their main use in their current state was as explosives, and they were valued at roughly fifty gold apiece.

  Well, assuming whoever you sold them to could actually handle them.

  Before I took my leave of the place, I started practicing something with one of my rocks.

  I started placing it into my [Hoard], then removing it by grabbing the rock directly from the imperceptible space I’d manifested. I tried to get as fluid with the motion as possible. So much so that I was sure I could materialise the rock directly in my hand and immediately grab it before it left contact with me.

  Once I was absolutely certain there was no delay, I began testing the same thing with one of the weaker Resonance Crystals.

  I was scared I’d screw it up the first time, but after ten or twenty repetitions, it was clear that I could grab it without any worries of the crystal exploding from lack of contact. It materialised directly in my hand, then heated up and began to glow, and I could once again store it without any real issue.

  Once I was absolutely certain of this, I stumbled my way to the door of the cellar and began to pound on it.

  It wasn’t long until the tiger man was on the other side. He slowly opened it, only to regard me with a face more emotive than any he’d offered until now.

  His lips were parted. He looked shocked.

  “You… cleared all of the gems out?”

  I nodded.

  “You killed all the rodents, too?” he asked, as if he were inquiring if the sky had turned green.

  I nodded once more.

  “Well… shit.”

  He patted me on the back, which shook my whole body. I almost stumbled.

  “I’ll take you back to Tattia. I imagine she’ll be pleased.”

  He didn’t say anything else after, but he seemed vaguely amused. You’d almost think he’d put a bet on me.

  More realistically, he’d expected me to die just like she had. And he’d just sent me down there. Like it was nothing.

  It made the short hairs on my arms bristle. I could feel anger welling inside of me, but I calmed it. Now wasn’t the time. Right now, I needed to secure what I was owed. I’d done my job. I expected to be paid.

  We marched to the office, the tiger’s steps languid and slow, me leaking blood onto the floorboards as I shuffled along. The couple of passersby I saw didn’t glance twice at me, but I didn’t give them much of a look either.

  I was too focussed on what came next. That was all that mattered to me.

  When I reached the recruiter’s office, this time, the door was open.

  The recruiter looked up from a book to see me standing there, my eyes drifting.

  “Adam! You’re back!”

  She immediately paused what she was doing and rushed over to her drawers, pulling out a flannel and covering it in water. She walked over and placed it in my hands.

  “Clean your wounds. Those could get infected if you aren’t careful!”

  I looked down at the cloth in my grip. Tiger man left as the recruiter smiled up at me.

  “You really did an excellent job,” she said, her face fully on. “If you really managed to clear the infestation and remove the dangerous materials, the Association owes you a debt.”

  “Let’s talk about that debt,” I said, pressing the flannel against my most painful wounds a couple of times each.

  “We can! First, you should rest, though. What you’ve just been through is quite spectacular. But you’ve clearly proven that you’re someone worth hiring!”

  Truthfully, I just heard a gnat buzzing in my ear when she spoke. She was so insincere it made the fear in my stomach turn to bile, and I eventually felt none of it. All of my anxiety had been swallowed up in that cellar, bled out of me.

  “I don’t want to rest. I want the money I was promised.”

  “Well, that was a signing bonus,” the smaller orc explained to me. “Once we’ve drawn up and signed your work contract, we can arrange for you to be paid and—”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head at her. I took a step forwards. “I want my money. I’m not signing shit until I get it.”

  Tattia the recruiter scoffed. Her eyes flicked to me. “Come on, Adam. This doesn’t work like that! I’ve been fair with you until now, be fair with me! I wouldn’t be doing my job properly otherwise. There’s protocol to consider, and—”

  Blah, blah, blah…

  “You’ve not been fair with me,” I interrupted, cutting her off halfway. “You sent me down there without explaining anything to me. You didn’t even give me a fighting chance. You gave me three tiny traps, and you expected me to do your job and walk out after?”

  Tattia hazarded another fake smile. “Well, you’re here now, aren’t you? Clearly, you could handle it.”

  “I want my money, and then I’m leaving,” I said, advancing another step. “No signing bonus. Pay me for the work I did, and then let me go. I don’t want to work in this shithole.”

  “Hahahah…” Tattia choked her way through that laugh; she looked about ready to tire of diplomacy.

  “Come, Adam. You said you wanted to work here, didn’t you? That you wanted a high-paying job? Well these are your options.

  “Stand there and sign a contract—you’re not bleeding on my leather—or walk out of that door and be thankful we gave an Unclassed peasant like you the time of day.”

  “So, you’re not going to pay me if I don’t sign?”

  “After you stand here and try to lecture me in my office?” Tattia laughed, her voice cold and derisive, almost seeming to be happy to be free of its prison. “You’ll be lucky if I give you anything.”

  Now it was her turn to advance on me. She moved like she might attack me at any moment. In an instant, there was only a single pace between us.

  “Now, make a decision. Sign whatever I put in front of you, or get the fuck out of my office.”

  Well, this was it. Mask off. Gloves off. This was who Tattia really was. I could see the smile plastered across her face. It was almost sadistic. She must’ve enjoyed the power she lorded over the less fortunate, over kids.

  Only, there was one thing that she, until now, woefully hadn’t realised.

  And that was that I was wearing a mask too. And I had far less to lose than her.

  Tattia was standing between me and my money. And now she wanted to play games with me?

  I reached into my [Hoard].

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  Pulled the C-Grade Resonance Crystal out.

  Felt the glow pulse in my hand as I clasped my fist around it.

  Stepped forward and thrust the glowing grenade against Tattia’s smug face.

  I watched her expression twist.

  Her smile shed like a carapace. Beneath it was open-mouthed shock.

  She blinked rapidly, each shuttershot moment a shifting realisation of just how fucked she was.

  I pressed the gem against her cheek. Smushed it into her make-up. Let her feel the heat.

  How’s that for playing games?

  “Adam…”

  Her breath was heavy. She knew exactly what this was.

  Suddenly, I felt a soft hand against my wrist. Then I felt claws dig in. Felt my bones threaten to crunch.

  “Argh—you know what happens if I drop this?!” I all but screamed in her face, my voice cracking.

  That made the pressure stop immediately. Despite her superior orc strength, there was nothing Tattia could do here. And she knew it.

  “Adam…”

  Her tone had changed. There was panic in her voice now. Pleading. A hint of reverence.

  I leaned into it, grabbing her by her shirt and entangling the pair of us further, ignoring the throbbing pain in my hand.

  “Tattia!”

  “Berrick, don’t!” the orc yelled.

  I recognised the voice. Tiger man must’ve heard the commotion. I turned to see him hovering in the doorway, his face similarly panicked, a snarl on his face. I could hear stoked coals rumbling in his throat.

  “That’s right, Berrick,” I spoke; I panted. “Don’t take another step, or I’ll drop this thing. Don’t try to leave, either.”

  “Tattia, wh-what do I—”

  “Just listen to him!”

  The sound of her fear made my ears prick.

  “That’s right. Are you feeling a fraction of what you put others through yet?”

  “Grr… What are we doing here, Adam?”

  Her voice turned soft again. Back in diplomacy mode. Was she ready to make a deal already? Good.

  “Walk with me to the chair,” I said. “I’m tired. I’m gonna go bleed on your leather.”

  Tattia silently complied as we shuffled to the reading chair in tandem. She had to drop to her knees in order to let me sit down. She looked up at me, her eyes wide.

  “You really want your money?” Tattia asked.

  “You think you can just pay me a hundred gold after all of this?” I asked her, laughing a little at the prospect. I shoved the grenade into her face once more, pressing it against her lips. “The price has gone up.”

  “H—mmph—how much?”

  I made a point of considering it. For me, there was no real rush. I had nowhere else to be. For her, I wanted every second to feel ten times as long as when I was fighting those mutated animals.

  “You’re impressive, you know?” Tattia said, her dark eyes glossy. “Not only did you manage the task I gave you, but to come back up here and force this—”

  “A thousand gold,” I said, my eyes flicking between her and the beastkin as I spoke. “I think that’s fair. Bring me a thousand gold, and I’ll walk out of here without blowing this thing.”

  “Okay,” she nodded, her movements extremely slow. “Berrick, get the money.”

  “But, ma’am.”

  “Berrick!”

  “Don’t try anything funny,” I said as the tiger slowly walked his way into the room, looking as if he was stepping into an active minefield. Which, considering the scenario, he might as well have been.

  He didn’t walk towards us, instead heading to the opposite side of the room and beginning to fiddle with a clicking lock under Tattia’s desk.

  “Code?” he asked, his voice sounding strained.

  “Oh-six-four-one,” Tattia told him.

  Within moments, a bag on Tattia’s desk was being filled with gold. I watched with something between anger and glee.

  As soon as the money stopped being piled, the satisfaction faded.

  I wanted my revenge on these fucks. I felt glad to be leaving this place with a good score… but it didn’t even feel like a good score. Was this really all I got out of this?

  “You don’t have to leave, you know,” Tattia attempted.

  “I think I’m gonna leave you to disarm this,” I replied, shoving the grenade into her mouth. “Thanks for the gold.”

  With that, I made to stand, only to find Tattia tugging on my arm.

  “Wait!” she said, her voice muffled. She’d pushed the Resonance Crystal into her cheek. With a fluid motion, she spat it into her hand.

  “What?” I asked, looking down at her, utterly done with this.

  “Please consider my offer!” Tattia said.

  I couldn’t believe my ears. I regarded her, my head tilting, watching tears leak from her eyes.

  “You’re… you’re exactly the kind of person the Association needs. I want to sign you.”

  Now it was my turn to blink in confusion.

  “What?”

  “I mean it!” she said, nodding somewhat frantically. “If this was an interview, then you passed it with flying colours! Not only did you get a job done that no Unclassed should have been able to, but you’re ruthless, and clearly intelligent! Let us benefit from each other!”

  I listened to her speak. Watched her tremble as she spoke.

  By all accounts, my bullshit detector should’ve been going off the charts. Was she being genuine, or was I simply this unused to flattery?

  “We won’t pursue you if you try to leave,” Tattia started.

  “Good,” I replied. “I have more of those grenades.”

  “But what are you going to do after? Go join a gang?”

  I shrugged. I hadn’t really thought about it yet.

  “You’re covered in injuries,” Tattia reminded me. “Try walking anywhere in the city with a big bag of gold, looking like that.”

  I wasn’t worried about that. My [Hoard] trivialised hiding it. But she was right about the injuries…

  “I can give you healing potions. I can get you a good job, working on a highly profitable rift! The kind of job that would be suited to your skills!”

  She sniffled, and when she spoke again, she seemed to have regained a bit of her conviction. She rose to standing. “Think about it. That money right there is a drop in the bucket for us. You saw how big our storage room is. You could get rich working with us. Not just pay off your debts. Get rich. Don’t you want that, Adam?”

  I wasn’t sure if she was playing me. The worst part was, I was beginning to realise it didn’t matter.

  I wasn’t in a good spot. I was weak. I was desperate enough to almost blow myself up if it meant making some quick money.

  Maybe the rifts were still the best place for me. Maybe all of this changed nothing.

  I hadn’t come here because I was scared of potentially dying, after all, had I?

  Tatia must’ve taken my silence as a cue to continue talking, as she did.

  “I’ll draw up a contract with you right now. We can figure out the terms together.”

  “I want to be healed now,” I demanded. “I’m not entertaining this until then.”

  Tattia nodded. She sent Berrick to fetch me a healing potion, a ‘good one’ and I sat in Tattia’s comfy leather seat and waited. I made a point of reclining into it, hoping the stains would be impossible to get out.

  When Berrick returned, I drank the first healing potion I’d ever experienced in my life.

  It was… tingly. It fizzled on my lips, but not in an unpleasant way. It tasted like fruit and power.

  I downed its contents and felt that same fizziness coarse through my entire body. I let out an involuntary belch as that same tingle started to relegate itself specifically to my injuries, stopping the flow of blood and eventually closing them.

  My wounds itched for a moment, but not in an unpleasant way. Before long, they seemed to be closing.

  That was… probably the tastiest thing I’d ever drank. That felt incredible.

  “Satisfied?” Tattia asked me.

  “Just about.”

  “Well, onto the contract?”

  I nodded. I hadn’t agreed to anything yet, but I was willing to at least listen.

  “I’m just gonna skip to my best offer,” Tattia said. “The most profitable rift jobs are currently in mining and excavation. I’ve got a vacancy on a high-priority rift nearby. I can have you starting there tomorrow.”

  She clutched the glowing gem as she spoke. “Typically, miners earn ten percent of their haul while they’re clearing any debts on their name, and then fifteen percent after. That’s known as an escalator. Additionally, there are other escalators and bonuses for consistent good work.

  “For you? I’ll double those numbers. You’re worth the investment.”

  Okay, that actually made me laugh. Maybe flattery didn’t always work on me, because this sounded…

  “Ridiculous,” I spoke. “Twenty percent? Thirty with hard work?” I narrowed my eyes at her, feeling far more conscious than I had been whilst bleeding. “The miners are the ones doing the work and extracting the value. Why would anyone agree to that? It’s a total rip-off.”

  “The Rift Delving Association provides the infrastructure and the equipment,” Tattia said. “They’re also there to pay you for the work. Not only that, but only we know the location of the mines. They’re our property, and they’re well-guarded. You can’t work in one of our rifts without our blessing.”

  “I want seventy percent,” I told her. “Straight up, too. No escalators.”

  “I could never agree to that,” Tattia said, shaking her head. “I’d be making a loss at that point. Between renting the locations and the cost of equipment, I’d make far more money placing someone else down there. I think you’ll make the Association a lot of money, but the numbers have to make sense.”

  “Hmm…” I thought it over for a long moment. I knew I was still in the driver’s seat here. I wasn’t going to come down easily.

  “Sixty-five,” I eventually stated.

  “I can do forty-five at best,” Tattia insisted. “Anything more than that, and I’ll stand a big risk of taking a pay cut. Recognise, this is far more than anyone else is offered. Even the epic classes.”

  Yeah, well I’m not an epic class.

  “Sixty.”

  “No way,” Tattia shot back. “Unequivacally, no.”

  “Sixty, and I get rid of that bomb you’re holding.”

  She almost flinched at its mention. Had she forgotten she still had a live grenade in her hand?

  Her eyes flicked between it and me for a few moments.

  “Fifty five?” she asked me.

  I laughed and shook my head.

  “Sixty…”

  And that was that. I took the grenade from her as I shook her hand.

  Chances were, these guys had no idea how these things worked if she’d caved that easily.

  I walked over to the window at the end of the office and pushed it open. The Artyne river flowed below us.

  The Resonance Crystal in my hand was incredibly warm from how long she’d been holding it.

  Tattia probably thought this thing would explode the moment she took her hand off of it. But after being heated for this amount of time?

  I threw it into the water, and a good ten seconds passed before I saw a large, underwater bang.

  Yup. That probably would’ve levelled the entire office.

  Tattia stared at me as I went through the motions, something between fear and awe on her face.

  Even the tiger man looked shocked.

  Ah well. I was pretty sure I could call today a victory.

  “Oh, about my signing bonus,” I chimed in, watching as Tattia began to scrawl down our new contract onto a fresh piece of paper.

  “Yes?” Tattia asked, looking up at me.

  “I’m keeping the gold,” I told her. “Also, I’d like…”

  Her eyes narrowed to pinpricks as I began listing off every provision I wanted in exchange for my signature. She approved most of them, though there was still a good deal of haggling involved.

  Five superior health potions was reduced to three. A full set of crockery was approved for cooking, ten new sets of clothes became six, and there was some debate over what constituted a six month supply of nuts, which was the length of time this contract would last until it was up for review.

  The one thing I was bad at haggling over was a weapon. I didn’t really know if I needed one, and I didn’t know much about weapons, so I simply told her I wanted a ‘good knife’, one made out of silver and steel. I was basing that off of Summer’s sword. I had no idea if the composition of the blade mattered. I also said I wanted a gem in the hilt, a ‘good one’.

  Not my most eloquent moment, but I’m hardly educated on weapons and fighting. Or on anything, for that matter. That said, that didn’t stop me from halting Tattia before she told me to sign.

  “Wait,” I said. “I’m gonna read over this and make sure you included everything.”

  “Hold on… I thought you said you struggled with reading?”

  “I know what I said,” I mumbled, not taking my eyes off the page.

  “Little bastard.”

  I read through the contract slowly, pointedly, often reading aloud. I made sure to check every line of text before I signed it, and I was glad I did, as I found that at least two of my provisions hadn’t been mentioned on the list.

  A ‘simple clerical error’ was Tattia’s excuse, but whatever. I didn’t trust the bitch. At the very least, she’d managed to get the percentages right. Guess she didn’t want to risk me walking.

  “You’re good at this,” Tattia admitted. “If all the recruits here asked for what they were truly worth, we wouldn’t be raking in half as much money.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better about working here?”

  “It’s supposed to make you feel good about yourself,” Tattia corrected. “You’re not stupid. You know what this place is already.” She shrugged her shoulders. “You wanna sit there and worry about people you don’t even know? Or do you wanna take advantage of that?”

  I stared at the dotted line. I blinked.

  “One more question.”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s the death rate in the rift you’re sending me to?”

  “In rift forty-seven? It’s… about a fifteen percent mortality rate?” She put a hand up. “I can send you somewhere safer, but it won’t be as lucrative, and I won’t be able to offer the same rates as—”

  “Fifteen’s fine,” I said, signing the contract as I spoke. “I’m not here to haggle that number.”

  And with that, after a moderately gruelling selection process, I’d finally landed my first job.

  Here’s hoping it beat factory work.

  ***

  Tattia had been letting the sea breeze roll in through her open window ever since Adam left her office. Usually, it remained shut while it was this windy, as she didn’t like the errant wind knocking her papers around.

  But right now, it remained open. Maybe as a reminder of everything that had just happened. Or maybe because her mind was reeling too much for her to remember to get up and close it.

  As expected, a gust of wind invaded and tried to knock the paper she was writing on straight out of her hands. She scrambled to catch it, accidentally tearing the paper in the process.

  Whatever. She screwed it up and started again, a smile on her face.

  Overseer,

  Caught a live one. Highly intelligent. Possibly god-touched. Unclassed. I’m sending him down to forty-seven with a six month extendable contract. Wish I’d gotten him for a year. I’m attaching a copy of his contract in this letter.

  Make sure the other workers see it. Try and ensure none of them kill him.

  This kid will make us a lot of money.

  Tattia signed it, then began recounting a list of Adam’s contract agreements and conditions below.

  She really wasn’t sure the last time she’d signed a contract this lucrative. If the Association were to honour it, the amount of potential profit they’d lose would be incredible. That would reflect terribly on her.

  Thankfully, just showing this contract to some of the crazy and disgruntled workers in forty-seven would be enough to put a target on the boy’s back.

  He really was impressive. She’d meant every word she’d said. He was far better off here, making money for her, than he ever would be out on the streets.

  Before long, Adam would be working under someone older, stronger, and meaner, kicking all of his profits up to them.

  He’d be lucky if he’d even made a solid dent in his debt six months from now. Meanwhile, he’ll have made the Association thousands.

  Tattia grinned. There was no one better suited to this job than her. Not a soul.