Everyone liked money. Even those who pretended like they didn’t still enjoyed things money could buy.

When Freddy bought a round of drinks for everyone at that bar, he hadn’t expected much to come of it. It was such a small gesture that it could barely even be called a favor.

And yet, even he could tell that the people there saw him in an ever so slightly better light.

This was enough to inspire him. That night, he decided to take some time to dedicate himself to gifting the people of Valhalla to at least ameliorate the awful opinion most had of him.

He stayed up all night and hatched the perfect plan.

Trying to improve his standing with the fighters of Valhalla was the ultimate goal. But getting there would be difficult. Thus, he would work from the ground up.

First, he would target their families. He would go to the residential area and start knocking on doors. Then, he would politely introduce himself and hand over a gift. But what should he give? He couldn’t be cheap. There were very few mortals living in Valhalla. Even the non-combatants were still mostly archhumans.

So he went shopping. He collected luxury foods, medicine, kitchenware—stuff that anyone would need in everyday life. As for the budget, he stuck to under $100,000 per individual-slash-family.

He didn’t want to be too generous.

There was just one small problem—

“Please go away,” the woman said as she slammed the door in his face.

He looked down at the basket and scratched the back of his head.

He’d been knocking on doors all morning. This was the fifteenth person he visited. And yet, among these people, only a single man had even talked to him, and that was only until he learned his name. “Shit,” he cursed.

This was way worse than he thought.

But even then, the way the people reacted was just a little strange. Even if they knew who he was, it was too exaggerated. Something was wrong.

He wanted to get some advice from someone. But who? He felt like most of the fighters would have a skewed perspective, and he didn’t know anyone that—

He snapped his fingers. “Lucas’s mom!”

Rushing his way through the hallway, he found the place she lived and knocked on the door.

Nobody responded. “Must be out somewhere. Maybe Lucas knows where she is.”

So he looked for Lucas.

He found the boy eating in the mess hall. However, just as he entered, he heard a bell ring, and the boy, together with most of the other trainees, got up and turned to head for the exit.

Before Lucas could leave, Freddy walked up to him. “Hey there.”

The others all gave them some space as they streamed out of the hall.

“Hey, Freddy…” Lucas greeted. “Is something wrong?”

“Quick question: where is your mum?”

“I—What?” Lucas scowled. “My mom?”

“Do you have a minute? Let’s sit down and have a chat.”

“Actually, I should head back to practice…”

“Don’t worry,” Freddy said. “I’ll let them know I needed you for a bit.”

“Uh… Cool. Well… Let’s sit down then.”

And so they did.

“Why do you need my mother?” Lucas asked apprehensively.

“Well… It’s kind of complicated. Do you know where she is?”

“She’s… she’s busy.”

“What about later?”

“She’ll be busy later, too.”

Freddy cocked an eyebrow. “Okay? Uh… I guess I’ll ask you, then. You were a mortal just a while ago.” He proceeded to explain to Lucas what he was trying to do and the reactions of the people he visited.

Lucas’s reaction wasn’t what he expected to see. “Huh!?” the boy blurted. “Are you dumb?”

“What? What am I missing?”

“Okay, uh… You do realize who you are, right? Even if you ignore your identity, just look at yourself! You’re a hulking mass of muscle, and your face is terrifying.”

“My face?” he touched his beard. “What’s wrong with my face?”

“Well, I mean… nothing’s… wrong with it, you’re just a bit sharp. And that beard and long hair give you a wild look. On top of that, look at the way you dress!”

“What?” Freddy looked down. He was wearing an ordinary white T-shirt and blue jeans. “Come on, this is perfectly fine casual clothing!”

Lucas raised a finger. “It’s too casual. You don’t look polite.”

“Polite? Come on…”

“Didn’t you say you were a mortal not too long ago?”

Freddy paused. “Yes. I did say that.”

“Okay, just think back to those days. Someone’s knocking on your door. You open the door and you see someone just like yourself. How would you react?”

He immediately realized the problem. “Oh, yeah, I get it now.”

Lucas just nodded with a “told you so” expression on his face. “Look, if you want, we can go get you some new clothes and change your look. I can’t really say I’m a fashion expert. But I know someone who could really help us out.”

“Hmm? And who is that?”

***

“Hello, Mr. Cliff,” Lucas’s girlfriend Janice greeted with a quick bow of her head. She inched closer to Lucas and leaned closer to his ear. “Why did you call me to come here?”

Lucas smiled at her and explained Freddy’s problem.

“Oh! I see!” she said as she eyed Freddy with a strange look. “And yeah, you’re definitely right…”

“So! What do you suggest we do for him?” Lucas asked.

She tore her gaze away from Freddy and looked at Lucas. “Uhm…” She put on a strained smile. “Everything?”

Lucas and Freddy met eyes.

It looked like this would take a while.

Thankfully, Valhalla’s premises had a number of shops and locations they could visit.

Their first destination was a tailor.

“Okay”—Janice clapped her hands as she lapped around Freddy—”for your clothes, we are aiming for a disarming look. You’re naturally quite… uhm… intimidating. So we should look to minimize that. First, I suggest a white dress shirt. A bit loose. We want to hide the defined muscles and veins and all that. As for the dress pants, we shouldn’t go with black because that would make you look too formal. I suggest beige. We’ll get you some black dress shoes, and for the final touch, suspenders instead of a belt.”

The tailor listened and nodded, getting to work.

The fabric affinity was a relatively common special affinity and a very popular one among non-combat archhumans. The tailor had this affinity, and with his abilities, putting Freddy’s new clothes together was a piece of cake.

The cloth also felt quite luxurious, and the tailoring was very precise and professional.

The shoemaker was right across the street, so while the tailor was working on the clothing, they got Freddy some fancy dress shoes.

He sucked air through his teeth as he tried them. “These are way too tight.”

“Grin and bear it,” Lucas said with a cheeky smile.

There was still a bit of waiting left, so they went to the next location—the barbershop.

Janice took a look at his face and nodded. “Either shave your beard off or cut it down to a stubble.”

“What!?” he shouted. “No! That’s stupid; I like my beard!”

“I’m gonna have to agree with her here, man,” Lucas said. “That beard gotta go. Also, maybe cut the hair a—”

“No,” he spat sharply with a severe expression. “I’ll cut my beard to a stubble. But don’t touch my hair,” he said while gently caressing his shoulder-length hair.

Janice winced. “At least touch it up a little bit!”

“Okay. I’ll touch it up. But no cutting!” he said with a pointed finger.

“Fine. No cutting.” She turned to Lucas, squinting her eyes. “Ponytail?”

He nodded slowly. “Ponytail.”

They both turned to face him and parroted, “Ponytail.”

He sighed. “I hate you guys.”

The barber made quick work of his beard and hair.

Freddy felt quite sad watching his glorious beard vanish. And a little uncomfortable, too. It revealed the face hidden beneath. The face that no longer looked the same.

But as his beard slowly reduced to a stubble, he saw something that made his breath catch in his throat. He… recognized himself.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Now that he was finally used to changes, they no longer appeared so out of place.

He wasn’t as different as he had initially thought.

“Anything else?” The barber interrupted his thoughts as he finally brought the cut to a close.

Freddy looked over his features. His hair was nicely tied behind his head, with its curly locks unraveling past the scrunchy tying it into a tail. It revealed the sides of his face, brightening his complexion. His beard was cut a bit shorter than he’d expected. It was basically just stubble. But it looked neat. Clean.

The wilderness had abandoned him.

His clothes were finally done. He entered the changing booth and put them on.

Janice and Lucas waited outside.

A moment later, he walked out.

The two of them gaped.

Lucas grinned. “Damn, bro… If I didn’t have a girlfriend, you’d be in trouble.”

“Lucas!” she shouted, punching his arm with an exasperated smile and rolling her eyes. She turned to face Freddy. “You look very good, Mr. Cliff.”

“Thank you, Janice.”

“There is just one more thing…” she said, cupping her chin.

“Hmm?”

“We have to work on your body language.”

While he finally looked the part, he still had an intensity to him. He looked ready to fight at any moment.

They stood before a mirror while Janice guided him on fixing his posture.

Usually, he stood ramrod straight, his arms pushed out slightly, shoulders tense, and his head tilted just a bit forwards. It was a very aggressive stance. Softening it was a lot of work, especially given his size and build. But bit by bit, it was working.

Chin up higher, shoulders relaxed, back just slightly bent. And from there, one minor adjustment at a time, he slowly started to look like he wasn’t about to go kill someone.

Janice cooed. “This is going so great!” She clapped her hands together. “Okay, now we just have one more thing! Your smile! Okay, now—give me your biggest, brightest smile!”

Freddy nodded and broadly smiled at her.

“Aah!” she yelped and jumped back.

“What?” he stammered. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh my god,” she said, holding her hand to her chest as she rushed to catch her breath. “Sorry. You just surprised me a bit.”

“Pffft—” Lucas burst into laughter, holding his stomach.

“You!” she yelled as he kicked him in the ass. “Be quiet!”

“What?” Freddy asked again.

“Okay, just… Turn to the mirror,” she said.

He obliged, turning to the mirror.

Freddy considered himself quite the smiler. He smiled often. Well… grinned more often than not. And not for the most joyous of occasions. And if he really had to smile, he usually just put on his practiced customer service service from back when he worked as a cashier.

But she had told him to give her his brightest, biggest smile. So he repeated it in the mirror. Immediately, the smile was replaced by a wince as he realized what the problem was. “Wow. Okay… Wow.”

He looked positively psychotic! Way too much eye action. It was a smile that could make a toddler shit itself.

Janice thought for a moment. “Okay. Let’s do a small smile instead.”

This time, he put on his practiced smile.

She immediately lit up. “That’s good! Very good! Looks a little practiced, but still, that’s perfect! I think we have a winner!”

“Okay then.” Freddy breathed out. “Does that mean we’re done?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it! Oh, yes, don’t forget about the way you talk! That’s also—”

“Don’t worry. I’m a pro at that one.”

She paused. “Well uh… See you later, then, I guess.”

“No wait,” he called. “I’d like to take you two out for dinner. As a thanks.”

They looked at each other and nodded.

“Sure,” Lucas said. “We didn’t have any plans for tonight anyway.”

There weren’t any “fancy” restaurants in Valhalla. These people weren’t really fans of that kind of elitism. But that didn’t mean there weren’t nice places for families to come and eat together. He took them to exactly one such place. They ate and chatted away.

The food was warm and delicious. Freddy hadn’t had an actual meal in a long while already, so it was particularly comforting. The place was full of people, with many families and even young children there. Nobody gave him weird looks. Hell, he wasn’t sure whether anyone even recognized him.

He looked back at Janice and Lucas. She was leaning on his shoulder while he picked at the tip of her nose with his finger. “Your nose is so tiny,” he said.

“Shut up,” she retorted, slapping his hand away.

They both noticed he was looking at them and turned to face him. She pulled her head back and chuckled a bit. “Sorry about that.”

“You two look beautiful together.”

They froze for a moment, then smiled.

“Thanks,” Janice said.

“Thank you for setting us up,” Lucas added.

“You know… you two have changed quite a bit since I first met you. You both seem much more confident and… happier.”

Lucas nodded. “In some ways, yeah. We both still have our problems, of course.” He turned to look at her. “But it’s easier to deal with all of it together.” He pulled her hand in and intertwined his fingers with hers.

Freddy looked down for a moment, feeling a form of envy he had never experienced before. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the drink on the table.

It was strange.

While there was a note of bitterness…

His smile.

It didn’t look so practiced anymore.

***

Penny was an old woman in her seventies. She was a mortal. Not by lack of opportunity, as was true for so many others, but she was among the rare few who decided that it just wasn’t for her.

She had been born a human, and she decided to die as one, too.

But it was isolating sometimes. There was practically nobody she could talk to other than her son. Most people her age in Valhalla were all archhumans. Even at her age, they still looked as if they were in their thirties. It made it difficult to connect. It made it hard to relate.

On yet another dull afternoon of sitting before a BC, she heard her doorbell ring.

She perked up. “It must be Travis…” She forced herself up to her feet and walked over to open the door.

To her surprise, it wasn’t her son.

It was a polite-looking, large man holding a gift basket. “Hello!” he greeted her. “My name is Freddy Cliff. You must be Mrs. Hallow?”

“Ah, yes,” she said as she reached to shake his hand. “That is me. W-what is this about?”

“Oh, this? Haha, nothing serious,” he said, waving his hand casually. “I just realized I had been a member of Valhalla for a long while already, so I thought it was high time to finally properly introduce myself to everyone.”

“Ah, yes, I see…” She suddenly realized it. “Wait. You are”—she stammered, tripping over her words—”that Freddy Cliff?”

He chuckled. “Yes, that’s me.”

She stared for a moment. “Sorry, I didn’t realize it. This old head is… It took me a moment to make the connection,” she giggled politely. “Are you free? If you wish, you can come in and have a coffee.”

“Oh, sure. Thank you. I’ll bring this with me,” he said, gesturing at the basket.

“And what is that?” she asked, pointing at the basket.

“Oh, this? Nothing, just a small gift.”

***

Freddy continued with his project, knocking on doors and chatting people up.

It was truly amazing just how much of an impact a change in looks had. He was no longer refused on sight. Everyone at the very least heard him out.

As he’d already known, his reputation in Valhalla was terrible. But thankfully, among the non-combatants, it hadn’t quite taken as much of a root as it did among the fighters.

Everyone was a bit reluctant when they realized who he was. But he saw the same reaction play out on numerous faces.

First, they realized who they were talking to—there was a spike in anxiety and apprehension.

But then, when they took another look at him, they immediately calmed down.

After all, how bad could this polite young man really be?

Soon, the rumors of him going around started to spread.

He also learned that his estimation of what a “generous” gift would be for non-combat archhumans was blown way out of proportion. It only made sense. He wasn’t a non-combatant. He didn’t even really know any non-combatants.

So how the hell was he supposed to know that $100,000 was a totally absurd sum to spend on gifts? He had absolutely no frame of reference.

While his mission was going a lot better, it wasn’t all hunky-dory.

“You!” some man shouted when he spotted Freddy in a hallway. He rushed forward, hauling the gift basket. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Excuse me?”

The man thrust the basket back into Freddy’s arms and angrily marched away. “Stay the hell away from my wife and kids!”

As the man vanished behind a corner, Freddy sighed. “Okay, dude… Jesus.”

And he wasn’t the only one.

Some, Freddy managed to convince that his intentions were innocent. And others, well, they acted the same as the first man.

For days on end, he knocked on doors and sipped on coffee of varying degrees of quality. He listened to the people, hearing about their plights, and in the same way, he taught them about who he was. It wasn’t once that was asked about the work he did with Valhalla.

On one particular visit, he met the husband of Lara, one of the most powerful fighters Valhalla had to offer.

Her husband sat in the kitchen, holding his toddler son on his bouncing leg. The kid was asleep. He asked rather bluntly. “Are you doing this just to fix your reputation?”

Freddy paused at the question. “I guess you could say that.” He scratched his cheek. He looked down. “To be honest with you, that’s how it started. But now… Haha, I’m starting to feel like I really should have done this a long time ago.”

The man smiled. “For what it’s worth, my wife doesn’t have a bad opinion of you. And I can tell she is right. Valhalla is safe in your hands.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

As he kept up the visits, he was running through the checklist a bit faster than expected. There were a lot of non-combatants in Valhalla, but a surprising number of people lived in large families, with close and distant relatives all in the same living space.

It seemed to be a cultural thing. The Northern Belt was a dangerous place. Ordinary folk were generally poor. It was common for many people to live under the same roof.

His visits were basically just a PR stunt. But as he kept moving from family to family, he could tell that something within him was changing. He saw smiles and happiness. He saw struggle and tragedy. He saw bitchy teenagers and petulant toddlers. He saw hard-working young men and women.

It was confusing at times. Just how ugly it could be, yet how much beauty he found within.

He was filled with prime and shame alike. Just barely.

He knew he was in the right place.

And while many reacted to his visits with anger and vitriol, just as many among the fighters appreciated the gesture.

“My family thanks you for the gift.”

“I was going to ask Thor for some medicine, but I didn’t want to trouble him. Thank you.”

“My grandma was quite bored these days, thanks for paying her a visit.”

“Hey, my dad asked if you were going to come around again one of these days.”

“My son has been talking about you ever since you came along. Would you mind coming with us to watch him play basketball this Saturday?

“Thanks, man, but we can’t accept this basket. It’s just too much. If you insist, you can buy me a beer.”

“Thank you, Mr. Cliff.”

“Thanks, dude.”

“Thank you for the visit.”

“Thank you, Freddy.”

And on one day, he spotted a man in a hallway with an angry woman standing behind him. She pushed him forward and he clicked his tongue as he reluctantly approached Freddy. “Hey…”

It was the same man who had attacked him before.

“Sorry about my previous outburst. That was stupid of me. My wife really chewed me out for that one,” he said with an awkward laugh. “Anyway, I just wanted to let you know you’re always welcome at our place. And again, I’m sorry I made some assumptions about you.

“Thank you for keeping us safe man. We really appreciate it.”

The man bowed and walked away with his family.

That evening, Freddy returned to his apartment and collapsed on the bed. He couldn’t muster the will to move. He was paralyzed. His chest was tight, and his stomach churned uncomfortably.

He couldn’t accept it.

“Really…

“Has it really been this easy this whole time?”

***

Lucas walked through the hallway on his way back from training. He was in a good mood that day.

Freddy’s stunt was clearly working. The public opinion on him was improving incredibly quickly.

Naturally, Lucas’s connection to him was also broadly known. Until now, this had actually caused him a number of problems. But now? Oh, man, he could feel the shift in his status like the turning of the tide.

What didn’t he have? He was good looking, excellent at fighting, and his connections were top notch. And his girlfriend was adorable. He just hoped she didn’t find out other girls had started paying more attention to him.

He was lost in his thoughts, so he hadn’t realized he was about to run into someone. “Ah, sorry,” he said as his steps suddenly paused.

But the man had stopped, too.

Lucas looked up to meet the man’s face and immediately recognized him. It was Charlie King! He was one of the more respectable seniors of the organisation. Some even claimed that without him, the number of casualties they took on raids would easily be double what it was.

“Hello Sir!” He greeted and saluted the man.

“Hello, there, Lucas Black,” he said, forcing a smile. “I was just looking for you.”

“What? For me? Why?”

“Funny story, actually.” The man swung an arm around Lucas’s neck and leaned in. “We have your mother. Follow me if you want her alive.”