Walking into the butchers shop I knew my way around, I had been working here for the past few cycles. Everything was just as I left it, the shop was just barely something that can’t be called a mess, with a system to everythings location, just a system I couldn’t make heads or tails of in all that time. The only way I know it was a system was that I was told I put things in the wrong place.
“The hell are you doing only showing up now, kid?” He called out to me, as he picked up this habit about a cycle after he took me on to start drinking as the sun started going down knowing I would take care of everything. “Never mind, just get here and get to work.”
I had never liked working here, the skills gained were very useful and I didn’t mind the work itself but I couldn’t stand Denix as a boss. He was Jonny father and never liked doing something for free, despite all the times my mom helped him in the past it took my dad mentioning something about how his son was his apprentice for him to agree to try helping me.
“I don’t work here anymore sir. I told you that yesterday, I just came by to get this deer butchered. I'm going to be a hunter and this is my first kill.” I felt my lips form into a smirk at my own accomplishment. Denix however didn’t see it that way, despite how much he complained when he first took me on it seems he not only got used to but even liked having unpaid help around the shop. “If you could please butcher it I have to drop Hatchet’s share and then get the rest home”
Hunting in the village was a bit different then how I expected it, hunters usually went off in pairs, Hatched was the exception before because of his skill, they went off every 4-5 days outside of hunting season and when they left they went with a food order or scouting order. On a hunting order most of the prey went to the village with the hunter just getting first pick on his share of the haul, but on scouting as usually one didn’t find any game on those routes you got to keep all of it.
“Yeah, yeah I’ll get you your share of it in a second calm down” It seems he didn’t realize that this deer was to be split between me and Hatchet, who graciously said that I could keep most of it to celebrate my first catch, wanting only the back left leg for “superstitious reason” as he put it.
“I was on a scouting trip today” I say excitement starting to overwhelm what little patience I had wanting to get back home to celebrate. “I’ll be taking all of it back” I could feel the shit eating grin forming on my face and despite my best efforts I couldn’t seem to stop it.
He looked grim at that news, clearly the other hunters still came up empty as they had been for the last 10 days, this was also the reason why we were sent to scout that specific route today, while the missing game didn’t affect the village yet it would soon if things kept going that way. But we found nothing, or I should say I found nothing and if Hatchet found anything he didn’t share it with me.
“Hmpth, first kill in 10 days and you’re taking it all for yourself, kids these days, they don’t care for anybody but themselves” he said with scorn, knowing full well it was tradition for hunters to take home their first kill for themselves even if it came from a food outing.
He took the cleaver and barely got it to go half way through the neck with a sloppy chop.
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“The hell is wrong with this thing?” He exclaimed clearly not having expected that much resistance from the carcass.
“Hatchet said he thought it was level 5, and that that’s why it managed to make it all the way onto our scouting route” I answered his most likely question as for someone of his strength and skills even with a sloppy weak strike most of the things we got delivered would have split down the middle, he didn’t have to aim careful full blows like I did when I tried to do the same.
He kept grumbling things here and there while he worked on the deer but I tuned him out, after all nothing good would come from him I was sure of it.
A short time later I took the nicely butchered deer and went to drop off Hatchet’s leg afterwards I headed back home, more than one or two villagers took notice of me but nobody approached me in the somewhat dim light.
As I neared the front door I could hear my parents talking but I couldn’t make out the words. It took me a full minute to figure out a way to open the door without knocking but I wanted to see their reactions to me walking in with the game on my back.
“Ajax is that you, how did it… ” my mother couldn’t finish her sentence as she looked at me with the deer on my shoulders, surprise clear on my dad's face, but the biggest reaction came from Judy and Alana as both their jaws dropped to the floor. Definitely worth the time to open the door myself instead of knocking.
“I got my tracking skill today, where should I put this?” I say giving it my all to maintain a straight face to make this seem like an everyday occurrence.
My sister was the first to come to her senses. “What you got there little brother?”
“A deer that happened upon our scouting tack” I slip in the information that I could keep all of the spoils I brought home and we wouldn’t have anyone showing up tomorrow asking questions as to why I didn’t share.
That small chat was all the time it took for my mom to regain her composure, she had something that looked like a mirror but I couldn’t be sure since I hadn’t seen one before in this world, but she put it on the table and came to help me put the deer in the cellar where it wouldn’t go bad until tomorrow when she would most likely salt it, took a small part of a few choice cuts to cook for tonight's celebration and we came back into the kitchen.
“What is that?” I said pointing to the mirror that was turned face down on the table.
“It’s a #%@#$.” My sister said, the word sounded odd but then again it was probably new and added to the language recently seeing how I hadn’t seen one in all these years “ They are rather rare in the city but one of the big merchant companies gave me a big discount on it. I think they want me and Alana to join them after we gain enough experience.”
I picked it up and for the first time I saw what my new face looked like. Not to sound shallow but I looked good. I had a strong jaw, high cheekbones, inky black mid length hair and Icy blue eyes with a full beard starting to come in.
“How come my hair and eyes are different from yours?” was the first thing that slipped out after I took a look at myself. I didn;t have mothers golden hair like my sister's or dad's brown locks like my brother, not only that all four of them had green eyes.
“The hair you got from my dad” father told me. “He always complained that I got my hair from mother.”
“As for your eyes they come from my mother” mom followed up. “Now tell me more about this tracking skill you got, did it finally happen? Are you going to be a hunter?” There was a bit of fear in her tone as hunting wasn’t exactly a safe profession but it was one that would keep me close to home unlike my brother and sister.
“Yes, it all started with us tracking a small wolf pack… “ I explained the whole story of us following the wolf pack, me picking up the deer tracks, yes I left out the 2 times I got lost, and then how we brought it back to the village.
“Looks like all that work you put in every morning with what your brother taught you is finally paying off” dad said a bit torn between him having been wrong about me practising every morning being important and happy that I finally had a path in life I wanted to follow and was somewhat good at.
The rest of the evening was spent enjoying the small feast and ended with me going to sleep in my old room and Judy and Alana taking the bigger one. All throughout the night I had kept an eye out to see if there was something more going on between my sister and her friend, sue me Alana is smoking hot and what would you think about when you were say 15, I am surprised I hadn’t started thinking about this sooner seeing how my growth spurt came in faster and I was already 6 foot 6, one of the tallest in the village.