"That was a bold move," Flaminia says as we return to the working area.

"Yeah, don't worry. I know Clodia bats for the other team. Doesn’t she?"

It does seem unfair.

The second hot girl I meet in a day, and she’s gay?

I mean, I’ve just arrived. I haven’t even settled. So I can’t just accept her not being a possible love interest.

Isn’t it a little weird that I’m in the Middle Ages, and I’ve already met a member of the LGBTQ community?

What’s this, a Netflix show?

What about my strong-girl fantasies, huh?

"Are you with the other team as well?" I ask Flaminia.

"Oh, no, I play it straight," she winks at me.

"Do you, Flaminia?" I let out a cackle.

"Oh, yes. But don't get any ideas, Joey. It's hard enough to maintain a normal relationship with this job. Messing around in the workplace is not something I'm into. Plus, I'm your boss."

"For now, for now," I smile cheekily and give her my signature wink, adding a nice click with the side of my mouth.

I perfected this move in front of a mirror, obviously. In fact, I practiced this esoteric technique a thousand times until it reached perfect smoothness.

Flaminia raises an eyebrow and snorts.

"You wish," Flaminia smiles. "I have never met a single person with literally zero levels and all this cockiness in them. But be careful, Joey", she adds the second part with more seriousness, "you should know that levels are a big deal. So don't make fun of people higher leveled than you in your own profession."

Sure.

As I look her up and down, a completely different matter pops up in my head.

"Yo, can I ask a very serious question?"

"Sure."

"Do Elven women have bigger chests than Humans?"

Flaminia stares at me for half a second before she starts choking on her own spit. She holds on to the table for her dear life as she becomes redder and redder by the second.

"ROTTING ROOTS!" She coughs and spits on the ground. "HOW DO YOU ASK SUCH A QUESTION WITH A STRAIGHT FACE?!"

She keeps sputtering, and we are starting to attract glances from the other employees.

"Is that a yes?" I ask, curious.

Flaminia starts taking deep breaths, slowly steadying herself.

"Yes," she nods, her eyes still tearing up. "It was one of the reasons why female Elves are a very popular prize among slavers." The second part is spoken with a heavy sigh.

"Are? There are slaves here?"

She shakes her head.

"No. Slavery is illegal—I'm surprised you don't know. Although, of course, it is illegal here on Epretos. But on Teiko and Carilia, it still has deep roots."

"Damn, that's bad," I say with a wince.

"Yes," Flaminia nods somberly. "But don't worry; no Elven woman will take you in as a sex slave."

I don't know why Flaminia went there, but hell...

"I wouldn't mind that," I say, stroking my chin.

"Being used as a sexual gratification tool day in and day out?" She asks seriously.

"I mean, why not," I smile cheekily.

Once again, after half a second, Flaminia is bent over, wheezing.

Helps to know jokes still work here. Well, jokes and horny-talk, I suppose.

"Ok, Joey, you didn't complain one bit while making the bread. Now that that’s done, I have some more high-level work to take care of," Flaminia says while panting. "I can't have you around, or I won't get any work done. Raissa!"

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Raissa, the smallest Elf in the entire bakery, materializes from behind a group of workers.

"Get Joey to prep the flour with you. Don't get distracted by him," Flaminia gives the short girl a meaningful look.

"Yes, Chef," Raissa says with a bow.

...

“We have to prepare the various types of flour for the rest of the employees,” Raissa explains.

“Makes the work easier for the others,” I nod. I’ve had high-schoolers work for me for a few bucks in the past, and they did pretty much the same things: from arranging the materials to scrubbing the dirty bowls and whatnot.

Maybe another person in my position would be offended by the humble job they just gave me after I revealed the secrets of yeast, but I don’t care.

“We put tags on the bags to make it easier for those trying out the job. And don’t worry, everyone started here, doing this.”

She probably thinks I’m going to be bummed out by the work.

"Don't worry," I give Raissa my custom wink, "I was sick of working with Flaminia on the bread. Moving around flour sounds much more fun."

I say it with a genuine quip in my tone, and Raissa smiles back at me sweetly, clearly knowing I'm buttering her up.

Plus, girl, I have Italian-American parents. I know a degree of workplace exploitation that you have no idea of. In fact, I slaved away countless times in the family restaurant. So many times, I could probably take Egyptian slavers whipping me while building the pyramids and still have a field day.

Moving a few ingredients around and arranging them between tables? Tsk, it’s nothing for this big boy.

Sure, it’s nothing until she brings me to the storage, and I see that the flour bags she wants me to haul probably weigh around 120 pounds each.

“Wait a second. How much bread do you even ship out every day?”

She shrugs.

“No idea. But we go through ten to fifteen of those bags each day, just for the bread. Of course, just in case, we always make a bit more for the Watch.”

Goddamn Middle Ages and their carb-rich diets.

I can already feel my arms turning to jelly, but I keep smiling as I slowly die inside while hauling the massive bags.

Wait.

My ears turn off while I watch the shorter and thinner girl.

How does she carry the bags?

Raissa hoists one of them on her shoulders and starts walking back to the kitchen.

"Do you have a skill or something to carry that?" I ask, confused.

"Just a normal [Lesser Strength]."

"Oh, yeah,” I say while carrying the massive bag. “Just casually carrying around 120 pounds of flour, completely normal. Hauling your body weight around? No trouble."

"We can go slower if you’re having trouble," Raissa says while looking at me with some worry in her eyes.

"No, no, don't worry," I smile. "I'm just imagining I'm building pyramids over here, no trouble."

"Pyramids?" Raissa frowns.

"The triangular things in Sobek?"

Gaddamn. Do they have pyramids too?

"What's Sobek?"

"The continent?"

Gaddamn, they have a lot of continents.

"I know I'm going to forget again, but would you mind telling me how many continents there are?"

"We are on Epretos," Raissa says, puffing. "There's Sobek and Foresta to the South. There's Kome - where the Vanedenis are - and Carilia to the East. Then, Teiko up North."

What? Foresta? Did she just say Foresta? So that's... allegedly 'forest' in Italian and a few other romance languages. Huh.

Sobek sounds awfully Egyptian... Carilia sounds... stupid.

"Wait, I have heard about the Vanedenis before," I frown, trying to remember where. Oh, you know where? Maybe... I don't actually remember.

"They are the most famous nation," Raissa says with a red face as we deposit yet another flour bag.

"How come?"

"You really don't know?" Raissa's shyness has now clearly been replaced by the sheer curiosity towards my ignorance about certain things in this world.

"Nope."

"The war wagers? The invincibles? The Vanedenis won every single war they partook in since we have records of them. Now, it's the first time ever they are engaged in a losing conflict. But even then, everyone says that the Ahalis will lose at some point. No one believes that the Vanedenis will be defeated."

"Huh, there's a war on..."

"Kome," Raissa nods. "I don't know much, honestly. My boyfriend is interested in those conflicts and sometimes goes to the Mages Guild to get info about what's happening. He told me it's been a few hundred years or so that the Vanedenis are being pushed back. He loves that stuff. I honestly don't remember the details, but there was a point when the Vanedenis could have won or something? Then, they lost? I don't know."

Right, newspapers and Wikipedia don’t exist over here. God, now, I really appreciate the sweaty nerds who fill up Wikipedia's pages. Wish I had a couple of them here, honestly.

As I carry more sacks of flour from these people's massive storage, I see an Elf with green hair— but it's not the green hair I'm looking at.

In fact, I bump into Clodia, standing in the middle of two tables, staring as well.

Damn, that Elf's got back.

Oof.

Clodia and I look at each other as Raissa ignores my antics and deposits the umpteenth sack on a new table.

"I like your hiring criteria," I tell Clodia with a wink.

The big muscular Elf stares swords — yeah, not daggers, but big, hecking swords — at me.

"No?"

"Rotten roots," she sighs. "Come to me in an hour. We need to get you settled."

"Sure," I nod.

"Raissa," Clodia calls out to the diminutive Elf as she passes by.

"Yes, Chef?" immediately, Raissa looks flustered.

"You are on rest-day tomorrow. I don't want you to overwork yourself. Paid rest, don't worry." I see Raissa exhale in relief when she hears the 'paid' part. Right, she needs to buy a house or something.

"How did the Human do? Did he create any problems? Sorry, but I have to use the truth-stone on this, Raissa."

Sorry? Why sorry? Isn't that what people do?

"Don't you always do that?" I interrupt, curious.

"It's usually... whatever. Shut up. Raissa?"

"Joey has been very helpful. He has not bothered me at all. Also, he didn't complain one bit."

Green, green, and slightly green, baby!

"Well, he did make some jokes that I didn't understand, and they sounded like complaints?" Raissa says, looking at the weaker green at the end.

Clodia nods thoughtfully.

"Thank you, Raissa," Clodia clicks her tongue, "you can go."

As we see the small Elf walk away, I feel Clodia's steel grip on my arm.

"Joey Luciani," she whispers in my hear, making all my hairs stand up, "if I catch you doing anything improper, I will bury your corpse in the sewage river. But first, I'll break every single bone in your body and burn all your hair off."

Oof, Clodia. Flirting this early in the morning, really?

"Boss," I say with a wink and very close to her face, "I'm not going to cause problems with the staff. I mean, only if they want some of my problems."

Clodia doesn't seem amused by my joke, like, at all.