They searched every street on a three blocks radius because asking for directions was not among Kalon’s hobbies. This was heavily aggravated by Kalon realizing these streets were similar to the Roadlike Road, and assuming they worked the same. What this mean was that he was kind of reticent to change direction on the intersections, such that they often ran the whole span of the town and circled around it to change streets. For the Cultivator’s body, this was no issue. For Jagger, it would have been, had he not rested inside the dog-scabbard strapped to Kalon’s back on several occasions.

They found it by the next morning, Kalon as rested as he usually was because his brain was… peculiar. It was a collector’s brain, never taken out of the package. Never used, and thus, never tired out.

Given most adventurers were assumed to be illiterate, this one had a crudely drawn figure stick with a lance in the sign, and the lance was used to stab a stickwoman with horns and, judging by the proportions of the rest of the drawing, at least J cups.

There was no door. Why bother with one, if the hunters would topple it down before a week had spanned. The tables were nailed to the floorboards, and had a strong smell of garlic. Jagger assumed it was so they didn’t end like the one with a few missing chunks that showed signs of someone or something gnawing on its now irregular border.

Kalon zigzagged to the counter, trying not to step on the hungover hunters that littered the floor. The boy hopped over a redhead and slapped the back of the head of the clerk, that was having a peaceful nap over the counter.

“Eh? what? Tax day? But…” Then the young blonde put on a wide, shit eating grin. “Ah, got asleep at the job again. Are you new are here?”

“No, I am several years old wherever I go.”

The clerk nodded, took out a notepad and scribbled down “Boy comes from Valelike Vale”. Then stashed the notepad back into a drawer, steepled his fingers and shot a smile without teeth. “How may I help you?”

“Is this the guild of monster fuckuppers?”

“Bring out your sweater puppers,” the clerk cheerfully exclaimed in autopilot, and then cursed under his breath. What this job had done to him was unacceptable. “Yes, it is. If you want a job, we need to undergo registration. If you were so kind to give me a name…”

Kalon contorted his face. Without external aid, mind you. “I am not your mother.”

After parsing the answer for a second, the clerk crossed his fingers in front of his mouth. “I meant your name. I have a name, yes, given by my mother.”

“But it’s my name, I cannot give it to you!” Kalon argued, fists curled at his sides. This man seemed dangerous or as stupid as Culmino’s family.

“Pray tell me your name so I can note it down and allow you to take jobs for us? Pretty please.”

Jagger threw his forepaws over the counter to achieve a standing position. “Can you register me as the responsible adult?”

He had to do a double take. The dog had just spoken. “Are you aware of your condition?”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“I am this moron’s pet, yes. I am Rottweiler, yes. And I am addicted to opioids, yes. My name is Jagger, his is Kalon. No surname, in my case because I am a dog, and in his because there was only one surname in Valelike vale and it was lost to time.”

“And incest,” the Clerk mumbled.

“I thought that was implied.”

Kalon was scratching his head with the tail-end-Rottweiler of his scarf. “What’s a surname?”

Jagger began a bored explanation. “It’s a name to designate a family and differentiate it from others.”

“Like you are a Rottweiler and I a boy?”

“Something like that.”

Jagger looked the clerk in the eyes, and they both felt a connection, a sort of need to be spared of Kalon and his demonic mouth. A spiritual commiseration of the highest degree.

“Well, dog, I’ll inscribe you. But know this: if you aren’t a cultivator, arcagnostic, or some other sort of spiritual power wielder, I cannot grant you any jobs likely to kill a normal person.”

“I am not a person. I am a dog.”

“It’s the intent of the rules, not the exact wording. And that’s the exact wording of the first rule of the guild.”

“I am a cultivator’s chosen weapon, gifted with practical immortality as long as this.” Jagger gestured with disgust towards his owner. “Lives.”

“Uh… I guess being unkillable qualifies one for the harder jobs. Yes. You’d take him as a companion?”

“And the bitch licking the alcohol from the drunkard’s foreheads too.”

The clerk nodded as he filled out two sheets of a form, and then slid it over the table, offering jagger a pen. “I need a signature. It’s a little scribble over that line, don’t—”

Jagger snatched the pieces of paper, took them away, placed them under the nearest window to have some decent illumination and began reading. When he was done he swallowed the contract and returned to the counter, visibly offended. “We are waiving rights we didn’t know we even had! How in the seventy-eight-and-three-fifths hells is this contract legal?”

The clerk raised his hands, as if he had nothing to hide. “Most postulants don’t know how to read and the guild needs to prepare for the worst to happen to them, so we made sure to cover every base and comply with every town ordinance.”

“Yes, right to sue for any damages suffered and yadda yadda, I get that, but what about the right to remain deprived of maidens?”

The clerk started sweating profusely. “We may hand crippled hunters to rich women to cover for the expenditures of their healthcare,” he spouted what was on the book. He was not paid to deal with the literate, and this dog was quite the cerebrating individual.

“Okay, right to loot corpses?” Jagger pushed further.

“We were forced to add that one after the water supply of the city got infested due to all the cadaveric remains Hodrad the Collector decided to bring back from the field.”

“Fine. What about the right to interact with cetaceans?”

“Canterios, the wall-whaler.”

Jagger slobbered to the side, failing to spit. “Let me guess, he owns a bar.”

The clerk nodded. “On a mountainside.”

The dog let go any pretense of being anything but extremely worn down by the stupidity of the world. “Built upon the back of a whale.”

The clerk’s eyes sparkled briefly. “Yes, that one!”

“Is there any under the counter job we can do?”

“Well…”

The clerk crouched to get something from one of the lower drawers, and handed it to Jagger. It was a crass drawing of a ghost looming over several badly-drawn houses ablaze. “If you are up for investigating what causes the supposed haunting of a settlement a few days of travel from here, I could pay you a hundred diamond pieces.”

“How much is that worth?” Kalon asked, breaking a stupidity streak and losing his combo multiplier.

“A bag of apples. Inflation is a bitch.”

Brunhilda jumped over the counter and began snarling, sparkling threads of saliva dripping form her sharp white teeth making, the attendant back against the shelving, where he shrunk into a scared, little curled ball of bureaucrat.

“Take her away!”

“Brun, inflation is the other kind of bitch, not like you. You are not like other bitches,” Jagger said, and Brunhilda returned to her sociable, amicable self. You know, her act when she wasn’t being a total sociopath.

“We are taking the job,” Kalon declared boldly, stowing the crass drawing among his drags and tatters woven from nut cotton.