The next day saw me walking the streets of a nearby business district early the next morning in my pajamas. After eating a hearty breakfast at the hotel, I left early to buy myself a proper set of work clothes. Given that I was going to wade into the sewers, I needed something sturdy and water-resistant. Also, I needed to buy myself a weapon. I loved my fists, but I'd been relying on them for too long.
The first weapon shop I entered catered to slayers, and boy did it make me feel like a pauper despite the recent windfall I had with the Eluvian bear. The cheapest weapon they had was a dagger smaller than my palm that cost a whopping twenty gold coins. The salesman bragged that it could spit flames when it stabbed a monster, but what monster would get hurt by that toothpick-sized dagger?
I went to other slayer-catering shops, which featured the same high prices. Being a slayer must really pay well if they could afford all that ridiculously overpriced bullshit.
Eventually, I decided to just go to the Laborer's Guild and ask if they had some spare equipment I could borrow, and it turns out, they had a rental service.
“Here you are, Mister Bob,” Jessa said loudly as she returned to the counter carrying specialized equipment for sewer spelunking. The guild was packed with people, and she had to raise her voice just to be heard. “The rubber jumpsuit and boots actually come with the job and are free. The tools, however, require a deposit every time you borrow them. All of the tools cost a deposit of five silver.”
“Thanks,” I said as I took the jumpsuit and tools. As I counted some coins for the deposit, I made some small talk to gather some information. “I didn't know the Laborer's Guild was quite crowded during mornings.”
“The mornings and evenings are where the crowd is always at,” Jessa answered with a smile. “Laborers apply for jobs in the morning, then at night, they come to collect their pay.”
“You must be pretty busy at this time. I shouldn't keep you for too long, then.”
“You can keep me for as long as you want, Mister Bob,” Jessa said with a grin.
Uh, did she just flirt with me?
“Right, see you later, then.”
“Take care, Mister Bob!”
Now that was very weird. When did anybody ever try to flirt with me? Never, that's what. So either that lady wants to get something from me, or she was just really into big, bearded men covered in dirt and—
Wait a minute, I wasn't covered in dirt anymore. I was actually neat and clean because I'd taken a good long shower before leaving the hotel. Even my hair and beard were groomed.
Well, what do you know? I guess I turned out to be a hit with the ladies. Ma would be proud.
With my confidence high up in the clouds, I climbed to the second floor of the Laborer's Guild and entered the room where I was supposed to meet with the representative of the Department of Water and Sanitary Works.
When I entered the room, there were two people seated at a table. One was a grumpy-looking man in his late fifties with weathered skin darkened from exposure to the sun. The other was…
“Morgman? What are you doing here?” I asked. It was the Guildmaster of the Slayer's Guild.
“Morgan,” Morgman corrected. “And I wish to speak with you after your meeting with the Sanitary Department.”
I looked to the other man, who grumbled something under his breath as he glared at Morgman. He stood up and offered his hand for me to shake. “Mern. I'm the representative from Sanitary. Now, before we discuss your job, I want everything laid out on the table first, Mister Dinkle. Do you intend to run off with the Slayer's Guild at some point in the future?”
“Call me Bob. And no. As lucrative as being a slayer is, I don't like putting myself in unnecessary danger when I could just work a regular day job to feed myself,” I answered truthfully. Mern grinned at me while Morgman sighed.
“You heard it from the man himself, didn't you? You're not taking him away from us!” Mern said to Morgman.
“Indeed, Mister Bob has made his point clear,” Morgman said. “However, I would still like to talk to him after your meeting.”
Mern gritted his teeth as he sat down. “Fine.” He then turned his glare to me. “Now, I'll brief you for your job. The sewer cleanup is as simple as it gets. You see a clog in the sewer drains, you clean it up. Most of the time, this means you're gonna wade through a deep layer of muck and filth, but we have a resident cleaner mage assigned to clean you during such circumstances. Moreover, the job entails a risk of getting infected with diseases, and while the Sanitary Department guarantees to provide any medication should you need it, we will not be held liable for any damages. If you agree with all that, then all you need to do is sign right here and you can start with your job.”
Mern slid over a document my way, which I assumed was the contract.
“Well, you wanted to talk to me later, right?” I asked Morgman. “I'll agree if you read out loud any important details my friend Mern there may have omitted.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Morgman smiled lightly as Mern's face shook and turned red. “You have the gall to doubt me, you illiterate fool?!”
I gave Mern a blank stare. “The fuck kind of question is that? Of course I don't trust you. My Ma taught me never to trust government officials, and so far, I have never been done wrong by that advice.”
“Oh yeah?! Well, your mother—”
“Say it,” I said as I stood up and loomed over the man suddenly shrinking in his seat. “I dare you say it, asshole. What was that about my mother?”
“N-Nothing! I never said anything!” Mern shouted as he moved his chair away from me.
“Now now, let us all keep this discussion civil,” Morgman said as he picked up the contract. “Listen closely, Mister Bob, I'll only read this once.”
Morgan began to read the contract out loud, and I felt my temper rising with every sentence I heard. It turned out Mern had ‘glossed over’ more than one important point.
Mern said earlier that they were not liable for any damages in case I got sick, but the stipulations in the contract didn't end there. The contract also stated that Mern's Department was not liable for any damages caused by monsters and magic, which meant the sewers likely contained such hazards.
Moreover, the cleaner mage they ‘assigned’ to me was not free. For every cleaning they cast on me, I would pay a ridiculous ‘discounted’ fee of twenty coppers, to be deducted from my daily wages. The contract also stipulated a duration of five years, and if I breached the contract, I would pay a fee equal to the wages I would have earned in the remaining time left in my contract.
Several other loopholes in the contract aimed to take advantage of me, and when Morgman finally finished reading, I took the contract from his hands and ripped it up in front of the cowering Mern.
“Be glad Morgman is here, you fucking asshole, or I would've shoved this paper down your throat,” I growled. “Now get your stupid ass out of here.”
Mern quickly complied.
Once Morgman and I were alone in the room, I sighed as I collapsed on the chair listlessly. As if the fates weren't done making fun of me, the wooden chair also collapsed under my weight, making me land hard on my ass.
“Fucking furniture,” I muttered as I gingerly sat myself on another chair. “So, what did you wanna talk about, Mister Morgman?”
“Morgan,” Morgman corrected. “I have come here to inform you of a rather important development regarding the incident you were involved in yesterday.”
“Dammit, the Governor wants my ass, doesn't she?”
“Not in the sense you are probably thinking of,” Morgan said as he gave me a weird look. “Governor Camille has sent out a notice to all guards to bring you to the City Hall when they find you. Now before you ask, no, the Governor does not wish to punish you or anything. In fact, the Young Master Camaro has drawn all of the Governor's ire.”
“What does the big boss want with me, then?”
“Governor Camille wants to hire your services,” Morgman said. “As to what the nature of those services will be, I do not presume, but she came to that decision after hearing of your impressive regeneration abilities.”
“Fuck, don't tell me she's into BDSM?”
Morgman gave a confused expression. “I'm afraid I am unfamiliar with that term.”
“Nevermind. So, having said all that, is this the part where you give me some kind of offer that would help me out of my predicament?”
Morgan chuckled. “Your cynical outlook in life is quite commendable. However, you are wrong. It would be stupid of me to go against the Governor's wishes in her own city. I merely came here to inform you out of a sense of duty. You did get caught up in all this under my territory, so I thought this is the least I could do to make amends.”
“Well, at least there still seem to be decent people in the world.”
“However,” Morgman continued. “If you do ever find yourself struggling to find a job, the Slayer's Guild is always open…”
“Dammit, man, what did I even expect?!”
The old codger chuckled.
•••••
“He what?”
Jessa looked furious as I told her about how my meeting with Mern went. It turned out the contract was not supposed to be like that. According to Jessa, contracts with the Laborer's Guild were always vetted to ensure it did not take advantage of the laborers in any way. The contract that the Sanitary Department submitted to the Laborer's Guild should have been leagues better than what Morgan read to me.
But not only did this Mern bastard try to fool me into signing, he tried to fool the Guild itself. And as I was now learning firsthand, the Laborer's Guild did not tolerate swindlers.
Minutes after I reported the events to Jessa, she quickly raised the matter up the ladder. It only took a few minutes before a squad of gruff men, the tough kind you see working the most dangerous manual labor out there, stomp out of the doors and trundle down the street.
Yeah, I did not want to be Mern right now.
“We sincerely apologize for what happened, Mister Bob,” Jessa said as the Guild enforcers disappeared from view. “I've spoken with the Guildmaster, and to make it up to you, he decided to give you a special high-paying job normally reserved for our special members.”
Oh? This sounds interesting.
Jessa leaned in to whisper, her warm breath tickling my ear. “The client is the Governor herself.”
I felt my stomach drop as I immediately realized the implications of what she just said. Thanks to Morgman's heads-up earlier, I already knew the Governor was gunning for my juicy ass. And this job that would conveniently place me under the Governor's employ just happened to come by as a ‘reward’? Right as my supposed employer gave me a shitty contract that forced me to refuse?
It reeked of a trap.
“I think I'm gonna pass for the meantime,” I said as I began leaning away from the counter.
“What? Are you crazy?!” Jessa exclaimed, attracting the attention of other people in the Hall.
“Pipe down, woman,” I hissed.
“Why are you refusing?” Jessa asked incredulously. “This is an opportunity of a lifetime! Do you know how much people would pay to work under the Governor? They'd sell their children if they could!”
“You're not painting a good image of the Governor for me, you know. And where the hell did all your professionalism go?”
Jessa ignored my question and focused her eyes on mine. “I thought you needed the money? Why are you refusing now?”
“I have my reasons. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some errands to run.”
Fortunately, Jessa didn't try to stop me. I still had no idea if she was in on the Governor's plot or not.
Despite Morgman's assurances that the Governor wasn't going to chop my head off for trying to kill her nephew, there was no way to verify that information. So, as long as there was uncertainty, I planned to lay low.
Unfortunately, my big frame made lying low an impossible prospect.
Minutes after I left the Laborer's Guild, I had the utter misfortune of running into a guard patrol. I hadn't noticed them until it was too late. By then, I suddenly found myself surrounded.
“Good morning, Mister Dinkle,” the lead guard said. “The Governor requests your presence at the City Hall.”
Well fuck. It looks like I'm about to find out whether Morgman's assurances were true.
“Fine. Just… call me Bob.”