I entered the City Hall with a frown and in a grumpy mood. It was early in the morning, several hours after the incident at the hotel, and I didn't get a single wink of sleep. Thanks to my Class Perk, I didn't feel an ounce of physical fatigue, but my mental condition was a different matter.

My mind was completely drained.

And so it was with a tired mind that I went to the Governor's Office. The guards there gave me a weird look when they saw my tired expression, but they didn't bother asking me for my identity anymore. They just waved me in.

Inside the office, Camille was already there reading reports, with Lance sitting by the desk. At my entry, the young man gave me a cheery smile as he greeted me. “Good morning, Bob. Looking forward to the training?”

“Shut up for a moment,” I said as I dropped my ass on the other cushioned seat in front of the desk. “There is nothing good at all with my morning.”

Camille chuckled as she put down the report she was reading. “I heard. How many assassins went for you?”

“There was a total of four. One of them struck first, and when I killed that asshole, three others attacked at the same time.”

“Someone tried to kill you last night?” Lance asked with wide eyes. “Where did they ambush you?”

“In my room at the hotel I'm staying at. Pretty brazen of them to actually try to kill me there. A lot of rich asshats live there, which means the guards were close by. Then again, by the time the guards arrived, they were only there to clean up the bodies.”

“What were their Classes?” Camille asked.

“Umbral Assassins,” I said. I spotted a plate of pastries on the desk, and I reached for one. Camille pulled it away as she glared at me. I took my hand back. “They were pretty fast but fragile. Their poisons were fucking annoying, though.”

“Umbral Assassins?!” Lance exclaimed. “You're lucky you're still alive!”

“Hey, I fell from a mountain and lived to tell the tale. Some two-bit dudes in ninja costumes ain't gonna kill me.”

Camille gave me a weirded-out look when I said that. Then I remembered that she could discern lies. She must've thought I was joking. “This is concerning. I already knew you were attacked, but I didn't expect our enemy to hire the Shadow Guild right away. This does not bode well.”

“What's the Shadow Guild?” I asked.

“A guild of assassins,” Camille answered as she ate a pastry. “Obviously, they are not sanctioned by the Empire and are targeted for termination, but trying to find a group of people specializing in stealth is a difficult task. They offer their services for a very large sum that could bankrupt small merchants. It seems our enemy is hellbent on killing you, Bob.”

“No thanks to this Constable bullshit,” I grumbled. “So what now?”

“Now? You train so you don't end up a corpse in some dark alley,” Camille said as she finished off her pastries and began rummaging in her drawers.

“Neat, who's gonna be my instructor?”

Camille retrieved a book from her drawer and placed it on her desk. Then she smiled at me. “Why, your instructor is gonna be me, of course.”

I thought Camille was pulling my leg, but it turned out she was serious.

“That's great!” Lance said as he turned to me. “We're classmates now!”

“Lance here is under my tutelage as well,” Camille explained. “Make sure to get along.”

I shrugged. “Sure. So what's the first lesson? Combat practice?”

“No. If you are to be my Constable, you will first learn to read and write. I will not have an illiterate man working for such a high government position.” Camille slid the book over to me. By the cute little pictures of animals on the cover, I realized it was a children's book. “And if we have the time, let us see if we can purge that crass, unrefined attitude out of you and replace it with proper decorum and manners. From now on, you are not allowed to curse. For every curse you utter, I will deduct five silvers from your pay.”

I sighed. “Dammit,” I muttered in a low volume.

“That's five silvers gone.”

“You heard that?!”

“I suggest you start being careful with what you say, Constable,” Camille said. “Now, let us start with your letters.”

•••••

From morning until noon, I studied the Arcadian alphabet. Fortunately, it mostly had the same mechanics as the English language, making it easier to learn.

I initially thought Camille would be the one to teach me, but I should've known the Governor was too busy to waste her time teaching a grown man his letters. Instead, she had Lance teach me, who turned out to be fairly competent.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

By the time lunchtime came around, I had a good grasp of the Arcadian alphabet and could read words competently enough. It still took me a long time to read each word, but hey, progress was progress.

“Eat your lunch quickly. After that, both of you proceed to the training hall,” Camille said as she stood up from her desk. “From now on, your afternoons will consist of combat training.”

That sounded way more fun than reading children's books for several hours straight.

“Say, where do you hail from, Bob?” Lance asked as we lined up at the City Hall cafeteria.

“I'm from Earth.”

“That's a very weird name for a country,” Lance said. “No offense, but why would your country name itself after dirt?”

“Well, the land we stand on is dirt, isn't it? What better way to name a place than the literal thing you live on? Maybe that was what my ancestors were thinking.”

“Fair point,” Lance admitted. “I suppose it's similar to the Boat Confederation.”

“What's that?”

“It's an official country located in the Aragas Ocean. It consists of thousands upon thousands of sea vessels constantly sailing the ocean, hence the name,” Lance replied. “I assumed you knew about them since you seem to be from outside the continent. Crossing the ocean is usually done through the Boat Confederation.”

“Yeah, well, I got here through unusual means,” I said vaguely.

We reached the end of the line, where we picked up a tray and a few plates while the workers behind the counter scooped our food buffet-style. Compared to Big Mama's free gruel, the fare in the cafeteria was way better. There was buttered bread, a hunk of roasted monster meat, a side of vegetables, scrambled eggs, and a lot of other varieties. Of course, a big man such as myself required a lot of sustenance, so I took one of everything.

“Can you really eat all that?” Lance asked with a raised brow as he eyed the three trays that I carefully balanced on my arms.

“Where'd you think I get all that energy to fuel my regeneration?” I said. In truth, my Class Perk removed that disadvantage of regeneration, but Lance didn't need to know that. I didn't want to look like a glutton, even if I was one.

As we reached the last server behind the counter handing out pies, a cute young lady with a bright smile on her face, I felt Lance stiffen beside me. “Oh? What's the matter, Lance? You fancy the lady?”

“Shut up!” Lance hissed. He moved away from the line, but it turned out he was too late. The young lady already saw him, and a look of recognition passed over her face.

“Lance?” the young lady said, and by the way her smile strained, I immediately understood that her relationship with Lance was probably of a complicated sort.

“H-Hi, Cassi,” Lance muttered as he returned to the queue.

There was a very awkward silence as Lance and the girl named Cassi simply stood there, shifting on their feet. It was honestly painful to watch.

“Hey, if you ain't gonna ask her for hand in marriage, can you get moving?” I said, bringing the two out of their awkward moment. “I'm fucking hungry.”

“I-I, uh, I guess I'll see you around,” Lance said as he rushed away.

“Sorry about that, sir,” Cassi said when it was my turn to get some pie.

“Whatever you've got going between you two, it ain't my business,” I said, then paused. “But if it helps, Lance is a good idiot. An idiot, but he's good. He taught me how to read and write, you know?”

Cassi gave me a wide-eyed stare as I said that, but I didn't stay to hear her response. I was already walking to the table where Lance was sitting with a miserable look on his face.

“Nice lass, that one,” I said as I sat across Lance. “So what's the story?”

“Don't bother, it's a long one,” Lance grumbled as he attacked his food like it killed his mother.

“Well, I'm not finishing all this food in ten minutes,” I said as I organized my food according to the order I'd eat them.

Lance sighed. “Fine, but I'm not taking any judgement from you.”

“Hey, I never judge,” I said as I began digging into my food. “Judging means I give a fuck about it. And I'm all out of fucks to give.”

In actuality, I did judge people, though only in my mind. Life was not fun without a bit of a holier-than-thou attitude.

Lance began narrating a story about how he met Cassi in his younger days, long before he became Camille's student. Cassi was a baker's daughter who managed her family's bakery store, while Lance was an orphan who sidelined as a thief during the day, though he didn't say it outright. He called it ‘doing what he had to do to survive,’ but a thief was a thief. He was still at that age where he tried to justify the shit he did as something else other than shit.

Lance met Cassi for the first time when he was caught stealing from their bakery. Cassi's father, who turned out to be a kind man, chose to ‘punish’ Lance by making him do errands every day in exchange for a meager pay of bread. Thanks to that, Lance was able to survive on his own.

However, that didn't last for long. The Church of Bahanelle, which was the city's orphanage, learned of Lance's location and took him with them just as the Governor was visiting the orphanage. Camille must've seen something in the boy because she adopted him as her legal son and gave him an education.

Fast-forward a couple of years and Lance graduated from school. The couple's love story started at that time, just last year when they decided to make their relationship official during some festival. However, their relationship didn't last long as just about a month ago, Lance and Cassi broke up.

“So why did the two of you break up? Considering your history together, I'd have thought you'd hit it off with each other,” I asked as I finished off the last of the apple pie. It was the most delicious pie I've ever eaten, though that didn't really mean anything since I never got to eat fancy foods in the past.

Lance hesitated, but he still came out with it after a brief pause. “Cassi and I, we don't see eye-to-eye in some things in our relationship. We often fall into an argument and reconcile quickly after. But as time went on, the reconciliations turned more bitter until… well, Cassi decided to call it quits.”

“Too bad, eh? I guess you just can't force compatibility between couples,” I said as I began cleaning up our table. “Not like I know much about couples. The only experience I have with women is when I became desperate enough to hire a prostitute. Expensive as fuck, but it was money well-spent.”

Lance gave me a disgusted look. “You hire prostitutes? It's shameful for a man to participate in such activities.”

“That attitude right there. Now I see why Cassi broke up with you,” I said, eliciting an incredulous look from the man. “I haven't known you for long, but I could tell you're the type of person with strong opinions you force on other people.”

“I am not!”

“Deny it all you want, kid, but you're not fooling me,” I said as I stood up. “A piece of advice. Everyone can do their own thing, and unless it harms someone, you have no right to tell other people what they should or shouldn't do.”

Lance looked like he wanted to keep arguing, but before he could, I walked away like a wiseass. “Just think about what I said. See you later at the training hall.”

With that, I left Lance behind to stew in his seat. I expected the young man to have a more objective outlook on himself when I saw him again at the training hall.

What I didn't expect was for Lance to not show up at all.