Remember when I said that the city was a primitive one? Yeah, I was being a huge idiot.

As I followed the yellow brick road, my jaw had already fallen slack several times as I looked around the city. Everything was breathtakingly beautiful as if it was taken straight out of a painting. From the beautiful architecture of the buildings down to the well-maintained roads, I felt like I was walking down one of those tourist spots that showcased history's most prominent ancient cities at their heights.

As I gawked at the sight around me, the yellow brick road suddenly opened up into a much wider section. Back at the gate, the yellow brick road must've been a mere seven meters in width, but now, it was almost as wide as a ten-lane highway. In the center of the road, dozens of horse-drawn carriages traveled noisily and filled the air with their horses' clip-clops. Along the peripheries, where stalls and vendors were lined up on the wide sidewalk, large crowds of people bought and haggled over products.

The scene of the bustling city finally drove the point home that I was in an entirely different world. I wondered why fighting man-eating monsters and reading floating notifications in my vision didn't impress that fact to me too much, but then I realized, maybe because it still felt too familiar to me. My life on Earth was not nice, and I grew up in a neighborhood where gangs ruled the streets and loansharks broke the kneecaps of those who couldn't pay in time.

Living in that hellhole somehow felt similar to surviving in the forest, where I had to evade predators while defeating those weaker than me. Maybe that's why I hadn't really thought much about the fact that I was no longer on Earth.

However, seeing people dressed in medieval clothing and horse-drawn carriages traveling the roads was just too surreal. I honestly felt like I was in a medieval fair, one of those events that the nerds I used to bully always went to.

Pulling myself out of my reverie, I continued on my way to the City Hall. Along the way, I checked out all sorts of stalls and shops that sold food and trinkets that I'd never seen on Earth before. There was even a fruit that could bite a person's finger if they tried to eat it raw.

But out of everything I've seen so far, all of that was blown out of the water when I saw a woman who was not a human. No, I wasn't referring to a goblin, fuck those bastards. Instead, I was referring to a person who looked almost like a human but significantly taller and with pointed ears! Even though she looked highly similar to a human aside from the ears, there was just something ethereal about her that distinguished her from the rest of the crowd.

I must've been staring for too long because the not-human woman detected my gaze. When she saw me staring, she frowned and gave me a wary look.

Right, I forgot that to most people, I looked like a thug.

I pulled my gaze away from the woman and turned my focus somewhere else, which was then immediately stuck on another non-human person. This time, the person was a giant man-shaped rock as tall as me who was manning a stall that sold a variety of shiny rocks and minerals.

I already learned my lesson from the pointy-eared woman, so I didn't let my gaze on the Rock linger for too long.

The travel time from the gate to the City Hall took almost an entire hour of walking, and when I finally arrived, I was met with a massive government building set in the center of a wide plaza. Fronting the City Hall were ten huge pillars supporting a pediment carved with intricate designs and letters. I couldn't read the letters at all, so it turns out my free language-learning ability didn't extend to writings.

I walked up the pristine steps that led to the entrance of the City Hall, where two guards stood alert. They honestly reminded me of Righty and Lefty, though these two wore better and more intricate armor. Also, both of them were humanoid bulls. Yeah, that was something else.

“Excuse me, somebody told me the City Hall was handing out free food?” I asked one of the bull guards.

“The food bank is on the east side of the building, citizen,” the bull guard rumbled in a deep voice.

“Over there?” I asked, pointing where I thought East was.

The bull guard stared at me for a moment before pointing in the opposite direction.

“Right, right. Thanks for the help, man,” I said. I could still feel the bull guards' gaze on my back as I walked away. Was it suspicious if I didn't know this planet's cardinal directions? Eh, probably not. A lot of people back home don't know how to determine east and west from the position of the sun either.

It turned out the food bank was a small structure jutting out from the main building. There was a large window where workers were handing out bowls of gruel to a line of poor people like me. The line was suspiciously short, which made me think that the food they were giving out must be poisoned or something. It's gotta be, because there was no way in hell people would pass up free food, right?

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Or maybe this city just had very little poverty.

I soon reached the front of the line, where the plump auntie-looking worker eyed me suspiciously and kept the bowl of gruel she was about to give me close to her bosom. “Ain't ever see ya 'round here before. And ya look mighty big for someone s'posed to be starvin'.”

I shrugged. “I fell on hard times, recently. I've become desperate enough to come here.”

“Uh-huh,” the auntie said with a suspicious side-eye, but she gave me the bowl nonetheless. “We also hand out a free drink, but ya hafta return the bowl first before I give it to ya.”

“Thanks a lot, ma'am.”

The auntie snorted at how I addressed her, though she did look amused. “Don't call me ma'am, ya bearded rascal. People 'round here call me Big Mama. Now scram, I've got another batch to cook.”

“Right, I'm Bob. Thanks for the food, then.”

I sat on a nearby step and devoured my gruel with… ‘enthusiasm’ was too generous a word. The gruel was saltier than the Devil's armpit and contained bits of animal innards that didn't match each other's taste at all. Still, it was leagues better than raw wolf meat, so I finished the relatively generous serving of gruel with minimal gagging.

When I returned the wooden bowl, Big Mama gave me a cup of pink liquid that smelled like berries. When I took a sip, it tasted a lot like a mixture of all the berries I once ate during my stay in the forest. Minus the poisonous ones.

After finishing my drink, I returned the cup to Big Mama and propped my elbow by the counter. “So, is the City Hall hiring?”

Big Mama snorted as she sharpened her knives. “You can't just get work in City Hall willy-nilly. The Governor, bless her soul, vets her staff fiercely, down to the lowest cleaner. If ya really want to get in, ya'll hafta work someplace else first and obtain a letter of recommendation from yer employer, and that employer should have no criminal records whatsoever. And that's just the minimum requirement.”

“Sounds like a lot of effort. You know of other ways to get a job?” I asked. Lefty already told me about the Laborer's Guild, but he didn't say much about it. I wanted to hear more insight from other people before I went there. Fortunately, Big Mama went straight for what I wanted to know about.

“Just go to the damn Laborer's Guild, boy. With those big muscles of yers, any job'll be easy for ya,” Big Mama said as she began chopping up meat. “Be warned, though. The clients ya'll be workin' for will be worse than damn slave drivers. With all the labor protection laws the Governor passed, the clients are forced to pay a hefty amount for their workers' safety and rights, so they'll do their best to wring every worth out of you within the bounds of the contract. So make sure to get someone to read the contract for ya if ya don't know how to read.”

“I will,” I said. “Thanks for the help, Big Mama.”

“Bah, just scram.”

•••••

The Guild Plaza was a large public square located near the City Hall where the various guild headquarters were located. The square itself was a park with a huge water fountain in the center and benches where people could sit and relax. The various headquarters lined the perimeter of the square, with the largest one being the Slayer's Guild which occupied almost an entire city block.

After asking around for directions, I found the Laborer's Guild on the opposite side of the Guild Square. Compared to the Slayer's Guild, the Laborer's Guild was a much smaller affair and looked more like a boring government building. Behind the building were massive warehouses that actually dwarfed the guild headquarters.

When I entered the building, I was greeted with an almost empty lobby. The only people around were the receptionists behind the counter set against the wall, who all glanced my way upon my entry.

Not knowing how things worked around here, I approached one of the receptionists to ask.

“A pleasant afternoon, sir. How may I help you?” the receptionist asked, a young lady with a fixed smile on her face. The name tag on her chest said her name was Jessa.

“I'm here to look for a job,” I started. “What do I do?”

Jessa blinked at me once before replying. “I take it you are not yet a member of our guild?”

“Nope.”

“Then the first step will be to register yourself, sir,” Jessa said as she retrieved a form beneath her desk as well as a pen. “Do you know how to read and write?”

“Ye— uh, actually, no.”

“Then I shall fill up the form for you, sir,” the receptionist said without batting an eye as she started asking for my basic information. “Name?”

“Bob Dinkle.”

“Age?”

“Thirty-five.”

“Race?”

“Uh, human.”

“Level?”

“Seven.”

Jessa's hand paused as she looked up at me. “Sorry, I may have misheard that. What was your level again?”

“Seven.”

Jessa seemed speechless, and even the other receptionists were looking at me like I was some novel thing.

“Is there a problem?” I asked neutrally.

“Well, although there is no minimum required level for members at our guild, I'm afraid your job prospects will be… limited. Since you haven't reached level 10, you do not have a Class yet, so our clients will be unlikely to hire you,” Jessa explained. “But if you truly wish to join us nonetheless, the city government is also one of our clients and is known to hire any personnel regardless of background or level, provided they have no standing criminal records. There is always an available job from the government. The only, um, disadvantage is that government-issued jobs are often unpleasant.”

“How unpleasant are we talking about?”

“Well… the government is currently hiring for sewer declogging and maintenance,” Jessa said almost sheepishly.

I sighed. It was going to be a shitty job, but I had no choice. “Sign me up, then.”

“Alright, then. There will be a fifty copper registration fee, but you can pay it in installments if you prefer,” Jessa said.

“How much is the interest if I paid in installments?”

“Not to worry, sir. We do not charge interest rates for registration fees,” Jessa said with a smile. “I will be processing your registration now, Mister Dinkle. It shouldn't take too long, and once I return with your guild badge, I will be briefing you about our guild regulations and then you'll be free to, uh, take on some government work.”

“Looking forward to it,” I deadpanned. “Anyway, thanks for the assistance, Miss Jessa. I'll be waiting over there.”

Jessa gave me a nod before going to the back to do whatever it was they did.