Novels2Search

Chapter Catorce

Coming down the stairs, Raksha nodded at the receptionist as he passed by. He looked around for Hilde for a second, but she wasn’t around to see. He hadn’t bothered to take off his armor and wondered for a moment what the local customs were regarding that but he needn’t have worried, looking across the restaurant over half the customers at the tables wore some sort of protection openly. Most carried their weapon with them too, one woman at a table had a large spear propped up against the wall next to her.

Not a small number of heads turned to look at the slave man with the yellow hair as he entered. Pretty much the whole populace of the city had different variations of brown hair, any blond or red hair easily standing out. For a city to have been all migrants in their past, the lack of diversity in the ethnicities surprised him a bit, but he supposed that the migrants must have all come from a specific region of the empire.

Blonde hair like his was a trait of the northerners who resided in the mountains even further north of the capital. They were traditionally a reclusive bunch, they still held their loyalty to the empire but Raksha found that the northerners were spotted few and far between in the empire as a whole.

He found a path to the bar and ordered an ale and the dinner from an incredulous barkeeper before turning and finding a seat at an empty table near the booth with the spearwoman. He sipped on his drink, pleasantly surprised at the taste. He pulled out a journal and began writing, hoping he could spend the time waiting for his meal without bother.

His hopes were dashed quickly.

“Hey, what’s a slave doing here?” the spearwoman yelled at him from the booth. It was more curious than malicious, but Raksha grimaced anyway.

He turned and tapped his left cheek at her before returning his attention to the journal.

Thankfully, the women at the booth knew what the second brand meant, but that ended up only increasing their interest in him as he could hear them discussing him over their drinks.

“‘Never seen a freed slave before.”

“Doesn’t explain what he’s doing here though. This is a delver’s inn.”

“Anybody can come in, you don’t need a badge to enter, you idiot.”

“He’s just sitting there all alone. Maybe he’s waiting for somebody.”

“I wonder what he did to get into the slaver corps?”

“I wonder what he did to get out, if you know what I mean.”

The last comment drew a chorus of laughter from the group. Raksha did his best to ignore them.

Eventually, the spear woman got up and walked up to the table with a grin. “Hey boy, are you expecting any company?”

“No,” Raksha replied with a scowl.

“Great!” the woman exclaimed sitting down in an open seat, as if his response had been an invitation.

Raksha closed his book with a scowl. “What do you want?”

“We all were just wondering,” she said easily, waving over at her friends who were all looking back at him, “What a boy like you is doing in a place like this.”

“Waiting for my meal.” He said flatly.

The woman laughed loudly and leaned in, “What I mean is, this here is a delver’s inn, usually only delvers dine here. Delver’s and their friends.”

“Would it surprise you if I told you I was a delver?”

The woman’s smile grew and she said simply, “It would.”

Rolling his eyes, he pulled out his delver’s badge and held it out for the woman to see. Her smile turned to a face of contemplation. She reached out suddenly and grabbed it out of his hands, turning it over as she looked at it.

“Is that real?” one of the ladies called out from her booth.

“Sure looks like it,” She replied, still turning it over.

“Let me see!” one of the girls yelled, practically jumping out of the booth and pushing her friend over. She snatched it out of the spearwoman’s hands despite the woman’s protest and held it up in the air.

“It really is!” the new girl exclaimed, “I can feel the mana sigil in it.”

The remaining women cleared their table and joined them, fighting over the badge. Raksha felt his mood worsen with every second.

“Are you sure it's his?”

“It’s so illegal to possess one if you aren’t registered, he’d have to be a total idiot to try to pull it off if it's not.”

“Wow, how did he get it? I’ve never seen a man delver before.”

“I want to know if he delves women too!”

“Does he have a team yet? Invite him to our team!”

“How did he even get it?”

Raksha felt his temper rising as the woman crowded around, talking over him. “Give the badge back, it is not a toy.” he said as sternly as he could, for all the good it did him.

“Hey,” the spearwoman spoke to him as swarmily as possible, “Got plans for tonight? Got a team? We could use somebody with your... unique qualities on our squad. I’m sure you have a lot you can give to each of us. We’ll make sure you get fairly compensated for your efforts, of course.”

Raksha hadn’t felt so insulted in several years. Standing up and quickly grabbing his badge back from the woman next to him, who had the audacity to let out an upset, “hey!” he replied. “NO. Leave me alone, I’m just here for a meal. Get out of my face.”

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“Aww,” the woman replied with fake sadness, “He said he doesn’t like me!”

“He just doesn’t know you, Elloise,” another said with a smirk. “Give him some time, he’ll figure out your good qualities.”

“Yeah, like your fat ass!”

The whole group laughed at that one, slapping and punching each other. Raksha contemplated just going up to his room and forfeiting dinner altogether. He looked around briefly to see if he could spot Hilde, but she was nowhere to be seen. The barkeep just averted her eyes from him.

Before Raksha could make up his mind, a new voice added themselves in. “Hey ladies, the gentleman has declined your request. So leave him the fuck alone! Do I need to call Hilde over, to knock some sense into you all again?! You can’t harasse every man that walks in here.”

Looking affronted, the group turned as one to the newcomer, a short lady with knives strapped on every spot on her body with a mean scowl and crossed arms.

“Beat it bitches.” she spat out.

“You just want him for yourself!” one of them accused, but the rest seemed to have realized the fun was over and moved back to their booth, pulling the last lady with them. The group shot the new lady glares all the while.

A moment later a server arrived with his food and set it in front of him.

“Now it comes,” he grumbled as the male server walked away without a word.

“He was probably waiting for the group to stop accosting you,” the knife lady said, taking the recently vacated seat for herself, eliciting a chorus of grumbles from the previous group.

Rakhsa wondered if the lady did it on purpose or was just clueless.

“Can I have the table to myself, please?” Raksha asked pointedly.

Surprise flitted over the woman’s face before being replaced with a little sheepishness. “Oh, right. You don’t know who I am. I’m Ershwal, team leader of the Revenouse Jaws. I got a letter from the Priestess Olady about you earlier today. She said you would be coming here tonight and recommended you for our team.”

Feeling tempted to say that he didn’t care who the hell she was and to leave him alone, he took a deep breath and calmed himself.

Giving a smile he didn’t feel, he replied, “I’m Raksha, pleased to meet you.”

“Yeah, sorry about those idiots.” The knife woman drawled out casually, “Some women just get too excited when they see a man, which means they haven’t had any company lately, you know?” Ershwal leaned back lazily. “That group ain’t too bad, all things considered. They would have left you alone eventually, but I wanted to talk to you too.”

Raksha withheld his opinion on that subject.

“Can I talk while you eat? Sorry, but I am in kind of a rush.” At his nodding, the woman started, “Well, we’ve all known the Priestess for a long time, she’s helped us out on too many occasions to count, even helped us out on some personal matters. She knows her stuff too, she was a delver herself in the past, did you know? Anyway, what I am trying to say is that her opinion holds a lot of weight for us.”

The meal was good, a thick stew and some savory bread on the side. They even provided some butter he was enjoying.

“That all said,” Ershwal continued, tipping the chair back, “It came as a real shock when the person she was recommending turns out to be a man.”

“Did it now.” Raksha commented, finding it hard to care at this point.

“Yes it did. Now, I know you are an ex-slave corps. Anybody with eyes can see that, and it means you have some experience in the dungeons. But I've met a few freed slaves before, and they’ve all been terrible delvers to work with. The skills they learn as a slave don’t translate well to a proper team, not when we’ve got to trust and work with each other in the dungeon.”

The woman ended her speech and eyed Raksha expectantly. Chewing on a mouthful he debated whether he wanted to answer the woman seriously or not. Eventually, he decided he did not want to piss off a friend of the priestess and so he sighed and replied, “I feel the same about most former slaves. In the slave corps, it's every woman for themselves and even though we are split up into teams, ultimately each person is only working to help themselves. To secure the next meal, to find the next dig, to get the next core. Honestly, if the imperials were more concerned about the core output of the slave corps, they would form up permanent teams at the beginning and have the team’s output reflect on their meals and hierarchy in the corps. The empire would get a lot more cores, and a lot more slaves would be able to buy their way out, resulting in more valuable delvers for the under tapped dungeons out there. Everybody would win.”

“But the empire cares more for punishing the members of the slave corps than getting actual cores, so that will never happen.”

“So you understand.” the woman stated, noncommittally.

“I do. I can say that I am not like that, but it would be better to say that I've spent the last five years in the regular imperial army corps. Believe me, they know how to beat individuality out there.”

Ershwal stared at him, her eyes hard. “I didn’t know you were part of the army.”

“How do you think I got my delver badge? No guild hall would even let me take the test, much less give me a badge. But after running ten dungeon delves with the army, you are automatically awarded an equal rank as a novice delver.”

“Huh,” She replied, spinning one of her knives on her finger, “I didn’t know that either. No offense, but everybody knows the only way for a man to make it through the slave corps is to sleep his way to freedom. But how in the blazes did you manage that in the army?”

Raksha would have been more upset, if her attitude wasn’t so prevalent. Or true. He took a deep breath, and thought about what he should say.

“Look, for a man, getting put into the slave corps is an absolute death sentence. You can’t fight monsters and you can’t contribute. The only resource you have is your body, but even then it is an ugly path. I’ve seen plenty of men refuse that route and die of starvation within weeks. And I don’t blame them at all for that choice, because becoming a slave whore is just as bad or worse. You aren’t treated as a person, you are treated as a commodity, to be used, bartered, and traded among the various gangs. Very rarely, a man might find somebody strong enough to protect him and who actually likes him. But those feelings only go so far and the men are the first things discarded when times get rough. And once a man goes down that path, they can never go back.”

Ershwal’s hard stare remained, but Raksha could see a little sympathy entering her eyes.

“The path of a slave whore was not one I could ever consider. I would rather die. As you can see,” Raksha added, gesturing to his body. “I am built differently than most men. Bigger, stronger. Not enough to compete with the women of course, but it was something.”

“I got lucky, and I found a different way of competing. And I used that way to succeed and to get ahead. And I used that method in the army too, and succeeded there. And I used it this morning, when I delved with the Priestess, and I impressed her.”

“What is this method?” Ershwal asked flatly.

“If I become a part of your team, you will find out. In the meantime, you’ll have to consider how much you trust Priestess Olady’s words.”

Ershwal stared at Raksha as if she could parse the secret from his eyes. For his part, Raksha focused his attention back to his meal before it got cold.

“I’ll discuss this with my team.” the woman stated, standing up abruptly.

“Please do,” Raskha replied carelessly. “I told Olady I was more than able to delve solo, but she wanted me to join a team, in order to make friends and fit into the city. I must say, insulting me over and over again has not helped your case. Remember, I get a say too. If I don’t like your team, I won’t join.”

Ershwal paused as she left. “You’re not what I expected, Rak.”

“That’s funny, because you are exactly what I expected.”

Giving him a lingering look, Ershawl left the tavern. “I’ll see you later.”

More annoyed than ever before, Raksha grumpily finished his meal. He did not give her permission to shorten his name. Thinking about it, all the delvers he met here have all been giant ass-holes. Maybe he should find more farmers to befriend.