Sky sat on one of the upturned crates in the circle around the food; liquid dripped from his makeshift knife crafted with a jagged chunk of metal and some leather straps. He smiled as he looked down at his spoils: two apples and some kind of gray fruit he didn't know. One of the apples was already in slices as he cut the second one open for inspection. All around him, the others did the same, checking their food to ensure no parasites, bugs, or fungi were residing there. The pile of food in the middle had shrunk quite a bit, but some were still left, albeit the worst-looking ones.
Finishing the second apple and finding nothing wrong with it, Sky took a break from cutting and ate the slices he had already prepared. In his mind, thoughts raced, a bit dry but still so good, biting down on another slice. At that moment, the crew leader returned, followed by those who had gone to get lunch pails. Behind them was a wagon full of barrels. The men grabbed one of the barrels and a crate from the wagon and set them down. Upon hitting the ground with a thud, the crate let out a loud clang, and the barrel made a sloshing noise. Then the tops came off, revealing the barrel full of water and the crate containing iron cups. The men started to line up, grabbing one of the cups from the crate, then walking over and scooping up some water. While the line moved, the men with lunch pails and the crew leader opened them up and began to eat, getting envious looks from the others.
Sky was near the back of the line, and as he waited, he cut open the last fruit he had, the fuzzy gray one. As his metal shard went to cut it, he slipped a bit with his hand and sheered off some of the skin of the fruit. However, this revealed something to him: underneath was an apple like the other two he had eaten. This one, however, had a grey hue to its flesh and let off a repulsive odour. Well, this one’s a waste, Sky lamented as he hurled it over the side of the dock to feed the fish. Getting to the front of the line, he grabbed his cup of water and downed it, walking around the other side of the line and tossing the mug back in the crate.
After lunch, the crew returned the water wagon to the dock's check-in desk, dropping off the water barrel and crate of mugs. The foreman then talked to the crew leader for a minute before scratching something off on one of his many piled-up lists; as the two talked, the military grunt came over with a wide grin and began spitting out his recruitment speech. “For any man who signs right now, the military will pay one week's worth of wages,” minus food, boarding, clothes, and weapons costs, leaving you with a negative balance to pay off, Sky refuted in his head. Although his landlord was an asshole who didn't care about them, being an ex-military member, he had been kind enough to expose the recruitment scheme to Sky and his siblings, primarily out of spite for the military and not wanting to lose his tenants, but it was still helpful information nonetheless. In the background, the military grunt continued, “And if you happen to manifest, find, or capture an authority, you will be granted the rank of captain with all the benefits that come with it.” And there it is, authorities. Capturing one alone is impossible, as an average human can’t take down even the weakest elemental authority user, Sky thought. If you managed to get one as a group, the military would take it as their “tactics” had secured it. As for finding one, you were likelier for a factory owner to decide randomly on the street to gift you his entire fortune. And if one ever managed to manifest their own authority without being under the protection of a noble family or an organization. In that case, you would end up dead in the next battle or some freak incident with the authority given to the military as an asset.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Looking beside him and seeing that one of the other workers his age seemed drawn in by the speech, Sky tried to him on the shoulder. “You're better off joining a mercenary guild than the military if you ever manage to manifest,” he whispered to the other worker. But the boy didn't hear him and walked forward to the grunt, asking, “Where do I sign up?” The grunt, pleased, began walking back to the desk with the boy to fill out the papers, congratulating him for deciding to change his life.
After the grunt took the boy away, the crew leader returned, looked at the group, sighed, glanced at the boy signing his death warrant and ordered them to head down the dock. There, they found a pile of crates waiting on the pier. Loading them up into another horse-drawn wagon, they once more protected the cart on its way to the warehouse. The street was much busier now, and keeping people away was harder. There was more shoving this time, and their encirclement pulled out the makeshift knives a few times to scare a group off. After a long time, they managed to get the cart to its location; they unloaded it and returned it to the docks. At this point, the sunset was just beginning, and the crew leader let them go.
Lining up again at the check-in desk, he collected his wage of five shields, then turned to his left and looked at the lined-up crates. The first two were empty, but the last one had loaves of stale bread inside. "No doubt bought by some foolish merchant," Sky thought. "I'll grab one for myself and one for the others." Merchants often got scammed into buying food orders with ruined products mixed in, but with the profit the merchants made off the food, it was tacitly ignored. Snatching up the two loaves, he quickly began to walk home as the sun sunk lower and lower beyond the horizon.
As he neared his home and turned onto the sidestreet, the candlelight from the streetlamps disappeared, and his path turned from golden to a mix of crimson and silver cast by the twin moons hung high in the heavens. Entering the home via the key hidden under a nearby rock, he entered the house.
Expecting a “welcome home” or maybe a “got any food,” Sky was shocked when Lily looked at him with tears in her eyes and said, “They took Even away.”