“Is it seriously going to be like this every time?” I reached through the dark for the mana lamp next to my bed. Its glow filled the room and illuminated Cruz, who was leaning against the doorframe. He was idly fishing around in one of his ears with a finger, taking a moment to sniff the extract before wiping it on his pants leg, a look of mild consideration on his face as if the excavated gunk was somehow worth pondering.

  “Seems likely at this point,” he eventually said. “You know the drill?”

  I sighed, a quick pulse of Recovery banishing the dregs of sleep I would have much preferred to hang onto.

  “Get my shit?”

  “Well look at that, the brat's not completely useless.”

  I decided not to dignify that particular comment with a response.

  “Dining hall?”

  “Seems likely at this point,” Cruz echoed his earlier sentiment while stepping out into the hallway.

  “You want to come down, Fudge?” Fudge’s reactions to Cruz had grown notably subdued. He still alerted me to the intrusion, but gone was the ambient hostility and sense of potential urgency. He was smart enough to recognize the pattern of it all and had, evidently, grown accustomed to Cruz’s presence.

  Fudge wagged his tail once in reply, a single rise and flop born from the happiness of being addressed as opposed to an actual answer.

  “Well, think about it, but try not to take too long.”

  I laced my boots to spare my feet from the cold floor and gathered up everything I’d need to take notes with. If not for Wynn’s insistence that mess was encouraged, I’d have been left paranoid by the prospect of accidentally dropping the inkwell precariously balanced in the bundle.

  “Last chance, boy.” I stood at the door, propping it open with a foot while I waited for Fudge to make up his mind.

  Fudge hopped off the bed, taking a moment to stretch out; his front nails scraped against the floor in the process. I’d need to trim them, soon.

  “Big stretch,” I commented, as was mandatory, to which Fudge answered with a proud huff and walked out into the hall. He paused just long enough to gently press his snout into my arm in passing.

  “Love you too, boy.”

  -0-0-0-0-0-

  “What would you do if presented with a mitent colony?” It was the latest in a series of questions, each quizzing little beyond my capacity for rote memorization. The shape of fueha droppings, the relative potency of pliper venom - it was all a bit trite, but Cruz insisted he make sure I hadn’t been slacking off, lest I forfeit our meeting. The hypocrisy was maddening.

  Recovery once again showed its worth, with mana from the Skill reaching into my memory to pluck the relevant passage so that it might be at the forefront of my mind.

  Memory recovered. Even though I hadn’t specialized the Skill for cognitive-related feats, it was not incapable of them.

  “The bestiary notes that they are vulnerable to fire,” I said, not caring to add that the bestiary said as much about most things. To be fair, though, fire’s reputation as an all-purpose destructive force was not exactly unfounded. “Their colonies can act as a giant oven, assuming you can get them hot enough, so I would gather-”

  “Wrong.” Cruz cut me off, still looking just as bored as he had throughout the entirety of the process.

  I bristled.

  “How is that wrong? I am referencing the bestiary exactly.”

  “Because, genius, I asked what you would do. If you got anywhere near an active mitent colony and tried to fuck with them you would die. End of discussion. If you dragged the mutt along, too,” he gestured towards Fudge who was curled up on the ground, “then congratulations, you would get him killed as well.”

  “That is semantics,” I argued, still on the defensive.

  “Is that so? Well, excuse me, then. You can tell the mitent swarm it is a matter of semantics while it chews you a new arsehole or six.” Cruz scoffed. “If you are going to make me do this, you do it right or stop wasting my time. That means you pay attention. Details are important.”

  “I…” I sighed. Thinking back, it was the first time Cruz had specifically asked how I would approach a situation. The word choice was deliberate, and he did have a point, even if it was an annoying one. “You are right. I will do better.”

  “I know I am right. Now-”

  “However,” I continued. “Part of the reason I would die is that I am still woefully underprepared, and trying to rectify that situation feels like pulling teeth.”

  “Are you about to complain that it is not fair? Too hard, maybe?”

  I smirked.

  “You wish. Next question. Now.”

  -0-0-0-0-0-

  “Simply put, not everyone has a build that enables them to safely fend off a Beast, nor do they have the training to do it unsafely.” It had taken another several rounds of proving that I had, indeed, read the bestiary, but Cruz finally moved on to the topic of a Slayer’s responsibilities. “Beasts like places with more ambient mana density. The deeper in The Forest you go, the more mana in the air.”

  I nodded to show I was following along, not that I expected Cruz to backtrack either way. He’d continued to regularly make it clear that dealing with me was an exercise in tedium.

  “Problem is,” he continued, “sometimes a Beast has to move away from their turf. This eventually leads to something poking its head too close to people.”

  “And that is where Slayers come in,” I offered.

  “First of all, shut it. Second of all, yes, but also no.”

  I leveled a flat look at Cruz.

  “You are going to have to elaborate.”

  “What did I just say about shutting it?” Cruz returned my look and didn’t continue until I had the good grace to look sheepish. “Yes, we respond to reports of Beasts roaming beyond their usual territories. Normally, though, we focus on prevention. We cull Beast numbers in the outer rings.”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  That checks out. Controlling the population of animal species wasn’t anything new to me - conceptually, at least. Unless I count home pest control, I noted, deciding I probably should. I also knew that, at one point, Australia infamously lost a war against their emu population. That all was to say, the practice wasn’t without risks, even in a non-magical world. There was just one thing bugging me.

  “Normally?”

  Cruz nodded. “Normally. Recent years have seen a drastic uptick in the displacement of Beast populations.” He drummed his fingers against the table a few times. “More incidents equals less time to prevent future incidents.”

  A thought occurred to me.

  “Is that part of why you are annoyed I am here? It stops you from-”

  “I am going to cut you off right there,” Cruz said, holding up a palm to punctuate the point. “We need more Slayers; it just should not be me getting saddled with them. You know how many Beast-related incidents Dorbe has had since this shit started?”

  “I am going to go ahead and guess zero,” I said dryly.

  “Zero. I manage the area around Dorbe myself. Also,” Cruz added before pointing in my direction, “you still creep me out.”

  “What?”

  “It is another part of why I am annoyed that you are here.”

  My flat look returned in all its exasperated glory.

  “Good to know.”

  Cruz just shrugged.

  “You asked.”

  -0-0-0-0-0-

  “It is good to see you two getting along,” Wynn chirped when she dropped us off a pair of warm drinks - some type of tea, if my nose was to be believed. It was still the middle of the night, or close enough to morning that the line between the two states of time was so blurry as to not matter. Wynn’s appearance was a pleasant surprise; I hadn’t expected anyone else for a while, at least.

  “Thanks Wynn,” I said, enjoying the warmth of the mug against my hands. “On the whole, it has been a nice change of pace.”

  “A change of pace, is it?” Wynn asked sweetly, making me immediately realize I had misspoke. Cruz, who had been in the process of taking a sip, sputtered and choked, sending a spray of tea and spittle off to one side as he devolved into a coughing fit.

  Wynn withdrew a rag from her apron and knelt down to wipe up the spill. Except, she didn't look at it, her face remained pleasant but locked on Cruz, who seemed unable to meet her eye.

  “What a mess we have here,” she said, and I wanted nothing more than to sink into my chair.

  -0-0-0-0-0-

  “So what about our builds?” I asked. Wynn left after ominously telling Cruz she would clean up after him if she had to and we were both content not to speak of it.

  “What about them?”

  “Are there any Skills we need to pick up?” From what I’d seen, there wasn’t much strict uniformity among the Slayers. Still, it was worth asking.

  Cruz was inspecting the bottom of his mug, as if he’d suddenly discover a hidden wellspring of tea that had, until then, somehow gone unnoticed.

  “Not specifically, no. So long as you can defend yourself and get the job done, we value the variety.” He gestured at me with the mug. “Take you, for example. Once you learn how to fight you and the mutt will-”

  “Enough with that,” I said, cutting him off and no longer able to suppress my frustration. “You do not like me? Want to call me creepy? Fine. I honestly do not care. Fudge is just a dog. Call him by his name.” Cruz glared at me for the interruption, but I didn’t back down. “I have Perseverance. Do not test me on this.”

  Cruz shrugged, but still looked away.

  “Fair enough,” he said. “And yes, you do have Perseverance. Recovery, too. You are going to get some real shitty assignments in the future. That type of focused staying power is going to serve you well.” He didn’t elaborate further, but he was smiling, and based on some of the things I’d read about in the bestiary I wasn’t in any rush to find out why.

  “So. Anyway. Defending myself. I am going to need a teacher.”

  “Pass.”

  I smiled. I’d been expecting as much.

  “About that, I have an idea.” I paused for dramatic effect. “We can hire someone from Dorbe to teach me the fundamentals.”

  Cruz didn’t look particularly impressed, but his next words betrayed him.

  “Go on…”

  “We are trying to replicate the circumstances surrounding a master-apprentice arrangement, one without access to the entire Squad. However, even if we were assigned somewhere just the two of us, there’d still be at least one nearby town or village or whatever. That is our resource.” The fact that Engel had given me the requisition slip meant that drawing on the locals for goods was above board, it stood to reason that services fell under the same umbrella.

  “So what exactly would I have to do?”

  I shrugged.

  “Hopefully, nothing, so long as you are okay with me saying that I have your approval to- actually, if you write me a note, or something, that would probably cover it.”

  Cruz reached over and grabbed one of the sheets of paper I’d brought down.

  “Quill.” He held out his hand, and I handed him the writing implement I’d been idly twiddling before sliding over my inkwell.

  Dip. Nib. Flourish. Cruz quickly jotted down a few lines before sliding everything back my way. I looked at the note.

  Teach the brat.

  Signed,

  Slayer Cruz

  “Truly, you are a wordsmith.” I sighed. It would get the job done. Probably.

  -0-0-0-0-0-

  The remainder of the morning passed with surprising ease. Cruz and I fell into a rhythm that bordered on pleasant, at times, as I bombarded him with questions. For all that he complained, Cruz showed up, in the end, and the conversation was proving insightful as I continued to add to the list of useful skills and capabilities that would help me survive as a Slayer.

  Much of what Cruz told me fell into my expectations: bushcraft to survive in the wilderness, geography to navigate, horseback riding for ease of travel, to name a few. The latter could be subverted if I instead devised or demonstrated a more effective alternative, but nothing immediately came to mind since riding fudge long-term was probably not going to be a practical option.

  At one point Wynn brought us breakfast, to which we responded with big smiles and assurances that all was well. I wasn’t sure exactly why I followed Cruz’s lead when we interacted with her as a pair. One-on-one, I found Wynn to be delightful if a little eccentric. I ultimately concluded that it was the effect she had on Cruz, whose field of ‘fucks to give’ was usually a drought-ridden patch of salted earth, that left me feeling unsettled.

  “You should also consider brushing up on the Sentrodah political climate,” Cruz added as a rare afterthought. We were on the topic of hierarchy. I’d noticed that local authority figures tended to defer to Slayers, though my sample size was admittedly small. There was a good reason for that. The Slayers existed parallel to but outside the usual chain of command. Technically, only the Crown Council could directly command them. Most small-town politicians interpreted that as a sign to stay out of their way.

  I looked up from my notes.

  “The Capital? Why?”

  Cruz blinked. Slowly.

  “They have not told you, have they?”

  “Told me what?”

  Cruz did not answer. Instead, he started chuckling as he stood up, his chair scraping along the ground in the process.

  “Nope. Not my mess. Go take it up with the Captain.” He looked the happiest I’d seen him all morning. “I have to go check the perimeters, so we will pause here for now.”

  Cruz ignored all my further protests and practically sauntered out the dining hall without looking back. I looked down at Fudge, who had only briefly left to be fed his breakfast before returning to lounge the day away. “He is not coming back, is he?” Fudge tilted his head to one side, his tongue lolling as he did so. “Yeah, that is what I thought.”

  I leaned back in my chair to stare up at the ceiling where Engel’s office was, a slight frown on my face.

  What aren't they telling me?

  Any guesses as to what a pliper might be?

  You can read up to 10 Chapters Ahead over on my . Today's chapter features a plan for Advancement and some positive reinforcement.

  Discord: