Chapter 17: Pumpkin Spice
Time passed as it always did, and suddenly before Walder knew it three months had gone by since the job on Nabrok, and he was in bed looking at an account balance that was dangerously low.
"....F***." said Walder.
"What?" said a half-asleep Henri. Who lay in bed, next to Walder, curled up under the blankets.
"Nothing...I just realized I'm down to my last 200 credits." said Walder. Frowning at the account statement as if hoping it would change something.
"Oh...Well, if you want I can loan some credits?" said Henri.
"Nah...that's okay. It just means I have to get off my ass and do some work again." said Walder. Using implant to instruct Jules to create a chart of his most recent expenditures so he could get a clearer picture of where all his money had gone.
Guild work was often either very dirty, or very dangerous, and often some combination of the two, but one boon of being a guildsman was knowing that if you needed the money, the work was always there waiting for you.
This was one of the benefits of living in a dangerous space-aged wonderland, filled with danger, and only a thin veneer of civilization.
There was always something that needed killing. There was always some treasure, or natural resource, that needed to be collected. There was always a sensitive package that needed to be taken into dangerous territory.
The Heroes Guild's workload was ever plentiful.
"Nhm...Okay. Do you want me to come with?" asked Henri.
"Nah, you stay in bed and finish adjusting to the changes from the registration serum." said Walder.
It had been two weeks since Henri had injected herself with the registration serum and become a World-Eater User. She'd had the mixed fortunes of having her bloodline powers of enhanced intelligence have resonance reaction with the serum.
The good news was that by the time she'd finished adjusting she'd go from being a mid-level super intellect to being a high-level super intellect. The registration serum mutating her bloodline power and upgrading her central nervous system till she'd gain somewhere 450-500 extra points of Intelligence.
She'd also gained a few more benefits from becoming a world-eater user than she'd normally have gained, due to the high-compatibility rate. Increasing how well she could use the World-Eater's powers.
There were also a fair amount of fringe benefits gained. Her new physique wouldn't necessarily end up too much stronger than the norm for users, but it would be much more hardy. She also seemed to be developing a modest talent for controlling and generating electricity with those boosted brains of hers.
The downside of all this being, that she'd have to wait much longer than the usual three days for the adjustment period to be over. A period during which she'd be extremely lethargic and disoriented while the nanites reprogrammed her body so that she didn't have to spend too much time learning to use those new abilities of hers.
"You sure, you won't need my help, Walder?" said Henri.
"What's the point of being a neet if you end up holding down a normal job while playing babysitter?" said Walder.
"....Ah, good point. Well, godspeed then." said Henri. Promptly going back to sleep.
Walder chuckled as he got out of bed. He tucked Henri in, kissing her on the forehead before heading out to start his day. Then he quietly instructed the ship's AI to look after Henri, and keep an eye on her condition while he was out, just in case something unexpected happened.
Three hours later Walder would find himself sitting inside a coffee shop, dressed casually in a t-shirt and tan khakis, with his laptop on the table in front of him, and a pumpkin spice latte at his side.
The guild hq was mostly a place for handling the more sensitive and complicated administration issues, and buying or selling wares to the public. Actual guild members rarely went there to do business unless they had to.
Most pre-mission guild work either happened in the home, a private office, or in venues like coffee shops, bars, and restaurants.
In the two hours since he'd realized the direness of his cashflow situation, Walder had showered, dressed, made and eaten breakfast. Then he'd spent two hours searching the guild site for a job that would pay well and hopefully not take too long to complete.
The job he'd eventually decided upon was an asset requisition job in an old robotics plant. The plant was located on Nimrod one of the smaller moons of Aquil, which was a planet in the YangHui system, whose star was Eadberht system's closest neighbor. Meaning it was right around the block from Olamide and only a few days travel away.
The only downside, if it could be considered as such, was the fact that the job hadn't been the sort where he could just accept it and expect to be able to do it on his own.
It was multi-member mission, meaning acceptance of the mission only made him part of a temporary team, or 'party'.
If he'd had the money he might have been able to buy out all the spots for a mission but as things stood he'd been barely able to afford the insurance, or 'failure' fees, he'd needed to pay to be able accept his current job.
With the result being him having to wait in the coffee shop for all the other guild members who'd accepted the job to shop up and introduce themselves.
Guild etiquette required the members of who'd joined a mission and been formed into a temporary group by that circumstance to meet up at least once. In theory it was meant to be an opportunity to start strategizing and making plans. In reality it was more of a networking thing, and a basic courtesy.
If your going out into a dangerous situation it was nice to at least be acquainted to the man or woman you'd be trusting your back to, and this was the opportunity to start that acquaintanceship.
Only mavericks and ****holes, would ignore this custom, and there was many a guildsman who'd had done damage to their reputations by never showing up to the pre-mission meet-and-greets.
Thirty minutes went by after Walder's arrival at the coffee house, and it was only at the last minute that he realized he wasn't actually the first member of the group to arrive.
A male alf pulled out of a conversation he was having with a few other people. The man then got up and crossed the floor of the shop to make his way over to Walder's table.
He stopped right in front of Walder and said,
"Hey, I saw you walk in a little while ago and I just gotta ask you're not part of Guild Job #1039822ZL in Nimrod, are you?" said the man.
"Hm? Oh, yeah, how'd you know?" said Walder.
The man proffered his hand, and Walder took it, the two of them shaking hands. The man smiled awkwardly while Walder smiled easily, his default expression of vague amiability and amusement sliding into place as he found himself feeling slightly shy because when it came down to it, he didn't meet new people all that often.
"I'm Dmitry Ryan. I guess I'm sort of the lead for the mission since I bought the Supervisor Spot." said the man.
Walder nodded, logging the information away. One could pay extra to get an 'officer' position as the member of a mission. It didn't necessarily come with any real authority but in exchange for handling a few matters like supplies and transportation, the reward for the mission would be much higher.
Walder couldn't see himself buying such a position even if it 'had' still been available for the job, because if he couldn't just do a job by himself, he'd rather just hang back as just another party member than play the role of an organizer/coordinator 'captain' for the job.
He was trying to live a stress 'free' life, and had, he'd taking on enough unwanted authority and bothersome responsibilities for more than a hundred lifetimes, during his first life. He certainly wouldn't pay for the 'pleasure' of doing so again in his current life.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Grimwald Cerveny. Feel free to call me Walder, since that's what pretty much everyone else calls me. How's it going? Is everyone else in the team here already?" said Walder.
"Yeah, great to have you here, man. Actually, yes and no. A lot of the folk who signed on for the job have already showed up and come through. Me and my main crew are just hanging out, waiting for the others to pass by and say howdy." said Dmitry.
Dmitry lead Walder over to a lounge area on the other side of the shop, where a group of six or seven people were seated talking amongst themselves.
Walder instantly understood why he hadn't realized he wasn't the only guild member in the coffee shop. It was because at that moment, none of them including Walder himself, particularly looked like a guild member.
This was because without their armor, equipment, and weapons, most heroes guild members basically just looked like ordinary people. They might be slightly more fit than the norm, but with low level physique enhancement serums being so prevalent, even your average joe schmoe couch potato, was liable to look solidly built.
When it comes down to it, most guildsmen weren't ex-soldiers, or reformed criminals, or 'please, help me, I just escaped from being the avatar in a first person shooter game'-types. Most guilds members were regular people, seeking to supplement the meagre universal basic incomes(UBIs) that most citizens of galaxy were supplied to barely support their continued existences.
Joining the guild was what most members of the former blue-collar workforce, and about a third of the white-collar workforce did, when the artificial intelligences and the machines pushed them out of the workplace.
It was one option people often turned to when they didn't belong to a clan that could find them work, couldn't pass the tests to join the army, lacked the connections to enter the government, didn't want to work as a goon for one of the criminal corteries, and they couldn't afford to just stay home.
"Grimwald, meet Kate Wolfe, Harold Wu, Rosa Schneider, Christian Whitfield, and Domino Albert. These are the members of my free company, and the core members of this mission, the Bell Men." said Dmitry.
Introducing Walder to: a green haired, therian woman, with furry canine ears, and a bushy tail; a squat, scholarly looking, bearded dvergr man in a button down shirt and glasses; a tall muscular titan woman who seemed unafraid to let her bronzed skin and toned physique show as she sat in a tank top and skirt; an olive-skinned erlking man who looked like he'd just gotten out of bed; finally there was young, nereid woman, with blue hair and gills.
The galaxy's unified humanity was made up of countless species, who were all grouped into categories, or races, according to general features and physiology, and then joined up again into the unified human race.
For instance a terran was any member of a species that looked roughly human. Alfs were any species that was humanoid, pointy-eared, long-lived, with a penchant for having inborn powers. Titans were all giants, or could transform into giants. Dvergr were all short, though they did come in bearded and stocky, and unbearded and slender variations. Erlking was the category for certain fast multiplying, super resilient, green, purple, and blue skinned, races. A Nereid was any humanoid species that was at home underwater. And therians were known for looking similar to terrans and alfs, except with features reminiscent of those seen on the animals of other worlds. There were more categories than this, but these were the categories that made up the bulk of the galaxy's population. With terrans and erlkings tying for the majority.
Bellerose was a very populous planet, and the Red-Jericho System had been a trade-hub that had countless trillions flying through its stellar space every day on business. Thus Walder wasn't at all taken aback to see a group made out of so many different category-variations of humanity sitting next to each other.
"Uh, Nice to meet you all." said Walder. Shaking hands with each person there.
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