Arthur nursed his throat. The wound that had been troubling him for so long, delivered by a corpse puppet, was finally gone, and it felt strange finally touching unmarked flesh after so long. Following his interrogation, Arthur had been brought to humanity's last remaining stronghold with the help of a dimensional mage. It was a massive city, capable of housing hundreds of thousands, situated in a basin surrounded by towering mountains. While Arthur wasn’t sure exactly where they were, the ambient ether density and general landscape told him he was still in the Daggerfall Mountain range. He’d been in the city for a little less than a day, a quarter of that time having been spent finally sleeping on a real bed and surrounded by four walls.

  Arthur could go without rest for weeks on end now, but sometimes, sleeping was the most productive thing you could do. The city was named Bastion, which was a little on the nose and had apparently once been an elven stronghold. Now, its residents amounted to less than five hundred humans and the handful of elves who'd remained uncorrupted on Haadran. In the little time he’d spent here. Arthur was certain he’d met almost everyone, or at least caught sight of them from afar. He was a celebrity of sorts, as the ‘outsider’ who had felled Esmerald, terror of the skies, who had been their enemy for centuries. They’d thrown an impromptu feast for him, breaking out casks of ale made from ingredients best left unsaid. It was an unwritten rule of reality that humanity would always find a way to make alcohol, no matter how bad things got.

  The people of Bastion had been surprisingly welcoming, all things considered, and the atmosphere here was far from the dour cynicism he’d been expecting. Grumbling, Arthur finally managed to roll himself out of bed and made his way to the bathroom. Houses in Haadran weren’t so different from Earth's, both containing the same amenities like heating and flowing water; only everything in Haadran ran on ether instead of electricity.

  The shower was easy to use, with only three dials— one for temperature, one for pressure, and a final one to adjust how much cleansing magic you wanted to inject into the water, if any. As a freshly minted apprentice rune mage, Arthur spent a few minutes admiring all the intricate work that went into making the magic shower possible. For whatever reason, perhaps because the rune work was already so common and widespread, the inscriber hadn’t gone through the usual efforts to hide his work.

  That meant Arthur could admire the inscription in its entirety, though his rudimentary grasp on the craft meant he couldn’t really learn anything. Still, his memory was near photographic at this point, so Arthur carefully memorised everything for later perusal. He could at least appreciate the different style used in the script, compared to what Cyprus had taught him. Where the old elf's writing was filled with curves and flourishes, the Haadran scriber was all straight lines and harsh stops.

  The best comparison Arthur could think of was between Arabic calligraphy and the clinical font used in English newspapers. One was beautiful to look at, whereas the other was clinical and precise. Without knowing more, Arthur couldn’t really say anything more about the runes. Finishing his shower, Arthur used a quick burst of purify to dry himself. It was interesting how far he could push the definition of filth when using the skill.

  Like every other time he’d used the skill in Haadran, the magic also worked on purifying some of the ambient corruption in the air, the cleansed energy then rushing to fill his Etherious stone. Arthur estimated that using the skill was around twenty times more efficient than just passively cleansing the energy with his presence, which, in the grand scheme of things, was hardly an improvement considering how slow passive purification was.

  Arthur had only just finished dressing— a nice, hand-crafted shirt and trousers made from monster leather— when he was interrupted by a knock on the door.

  “Are you awake, sir?”

  Arthur sighed. "How many times have I told you to stop calling me sir.”

  “Seven times, sir.”

  Arthur chuckled. This was a losing battle. “Come on in, Thomas.”

  The door cracked open, revealing a small child, one of seven that lived in Bastion and perhaps the entire world. Thomas had been appointed by Vira to be his guide during his stay in the city. Why a child and not an adult, Arthur wasn’t sure, but no one had raised a fuss, so he’d gone along with it. Perhaps it was to get him sympathetic to their plight.

  “Breakfast is being served in the central plaza, sir,” Thomas said. "Maverick told me to come get you.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Arthur smiled. It had been a while since he’d had some proper food, and judging by the state of everything else in the city, he was in for a treat. Getting to the central plaza didn’t take long. It was barely a minute's walk. With so few people residing in the city, the population had taken to living in only its innermost part, with only a few outliers taking up residence in the outskirts.

  A byproduct of that meant that at 6 am, over 90% of the city had gathered in one cafeteria for breakfast. Arthur got a few nods and smiles, but it seemed the novelty of an outworlder wasn’t interesting enough to draw peoples' attention away from their food. Thomas led him to a large table situated in the furthest corner of the hall, where Maverick and Vira were sitting patiently, waiting for him. On second glance, it seemed Vira had done the waiting; Maverick had merely been transitioning to his second plate.

  “You look so much better now that you’re actually dressed,” Vira said, giving his new outfit a look over. “If you’d come yesterday dressed like this, instead of those rags, everyone would have accepted you so much faster,”

  Arthur rolled his eyes. “Yes. Next time a Wyvern’s trying to kill me, I’ll tell it to avoid damaging my clothes.”

  “Won't happen again,” Maverick mumbled around a mouthful of eggs. “At least not on Haadran. Esmerald was the last living Wyvern on the planet. They’re functionally extinct now.”

  Arthur frowned. “That's a shame. I was hoping to get some more of their cores.”

  Vira stared at Maverick pointedly, but didn’t say anything. Arthur ignored the gesture. Whatever it was, he was sure Maverick was about to tell him soon.

  "I'm guessing you want these cores for your pet spider, right. Speaking of the little monster, where is she? Maverick asked carefully, looking around as if Wovan would pop up out of nowhere. While his soul splinter could do exactly that, and it would be pretty amusing to see, Arthur resisted summoning Wovan just to scare the man.

  "She's resting right now," Arthur replied, "in my soul core. The fight took a lot out of her, and I want her fully recovered before I bring her out again."

  Wovan had already healed fully— he'd checked first thing in the morning— but it was always better to be underestimated. By friend and foe alike.

  This time, it was Maverick who stared pointedly at Vira, and she nodded subtly, giving him the go-ahead. Well, as subtle as you could be in front of someone who had a few hundred points invested in Perception.

  "We can help you with that," Maverick said. "We have two Wyvern cores collecting dust in storage. One of them belonged to Esmerald's mate, whom we managed to kill 130 years ago. She was a Storm Wyvern too, and of similar strength. The other belonged to a far weaker monster, one that had just finished evolving for a third time. He was a much rarer breed, though. A Solar Wyvern whose breath attacks were deadly even when he was a freshly hatched cub."

  Third evolution, Arthur mused. Would that make the wyvern a level 200 monster, or did the false dragons evolve more frequently than was standard for monster kind? Arthur wasn't sure, but the Solar affinity was interesting enough to make up for any lacking levels. Arthur schooled his expression. Looking too excited would get you fleeced at a negotiation, and that was what this breakfast had become.

  "So, what do you want for it? I sincerely doubt you'd be giving them away for free," Arthur said in as casual a tone as he could manage, taking a bite out of a rather tasty sausage. The goal was to look interested, but not too much, to be dismissive without being flippant.

  Vira looked a little worried now, but Maverick remained unruffled. The old woman, it turned out, was new to the world of commerce.

  "Well, wyverns are incredibly rare creatures," Maverick began. "Incredibly so, considering they no longer exist on this planet."

  "That you know of," Arthur interrupted.

  Maverick's eye twitched. "That we know of, yes, but the possibility of any remaining in the wild is close to none. Haadran's too hot for them, which is why most scholars agreed they weren't native to the planet. They're more than strong enough to survive here, but they don't breed in these conditions without human intervention."

  "And so these cores are the last this planet will produce."

  "Yes! Exactly that," Maverick exclaimed, jumping on the line that Arthur had thrown out. "We want to hire you, Outworlder. Standard mercenary rules. Two cores, and you help us defend this city for the next five years. That and you participate in at least three hunting expeditions a month. The contract ends when the five years are finished; a little less than 2000 days, or if somehow, Shylo miraculously drops dead."

  Arthur didn't give an answer to the contract immediately. "The cores are all corrupted, which makes them nearly useless in their current state. Purifying them will cost me a fortune, and they'll lose at least 30% of their potency in the process."

  Arthur was talking mostly out of his arse here. Purifying corrupted monster cores was difficult, but nowhere near as much as he was making it out to be. Arthur was gambling on Maverick not knowing that, though. How would he, when the factories that did the job were half again the size of the UK? And besides, it was the corruption that made these cores so valuable to him.

  "Let's amend the rules a little. The contract only lasts for the duration of a year. Either that, or until I help you kill a corrupted sapient of Samuel's calibre." It had been Arthur's plan all along to kill the strongest monster on the planet before returning to Earth. That deadline was fast approaching; a little under ten days. As grand as his goals were, however, it was always good to leave himself a get-out clause, hence the difficulty adjustment to the boss's underling.

  "Oh yeah, I can't believe I almost forgot it. I came across some runes, carved onto the bones of the undead. Teach me how to do that too, please."

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