Job Reset Day

You are...

...burning.

"Dammit, not again!"

That's the third time this week.

"Stupid butter roll recipe."

Thin spirals of black smoke rose from the baking tray like accusatory fingers. Fourteen sad little charred lumps stared back at me. I crossed my arms and glared at them.

"You actually consider that food?" Cogginballs slinked between my boots, tail swishing lazily. He didn't bother looking up. He never needed to.

"Hey, we've got a big day ahead of us," I said, crossing my arms tighter. "This was going to be a treat. For both of us. A nice thing. Tell you what, how about—"

"Candyfloss?" Both ears snapped forward like he'd been struck by lightning.

"No, Cogginballs. We're going to the market after the guild hall. No candyfloss."

His tail drooped like it had personally been betrayed. "You could at least pretend to consider it."

"I did consider it. For about a second."

"A second is not what you’d call consideration. A second, to me, is a reflex."

I looked back at the tray. The lumps stared up at me, entirely unbothered by their own failure. I felt a strange kinship with them.

I sighed and scooped the rolls into a baggie. "If I leave any behind, the others will feel left out. So they're all coming with me."

"Feed those to the ducks and I might actually catch one."

"For heaven's sake, Coggy, put that away!" I laughed, swatting at his tail as he shook it at me.

"Okay. Back to business." I pointed at nothing in particular, shoved my things into my bag in no order whatsoever, locked up the cabin, and set off toward the guild hall.

It was job reset day.

I love job reset day.

Expired quests get cleared out, backlogs get wiped, and a whole fresh stack of trouble gets nailed to the board. I took up this gig four years ago. I was twelve, and very ambitious.

Also skilled, apparently?

I didn't really see it that way. I just liked to keep things moving.

A few skips and a hop later, we were standing outside the Kingdom of Ocrain's largest guild hall — a massive stone gathering place where, supposedly, legends were born.

Then there was me. And a cat who wasn't always a hundred percent present in the brain department.

"Why I oughta!"

"You oughta do nothing!"

A familiar exchange.

The twins. Guild doormen, technically. Doorboys, honestly. They froze the instant they saw me.

"G-G-Gumi? You're back?"

"Yep! Favorite day of the week." I beamed.

"Did they already reset the board?" The first one rounded on his brother.

"You'd know if you weren't always asleep, doornail."

"I'll nail your door—!"

"Boys." I gave them my softest smile. "No fighting, please?"

"S-Sorry, Gumi-sama!" In perfect unison, they folded into identical, rigid bows.

Mid-bow, one of them clocked Cogginballs.

"You brought Coggy!?"

"Coggy!" the other gasped, already scrambling sideways. "Finally, my chance."

The smaller twin produced a treat from his pocket and lobbed it skyward.

Cogginballs rose onto his hind legs and plucked it out of the air without so much as a change in expression.

"Thanks, pipsqueak." He licked his paw.

"He noticed me! Yes!" The kid punched the air like he'd just won a war.

The doors groaned open, and the guild hall's noise and warmth spilled out to meet us.

This place had been my second home for a long while. And underneath the warmth, same as always, there was that other thing. A quieter note running under the noise.

The room blurred a little as I let my thoughts wander.

There was always a faint... nervousness in the air around me. Hushed voices. Veterans who found something very interesting to look at whenever I walked past. I'd been meaning to figure out what that was about.

Probably wasn't important. People get weird sometimes.

"Gumi! My word, you're back!"

Guildmaster Wolfgang's voice thundered like a dropped anvil. He crossed the floor at a near-jog, beard swinging. "How is my little quest fiend doing?"

"Fine, thank you, Guildmaster." I gave him a polite wave. "How are things?"

"Much better, now that the guild's been graced by your presence." He folded into a bow. Lower than last time. I noted it the way you'd note a draft coming from somewhere you couldn't place.

"Good grief," I muttered, scratching my cheek.

"You're just in time," he said, entirely unbothered by my discomfort. "We're about to post the new batch. Come, come."

I went, Cogginballs trailing behind at his own unhurried pace.

People made room for me without seeming to think about it. A few waved. A few just watched.

I waved back at all of them equally. Seemed only polite.

We gathered at the board — adventurers, mercenary parties, a fraternal knight order or two, mages, merchants hoping for a contract. A whole eclectic mess of card-carrying guild members packed shoulder to shoulder.

There was something here for everyone.

I just happened to show up a lot and get the work done.

"And now," Wolfgang boomed, "the moment you've been waiting for! Our scouts have delivered a fresh batch of quest lines — good pay, good exposure, opportunities for growth. Some of you don't need that last part anymore, but I digress—"

I nodded along to every word thundering out from behind that absurd beard of his.

Then something caught my attention.

"See, the thing about swamps," Wolfgang was saying, "is there's all sorts of muck down there. And when muck mates with muck long enough, you get an angry Bogman camped out in the armpit of Ocrain."

Gross.

The room went quiet.

Nobody had budgeted for a Bogman today. Least of all me.

Still. Not one to turn down a challenge.

Wolfgang assured everyone this wasn't the only job on offer and launched into another eighteen quest lines while I leaned in and got the actual details.

Lower Ocrain's southern farmlands. A Bogman eating villagers exclusively from that one region, which felt almost personal. Sharp teeth, apparently.

Reward: half the farmer's land.

I didn't need half a farm.

A tray of Southern Ocrain rumcakes would make my entire week get off to a smooth start.

Might be able to cut that deal instead.

I flagged Wolfgang down and put my name in the open slot myself.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Ocrain's own Kingdom Problem Rectifier has taken the Bogman job!"

A cowbell rang out from the clerk's desk to make it official.

I went beet red.

The announcement part is always the worst of it.

Collecting the reward is a close second.

"Thinking about rumcakes again?" Cogginballs, from somewhere near my ankle.

"I'm thinking, period. Get out of my head."

"I'd think faster if I were you. You did say we were going to—"

"I know what I said. Go hunt something outside." I puffed my cheeks at him, which he ignored completely, because he always does.

“Hunting the mangey rats outside is not my idea of something to do while being dismissed by your owner. Lady, you're being very prejudicial in your assumptions of feline related endeavours right now.”

I was mid-cheek-puff when the door opened.

The whole hall noticed. That's what a door does here, apparently — it opens, and forty people stop what they're doing to look at it.

A boy stood in the frame. Bright red, head to toe, in some kind of matching two-piece ensemble I'd never seen before, and shoes so white they looked purpose-built for sneaking past something.

A foreigner. Had to be from one of the border territories maybe. Nobody local dressed like this at all.

"Uh — hi. I'm from out of town? Can I register here?" he said, to the clerk, in a voice that was trying very hard to sound like this was the norm.

A beat.

The room went right back to what it had been doing. Nobody so much as glanced twice.

I felt for him a little. Being ignored in a room this loud has to be its own special kind of lonely.

I turned back to the board.

Ocrain Grand Bake-Off. Hard pass, obviously.

Investigate the poisoned water supply — source already known, apparently. Inquire with the National Fraternity of Aqueductors. I'd swing by.

A hand landed on my shoulder. Wolfgang's, unmistakably — nobody else's hand had that kind of gravitational pull.

"Gumi, a favor, if you'd indulge me. Would you show this young gentleman around, and perhaps let him tag along with your party? Just this once."

I turned.

Wolfgang. And Red Boy from the doorway.

Up close, he was standing very straight, hands jammed in his pockets, doing his level best not to make eye contact with anyone in a fifty-foot radius.

His hair looked like it had given up on him rather than the other way around — not wild in a frantic way, just permanently unbothered.

"Gumi-sama," Wolfgang said warmly, "this is Shunya Tatsuguchi. Just arrived today. Shunya, this is Gumichigo Gumi — our kingdom's finest troubleshooter."

I moved fast to correct the record. "I'm really not that—"

"Nice to meet you, Gumi." His voice came out level, but a beat too fast, like he'd rehearsed the sentence on the way over.

"I'm Shunya. Wolfgang-san mentioned you might be heading out. If it's alright, I'd like to tag along. See how things work around here."

He gave a small bow.

Cogginballs let out a low, unimpressed huff from beside my foot. "Another stray. Wonderful is the feeling I'm feeling."

"Coggy." I scolded him lightly, "be nice. He seems fine."

My cheeks warmed a bit, for no reason I felt like examining.

Shunya glanced down at the cat. "It talks. Is that — is that a normal thing, here?"

"Pretty normal for me," I said, cheerful, puffing my cheeks out while I thought it over.

He had the look of a boy doing quiet, rapid math on a problem with no visible solution.

I decided the least I could do was make this easier on him.

"We're actually heading south right now — Bogman extermination job. Might get messy, but you're welcome to tag along if you think you can keep up!"

On second thought, that sentence did not accomplish what I'd meant it to.

Shunya's shoulders rose about half an inch before he forced them back down. "A Bogman. Sure. Great way to get a feel for the place."

Wolfgang clapped his enormous hands together, delighted. "Ha Ha! Then it's settled! I leave him in your capable hands, Gumi-sama."

I nodded.

Nodding, generally, is the only move I have in situations like this.

"Right, let's move. South Ocrain isn't going to solve itself."

Cogginballs' tail snapped like a whip. "Hold on. Weren't we going to the market? Candyfloss. Fun. Things that were promised to me not twenty minutes ago."

"After the Bogman! We'll swing by on the way back, and it'll taste even better as a reward." I waved a hand at him, already walking.

"This is why I can't have nice things. We didn't even clear the front steps before the plan changed."

Shunya's eyes tracked between the two of us, one eyebrow up, saying nothing. He adjusted the strap of his bag and fell into step beside me as we made for the doors.

"Troublesome," he muttered, low, like he hadn't quite decided yet whether he meant it as a complaint.

"Direct your concern toward walking, new guy," Cogginballs said flatly, not even glancing back at him.

South Ocrain was a day's walk. Half a day if you pushed Cogginballs and his cloud trick to the absolute edge of what he'd tolerate.

***

The sun sat high and warm, the dirt road cutting gently through fields gone gold-green with early wildflowers. I skipped a little as we walked, cloak snapping behind me. Shunya kept pace beside me, hands back in his pockets, doing an admirable job of looking like a guy who did this every day. Cogginballs trailed a few steps back, muttering a running inventory of grievances under his breath.

Eventually the road got boring enough that I glanced over. He hadn't said much since the guild hall.

"So. Shunya Tatsuguchi." I tilted my head at him. "Cool name. Where's home, exactly? You don't sound like anyone from the border villages I've been to."

He gave a shrug that arrived about half a second too quickly to be casual. "Farther than that. Let's just say I'm still figuring out where I landed." Nothing more followed. I decided not to chase it. A guy that holds something carefully deserves to keep holding it.

"Fair enough!" I beamed. "Ocrain's a lot all at once. You'll get the hang of it, especially with me and Coggy around. We're a good team."

"Speak for yourself," Cogginballs said. "I am still in mourning. For the candyfloss. Which I did not get."

"You'll live, Coggy."

The path started climbing. Shunya glanced at the cat again. "How does a person end up with a talking cat, exactly. Is that just — a thing, here?"

"Not really," I admitted. "He showed up at my cabin a couple years back and never left. Turns out he's got some genuinely useful mana tricks."

"Useful?" Cogginballs' ears twitched upright despite himself. "Try legendary."

"Let's see it, then." Shunya's tone was light, but his hand had gone very still against the strap of his bag.

Cogginballs huffed — pleased, whatever he'd claim otherwise — planted all four paws, and focused. Pink-white mana gathered around him in soft, sparkling coils, then bloomed outward into a platform beneath all three of us.

"Whoa—" My feet left the ground and I laughed before I could stop myself. We rose gently, drifting forward on a floating bank of cloud, faster than any of us could have walked.

Shunya went very quiet, both hands gripping the edge like it might reconsider its life choices. "Not bad," he managed, a beat late. "How long does this last?"

"Long enough to skip the boring part of the road. Which is… all of it," Cogginballs said, tail swaying. "Not forever, though. Burns out eventually. I'll need to land and rest."

We soared for a good twenty minutes, the kingdom laid out underneath us — castle spires in the distance, a river catching the light, a forest a merchant once swore had opinions about trespassers. Shunya took it all in quietly, asking a sharp question every so often, like a man cramming for a test he hadn't known was happening.

"You're pretty calm about all this," I said eventually, legs swinging off the cloud's edge. "Most new arrivals panic a little. Especially around me, for some reason."

He let out something that was almost a laugh. "I'm panicking. I'm just doing it quietly."

"Oh." I blinked, then grinned. "Well — quiet panicking is still pretty impressive, honestly."

"Understatement of the year," Cogginballs said, not even opening his eyes.

We talked more as we flew — I told him about the time I had to negotiate a peace treaty with an unreasonably proud herd of goats, and he offered just enough about himself to sound friendly without actually landing on anything: liked moving around, liked figuring things out as he went. He never once said where he was actually from. I didn't press. There was something careful in how he held himself, like a man rationing a very limited supply of calm, and I liked him a little more for it than I probably should have this early.

Cogginballs started to sag. "Alright. Cloud's running dry. Landing."

We touched down at the edge of the southern farmlands — gold wheat stretching out toward a modest farmhouse with smoke curling from its chimney. Cogginballs shook himself out, visibly tired, visibly proud of it anyway.

"Not bad, right?" he asked Shunya.

"Not bad at all." Shunya brushed dirt from his tracksuit with hands that hadn't quite stopped being unsteady. "Handy skill to have."

We started toward the farmhouse. Its owner must have spotted us coming, because he was already jogging out to meet us — tall, wiry, gray hair going in every direction, grinning like the day had personally done him a favor. He carried a jug in one hand and wore the kind of patched overalls that had clearly seen worse days than this one.

"Well I'll be! The famous Gumi-sama, in the flesh!" He waved us over. "And friends, no less! You're here about the Bogman, then surely? Name's Gerart. Pleasure."

He had the eyes of a man who'd had either too much coffee or too little sleep, possibly both, and bounced on his heels like his body couldn't quite contain him.

"Hi, Gerart!" I waved back. "We're here about your Bogman trouble. Mind running us through the details first?"

He didn't need asking twice. He waved us to a table outside and poured three generous shots from the jug. "Ocrain's finest. Twelve years in the barrel. Goes down smooth, kicks like a mule. Drink up, heroes."

I took a small sip — sweet, with a kick under it. Shunya threw his back in one go, coughed exactly once, and set the cup down with the studied composure of a man daring anyone to comment. 

Cogginballs turned his nose up at the whole affair. He was the designated cloud driver after all.

Gerart dropped into a chair with a heavy sigh and got into it. "Started about two weeks back. I'm out checking the far field, hear this awful, wet, slurping sound. Figured the swamp was overflowing again, like it does. Then I see it. It was a big, ugly thing, moss all down its hide, teeth like a bear trap. Took two of my prize pigs clean out of their pen. Ate 'em whole, bones and all. Now it's got its eye on the crops. And my daughter, bless her, hasn't left the house since."

He mopped his brow with real theater. "Put the quest up straight away. Half the farmland if you clear it out. And — if you manage it — I'd be honored to offer my daughter's hand, too. Fine girl. Good cook. Strong back—"

I nearly choked on the rum. "Ehh?! No, thank you, on the marriage front! Way too young for that, and I don't really want a husband or wife right now. Or a farm, honestly — sounds like a lot of upkeep."

Gerart's face fell for half a second before I added, "But! A big tray of your rumcakes — maybe a few trays — and we've got a deal."

His whole face lit back up. "Rumcakes! I'll bake enough to feed the whole guild. Deal!"

Shunya watched the entire exchange with a blank, recalibrating look.

We shook on it, Gerart beaming like he'd won something. The sun was dipping low by the time the details were settled.

Tomorrow, the swamp would greet us.