With sun shining through the window, Calamity woke up feeling refreshed. He wore his usual white robes and walked towards the counter, seeing Chen Wu first thing in the morning, he decided to ask him if he knew if there were any jobs available in this city.
"Morning Chen Wu, it's my first time in this city and I need to find a job, do you happen to know if there are any job opportunities here?"
Hearing this, Chen Wu could understand that Calamity was tight on money. He thought about the possible jobs, he knew for one that there was a building in the city that requested people to accomplish tasks for commission. There was also some stores that require workers, even this inn needed some workers but he wasn't sure if it was a good idea to advertise for the store to this innocent young man.
"There is a building that helps people find work through commissions, some stores that have posters saying they want to hire workers, and maybe some more recent places that might need assistance for payment."
"Alright, I'll check out the commissions job first, if anything goes wrong I'll inquiry the stores. See ya!"
With that, Calamity walked out the inn and started wandering the city streets. He looked around at the stores as he walked by to see if they were hiring anyone. Unluckily, he saw none of the stores hiring, assuming that due to the high traffic in this area, it'd be difficult for him to find stores nearby that haven't already found workers.
He asked strangers around inquiry about a place where he can find jobs for tasks. The most common response was that the building's name was the Mercenary's Tavern and that if he kept walking straight towards the center of the city, he'll see it.
Not knowing what it looked like, he could only think that it has to be obvious if even a new comer to this city could spot this building. Soon, he spotted a large building in the distance, the traffic of people going in and out of the building seemed constant. Thinking this might be it, he didn't see the sign until he stood directly in front of it.
Indeed this was the Mercenary's Tavern.
Walking in, he couldn't help but notice the large groupings of people here and there. He glanced towards the counter and began making his way over. There were multiple lines of people and he decided to queue up in the shortest line, thinking it was the fastest way to the counter. A while longer, he noticed other lines had shorten but the one he was in didn't
It didn't take him long to realize that the line that he joined was for people who were new to the place and the counter attendant was also taking her time to process these people. Feeling a bit helpless, he could only stay in the line and wait his turn since there was already people lined up behind him.
Finally, it was his turn, he didn't know what to say other than to ask how he could get a job for tasks. Hearing this question from the boy in front of her, the woman vaguely said that only mercenaries could be assigned tasks to get jobs for payment. If he wanted to work for payment, he'd have to register to first and then request jobs.
"In that case, please register me as a mercenary. How much does it cost?"
"1 Silver."
Although it was pricey, it was a job none the less. Paying immediately, he paid and was told to fill out a form to register his profile details. On the form, it simply asked for a name, any skills he had, and birthday. Simple enough, he just put Calamity, listed no skills, and put his birthday of August 5th.
With that, he handed the form to the attendant and then asked if he could get a job. In response, the woman simply gave a book catalog that showed tasks that offer commission for completing them. They were all things that any new comer could easily do. Looking through the papers, he spotted a job that asks him to gather 10 of a specific herb.
Pointing out the job, the attendant simply took the book back, registered his name and tasks being active and handed him a mercenary bracelet for him to carry on him. She further instructed that all jobs have a month time limit before the task is deemed dropped. He won't get commission if he were to submit anything after the deadline.
Nodding at this, Calamity simply thanked her and walked out towards the outskirts of the city walls. Heading into the forest where the tasks indicated where these herbs could grow, he proceeded further in the forest, unaware of the dangers lurking inside the forest.
As Calamity continued on, he eventually saw a patch of the herb he was looking for. It was a long, droopy looking grass with light blue near the tips of the grass. The name of the herb was apparently Distil Grass, the properties were used in the medical field for creating medicine. Seeing how basic the introduction of the herb was, Calamity didn't bother thinking more about it and just proceeded to collect it from the base.
While he was storing away these herbs, his ear picked up on the sound of grass being stepped on. Somewhere in the distance ahead of him he looked up in the direction of the sound and saw a creature.
The creature seemed to resemble a dog, it was quite furry and its height went up to his waist. Currently, all he could see was a tensed up dog creature that was quite big, bearing its teeth at him as if it wants to attack. Calamity, new to this scenario simply stared at the dog. Although he had no weapons, he was braced for conflict as he raised his arms in a combat stance.
The next thing he knew, a woman walked out from behind the dog, approaching.
"Give me your herbs and no one will be hurt."
Hearing this, Calamity knew that this woman was simply a thug too lazy to pick up grass and wanted to take his efforts away from him. Instead of answering, he calmly began walking towards her direction, not letting loose his combat stance.
The woman with the dog noticed this action, couldn't help but chuckle to herself.
It seems he wants to fight.
Dedicating herself to the fight, she commanded her dog to attack and she also rushed in to make it a 2 on 1 fight. Seeing this, Calamity knew the dog was going to approach him first so he swiftly dashed towards it.
Upon arrival, he did a leg sweep on the dog and allowed his body to tumble over the dog. Using his arms to grab its neck in the midst of his tumble, he successfully captured the dog in an arm choke while lifting it up to ensure that the dog couldn't move it's heads or claw at him while lifted.
After witnessing everything that had happened, the woman simply stood still to a stun. Now realizing the situation went worse than her expectations, she panicked.
"Oi, let go of my dog! Don't do anything to it or else!"
"Or else what?"
Seeing the boy unfazed, the woman couldn't say anything seeing a cold demeanor practically declaring he didn't care what would happen to the dog. To the woman, the dog was quite precious, more valuable than her own existence. The dog itself was actually the favored dog of her father, the dog was a companion to him in his journey through life.
If the dog died, she would receive blame but the young man would also be hunted down by his father. She didn't want to escalate the fight into a death match but also didn't want to find Distil Grass as it was quite rare to search for in recent weeks.
Holding up her arms in surrender, she quietly asked her to return the dog. Seeing this action from the woman, Calamity simply let loose and tossed the dog back towards the woman. The dog now free from Calamity's grasp let out a whimper as it felt it couldn't retaliate against him in the chokehold. Seeing everything settle down, Calamity decided to walk back in the city and submit his task.
A while later, he arrived in the Mercenary's Tavern and lined up to submit his task. It took a while still but luckily he joined the faster line with the male attendant and submitted his task and received a meager 20 copper. Although it was a small amount, it was easy work. Though, he might have to reconsider since it took longer to line up in the tavern and in front of the city before he was able to submit his task.
With this thought, he went to reconsider his job and decided to continue scouting the area for more job opportunities.