Apocalypse: Fairy System, Macronomicon [ebook offline .TXT] 📗

Zlesk gave him a calculating look before he sighed. “Fine.” He drew out the cabinet drawer and retrieved an official-looking document.

“This is a recommendation for the Hunter’s Association.” He spoke as he filled out the paper. “Their members handle things like bounty and monster hunting.”

“How about gathering herbs or killing rats in cellars?” Jeb asked.

Zlesk cocked an eyebrow. “No. That’s stupid.”

“Just checking.”

Zlesk filled out Jeb’s information and then wrote a short note at the bottom of the page.

“There. You have my official recommendation. You should have no problem joining the Hunter’s Association with that. Go get yourself killed.”

“Much appreciated. I’ll make good use of it,” Jeb said, giving a keegan bow as he took the piece of paper and folded it into the breast pocket of his new clothes.

Jeb clomped his way out of the station, wincing at the early morning sun. He walked down onto the main street and waited until he was out of sight of the station.

Fool me once… Jeb thought, unfolding the paper. He snagged a keegan passing by.

“Excuse me, what’s this say?” Jeb asked, showing him the note on the bottom.

The keegan scanned the script, then gave Jeb a glance, letting out an amused snort before he continued walking.

Yeah, I thought so.

It took a couple more tries before someone actually read it aloud for him instead of laughing.

‘The man you see before you is a simpleton. Please blacklist him from the Hunter’s Association before he gets himself or others killed. —Zlesk Frantell, Sheriff of Kalfath’

“Aw, he really does care about me,” Jeb said as he walked away from the laughing keegan, scanning the indecipherable scribbles. It wasn’t too hard to isolate the signature.

Gonna need a pen, Jeb thought, clinking his remaining stack of ten silver coins together.

After a little shopping around at the Hunter’s Association and eight silvers’ worth of bribes for inscription and translation, Jeb had an identical application paper with a glowing recommendation, minus the sheriff’s signature of course.

Jeb did that part himself, moving ink one iota at a time, stamping out a perfect duplicate of the man’s signature with his telekinesis.

Jeb Trapper is a resourceful former soldier whose accomplishments during the Tutorial more than qualify him for the most difficult jobs. Give him a task and let the results speak for themselves.

—Zlesk Frantell, Sheriff of Kalfath

Text lies counted as well, of course, but none of it was a direct lie, and the only thing Jeb wrote himself was the sheriff’s name and title, oddly close to another statement that was totally true. There must have been enough layers of separation between him and outright lying, because Smartass gave him the go-ahead.

“You’re still good,” Smartass said, giving him a thumbs-up.

“Nice,” Jeb said, inspecting the two papers closely before burning the original.

“Thank you, Zlesk,” Jeb said, folding the recommendation and slipping it into his new vest pocket.

The Hunter’s Association was more...mundane than Jeb expected. It smelled like a boxy office in an abandoned mall, of must and faint cleaning agents.

The lighting was decent, owing to a bright bulb in the ceiling Jeb was fairly sure was magical, but the edges of the carpet were frayed.

From the fantasy novels Jeb had read in the past, he half-expected it to be filled with rough-and-tumble types, drinking beers between missions…

But who the hell would give guys like that an excuse to clump up and start trouble? Let them go to the bar and cause trouble there.

Nope, this place was designed to be somewhat inhospitable. There were a couple chairs next to a desk with a bunch of papers suspended in little wooden cubbies…

That’s it! Jeb thought to himself, snapping his fingers. This place reminds me of the DMV, except less popular.

There was a bored-looking melas woman, somewhat overweight, with snaggleteeth and arms as thick as Jeb’s thighs. Her skin was a more sickly shade of orange than most of the horned folk.

“Bree! You’re still here!” Jeb said, clomping forward. Bree had helped him get a blank application earlier in the day. She was dour, but helpful.

“And you’re back,” she said, sourly. “Whaddya want?”

“Zlesk gave me his recommendation,” Jeb said, handing her the note and not bothering to mention that the one he was handing her was not Zlesk’s recommendation.

“This it?” She grunted, taking it out of his hand.

Shit!

“It’s got his name on it, doesn’t it?” Jeb asked, projecting as much innocence as possible.

Bree raised a brow and scanned the document before pulling out some more paperwork of her own, filling it out in triplicate and then smashing the papers with a giant stamp that rattled her thin-boarded desk.

Jeb was half worried she might punch a hole through it, but the rickety thing held up like a champ.

“You left your bank account information blank,” she said, pointing to it.

“Don’t have one,” Jeb said.

“Your funeral,” Bree muttered, making a note. “Half the stabbings on this block are when some fool walks out of this office with a juicy bounty that they had to receive in person.”

“Sounds like it’d be a good idea to get one,” Jeb said.

Bree grunted and nodded, continuing her work until she finally slid all the papers away under her desk and met his gaze.

“Alright. Paperwork’s done. If you come back with a bounty, we’re authorized to pay you now.”

“Nice,” Jeb said.

She stared at him.

He stared at her.

She stared at him.

“You gonna give me a bounty or something?” Jeb asked.

“What? Lorten’s dick, is that what you’re hanging around for?”

“Let’s just assume I don’t know anything about how the empire’s bounty system works,” Jeb said.

Bree heaved a rumbling sigh and opened the front of her desk, where it lifted up on