The eight coins were not an opening offer.
They were a distress signal.
Kessa took Jin by the sleeve and led him down the path. The man with the board followed, pointing at the picture as though Jin might choose this moment to become literate.
A timber fence buckled beside a cluster of houses.
Lanterns burned beneath the eaves.
Something behind it struck again.
“Yes,” Jin said. “I recognize the applicant.”
The animal pushed through the gap shoulder-first. Four low legs, a tiled back and a tail that thickened into a pale, knuckled club. A broken rope dragged from its neck.
It swung at a man holding a rake.
The rake disappeared.
The man sensibly stopped holding it.
Two guards hauled him behind a grain wagon. Kessa jabbed the creature's snout with her spear, drawing it away from the houses. The club swept past her boots and smashed the fencepost she'd stood beside.
She moved her wrapped wrist out of the flying splinters.
Jin looked at the coins. At the club. Back at the coins.
“There's definitely a zero missing.”
A card opened.
DAILY QUEST — A SEAT AT THE TABLE
OFFER THE ATTACKER A SEAT BEFORE YOUR FIRST ATTACK.
ONCE SEATED, REMAIN SEATED UNTIL THE ATTACKER STRIKES A CHAIR.
REWARD: EXP +12.
Jin shut his eyes.
The man with the money started speaking faster.
Jin pointed to a stool outside the nearest house. Then he held up two fingers.
The man stopped speaking.
“I don't like this interview either.”
Kessa drove the animal back with another thrust. The point slid across its plated snout. It ducked beneath the wagon and began shoving the wheels sideways.
Jin helped pull a second chair from the porch. He set it on the open strip beside the wagon, took off his outer shirt and draped it over the back.
The man looked at the shirt. Looked at Jin.
Jin pointed at the creature, then invited it toward the empty chair with both palms.
“Please. Your appointment.”
Kessa saw the shirt move in the wind. She stopped prodding the beast and backed around the wagon's opposite end.
This unapproved copy came from a chapter the author publishes on NovelPhoenix, where reading supports their work.
It followed her spearpoint out. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
Jin walked the clear strip from his own stool to a patch beside the wagon. Three short strides. Hard earth, no wheel in the way. He returned to the stool and kept that trace.
FANTASY ROUTE REGISTERED. PREVIOUS ROUTE REPLACED.
He sat down and put both hands under the seat.
The creature turned.
Its eyes caught the fluttering shirt.
Jin held very still. The entire village seemed to have discovered a window facing him.
The man with the coins whispered something.
Jin nodded gravely.
“I have no idea what I'm doing.”
The man smiled back and sat in the empty chair.
Jin's shirt fluttered behind his neck.
“No. No, that's the other candidate's seat.”
The man patted his purse and began what sounded like a very firm explanation of the price.
Jin leaned forward without leaving his own stool. He pointed at the club, the chair and the club again.
The explanation slowed.
Jin mimed a head exploding.
The man stood so fast the chair rocked. He snatched his purse against his chest and retreated behind the wagon.
Kessa watched him pass.
Then she looked at Jin, sitting alone in his undershirt, and briefly pressed her face against the spear shaft.
The creature's tail drew back.
He selected Replay.
His boots hammered the earth. He clutched the stool to his backside as his legs drove him along the recorded strip in a frantic seated scramble.
The club came down on the empty chair.
Wood burst like a dropped crate of fireworks.
Jin reached the patch beside the wagon, still attached to his ridiculous seat.
DAILY QUEST COMPLETE: EXP +12
LEVEL 5: 13/15
Somebody cheered.
The beast lifted its club from the wrecked chair. Jin's shirt hung from a splinter.
“That was my second-best one.”
It looked at the empty wreck. Looked at him.
It charged.
Route Register was still recovering.
Jin threw the stool aside and ran the ordinary, deeply unsatisfactory way. The club struck where his back had been. He felt the wind of it lift his undershirt.
A guard caught his elbow and swung him behind the wagon.
The beast rammed the opposite wheel.
The wagon bounced toward them.
Jin shoved the guard clear. His own shoulder caught the rail. A sack split overhead, showering grain down his neck.
Kessa shouted from the far side.
He peered through the spokes.
The animal had its head beneath the axle. She stabbed between its front legs. It kicked the spear aside, but its left forefoot jerked away from the point.
Soft there.
The club hit the wheel.
A spoke snapped. One of the iron bands sprang loose with a whine.
Jin dropped flat.
It passed above his head and clanged against the house behind him.
The man with the board looked at his wall.
He put the board down and added two more coins to the pile.
“Now?” Jin demanded. “Now you've found the budget?”
The guard beside him laughed once, in the wrong place, and immediately stopped.
Jin took the short spear the man offered.
ROUTE REGISTER: READY
He could use the same strip. End beside the wagon, plant the spear under the creature's front leg while Kessa kept its head turned.
He pointed through the spokes.
Kessa followed the line, then nodded.
Jin stepped to the start.
The beast pushed its head farther under the axle.
He selected Replay.
Its tail hooked the broken wheel.
The wagon lurched sideways.
Jin's committed route ran straight into it.