Sung-Il had been in Asterra for less than two days when he made his first serious mistake. It started with a perfectly reasonable thought: if my ability is called Rectum Analysis, maybe I should test it on people’s rectums.
More precisely, on the people attached to them. Looking, he told himself, was research.
"Should I be staring at people’s butts to increase my knowledge?" he muttered, standing in the middle of a market street with a heel of bread earned by sweeping the Guild steps in one hand and Six-Ears riding on his shoulder.
Six-Ears made a small, disappointed sound.
"I’m not asking you."
He wasn’t hoping for much. The Guild had given him a provisional classification and a list of jobs so basic that most of them involved carrying things. His stomach wanted a meal. His brain wanted proof that this ability did anything.
He chose the armored woman standing at a vegetable stall. She was facing away, close enough to touch in three long steps.
One second. Two.
[LOWER TRACT: LOCAL IRRITATION.]
[PELVIC BRACING: INTERMITTENT.]
[CAUSE: UNDETERMINED.]
He had produced three lines of information. None explained why he had mistaken this for a good idea.
Then she moved behind a cart, and the window closed.
He followed to re-acquire it. A clinical interest, he told himself. Extremely clinical.
She was a broad-shouldered, thickly built woman with the posture of someone who had spent years getting hit for a living. A sword the size of a door hung across her back. Her armor was scratched, her boots were caked with mud, and her brown hair was knotted up in a way that said function over fashion.
She smelled absolutely terrible.
Sung-Il’s eyes watered. She stepped around a corner. He followed.
Then another.
Then down another street.
His attention narrowed to keeping her within 5-10 meters. The rest of Asterra became obstacles: a delivery trolley, a hanging rug, a man whose left hand warmed tea.
A mule blocked the lane. Sung-Il moved around it, lost sight of her hips, and lost the reading again.
"You could just ask," he muttered.
Six-Ears nodded vigorously.
"Yes, well. I already made it weird."
At the next intersection he nearly walked beneath a descending goods platform. Its operator rang a brass bell and swore at him in a language Sung-Il unfortunately understood.
The woman looked back.
He pretended to admire a public notice.
"Wowwwww, such a beautifully designed public notice." he said out loud
SUMMON THE WATCH IF FOLLOWED.
He chose a different notice.
By the sixth street, he had learned that concentration did not make his ability stronger. It made him worse at walking.
Sung-Il understood too late that he had followed a stranger into a dead-end alley.
She stopped. She turned around.
"Are you following me?"
"No."
She stared at him.
"Yes," she said.
"No."
"You’ve followed me for six streets."
Had I? "I enjoy walking."
"You followed me into a dead end."
"I enjoy... dead ends."
Her hand slid toward the hilt of her sword.
Sung-Il raised both hands. "Let’s stay civilized."
She moved faster than he thought was possible for someone that size. One moment she was several meters away. The next, his face was against the wall, and his arms were being twisted behind him.
"HEY!"
Rope tightened around his wrists.
"OW!"
"You’re either a thief or an idiot."
"I prefer the second one."
"I thought you might."
She hauled him up over her shoulder like a sack of flour, armor digging into his ribs.
"PUT ME DOWN!"
"No."
"WHY?"
"You’re suspicious."
"I AM NOT!"
"You followed a stranger into an alley."
"...That does sound suspicious."
She started walking. Sung-Il bounced along, upside down, watching the streets blur past.
"Where are you taking me?"
"The nearest watch booth is closed. My farm is two lanes away."
"You could wait for another patrol!"
"I could."
He waited for the sensible part of her answer.
It did not arrive.
Sung-Il went quiet.
"...Your what?"
"My farm."
"Why do you have a—"
"I keep pigs."
He stared at the sky.
"Of course you do."
Her farm occupied a wedge of the lowest tier inside Asterra’s outer wall. Market gardens crowded its neighbors; overhead, an aqueduct carried water toward houses with considerably better views.
The wooden farmhouse stood in quiet watch over a weather-worn barn and a patchwork of sprawling fields, all bordering the muddy expanse of an enormous pigpen.
The smell hit him like a physical attack, and Sung-Il understood exactly why a woman who smelled like that kept pigs.
The pigs were huge and muddy. They looked at him. One snorted.
"I have made several poor decisions," Sung-Il whispered.
On the way, a woman hanging laundry called, "Brina, is that yours?"
"No." said brina
"Then return it before supper."
"I intend to." Brina responded to her
Sung-Il lifted his head & shouted "I’m a person."
"So was my last husband," the woman said, and went back to her sheets.
He took a careful breath. Shouting had attracted attention, but nobody had understood that he needed help. He made himself speak clearly.
"Put me down. I’m not running. You can ask what you want here."
Brina stopped.
For the first time, uncertainty crossed her face. Then she walked the last few steps through the gate and lowered him carefully.
For a moment, with his feet finally under him, he considered leaving immediately. His wrists hurt. Running would probably hurt more.
She set him down on a wooden chair in the yard, looped a rope once around his chest, and tied it to a post. He looked at the rope. Then at her. Then at the pigs.
"This is kidnapping."
"Correct."
He blinked. "At least you’re honest."
"I am." She folded her arms. "Technically it’s detainment pending questioning, but fine. It’s kidnapping. I’ll let you go once I’m satisfied you’re not a threat."
"That’s worse."
"It’s better than the guard post. They’d have booked you for stalking."
"...That is fair."
She cut the rope around his wrists with a knife that looked like it had seen more monsters than he’d seen people, and the thick rope around his chest loosened, though she left it hanging loose across his lap like a warning. Sung-Il rubbed his wrists.
"You’re free to leave," she said. "Once I’ve asked my questions."
"That’s not what free means."
"Close enough."
She headed toward the farmhouse. He watched her lift a full water barrel out of the path with one hand.
No window offered her strength or fighting rank. He did not need one.
He stood, found his knees unreliable, and sat again.
Six-Ears settled beside his boot. At least someone had stayed.
"You could have bitten her," he whispered.
Six-Ears looked at the barrel. Then gave Sung-Il a judgmental side eye.
"Fair."
She stopped at the door. Then she turned. In her hand, she held a folded sheet of Guild paper.
"Good," she said. "Because I want to talk about this."
She unfolded it and held it out.
Across the top, in clean Guild lettering:
SUNG-IL-KOOK.
ABILITY: RECTUM ANALYSIS.
PROVISIONAL SUPPORT CLASSIFICATION.
Sung-Il felt the blood leave his face.
It was the public employment slip he had agreed to at registration.
She had seen his test. She had known his name before he followed her into the alley.
Sung-Il looked from the paper to her face.
"You could have started with that."
"You could have stopped following me."
She set the slip on his lap. Six-Ears settled on it, covering the most unfortunate word. For once, its judgment felt supportive.
Sung-Il opened his mouth, found no useful answer, and closed it again.