It was a beautiful morning, and after inquiring from people left and right, I approached the Bounty Hunter building. The individuals here were much better dressed, and with my poncho, I felt like a homeless person. However, the rugged look might also make me look the part. The building itself stood three stories tall and featured a somewhat Byzantine architecture. As I made my way inside, a clerk sat behind a desk. Moving towards him, he looked up from his ledger.

  “Hello, how does one join the bounty hunter's guild?” I tried to maintain a neutral tone, considering the importance of first impressions.

  He glanced me over and asked, “Well, it depends on your skill set. This is a dangerous business, but judging by the glint in your eye, adventure is all you crave.”

  “Actually, money would be my focus, as I’m pretty much destitute. Adventure can come later,” I replied, opting for honesty.

  “Well, the high-paying contracts are certainly dangerous,” he pondered for a moment. “But people don’t pursue bounty hunting solely for the money unless they possess some specific advantages that can’t be leveraged elsewhere as easily.” After a brief pause, he continued, “The entry fee is 5 dinari, and we take 20% of any bounty you complete.”

  I had 8 dinari, courtesy of Alira, so it was somewhat expensive, but it was what it was. After paying the fee, he jotted something down in his ledger and gestured for me to wait on a bench.

  “Is there a board listing contracts that I can browse?” I inquired.

  He looked at me with a scornful expression. “What kind of establishment do you think we’re running here? Do you think you get to choose assignments on your first day? Didn’t I already mention it’s extremely dangerous? So no, you’ll have to wait until a more seasoned hunter requires assistance. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours. They get a discount for taking on new members.”

  Waiting for hours was again not my preferred way to spend my day, but what could I do? “Do you happen to have a book I could read to pass the time?” I asked, not expecting much help from him.

  “Do you think this is the Church of the Light? If you need something, get it yourself,” he replied indignantly.

  After several hours of waiting, I managed to catch up on some of the sleep I’d lost the previous night. My only entertainment was watching the various comings and goings, and over time, I started to notice certain patterns.

  Most hunters operated in pairs or trios. The job was undeniably dangerous; over a third bore some kind of facial injury, whether from burns or scars. I figured if their faces, the least likely to get injured, looked this bad, they must have plenty of other wounds hidden beneath their clothes. It also seemed that men dominated this profession, as I saw very few women.

  Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, a man asked me to follow him to an interior courtyard. It was a typical training ground, with dummies and racks of wooden swords. I was directed to a medium-sized man, clearly in excellent shape.

  “Hey,” I greeted casually as I approached the man.

  He glanced up, his eyes scanning me briefly. “Get rid of those rags and grab some decent tunics and pants,” he said, nodding toward a rack to my right.

  I picked out some clothes that seemed to be my size and looked around before asking, “Is there a place I can change?”

  He let out a sharp snort. “You think this is some noble ball?”

  At least I still had my boxers, so it wasn’t as embarrassing as it could’ve been.

  “You’re tall and broad-shouldered, but that belly of yours looks more suited to a noble than a farmhand. Pick up a sword, and let’s see what you can do,” he said, ready for action.

  “I’m not the sword type; I’ve never held one before,” I replied, feeling rather uncertain.

  “So, not a noble, then. What class are you?”

  “Mage.”

  He chuckled. “Then that explains the belly.”

  “Hey, I don’t have a belly, ok maybe a little, but nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Let’s see what you know. We can’t be sending people who perish on their first day out into the field,” he said, taking a wooden sword and approaching me.

  He was fast. In three swings, he clipped my leg once and my shoulder twice, but the Shield deflected them. He punched me a few times, but they were also deflected. He must have assumed that the speed of the attack might factor in. He circled me, but clearly, he didn’t know how to proceed. His puzzled expression changed as he feigned a sword attack. When I lifted my hand to deflect, he took the opportunity to let the sword drop and seized my hand by the shoulder. In a judo-like maneuver, he threw me over his shoulder.

  I discovered the hard way that the mana shield did not cushion falls that well. It made sense; you need something to slow you down. As the saying goes, it’s not the fall that kills you, but the sudden stop. I’d never taken a judo class, so the fall knocked the wind out of me. Breathing became easier after a while, but the pain followed soon after. Seeing me not getting up, a smile appeared on his face.

  “You’ve got some unique talent, I’ll give you that. But if you rely on it exclusively, it’s going to get you killed,” he said, adopting a professorial tone. I was grateful that he had imparted the lesson here rather than in the field.

  I quickly realized that the spar had attracted the attention of two men, and they were approaching me.

  The first man eyed me, a look of interest on his face. “That’s an interesting skill you have there. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “I am a man of many skills, and by many, I mean one,” I quipped.

  The second man spoke up then. “Well, it just so happens we have a new contract, and we could use a third.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Do I get to inquire about it, or does the newbie simply say, ‘Sir, yes, Sir’?”

  “We travel to the troll hinterlands far out east. Some noble’s first son bit off more than he could chew and got himself captured or killed, or worse. His father would like to know for sure, being his first son and all. It’s very good money, but very dangerous.”

  “Trolls like to eat people first and ask questions later,” the second man explained, his tone serious and cautious.

  “You had me at trolls,” I laughed, and the first man smiled as well. He seemed to be the more personable one.

  “My name is Viper, and my stoic friend here is Steel. Yes, these are not our real names, and if you want to be a bounty hunter, you should have a short name. It’s easier to remember for the clients and all that,” Viper said, extending his hand for a handshake.

  I hesitated for a moment, thinking. “Call me… Spark. No, that sounds like a programming language.

  Don’t worry about it, it’s perfect, welcome to the team,” Steel said, shaking my hand as well. After a quick thanks to the trainer, whose name I didn’t even catch, we were on our way back to the desk. I really should ask people their names.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “So, you mentioned good pay. How good are we talking about?” I inquired.

  “Hmm,” Viper began, as if calculating something in his head. “50 dinari,” he replied, sounding confident.

  “Well, before I haggle, how much time do you think this little expedition will take?”

  “Two or three weeks, with travel time. It depends on the condition of the roads and other complications that might arise. So, it’s better to be safe and say three weeks,” he replied honestly.

  The dinner with Alira at the inn cost 30 silver, and it was a modest meal. Assuming proportions were similar to those in my world, with 100 silver equaling one dinari, it would be a rough estimate, but the monthly salary here seemed to be around 60 dinari, which made 50 dinari seem very low for three weeks of dangerous work.

  “Double it, and we have a deal,” I countered. A little haggling was expected.

  “Welcome to the team,” he said, looking overly pleased. It made me wonder if my haggling skills were atrocious or if my math was off.

  “We leave at first light tomorrow. Meet us at the eastern gate at sunrise,” he instructed, and with that, we parted ways.

  I made my way back to the inn, and it was late afternoon by the time I arrived. After a generous late lunch or early dinner, I slowly realized that everyone used horses for travel. I doubted I would be sitting in a wagon the entire way.

  I wasn’t a complete novice. My grandfather had two horses when I was little. No, he wasn’t rich; he lived in a village that resembled a third-world country where animals were essential for making a living. Granted, I was ten at the time, and those few lessons, if you could even call them that, might not amount too much. But I believed I remembered the basics: move with the horse. Sure, there was a big difference between riding a horse and sitting atop one, but how hard could it be?

  Since I still had time until evening, I decided it was time to try improving my spells, especially the Mana Shield. It had kept me alive three times now, but twice it had almost failed. I needed better odds.

  The note mentioned a fifth fundamental force, so it had to obey some rules. Clearly, it interacted with the other forces. If I could understand these interactions better, I might be able to enhance my Mana Shield significantly.

  If mana was a fifth fundamental force, it likely had its own set of rules and interactions. I needed to experiment and observe how mana behaved under different conditions. I began by casting my Mana Shield and subjecting it to various types of impacts.

  Physical damage was the first test, and by far the hardest. It’s not easy to hit yourself with a board that has a nail sticking out of it, especially when you’re trying to put any real force behind it. Self-preservation instincts are tough to override. Thermal damage, on the other hand, was relatively simple in comparison—I just took a bath, gradually adding hotter and hotter water, with and without the shield. And for magical damage, I zapped the water while still in the tub. Thank god no one saw me; they’d have thought I’d lost my mind. Hell, if I told anyone back home I was willingly electrocuting myself in a bathtub, they’d have locked me up and thrown away the key.

  The more I practiced, the more familiar I became with the sensations the shield created whenever something struck it. It began to feel like an extension of myself, and with each attempt, I could sense improvement, at least in understanding the feedback from the skill. Practice, it turned out, really did make a difference.

  I noticed that the shield seemed to absorb and dissipate energy more efficiently when the impact was spread over a larger area. This reminded me of the principle of pressure distribution in physics—the same reason why a bed of nails can support a person’s weight without causing injury. I decided to try to incorporate this principle into my shield, visualizing the spell to distribute incoming forces more evenly across its surface.

  Next, I considered the concept of resonance. In physics, resonance occurs when a system oscillates at its natural frequency, absorbing energy more efficiently. I wondered if there was a way to make my Mana Shield resonate with the incoming energy, allowing it to absorb and dissipate even more effectively.

  I spent hours experimenting, imagining the shield with different frequencies and amplitudes, trying to find the optimal resonance for my shield. When the lightning felt less harsh on my Mana Shield, I knew I had a winner.

  I also explored the idea of layering my shield. In materials science, composite materials often exhibit superior properties due to their layered structure. I tried creating multiple layers within my Mana Shield to see if this would enhance its durability and energy absorption. I had seen how carbon nano tubes looked under an electron microscope, so all I thought when I activated the Shield was a forest of them layering over each other.

  After more hours of experimentation and refinement, I finally had a new, improved version of my Mana Shield. It felt stronger to any hit I subjected it to, and I was confident it would work even in field conditions.

  It was well into the night, and Alira was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t like the idea of leaving just a message for her. However, the night wasn’t getting any younger, and I needed to get some rest. A day of riding was going to be a nightmare. So, reluctantly, I went to sleep and asked the innkeeper to wake me half an hour before dawn.

  ─── ????? ───

  In the morning, Alira had not returned. I left a message with the innkeeper, but realizing that I might never see her again was surprisingly tough for me. I had only known her for a few days, but she was my friend, my only friend, and losing that was very demoralizing. Should I just go back and wait for her? No, the message was there waiting, explaining that I would be back in three weeks. She had a job, an important one at that. She had other things more pressing than babysitting me.

  As I was deep in thought and beginning to feel a little sad, I was startled awake by a familiar voice.

  Alira’s voice broke the silence. “Did you miss me?”

  I raised an eyebrow, surprised by her sudden appearance. “Some, not a lot,” I finally managed, though my face clearly showed my surprise.

  Seeing my reaction, she grinned. “I told the Governor about you and your unique skills and that you were thinking about a life of bounty hunting. I convinced him to offer you a job. He was skeptical, but when we got word about your impending troll expedition, he sent me to observe and rate your performance.”

  “That seems like a lot of trouble for little old me, especially since you’re some kind of spy or whatever they call you here,” I said, doubt creeping into my voice.

  “Well, it wasn’t exactly convincing him,” she admitted, sounding a bit more honest now. “More like him ordering me to keep an eye on you after I told them what you could do.” There was still something off about her words, though. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I chose not to dwell on it.

  I nodded, trying to push away the nagging suspicion. “Well, I’m glad you’re coming with us.”

  “Don’t get all teary-eyed on me,” she teased, adjusting one of her stirrups.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” I replied, though the sincerity in my voice probably gave away more than I intended. Just then, Viper and Steel arrived, making their way toward us.

  Alira’s gaze shifted to me. “How much are they paying you?”

  “I haggled for 100 dinari,” I said, my voice uncertain, as if I was second-guessing my own decision.

  “You should’ve asked for double,” she remarked, her smile widening at the apparent joke. “It’s troll territory. They eat people first and ask questions later.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard that delightful saying,” I replied, trying not to sound too swindled. “But I didn’t really have a reference point to base my sum off... and they did double their initial offer.”

  Viper and Steel nodded in acknowledgment as they reached us. Viper, always the talkative one, addressed Alira first.

  “Not that I’m complaining, but why are you coming with us? Doesn’t Malachor have a non-aggression pact with the Troll clans?” His tone was curious, but not accusatory.

  “You know how trolls can be,” Alira said with a shrug, though there was a hint of doubt in her voice. “Maybe I’m here to prevent you from doing something that could jeopardize the treaty.”

  Looking at me, Viper continued, “Well, then, mage boy here must have your undivided attention, then.”

  This was getting frustrating. “Why does everybody think I’m fifteen? I’m twenty-seven,” I said, surprising even Alira with that revelation.

  “Really? With your cheerful disposition and looks, I didn’t think you were over twenty,” Viper commented.

  “We have really good skincare where I come from. I don’t know what else to tell you. How old are you, then?” I asked, looking at him, then at Steel.

  “Thirty-one,” said Viper. Now it was my turn to be shocked; I guess these people led hard lives. He looked forty, easily. “Steel is almost forty,” he continued, and by now, I was expecting him to look even older.

  “And you, Alira?” I asked. I was sure she was going to dodge the question, but it had to be asked.

  “If there is one thing that must be true in all the worlds in existence, it is that you never ask a lady her age,” she said matter-of-factly.

  The men smiled and mounted their horses, as did Alira a moment later. They motioned to an extra horse they had brought. Well, there’s no time like the present to relearn things.

  However, after three unsuccessful attempts to mount the horse, I was starting to feel tense.

  “Have you ever ridden a horse?” Steel asked in a very serious tone.

  “I may be a little rusty,” I admitted, but I avoided his gaze.

  “Rusty? I know toddlers who can’t talk but ride better than you.”

  The insults would keep coming. So, taking a deep breath, I forced myself to keep trying, and finally, after a few more tries, I succeeded.

  “Finally!” Viper exclaimed.

  As we started moving, the horse was clearly maintaining a normal pace, but I was somehow out of sync with him, and the mana shield did not cushion the hits. Even the horse seemed annoyed; I guess its back hurt as well.

  Steel added, “You know how I said it’s gonna take three weeks? Well, it’s gonna take four weeks now, guaranteed!” They all started laughing, and eventually, I joined in.

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