Chapter 22: Chapter 22 – The Team
The two reached a building near the edge of the city while Samson was assaulted with poop-based puns.
"Enough joking around. We're here," Samson said.
Kyle nodded enthusiastically and put on his serious face.
The building was relatively tall. It was quite a bit bigger than Samson's home.
However, it looked more rustic, with most of it made of wood instead of stone.
It kind of looked like a luxurious hunter's shack.
"Good morning, Samson!" a middle-aged woman behind a reception desk said.
"Good morning, Lydia," Samson said. "Meet our new hire, Kyle."
Samson motioned for Kyle to introduce himself. "Hello, my name is Kyle. Nice to meet you," he said.
Lydia was quite surprised. "Hello, Kyle. My name is Lydia."
Then, she turned to Samson. "I thought you said that he isn't good at Sandspeak."
When Kyle heard that, he knew that his chance had come.
Before Samson could answer, Kyle interjected.
"I'm not very good at Sandspeak. I just know how to speak these three sentences fluently."
Lydia looked at Kyle with a raised brow.
Was he joking?
Kyle had to suppress his laughter as he remembered his favorite Family Guy joke.
"I can't discern whether or not you're joking," Lydia said.
"What?" Kyle asked, putting on his most confused face.
"Lydia, he really isn't good at Sandspeak. He's making amazing progress, but he still can't talk fluently," Samson said.
"But he..." Lydia said as she looked at Kyle.
"I am joke," Kyle answered, "I learned three sentence to confuse. Is funny."
Samson had to laugh a bit.
At least it wasn't more poop puns.
Lydia threw a side-eye at Kyle before noticing that Samson found it funny.
The next moment, she laughed politely.
"A good bit of humor hasn't hurt anyone," she said, keeping her annoyance in check.
Kyle raised an eyebrow as he felt Lydia's annoyance. 'Did she not appreciate my joke? I thought it was funny!'
Samson reported his earnings from the last day, and Lydia wrote everything down.
Then, they talked about different things they needed to order for the upcoming weeks.
'Oh, she's the accountant,' Kyle thought as he saw Lydia writing down a weirdly formatted balance sheet.
"I'll show you a couple of things," Samson said to Kyle.
Next, Samson showed Kyle the two wolf pelts they had gotten yesterday and taught him how to turn them into something that could be sold.
Nobody wanted to buy a hide that still had gunk and blood hanging from it.
After about half an hour, two new people entered the house.
Kyle looked over, and his eyebrows rose when he saw one of them.
'Are we in a fucking anime?' he thought as he looked at the crimson-red hair of one of them.
The man with the long red hair looked quite young. His belt carried two thin swords, and he wore the same green leather armor as Samson.
The other person looked more normal. He wore the same green armor as Samson, and he carried the same weapons as him as well.
A polearm and a sword.
He had short brown hair, and he seemed a bit older than Samson. Based on his appearance, Kyle would estimate this man's age to be about 40.
"You're the new guy, right?" the red-haired man asked with enthusiasm. "Hi, my name is Fennek. I used to be the newest member of the team before you joined."
Kyle didn't understand everything, but he got the gist. "Hi, my name is Kyle. I am newest. I am bad Sandspeak. Sorry."
"I already heard," Fennek said, shaking Kyle's hand. "I'm just glad that I'm no longer the newbie."
"Tarren," the older guy said calmly, extending his hand. "I've been here a while."
Kyle introduced himself to Tarren as well.
The two new guys talked to Samson and Lydia for a while before grabbing some stuff from some cabinets.
Some minutes later, another guy arrived.
He looked to be around Kyle's age, which was 24. He had black hair and carried a huge bow on his back. Additionally, tons of different gadgets adorned his belt.
"My name's Lancel. I'm the bowman and trapper. Nice to meet you," he spoke with a friendly tone.
A couple of minutes later, another man entered.
This one had brown hair and was pretty small. He seemed a bit older but not as old as Tarren.
Surprisingly, despite his small stature, he carried a big mace and had a humongous shield on his back.
"Name's Nervon. I'm the Shouter of the team," he said with calm.
"That's everyone," Samson said after Kyle introduced himself. "With you, we are now six members."
Kyle looked at the five other members of the team and nodded in greeting again.
'They seem to be pretty nice.'
"Alright. Let's get to work," Samson said. "Before I assign you your work for today, is there anything that happened yesterday?"
"I think I saw a Tar Golem yesterday," Fennek said.
The others also had things to report, but they immediately dropped their matters when they heard that.
Samson narrowed his eyes. "Are you certain you saw a Tar Golem?" he asked.
"Well, it was about two and a half meters tall and completely black. It had several long claws and many mouths. It also left a black trail of destruction behind. That should be a Tar Golem, right?" Fennek asked.
The mood in the room became more serious.
"Why didn't you tell me yesterday?" Samson asked, keeping his anger in check.
Fennek became nervous when he heard Samson's tone. "I... wasn't sure if it was a Tar Golem, and I didn't want to disturb you during your day off. What if I was wrong?"
"Then, why didn't you tell me?" Tarren asked with a bit of annoyance. "We talked yesterday evening."
Fennek smiled nervously. "I... wasn't sure what I saw, okay? Sorry."
Tarren took a deep breath in annoyance but didn't say anything.
While Kyle didn't understand everything, he used to have an actual job, and he knew this scene very well.
The energetic new kid.
'Bet he just wanted to impress the boss himself by reporting the incident directly to him,' Kyle thought.
"Where did you see it?" Samson asked.
"Near willow two. It traveled west," Fennek answered.
"Nothing too valuable there, but if it continues, it will reach the Mastiff Grounds. We should still have enough time to stop it before it gets there," Samson said.
Then, he turned to Kyle. "Seems like your first day will be a special one."
"I help!" Kyle shouted.
Samson nodded before looking at the others.
"Grab your stuff. We will deal with the Tar Golem right now!"