6 I'm someone who's a butcher for fun

Helmut's morning wasn't exactly a pleasant one.

Like a child who found a new toy he stayed up majority of the night to experiment with yet unnamed miracle drug (and totally not some dodgy doping, trust me) that could potentially put out all optometrists, eye surgeons and prescription eyewear sellers out of their jobs for eternity if it could be mass produced.

Each dose permanently increased two stats by 0.1 while also providing a temporary +1 buff and enhanced night vision for roughly 5 minutes, give or take a couple seconds. Feeling adventurous (and sick from ingesting the disgusting powder several times in a row) he had a brilliant idea of making a "potion" so to say; too bad that mixing powder with water instantly destroyed any magical properties it had, leading to him losing some of the precious medicine.

Unable to vent his frustration through hair-ripping ritual (due to not having any), Helmut had to make do with some healthy screaming and pounding on the wall. Needless to say, his neighbor was happy to come over for a visit and share his gratitude on being awakened in the middle of the night, but quickly left after seeing the wild look in Barker's eye when he opened the door to meet the guest.

In the end Helmut barely squeezed about four hours of sleep before D-Day.

Turning off the blaring alarm clock he kicked off the sheets and soldiered on to the bathroom. High Willpower was really useful for making yourself suffer and do what you don't want to do. All of masochism's drawbacks in one neat bundle without any of the pleasure involved, what a deal!

Fifteen minutes later he was lightly jogging towards his gig at the Farmer's Market which was surprisingly somewhat bustling despite it being six in the morning.

Finding granny *cough* auntie Feng opening the storefront, he was quickly put to work as old Feng curtly showed him the ropes and almost exploded at every little thing that wasn't done perfectly.

"(Somehow these two are even bigger arseholes than me. Almost tempted to call the Guinness World Records guys here to immortalize this miracle in print.)"

After spending half a day either at the cashier, buzzing around like a busy bee with a mop, or handling out already dead carcasses to the starving masses, Helmut finally snapped.

Using the fact that old witch left to answer nature's call and the little dried up tyrant wannabe pissed off to get smokes, Helmut didn't hesitate to "secretly" shit-talk the already prepared wares and highly promote fresh, still breathing animals to housewives and aging matrons who visited the joint. Moved by the young man's honesty (and promise of hefty discounts if they opt to buy more than one), they all readily agreed.

Many a head rolled in those short fifteen minutes.

The very second he could catch a breather from customers, Helmut ducked for cover behind the counter and called for his trusty tome.

Covering his mouth did little to help with keeping a borderline psychotic giggling from escaping his mouth.

His little gambit actually worked.

Although the gains were miniscule when compared to what he got from the Green Dwarf (whatever that thing was, he never got to see it now that he thought about it), he still received evolution points from both the hens and fish he slaughtered.

Now there was no need to brave the Dust World unprepared and gamble with his life - nobody stopped him from brazenly grinding exp from defenseless creatures here at the market and attempting to raise his physical stats in the next month or ten before attempting another go.

"(Actually, screw the Dust World! I'm never gonna go there ever again, how about them apples? I'll simply become an übermensch after slaying chicken for a year!)"

"(Fine, maybe I'll visit Japan's Dust World in a couple of years in search of some feral catgirls to tame. Ehehe...)"

His glee was rudely interrupted by the returning old couple that wasn't amused at their new hire doing whatever he wants with the place the moment they look away for a second, but they have severely underestimated young sith's power now that he was 200% motivated to keep his newfound workplace even if that meant ducking it out with the owners to the death at the Coliseum.

Knowing full well what kind of people these old shrews were, Barker quickly brewed a story of how he was a transfer student from Cui Hu University and received a graduation work assignment from department of economics to choose a local business and boost its revenue by at least 50% by the end of the year.

Not allowing them to call him out on his bullshit due to not having any ID papers or phone numbers of professors who could prove his claims, Helmut quickly popped the cashier open and showed them how much he managed to earn in a short amount of time they were away thanks to his five years of economics education (read: bullshittery and low-tier cunning) and the noticeable decrease in their available livestock.

That quickly made them change their tune, to the point of treating Helmut like their own grandson.

The rest of the day flashed by in a heartbeat, leaving Helmut very satisfied with his haul of evolution points and pittance of a daily paycheck. His back and shoulders however were very salty about the whole "good day's work" thing. Which was unsurprising, considering his terrible physical endurance and the fact he didn't partake in any honest work for a long time.

The sheer amount of constant travelling and dire need of funds made him quite good at quick cons and non-violent crimes: anything from helping drunks to get home to their wives while he cleans out the guy's pockets, to pretending to be a trained tour guide and duping gawking tourist into hiring him to spout pure improv as he leads them around town "sightseeing", with most mundane college dorms suddenly growing a noble pedigree and sprouting historical legends connected to them. His crowning achievement, one he took most low key pride in, was selling in a day a couple hundred makeshift tickets to a free arboretum open to the public, then selling three tickets "at half the price because he likes them" to the cops that came to investigate his Totally Officially Sanctioned endeavor to raise some extra funds for the park to buy more exotic plants for visitors to enjoy. Needless to say, he had to catch a train and skip town the very same evening before the gig was up.

Resisting the urge to immediately invest all of his hard earned points into Endurance, Helmut went over to harass the herb guy for the second time. After exchanging 'pleasantries' with one another, both managed to achieve their desired outcome - one his money, while the other got his day's fix of some of that good shit.

On his way out Helmut overheard a group of rabid gossipy aunties and quickly backpedaled to listen in on their conversation. If life taught him anything, is that old scandalmongers in sleepy towns were scarier than any governmental intel teams and knew everything about everybody. If you discard the "who secretly fornicates with whom" bits and the obviously made up stuff, you just mind end up learning some juicy info to exploit.

Which he did. Another point for the Gossiping Aunties team.

He got a name - Xu Xiaodong. After doing some digging at an internet cafe with noisy teens playing StarCraft with zerg bass boosted hisses blaring from the speakers, Helmut found out more about the guy. Apparently he was a decent MMA prizefighter and had his own kwoon with a couple dozen local disciples, but all of that went down the shitter when he challenged and publicly humiliated a tai chi "grandmaster" on the ring, wiping the floor with the old con artist in less than twenty seconds. That alone would've been fine, but Xu became blinded by the sudden five minutes of infamy and ability to make a quick buck, that instead of jumping off while he still could, he stayed on the train barreling towards a cliff. The more powerless scammers he beaten and siphoned money out through betting, the louder they cried to the government that "a big meaniepoopoo is undermining muh China #1 face, send help plz".

You knew what would happen.

I knew what would happen.

But somehow Xu didn't, despite being alive when Tiananmen debacle hit the stage, and witnessing the 'mercy' of chinese higher-ups in all its glory.

You'd think just that singular event would be enough for an ordinary citizen to think twice about anything they do and say.

And yet Xu ended up adopting a surprised pikachu facial expression as his social credit score plummeted to rock bottom, his teaching license revoked and disciples that followed him for years avoiding him like a plague.

A tragedy of one person often ends up being a fortune for someone else however.

Helmut needed to build up his body, which would be a long and arduous task if undertaken on his own due to lack of knowledge, experience and proper training gear.

For someone who ran on fumes in financial terms, it wasn't viable to get a fancy gym membership, let alone join a legit martial arts school. But now he knew about a professional sportsman who became a social pariah with no real ways of earning 'any' income, which smelled of a good opportunity to capitalize on.

It was too late for a visit, so that had to be postponed until tomorrow.

After some drive-by shopping at the grey market Helmut got himself an old banged up camcorder and got to sell a couple cellphones and wristwatches he 'found' at an earlier date.

With cash in hand he visited a private clinic for a medical checkup and to make an x-ray map of his entire body to take with him. He was intrigued what sort of visible internal changes there will be after a month or so of abusing his stat sheet.

Naturally, he would have to visit a different clinic at that point.

It's one thing to send others to the chopping block, but being yourself introduced to a butcher's knife at some shady underground research lab is a whole another story.

Mako: "This story shall also be told."

No.

No it wouldn't.