8 Shocked

Franco returned with two 'standard blasters', the name because everyone has it. Every civilian posses this type of weapon for their safe keeping. To be honest I want to try the gun but I curb my enthusiasm and waited for Franco to take a seat.

"Transfer 60 credits to my account. Also the winery and storage are in the underground 2nd floor go familiarise with them. From tomorrow your job is to clean the winery, check for faults in machinery and start brewing as soon as you get used to the machine. Do note though, if you make mistakes while brewing large scale the loss will be paid by you. I hope a student of Zeldik would be much better than that."

"I'll take good care of the winery."

As I said that I transfer 60 credits to his account.

" I have one more request, do you have a gym around here where I can exercise and practise shooting a bit?"

He looked me up and down, like me was measuring me or something, ugh. He then looked at my face dubiously and asked,

"Why do you want to excercise? Do you want to fight someone?"

"No, it's just that I want to improve myself. That's it."

"Oh, is that so, here I thought you were training to fight whoever badmouth about your brew. The last guy who brewed wine trained like hell and fought a lot of customers who badmouthed his brew. But his last fight was with someone even clan couldn't mess with. So he died like that. You better not have any thought like that. Understand."

What the hell is this. The wine maker trained to fight whoever badmouthed his creations. 'Damn, that sounds cool but it's just stupid. So he died because he picked a fight with a wrong guy? No wonder they say stupid's and good guys don't live long'. I thought to myself and assured him,

"Don't worry about it Franco, I don't have that kind of fetis-.. I mean habit like that. It's just to keep my body healthy."

After hearing me Franco scrutinised me for a while and threw me a card. I caught it and looked at it. It looked a lot like my own room card.

"This is Brawler's room. I mean the last wine guy. He worked here for 5 years, so while he was here he turned one of the useless storage room in UG 2nd floor into his own private room and he made a gym in it. You can use it for now."

What kind of name is brawler anyway. "Thanks Franco. I'll head straight to the brewery and start getting used to it." I said this and ready to walk out of his office, I heard "Wait-"

"If you want to access the elevator you need a workers ID. Wait a few minutes I'll get it done. Show me your citizen ID I'll register you in our internal terminal."

I did as required. But I was wondering, this guy who looked like he was born with those muscles was a tech guy. Fascinating. Maybe, these work can be done by anyone? I don't know only time would tell. As I was left alone I was wondering, what to do after now that I have secured a place to train.

'I should train as hard as possible and reach a certain amount of strength before I can do anything'. As I was muddled in my own thoughts, Franco was done with the work it seems. He just threw an another card at me and nodded "Don't lose it, kid."

"Yeah, I won't." I said that and walked out of the room and stated heading towards the bar. I'm hungry and I didn't anything proper since yesterday night. I want to find the cafeteria and eat. Then I'll head to the brewery and get used to it after that I'll go the room and check out the gym.

I did as I planned. I returned to the counter where I saw the fox and gamora look alike and started a conversation.

"Hey beauties, sorry for not properly introducing myself before. I'm Justin silver. I'm the new wine maker. Do I have the pleasure to know you ladies?"

Well, I gained their attention successfully, then the fox lady then replied "Ara~Ara~ how sweet of you little gentle man. I'm Kumiko and the lady next to me is Arora." I suddenly got goosebumps all over my body. Hearing the famous Ara~Ara~ in the anime is different that hearing it in live. Cause the first thing I felt was calmness wash over me, me, who was suffering from mild anxiety from the moment of the first contact with an alien species.

It felt unreal for a moment but my clarity soon came back. Something is wrong, I don't think this manner of speech belongs to some alien race. What's going on. My reaction was not unnoticed by those two women.

"Ara~ why we're you on the edge while I was talking? Are you afraid of big sis?"

OMG. This is absolutely same as Japanese anime Onee-san's way of taking. I mean I'm happy that I'm talking to a fox Onee-san. But it's confusing. She must have her own back story.

"It's nothing Ms. Kumiko, it's just that, your manner of speech is a bit familiar. So please don't worry about it."

"Ara~ don't call me Ms.Kumiko, call me Onee-san, that's how you call a big sister in my country."

That's it. She spoke Japanese now. Onee-san is Japanese. I'm sure. I couldn't hold it anymore.

"Kumiko- san are you from Japan?"

"Japan? No my country is called Nippon. Is there a problem?"

Nippon? Isn't this an ancient name of Japan. God, she is from earth isn't she. Maybe she doesn't even know the word earth. So I decided to make a jump. I started talking in Japanese.

" Komiko-san, Konnichiwa, wathashi mo nihongo shaberimas" (A/N: sorry guys if I butchered this sentence. From here on I'll just use English and mention if it was said in Japanese. the translation for the sentence is 'komiko-san , hello, I too can speak Japanese.')

I heard a audible gasp. Kumiko-san was shocked when she heard me speak Japanese. She looked at me top to bottom, she suddenly grabbed my hand tightly and started asking question in Japanese.

"Are you a human, Justin-Kun? How are you here? How do you speak Japanese?"

"Relax, Kumiko san. Yes I'm a human. I'm here because my parents came to this planet by accident, I don't know much about it. I know Japanese because, my parents taught me how to speak and the history of our home planet. What about you? How did you end up here?"

Yup just a mountain of lies again. I hope I don't get into a bad situation because of it.

As Komiko wanted to reply, Arora suddenly interrupted us,- "hello, translation please. I don't understand a single thing you were speaking."

To which komiko apologised, "I'm sorry Aro-chan, I was just excited to meet a human here."

Then Arora asked with a face full of confusion-", Are you from the same species? you don't look alike."

Kumiko then sighed, she then answered!-"we are not of the same species. Just same planet."

I had multitude of questions to ask so I did what I want and asked her,

"Komiko-san when and how did you arrive here. Sakaar is not a place people want to come willingly."

To which she smiled a little sadly, "First of all let me introduce myself. I'm komiko Kaguya. I'm a fox spirit. I don't know if you have heard of our kind?"

"Yes, I have. You must be a fox who lived long enough to gain human appearance. I don't know much about it but I know what a fox spirit is."

"Yes, something like that. We used to live in nippon as a mountain guardian for as long as we live. But during the 200th year of Edo period, some exorcist were greedy for money, they stopped hunting ghost and started hunting for mountain spirit." She looked sad, and then continued

"I was their second victim, supposedly. I was greatly injured by a group of exorcists during the fight but managed to escape. As I was severely injured, I couldn't hold on for much longer and passed out near a river.

I was woken up by the smell of delicious food near a fire place. At first I panicked, then I looked at the man who was making the said food. He looked like a ordinary villager and was not a exorcist. We got to know each other, we fell in love with each other and we were living happily with each other for quiet some time.

Somehow my existence got leaked and the exorcists started hunting me. I told him that I'll leave the place to let him live his life but he insisted on coming with me. We ran away from them for years, we hid in mountains and caves and lived like a nomad but we were happy with each other.

During one of the hunt I lost my focus for a second, so one of the exorcist almost dealt a deadly blow on me. But suddenly Ken shielded me from it and got seriously injured. I a fit of rage I killed all the exorcist but by then Ken was almost in the verge of death. Even in his last breath he got me to promise him that I'll live a good life. He was happy that he saved me with his life.

After he died, I couldn't live in that land anymore. So I disguised myself and headed to the famed west. I boarded a ship and traveled a long journey. Months after our ship's departure we got in a heavy storm and that was the last memory of my planet. The next thing I woke up in one of the dumpster in Sakaar. Sorry I just kept on talking about myself. It's just been a long time since I met anyone from my planet."

Wow, just wow. This story was like a mix of current Japanese and Korean T.V series. I do indeed feel bad for Komiko-san. But damn, I think this story would do well in T.V.

"Don't worry about it Komiko-san. I'm happy to hear about our home planet. The edo period you were talking about is more than 100 years before my parents came to this planet. So have you been here for that long."

I probe her about the timeline I have been thrown to. To which she answered,

"No, I'm only been here for just 20 years. It's because the presence of cosmic gates the time is little affected around the planet or it must because of the travel through the cosmic gate itself."

So still no confirmation on timeline.hmm it's a little bit worrying but doesn't matter. I could only worry about those things after I get out of this planet. As I was thinking my stomach made an embarrassing sound, damnit, I should have eaten something in the morning. To not further embarrass myself I just diverted the topic,

"I would love to talk more about it komiko-san. Could we exchange contacts since we are colleagues and from the same planet?"

"Ara~ Justin-Kun, are you trying to flirt with this Onee-san by asking comms details."

Well she sure is back to her Onee-san form as opposed to the sad self who was explaining her past. But this is good.

"Sure, if you want me to flirt with you, I'll sure try doing it."

We were suddenly interrupted by Arora who was busy with the bar while we were talking.

"Komiko, I think it's enough catching up with that fellow, could you please help me out here?"

Looking her distressed, we chuckled and at the same time komiko got ready to do her job,

"Let's catch up an another time Justin-Kun." To which I replied,

"Sure, I have to go to canteen too. Bye"

Then we said goodbye to each other but not before we exchanged our contacts. I then left for the workers canteen to eat my first meal of the day.