Night watch

On the night´s sky, countless stars were shining brightly. The crickets were chirping owls were hooting and most of the hunters already drifted off to sleep.

However, two tired hunters came into the shelter tiptoeing around to not disturb their precious sleep.

Arthur shook a sleeping figure and whispered. "Mark, it´s your shift."

To his surprise, a deep echoing voice spoke up. "Wrong person."

"Oh sorry, my bad Kevin."

On the second try, Arthur got the right person.

Mark turned around with the grimoire in his arms. "Huh?"

"You even sleep with that thing? Nevermind, it´s your turn to keep watch. Watch out for nearby monsters. Agnes had to chase off several wolves."

"Uh-huh"

Mark crawled out of the shelter still half asleep and sat next to the fire. Just about a minute later Owen also got out.

"It´s quite cold." said Owen.

Without saying a word Mark tossed a piece of wood into the fire. The duo kept on watching the flame flicker as the wind blew by.

"Why did you become a hunter, Owen?"

"It was ... well I´d call it a momentary lapse of judgment." he answered with a chuckle.

"A lapse of judgment? I don´t know about you but I didn´t accidentally stumble into becoming a hunter." said Mark a little confused.

"No, I was just a bit stupid when I was younger. I was working as a mechanic since I was twenty. Thinking that I had some money saved I decided to get a mortgage for a house. Bad, bad idea it was. Don´t try to get a house at such a young age if you don´t know what you´re doing."

"Okay"

"I got injured and since I didn´t have insurance the debt piled up. Then came a series of poor decisions that got me to borrow some more money to pay off my mortgage. It just became a cycle of borrowing money to pay off a loan and then borrowing more money to pay off another loan. When I thought that they´ll take everything from me I awakened."

"That´s quite the luck." Marveled Mark.

"Yeah, but just so you know, the bad decisions didn´t stop there. The Zeus guild approached me with a great offer. They told me that If I joined the guild they´d give me enough money to pay off all the debt I had. My 25-year-old self jumped on the offer immediately and signed the contract without ever reading it. Well If I actually read it then I would know how bad the contract actually was."

"Is it restrictive?"

"That´s not giving it justice. It´s like a slave contract. I can´t travel from New York. I have to respond to the guild´s call to action every time without compensation. I can´t get another job. If I break the contract I´d have to pay more money than I ever got my hands on. So I´m stuck working for the Zeus guild for six more years."

"That´s insane."

"Uh-huh, so what about you? Did you think about joining a guild?"

"After what you told me how could I not?" Mark said with a chuckle.

Owen smiled at the joke and told Mark. "It's all about how much you can haggle with the guild. Evelyn for example has an excellent contract."

"I don´t really want to join one right now, maybe I will when I get older, but at this moment it´s not necessary."

"I´ll tell you this one little pro tip, alright? What happens a lot is that hunters and porters get ill or injured and they can´t participate in a raid. When that happens they try to fill in the place with random hunters. If you have a friend working inside a guild and ask them, they will let you join the raid. It´s a great opportunity to see for yourself how different guilds operate."

"Yeah, I don´t know a lot of hunters, but I will gladly join in on your raids."

"You know what? After we get out give me your contact info and I´ll call you if we get a free position in the future."

"That´d be awesome. Thanks a lot."

"You´re welcome. By the way, I wanted to ask this question, but you seemed quite busy at that time. Why did you write that light spell?"

"Oh, you mean the sunstrike? I don´t know. It was fun, I guess."

"You can´t use it inside a dungeon, though."

"That doesn´t really matter. Maybe a time will come when it will come in handy. Who knows? It´s not like I don´t have enough pages for new spells."

"How many have you got?"

"Right now if we don´t count the sunstrike draft then I have 11."

"Wow, that´s a lot. I have four while Agnes has only two. I don´t even know an S-rank with that many, maybe Mr. Young. You´ve got something special in your hands, Mark."

"It´s nothing that grand. I´m just lucky. I´m not even clearing dungeons that are on par with my rank. There are definitely people who could do greater things with this ability."

"That doesn´t matter. It´s you who got this ability, not anyone else. Don´t listen to people saying that hunters don´t deserve their powers. It´s your own power and I believe you will do amazing things in the future."

"You could be a motivational speaker. Did anyone tell you that?"

"Yes, actually Agnes did."

"That makes sense."

The duo talked through the night under the shining stars. The flickering flame slowly burned out as the sun rose on the sky.