The Scholar and The Guard | The Kingdom of Ingrid Ch. 1

The Scholar and The Guard

Dragon Subjugation

Job Class: Level 4

Location: Bunduk Siera 🏔️

Job Openings:

Guard (5)

Water Mage (1)

Chef (1)

Scribe (1)

“Join Monsieur Rodrigo in his legendary quest

to tackle a legendary being—dragons!”

I heavily sighed at the one paper with the word scribe in it. “Great, it's a nut job.” I've traveled three towns looking at job postings in the town centers, knocking on all libraries or at any book shops to ask if they needed help from a scholar. I’ve been hapless all week at finding a job, as if my profession is jinxed to not have any valuable contribution to this society.

I read the paper again, and glared at it. A scribe to a legendary quest? That would only mean Mgr. Rodrigo, whoever he is, wants an over exaggerated storytelling of his thrilling adventure on how he will heroically subjugate this never before seen dangerous dragon then publish the writing under his awful sounding name to tell the gullible world of his autobiography and how great of a guy he is, all to feed his narcissistic ego.

I’m gonna bet five silver coins that this is a noble seeking to make a name for himself. But I can’t, I don’t have five silver coins. I don’t even have any silver coins. I look and touch for my pouch inside my vest, feeling it still thankfully fastened to my inner clothes. Well, even if it got stolen, I doubt the thief would be happy. I only have one nickel and two copper coins left. That could buy me around three-fourths of a meal, but no one really sells three-fourths of a meal. I lowered my hands toward my stomach and feel its angry grumble, because the last time I fed it was yesterday morning, and today it’s noon.

“That’s some very deep thought you’ve been having over there.” I looked to my right where the male but relatively high pitched voice comes from. It’s a boy, about my age perhaps, tall, lanky, thin.

“You’re not a guard, are you a chef?” he asks as his hands point towards the job opening list.

“I can cook.”

“But not the professional one, are ya?” I shake my head in response.

“That’s no good, the monsieur’s quite a bit picky with his food he said.” He leans towards the board, looking hard at the list. “You’re not by any chance a water magician, are you?”

“No, I’m not, I’m -”

“‘Cause your secret’s totally safe with me if you are” he cuts me off. I vigorously shake my head before this goes any further.

“No, no. I don't have magic. I'm a scholar.” I say pointing to the last job in the list. 

“A scholar? What's that?” He asks, scrunching his face in confusion.

“A scribe is another term for a scholar,” I explain.

“Oh good, do you have a badge for that or something to confirm it? The monsieur is quite picky on who to hire.” He continues, and I pull out my necklace buried in my dress shirt to show him the scholar’s badge I've custom made to be a pendant. “Looks good enough to me,” he says chirpily.

“Are you the recruiter for this job?” I asked following in his steps as he started to walk away

“We've been looking for a scribe for a week now, y'know, and it seems today is our lucky day,” he gruffs and replied.

Huh. “I guess I'm destined for it.” As much as I find the work degrading to my abilities, I find myself accepting the prospect of being a scribe. I can’t really afford to be choosy anyways, I need a job asap.

“It has decent pay,” the boy tells me. “You get five nickels everyday, the travel's a minimum of fifteen days. You receive ten nickels upfront upon joining.” My eyes shine, forgetting about my disappointment, ten nickels, that could buy me lunch and dinner.

“If you're interested -”

“I’ll join.” I immediately replied, catching up with his strides and stepping in front of him. “I'll take the job.” I repeated.

“Good, come with me then. I’m Dru.” The boy grins and offers me his hands. I shook it.

“I'm,” I hesitated for a moment, “I'm Anggus.”

Dru tilts his head, looking skeptical at what I just said, “Anggus doesn't sound like a good name for a cute girl,” he mutters. I felt the back of my neck heat up from the embarrassment that my disguise as a boy was easily seen.

“If you must know, girls aren't really hired much for jobs.” My features are way too feminine for disguise.

“Ah, I get it. But I don't think the monsieur would discriminate by this time. He's been itching to go for a few days now.”

“What's stopping you from proceeding?”

“He insists a scribe must come, a legitimate one.” 

“If you want to keep up the boy look, I think you should rough up your face more,” he tells me. “No boy looks that clean,” he says while studying my face.

I continued to follow him towards a tavern, as he opened the door the smell of caldereta wafts in my nose. “Ugh, that smells heavenly,” I comment, feeling my mouth salivate.

“You sure darn it is. It's a goat by the way. Aleng Nena’s specialty on Wednesdays.” We turn towards the counter and he orders two servings of caldereta and five cups of rice, four for him and one for me.

We sat on a corner, and waited for the food to arrive. “It’s my treat this time,” he says.

I’ve been assuming, but, “That’s awfully generous and seems suspicious,” I comment looking at him.

Two medium bowls of caldereta are brought to our table, with a big plate with stacks of rice. I can’t just wait to dig in, but I also can’t eat without knowing what the deal is.

“You’re going to take the job won’t you?”

“Yes, and?”

“You can just pay me later, or buy me the same meal next time.” My hands start to move towards the spoon. Whatever wariness I’m feeling is being overwhelmed by my hunger for the delicious, creamy and cheesy goat meat in front of me.

“Um, then, thank you so much for the food,” I say and start to dig in. The moment I take a bite I feel my shoulders slump as a multitude of flavors barge in my mouth. Combined with white rice to balance the strong flavors, this caldereta is a jackpot. 

“Whatever Aling Nena put in this, it’s so good,” he smiles at my reaction as he starts to eat his share too, ravenously if I might say.

“Do you think she’ll mind sharing her recipe?”

“No, I don’t think so, but she won’t just give it to you on a piece of paper.”

“Right.” I say nodding. Nothing’s free in this land, if it’s not an exchange of money, it’s an exchange of services.

“So, tell me more about this quest.” I started the conversation after some silent time of eating. “How come a crack job offers decent pay?” I say.

“That’s what makes it good.” He laughs. “I guard while hiking through the mountain, which I enjoy, and you write some paragraphs or whatever it is you do. We stay in the mountains for a while, while the monsieur looks for his dragon, then we come down the mountains, and get paid.”

“That’s what happened in the last two parties I joined. It’s like free money,” he says, winking at me. “I take the guarding as a side quest, and think that I’m just exploring Bunduk Siera. It’s a majestic mountain you see. It has a never ending range, and there’s a lot of different animals there, birds we could hunt and taste the meat of.”

“And the dragon?” I ask, because it’s been the thing that’s puzzling my mind this whole time about this job.

He scrunches his eyebrows and scoffs, “Not one sighting, you have more chance of seeing those giant slow crawling creatures, y’know the one that has an oval armor, very hard shell, over its body?”

“Giant Pagong,” I say with widening eyes.

“Is that what it’s called?” He looks at me unsure. “Anyways, that, and I know that’s a rare sight.” It sure is. I’m suddenly excited with the prospect of seeing all kinds of creatures I’ve only been reading in books. Perhaps, there’s a saving grace to being a scribe for a noble after all.

“So, why are there multiple job calls for dragon subjugation? I’ve been seeing some since Listu.” I talked while munching on my meat, recalling the hours I spent going back and forth in the town centers of Listu to look for work, to Mizaat next, then finally here, at Hagonoi.

“The first party I came with says there’s a sighting recorded by a credible author. It ought to be a secret. But all the lower Sinayan nobles have been forming groups ever since in search of it.” See? I was right, these are minor nobles trying to make a name for themselves, hoping to be famous and get big. Because they luck out being born in the lower families, and were not trained as well as the fortunate ones, or they don’t just have the magical genes and therefore are not as talented as the once bred in the main line of the noble Sinayan family.

I know the feeling so well. It’s because of these noble ass pricks that I am forced to fend for myself in the streets. Dramatic much, but I could have been a palace scholar, a researcher. I was doing well in the academy, I’m not the best, but still above average. I could be having 1 silver pay a month, and I would be enjoying tea in the morning reading through records of the divine creatures that once lived in this land, well, before the humans got strong for some reason and inhabited it to be this shit pile of brick and mud and rocks.

Life was going to be good. Not great, but still good. If it wasn’t for that shitprick of a dickhead accusing me of plagiarizing when he copied from me. Ugh, my head throbs from the recollection of it, and that was just a month ago.

“So, we commoners take advantage of these nobles' dumbness and get a living out of their stipends?”

He laughs at my retort and nods his head. “That’s how it is.”

“I don’t get it, everyone knows, dragons are legends.” I say as I eat the last of the food on my plate, cleaning it all up.

“Surely you’re familiar with the mantra.”

“All legends are real.” We both say.

“It’s because of this that the people of Ingrid have fun y’know, because once in a while, the nobles pretend that they’re after an adventure, and we commoners can tag along.” He says, already standing up, leaving ten nickels on the table.

“Alright, are you full and ready? We might just embark today.” Standing while still drinking my water, I follow his movements with my eyes as he starts to go towards the back door. This boy really doesn't wait, does he?

I put the half-empty glass down and grab my bag, following his direction. I guess I’m out for an adventure.