My Grim Reaper Class: I can kill anything.

Chapter 5: The Richest Idiot Who’s Still Poor

The receptionist looked up from her newspaper when Nathan pushed open the guild door.

For the first time all day, she looked directly at him.

And for the first time all day, there was something on her face that wasn’t annoyance or disinterest.

It was surprise.

Genuine, unfiltered surprise—the kind that experienced professionals don’t show unless something has completely exceeded their expectations.

Nathan approached the counter and handed over the wooden token with the number.

"Mission complete," he said.

She took the token without taking her eyes off him.

"You’re alive," she replied.

"Yes."

"You’re alive and not injured."

"Correct."

"And the slimes?"

"Dead."

"All eight?"

"All eight."

She stared at the token in her hand for a moment. Then she opened a drawer beneath the counter, pulled out a small cloth pouch, counted eight silver coins with the precision of someone who’d made that gesture thousands of times, and slid the pouch across the counter toward Nathan.

Nathan didn’t take the pouch immediately.

"About that," he said.

"About what?"

"About the mission. There’s something I should report."

"Did you kill someone?"

"No."

"Did you break something?"

"No."

"Did you burn a field, a house, a barn, a forest, a bridge, a wagon, or someone else’s livestock?"

"No."

"Then I’m listening."

*That list was specific. She’s made that list before. Probably more than once. Probably this same week.*

"The slimes weren’t slimes," Nathan said.

The pen the receptionist had just picked up to log the report stopped halfway to the paper.

"Go on."

"They were undead slimes. Level four. Hollen told me they showed up normal four days ago, but by the third day they already had red eyes, and one killed his dog. He sent a second paper to the guild to correct the report. That paper never made it to the board."

There was a long silence at the counter.

The receptionist set the pen down on the paper without writing anything yet.

"Undead," she repeated.

"Undead."

"In an F-Rank field."

"In an F-Rank field."

"Where we sent a newly registered Hunter with one active skill and no weapons."

"That’s a pretty accurate summary."

She ran a hand over her face with the slowness of someone actively restraining several things at once, none of which would be professional to express out loud.

"I’m going to have to open a file," she said.

"Probably."

"I’m going to have to talk to whoever is sorting the board papers."

"That also sounds necessary."

"And I’m going to have to adjust the payment."

Nathan raised a hand.

"About that."

"About what now?"

"I’m not going to ask Hollen for the difference."

The receptionist stared at him.

"What?"

"The actual reward for a D or C-Rank undead mission is considerably higher. You know that. I know that. But the farmer offered eight silver coins because that’s what he had, not because that’s what it was worth. If we demand the difference now, he’ll lose more than the dead slimes can compensate him for. Just pay the guild what he originally paid and leave it at that."

"You’re going to accept only eight silver?"

"I’m going to accept only eight silver."

"For killing eight undead."

"For killing eight undead."

"That you had zero statistical chance of surviving according to the original paper."

"Apparently the statistics were wrong."

She looked at him for a long moment.

*She’s calculating something. She’s trying to decide if I’m stupid, generous, manipulative, or all three at once. The good news is that I’m not even sure myself.*

"Fine," the receptionist said finally. She picked up the pen and began writing the report in fast, precise handwriting. "I’m going to mark the mission as completed at the original price. I’m going to open an internal report about the board’s misclassification. And I’m going to note in your file that you recommended not charging the client the difference, which will build you a reputation with the guild even though it won’t build you coins—which, in case you haven’t noticed, are what you exchange for food in this kingdom."

"I’m aware."

"Apparently not fully, but fine. Take your pouch."

Nathan took the silver pouch. It felt appropriately heavy in his palm. Eight coins. The exact sum of a good week’s wages from the job that no longer existed.

"There’s something else," Nathan said.

"Of course there’s something else."

"On the way back, before I left the farm’s range, Soul Sense detected something else toward the Gray Forest. Something big. Non-living. It wasn’t a slime. It wasn’t eight slimes. It was something the size of several people, concentrated, waiting."

The receptionist stopped writing.

"Soul Sense?"

*Shit. I shouldn’t have said the technical name.*

"A detecting skill," Nathan said, as casually as possible. "It detects non-living things within a radius."

"That’s a very specific Class skill."

"It is."

"Classes with undead detection skills are extremely rare."

"They are."

"What Class do you have, exactly, Mr. Voss?"

*And there it is. The direct question I still wasn’t ready to answer honestly.*

Nathan took a second before speaking.

"One that I should probably discuss with a Guild Master before discussing with a receptionist, no offense."

She narrowed her eyes.

"That means one of three things. One, you have a rare Class. Two, you have a very rare Class. Three, you have a Class that at some point is going to result in this office receiving a visit from someone with ecclesiastical authority."

"Which of the three would you prefer?"

"None."

"Fair."

She sighed. Finished writing the report. Sealed it with a red wax stamp she took from a drawer. And filed it in a cabinet to her right that had the words **PENDING HIGHER REVIEW** engraved on the front.

"The report about the Gray Forest will be processed," she said. "If what you felt is real, someone with sufficient rank will investigate it. That’s not your problem. Your problem, right now, is much more immediate."

"Which is?"

She pointed at the silver pouch in Nathan’s hand.

"You have eight silver coins. The cheapest inn in Greywall charges one silver per night. That gives you eight nights of shelter if you don’t eat. Four nights of shelter if you eat once a day. Three if you eat reasonably. And zero—exactly zero—if you spend that on anything else before securing shelter and food."

"Noted."

"The first thing you’re going to do is find an inn. I recommend The Black Barley, two streets north. It’s not fancy, but they don’t rob customers, and the food won’t kill you. The second thing you’re going to do is eat. The third thing you’re going to do is sleep. And tomorrow morning, before you take another mission, you’re going to go to the used equipment market at East Plaza and invest some of your remaining silver in something that doesn’t look like you stole it from a beggar, because no Hunter is going to take you seriously while you walk around dressed like that, and neither will potential clients. Is that clear?"

Nathan nodded, perfectly attentive.

"Crystal clear."

"Good." She handed back a small numbered token. "This is your mission completion confirmation. Keep it. And for the love of whatever god put that mark on you, don’t take—"

She stopped.

She looked toward the board at the back of the guild.

Then she looked at Nathan’s hand.

Where there was a folded mission paper that he didn’t specifically remember pulling out but had clearly torn from the board at some point during his walk from the door to the counter—an act so automatic and so utterly unconscious that he didn’t even know when it had happened.

There was a silence.

Nathan looked at the paper in his hand.

The receptionist looked at the paper in his hand.

"You’re an idiot," she said, with the calm of a clinical observation.

"Honestly," Nathan said, also looking at the paper, "I don’t exactly know when I took it either. It was like my hand moved on its own. My brain was listening to you, and my hand was at the board."

"You’re an idiot."

"I’m processing that information."

"My advice still stands. Inn. Food. Sleep. Clothes. In that order. Then you do the mission. And if you walk back into this guild wearing the clothes you have on right now, I swear by the seventeen gods that I will make you sign up for the mandatory professional presentation course for F-Rank Hunters—a course that I invented three minutes ago but will make real specifically for you."

"Message received."

"Have a good night, Mr. Voss."

"Good night."

Nathan turned toward the door with the silver pouch in one hand, the token in the other, the folded new mission paper in his inner pocket, and the general sense that this woman had gone from ignoring him entirely to being invested in his personal survival in the span of less than three hours—which was emotional progress in a direction he didn’t exactly know how to process.

Before crossing the threshold, he looked over his shoulder.

"What’s your name, by the way?"

She looked up from the next paper she was already processing.

"Mira."

"Just Mira?"

"Just Mira."

"Nice to meet you, Mira."

"The pleasure is statistically improbable, Mr. Voss."

"Harsh but fair."

Nathan walked out into the street.

---

The Black Barley was where Mira had said it would be, two streets north of the guild, with a carved wooden sign that had exactly the dignity expected of an inn whose name included the word ’black’ and a drawing of an ear of grain.

The interior smelled like soup, old wood, and managed humidity—a significantly better combination than Nathan had feared. There were about seven or eight occupied tables filled with people who seemed working-class and bored in equal measure, a bar in the back, and a man behind the bar wiping a glass with a gray rag that had clearly once been white.

Nathan approached.

"A room for one night. And something to eat."

The man looked him up and down. Nodded. Pulled a key from a hook behind him and slid it across the bar.

"One silver for the night with breakfast. Two extra coppers for tonight’s dinner."

Nathan handed over one silver coin and two coppers.

"Anything else?"

"You a Hunter?"

"Newly registered."

"Mmh." The man evaluated him for another second. "Free advice. Don’t talk about missions in the dining room. Half the people in here right now sell information to whoever pays best. If you need information, go up to your room first, and tomorrow at the market ask at the stalls. The stalls charge for information, but they don’t sell it to the next buyer."

"Noted."

"Dinner will be up in fifteen minutes. Room number seven, second floor, all the way at the end on the right. The lock is old but it works. Don’t open the window at night—the air from the forest brings things."

"What kind of things?"

"The kind you don’t ask questions about in an inn."

"Fair."

Nathan took the key and climbed the wooden stairs to the second floor.

---

Room number seven was small, reasonably clean, with a narrow bed against the wall, a table with a pitcher and washbasin, a chair, and a window overlooking a narrow alley with a view of the opposite wall of another building. No fireplace. There was a thick blanket at the foot of the bed that was clearly there to make up for that absence.

Nathan set the silver pouch on the table.

He sat on the edge of the bed.

And for the first time in four days, he wasn’t walking, he wasn’t being evaluated by someone with institutional authority, he wasn’t fighting undead creatures, he wasn’t justifying his existence across a counter.

He was just sitting.

In a room.

That was his.

For one night.

*Wow.*

*Wow, this feels weird.*

He took off his boots carefully. Set them next to the bed. Took off his jacket. Hung it on the back of the chair with the same careful attention a rich man would use to hang a silk cloak, because it was literally the only thing he owned.

He took the folded mission paper from his inner pocket.

Unfolded it.

> **PACKAGE TRANSPORT**

> Deliver sealed package from the North Road Inn to the office of Merchant Brenwick, in Greywall.

> Distance: three kilometers. Open road, regular traffic.

> No confirmed threats on the route.

> Reward: 5 silver coins.

> Difficulty: Minimal.

Nathan stared at the paper for a moment.

*Five silver coins for walking three kilometers with a package. That’s ridiculously easy. That should be literally impossible to mess up.*

His Soul Sense, somewhere at the back of his perception, wasn’t saying anything particular about the north road.

Which should have been reassuring.

And yet, for some reason that had more to do with his experience over the last six hours than with any objective evidence, it wasn’t reassuring at all.

*Tomorrow. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.*

He lay down with his clothes still on. Closed his eyes.

The smell of soup drifted up the stairs from the dining room.

In fifteen minutes, he was going to eat hot food for the first time in four days.

And tomorrow, he was going to buy new clothes.

And after that, he was going to deliver a package.

*Escaping poverty, step by step*, Nathan thought, already half-asleep. *Literally.*

He fell asleep before the soup arrived.