The city welcomed us with the smell of sewage and fried onions. For a normal person, this is a stench. For us, it was the aroma of the Market — the only place where death can be converted into liquidity.

  We came to offload the "harvest" collected from the bandits' corpses.

  Gunther dumped a pile onto the counter: bent cleavers, cracked shields, and that same helmet from which the Sergeant hadn’t bothered to scrape out the dried ear of its former owner.

  The merchant, a fat man with the eyes of a sleepy fish, poked the helmet disgustedly with a stick.

  "What is this?"

  "Nasal Helmet," Gunther minted out. "Condition: 90%. Natural wear and tear."

  "Natural wear?" the merchant grimaced. "Blood has soaked the padding so stiff it stands up on its own. Dry cleaning will cost more than this piece of iron. And it stinks like someone died in it."

  "Someone did die in it," the Sergeant confirmed with pride for a job well done. "That guarantees quality. The hit was fatal, but the helmet kept its shape."

  "I’ll give you 50 crowns for the lot. Scrap metal price."

  Gunther paled. His lips compressed into a thin line.

  "50 crowns? That is dumping! The amortization of our equipment was 20 crowns just for Adler’s bandages. A net profit of 30 crowns does not cover operational risks! You are devaluing our labor costs!"

  "The Market doesn't pay for labor costs," the merchant yawned. "The Market pays for presentation. Take it or leave it."

  We took it.

  We left the market with a handful of copper, feeling not like mercenary heroes, but like scavengers who got scammed at a bottle deposit center.

  And then we heard the noise.

  In an alley, by a butcher’s shop, a crowd had gathered. Someone whistled, someone laughed. In the center of the circle, death was dancing.

  A huge Butcher, crimson with rage, swung a meat cleaver meant for splitting carcasses. His target was a skinny youth in rags that hung on him like a sail on a broken mast.

  "Stop right there, you little rat!" the Butcher roared. "Give back the bone! That was a marrow bone for the Burgomaster’s soup!"

  The youth didn't run. He stood in place, lazily chewing a blade of grass.

  The Butcher delivered a terrifying vertical strike.

  The youth didn't block. He just... shifted. Half a step. Without even taking his hands out of his ragged pockets.

  The cleaver hacked into the chopping block a millimeter from his shoulder.

  "Bad timing, buddy," the youth noted in a bored voice. "Too long of a wind-up. You’re spending 4 Action Points on an attack with a 45% hit chance. Mathematically incorrect."

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  "What are you babbling about?!" the Butcher howled and swung a backhand blow.

  The youth ducked slightly. The blade whistled over his head, slicing off a lock of greasy hair.

  "The hitbox on this weapon is broken," the lad commented. "Missed again. You have low Initiative. I could steal your purse, buy a beer, and come back before you finish your attack animation."

  The Sergeant stopped, mesmerized by the spectacle.

  "Gunther, look. Dodge."

  "I see," Gunther narrowed his eyes, calculating. "Given his build (skin and bones) and lack of armor fatigue penalties... His Dodge parameter must be around 70. But he is taking a risk. One RNG error — and he’s a corpse."

  "He’s playing with him," the Captain added. "He knows the cooldowns."

  The Butcher was exhausted. He breathed heavily, leaning on his cleaver. The youth adjusted his rags and winked at the crowd.

  "Show's over. This boss has broken balance, attack patterns are primitive. Boredom."

  The Captain stepped forward, blocking his path.

  The youth looked up. His eyes were a strange color — faded, like dead pixels on an old monitor. The youth’s gaze slid over the Captain’s face, then focused somewhere in the air, slightly above his head. As if he were reading an invisible tag.

  "Mercenary Squad 'The Bums'," he read into the void. "Reputation: Nobodies. Status: Near-Default. Ambition: Survive. Hmm. Interesting UI. Did you install mods?"

  The Sergeant checked over his shoulder sharply to see if anyone was behind him. There was no one.

  "Psycho," he stated, resting his hand on his sword. "Talks to the air."

  "Who are you?" asked the Captain.

  "Me?" the youth shrugged. "I am Jem. Profession: Reality Tester. Current Status: Hungry."

  Gunther stepped forward, opening his ledger.

  "You are dystrophic," he minted out. "Muscle mass — negative. You cannot lift a shield. You cannot hold a spear. Your ROI (Return on Investment) in combat will be zero. Why do we need you?"

  Jem smirked, looking at Gunther like an outdated software version.

  "Shields are for those who plan to tank damage with their face, calculator. I don’t plan to. I abuse the Dodge mechanic."

  "You 'abuse' what?" the Sergeant didn't understand.

  "Mechanics. Never mind. And who collects your loot?" Jem nodded at Gunther's meager sack. "Who crawls across the battlefield and pulls intact arrows out of corpses? Who cuts purses while everyone else is busy surviving? You waste the Sergeant's Action Points on this. It is inefficient."

  Gunther froze. Logic hit him in his sorest spot.

  "Go on."

  "I am a Specialist in Ammunition Recycling and Trophy Logistics. I eat half as much as that jock with the pitchfork, and I run three times faster. I don't take up a space in the battle line. I take up a space in the inventory."

  Gunther looked at the Captain.

  "This is an Intangible Asset. It cannot be digitized, but the potential savings on arrow retrieval... and the speed of loot collection before bodies despawn..."

  "We take him," said the Captain. "He’s... funny."

  "No money!" Gunther cut in immediately, turning to Jem. "We are a startup on the verge of bankruptcy. No salary. Payment — the right to eat what the dogs didn't finish. And half a ration per day."

  Jem broke into a wide smile.

  "Oh, working for 'exposure' and experience in a friendly team? I love indie development. Agreed. Where do I click 'Accept'?"

  "Hired," Gunther sighed, making a note with his pencil. "Position: 'Freelance Looting Consultant'. Probation period — until the first error."

  "My first error was loading into this save file," Jem muttered, looking up at the sky again, to where a mouse cursor should be hanging. "But the art direction here is stylish. Gloomy, gothic, and a bit flat. Like we were all drawn by a depressed artist on the margins of an account ledger."

  The squad moved on.

  Now there were more of us. And now we had someone who looked at this Hell and understood that the textures hadn't fully loaded.