The God of Jesters
Chapter 488 - 8.001.1 Jobless hobo.

Chapter 488: 8.001.1 Jobless hobo.

Rudrain was a massive city-state, much larger than any of the capitals in the world.

On size alone, it could fit around five Pulgasiri in its land and there would still be some land left to fill. There have been even people who have said that the city of Rudrain doesn’t qualify as a city anymore.

Some scholars even came forward and coined the term Megapolis to define it. A city made up of cities. The greatest land in the worldwide world.

This is where our story will take place, and if we are going into specifics, then it’s the civilian district of the southern district.

There were a total of sixteen noble fails active in Rudrain, great noble families with lineage going back as far as the time of curses, some of them even used to be exorcist families, though with time, most of their exorcist legacy had been lost in time, but their strength hadn’t disappeared.

No, it’s more appropriate to call them stronger than before, with time and innovation, the confusing and hard-to-master art of Exorcism was no longer needed in this world, there was no need for them to degrade themselves, put curses on themselves just to gain power. Now with their patron totems, all of them had attained a power of their own.

And the four families that handled the Southern District, were the same.

The bloodline that they carried belonged to the Four Auspicious beasts. Totems from old times that never harmed the human world and instead have provided protection to humans for a long time.

They were considered the kindest as well as the oldest among the totems. In the case of their strength, the stories that exist are usually contradictory, so one can’t say for certain. But for totems without a god behind them, if their descendants can reach such a high level in the world, it is proof that some of these stories might not be a lie.

And it was the southern District that Rosso ended up entering.

It seemed peaceful here, just like how it was in the outer areas, the deeper city was pretty much the same.

The people here appeared happy and fulfilled, and there were not many crimes going around, unlike other cities or places around the world. This did feel odd to Rosso for a bit, but on the fourth day of job hunting, he slowly came to accept this as a fact.

Well, not all cultures are the same, and if you have powerful people suppressing you non-stop, there is no time to have any wrong thinking, the best way is to just shut up and follow the status quo.

That was life. And this is how he rationalizes the surrounding reality.

Otherwise, for someone like him with such a nihilistic view of the world, his mind won’t be able to comprehend this city.

’Adapt... if these people are happy for no reason, then I also need to be happy.’ With those thoughts, a slight smile appeared on his lips as well as a more energetic way of speaking. All slowly developed with time as he looked around to look for a library that matched all his requirements for employment.

And he did find a place, a giant library with multiple books as well as floors. There were even magical restrictions the higher one climbs in the library, named the Grand Library of Beasts.

Though as one can assume from the name, this was a library backed by the major noble families of the Southern district and hence only those with prominent backgrounds were allowed in. As for the requirements for an employee, with the books that were kept in this place, it was impossible for the Families to pick anyone at random.

So Rosso’s plan came to an immediate halt the moment he learned of this fact.

Finally forcing him to turn his backup job into his permanent job, that being a butcher. "Do you know how to dispatch a live cow?" The tests were simple. First were the Oral ones over how much Rosso actually knew about the butchery, then were simple questions about the part of a cow’s body and where to cut along, which Rosso answered spectacularly.

Though this doesn’t mean that Rosso is knowledgeable, it’s just the extra useless information that his creator had left for him in his memory, which comes in handy from to time.

"You, were you a butcher in your village?"

"No boss, I studied for it from a butcher during my project, though I never did anything on my own, I did look from the side."

"Study? What kind of study requires learning butchery?" The Butcher had the name of Afzani, lived most of his life in the southern district since childhood, and took over his father’s job when he came of age. There was not much he knew of the world besides the world of cutting animals into pieces.

So he was curious after learning that Afzani was a learned individual, which was rare in this whole world for him.

"I was studying to be a doctor, and there are often cases that we are forced to use animals as standing during our training. Generally, we use rats, frogs, or already dead people. But everyone did that, I thought to go a level ahead and learn about a cow’s anatomy."

"Though, this might have been a mistake in hindsight. The anatomy of humans and cows is too different, studying a cow will have no help in my understanding of the human body. Which is why I got kicked out of college for the audacity to besmirch their name." Rosso didn’t speak the name of the college or go into detail about what and how it all transpired.

And the young Butcher Afzani didn’t mind it much, everyone has a story, just like his father did when he originally came to this city. With time, these stories don’t matter and people eventually become part of this place and then live in harmony.

This is what he told Rosso, who just nodded in response to Afzani’s words.

"You have theoretical experience but not practical one... right?" Afzani asked and Rosso nodded this time, without the need of repeating his story. "Then come and show me your knife work, how much force you can put in the cleaver. Depending on that, you will either work with fish, chicken, mutton, or beef. That is all up to you."

"Though in the case of fish, you would have to train under my father, but for chicken and mutton, you will work under me."

That is how Rosso started to work on mutton. Which was unexpected in Afzani’s eyes, as Rosso didn’t seem like someone with much strength. He appeared as he had defined himself as, a scholar that studied books most of his life.

But in this city, such scenes were common and Afzani didn’t speak much about it after the initial surprise.

He told Rosso the proper knife skills and then left him to his devices, handing him the simple job of dispatching the animal or even cleaning the leather from time to time.

And on week four, when he seemed satisfied with Rosso’s work, he started giving him an actual job, cutting the meat for their customers.

A simple job with active time around the morning and evening, they were usually free during the midday and deep into the night, which was the perfect time for Rosso to hone his own talents as well as explore the city as he looked for the trace he found on the seas.

*****

While Rosso was settling into his new life, something happened in Heroth’s shop. "No one this day as well?" He didn’t need money and selling one of his prized pieces to the Vermilion family would be enough for him to live peacefully for years.

But Heroth was not so shallow, nor was he someone ignorant enough to not notice that something odd was going on. ’My shop’s popularity decreased after that incident.’

Heroth looked at the girl who seemed pretty free recently, getting money to not do anything. Such luck.

Or was it really luck?

’There are four reasons this might be happening.’

’First are her companions, wishing to see how I would react to this oddity.’

’Second the Tigers, it’s their way of taking revenge.’

’Third, once again White Tiger’s, but the initial reason I had so much traffic is that those people wanted to set up a trap, and now with their plan exposed, they abandoned my shop.’

’While the fourth... is the Vermilion, to prevent that trap again, they are barring people from entering my shop.’

’This is all so annoying.’

"Look over the shop, I will be going out for a while." Heroth got up and left, leaving Arahi in the shop alone. Though he didn’t worry about her security, he had paid enough protection money to the Vermilion family, so they would handle it if anything did happen.