Allow me the opportunity to describe the city. Some things I will say, you will dislike; though I hope not to take too long, you should know this happened a long, long time ago, and the city in the present day is much happier. This is not true, but if you felt warmth in your heart hearing it, then it is true.
In the great buildings lived the nobles. In the greatest building lived the king. A king is a man who spends many hours on his throne, saying things, and sometimes those things are believed and acted upon. When they are not, he tells his guards, who are strong and armed, to make it so, and they obey, because they are paid by him.
This is what is meant when the king asserts he is the most powerful man in the realm: he is listened to by others. For those of you readers who have wives or girlfriends, you know what it is like to not have power.
Nobles have some relation to the king, by inheriting a blood relation or by purchasing one. They have power in that, when they wish to do something, the king sometimes does not interrupt them. Sometimes he forgives them if their actions have dire consequences, though many a wise man and many wise books say kings should be merciless, and kings like to be wise.
In smaller buildings lived everyone else, who are given no power, except concerning their own life. This was a good social contract, as they had no need for power. They had so little need for power that they often gave it up so as to be in a deficit, because they were much happier listening to other people’s demands, at least, so they were told.
Let me describe a common routine in the city. A man desires food and drink, which are alien needs to the nobles. He opens his pockets; he has none. He sees other people with food and drink, but, because they have so few of it themselves, they, reasonably, deny him. This man is simple, but he is not stupid. He recognizes that, in an ideal world, he has something to give to them, so as to compensate their own time in acquiring food. He wishes he could till and farm land; alas, he has no land; he wishes he could in some way acquire raw materials and create things people would need, as shoes and tools; alas, he has no materials; he wishes he could perform some service for people, even as humbling as cleaning their shoes; alas, he has no tools. He turns to the nobles of the city, who have much gold in their possession; he wishes to be in service to them, for some gold. His service, however, is valueless to them. His right to own property, to own his employment, and to own his wages, all of which in effect allow him to own his destiny, are slightly more valuable. He then sells these things to a noble. (In truth, he would not speak to the nobles, but rather their surrogates, as they are often too busy riding horses, attending picnics, enjoying their lives, essentially.) In return, he is given a receipt of sale; the noble has his own reproduction.
Thus, every morning, the man takes this receipt, demonstrates it to a workmaster, who then gives him a menial task, as finding a needle in a haystack, or counting the grains of sand in an hourglass, or watching paint dry, for some bread, some drink, and some lodging that night, for he had none before he approached the workmaster. When the workmaster denies him work, and therefore food, he chastens the man, saying that he gave him food yesteryear, and should be grateful he is so lucky. Astounded by the moral wisdom of the workmaster, the man turns away without any food but is grateful he is surrounded by such upstanding people.
As his stomach grumbles, and he is subjected to his human needs, and he fears his time on earth is short, he finds time to scoff at his fellow man who does not rely on receipts. In truth, all men of his birth and status have receipts, but some are lost in bureaus, thrown away, or used to wipe duck fat off of the nobles’ lips. Some of these free men cursed themselves for losing their receipts, and longed to find a noble who would purchase them. Some of them, through extraordinary luck, had the means to acquire something by which they could deliver goods and services unto others. Unfortunately, they were unable to sell their wares at the quantity and the price they liked, so as not to compete with the nobles’ businesses, and thus they were unlikely to be much happier than their fellows.
There must be a word for a class of citizen whose freedom has been entirely given away, such that these individuals are homeless in the outskirts of the law and justice, subjected to the cruelties of the wilderness of the human soul, that being their masters’. Alas, the word, if it exists, eludes me.
The kings and the nobles liked this system. The system had been with them since the time of their ancestors, which meant it was a good idea, and less rights meant less to think about when flogging the citizens.
Outside of the city were smaller towns and villages, who were protected in part by the city. They hoped to be so small that they were ignored by more powerful people, and often this was the case.
The folk of the forest, who were given a subtle intelligence alongside their brutality, scoffed at the humans, found them inferior, and attacked the citizens often on the basis of their contempt, which necessitated the city’s tall walls, for they believed in the law of the strongest, which law the king liked so much that he made it his law too. For the king was an optimist at heart, and thought good ideas came from many sources, and the goodness of an idea was proportionate to how much it made him happy.
If you, the reader, find anything of this objectionable, then let me paint you a different picture: the people of the city are happy, and spent all of their days baking bread, watching their children play, knitting sweaters, and being good neighbors. They are happy because the wealthy among them treat them well, give them good employment, thereby sharing the fortune of their wealth in exchange for honest hard work, and do not think themselves above them. The king is a just man, who abstains from relying on his heavy hand, and indeed nothing compels him to be a king, no privilege and no pleasure, except for the joy that comes from ruling his people justly and wisely. There is no disease, for mages cured it; there is no war, for mages stopped it; and there is no hierarchy, for mages like to share. The citizens are content being human, and the forest folk are content being forest folk, and people have many good reasons to be happy, for there is no reason to be sad.
If you like this picture, know that I like this picture too. I stare at it fondly and with a wide smile on my face, when I take pauses from reading this tale to you, for the picture of the world of our hero is not like this picture at all.
Our hero was fortunate to find a recruiter. Even more fortuitous was that our taskmaster had a very long list of jobs which were in demand and no one wanted, and a free afternoon that hitherto consisted only of staring at the sole beer he could afford, and he tried to abstain from drinking until lunchtime.
Our hero was pleased with the list the recruiter produced. Finally, he would be a valued member of society, with a role others considered intelligent and good, and attractive. He thought that, if he was not destined to be an adventurer this life, then surely he was given an opportunity to correct the mistakes of his last one. He chose the most honorable profession on the list.
Our hero did not do very well as a doctor. He did not have enough strength to cut through flesh and bone, which was the primary role of doctors in the new world, and he could not bear administering mercury to children or pregnant women.
He did not do very well as an attorney. Much of an attorney’s day involved visits from the king’s men, who had very strong opinions concerning trials, and broke several bones if the attorneys disagreed, and other bones when they were very bored.
Neither did he do well as a tutor. It was not a difficult job, as the city folk knew so little, that they did not know they were being taught anything. However, they largely paid in pies that were spoiled. They further did not like being taught how to draw manga.
He did not do very well as an accountant. It was not a difficult job, as nobles enjoyed lying about the heights of their wealth, yet when it came to paying him, they suddenly had empty pockets.
He did not do very well as an engineer. He felt there was no safe way to make buildings and bridges out of sawdust, and felt this was related to the reason why the last engineer was executed.
He did not do very well as a computer programmer. No one understood how his job was of any use.
Our hero did not do very well as a therapist. He felt that people led worse lives than he did, and yet he felt he was living in the worst one.
He did not do very well as a census taker. Half of the citizens did not know their birthdays, half of the citizens were too inebriated to care, and half of the citizens punched his face.
He did not do very well as a recruiter. He asked the recruiter, if the labor market was able to regulate itself, why it was so difficult to find competent workers for certain jobs, and why certain professions, being unable to attract quality talent, did not improve their conditions. The recruiter wondered this all his life.
The string of bad jobs was, overall, an experience. Fortunately, the recruiter earned eighty-percent of his wages. As he went to the place for each job, he walked by the Adventurer’s Guild, understanding quietly that he desired most in this new world to enter the doors of that building, pick up his sword, and fight monsters with his brave companions. He held onto this wish as he went through his day, and it was here that his madam offered him a role. The most attractive part of this opportunity was that she did not need the clothes he did not own, though he did need to take a loan out for a nipple ring.
It did not take long for a client to come in through the door and choose him. This patron had an unusual appearance: as a witch had cursed him, half of his body was of a pig’s.
As a result of his brutish appearance, he abandoned any pretense of being a gentle lover. He pinned our hero to the stained, lice-infested bed and made to thrust in his genitals, which also resembled a pig’s. Less than a minute of hiding the cucumber, our hero felt this job was not meant for him and ran to the madam to resign. This was not difficult to do, as it took the customer less than a minute to relieve himself.
Our hero’s resignation was unfortunate for the next client, who had been negotiating with the brothel’s madam during the passion play. On a business trip from the forest, the pigman had been looking for some relief.
© 2025 François-Marie Lee