The laughter of the dock foreman—"Mana-less and muscle-less"—was a fresh wound, stinging more than the hunger that gnawed at Arthur's stomach. He'd been tossed aside like a broken tool.
He stumbled away from the river, leaning against a rough-hewn wall to catch his breath. His body was failing him. The "character development" Mrs. Tompkins had joked about back on Earth had apparently not included manual labor.
'Fine,' he thought, his breath fogging in the cool air. 'Fine. My body is trash. But my brain isn't.'
On Earth, he was a "corporate punching bag," but that meant he could read, write, and process data faster than anyone in his department. He could do math in his head. In a world where most people seemed to solve problems with either a sword or a spell, surely—surely—a sharp mind was worth a damn meal.
His pride was a luxury he'd already starved to death. All that was left was the cold, practical need to survive.
He pushed off the wall and headed for the heart of the lower city: the market square. It was the only place where commerce seemed to be thriving, a chaotic symphony of shouting vendors, clucking chickens, and haggling customers.
He wasn't looking for a handout. He was looking for inefficiency. Someone who needed a brain.
He found it in less than five minutes.
A thick-necked man in a stained leather apron was standing in front of a textile stall, his face the color of a ripe tomato. He was trying to compare a long, messy scroll—his shipping manifest—to the stack of crates at his feet, all while trying to count coins from a pouch. He dropped the charcoal stick, cursed, and kicked a loose cabbage that had rolled near his boot.
He looked stressed, overwhelmed, and—most importantly—like he was losing money.
This was Arthur's chance.
He took a steadying breath, trying to look less like a stray dog and more like a potential asset. He failed, but he walked forward anyway. He waited until the merchant finished bellowing at a carter who had blocked his stall.
"Excuse me," Arthur said, his voice hoarse from disuse.
The merchant, Bram, didn't look up. "Not interested. No scraps. Piss off."
"I don't want scraps," Arthur said, forcing his voice to be level and clear. "I want work. I saw you with your ledger."
Bram finally looked at him, his eyes traveling from Arthur's worn-out shoes to his too-clean-for-a-vagrant, too-poor-for-a-citizen clothes. The gaze was pure disgust. "Work? You? Look at you. You can barely stand. I just sent one of your kind packing from the docks."
"Not that kind of work," Arthur pressed, ignoring the insult. He pointed at the jumbled manifest. "That. I can read. I can write. I can count. I can manage your inventory, track your orders, and tell you how much you're really making on that Damask silk versus the wool."
The merchant froze. His angry, stressed expression faltered, replaced by sharp, sudden skepticism. He looked from his own chicken-scratch markings back to Arthur.
"You... can read?" he scoffed. "A vagrant?"
"And write. And do arithmetic. Far faster than you can," Arthur said.
"Test me. Give me two numbers to multiply."
Bram squinted, his mind clearly working. He was losing money. His ledgers were a mess. Having an educated-but-cheap clerk...
A tiny, pathetic ember of hope flickered in Arthur's chest. This was it. This was his foothold.
"Bram! By the Suns, what are you doing?"
The voice came from the next stall over. A woman selling dried herbs, her face weathered and suspicious, was staring at Arthur like he was carrying the plague.
"He says he can read," Bram muttered, looking torn.
"Read?" The woman laughed, a short, sharp bark. "Bram, are you an idiot? Do you know who that is?"
Bram's head snapped back to Arthur. "What do you mean? He's..."
"He's the Empty," she hissed, making a holy sign across her chest. "The failed summon. The one the gods spat out. He's god-cursed, Bram!"
The change was instantaneous.
The merchant's brief, calculating curiosity vanished, replaced by a wave of primal, superstitious terror. He looked at Arthur not as a person, but as a walking, breathing omen of bad luck.
"You..." Bram stumbled back, nearly knocking over his own stack of cloth. "You're that one?"
"Wait, listen," Arthur said, his hands coming up placatingly. The shred of hope died, instantly smothered. "That's just rumors. I can help your business. I'm just a man—"
"A cursed man!" Bram bellowed, his face pale with panic. "You're bad luck! You tried to put your curse on my stall! On my coin!"
"No! I just want a job!"
"Get out!" the merchant shrieked, snatching a broom from the side of his stall and holding it out like a spear. "Get away from me! Don't touch my things! Your bad luck will ruin me! Guards! GUARDS! The Empty is threatening my stall!"
Arthur didn't wait for the guards.
He stumbled backward, the market crowd parting for him like he was soaked in oil. The whispers were back, louder this time, poisoned with fear.
"He tried to curse Bram's stall..."
"The nerve of that nothing..."
"Someone should put him down. He'll bring destruction..."
Arthur turned and fled, pushing his weak body as fast as it would go. He didn't stop until he was deep in a narrow, filthy alleyway between a tannery and a butcher shop. The stench of blood and filled the air.
He collapsed against the damp brick wall, sliding down until he was sitting in the mud. He was shaking. Not from fear, but from a profound, crushing hopelessness.
It didn't matter.
It didn't matter that he was smart. It didn't matter that he was educated. It didn't matter that he could speak their language.
His body was too weak for labor.
And his identity—the "Empty Summon"—made him too toxic for anything else.
He was a leper. A pariah. A "god-cursed nothing."
There was no way to work. No way to earn coin. No way to be human.
His stomach gave a violent, painful lurch, reminding him he hadn't eaten in days. He doubled over, gasping. His eyes watered, and through the blur, he saw it.
*****
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What the fuck is group 7 dawg! Why is on my feed! It is on social media app I have! This is some social experiment wtf.