Raine closed the book.

“Yes!” he said, throwing his hands into the air. One step closer to 140,000!

He chugged the last of his americano, pushed aside Intermediate Ephrian, and grabbed Blood, Sweat, and Cinnamon. It was a memoir by Wes Blackwood, someone who’d worked at Hopkins for twelve years.

Hugh was right. It was far more interesting than Intermediate Ephrian.

The book opened with a line Raine could get behind.

‘I like money.’

Then the author breezed through the first 19 years of his life, noting that they were nowhere near as interesting as the next two.

“So I went to the New World. Plenty has been said about how crazy the place is, but fifteen years ago, it was worse. Far worse. Hopkins was 23 people in a rundown building, Shields was a joke, and Xiyashi didn’t even exist yet. Rialis was a forgotten ruin in a random forest, and the only thing on Pardel Hill were some abandoned huts (I would know. I slept in one after getting smacked around by two goblins).”

Urgh, more of this other world shit. But Raine continued reading. There were a few pages on how the author spent his first few months at Hopkins. It was interesting, and he almost felt like he was reading a book by the founder of a startup.

“One time, I was smoking weed on the roof of Blake’s house with Derron, and we were getting higher than a kite when we started talking about how to make money. We knew Hopkins wasn’t going to get anywhere near as big as he and the other founders wanted it to become if all we did was hunt goblins and orcs. Not far into the conversation, we hit the topic of trade.

“Out of nowhere, he said to me, ‘Dude, what if we sold spices from Earth?’

“‘What, like medieval merchant style?’ I asked.

“‘Exactly.’

“‘Nobody here even knows what saffron or cinnamon or any of Earth’s spices are.’

“‘But we can teach them.’

“‘That’s such a risk. We’ll spend one trip’s carrying weight on shit that might not even sell. If you want to bring something to the New World, cocaine is it. We’ll go 1700s Great Britain on the New World.’ Then Derron gave me this look like I was out of my goddamn mind.

“‘Great Britain sold opium to China, not cocaine. And no. We aren’t selling drugs. Ever.’

“I thought it was hilariously ironic that he said that while we were smoking joints, but in fairness, weed isn’t cocaine, and cocaine isn’t opium.”

This is fifteen years ago, Raine thought. None of these guys are dead yet, right? If this is real, please tell me this Derron guy kept Hopkins from selling drugs.

He was about to flip to the next page when he heard a knock on his door.

“Hey Raine,” Lukas said, “I’m going to the shooting range with some of the others. Do you want to join? We’re probably leaving the island soon, so we’re guessing we won’t get the chance to use it for a while.”

Oh, that’s true. Raine felt a lot less motivated to improve his gunmanship after learning there were no pirates and that he wouldn’t have a gun on the job, but it was fun to shoot. And I guess I could use a break.

He agreed to go. He glanced at the number of the page he was on, closed the book, and got up. He threw on his jacket and left the apartment.

Arnett and Max were practicing at the archery range, but everyone else in Raine’s team went to the shooting range.

“Why did we have to practice shooting pistols if we’re going to a fantasy world without guns?” Vick wondered aloud as they walked into the shooting range. “Maybe Hopkins lied...”

“No shit,” Grant said.

“...about there not being any guns on the other side.”

Raine smacked his forehead with his palm. This guy.

They went to the shelves at the back, and each grabbed a fake pistol and a remote control for a target. Raine went to a booth and moved his target farther away until it was about 50 feet away

He aimed and fired. Because he held his gun in one hand, he was less accurate than the others, but he was satisfied with his improvement since the first time he’d shot a gun. He could at least hit the target most of the time.

“Hey, guys,” Vick said about fifteen minutes after they’d arrived. “I’m going to head off to the archery range.”

“Huh?” Raine said. “That was pretty fast.”

“Yeah, I just can’t get into this when I know it’s not going to do anything for the job. Archery is going to be way more useful.”

Raine shrugged. “Alright then.”

Watching Vick leave, Grant sighed.

“So guys,” he said. “Do you really think at this point that we’re going to a fantasy world to fight monsters?”

“Probably,” Lukas sighed.

“Wait, what? Why the change of mind?” Grant asked.

“Think about it. Why are we learning Ephrian? I spent two hours on my computer last night looking up every search term I could think of related to it.”

Damn, two hours? After meeting Song Hyun-woo, Raine had only gotten 20 minutes into his own digging before giving up.

“I got nothing,” Lukas said. “And why did we learn to shoot arrows with bows that look like they came from the 14th century? Why did we learn how to ride horses?”

“Also, swords,” Kayden said. “The swordsmanship lesson was just a ‘Wait, what the fuck?’ moment for me. That girl Ava looked really damn skilled with the sword.”

“That could still be explained with everyone here being crazy,” Raine said.

Lukas shrugged. “It’s possible,” he said. “But Song Hyun-woo seemed pretty sane to me.”

“I don’t know about that,” Grant said. “The trick with the fire was fishy as hell. He looked pretty nuts.”

“Fire?” Reo asked.

“What, you guys didn’t see it?” Raine asked. “When we met him, Song Hyun-woo snapped his fingers, and a little flame appeared above his hand. He did that three or four times.”

“Woah,” Kayden said. “Reo and I saw Hugh make a little piece of metal out of nothing. He only did that twice, though. Then he looked tired for some reason.”

“They have good tricks,” Grant said. “So what?”

“More than tricks. Like we said, archery, swordsmanship, Ephrian, horse riding. We really might be going to another world,” Lukas said.

Grant sighed and scratched his head. “Well...maybe. But probably not.”

Then their conversation died away, and they went back to shooting. But Raine’s mind lingered on what Lukas had said.

. . . .

Sitting at the Hopkins Cafe a few hours later, Raine breezed through the first few chapters of the Ephrian book on swordsmanship. It was easy thanks to one thing, or rather, one person.

Ava sat on the other side of the table. She took a swig from the can of soda he'd bought her.

“I have no idea how you study this shit for so long,” she said. “Ephrian is so damn boring.”

“It’s interesting enough to me, and it’s no harder than learning German or Spanish,” Raine said. He took note of the page number he was on and closed the book. He needed a break.

“How did you get good at Ephrian if you think it’s that boring?” he asked.

“I forced myself to study for half an hour at a time, four or five times a day,” she said. “You pretty much have to get good at Ephrian unless you want to forever rely on someone else translating everything for you. Some people do that and make it to the top just because they’re ridiculously good at killing shit. Most people never reach that level of skill no matter how much they practice and waste a big chunk of their pay on hiring a translator.”

“I see,” he said. Killing shit. Killing shit...killing goblins and orcs and dragons?

He looked around, searching for new employees nearby. There were none, but still, his voice became quieter as he said, “I have to ask, Ava. Is there really is another world?”

“No shit,” she said. “It’s hard to believe at first, but the sooner you get over it, the sooner you can focus on what’s important: getting rich.” She paused for a second. “Without dying. No point if you’re rich and dead.”

He sighed. She doesn’t look like she’s lying. And I don’t think she’s crazy. Maybe hallucination? Or is there really a fucking fantasy world?

“How about translation?” he asked after a few moments. “Hugh said it’s pretty safe, well-paying work.”

“It’s not as easy as some people make it out to be. It’s safe, yeah. But you have to be really good at Ephrian to become a well-paid translator. If your work isn’t any good, you only get to take the shittier requests. Or you end up as someone’s assistant.”

“Well, is it useful to know German and Spanish?”

“Demand for Ephrian-to-Spanish and the reverse is really low,” Ava said. “I did some translation while I was injured a few months ago, and Ephrian-to-Spanish made me pretty much nothing. Most Spanish speakers in the New World read and write English well, so they can just read the English translations of things.”

“Damn, how about German?”

“Better, but not by much,” Ava said. “The real money-maker languages are Russian and Chinese. Some Russian guys bought real estate in Equitia back when it was worth shit because everyone thought Shields was going to die. Now they’re sitting on several million dollars' worth of land right now. But they can’t speak much English, and their Ephrian is rough. It’s people like that who pay big bucks for a good interpreter.”

Shit, I should keep studying Russian when I have the chance.

“What about law and Ephrian?” Raine asked.

“That pays pretty well,” Ava said. “Depends on how good you are. For most people, 110,000 to 140,000 sounds about right in the first year.” She finished her soda. “You should work on magic, though. Make translation just a side job.”

Raine blinked. Woah, that sounds nutty as hell.

But he still paid attention to her words.

“With your leg injury, you’re obviously not going to run around with a sword. But with magic, you don’t have to move much. If you can kill a small group of goblins, that’s 60 to 80 bucks. But if you can kill an orc, that’s like 240 bucks. Depending how far you go into the Karthil Forest, you can run into three or four of the bastards in one day, especially at this time of year.”

“How about elite goblins? Do those exist?” he asked. He felt weird just hearing those words come out of his mouth.

She tilted her head. “Huh, you know about them?” She paused. “Let me guess. Planet E?”

He nodded.

“Knew it. Hah, a Hopkins subsidiary made that game.”

“What?”

“Yeah. The devs based it really loosely on the one or two years they spent in the New World. I think the game is pretty boring, but hey, it makes us money,” she said.

Raine smiled wryly.

“Anyway, elite goblins are pricks. If you see one, run. Because if there’s one, there are at least three others coming for you. Most newbie teams can’t even beat two.”

“How much could someone make killing one?”

“Maybe 70 bucks?” she said. “But take all of these numbers with a grain of salt. Lots of things will affect how much you actually get paid.”

“Like?”

“Time and location are the obvious ones. The number of other teams around matters as well. I once got a 1,500 vur job—that’s something like 1,200 dollars, by the way—to kill just three orcs because they popped up near a small town a few days before some festival thing. In one day, I got there, found the orcs, and killed them all.”

“So you did a rush delivery?”

“I did in fact do a rush delivery. The additional fee was hefty. With a small part of it, I splurged and bought a 20-dollar lunch.”

“My god, you spendthrift.”

“I know. Even now, I feel the pain of watching the bills leave my wallet. I stood there feeling both joyful and empty at the same time.”

They grinned.

Then, after a few more questions, Raine went back to studying Ephrian. Ava left after about ten minutes, since it was almost 9:30 PM. She apparently was the kind to sleep early and rise early.

Raine wasn’t keen on reading more of the book on swordsmanship, so he continued reading Blood, Sweat, and Cinnamon.

He thought it was interesting, although he wasn’t sure how much of it to believe—not just because it was about a man’s time in another world, but because it had the stamp of approval from the company itself. If there were any unsavory details in Hopkins’ history, the book was almost certain to lack any mention of them.

While chuckling at the occasional joke and carefully considering whether to believe certain statements, he spent about 20 minutes reading the book before reaching three paragraphs that left him stunned.

“Yai opened the portal, and the ten of us stepped through it with hearts full of hope and anxiety,” Wes Blackwood wrote. “It would be a month before we returned to the New World. In that time, we bought huge backpacks and filled them with pounds and pounds of cinnamon, pepper, turmeric, and clove. In that time, we hoped desperately that somehow our dreams would be fulfilled and that everything we’d done hadn’t gone to waste and that the goddamn spices would actually catch on and sell. In that time, we cried and cried and begged God, fate, karma—anything we thought of praying to, really—to help us.

“In that time, Blake and Yan killed a young lesser dragon. In that time, Sage met the Crown Prince of Karlis.

“And in that time, Derron died.”