The Earl owned a small forest that existed just outside of the city. The whole thing was walled off, and though left mostly unsupervised most all the time, whenever the Earl wished to hunt, the knights would mobilize. The process would be tedious, but they fulfilled their role with extreme discipline. A sweep of the walled area, followed by the knights positioning themselves throughout the perimeter as well as having several flying knights also keeping watch from high above.

Unlike what Rick had imagined, he did not have a need to leave Monica off in the castle while he came here to… spend time with the Earl. Instead, a retinue of maidens followed them from a distance. The retinue was mostly split in two. Monica, Deneva, and Dia on one side. And everyone else on the other. Monica was being bribed by liberal amounts of ham and pork.

Although her eyes did not leave Rick for an instant.

The hunt had begun easily enough. At the gates of the hunting range several dozen cages with many many boars were set loose. The beasts made a run for it towards the forest, and Monica made a sad whimpering noise of complaint at not being able to follow. From there began their walk.

“The boars are trained.” The Earl spoke as he led the way, the rifle slung on his shoulder. “Every three months they are brought here, under the influence of a psychic, and taught to feel safe in certain areas.”

“So that’s likely where we’ll find them.” Rick rubbed at his chin. “Why not just let them roam? Wouldn’t it be more of a challenge that way?”

The Earl laughed. “Wild boars are very smart and are very good at hiding.”

Humming a little in agreement, Rick’s eyes kept trailing through the surrounding area. There were no bushes, the trees were relatively thin, this place felt new compared to… everywhere else he’d been. If the forest they’d arrived in felt older than the dirt they walked on, the trees here felt younger than the boots he wore. Yet there were no bushes. It was an off feeling, of a place that was trying to pretend to be natural yet was clearly being groomed through careful constant efforts.

“Do you know how important otherworlders are, Rick?”

“I can guess.” He responded, gaze on the forest ahead and not on the retinue behind. “Having a law put in place forbidding everyone short of the king from giving orders to otherworlders does hint at several things.”

“The last otherworlder in our kingdom showed up roughly three hundred years ago.” The Earl spoke, glancing at Rick. “There are very few records remaining about him, other than the noble families nearly started a civil war trying to monopolize him. Similar situations have occurred all over the world.”

“How often do… people like me show up?”

“Once every twenty years has been the average, at least if you care enough to listen to the rumors from the rest of the wide world. But not all otherworlders cause waves when they appear, and oftentimes distance twists fact into myth.”

The portly man stopped walking, shifting his shoulder and pulling up the rifle to point at something in the distance. He stilled for a second and lowered the muzzle, scowling in distaste.

“The king asked you to gauge me. Us.” Rick commented.

“Not directly. But he did insist on learning what sort of change you would represent.”

“I think you may be overestimating us.”

“Do you know how one could keep the peace?”

The question caught Rick off balance. He looked at the back of the Earl’s head as the man once more raised his rifle to aim at something in the forest. “Can’t say I do.”

“There are many ways, but my personal preference is by anticipating change.” There was amusement in his words. “And excuse my manners, you stink of it.”

“And what change would I bring?”

“What would you want?”

“I don’t think I follow.”

“I think you do.” He lowered the rifle and glanced at Rick. “If the king wished to send you off to do something for him, what would it take to convince you to do it? Knowledge? Maidens? Power? Gold?”

“Are you going to claim everyone has a price?”

“My claim is that things work better when all parties are willing to negotiate.”

Rick frowned, spotting movement between the trees. He remained still, observing the piglet as it sniffed around the area.

“Are you going to shoot it?”

“Hm?”

The Earl gestured at him. “You spotted the animal.”

He nodded slightly, pulling up the rifle and taking aim. His face tingled and the marker pointing where the bullet would land popped up. There were several highlights on the boar, areas he figured were ideal targets to aim at. Rick adjusted his stance and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, but something appeared to startle the piglet as it scampered off.

“Oh.” Rick frowned at the rifle. “I forgot about the fire-disk.”

“Happens to the best of us.” The Earl nodded along.

They continued walking across the forest, slowly making their way in what was clearly a leisure stroll.

“What would be expected of me?”

“It depends on what you can do. Very few things are clear in that respect, I’m afraid.” The noble chuckled. “Though regardless of what knowledge or powers you bring, having White Claw at your side already makes it fairly likely you may be asked to deal with certain kinds of problems.”

“Can’t say I’d put a price on killing people.”

“And that includes tamed maidens, I am aware.”

Rick nodded, looking off through the trees. “I was a teacher. Chemistry, but by the looks of your alchemy books, the use of what I know would not work without scaling production to something more than what maidens could handle on their own.”

“Oho, that does seem curious.” The Earl perked up. “Care to elaborate?”

“Industrial chemistry is… dangerous, complicated, and needs a very large amount of supplies. Industrial anything, really. But it wouldn’t make sense to help create a machine that makes three thousand shoes a day if people would only ever buy a hundred.” He waved his hand aimlessly around. “And trying to make it so it only makes a hundred shoes a day wouldn’t make sense, since maidens could make those shoes better and cheaper.”

“A kind of production capacity that only would make sense when maiden production reaches a point of diminishing returns… or when there are no maidens involved at all.” The Earl rubbed his chin in thought. “Does your world have elemental energy?”

“No.”

“Then your knowledge may not be as fruitless as you think.”

Rick didn’t comment, continuing his steps through the forest. He spotted another boar, but didn’t react, waiting for a second. The Earl spotted it and took aim, slotting the fire-disk and pressing the trigger. A clean shot, the wild pig fell dead on the spot. From the bushes sprung eight others, sprinting into the forest and out of sight.

“It’s refreshing.”

“What is?”

“When I hunt with a guest, either I have to congratulate their shots, or they loudly congratulate mine.” He nodded as they headed towards the corpse. “Politics that’s devolved into ego stroking is tiresome.”

“At least it’s not with swords.”

“True.” Another careful nod, eying Rick. “Does your world have war?”

“We do. But the whole world is occupied by one country or another, and there’s only a handful of hot-spots where war has happened throughout the past fifty-odd years.” He shook his head. “Most of the wars have more to do with money than land, someone trying to turn a profit or some-such.”

“And what happened before then?”

Rick’s brow creased. “A group of stupid men with a stupider mustaches thought it would be a good idea to wage war with the rest of the world.”

The Earl eyed him for a moment, nodding. “And how did that turn out?”

“Eventually, they lost. But it got millions killed along the way.”

There was a stillness to the Earl’s nod, a furrowing of his brows. “What happened to the kings and queens?”

“Kings?” Rick shook his head. “There were two great wars. The monarchies mostly came to an end with the first one. The royal families that survived have mostly been little more than a token presence in the handful of countries that still have them.”

“I… see.”

They came to a halt near the corpse of the pig. The blood pooled around the corpse, its head deformed from the bullet that had penetrated through the bone and exited the other way. A splatter of brain and bone covered the area next to the corpse. The Earl looked at the body and nodded absently.

“A clean kill.” Rick commented.