"But the dragon was dead, eh?" Bosir scratches his stubble. "Better get this to the party from the capital as fast as possible. I'll get someone from the association to run up and tell them."

"Ah, I could do that" I say.

"Boy, stop. You almost died, you have lost all your gear and you come here clothed in nothing but a cloak and shit. Take a damn rest!" Bosir says kind of angrily before leaving the clan house.

But I don't want to take a rest, I want to object, but again, he is my elder. I also lost all my gear, huh? That sucks. That means I am in the red when it comes to the whole pay to cost thing. Luckily I still have the yellow coin Jorgen gave me, so I should be able to re-equip myself without much trouble.

"Ill go wash and dress up" I say, as I leave for upstairs.

"What do you think killed the dragon, Yos?" Mynie asks me before I have left.

"Don't know, all I could tell is where the blood was coming from" I answer, careful not to sound nervous.

"I hope it was the dragon king taking care of it" Kamas says. "That way there won't be another war. I don't want to fight those monsters."

After I have gone upstairs, washed myself with cold water and dressed up in a new tunic and cloth for the private parts, I come downstairs again. I wanted to go train, but I am stopped before I reach the courtyard.

"Oh, Yos, we are sending Asger off the proper hunter way. Come and get some drink" Bern says.

Guess it'll be nice to deal with it.

And so, drink comes on. We mostly tell stories of Asger around us. Mynie tells of how she slept with him when he first came here. Bern tells of how he once was carrying corpses with his gift, how he overestimated his gift, and that Bern got a bloody cadaver sent right into his face. Larn told us of an attempt to weaponize this aspect of his gift, but it didn't work out since he had no control over where stuff flew, and most importantly, it only functioned on a timer after picking stuff up.

Bosir returns and the stories carry on. Everyone here has known Asger for at least three times longer than I have, and I don't feel I have any good stories. I feel heavy when we talk about him, but some of the funnier episodes still get me to release a chuckle. Like once, Larn brought him to the club with the sexy waitresses, and he froze like stone due to the attention received, before asking the girl to marry him, as they were leaving.

It continues way into the night, and soon, everybody else is a asleep. I simply sit alone in the main hall. Well, Mynie is here too, but she is passed out. And I think back to a proposition I heard in my old world. On some online forum, somebody had asked "Would you be immortal if you could" And below where the comments. The general consensus was, only if there were an opt-out and certain situations were described. Living past the extinction of humanity, the sun expanding and engulfing the earth, the heat death of the universe. If you lived forever, the vast majority would be spent alone, unable to do anything.

There were also other fears posted. Fears of being trapped somewhere, like falling into a pit and being trapped. The fear of being taken by the government and performed experiments on. The fear of going insane as you lose everything you once loved. Fear of having children and grandchildren, who would then die before you did. I wonder if I have an opt-out to this power? Not that it matters now, I am quite content to be alive.

I stop thinking about it and go training.

The next day, I go to obtain some new equipment. Armed with one yellow coin, and some 100 blue ones, I scour the local blacksmith for ready-made equipment. I obtain a chainmail, a sword and throwing knives, but I am sure the first two are of lower quality than my previous ones, gifted by Jorgen. Shit, I lost Jorgen's stuff, I have less to remember him by. It only sets me back 70 blue coins though, so I go to also procure some new leather armor and boots.

All in all, I avoid using the yellow coin, but only have 5 blue ones left. The yellow coin isn't really personal, but I somehow want to avoid spending it now. Maybe I can find something of Jorgen in his house or the cabin once I return there.

And so, with new equipment and without Asger, the next 6 months pass by relatively uneventfully. I grow closer to my sister, whom I see every month now, but one can feel the lessened energy in the clan, as one of the three people I most regularly spent time with is now gone. Nothing against Kamas and Atna, but I hope this next year, we will have another apprentice. Bosir offers me the recommendation immediately once the year is coming to a close, which I accept.

We end up at the association to register me as a second-rank hunter. It is fairly painless, basically they just confirm I have been here for a year, have completed 25 requests and that Bosir says it is okay. And a few days later, I receive my own shiny blue plate, with what I presume is my name, and two, thick, vertical line indented onto it.