After finishing the meal the man brought, Amanu was stuffed. He could barely move, so he just sat there as the five men at the table drank sake and devoured crazy amounts of food. Amanu couldn't comprehend how anyone could eat so much. In Ziwa Village, where Amanu was from, food was scarce. The village was poverty-ridden—most people could go three to four days without eating.
Fortunately for Amanu, that wasn't the case for him. As a cleaver, he would travel to other villages to sell the meat he gathered, earning enough money to feed himself and his wife. Although they lived in poverty, their situation wasn't as bad as others in Ziwa.
After finding out his wife was pregnant, Amanu wanted to make as much money as possible to care for his coming child. He dreamed of fixing their home and buying quality clothes for his baby. This drove him to go cleaving more often than usual. Normally, he would go with other men from the village—most of whom were his childhood friends—but with his new goal in mind, he had started going out alone. Like that one fateful day... the day everything changed. He looked around the room again. These cleaver men—muscular, loud, full of life—they weren't treating him with contempt like everyone else in the Danvis Kingdom. Sure, they laughed at his scrawny build earlier, but it hadn't felt malicious. More like harmless teasing. There was no venom in their words.
As he sat there, watching the boisterous men drink sake and eat meat while laughing loudly, the one who had opened the door for him came and sat beside him.
"So, Amanu... what's your story?" he asked, voice casual but curious. "What led you to pick such a miserable job?" Amanu suddenly realized maybe the reason they weren't treating him with hate was because they hadn't heard the news. After all, this house was quite secluded—a hermit house far from the Danvis Kingdom.
He wondered how they'd react once they discovered the truth about him.
"Hmm… you look familiar," one of the five men said, stroking his beard. He was bald and wore a gray tunic. Like the others, his body was made of pure muscle. "I swear I've seen you somewhere," he continued.
"Must be the alcohol," another man joked.
Amanu decided it was best to just tell the truth and face their judgment, rather than lie and have them find out some other way. So, he did.
"I come from Ziwa Village," Amanu said.
All the men suddenly went quiet.
"Huh?" one of them asked.
Amanu began to explain what had happened—how he was tracking a maver and ended up getting attacked by a bear. He told them how he woke up in the Danvis Kingdom, was imprisoned, went through a trial, and was eventually sent to live in this house and work as a cleaver for the kingdom.
"Damn, son… I thought I had it hard," the bald man responded.
"Ohh, I see now… I saw your face in the newspaper—that's why you looked familiar."
"Guess it wasn't the alcohol," the other man added.
Amanu sat there, waiting for their attitudes to change, waiting for the hate and rejection.
"I see," the man who had opened the door said. "Sorry that happened to you, boy. Been a tough month, huh?"
"Yeah…" Amanu replied nervously.
"Well, it'll definitely be hard for you to go shopping in the kingdom, that's for sure," a man with blue hair joked.
Everyone burst into laughter, and the heavy mood began to lighten.
Amanu was confused. Why weren't these people cursing him like the rest of the kingdom? They just continued talking and drinking.
As the night wore on, the five men eventually headed to their rooms, one by one, their voices trailing off with tired laughter. Only the man who'd first greeted Amanu remained, tidying up the table. Amanu, grateful and wanting to help, stayed behind to assist him. The two worked in silence at first, the clink of plates and the slosh of water the only sounds filling the room.
"So, you said you were a cleaver, huh? But it seems like the type of cleaving y'all do in the village isn't like the one we do in this kingdom," the man finally said, breaking the silence. He washed a dish and handed it to Amanu to dry.
"What do you mean it's not the same? How do they differ?" Amanu asked curiously, wiping the dish and stacking it.
"You said you all track mavers and take the meat from the beasts they slay, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, we are the mavers here," the man said, rinsing another plate. "We don't track anyone. We fight the beasts ourselves. Then we haul the meat back and sell it to the shops and butcheries in the kingdom."
"What? You mean… you fight the beasts yourselves?" Amanu asked, shocked.
"Pretty much," the man shrugged.
"Then… I'll also have to fight these beasts?"
"Pretty much," he repeated. "But since you have a mave now, don't worry. Your chances of survival have increased… a bit."
"I heard someone mention during the trial that this job is frowned upon. Why is that?" Amanu asked.
"You know about the Mave hierarchy, right? Like the levels?"
"Yeah, I heard something like that during the trial," Amanu answered.
"Well, in this kingdom, the level of your mave determines your place in society. There are five levels, and each level has a subcategory of three stars. The higher the level, the stronger you are—and the higher you rank in the kingdom's hierarchy. We Cleavers are only level one, which means we're at the very bottom. We do the jobs no one else wants to do—high risk, low reward."
"I see," Amanu said.
"As I said—high risk. In the beginning, there were thirty of us Cleavers in this house. Now we're down to only six… seven, counting you."
"You mean twenty-four people quit?" Amanu asked.
"No… they died," the man said, handing him the last dish.
"Each level has three stars. And the more stars you have, the stronger you are in that level. A level one with one star is weaker than a level one with three stars—even though they're technically the same rank. All the ones who died had only one star."
"Ohhh… so all six of you have two stars or above?" Amanu asked.
"Pretty much."
"How many stars do you have?" the man asked, drying the last dish and handing it to Amanu.
"One..." Amanu admitted softly, realizing just how fragile his life had become.
The man went quiet, then finally said, "Hmm... I see."
After a long pause, he placed the towel down. "I'm gonna go sleep now that we're done."
He handed Amanu a small key with number 7 engraved on it.
"That's your room. Better get some rest too."
"Thanks..." Amanu said, then hesitated. "Why is everyone here... not angry at me? Like the rest of the kingdom is?"
The man stopped at the hallway, looking back over his shoulder. "Because we've got bigger problems to deal with."
"I see... Thanks again, sir," Amanu said.
"It's Hercule," the man replied, just before closing the door behind him.
Amanu stood there for a moment, gripping the key tightly in his hand, then made his way down the hall to Room 7.