Chapter 37: Citizen of the Day

From the moment Arthur put his first pot of water on a heat source, the day became a blur.

Lily worked like a whirlwind, running to get him water, taking pots off heat when they were ready, bringing him tea leaves, and generally filling whatever gaps she could. The drink-runners showed up with almost perfect timing and carted off crates of drinks as soon as they were ready. They then sprinted back with empty cups, which Lily furiously cleaned to put them back into service.

Somewhere in the commotion, Arthur was aware he was leveling. He ignored it, dumping the first few points into dexterity and splitting the rest between perception and wisdom. He lost track of his progress after the first level. In the storm of tea making that was happening, it could have been two or a dozen. He didn’t have the time to let it register.

Runners ran, a little owl girl worked herself to exhaustion, and Arthur fell into a zone that would rival any runner’s high as he produced gallons and gallons of tea for his contribution to the city’s defense.

And then he was shocked clean out of the zone by the realization that disaster was looming.

He was, despite the most massive night of production he could imagine, running out of boba pearls. He looked up at the sun and confirmed that hours had indeed passed, but nowhere near enough. It was an hour or so before noon, and he was almost out of the only magic resource that made the drinks work.

Somewhere, around this wall, is the biggest threat of the last few days. Screw it. Let’s take the problems one at a time.

He hunkered down, returned to every boba barrel to shake out any missed pearls, and did everything but individually count the pearls he put in each cup to extend his dwindling supply. His efforts added up a couple more cups.

He tried and failed to turbocharge his last few cups of boba with even more majicka, discovering that double-dipping into his stores of mystic energy wouldn’t work, at least not how he was trying it.

And then, finally, he was tapped. The runners left with the last few drinks he had managed to make, and there was nothing left to do but throw in the towel.

“That’s it, Lily. We’re out of pearls.”

“Already?! We can’t be. Arthur, it’s only noon.”

“I know! That’s all I could make last night. Even with help.”

Lily huffed. “I could have helped. You would have had more then.”

“You did help, Lily. I wouldn’t have had the help I did unless you made that wolverine give it to me. How’d you do that, anyway?”

“Oh, him?” she asked, rolling her eyes as if somehow browbeating the scariest person Arthur knew outside of Ella and Karbo was a boring procedural type of thing. “He’s a big sissy. I don’t even think that eye patch is real.”

“Be that as it may, I couldn’t do it. Or any of this, without you.”

Arthur surveyed his work area. It was a mess. Even with Lily working overtime to make sure that everything was clean, there were dozens of dirty pieces of cookware, spilled boba pearls, and heat sources that hadn’t quite managed to unfoul themselves of tea spills yet. He walked around deactivating all the magical devices, scooping up pots, pans, and kettles as he did and tossing them into the cleaning tubs to soak.

“How many people do you think we got drinks to?” Lily asked.

“Honestly? No idea. Hundreds, at least. Maybe thousands?” Arthur shook his head. “Probably not thousands. But a lot.”

All at once, the exertion of the morning hit him like a rock to the head, and he became aware of exhaustion beyond anything he had expected washing over him. He sat down flat on the ground, letting his majicka recharge.

“I think you did okay, Arthur.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, that’s it? I was wondering when you’d run out,” Corbin said, de-stealthing into view from just to the side of the other two.

“Good gods, you have to give me some warning when you do that,” Arthur exclaimed tiredly. “How does that even work, anyway?”

“I’m sneaky, and the system makes it work better. If you had more points in perception or were looking for me, you might have noticed me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Arthur’s being depressed. He wanted to make more boba,” said Lily.

“More than you made?”

“Yeah. It’s the dangerous day, right? And I could have done more.”

“Done more?” The cat caught Lily’s eye. “Is he stupid?”

“A little.” Lily smiled.

“Hey, now!” Arthur started to object before a cheer that wrapped around the entire city, rising in volume until Arthur was almost deafened by the shout.

“See? It’s over. Last monster slain, and we’re safe now.”

“So soon?” Arthur said. “All the other days went longer. I thought there were supposed to be more today.”

“Well, yeah, there were. But on the last day, we pull out all the stops. More people on the wall. Every hunter and dungeon crawler on duty. The mayor burns some of his every-once-in-a-while buffs. Stuff like that. That’s just the first reason, though.”

“What are the others?”

“He really is slow on the uptake, isn’t he?”

Lily nodded, sagely, and patted Arthur on the head condescendingly.

“He is. But people like him.”

“Arthur, the other reason is you. Do you think the city did all this just for novelty?” Corbin gestured out to the whole setup, waving his arm vaguely at all the pots and things.

“They are nice a lot of the time.”

“Not this nice. Not during a wave. Somebody thought this would make a big difference. And it did. Everyone’s talking about it.”

“He’s right, actually.” A new voice said from behind Arthur. He turned to see the mayor walking up, Karbo and Eito in tow. “We’ve fine-tuned our city defenses for decades. Having a new numerical boost, however small…”

“Makes a big difference. Kid, do you know how much more support I got from the wall this time? The stone tossers tossed stones better. The archers… arched? They had superior arching. I kept hitting gaps that had nothing to kill.” Karbo looked annoyed and glad at the same time when stating that last fact. “I could hug you. And throttle you.”

“Karbo’s bloodlust aside, Arthur, he’s not wrong. And we’re going to have to talk more about just how you’re able to do this,” Eito said. “It’s not absolutely unheard of, but a more or less stable buff that works outside of alchemy is… a bigger thing than you probably think it is, anyway.”

“Ahem,” the mayor called attention back to himself, holding out a hand to Arthur and pulling him to his feet as Arthur fought against the last few bits of physical fatigue that his vitality hadn’t fixed yet. “We can address all that at a later time. Will address it, actually. See to it, Eito. But for now, are we all in agreement?”

“Yeah.” Karbo nodded. “If not him, then who?”

“Absolutely. Karbo can’t win it every time.”

Ignoring Arthur’s confusion, the mayor plowed through. “Alright, then. I’m sending the announcement now.”

Arthur looked to Lily for explanation and saw an impossibly smug type of happiness on her face before a system notification forced itself in front of him.

Citywide Announcement

Congratulations, demons! The monster wave is broken. While non-combat classes are advised to stay within the city walls until the surrounding area is confirmed cleared, the danger to our home is abated, and we are once again safe.

As your mayor, I am enormously pleased to state that this wave caused no deaths, and a much lower-than-average number of injuries, even accounting for the normal bone-break, strained muscle, and stubbed toe types of wounds we usually see. In addition to that, we finished far ahead of schedule.

We have the entire city’s efforts to thank for this, but as always, we highlight one citizen’s efforts that stood out above the rest and contributed to our victory in a particularly impactful way. Arthur Teamaster’s Boba did both, pushing nearly a thousand of us to levels of performance we otherwise wouldn’t have reached. He is named citizen of the day.

Please note that as a recently arrived offworlder, he has no idea what this means. Act accordingly. Don’t swarm the poor boy.

Otherwise, enjoy yourselves. The buying hour will commence in two hours, and meat will be available for pickup at the gates starting now. Have a great time!

“Look at him. He doesn’t understand at all,” Lily laughed, moving around the work area and stacking Arthur’s heating elements as she went.

“I don’t. And I can’t emphasize enough how much it seems like I should.”

“You’re the champion of the day,” Karbo said. “The big winner. The guy everyone likes. People clap you on the back and say ‘good job.’ It’s fun.”

“There are also certain other advantages. Usually, we’d leave the exact shape of the rewards up to the winner, but…” The mayor looked like he was trying to find the words for something delicate. Karbo cut back in, determined to help.

“But you don’t know anything about anything.”

“Well, yes. Are you comfortable if we figure it out ourselves, once all this is over? I can consult Eito and Ella, if you’d like.”

“Sure,” Arthur said. Really, he couldn’t think of a single thing he needed at the moment. Whatever they wanted to do was fine. “Lily, leave some of that out. I’m probably going to go back to the house to make more boba, later. I guess we can open shop later today?”

“No! Arthur, did you not hear all that about the buying hour? You can make boba, but…”

“Only for the next few hours,” Milo said, walking up. “You guys can go. I’ll fill him in on the rest.”

Eito, Karbo and the Mayor all said goodbye, congratulating Arthur again as they did. Once they were gone, Milo helped Arthur pack up the essentials he needed into crates for the walk back home.

“Right now, the scavengers are working to get whatever meat they can off the better-tasting kinds of monsters. There will be tons of it. Literally tons. And once they’ve done that, they pack it up by the gates for anyone to take. Defending the wall was a community effort. That means community rewards. All the other materials go into the city’s treasury, and people can buy them cheap if they need centipede carapace for armor, or whatever. I’m gonna get some of that, for sure.” Milo shivered in his weird blacksmith anticipation of a new project. “But it’s a lot of wealth, right? And a long time ago, the city decided that the best way to get rid of it was…”

“To have a party!” Lily almost screeched. “A big one. Everyone walks around and gets food from everyone else. People go to each other’s houses and eat until they pop, and then do it again. Karbo gets drunk!”

“Karbo gets drunk?”

“And breaks things!” Lily said. “Until Itela makes him stop!”

“Wait, how does she get him to stop?”

“She’s his wife, Arthur. They live apart because she has to live at the church, but you really didn’t pick up on that?”

“No!” Arthur was reeling from the massive information dump. He decided to process the Itela-and-Karbo piece of it later. “So the buying hour is…”

“It’s the last time you can buy stuff for the next day and a half. It’s all at a really steep discount, city-funded. If you need boba stuff, now’s the time. There’s a limit to how much you can get, but it’s higher than you’d think. Don’t hold back. It’s an economic bump for the city, so you aren’t doing anyone any favors by not taking advantage of it.”

“Got it. So what’s first?”

“Meat. Even if you don’t want to cook it. Mom will use your quota for you,” Milo said. “And then shopping, I guess? I have a whole list.”

“Alright. Let's go.”

“Yeah!” Lily said, jumping up into the air. “Shopping time!”