Anthropology Isekai Ch. 01

This is the story of a guy. One who was born into a remnant of refugee-oh, excuse me, expatriate Americans that had to travel from old earth into this new world.

It's been 30 years since then, and all the MC knows is this life of being an heir to old earth. And things HAVE stabilized since then, but that doesn't mean a whole lot to him. After all, he is a man and not a particularly influential or rich one at that. In a Colony where men outnumber women 9 to 1, his prospects are, well, to die old and alone at some point.

And he's accepted that. He understands that. But if he is going down that way, well, he wants to go out his own way.

Except, that's not what happens.

He longs to be left alone by the remnant of the old world. But those of this new one won't leave him alone.

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People had described the streets of Campt Town as bustling since Mark was a kid.

When people came to these shores and started to set themselves up willy and nilly there wasn't much direction or order to it. It made it hard for a lot of utilities to be properly set up, and God knew people hated moving once they had "claimed" a spot, and it actually caused a run of dysentery in Mark's youth. But it was different from the rather sterile city planning of the Admiralty.

But, more often than not, the ease with which tents are set up made it hard for any one man, or any one family, to properly "claim" a spot. The tragedy of being a people from a highly developed world was that no one knew how to start from scratch and that resulted in things being in a state of flux for a while.

There were worries that a famine, a worry that people from the US just did not have to worry about and rarely had since the inception of the United States, would come about from how terribly they were set up back when he was young. But the twisting roads and "streets" from that time still lived in his mind.

Back when it was everyone that worried about what they would do, what they could do and how to help each other. Back when the sailor threw his back digging ditches that little kids could shit on. Back when the fabric of society still retained a little bit of the order from the Old World.

Back when families still existed.

Today, those whose claims close to that admiralty base "stuck" were those who had the privilege of living in the Town's first true homes. People who were the most "useful" to these times were richly rewarded for continuing their work and, so enriched, started to reform the upper latter of the society they now lived in. Each house built was another family, another man, recognized and laid down like a brick in this makeshift society. Each street laid out and constructed was a few hundred settled and put in place like mortar to hold up this new order.

Each home, each domicile, constructed was another pushback against the hundreds of thousands of tents that used to make the whole as opposed to just the majority. Some day, there would be no tents at all...probably. Or at least, so few that they would be out of thought.

But for now? Those still that lived in Navy-provided Nylon tents, some so old and repatched with fiber fabrics procured from plants in this new world that they looked like tribal homes from ancient times, provided venues, places and locations for the lifeblood of any society to flow forth.

For Mark, whom the tents represented the lowest lows of his life as well as the happiest memories of his childhood, they were still an important part of his life.

"What do you mean things changed?" Mark asked the uncaring man behind a rackety table. They were inside the latter's tent, which had been moved from where his "usual" place in this street market would be. Which meant that Mark had to waste about an hour trying to find this man's ass. A whole hour, while carrying almost his whole weight in weeds.

"I mean that I no longer need that shit," the man, he went by "Julius", gestured at Mark's pack, "Did you think the offer would be open forever? Someone came by with some good shit and now the Plant isn't demanding top dollar for some weeds."

The realities of living in a new world and redeveloping every single thing from the ground up, and many of them with no way of getting the resources that they used to, meant that everyone was looking for ways to replace or replicate things that they had in the Old World.

Never mind that many things derived from Oil could still be had through lengthy and energy-intensive processes, some simple chemical products that should have been easy to produce suddenly weren't in this new land. And no one was sure why. There were legions of bottlecaps that the human remnants here had to overcome, and the bounty of this land provided a venue and resource for this job.

The weeds that Mark had filled in a bag were some of the heaviest things he had harvested in bulk. These wild plants, weeds really, produced really underwhelming flowers that gave off a rather offputting rust scent. But that was because they literally leeched off iron off the ground.

The iron weeds, as the people who dealt in them like to call them, incorporated the metal into their fibers through various chemical processes. Make them incredibly sturdy but a pain in the ass to harvest and an even bigger pain in the ass to carry around. The iron in them was easy to process out of them, but that wasn't why they were in demand.

The chemicals that it used to bind and make organic compounds of the iron were.

Whether the newly minted chemical Plant that the Admiralty had funded still wanted the weeds was besides the point; the weeds had been in demand before it had been opened. People still had a use for them.

And that meant that this man wanted to play fuck-fuck games with him.

"I guess I'll just sell them in the open street then," Mark tried to brush this man off. A small gamble on his part, to be sure, but he wasn't about to negotiate from a place where he had no leverage. Of course, if the demand for these fucking things HAD dropped the only thing he'd be able to get out of them was whatever iron 200 pounds worth of iron weeds had. And at that point, it would have been better to just dig for ore.

"Sit your ass down," the vendor gestured at the lone chair in his tent. This, too, was barely held together and looked as if it collapsed if Mark sat on it with his pack. So he laid his burden of plant down before giving the vendor a flat look but obliging him all the same.

This was an attempt at playing hardball then.

"Now, I said I no longer needed it," Julius stressed, "I didn't say that I couldn't use it."

"And how much is that difference worth?" Mark huffed.

"Well, since it pains me to see a young man like you break his back with that much?" the men gestured at the pack and Mark resisted the urge to spit in the ground with disdain, "I'll give you half for what I promised you."

"Half?" Mark growled and ignored the dig at his age, "It took me months to collect this much. Do you have any idea where I had to go to get iron weeds this big?"

"I am sure Land Survey would like to know," Julious brushed him off, "But get real kid; the market is fickle and I risk losing money giving you this much."

"Oh, maybe I should ask Terrace then?" Mark shot back, "Maybe Jamie has something different to say?"

"Terrace is a small-time chump," Julius told him, "And Jamie has to beg around for orders."

"You think any of them can work with that much weed?" the vendor asked with disdain.

Product that you couldn't sell was product that had no value. Maybe, if Mark went around enough and checked with enough vendors he could sell the Iron Weeds at a good price. Maybe, he could make good on his threat and set up his little stall of Iron Weeds. Might even give him as much as Julius was offering him with the added bonus of rubbing it in his face.

But all of that took a resource that Mark was fast becoming scarce in; time.

With winter coming, the trips to the mountains would only get more dangerous and hard. The supplies that he was looking at came and went in waves, their price rising and falling with their viability. The people that would even stock, sell or buy from him changed with the seasons as everyone strived to be a middleman.

He'd long ago become disgruntled with all of it.

Julius had well and truly fucked him here and they both knew it.

"...is the ring being set up on the Eastside today?" Mark saw himself forced to play the last card that he had. A card that he really didn't like.

Julius pursed his lips a little before answering, "Maybe? Whose to say, really. The governor still looks the other way, but someone died two weeks ago. Things are under heat for the moment."

Mark looked him in the eye and said the words that he knew this asshole wouldn't be able to resist, "Set me up for a fight and set the ante with all of this."

He was pointing at all of the iron weeds that he brought and, without error, Julius began to sweat.

"Really?" Julius tried to contain his eagerness, "You'll really-you'll get in the ring?"

"One fight," Mark firmly said, "Not one whole gauntlet. Not one whole night. Just one fight Julius."

"Of course, of course," the vendor tried to hide his disappointment, "Just one scrap, as quick and clean as a woman. I'll only take, oh, a fifth of the winnings as commission?"

"If you can pay me what this would have sold within the price that we agreed with?" Mark led, making Julius frown, "You can have whatever is left."

A gamble within a gamble. Not only did Mark have to win for Julius to get anything at all, and he knew for a fact that he would be putting money on top of that besides, his winnings now depended on whatever odds they gave Mark.

Because the ring never accepted raw products on their bets. Because they only accepted hard cash. Being his middleman, Julius would have to front money all on his own if he wanted to bet what Mark was offering. Either the odds had to be fantastically generous in Mark's favor for the wager to be worth it-

"Alright," Julius drummed on his table with his fingers and fought with himself before finally deciding, "Deal."

-or he was ever so slightly "wrong" about the change of price for the weeds that he brought.

But then, the main reason why someone like Julius was where he was, a mere street vendor most of the time, was because he just couldn't stop gambling.

Either way, Mark would have all the money that he'd made his budget for.

The ring would, indeed, be set up on Eastside. And they would, indeed, have a spot for him.

The fights would follow the moon and start during late evening. But the fights weren't the only things that chased the night.

"Hey, papi," a man who'd done up his eyebrows and wore vast amounts of blush beaconed to him as Mark walked through the crowded streets of the tents this far east, "Wanna get your dick sucked? I give ass on the cheap."

"Hey, honey," another small man, if admittedly delicate looking told him as he passed, "I can make you see stars tonight."

"Hey, big boy," a tall but well-manicured man smiled at him at the head of a tent, "We sell hooch, chips and men."

"What about women?" Mark couldn't help but shoot back.

"Who needs women when you've got men?" the gigolo laughed and Mark just kept walking on.

Mark didn't know what the statistics for it were, but in the tents? Homosexuality was the norm. Mostly because there were no women by this point who lived in them.

The vast amount of people that came from their dying world had been military personnel. Mostly hailing from the navy and, even then, the proportion of women to men among them had been incredibly low. The rest had been whatever civilian who could get in a boat or catch a ride in one. All following after a fleet big enough to win a war all on its own.

After they had settled here and taken stock of what and who they had, a simple problem was recognized; There were, in average, one woman for every nine men. Not a problem at first, when they were all just happy to have survived, but when that threatened to turn things ugly at any time.

But then, the newer generations being made was more equally spread. When current old men died and the current men turned into old men it was thought that eventually, naturally, the number would "equalize". Society just had to endure that population collapse.

So it was completely possible, if not probable, that the tents would die with this current generation of men.

Besides his own mother, back when she was alive, Mark couldn't claim to ever had a close relationship with a girl. In this brave new world, only the upper echelons could attract the attention of one and Mark was no fortunate son.

For people like him, for the vast amount of refugees on this side, it was being alone or being with another man. And, unfortunately for Mark, he wasn't gay.

"Alright, got the tickets," Julius told him as soon as he spotted Mark walking onto the little stage that had been made for this "event", "You fight Romani on the fourth and, let me tell you, the guys were very excited to see you make an appearance."

"Yeah, I bet they were," Mark grunted. Most fighters were popular until they fell. He had simply had the good judgment to get out before he did, "You did bet on me winning, right?"

Mark's eyebrows furrowed when Julius didn't immediately answer, "Right?"

"No, no, I did," Julius grimaced as he answered, "Just, you got to win on the second round."

"Are you for fucking real?" Marked rounded on him.

"Those were the best odds!" the man defended himself, "And I have to pay you full price for all of that weed! I have to make back my investment!"

It was an understandable sentiment and would have been a passable argument if Mark hadn't known Julius already. He supposed that he also took a gamble on Julius not trying to put everything on the slimmest margins.

"Oh, well, thank you for not betting on which punch I'd finish things," Mark rolled his eyes...before he stopped and looked at the man again, "Right?"

"Don't be stupid," Julius actually seemed offended, "I actually want to earn some money."

"Besides, they don't even calculate those margins." he then murmured under his breath and waved away the flat look Mark gave him, "Look just go where all the big sweaty men are and wait your turn."

"Fine," Mark said, "But, when I win that second round, I expect you to have the money in hand. You better not have 'invested' it in another fight."

"As if I would do that," the man who was where he was because he didn't know when to stop betting said, "Now stop bothering me and go."

The most popular type of fight, composed of 5 minutes rounds with as many rounds as it took to finish a fight, was essentially just kickboxing. For as much as anything can be "just" kick boxing. There were no gloves, no wraps and no grappling allowed. Fighters didn't get paid much, but bets always had the chance to.

In a ring only made with a single rope on four corners, raised half a foot off the ground so that no one could be blocked from the action, men stepped into a ring filled with sand and then either stepped out of it a winner or were carried out of it a loser. Draws happened, of course, but only when the two fighters were far too tired to continue. As it was, the ruleset made sure that there were clear winners and losers.

It only took Mark about 2 hours to step up with the man called Romani.

"I heard you ran away because of an injury," Romani casually said as they both entered the ring, "Could have sworn your days were over."

"Is anything ever over?" Mark wondered.

At six feet and three inches of height, Mark had always been a rather impressive specimen. If nothing else, his bulk made him avoid getting bullied. Well, too much anyway. He'd been working since he was fourteen and he'd been hauling as much ore as his body could handle. At sixteen, he realized the truth that many other men in the profession eventually did and found that the money was paltry compared to the danger, so he'd instead plied his mind and body in the much more lucrative and safe, if horrendous, sport of fighting.

And he kept at it until he managed to learn enough about surviving in the wilds of this world to make a profit off of it.

People whistled when he took off his shirt and revealed chub where there had once been defined abdominal muscle. Where there were thickset arms and shoulders where there had once been ropey cut muscle. Where broad shoulders that had once been carved wood were now simple boulders. For people in his current calling, this extra fat was almost a necessity.

Romani on the other hand, had the body that a fighter should have had. He was of a height with Mark, but without a single ounce of extra bulk to his name. It made him look lean. Hungry. Dangerous.

But would it be enough?

"On the brown corner!" a man said with aplomb to the crowd gathered there, making them all laugh as Mark and Romani stared at each other, "We have Marky Mark marking his return. Say hello guys, we'd knew he couldn't stay away from us!"

"I miss you Mark!" someone bellowed from the crowds, a cursory look revealing it to be a guy wearing far too little to just be another spectator.

"On the other brown corner, we have the future!" the announcer yelled, "Romani a'rollout-y and fight-y and naughty!"

A roar approved the announcement and Mark raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't come up with it," Romani flatly told him.

"Those are the introductions, so feel free to start the FIGHT!" the announcer ordered and the other young man was immediately upon him.

If it was up to Mark, how quickly could he have definitely and safely finished this fight?

Romani moved like a Mastiff Rat, his muscles clenching like bottled lightning, and the first few hits having so little tells that Mark avoided getting black eyes simply from instinctually weaving his head out of the way.

But weaving at long range wasn't the same as weaving at medium range. Jabs turned into hooks and, had Mark only had fighting intuition to back him, his head would have been rocked once he ducked underneath a straight and a hook followed after. Almost taking off his head at the neck.

Weaving at close range was, if anything, even trickier, so Mark made Romani duck for a change with a right hook of his own. He then took a step back from an arm that looped over his and would have smashed into his temple if he had committed to that punch.

And just as he was about to leave unscathed, Romani took a step forward, raised his knee to his stomach, and unwinded a kick with the balls of his toes that displaced the chub in Mark's stomach.

"And we have a hit!" the announcer happily said as some of the wind was knocked out of Mark. He used the push from that kick to make some distance between Roma and him, but it was a near thing to not let the pain show. It really had been far too long since he'd done this.

A quick look around revealed a haphazardly made clock reading the minutes on the round. All of that action had only taken 10 seconds, yet it felt like an eternity. But then, that was just the way of this.

"Come on," Romani fake mimed the crowd as dropped his hands and lazily walked over to him, "You can do this Mark. I believe in you!"

Heh, sarcasm.

The next time Romani darted in, his hands rose to an orthodox stance so fast that it was as if he had never dropped his guard. The man jabbed at Mark's eyes with an open hand, but Mark was already intercepting his arm with his own and so slightly making miss his head completely.

This was an old ploy, to get a fighter used to the range of a fist before going for his eyes with your fingers. But it was usually saved up for the later rounds. Not immediately after the fight started. Did Romani want to finish the fight as fast as he could or was he just not taking Mark seriously?