The pub smelled like spilled ale, roasted meat, and regret.
It had been well over ten rounds since the contest began, and both Bral and his opponent were swaying like trees in a storm. Their faces were flushed beyond recognition. Every time one of them leaned forward to grab the next mug, the entire crowd held its breath to see whether they'd grab ale or the bucket.
Bral looked at his opponent, his eyes struggling to stay aligned. "A draw?" he croaked, his voice hoarse and bubbly.
The man opposite him hiccupped, slammed his mug down, and growled, "Never!"
Bral leaned back, trying to hold it together. His hand trembled. Then he suddenly clutched his stomach and gave a visible gag.
The crowd gasped.
He covered his mouth with both hands. His eyes watered. And then, after a moment of tension thick enough to cut with a dagger, he swallowed hard and forced a burp so loud it silenced the whole room. He blinked.
Then Bral turned slowly to the group, slurring his words as he pointed a wobbly finger toward Amukelo. "In that... case…" he drawled, "…I… will use my student!"
The crowd blinked.
Amukelo blinked.
Idin, who had stopped drinking entirely and was massaging his temples, lifted his gaze and said, "What kind of absolute bullshit are you talking about?"
"You have no student," Bao added flatly.
Bral swiveled on his bench like an old door on rusty hinges, his mug splashing some ale right into Idin's lap. Idin froze, his eye twitching, as he stared at the growing wet stain on his robes. His expression promised murder.
"What are you talking about?" Bral said, his grin wide and barely in control. "Amukelo… Amukelo is my student in the art of drinking!"
Amukelo leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. "Me? I don't even like to drink."
Pao, still sipping a gentle wine beside him, murmured softly with a curious squint, "Coming to think of it, you do have a strong resistance."
"Exactly!" Bral shouted, nearly slipping off the bench as he rose to his feet again. He swayed like a broken banner and pointed dramatically to the heavens—or the ceiling fan. "I choose you, Amukelo! Champion of the flask! Guardian of the mug! May your bladder never fail you!"
Amukelo's face went completely flat. "I hate you."
The champion, still sitting across from Bral, blinked through his own drunken haze. "That's not fair, you know!" he shouted, then grinned with a mischievous twinkle. "In that case… I choose the strongest man in the village! Grom!"
The pub's front door creaked open like a theater curtain revealing the final act. And Grom walked in.
He was a mountain dressed in a man's shirt. His arms looked like they'd broken barrels just for the warm-up. His beard had its own personality. He laughed, a booming sound that made the glasses tremble.
"I've been waiting for someone to challenge me," Grom said. "No one here has the guts."
He looked straight at Amukelo.
"You've got to be either brave," he said, stepping forward, "or stupid."
"Wait—what?" Amukelo said, raising his hands. "I didn't challenge anyone! I didn't even—"
But Bral, with what little strength remained in his alcohol-soaked body, lunged forward and grabbed Amukelo's sleeve.
"You're… our only hope," Bral mumbled, then hiccupped, and—
"—GAHHHH—!"
Amukelo jerked back just in time as Bral leaned forward and vomited profusely all over the floorboards where Amukelo had been standing. The crowd roared with laughter. Bral fell back into Bao's seat and she recoiled like she'd touched something diseased.
"You," she said, voice cold and deathly calm, "are trash."
Bral raised one shaking thumb and burped. "Victory…"
Grom crossed his arms and pointed at Amukelo. "You run now, and that's it. You lose. Unless you want to forfeit without a fight, kid."
Amukelo turned to his team.
Pao had both her fists raised, cheeks flushed, waving with a bright smile. "You can do this!"
Idin had both hands over his face, whispering a prayer to God.
Bao didn't even speak. She just gave him a side glance as if saying: if you win you might save that idiot.
Amukelo sighed. Long. Heavy. Like a man forced to dig his own grave with a spoon.
"Do I even have a choice?" he muttered.
"Nope!" Grom said, already pulling up a chair.
The crowd chanted again, louder this time: "Drink! Drink! Drink!"
Amukelo sat down across from the giant, cracked his neck, and took the mug passed to him.
The pub was dead silent for a moment—so silent that even the flickering oil lamps seemed to hesitate. Grom, the mountain of a man, the undefeated drinker of the village, the legend of fermented resilience… lay slumped forward across the table, one arm dangling like a fallen flag, snoring softly into a puddle of spilled ale.
On the opposite end, Amukelo sat with one eye half-shut, blinking slowly. His lips were pale, his fingers trembling slightly as he hovered over the last mug he'd never had to drink. He wasn't sure if he was about to throw up, pass out, or both in that exact order. His soul had left his body halfway through the final round and only now was hesitantly drifting back in.
And then, from the middle of the crowd, a man with a wild beard, missing front teeth, and what looked like a self-appointed referee sash made from curtain cloth leapt onto a table and shouted at the top of his lungs:
"LADIES! GENTLEMEN! RATS IN THE RAFTERS!"
Everyone turned to look at him.
He spread his arms as if declaring the end of an era.
"Our Grom! The beast-slayer! The man whose smell scares away bears! The very reason the word 'hangover' was invented! HE HAS BEEN—!"
He dramatically paused and pointed both fingers toward Amukelo, who looked like death dipped in mead.
"DE-FEAT-ED!!"
Cheers exploded like thunder in the small wooden tavern. Ale was tossed into the air. Someone fell off a stool laughing. Someone else cried into their mug and whispered, "I never thought I'd live to see the day…"
Pao clapped politely beside Amukelo, who was still motionless. She leaned over and smiled. "That's a lot of titles."
Amukelo's face was deadpan. His voice, raspy. "I feel like I've swallowed the river."
"You did it," she said with a thumbs-up. "You're amazing."
Idin rubbed his forehead and muttered, "Yeah. Amazing. Brilliant. Nearly drank himself into the spirit realm, but sure—heroic."
Bao nudged Bral with her boot, who was still slumped sideways in his chair with his cheeks puffed and eyes spinning like wheels. "You're lucky," she said. "He just saved your sorry life."
Amukelo groaned, "As if I care about that idiot…"
Then he pushed himself off the bench, wobbled, and instantly teetered to the side.
Pao, quick to act, caught him around the waist, though the weight nearly took her down too.
"Seriously?" he said, blinking down at her. "Knowing you, you'd fall asleep right here if you drank a few mugs."
Pao giggled softly. "Probably."
They rested in the village for three more days, mostly because Bral's liver had filed an official protest and Amukelo couldn't look at anything fermented without gagging. The villagers treated them like heroes, offering more ale—which they vehemently declined—and special dishes including pork roasted with wine, cheeses soaked in local spirits, and, disturbingly, "alcohol-baked potatoes."
On the morning they prepared to leave, the air was fresh, the dew thick over the grass.
As they strapped their packs, Grom—still looking slightly pale—and the previous drinking champion approached them by the gate.
Grom offered a solid nod to Amukelo. "Hey, kid."
Amukelo turned, blinking slowly. "Oh. Uh. Hey."
"You're good," Grom said with something that almost resembled a smile.
Amukelo scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, I… guess."
The other man, grinned with admiration. "No, I mean really. No one's ever out-drank me before. Except Grom. You're built for it. You've got the blood."
Amukelo gave him a look. "Blood? Ugh… don't say that."
Bao stepped up beside them, her arms crossed. "Talents, huh? And here I thought resistance to poison was supposed to be a survival skill, not a sport."
The man laughed. "Out here, it's both."
Then she asked, genuinely curious, "So… how much do you actually need to drink to scare off a monster?"
The champion raised a brow. "Well… as little as ten mugs. But the truth is, the more the better. Some say the stench alone puts 'em off."
He frowned slightly then and looked toward the village. "But that's why we can't grow much. Not many traders want to come through if they've got to drink half their weight just to survive the road. And not all of us can afford to be drunk day and night."
Amukelo nodded, strangely solemn. "It is poison, you know. In the blood."
Grom chuckled. "You say that, but you've got a gift. Come back sometime. We'll see if you still hold the title."
Amukelo raised a hand, "Only if I lose my will to live."
They all laughed.
Then Bral stepped forward, still recovering but visibly pleased. "By the way," he said, "about your trading problems. We're heading to Ashvale. There's talk of them building proper roads—finally. There've been delays, but we've accepted a quest to help sort that out."
The two villagers blinked in surprise. "You're serious?" Grom asked.
Bral grinned. "Deadly. If all goes well, you might not need to pickle yourselves for the road anymore."
The two men looked at each other, then back at the group.
"Damn…" the thinner man muttered. "Didn't expect that. Thought you were just travelers."
"Well, sometimes we're heroes. Sometimes we're idiots." Bral said with a shrug. "Depends on the day."
Grom nodded. "Well, thank you. All of you."
He looked at Amukelo again. "Good luck, champion."
Amukelo groaned. "Don't call me that."
They waved goodbye, and the group continued their journey—tired, a little hungover, but stronger.