The Reason We Fight

Chapter 25. The Demonstration

Tam groaned. "It's not working. You sure you really were a Royal Dog?"

"I was. But my power is gone. And just as well, too. Ill luck is all it ever brought me", the girl answered.

"Listen uh... what's your name again?"

"Shu..." She hesitated for an instant. Daro's face popped into her mind. "Kakume", she finished.

The man burst out laughing. "A bit on-the-nose for an alias, but I'll allow it." He turned her back on her and poured himself a piping hot cup of black, bitter coffee. "Listen, Kakume. I'm sure those fanatic Kakin tyrants have drilled it into your cranium that the Sorcery was evil and yadi-yadi-yada. But it's not, and it's yours, truly and utterly. A powerful Nen is a gift. Yours isn't gone. It's just burned out, from having used too much of it all at once."

Kakume listened to him attentively, remaining silent. Tam sipped his coffee. "Same thing probably happened to your emotions, too. So here's how it's gonna be. I know of these meditation exercises. You'll need to do them every day, no exceptions. If your Nen is not back within a year, I'll owe you... I don't know, a pony or something."

"Okay", she said.

"In the meantime, however, I will teach you about something even more important than Nen: People."

-

Tam and Kakume went outside. It was a beautiful and sunny day, leaves rustling and birds chirping. They walked to the parking lot of a retirement home, and he picked up a few of the round stones that were scattered near the front lawn for landscaping purposes. He put them into his bag.

What is he doing? What's the purpose of this?

They then walked to the outdoor market, near Zaban's city center. Tam found an empty stall, on which he placed four of the worthless pink stones. He got a lab coat out of his bag, and started calling for customers.

"Get your hands on these priceless Padokean rejuvenating geological marvels! They will keep you grounded to the earth's flow, focus your energies inwards! Only four left! Get them while you have the chance!", Tam cried out in a booming, confident voice.

Surprisingly, that attracted quite a few interested onlookers. Many seemed skeptical, however. Tam offered to demonstrate the stones' amazing power. Kakume lifted her eyebrows. Are they not just random rocks he picked up from the side of the road?

He asked a man forward. "Your energies are disconnected; I can tell by how out of balance you are with the ground".

"Out of balance?", the man asked. Tam suggested he take up a T-pose, with his arms projected to the sides. He then easily made the skeptical spectator fall to the ground by simply touching one of his arms down. Tam brandished the stone, and asked that the man hold it for a whole minute, focusing on its center.

"Now let's see how you feel now". Tam pushed the same arm down, seemingly using all his force, but couldn't make him fall.

The man was speechless. "Wow! That's amazing. You're really trying, aren't you? I can feel you're putting a lot of strength into it, even more than in the beginning. That stuff really works!"

"Indeed, my good man. You would do well to hurry, however. These stalactite-enriched minerals sell like hot cakes. They work on the scientific foundation of quantum entanglement, and can only be found in one valley in the Padokean continent." The man bought two, for the hefty price of 7000 jenny each, and was quickly followed by two dozen or more customers within a few minutes. Once he had exhausted his stock, he closed up shop.

He took Kakume to the side. "Now tell me. How did I manage to sell those worthless rocks?"

Kakume pondered. "Is that your Nen?", she asked.

He shook his head, smiling. "Of course not".

How did the stone get that grounding power then? she wondered. Are they really magic? She grabbed the last stone and inspected it, trying to unveil its mystery. She closed her eyes and attempted to feel the Nen.

"You're not looking in the right place, girl. Forget about the rocks, and allow me to demonstrate."

Kakume positioned herself with her arms out. "You see, it's simply about angles. When I push your arm down, it throws your whole body weight off. I don't even have to use a lot of pressure. However, when I push your arms at a 45o angle, down but inwards, it forms an orthogonal triangle with your arm and feet. That makes it almost impossible to tip you over."

That was a neat trick, for sure. "I see", she said. "Is that all there is to it?"

"Nope", Tam declared, a smirk upon his lips. "That's just the introduction. What really determined the sale resides within the target's brains." He raised one finger.

"First, is the halo effect. The first impression that a person gets from me is that I am a nicely dressed, good-looking guy. The attractiveness stereotype is what you'd call a mind shortcut, of a sort. It makes people think that in addition to being attractive, you also have other qualities that are often grouped with it, such as trustworthiness, altruism, self-assertiveness or even kindness."

"Do people really fall for that?", asked Kakume, disbelieving.

Tam chuckled. "Well of course". He raised a second finger. "Secondly, closely related to the first, is the authority bias. These people see me in a lab coat, essentially the signifier 'smart person uniform', and suddenly trust my counsel. Seeing a person who seems an expert, well-travelled and educated puts them at ease. Don't be afraid of pulling the big words on them. Why say rock when you can say things like geological components or minerals?"

He raised a third and final finger. "Thirdly, and the most important one, is to push your target away from a state of critical thinking and into one of emotion. How did I manage to do that?"

Kakume thought for a few minutes, and then it came to her. "Oh, I know. You told them that it was rare, and that you didn't have many stones left."

"We've got a winner! It's called the scarcity effect. Creating a false shortage pushes people to be more irrational than they would normally be, for fear of losing an opportunity. This is how stores lure customers with things such as end-of-season sales. It also explains panic buying, such as when people traditionally start buying canned goods en masse during wartime. The time pressure leads them to emotion."

"The people you trick must be quite stupid, then".

"Not at all!", Tam laughed. "Being intelligent is not protective, remember that. When a target makes a decision, it's not their intellect that's being engaged, it's their emotional state. A good mark is a person in a state of transition, vulnerable. They search for comfort, and that is what we promise to offer them."

They went back into their home. Kakume was giving Tam furtive glances.

"Out with it, already.", he exclaimed.

Kakume looked to the ground, uncertain. "It's nothing, just... Why would you choose to be a swindler? You're a Hunter, aren't you? Cheating a bunch of muttonheads out of their money doesn't seem like a good use of your time. Nor the most lucrative."

Tam cocked his eyebrow. "Not everything is about money, sweetheart. There's also control... power. And not just physical power, no, that would be too damn easy. You best remember one thing: just like everything else, power is a mummer's trick."

(AN: 7000 jenny translates to about 60 USD)