For once Nikolai actually returned from his daily hunts earlier than expected. For once luck was on his side, and he was able to fill up his sled with moose meat before any of the other hunters got their hands on the lonely fella. It was a competition after all.
The small trip back to the stairs only took about an hour as the moose had been wandering around relatively close to New Moscow. He could see tracks from other hunters, all of the parallel lines from skies going in the wrong direction. Towards where the animals were most likely to be, but they didn't think of the fact that there would be allot more predators there as well. But most of the other hunters were young, somewhere around 20-25 years, they didn't have the necessary experience yet.
Nikolai continued to think about the beginners sharing his profession for a little while, some of them could become good, but they were still a long way from possessing the same skills as himself. All of them acted like they were the best, kept on bragging about their biggest game, never shutting up about how brave they were for going out "there" for the benefit of "everyone."
Nikolai sighed of the thought. In fact on days like these, whit almost no wind, actually no snow, and some stars being close enough to deliver the same kind of light as the moon once did; it could almost be described as cosy. But it wouldn't last long. In a couple hours it would be a storm outside as usual.
Reaching one of his favorite stairs, the one in the old "Moscow Hotel" where about 5 floors of the old skyscraper shot up through the massive ice. One of the windows were crushed, and it was this one Nikolai used to get in and out from the building. The ice reached almost halfway up on the frame, so Nikolai took of his skies and threw them inside first, before grabbing the rope which attached him to the sled and sliding on his back into the hotel-room, pulling the sled after him.
It wasn't much warmer on the inside, so he just did the usual thing of hiding the skies and sled in a closet in another room after moving the meat from the sled over to a leather backpack he used to carry the bloody mass around in New Moscow. Then he started walking down the 14 floors to ground level where he could enter the icy tunnel called Main Street and start on his tour around town, delivering the meet to the different shops he had a deal with.
Nikolai had to unbutton his grey jacket as he walked down Main Street. The temperature here was kept at a steady 9 degrees Celsius, but because of the coldness of the ice, it didn't drip any water so to say. If it did, New Moscow would soon have a flood problem. The temperature made it quite warm for a guy dressed for the outside, and if you combined the German uniform jacket, the bloody backpack, the huge knife hanging from his belt and the rifle slung across his shoulder, Nikolai stood quite out in between the other citycents, given that most of them didn't carry a weapon. If you added the fact that he stood almost a head taller than most others and that he looked genuinely angry... People avoided him as much as they could.
Nikolai just sighed as he walked, already looking forward to today's drink. But first he had to make his round.
The first shop he entered was one owned by some ms.Hilbito, Nikolai never cared to learn her first name. Unfortunately her daughter the only one behind the desk as he entered. "Morning" Nikolai said with an indifferent voice "Brought today's meet" He said and placed the backpack on the desk before opening it and starting to take out a few pieces of bloody meet. "15 pounds right?" He asked the young lady with a tired voice as he waited for her to confirm.