Judging by the pile of axes in the corner Grenfell wasn’t happy about my extended disappearance. I guessed it would be a while before I could ask to go to the river again. Blast, I didn’t know when I would get an opportunity again.
“Did you manage to find a whetstone?”
I shook my head. The closest I came to finding a whetstone was the rock I cracked over the ogre’s head. Come to think of it, that broken rock would make an excellent whetstone.
“I don’t know what you did to those last axes you worked on, but the guys can’t stop talking about how well they cut trees today. Keep up the good work. Also, thanks for sorting that ogre out, the idea of that monster running around the area would make anyone uncomfortable. Oh, you had better see those ladies before it’s too late.”
Oh bugger, I’d forgotten I had kitchen duties and hurried to leave.
“Don’t forget that you have fire duty tomorrow.”
Fire duty required someone to keep an eye on the foundry fire so that it was always ready when needed. To start a fresh fire every time we needed the furnace would take too much time from the day, detracting from the actual metalsmithing work. To feed the fire we used homemade coke, not the cool drink or the white powder stuff, instead the coke we made the day before by neatly stacking hardwood branch offcuts, then covering it with a layer of earth and firing it up. The idea behind coke making was letting the heat burn off the volatiles while carbonising the hardwood, leaving only the purest carbon properties, ideal for heating iron. To keep the foundry fire blazing hot, it needed more oxygen than regular burning could supply. A pair of manual bellows supplied more air but needed a lot of hand pumping to feed the fire. Honestly, it wasn’t my favourite activity.
When I arrived at the kitchen later that day, the ladies in the kitchen all welcomed me with open arms and a kiss on the cheek. I didn’t know how to respond when they all insisted I take the rest of the day off. They obviously thought that killing an ogre was enough effort from me for one day, not that I was complaining. On top of that, they thanked me for all their knives I sharpened, already being productively used by cutting all the meat I inadvertently provided. I still didn’t know how I was going to stomach ogre meat. Sure, it was a monster, but it still looked very humanoid to me. Nonetheless I obviously gained a lot of kudos points on their list. Just as I left them, while nearly out of hearing range, I clearly heard Matilda say something to Haruhime.
“You better look after that one, he’s special.”
I pretended not to hear that, but I think she intended me to hear it, nonetheless. Sheesh, I was hardly a few days in that world, and they were already hitching me up to get married.
Haruhime smiled as she watched me join the other men sitting at the campfire. I didn’t know she realised there was something different about me. Perhaps it was that difference that made her like me. That and the fact I seemed very capable and reliable, something that made her heart stir in ways she had never felt for someone before. In her mind she could see me as someone she trusted with her thoughts.
Haruhime’s distant gaze didn’t go unnoticed by Matilda. She knew that look all too well because a long time ago, she too looked at her husband like that.
“Ah such love.”
What else could she say while shaking her head and laughing to herself.
During dinner while sitting next to the fire I asked Orilay about Waldheim’s axe. He had mentioned it during the discussion with the supervisor when they handed the thing over to me. He sighed, staring into the fire for a while.
“Waldheim was a knight of the Royal Heavy knight division, a friend of the boss and mine.”
“Were you a knight?”
“No. I was just an adventurer at the time, but we became friends after we all took part in a war with the eastern kingdom.”
“Did his battle axe end up with that ogre during that war?”
“No, only after the war when the monsters became stronger and more numerous. Perhaps because of the war, and the kingdom’s military forces were still recovering. I’m not exactly sure, but Waldheim died in a battle with a big ogre after a large ambush that wiped out his division soon after the war. We only discovered what happened because a few of the men were lucky enough to escape. We searched for him afterwards, but we never found his body, or anyone else’s for that matter.”
It turned out the battle axe was something of a unique item, possibly kingdom ranked. Although it might have been something, I would have given it to them if they asked, they thought it best I do whatever I liked with it, since they had no plans for it anyhow. A battle axe had little use for a woodcutter, for starters it was too heavy and unwieldly to be used during precision cutting of a tree. A battle axe was designed to overpower and destroy in one blow. Just what I was going to do with that axe when I got back was anyone’s guess. Perhaps I could sell it to someone who might be interested.
That night as I lay thinking in bed, I couldn’t sleep given everything that happened just a few hours ago. I lay on my back pointlessly studying my unfinished metal hobby knife. Strangely enough on the top of my mind wasn’t the knife or my brush with the ogre but Matilda’s words to Haruhime. I liked Haruhime and her feelings for me were clear, but it was far too soon for me to be committing to someone in a world where I hardly even knew the name of the kingdom. Heck, I wouldn’t even know how to start looking after myself and on top of that, to have someone else to look after as well.
While mulling those thoughts in my head, I naturally focussed my attention on the knife in my hand. Perhaps due to my emotional state of mind I seemed to drift into a state where I could almost imagine the material makeup of the knife. I sensed its flaws, weak points, and could see the best way to shape it. The metal was different to the iron kitchen knives and axes, the metal somehow seemed more responsive to me as if something I did, improved my understanding of it. I could see how the knife needed improving and by moving elements from the good parts the weaker parts could be improved.
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“Ah Shane?”
A concerned roommate asked from my side.
“Can you stop whatever you’re doing with that knife? You’re really freaking us out here.”
All the men were awake and looking wide eyed at me. I thought that perhaps my holding a blunt knife in the middle of a dark tent with nowhere to run might be a reason for them to be concerned. But I hadn’t intended to do anything dangerous. That's when I realised my knife was glowing orange, casting a warm glow of light throughout the tent.
The next morning, I woke up earlier than usual. I guessed the events of the last day made it difficult for me to settle down, especially last night’s glowing knife event which moved to the top of my list of things to ponder. As I washed myself in the ablutions area, I considered what happened in the tent. I scared the men spitless after my knife started glowing. The knife wasn’t just glowing with orange light, it was heated nearly to the point of melting, when the heat hit my fingers I almost started a fire when the knife fell on my bedding leaving a gaping hole in my blanket. The engineer in me realised that my imagination had somehow started mechanically moving the material in the knife, causing internal friction and raising the temperature as a result. My knife survived but I resisted the temptation to check it again to see if anything changed until I was better prepared to go through that situation again. Something said to me that I would get a similar result, so I didn’t want to burn down the tent proving myself right.
The forging fire at the smithy raged in earnest as I threw in a few more coals to keep the temperature up. There were still a few minutes before I had to re-stoke the fire so I decided to use the opportunity to see if I could repeat last night’s event. I sat on a wooden stool while working over a table that Grenfell used for detailed work. The table had a sheet of hammered copper allowing heated items to be worked on without burning the underlying wood. I put my knife on the table and started to use the same process of thinking I used the previous night, but without success. I couldn’t feel the material like last time, so I touched the end of the metal knife with an immediate improvement in visualisation. It seemed I was on the right track, shaping my knife in the same process. Step two was to keep on shifting materials within the knife, while making it sharper. That time there was something different. I could sense the hammered copper on the table and decided to transfer some of the copper to the knife to see what would happen. At that point I lost consciousness.
“Bugger.”
I came to with Grenfell’s irritated voice harassing me.
“What the blazes are you doing? Why did you let the fire die down and just what the heck did you do to the table?”
With a drooling bed face, I looked up only to see an angry Grenfell and the sun full in the midday sky. The table sported a hole in the copper matching the shape of my knife. Something I did made me lose consciousness. Grenfell seemed to think I had fallen asleep and there was no point in telling him otherwise. There was no way I would be able to explain that away. I just apologised and picked up the knife to go stoke the fire again.
“Hold up there a moment Newbie. Just what did you do to that knife?”
I looked at it my hand and discovered why he was asking. Not only was the blade completely shaped and razor sharp, but it also sported a new copper colour tint on the one side. Somehow, I managed to transfer the copper to the knife, I seemed to remember that it was only an outer coating which thankfully didn’t lessen the quality of the knife.
“Can I see it?”
I handed him the knife that still needed a handle. He turned it in his hands and looked at me.
“I’ve never seen anything like this, it’s as if the copper has somehow melted into the metal without affecting it. Is this just a surface effect?”
I really didn’t know but telling him that wouldn’t help.
“I’m not entirely sure, but I somehow think it is.”
“Can you explain how you did it?”
I couldn’t really or rather, telling might lead me to being burnt on a stake or leading to something unequally unpleasant. I had no idea what was normal or taboo in that world. I decided to change the subject.
“I’m sorry but I don’t feel too well. Please excuse me so that I can lie-down for a while till I feel better.”
“No. Take the rest of today off and no more work.”
Why did I feel guilty about getting off that easy, even if I did feel crap? Thankfully, he didn’t argue. After the events of the day before, he wasn’t averse to giving me a break. He probably thought it was the strain of my attack on the ogre that fatigued me.
“Thanks.”
I left to recover in my tent. I felt like crap, although I started feeling better after lying down. A little while later the foreman came to see me.
“Newbie. How are you feeling?”
“I’m feeling better thanks. I think I should be okay to get going again after lunch.”
“No. I agree with Grenfell giving you the day off. You had a big day yesterday and I want you to take a break. Grenfell says you were looking for a whetstone yesterday?”
“Yeah, I was until that ogre turned up. I saw a rock there that would really suit my purposes.”
“Okay, go there today to pick it up and come back as soon as you can.”
The kindness of that offer shocked me, I really didn’t expect that sort of treatment. Especially allowing me to go out again so soon after the incident. I think the foreman read my mind.
“You’re not going alone though. I’m sending Haruhime to go with you to make sure you don’t get into trouble again.”
Huh? How would tagging Haruhime with me improve any situation?
“Okay…I guess?”
“Oh, don’t get any ideas about attacking monsters again. If you both see anything, I want you to get back here as quickly as possible, we’re still on alert after your incident. But just as importantly I need you to be on top form from tomorrow, so I’m bending some of the rules to help you out.”
I hadn’t considered that. It still seemed strange to me that he would send me with Haruhime, a kitchen help, to get my whetstone. But I was happy to leave the camp with her, at least both of us would get a break today. Sending me back to the river when there was a potential monster threat seemed a strange move to make, but for some reason the supervisor felt it fine to send the both of us back into the forest.
The supervisor walked away while thinking. It was risky to send the newbie back out into the forest so soon, but after his heated discussion with his wife the previous night, he lost to the battle of wills, which he normally did anyhow. Matilda forced his hand, allowing Haruhime and the newbie to go out together to the river. Trust his wife to play matchmaker at a time like that. Why couldn’t she just stay out of it, he wondered while shaking his head. From what he knew about Haruhime, he felt sorry for any ogre that picked a fight with her. Just to be sure, he’d dispatched a pair of the camp’s best scouts to survey the area in case there were any signs of monster activity. His ex-adventurer background experience warned him that ogre generals didn’t stray far from their battalions. If there was going to be trouble, he wasn’t about to be caught with his pants down. If it were up to him, he would have left the area a long time ago and headed further south. That damned mayor wouldn’t let him and threatened to sack him if he did. The mayor was up to something nefarious, and it started to affect a lot more people. Soon it would start to cost people’s lives. He believed the mayor didn’t care; he just wanted more money. A dam was about to burst; it just needed the smallest of cracks.