Finally, I could understand people, it was as if suddenly everything slotted into place and I could understand. I loved this system, I was starting to worry that I would have to spend months here just to be able to get a passable understanding of the language. Most of what I had been hearing were rumours, there was a rumour about a woman in the village that was some kind of deviant and was "corrupting" some of the local men. I thought that I might have had an idea as to the identity of that woman, although some of the things that were said about her were probably lies. She was not sleeping with a dozen men at once, or at least not the time I had been there.

There were other, smaller things. The baker had apparently changed his recipe recently, the game in the woods was quite plentiful. It was springtime and currently the 6th day of the 8 day week. One family's cat had turned up sick at the mine and had died a couple of days ago. A little girl had been crying on her mother when I heard that and I was tempted to turn myself in to them or at least explain myself but I knew that I couldn't and I shouldn't try.

From time to time I heard mention of the system. According to his wife, a hunter had recently levelled which was something that was celebrated here like birthdays were back home since after a certain point levels were hard to come by if you weren't a soldier or a guard. Apparently, professionals did receive experience based on there work, it just accumulated much slower.

I eventually heard something about golems too, apparently, the wizard who had summoned me here had been bragging to a messenger from town who had been bringing him some groceries. Showed off his shiny new golem that he had summoned and bound. From what I could tell he was set to make a fair amount of money if the golem was competent but the excited way the kids spoke of it made me think that it was probably not a common thing around here so he wasn't going to be able to walk into town with my larger body.

I had been to check on my body every day and it was still where I had left it. The mana inside of it had diminished a little but not as much as I thought it would and I was able to regain a connection with a little more mana from me and some mental effort. Since I wasn't using it I had made sure to regain that connection every time I had visited it in the hope that I wouldn't have to spend so long reclaiming it in the future.

Other than that there wasn't much in town that was of use to me, I couldn't talk to people and there wasn't really anything around that I needed. I did find out that there was going to be a shipment from the mine to a larger town somewhere in a few days time, there was only one road that went anywhere other than the mine so I assumed that it was probably that way. I planned on waiting for that cart and trying to follow it to the town. Though it was several days travel.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

So that's what I did, I returned to my body and dug myself out of the ground. I waited until the dead of night and then travelled down the road for as long 6 hours. I was pretty sure I wouldn't stumble across anyone and I could just wait for the cart and follow it.

I could keep exceptionally still as a metal person for long periods of time which meant that every so often a bit of wildlife would come to investigate me. I managed to kill 5 rats this way before they learnt to stay away which was enough for me to level up again. I again didn't spend my points at all since I wanted to save up for the fix core option. I had begun to realise just how much of an issue my mana wastage was over the past several days and I was hoping that that would solve it.

It was about this time that I realised something new about myself and I was amazed I hadn't previously. I didn't get bored anymore, I had been doing a lot of waiting around lately and usually, that would drive me out of my mind but now I could happily let time slip away. Was this something that happened as a golem? I was pretty sure I was immortal as long as nothing killed me so I guess it would make sense that something immortal wouldn't get bored. I was certainly not complaining though, it would save me from going mad during timeslike these.

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A couple of days later, just as expected the cart came down the path, it went right past me and kept going, there were only two people on it. A young boy who was driving and one of the older hunters from back at the village who was wearing a sword and carrying a bow. The rest of the cart was full of barrels. I waited until they were nearly out of sight and then began jogging after them. It was about as fast as I can move in this body and it was probably only slightly faster than the cart was moving at a walk so I kept them just in the distance for as long as possible.

Once night fell they stopped to make camp and I hid further down the road as they did. They lit a fire and ate, then the young boy seemed to fall asleep pretty quickly whilst the man kept watch. The older man must be planning on sleeping on the wagon, that wouldn't be very comfortable and would leave them a little more at risk on the roads but I guess it was one way of getting around the issue of watches.

They got up and were on their way with the crack of dawn and it went much the same as the previous day, they travelled, set up camp, ate and the boy slept. All seemed well right up until the howls started and they weren't in the distance.