When Emcy woke up, something was nibbling on his ear. As he opened his eyes, the sight of a huge piggy stomach in the morning sun awaited him.

"Ah, get away from me!" Emcy shouted, pushing the pig off of him. But it was already too late. When he touched his ear, warm blood was on his fingertips.

'Really? Something like this could be nice in other circumstances, but not when a swine does it... Well, nothing I can do. But, at least I found a name for you: asshole!'

Emcy poked his new swine friend in the rear with a stick a few times as revenge before starting his plan for today. His sister told him that the smithy was located in the middle of the town. After scouting it out, Emcy found a grumpy looking old man was swinging a hammer to create... a hammer?

'Alright, there are a few ways to be accepted as a smith.

1. fame in the town

2. making a weapon of great quality

3. just be there a lot and annoy the smith until he shows you how to smith

The first two require a lot of work and commitment and especially a lot of time. So that's not a possibility. So that only leaves the third option, but for that to work, there has to be a reason that the smith can not just send me away... I think it's time for emotional manipulation!'

[A few minutes later]

An elderly lady was gardening in the hot sun. Sweat ran down her body while she was ripping weeds out of her small herb fields. Her back had started hurting a while ago, but she didn't want to tell her husband. He would just worry too much, and he already had enough on his mind.

His business had been losing valuable customers because the adventurers had started bringing their own weapons from home. If it went on like this, he might need to close the smithy.

The lady sighed. She was already annoyed by the constant mumbling of her husband. She really didn't know what to do if her husband now also lost his work. He might drive her into madness!

At this moment, one of the city's orphans entered her garden. He opened the gate carefully as if it was the most valuable thing he had ever touched. Then, Shily, he looked around, and when their eyes met, he looked down immediately.

'This poor boy probably never had anything... How ridiculous my worries must sound to him,' the woman thought.

"Hello, who are you?" the woman asked in a friendly tone, to not scare the boy.

His voice trembled a little when he answered, and he still looked at the dirt. "I'm Emcy, mam."

"And why did you come here, Emcy?"

The boy glanced at her but immediately looked at the dirt again. "I... I heard you needed help, so I thought I could do something worthwhile with my time."

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"I bet you have something better to do than helping an old lady like me."

"No, I haven't. The only thing I want to do is becoming a smith... but I already know that that's not possible. Only people with money can ever dream of becoming a smith. So the only thing I can do is to help you, to at least get a glimpse of the burning read ovens and the smell of molten iron."

For a while, the only thing that could be heard was the chirping of the birds. Then finally, the old lady sighed.

"Well, if it is that important to you... My back hurts, which means I can't pick the weeds as fast as I could before. If you could help me..."

Half an hour later, the entire garden was cleaned up, the weeds piled up on the compost and the crushed snails right beside it.

As far as the old lady could remember, it hadn't been so clean ever since her back pain had started.

"Ah, thank you very much, my boy," the old lady smiled at Emcy. "Do you wanna come in to eat?"

Emcy kept his eyes on the ground while fidgeting a little. "I don't want to bother you. I'm just going to go into the woods and eat a few berries, then the hunger doesn't..."

"No way, you are definitely going to eat with us today!" the old lady cut him off.

'Well, that was easy,' Emcy thought while being dragged into the stone house.

While the old lady threw potato-like vegetables into a pot, Emcy sat at the table. He quietly cleared his throat before speaking. "Mam, will your husband also eat with us?"

The woman was now even throwing a bit of meat in the pot. "Yes, of course he will. And also, you don't need to call me mam, just call me *****."

'As if I'm going to remember the name of some unimportant side characters,' Emcy almost laughed.

"Ok, I understand, mam."

The old lady shook her head but then changed the topic. "I have a little favour to ask of you. Could you please not tell my husband anything of my back issues?"

"Yes, of course mam," Emcy nodded.

"..."

"Do... you want to know why?" the woman asked.

"Yes, mam."

"I don't want to worry my husband... he already has so much on his own back and..."

After a lot of dry explaining, the smith came home, and they began eating. The entire time, Emcy only had his eyes on the smith watching every one of his movements as if he was the messiah.

From time to time, the old woman smiled at Emcy.

'Ah, acting like this is so tiring... At least there is only one thing left that I need to do, and then everything will start falling into place.'

After Emcy said his (shy) goodbyes, he spent the rest of the day experimenting with different poisonous plants in the woods. He knew that he would have a bad stomach ache for the next few days, but he was still satisfied with the results.

At the start of the next day, he met the old lady again.

"Hello, my boy, what do you want so early in the morning?"

Emcy took out a small pouch that he had carried with him and gave it to her. "Here, it's something for your back. I spend all the money I had left to get it, so please, try it out."

"Oh no, I can't accept that," the woman tried to give it back, but Emcy hid his arms behind his back.

"Please, just try it once. You just need to take a fingertip of the powder and snort it, and your back will stop hurting."

The woman tried to decline for a while longer but then finally yielded. As soon as she had taken a little bit of the powder, her face relaxed, and she started smiling.

"What is this? This is incredible. It feels like all my pain is suddenly gone. I feel 25 at most! Thank you so much!" she embraced Emcy before kissing him on the forehead. "I have to tell my husband!"

Emcy just smiled while we watched the old woman run into the house. He knew that he could start working here from tomorrow onwards.

In the following days, a small gang of orphans started selling a highly addicting pain killer drug.

The smith's wife was one of the first regulars. And for some reason, Emcy started finding money under a tree in front of his house every second morning.