“...and so he will be leaving with me as my apprentice with my convoy,” the man finished saying to my mother and father.
The man was Marshan Giragson, the leader of the convoy who I had secretly paid to take me on as his apprentice, at least so far as to take me with his convoy out of Mirut and into the larger world. I had coached him on what to say to my parents, about my skills with words and numbers and a keen eye for profit, which he had supposedly discovered when we started talking in the pop-up convoy market.
Honestly, it was a bit flimsy of a story as I had never expressed any sort of thoughts or feelings about trade or economics to my parents, but I wasn’t really expecting any problems.
“No,” my mother Sharma said, simply but absolutely.
I stared at her in surprise. Were those the hints of tears in her eyes? I almost laughed. While I wouldn’t necessarily call my parents negligent, at least not within the context of parenting in Mirut, it hadn’t seemed like they were that attentive or caring. I got away with all sorts of wild and dangerous shenanigans without them even noticing. Marshan looked down at me, a bit worried–although likely more worried about earning his gold than losing an apprentice, which he told me he rarely ever took on the road–and I was about to say something when my father surprised me.
“Sharma,” Horg said softly. “If this is wha–”
“No, Horg! How can we let him leave? He has no idea what the world is like out there. We chose Mirut for our family,” she said with a pained voice.
I could see Marshan’s expression subtly acknowledge what she was saying, which concerned me a bit. Was the rest of the Kingdom really so rough? I shook my head. I had already decided on my next steps and it would be what I was doing, no matter the risks.
“He’s not even ten yet,” she said matter-of-factly. She looked at me. “You’re still a child for a short while yet. You can find another internship after your birthday.”
“This is my choice, mother,” I said stiffly. “If I can’t go by land, I’ll find a merchant to apprentice with on a sea route.”
My mother’s expression darkened. She had been rather consumed with worry about sea beasts since she had spotted Vlad at the beach that day. Anger gave way to a pleading look. “Why can’t you apprentice in Mirut? Find a shop that needs an apprentice here!”
That was something I had prepared Marshan to answer. “Business and trade in Mirut is rather simplistic,” he said. “Pilus simply won’t be able to get a clear look at the bigger picture of imports and exports and Kingdom-wide markets from such a small town. While a store owner in Mirut might be able to support a family, there just isn’t the opportunity to build a successful and truly profitable business.”
“When will you next return to Mirut?” my father asked, and my mother put her face in her hands, having already lost the fight.
“The next convoy should be back in about two years. Three at the most.”
I looked at my father. “I’ll keep training my sword forms daily, and practice with the convoy guard. I won’t just get book learning from this. I’ll return stronger and more capable, too. I plan to make something of myself.”
He nodded, with a sad look in his eye. “I wish you didn’t feel that you had to, but I understand.”
Sharma fled the room, sobbing. I held myself back from rolling my eyes, but also had to hold myself back from trying to move to comfort her. I did feel bad for her, but any sympathy could be seen as a sign that I would cede and encourage her to try to convince me to acquiesce to her desires for me to stay.
“Well then, I’ll leave you to it,” Marshan declared. “Pilus, the convoy leaves Mirut at first light in three days. Meet us at the gate. Don’t be late.”
I nodded and the man left the house, leaving me alone with my father.
He sagged a bit, bringing a hand to his face, then looked me over.
“I’m not the type of man to interfere with the dreams of youth,” he said after a moment’s deliberation. “I certainly decided my own fate when I was your age, and couldn’t be talked out of it either.”
He paused, as if he wanted to say something, but then shook his head. He walked over, patted me on the shoulder, and then went to comfort my mother.
* * *
I tried to shake off the weight of my parents’ displeasure after the uncomfortable battle of wills over my future. I understood where they were coming from, of course. In their eyes, I was a dumb, willful kid, and if I was the parent of such a child I would want to stop them from making mistakes and keep them safe as well.
If my parents had any idea of what I had been up to throughout my childhood, my plan to leave might have been an easier pill to swallow. Problem was, I couldn’t find a way to justify my strength and skills to them as their son. I didn’t want them to ever learn that I was a reincarnated person and change how they felt as parents. In a very real way, I had robbed them of a chance to have a real son. While it would hurt them for me to leave, I worried more about how it would affect them to know they never really had a child at all, not in the way that mattered.
By leaving, I could justify the rapid growth of my abilities upon my return. I could start opening the doors of honesty with them, not about my past life but about who I was becoming in this life. It would be a delicate balance, but I felt like it was the best option, not just for myself but for them as well. They would just need to get over the temporary hurt feelings.
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I realized that it was a good thing I had opted to do martial training with Horg when I had. I didn’t think that he would have been as accepting of such a journey had I not studied with him and displayed my prowess. I had a long way to go, but I could clearly defend myself against wild beasts.
Given my mother’s reaction, there must be regions of the world where beasts were tremendously powerful and dangerous. I could understand her fear, but that was part of why I wanted to leave in the first place. Stronger beasts would allow me to grow stronger in turn. How else would I ever get as high level as Horg?
With my exit now arranged, I had several things to do before I was ready to leave Mirut. In addition to saying my goodbyes to the people I knew, I was determined to get at least one particular skill before I hit the road.
When traveling full-time, I wouldn’t have the time or energy to keep up my physical fitness and strength training. I would get a lot of exercise on the road, I was sure, but it was silly to bring all my stone weightlifting equipment with me if I couldn’t use it.
Mo the smith had shown me there was a way I could still improve without training, through his strength skill. I just had to figure out how to unlock it before I left.
Out in the jungle, I pulled out all my various stone weights, and started making adjustments. After shaping a lot of stone at the expense of a decent chunk of my MP, I formed a kind of deadlift contraption which I could stand inside of and load up with increasing weight. It was like a primitive hex bar.
I squared off, gripped the rough handles, and pulled hard, peeling the weight off the ground as I stood up straight. My feet sunk into the soft earth, so I had to create a stone platform I could stand on before continuing. I healed myself, made the adjustments, added some weight, and pulled again.
Over and over I pushed my small, almost-ten year old body to the limits of my strength, only possible thanks to my healing magic. The amount of weight I could move crept up, a small amount of stone at a time. It was a feat that should have taken months, if not years, of training.
I had a lot of reasons to be thankful for my healing magic. It occurred to me, not for the first time, that a lot of what I considered dangerous compared to what the average person considered dangerous was very, very different. So long as I didn’t die, I could bounce back from almost anything with 6-point magic. It was increasingly hard to even count the number of injuries and situations I had been in that would have left someone without 6-point magic dead. Of course the world would look so terrifying to my parents. Of course people didn’t aggressively hunt down beasts to gain strength. It was too dangerous. Healing magic made it possible. It also made aggressive strength training possible.
After many, many lifts, when I was pulling at least double my bodyweight off the ground, I finally got the notification I was hoping for.
Skill acquired: Strength
I grinned, content with my success. Some of my available SP had been assigned to 6-point magic from the healing, but I still had plenty of points to advance my strength skill. I was about to do so when I looked down at my body, my top bare after removing my tunic during my workout.
The acquisition of my strength skill already had a visible effect on me. My muscles were pumped up from the workout, so it was hard to know for sure, but I definitely seemed to be bulging with muscle well beyond what was normal for a ten year old. Since I wasn’t sure what advanced strength would do to my physical body, I would wait and advance it once I left Mirut as to not raise a fuss with friends and family.
My weight set’s duty fulfilled, I started breaking down the stone into projectiles and other stone tools I would need on a journey. By the time I was finished I had hundreds of bolts, bullets, spikes, and blades.
It would serve me well to do an inventory clean-up before I left. I was carrying quite a lot of high-ranked beast meat and parts, and I didn’t want to deal with a full inventory during my travels.
I had a veritable mountain of low-rank beast bones just sitting in my inventory that I had no immediate use for, so I rode Buda deep into the jungle to dump them somewhere. I laughed a bit at the idea of one of the guards stumbling upon the beast graveyard, but that wasn’t likely. They would be claimed and gnawed on by the local beasts in short order.
Harder to part with were the many rocky shieldback shells I carried with me. They had been such a pillar of my defenses and tactics early on, but had been largely replaced with stronger weapons and magic barriers. I moved elsewhere in the jungle and dumped all the cracked and broken shells, using magic to peel off some of the stone for yet more projectiles, leaving behind the organic bits that I couldn’t use. Then I did the same for a huge amount of intact shells, keeping only a few that I was too nostalgic to throw away. I also dumped much of the other, weightier, low-rank beast parts that I didn’t think had much value, like the many jumpcrab shells I had been sitting on.
Moving deeper into the jungle still, I dumped most of the offal that had been collecting in my inventory. The offal would absolutely attract beasts, much more so than the bones and shells, so I spread it out as I rode around with Buda. I kept edible organs, when it was possible to dismantle them from the rest of the offal, and kept the offal from the strongest beasts I had fought in case they had value, although I recognized I would likely be doing this same thing in several more years when my perspective on strong beasts and value had shifted again.
It was hard not to be a hoarder with an inventory subspace. Unfortunately, unlike in video games, it wasn’t so easy to offload junk for coin in this world. People actually had to want to buy your goods to make money. I was looking forward to learning from Marshan about his business and goods as part of the convoy. It never hurts to have more gold.
On my way back into town, I filled in my secret wall tunnel to the jungle. I didn’t think it was too dangerous with my caps on either end, but I didn’t want to be responsible for a breach during my absence. It was a lot easier filling it back in than it had been tunneling out, so it didn’t take long.
With my inventory cleaned up, my new skill obtained, my goodbyes said, and my lingering secrets resolved, I had little else to accomplish before I left. The only person I hadn’t spoken with was Nodel, who had been avoiding me since she found out I was planning to leave Mirut. Now that I was on the verge of leaving, I felt like I should say goodbye to my childhood friend.
I made my way to the front of the Mirut family mansion. Alongside the Church and the magical research institute, it was one of the three largest buildings in town. It was a stunning building, constructed in the same white stone as much of the town but with plenty of glass windows, intricate carvings, and huge well-kept gardens around it.
I had never actually made my way up to the mansion before, as it was in a part of town I wasn’t particularly comfortable in. There were a few other houses nearby that also clearly displayed wealth, but nothing like the local lord’s home. What Marshan had said had been true; Mirut was not a town where one could build a huge amount of riches. It was a stopover between the Horuth Kingdon capital and Haklan to the south, two cities where real wealth flowed.
I had no idea how to approach the mansion, or if I was even allowed. I finally realized that Nodel was truly in a different class than I was, at least when it came to wealth and power. Though she was upset with me for leaving, I was just some random kid she met on the streets and would likely forget when she took on the more important role of learning how to run a town from her father.
After loitering for a little while longer and starting to earn some pointed glares from the wealthy people passing by, I silently wished her well and started heading back home. It would be an early night to bed for me so I could wake up in the morning and join the convoy.