From Serf to Swordmaster, Chapter 7
From Serf to Swordmaster, Chapter 7
Whether it was because his first battle had ended, or because of the sense of liberation that came with gaining his freedom, Berak's heart would not stop pounding. Every step carried too much force, and before he knew it, he was sprinting at full speed.
The thought of conserving his stamina never even crossed his mind. He wasn't out of breath, either. Even the sensation of his feet striking the ground grew faint.
Thud-thud-thud-thud.
By the time the strange sensation finally made him stop, the morning light was already spreading.
When he looked back, large trunks had been torn through. At shin height, broken branches stretched in a line. It was the trail of him plowing straight through obstacles he hadn't even seen during the night.
"Hah......."
With awareness, his senses slowly returned as well. His pants, soaked damp with dew. A dull pain spreading where he had collided with things. Flowing sweat and ragged breath.
He had come far.
But was this far enough? He couldn't be sure.
He hadn't waited to see what would happen back there. He had simply left. It had been a choice made for freedom.
If so, he needed to get far enough that he couldn't be caught. If by some chance he was dragged back, an opportunity like this would never come again.
So Berak kept walking.
Strangely, just walking seemed to restore his stamina.
Then he ran again.
When he grew tired, he walked again.
He never sat down anywhere, and he didn't bother to rest.
By the second night, a fierce thirst set in.
He didn't know how to find water, but he could smell it. He searched the area and barely managed to find a stream.
Having lost that much time, he quickened his pace again.
And after staying awake through another night, no thoughts remained at all.
Running, walking, catching his breath. Then running again.
Staggering to a stop, blacking out for a moment. Then walking again.
How many hours this process had gone on, or how many days.
He could no longer keep track.
Along the way, there had been times when he was hungry, and times when he was unbearably sleepy. But he had put it all off with the single thought that he had to get farther away.
Now even that will was growing hazy.
In truth, from some point on, he had thought about buying food or resting for a bit if he saw a village. But all he saw were mountains and fields. A village would surely appear if he went just a little farther, he kept telling himself, and before he knew it, he had ended up here.
In the first place, Berak knew nothing about geography or how to find his way.
In any case, having come this far, he now needed to get at least a little sleep.
He scanned his surroundings. A fairly large boulder caught Berak's eye. He wedged his hands beside it and pushed, and the soil beneath cracked. When he pushed once more, the boulder slowly lifted and rolled forward. A sunken groove remained where it had been.
"...This should do."
Berak tidied up the groove a few more times. He pushed the dirt aside with his hands and kicked away the small stones with his feet, and soon a space to lie down was made. At the edges, he stood rocks upright around it like a windbreak.
It was a roughly made spot, but he truly had no strength left now. He just wanted to sleep.
[Activity exceeding your limits has continued.]
[Special Event: Limit Break I]
「Stamina + 3」
He didn't even have the strength to think about what it meant. Before the message even faded, Berak fell into a deep sleep.
* * *
"Hah."
The moment he opened his eyes, a violent hunger surged over him. His stomach hurt so badly from hunger it was agonizing.
'I must have come quite far by now.'
Only then did it occur to Berak that he needed to find something to eat.
He wandered the area and spotted animals. He tried throwing his axe a few times. But the small animals were hard to hit. The axe itself kept lodging into nearby trees first.
'I hit the slave trader in one throw, though......? Was it because there were no trees around then?'
Whoosh.
"Ah!"
This time it grazed a deer's antlers by a hair's breadth. The creature startled and bounded away into the distance.
「Throwing Proficiency + 1」
As he kept throwing, letters appeared, but finding food came first. Berak changed his approach to catching them directly.
But even when he tried to sneak up, their senses were sharper than he expected. Most of them darted away right before he got close.
Except for one. There was one that didn't run even when he approached. Even when it met Berak's eyes, it didn't budge. It just stood still, looking down at him.
Thwack.
So he caught it right away. It was a bear. Berak had never seen one in person, but he had heard plenty about them while working at the logging camp near the forest.
Now that he had caught it, the challenge was how to eat it.
He had heard that when you catch a beast, you have to process the hide first. However, Berak didn't know exactly how that was done.
"...This isn't working."
The bear's hide was too thick to tear apart with his hands.
In the end, Berak raised his axe, pressed the blade against its flank, and drew it across with force.
Blood spattered, getting on his hands and face.
Berak instinctively pulled his body back and grimaced.
Beneath the torn hide, red flesh and a sticky layer of fat were exposed.
"Ugh, disgusting."
Thinking about eating should have made his mouth water, but his stomach turned first.
After catching his breath for a moment, Berak looked around.
"Next... I need to start a fire."
Berak scraped together dry branches and moss from around him. Recalling how the workers at the logging camp had done it, he stood a stick upright and rolled it between his palms. But no matter how much he rubbed, only his palms stung, and just a little smoke rose before scattering.
"...It won't catch?"
The workers had clearly seemed to rub lightly without much effort. So he couldn't understand why it wasn't working for him.
Thunder rumbled in his stomach. Panic rose at the thought that, at this rate, he might have to chew raw meat.
'If it won't work, I'll make it work.'
Berak gripped the stick hard enough to make it creak. He didn't know any technique. He simply pressed down and rubbed the stick with several times the strength and speed of an ordinary person.
Screech, screech!
A shrieking friction sound rang out. Pressure on the verge of breaking concentrated on a single point. Then acrid smoke burst out, and red embers sparked.
'It worked!'
Berak placed the roughly cut meat over the flames. With no proper cooking tools, the outside charred black while the inside didn't even cook. But this wasn't the time to worry about such things.
He shoved the hot meat into his mouth. Berak chewed it roughly and swallowed.
"Time to go."
His stomach was full, so he had to move. He stood and walked into the forest. The half-raw, gamey taste lingered, so he kept inhaling the cold forest air.
'...Huh?'
Mixed with the wind, he faintly heard voices.
Short, clipped speech. The sound of something being dragged or moved.
Berak stopped walking.
The sounds were leaking out from somewhere among the trees, falling in fragments.
'People?'
They were the first people he had seen in days. Berak cautiously headed in that direction. He took the force out of his steps and even held his breath.
「Stealth + 1」
'Let's keep some distance for now.'
He hid behind a tree and quietly observed. Two wagons, several people. Their clothes varied, but there weren't many who were armed. Bags and bundles of luggage were scattered around.
'Who are they? Merchants? Laborers? Thieves?'
They didn't look like nobles, at least. Berak held his breath and listened a little more closely.
"Why did it sink in this deep!"
"If we drive the horses any harder, they'll get hurt! Stop for a moment!"
Voices carried through the trees. In the middle of a hill path, one wagon was tilted at an angle. One wheel was sunk deep into a muddy gap, and no matter how much they pushed, it wouldn't budge.
Berak's gaze moved to the few armed figures.
They wore swords at their waists and light armor. But they looked more like mercenaries than a lord's guards or soldiers.
'Should I watch a little longer?'
Berak had no intention of picking a fight.
If they were on a similar level to the slave trader's escorts, he could win, but being that confident would be foolish.
And after watching for a while, he judged that they were most likely merchants.
The crates loaded on the wagons were tightly secured, but there were no signs of haste. The way they handled the cargo suggested they were protecting it. They weren't people on the run.
'I can at least get food and directions from those people.'
Going farther alone, he had no sense of where to head. From now on, he needed to decide on a destination and direction.
And there was also the hope of getting some 'proper' food.
After scanning the area below the hill and the side forest path once more, so that he could sprint away in the worst case, Berak slowly straightened up.
* * *
"Ugh......."
Renabel bit her lip anxiously.
The horses had startled and bolted to the side of the road, causing the cargo wagon to slide into the mud.
Normally, a few people pushing together should have been enough to get it out. But this cargo wagon was loaded half-full with ore, and the axle was tilted so that one wheel was completely submerged in the mud.
The bigger problem was that the one remaining horse had gotten spooked and was bracing its hind legs, refusing to move.
Taking the wagon apart and splitting up the cargo was one option. But that would cause a long delay. Once the sun set on this hill road, fog would settle in and visibility would drop to nothing.
Beasts and monsters also came down frequently, so they absolutely had to reach the next village before sunset.
"At this rate, we'll be stuck sleeping here tonight......."
Someone muttered in an uneasy voice.
Just as a murmur of irritation and worry was spreading around the wagon, something happened.
Suddenly, a completely different kind of murmuring arose. The direction and the mood were entirely different. Renabel turned her head toward where the people were looking.
"Hah......!"
She unconsciously drew in a breath.
The figure that emerged, pushing through the underbrush, was.......
Clothes torn to tatters.
Blood covering his entire body.
And in his hand, a young boy holding a gleaming axe.
"Who are you?"
A long-term contract mercenary swiftly stepped in front of Renabel and placed his hand on his waist.
When the boy reflexively raised his axe a little, the air between them tightened.
Renabel watched the boy over the mercenary's shoulder.
His appearance was beyond bizarre, and he was certainly holding a weapon.
But.
Those eyes were not the malice of an adult, but something closer to a child's, mixed with exhaustion and wariness.
"Mister, wait."
Renabel gently took the mercenary's arm and lowered it.
"If you do that, the kid will get scared."
"But Miss Renabel."
"It's fine. I'll try talking to him first."
Renabel carefully stepped forward.
Meeting the boy's gaze head-on, she opened her mouth as gently as she could.
"Hello......?"
Renabel lowered her voice so as not to seem threatening.
"We're from the Ebra Merchant Company. My name is Renabel."
The boy gave no answer. Only his eyes wavered slightly.
'Is he unfamiliar with people giving their names, or is he being cautious?'
Renabel paused for a beat and spoke again.
"It's all right. If you have no intention of fighting us, could you lower your axe a little?"
After a brief silence, the boy answered.
"I have no intention of fighting, either."
Renabel smiled brightly and held out a water bottle.
"Would you like to wash up first? It doesn't look like you're wounded, but..."
The boy hesitated for a moment, then meekly accepted the bottle. He roughly washed the blood from his face and hands, and, apparently thirsty, emptied the bottle. Then he withdrew to a spot a little apart from the group.
Renabel had more she wanted to ask, but for now the wagon had to be dealt with first. She turned her gaze back to the wheel stuck in the mud.
"One, two, three! Push!"
"It's no use! It's tilting more!"
The people threw themselves at it again, but the wagon didn't budge.
"It seems we'll have to prepare to camp out."
"Hah. We might have to. At this rate, we're just wasting our strength..."
Renabel spoke briefly with the mercenary and sighed.
"That thing."
A voice suddenly came from behind.
When Renabel turned, the boy who had been watching had approached.
"I can get it out."
"......Huh?"
Renabel was so dumbfounded that she was at a loss for words for a moment. How could he do what even the adults couldn't?
But at the very least, she could tell that the boy was trying to help.
"This isn't something a child like you can......."
Before she could finish, the boy walked toward the wagon.
"Hey, kid, what are you doing!"
"It's dangerous if you touch it! The wheel will sink deeper!"
"Miss Renabel. May I move now?"
The mercenary stepped forward again. This time, Renabel nodded as well.
Outsiders were forbidden from approaching company assets. Especially in a situation like this, touching the axle wrong or startling the horses further could make things worse.
"Kid. This isn't your place to interfere."
The mercenary stretched out his arm as if to block the way. The boy took one step forward without a word.
"Sto— huh?"
In an instant, the mercenary's body slid backward. He had simply been pushed back by the force of the boy's single step.
"Huh?"
Renabel stared at the boy who had somehow passed right by the mercenary. Before she knew it, he was standing right in front of the wagon.
"Wait!"
Someone shouted, but the boy simply bent at the waist.
The next moment.
Squelch—!
Mud exploded upward.
People's gazes instinctively shot toward that spot.
And then.
The cargo wagon simply lifted free—literally pulled straight out of the mud.
The mud clinging to the wheel streamed down.
"......Huh?"
"W-w-w-wait a second. Did he just lift that?"
"No way... that's not a weight a human can lift...!"
Gasps burst out from all around. Some of the people who had been pushing the wagon stumbled backward as if shoved.
Renabel froze in place.
She couldn't believe the sight before her eyes was real.
"H-how......."
Meanwhile, the boy slowly set the cargo wagon back down with a soft thud, as naturally as if he were setting down an armload of firewood rather than a wagon.
After brushing the mud from his hands with two quick flicks.
The boy raised his head and looked at Renabel.
"Simple, right?"