Limits

I couldn't hear clearly what the people outside were talking about so I crack open the door to be able to hear better. I could now make out what the louder voices said. "Congratulations old chief" "Come here chief, let us toast the good news". These were the things I could mostly hear. Something good must have happened to the old man. He was being toasted and received congratulations. I wondered what the hell happened so I listened more attentively.

After awhile of eavesdropping I managed to hear this sentence "Congratulations old chief. Now you granddaughter will have bright future in front of her". I wondered what might have happened to that granddaughter of his. Did she get a large sum of money or something? Was she becoming a disciple of some kind of warrior?

Then I heard the following "You granddaughter is blessed to be able to catch the eye of that young master. Congratulations again old chief". Now I figured it out. The woman who chased me around not because she fancied me, no. It was the complete opposite. As if I was her number one enemy. She got into a relationship with the so called young master. Now I understood why the celebration. The Grasshill Village was at least 8 times bigger then this village and so much more wealthy and prestigious. If she married some kind of young master, she will have wealth and prestige.

The first thought that entered my mind was 'How can I ruin that'. I wanted revenge. You would want that too. Why? If you were chased everyday and beaten up regularly, wouldn't you want revenge too? The problem was I didn't know the date and whenever that so called young master will actually marry her. There was also one bigger problem. I was a slave here. My movements were restricted and monitored. The voice shouting "GET BACK TO WORK" was probably some kind of trusted servant of the village chief.

My worry was that he wasn't just any villager. What I mean by that is I didn't know if that guy had normal strength or enhanced like the village chief's granddaughter. I would have to assume he is as strong as her or stronger. I couldn't beat her so beating him would also be impossible.

If the marriage were to take place during the year I'm a slave, I could not really do much BUT if it were to be after that. I already had suspicions that they wouldn't let me go. A year time from my calculations would be enough to restore my body to the top condition if I fished and ate additional food. I already was stronger and could do the tasks they gave me with nor problems. I had to fake being much more tired than I usually was.

I was confident I could take on the guy responsible for monitoring me after one year. When I leave and then she still didn't get married, I would make sure she would never do! I closed the door and went to bed. I still had work to do tomorrow.

Time passed like this and another four months went by. Now it was the 5th month since I was enslaved in this village. I finally managed to learn the name of the village. It was called Horseplain Village, I also managed to learn the name of the village chief and couple of other people. Usually these people were called something like village chief or blacksmith but they had their names. The chief of the village was called Rand, the old doctor Nick, the blacksmith Grond and Rand's granddaughter Senty while her two lackeys that were always with her were called Bill and Greg. My tasks were also changed a bit.

At the end of the summer I had to harvest plants and grains on the field. When that was done I didn't work on fields anymore but that didn't mean I had more free time. I had to help the village doctor with treating the patients. Not only the patients were not grateful that I actually tended to them, no. They were annoyed and angered that I was doing it. Someone even spat on me once.

Nick the old doctor was quiet. He never talked to me about anything besides what I had to do and how to do it. I learned loads of useful things though. How to apply bandages correctly, which plants were beneficial for health and recovery and what types of remedies were used for different symptoms. This knowledge would be very beneficial to me when I finally leave this god forsaken village.

I was still chased when I went to the river or while I was still working in the fields. Now I was mostly hunted, yes hunted at the river. I would occasionally get beaten up but I also got better at evading and running away. My body recovered a lot throughout these 5 months. I was still skinny and looked not that well but in fact I was feeling 10 times better than couple of months back.

If I were to compare my strength now and then, In the past I could only create 2 ingots of steels as I found out. Now I could create 4. I still wasn't as strong as Senty but I wasn't very far off. All the work I did and the food that I ate came back with more strength when I recovered a bit. Although I was skinny and didn't look well, I still had a lot of strength if someone took my looks under consideration.

I also practiced every night with my wooden daggers. I was now able to throw two at the same time and hit the target most of the time. In succession I could throw all the daggers and hit the target almost 100% of the time. I got better with the practice and also learned how to hide the daggers into my sleeve, so that I can retrieve and throw them at will.

Now it was already autumn and it was going to be winter in couple of months. My task at the woodcutter's lodge changed to a different sort of wood not to long ago. It was much harder wood therefore more difficult to split it. I've shown that I'm struggling and took regular breaks. I didn't want to expose my strength to anyone. It was the same with blacksmithing. I only created two of the steel ingots everyday. Although I could create more, no one paid me for that.

I was also a lot more proficient with fishing now as I tried different techniques when fishing with my net. Sometimes I would get a huge haul like 70 centimetres fish or couple 50 centimetres long. Yet I was always never full, I felt like I could still eat if I had more food.

I also learned one more thing. The date of the wedding. Apparently this young master wanted to marry Senty next year in summer. That would mean it was after the 1 year agreement I had with the village chief Rand. I started to formulate plans based on my abilities, but I still needed more skills. Sneaking would be great if I knew how to do it properly, yet I had no one to teach me so I could only learn by myself.

For that I wanted to use the young villagers that always chased me. I wanted to learn using them. They would be helpful to practice things like, how to sneak up on people and how to become invisible. I decided I would try that from the next day when I go fishing again.

Now though, it was time for bed. I was quite tired after my training session. I always had to be incredibly focused when trying to hit the target areas. If I lost focus for a while I would miss. That could be a problem as well in the future. When I lose focus, I had about 40% chances of hitting my target. So being distracted had detrimental effect on my accuracy. I would have to make throwing daggers my second nature. So that even when I'm thinking of something else, I can still hit the target at least with 90% accuracy.

With those plans in my head I hid the daggers and went to bed. Tomorrow, there were loads of things I wanted to test out.