Limits

We spend the night in the forest and returned back to the village in the morning. The Cloud Haze Poison dissipated long ago and there were no more dangers awaiting in the village. Although the poison was gone, the smell of blood was very strong. Even before the entrance to the village, for someone who was not used to this smell, they would have severe puking reactions.

My plan was to burn down the whole village when I was done. The traders that would come here in couple of days to collect the items such as purified steel ingots, would be left speechless and perhaps disappointed as everything would be gone. I would take as much valuables as possible and burn down the rest. I wouldn't leave stuff for such scavengers as it didn't benefit me, rather it would only benefit them.

I needed to create more daggers in those few days and therefore I would be busy. Shelly on the other hand, would not be. I turned around and said to Shelly "Can you go around and collect the stuff that is valuable. Gold, jewelry and so on". Shelly reluctantly nodded it's head. I then added "Also search Rand's mansion in greater details. There, you might find a manual that is used for body training. If you do, bring it to me. Oh and don't worry about damages. If something is in your way, destroy it if you want". Shelly nodded it's head again and left to search for treasures.

I would need valuables later on, when I master my skills and visit a city or a village. I would need money for my basic necessities. Instead of earning that money, I will have it prepared when I need it.

I went straight to the workshop and created the moulds for my daggers. In between making moulds, I would make daggers. It wasn't hard to do so because I didn't sharpen the new daggers nor did I polish them. I could do it later on when I had time. I wanted to use as much purified steel as I could. My daggers were not heavy either, I could easily carry around 200 of them.

The workshop possesed 32 purified steel ingots. It was not a lot when it came to selling but to me it was more than enough to create many daggers. I worked for couple of hours without any breaks and I was able to use up 13 ingots altogether.

Fortunately, I didn't have to create those ingots because otherwise I wouldn't be finished in a week time. I decided to take a short break and went outside to catch some "fresh" air. The air was still filled with blood odor but I didn't mind it. I sat outside for couple of minutes. After a while I saw Shelly running towards me a bit excited.

I looked at Shelly and noticed that there is something in its mouth. When Shelly arrived in front of me, it spat out a tattered book. I took a lot at it and noticed that it was the manual I was looking for. I said to Shelly "Good job. That was what I looked for. What about other stuff like gold and so on?" to which Shelly pointed it's head at the pile of stuff not far away.

I looked at the pile and noticed that it included some gold coins and jewels but there were some useless things such as swords and so on. I said to Shelly "Very good. As long as you deem it important, bring it to the pile and I will collect whatever we need from it, then I will burn the rest". I then continued "But don't overwork yourself. If you need to take a break do so or if you are hungry then go eat something". Shelly's seemed very happy about the praises it got and happily went off to somewhere.

I returned to the workshop and continued with my daggers. By the night time, I had used 23 ingots. That left me with only 9 purified steel ingots. I didn't have to work through the night as I would be able to finish it up tomorrow and then raze the village to the ground by the evening. This timescale was even better than I assumed as the convoy with traders would arrive in about 3-4 days.

When I walked out of the workshop, I called out loudly "Shelly!, it's time to sleep. We will continue tomorrow". The next instance, A very fast shadow appeared in my vision and traveled towards me. Shelly arrived next to me and looked tired. I said "I told you not to overwork yourself. Let's go and rest. We will use the mansion in this village instead of our old place". Shelly nodded it's head and followed after me.

The mansion was very quiet and because I left the doors opened some "fresh" air got in and vented the place a bit, the smell of blood was at least bearable here. I went to the master bedroom and saw a huge bed in the middle. Shelly wanted to stay in the same room and because the bed was big, I put Shelly on top of the bed and laid there myself.

Shelly wanted to walk a bit and find better spot but because the bed was soft, it didn't know how to walk properly which was quite funny. After finally finding a place appropriate for it to sleep, it stopped moving and laid down. I went to sleep not long after that.

The next morning, I woke up and picked Shelly up from the bed. I knew it could have difficulties getting out because of the softness of the bed, for that reason I took one of the pillows from the bed and laid it on the floor. I the placed Shelly on top of it. Shelly liked to sleep a lot and besides it worked hard yesterday, I decided to let it sleep as much as it wanted.

I went to the workshop and created more daggers from the 9 ingots I had left. I was finished before 12pm so I decided to get some food. The food that was left in the village, did not spoil or got poisoned. The cloud Haze Poison only work on living beings that need to inhale air, otherwise it doesn't affect anything else.

After my meal I went to the pile of valuables that Shelly collected and sorted all the useful things from the rubbish. I mostly took gold coins and jewels as this would weigh the least and was the most valuable. Although the bag I had from Nick was able to contain many things without expanding, it didn't lower the weight of the stuff inside.

As for the rest of the stuff I didn't want to take with me, I took it to the workshop and burned them in the furnace. I also threw in all the coal, iron and what not to destroy anything usable. I only took a hammer from the workshop that could be used to create new weapons. Before I left, I started with my last task. I needed to sharpen and polish all the daggers I made. This would take a while but I was confident I would finish before evening.

I worked a few hours, sharpening and polishing my daggers. I needed to do this because the facility and tools were already available for me here while in the forest, I would not be able to use them. After I finished with all that, it was already late in the afternoon. I decided to go around the shops such as tailor's shop and collected some tools from there. I would need new set of clothes when the winter came and these tool would come in handy.

I also went back to Nick's house and took all the vials and what not. I then went to the village square and called out "Shelly!". After a while, Shelly came running to my side. I said to Shelly "We shall leave now. I just need to set fire to the buildings and we are done here".

I prepared some sticks with cloths wrapped around in order to create a crude torch. I used the fire in the furnace to light up the torch then started setting fire to the buildings. There were quite a lot of them in overall and so it took me 30 minutes to light all buildings on fire. I also lighted Nicks house inside out to make sure his corpse burned just as he wished.

I said to shelly "Let's go" and we left the village not looking back anymore, as this chapter of my life can finally come to a close. My road laid ahead and I would experience more while trying to master my skills. While we were traveling through the forest I said out loud "My road just begun, I still need to learn a lot in order to explore my life!". Shelly looked at me with a confused expression but I didn't extrapolate and moved forward.