Chereads / Strength over all / Chapter 9 - Around the corner

Chapter 9 - Around the corner

While walking around the village I suddenly heard voices around the corner of a house in front of me. I walked a bit further until I could hear them clearly.

"What do you think about the boy, who is staying at the bar with Daisuke."

It was the voice of a probably about 30 year old man. He didn't really sound all that happy, but this could be an opportunity to find out what exactly the villagers think about me and also maybe acquire other useful information.

"Well I think he is at least not lying, or at least not about everything. I mean as long as he doesn't stay here for too long, I don't have anything against him and it's not really my business either."

The other voice was also that of a man, who sounded like he was about the same age as the other man, but contrary to the other man he didn't really sound all that interested.

"But why do you think Daisuke is allowing him to stay at the inn? I mean he was never really all that welcoming, is something special about that boy?"

"Well, if I think about it I guess I could think of a reason he would allow him to stay. Do you remember Daisuke's son?"

Oh so Daisuke has a son. Interesting, but where is he, if not at the bar helping out his father?

"The one who went missing a few years ago? Right, I really didn't think about him. Daisuke was sad for months after that happened, I guess he just can't let a boy, who's the same age as Rui was back then be on his own."

Oh, so that explains why he wasn't here. So his son went missing a few years ago, now I think I can understand him a bit better and why he would just let me stay at the bar.

Well, I guess he had a kind of sad glance in his eyes, when I told him my story I thought of. I couldn't know it was about his son yesterday, but I am really getting a bit curious about his son.

But I guess asking him about his son or family wouldn't be too good of an idea and also I shouldn't stay too long, after all getting too attached to me would only make it sadder when I'll leave to the next city, which is my goal right now.

I guess this just gives me another reason to leave this village as soon as possible.

"Well that's just what I think, but I guess we shouldn't really worry about him too much, I mean he's only 14 years old after all, it's not like there's a reason to get suspicious to him an there's no way a boy like that would be able to act so good as to completely fool everyone."

"Yeah let's just go to the bar later, but we shouldn't ask him about his reasons. I don't think he would be willing to tell us anyway."

"Yeah let's go, by the way yesterday..."

I quickly walked away into a different direction and was pretty delighted about the fact, that as long as I would leave quickly nobody should really feel the need to investigate, if everything I told at the bar was the truth.

Well it would be weird for the people here to get suspicious of me, after all even if this world is almost completely different humans still seem to be underestimating children, well that's only working in my favour.

-Half an hour later-

After overhearing the conversation of the two men I walked around the village for a bit longer and the longer I walked the more people went out on the streets or started working on their fields. It was really interesting to see how the people were working on the fields with nothing but a scythe or a few other helpful tools.

There was no technology involved. the air was fresh and everybody looked happy, or at least content and without any big worries while working.

It was really nothing like the world I was born in, where everyone was stressed by their work or school or just in general. Contrary to that this village looks like the perfect place to live a nice peaceful life.

Although I am of course aware that this village was probably only so peaceful, because it's just a tiny place to live, with few people and the world seems like it's peaceful in general right now.

This wasn't the live I would like to live but it was pretty interesting to see people just generally happy and not having anything to worry about.

While walking around I tried to not look suspicious or anything, but I heard a few people talking about me from far away, while speaking quietly so that I wouldn't hear them.

Well, I guess it'd pretty normal, after all my story was something that was really hard to believe and there probably aren't a lot of people coming to this village normally, so the villagers had something new to talk about.

-1 hour later-

I decided to go into the forest outside of the village to enjoy a bit of quiet time and finally begin training.

"Ok how am I gonna do this... I guess I should just test if my body still has the same power as before or if anything had already changed... Yeah that seems to be the most important thing right now."

I wasn't about to start learning magic, which I was sure it existed, because I just didn't know if there was a certain way everybody could acquire the ability to use magic. So I didn't want to waste any time by trying hard and in the end finding out all of my efforts were in vein.

I still had a lot of time left until I promised to be back at the bar, so I was not really in a hurry. I checked if anybody followed me, but I didn't see anybody although it wasn't really likely to happen in the first place.

"Let's just try out if my stamina changed by running for a bit and meanwhile I can try to find a better place to train. Yeah, that should work."

I started to run at a normal pace and was trying to find something that would spark my eye.

Well after running for about 2 minutes, when I was starting to get a bit tired I slowed down and looked at my surroundings clearly.

I followed a path through the forest, which seemed to have been gradually formed by people walking through here for a long time and would easily be able to find my way back, although my sense of orientation was not really great I shouldn't get lost like this.

"Huh, this looks quite useful."

I saw a branch that was quite a bit too long, but was around the right width. So I took that branch and used my legs to break it until it had the right length. I also got rid of the other side branches, which were in the way sticking out from the main branch,

"Voilà."

Now I had a branch, which you could use for practice, of course it wasn't ideal or anything, but to test out my limits and train it should be good for now. I also have the real sword, which I left in the bag behind the house.

Thinking of that I should totally get it away from behind that house and place it somewhere I could easily find it again.

Well I just hope it doesn't get found until I bring it away, although it wouldn't really be that bad, because nobody could know how I acquired that bag and that it was mine, they could only think it was mine, but they wouldn't have any way to prove it.

"Well let's just start practicing."

I gripped the branch firmly and began to do my best in swinging it as fast, accurate and realistic as possible.