EP1. The Beginning of Everything (4)
The inside of the forge was more cozy than Sean expected.
In the forge, a number of tools I had never seen before, whose purpose was unknown, were stacked close together in a narrow space, and I noticed a small table and two chairs in the corner.
“Come, sit down, and I’ll make you some tea.”
“Grandpa, can I take a look around here?”
“Aww, this bastard. Just shoot around like an idiot! Whether you do it or not.”
“Hee hee, thank you!”
Receiving permission, not Paulo’s permission, Sean looked around every nook and cranny of the forge. However, Sean, who had little interest in blacksmithing, could only guess at the purpose of the tools in the forge.
‘There’s nothing very strange about it.’
It was a very small forge, so it was quite different from what Shawn expected. Soon, his interest cooled and he was about to go back to the table Paulo had pointed to, but Sean could see it.
The armor that was not visible from the outside of the forge, but was displayed on the wall inside.
Though the armor wasn’t flashy or sophisticated like the armor Sean usually imagined, I thought that it would block any dangerous attack if it looked solid without any gaps.
The armor must have been made to fit the body of a strong adult, but it seemed very large to Sean, but it was in such a clean state that he thought it was made yesterday.
Perhaps Grandpa Paulo is polishing his armor every day.
Waiting for the owner of this armor that hasn’t come yet.
While continuing his thoughts, Sean realized who this armor was for.
The reason why Paulo started blacksmithing.
Paulo spoke to Sean, who looked at the reason for a long time.
“Since the tea is finished, stop rolling around and come over here.”
With that said, Shawn took one last look at the armor and went to Paulo’s side.
“How long has it been since you brewed tea like this?”
“Don’t you usually drink tea?”
“I don’t like tea very much. Tea was my grandmother’s favorite. Tsk.”
With those words, Sean guessed how Paulo had been living all this time. Maybe Sean was sitting at this table, waiting for tea with his wife.
A son who did not come back after 20 years, no.
Sean thought he would have to hang out with his grandfather a little more foul from now on.
Yeah, Sean understands the loneliness of being alone.
Paulo then asked Sean.
“Come to think of it, where do you want to work next?”
“Uh… Actually, I haven’t decided on the next one yet.”
“What? You have to decide that quickly, man. If you spend too much time, you won’t be able to earn money and you will end up starving.”
“Isn’t that so, you’ve done all the village work at least once?”
“Huh, true. Did you finish all that work so quickly?”
Yes. Sean had already tried everything he could do in town at least once.
Other things can only be done with the permission of the village headman, but there are no more things that Sean, who is still young, can do.
To be honest, there are still two things Sean can do that he hasn’t done yet.
The first is to work at a general store. Of course, since the general store is Paul’s shop, he and Levy have already helped Paul with his work. So he didn’t do it because he didn’t feel the need to experience it.
The second is hunting. In fact, when it comes to hunting, the village chief only allowed us to catch rabbits or squirrels on the mountain behind the village. Of course, Sean couldn’t be bothered with that.
Sean didn’t want a child’s playful hunt, he wanted a really serious and professional hunt. Just like Joe does.
To Sean, hunting like that was the only thing he was interested in in this small town. So when the chief told him to try things out, Sean went to Joe first and asked him.
However, Joe firmly refused to Sean’s question.
“No. Hunting is a job that never knows when you will run into danger. It’s still too dangerous for a child like you to do. If you are older and still want to hunt then come back to me. I will teach you my hunting skills.”
I couldn’t see any gaps in Joe’s attitude. Eventually, Shawn had no choice but to give up learning to hunt from Joe.
I can’t because I’m a child! Sean was confident that he would do really well if he just learned. Yes, he said Joe was dangerous, but he actually knew everyone. That there is no such thing as a dangerous situation around this town.
Decades have passed since people have already settled in the village, but there has never been any danger from animals, monsters, or bandits attacking.
Of course, the forest in front of the village is quite dense and large, so I heard that there were several cases where people got lost after entering it. But even that, if Joe, who knows the geography of the forest, started looking for it, he would surely find it within a few hours.
There is nothing more to say about the mountain behind the village. The mountain is so small, and the mountain itself is nothing compared to the forest, so the villagers, adults and children, almost no one goes to the back mountain without distinction.
Except for the very rare case of going to pick up herbs that only grow in the mountains.
Of course, Levy and Sean went into the mountains quite often to play acorn picking. So the mountain was nothing more than Sean and Levy’s exclusive playground.
The big reason why the two of them, or Levy to be exact, likes to pick up acorns is that they can meet cute animals in the mountains. Small animals such as rabbits, squirrels, or sparrows are also ambiguous prey.
Oddly enough, the animals followed Levi well, and it was a daily routine for Levi to share the acorns he picked up together in the mountain with the little animals.
As my thoughts about the village went through hunting and finally to Levy’s thoughts, strangely, I felt like I could hear Levi’s voice in my ears. Why are you doing this?
“Shaun-!”
“Hmm, it looks like your wife came all the way here to find a husband. Dragging.”
As it turns out, it wasn’t an illusion, it was the real Levy’s voice coming from afar.
‘What did you come here for?’
Thought that, Sean turned his gaze to the entrance of the forge.
“Shaun! Here it is? Grandpa Paulo, can I come in?”
Levy didn’t listen to Paulo’s answer and just slammed open the door.
“Shaun! Why don’t you answer!? I thought I was already gone!”
“The answer is. Why did you come rather than that? Don’t you remember yesterday when I said I was working?”
“Remember! That’s why I came here!”
“No, I mean I have to work, but what if you come here?”
“What does coming here have to do with you working? And you’re not working right now.”
As soon as we met, Paul looked at us arguing and said soon.
“Ugh, stop it. Don’t you know the saying that a husband and wife fight is to cut water with a knife? Cluck.”
“No, Grandpa!”
“Because he and I are not married!”
Levy, angry at Paulo’s joke, smiled and said, looking at Paulo.
“Hey, come to think of it, my dad told me. I heard that Grandpa Paulo also had a huge fight with his Grandma back in the day? He even said that his grandfather lost every day!”
“What? That rotten Paul bastard. I gave up the shop, so you repay the favor that way? And that’s what they fought for. It wasn’t me, it was the old woman who fought because she was wrong first. And! …I lost. You didn’t lose, you lost!”
“Yes. What would you do! hehehe.”
“Eh, tsk tsk!”
As expected, Levi has a great side to winning an argument against his grandfather with that foul. Of course, there are things that Paulo loses to some extent.
Anyway, it seemed that a scene in which Paul would scold Paul in the not-too-distant future was pictured in Sean’s mind. For a moment, Shawn threw deep consolation to the future Paul.
“By the way, what is it holding in its arms?”
Paulo asked, pointing to something Levi was holding in his hand and cradled in his arms.
“Oh, this? That’s…Grandpa, can’t you tell anyone about this? Is it a secret?”
“Huh? What is it? Did you steal any money from Paul?”
For some reason, Paulo’s words reminded Sean of yesterday’s events.
“Oh, it’s not like that! What is… Voila!”
Levi then held out what was in her arms. The expression on the girl’s face was full of anticipation that she wanted people to recognize the value of this book.
Paulo took a close look at the item Levy held out, but it was hard to figure out what it was for.
“Um…, Hmm… No matter how you look at it, it just looks like a piece of paper. What is it?”
“This is… A book! It’s not just a book, but how…, Magic, law, books! Say!”
“What? Magic book? This little lady knows how to joke like this now. But it wasn’t fun. I should say something more plausible.”
“Oh no! Why doesn’t anyone believe me, not even my dad? It’s true! Joy!”
Huh. With that sound, she turned her head and puffed out her cheeks. It seemed like Levi was on the verge of pouting again this time. I don’t usually pout this much, but it seems that I expected adults to say great things about magic books.
Despite Levy’s appearance, Paulo snorted at her as if it wasn’t even funny and said to Levi.
“Well, yes. Let’s pretend it’s a magic book. It won’t be of much use though. To learn magic, you have to learn it from a wizard. It is nonsense to learn magic alone with only books. If that’s possible, you must be a magical genius. Cancer.”
“Huh? Do you know about grandpa magic?”
When Paulo asserted that he knew about magic, he asked just in case.
‘Could it be that your grandfather is a wizard…!?’
However, Sean’s thoughts were cooled by Paulo’s reply.
“How could that be! If you’re like me, you know magic, but are you doing this here? Even if you eat well in the Mage Tower or have poor skills, you will somehow make a living using magic.”
That’s right. It is said that wizards who are really good at magic live affluent lives in the Mage Tower without any shortage, and even those who are not are said to live without worrying about money.
“Then why did you say so knowingly?”
“This bastard. You say it as if I’ve done something wrong. And isn’t that natural? If you could learn magic with just a magic book, all rich people in the world would have become wizards.”
Obviously, after hearing Paulo’s words, Shawn had no choice but to admit it.
After all, the most important thing in learning magic is talent. No matter how much money you have to buy an expensive magic book or have an excellent wizard as your teacher, you won’t be able to use even very simple magic if you don’t have talent.
“Oh, my mouth hurts from talking all the time. Hey kid.”
“Yes?”
“Go home now. I have nothing more to do.”
“What, Shawn, you said you were working? Now then, there is nothing to do!”
“No, but… It’s still lunch. Grandfather.”
“It’s lunchtime, what are you asking me to do? Get out quickly, you guys.”
“What are you doing? Then let’s go out and play!”
As if pouting at some point, Levy grabbed Sean’s hand and tried to run out of his smithy.
Even though he desperately sent his eyes of help, Paulo didn’t even think about stopping him and just handed Sean something.
“Now, these are the wages for today’s work. You should be thankful that I passed it just this one time after trying to cut it down because I was just fooling around. You kid.”
“That, thank you. Grandfather.”
“Goodbye. Grandfather!”
“Yes. Go away soon Don’t even think about going back. Eh.”
***
So the two left the smithy and started walking.
“So where are you planning to go now?”
“Um… I couldn’t do it yesterday, so let’s play acorn picking today!”
“Eh, no…, Uhh. Okay. Acorn picking game. It’s good.”
Hey. Levy laughed as if she liked being able to play with those words, bouncing her steps.
Sean looked at Levy like that for a while, then turned his attention to the book Levy was holding.
“But Levy.”
“Huh?”
“Why did you bring that book? It must be difficult to carry.”
“Ah, this? I was going to show it to Shawn!”
“To me? I already watched it yesterday.”
“No, no, I think I can read this book to some extent now!”
What? You can read magic books? Sean was stunned by Levy’s words and asked Levy.
“You can read it? Really?”
“It is, but it is true… I don’t think it really means that you can read…”
“What is it? Are you saying you can read it or not?”
“So, should I say that I can tell which letters in this book are the same and which are different…? Come on, look!”
Maybe he thought it would be quicker to show it in person than to explain it in words, so Levy opened the book and showed it to Sean.
The book Levy opened had already been burned, leaving only a few pages remaining. Sean looked intently at the part Levy pointed out in the book, but he couldn’t quite figure out what the letters were.
Levy said while looking at the squiggly letters where he pointed.
“Now, look. If you look here, this shape in the text looks like an earthworm going up, doesn’t it? It means the same thing as this one here.”
Sean compared the two letters Levy pointed at. From Sean’s point of view, the two letters looked different.
“This and this mean the same thing? The shape is completely different?”
“The shape is different, but if you cut only this part here, it looks like an earthworm is going up! So it’s the same.”
Sean couldn’t understand what Levy was saying. No matter how you look at it, they look different, but they mean the same thing just because earthworms crawl! First of all, following Levy’s words, Sean checked the other letters as well.
Soon Sean looked for another part of the book and pointed to it.
“Then this one also looks like an earthworm going up, does that mean the same thing?”
“No, this is not an earthworm, but look at this part that looks like a snail crawling. Look. A snail crawls here too. So this means the same thing as this one. Is it easy?”
Sean gave up trying to understand what Levy was saying.
“All right. Because I have no idea. Let’s just go out and play.”
“Shaun, now that I look at you, you’re a little stupid, aren’t you? I thought Shawn was smart.”
From noble mtl dot com.
Sean was dumbfounded. No matter how you look at it, Levy just read the book without any rules and she seemed to read whatever she wanted.
So I was going to respond to Levy’s words, but I decided to just keep quiet because I knew that if we started an argument anyway, it would probably continue until Sean surrendered and lost.
On that sunny lunch day, Shawn and Levy headed for the back mountain.