It was only once Wolf turned four years old that he came to realize that he was significantly different than other children. Even though he lacked clear memories of it, Wolf had long since been aware that he had already lived a previous life, that he had died and started this new life of his. Up until recently, he had believed that everyone was like him. Then, based on various hints, he realized that this wasn’t really the case.

For instance, other children weren’t stupid, they just started from scratch. They didn’t have the soul of a peerless warrior refined into theirs. On the other hand, they never had the said warrior's remnant will try and possess them.

Fortunately, Wolf never mentioned what made him so special. He believed that laughing at the unfortunates was wrong. Archibald had made sure of that the first time Wolf said other children were dumb.

However, this wasn’t the significant difference that bothered Wolf. No, it was something else. His father never let him go into the village alone. On rare occasions, when Wolf actually met other children, everything would start out fine.

They would say hi and play for a while. But then the parents of Wolf’s playmates would dash over and snatch them right before Wolf. They would drag or carry away their children without saying a word, sometimes slapping the poor, confused child on the butt.

Wolf asked his father about this. He wanted to know the reason why this was happening, and why his playmates were disappearing. Archibald curtly muttered something along the lines of “Ignorant peasants.” While this certainly was informative, and Wolf now knew that these people were ignorant peasants, it really didn’t help him with the issue of why his playmates kept being snatched away and at best never wanted to play with him again.

In worse cases, the children would shout and sling rocks at him. The first time this happened, Wolf finally understood why his father had called these people ignorant peasants. Only ignorant peasants would try to hurt people for no apparent reason.

***

It was summer, a couple of weeks after Wolf’s fourth birthday. The day was hot. It was so hot that grownups really didn’t feel like working, yet they had to. Unlike grownups, the crickets straight up took a day off. On this scorching summer day, four village boys were bored in the ungodly heat.

The boys were lying on their backs, deep in the shade of a tree. The grass, freshly trimmed by sheep and sprinkled with poop, pricked their backs a bit. Still, it offered a cooler feel than stone or dirt. The four were lazily discussing which game was worth them bothering to move, since lying still for ten minutes was already becoming unbearable.

Suddenly, one of them came up with a bright idea.

“I know what we can do!” the boy shouted. He beamed a proud smile as he sat up. He was all smug with how smart he was to have come up with such a great idea. “We can go and toss dung at the Child of the Witch.”

“Yes! Mommy will be proud that I punished him. He’s evil! Mommy yelled at me when I went off to play with him two weeks ago. She even pulled me by the ear,” another boy rushed to agree.

The third boy just nodded with a wide smile and a dull look in his eyes. It was obvious that the boy wasn’t right in the head.

As for the last one, he hesitated, and for a good reason.

“I don’t know,” he said. “My dad said that his dad is a good hunter. He also said that ever since his dad came here, we’ve had more meat to eat.” He paused for a moment before he continued with a serious expression. “I like eating meat.”

Now, with the meat in play, the thinker of the group smiled and nodded again. He also liked eating meat, and knew that meat was important. Then the other two started persuading them again and again.

After a brief struggle, an opportunity for mischief here and now won its difficult battle against smoked meat in the distant winter. However, the proposal had met unexpectedly strong resistance. Smoked meat was simply that good.

The boys found a bucket for milking in a cow stall, oblivious to the fact that soiling it would earn them a beating later. Then, they manually filled it with the readily available ammunition.

With their bucket fully loaded, the four boys searched for their target. It took them a good half an hour of running around before they managed to find Wolf. The boy was busy with important surveillance, watching ants in the tall grass near his house outside the village. As per agreement, the children started pelting Wolf with dung while shouting, “Child of the Witch, you are stupid!” Well, three of them shouted. The last one wasn’t so quick on the uptake.

The slogan lacked the punch they’d wanted, but it was what it was, a collective effort of three five-year-olds. The thinker just smiled and nodded his head before proceeding with dung throwing. He was surprisingly good at it, probably the best of the four. Apparently what they say really was true, idiots are experts at throwing shit at people.

Of the initial volley, two smelly bombs struck true before Wolf realized what was happening. He immediately started dodging while wondering whether this was a new kind of game that other kids were playing. Based on their shout, it probably was some kind of play-pretend game. He had played those with the village children before. He would play as a Mage, while the other child played a hero. Apparently, he was now the villain instead of a random bush.

But even in the unlikely case that this wasn't a game, the constant dodging was actually a great way for Wolf to improve his reflexes. Like the vast majority of people, Wolf really didn’t want to get hit by shit.

Before a full minute had passed, Wolf even started smiling. He kind of enjoyed this new challenge, doubly so because he managed to dodge all the manure coming his way.

“I’m glad your witch mother is dead!” the leader suddenly changed his shout.

Wolf’s smile froze on his face. A handful of dung nicked his cheek, while the fistful the expert threw struck him squarely in the chest. Wolf didn’t even bat an eye at the smelly splatter. He immediately charged towards the leader, ignoring pieces of dung pelting him.

When he was three paces away, Wolf leapt at the boy without breaking his stride. He slammed into him shoulder first and toppled him to the ground. Then he straddled him and started smacking the child's face with his tiny fists.

Two other boys ran away screaming, while the genius of the group started laughing and clapping his smelly hands, spraying around a bit of manure.

*Smack! Slap!*

Wolf’s first strike closed the boy’s eye, while his left fist bashed in his nose. The leader of the group was bloodied as soon as the fight, or, better to say, beating began.

The unlucky child wailed, and Archibald came running out of the house to see what the commotion was all about. By the time the big man had arrived, the only sound to be heard was Wolf’s fists pummeling the boy’s mangled face.

Archibald froze for a moment before shouting, “Wolf, stop!”

The sight before him had actually frightened Archibald a little. He caught Wolf’s arm, and then leaned to check and see whether the boy on the ground was still breathing. Wolf struggled to get out of his father’s vise-like grip. The man’s massive hand held him from shoulder to forearm, but that didn’t stop Wolf. He wriggled to get a bit closer to his victim and finally managed to land a kick on the unconscious boy.

“Wolf, stop now!” Archibald bellowed.

Thankfully, Wolf couldn’t reach the boy’s head or neck. He only managed to kick his upper arm.

“He said he’s glad Mommy's dead!” Wolf shrieked, trying to kick the unconscious boy once more.

The fourth kid just kept clapping his hands and laughing. Apparently this was the most exciting thing he’d ever seen.

“Wolf, don't you dare take another step! And you, you little piece of shit, stop laughing!” Archibald roared in the annoyance only children could induce in grownups.

Hearing the yell, the clapper froze, while Wolf went limp in his father’s hand.

“He’s alive. But I think he’s going to lose the eye,” Archibald said. He sighed after he finished examining the unconscious boy. Before the man could figure out what he should do next, several villagers came rushing towards them.

As one would expect, an angry shouting match ensued. After building up their momentum, shaking fists and sending showers of spittle, the villagers looked like they wanted to attack Archibald. But they stuck to threats and name-calling, too afraid of him to actually fight the big man.

The man was tall, had broad shoulders and a generally impressive physique. He stood out even when surrounded by this group of laborers. Other than being built like a rock, Archibald also had a reputation of being a great hunter. Seeing that the people were calming down, the big man also had to take a step back.

“If that’s how things are, we’ll leave in a couple of days,” Archibald said with resignation.

He had no idea where they could go. Still, it was clear that they couldn’t stay there any longer. Even if he turned a blind eye to this incident, other kids were picking on Wolf way too much.

“What about my son’s eye!?” a man yelled, his face red with fury.

“They were four on one! He’s older and bigger than my Wolf! If he can exact revenge for himself before we go, I won’t stop him! But, if any of you try to do anything to my boy, I’ll butcher the lot of you!” Archibald shouted with a grim face. These peasants were dangerously close to touching his bottom line.

“My son–” the man yelled, but Archibald didn’t let him finish.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about your son!” His voice boomed as loud as a peal of thunder and his eyes flashed like lightning for the briefest of moments.

The other man was blown away a few steps just by the force of the booming voice.

“Sorcerer!” villagers gasped and mumbled as they retreated in fear.

Did I… did I really just waste a week of my life for this, Archibald thought, and frowned as he watched those wretches retreat. When the villagers were out of his sight, he took a deep breath before finally turning to Wolf. He paused for a moment to think, then sighed as his face turned gentle.

“I’m sorry,” The big man began. “I apologize for shouting at you. Your father was angry, but you didn’t do anything wrong. It would have been better if you hadn’t seriously injured that brat, but you have to stand up for yourself and your family. You did good.”

Wolf looked at his father apologetically and said, “I’m sorry, Daddy. He said bad things about Mommy and… and… and I couldn’t stop hitting him.”

Archibald put a hand on Wolf’s head and messed up his hair.

“It’s all right. I’ll think of something. Now, if this happens again before we leave, just ignore them and run back home.” After a moment’s thought, he added, “When you are weak, you need to know how to swallow your anger and pride. But you have to remember all the debts, and make sure they are settled eventually. Even more importantly, you have to make sure to treat well the folks who have treated you well. I will have to hunt a lot in the next couple of days to repay the bits of kindness some of these people have shown us over the years. Once I’m done with that, we can leave.”

Wolf nodded, and faced a certain direction, remaining silent for a couple of moments.

“What about Mommy?” he asked after a bit of hesitation.

“We can’t take her.” Archibald shook his head solemnly. “When you become someone important, then maybe–” but then he shut his mouth.

He did not want to add to his little boy’s future burdens. After being silent for a moment, Archibald wrinkled his face.

“You stink, son. Go and clean up,” he said without a hint of humor.

That night, when Wolf entered his Mind Palace, he noticed that the fourth column had appeared. He felt no hostility from it. Being careful when a change happened had already become an instinct for the boy. As he observed the column, Wolf was once again drawn into a fantasy. This time, he didn’t see any mysterious techniques. Instead, he found a map. It was the map of the domains of ten races of man, as well as the surrounding Beast-lands. There were several hundred locations on the map marked as places of interest.

Over the next couple of hours, Wolf examined each of those locations. Two of them stood out as useful at the moment. One of those landmarks was named My Inheritance. When Wolf focused on it, he got a detailed explanation on what his previous self had left for his future disciples. The various trials inside took age into account. Even if Wolf took them right away, he realized he shouldn’t have any problems.

The other eye-catching location was labeled with a red question mark. Wolf focused on it, and found out some peculiarities about it. The location's outward appearance was that of a simple, shallow cave. A crack in the rock that held a tablet, which said that it was the supreme inheritance of this world. However, it could only be entered by those under the age of eleven.

The cave was very far away in the Beast-lands. Lonely Eagle had first found it when he was around the age of two hundred. Wolf had a vague recollection of that event. In his past life, he had actually tried to enter, despite the warning. The result of attempting to force his way in was tragic, but Wolf didn’t know what that was. He vaguely recalled that his soul was damaged and his body broken. It had taken him months just to partially recover. Since Wolf had some impression of this place, that meant that Lonely Eagle had found it important enough to leave it behind for himself.

The boy had no idea how much time he had spent examining the map. When he woke up, Archibald was already gone. Wolf went outside, thinking about the locations on the map and listening to the chirping of the forest birds. He went to play alone at the edge of the forest, like he usually did.

Unlike his typical routine, around midday, a dozen or so kids showed up. They were children too young to work, but all of them had heard that there was something they could do for their families. They could drive away the Child of the Witch. The younglings were running towards Wolf, throwing stones and yelling things like "Leave!" and "Get out of our village!"

So Wolf did as his father had told him, and ran.

Archibald's lessons:

The way a person appears in their Mind Hall, assuming they are able to access it at all, is the way they see themselves. This representation is commonly referred to as a Mental Aspect and may often wildly differ from the outward appearance of one’s body.