Stepping outside, Azriel began stretching how Hans had taught him. He was still young and had much cramping, the outcome of growing quickly. He was already five feet tall, making him only about half a foot shorter than most adults. His face was incredibly beautiful to the point that it was unparalleled. However, he hadn’t a clue that was the case. To him, any face that didn’t look like the one that the red-banners and blue-banners had was odd-looking.

Turning the corner, he grabbed the hand cart from behind the house filled with multiple tons of stone slabs and lifted with his legs. It was heavy, but that was the point.

After the day when Azriel killed the wendigo, he had been preparing for the next time something like that may happen. On that day, he didn’t want to fail to lift an axe like he did that day. So, he searched for ways to be stronger, finding an ancient fable about a man from the third era in a collapsed nation that was one time located southeast of Azurellione called Graecia.

In the fable, there was a boy named Milone who wanted to build a fort of sticks and stones, so each day, he would bring up a bundle of sticks and a cart of rocks to build with, but every day the rocks broke the branches and rolled down the hill. Therefore, the next day he would need to bring more sticks and stones so that he may continue building and repair the damages. By the time he had finished his castle, he could carry a boulder three men tall and three men wide, or so the legend went.

Lifting with his legs, Azriel strained with all his might to hold up massive weight pulling down on him. Then pulling forward, he rolled the cart off the dirt and onto the cobbled roads. From their pulling became a bit easier, he pulled the cart of stone down a path that led to the road going up the dale into the mountain.

Along the way, everyone he passed greeted him with a smile, the adults, kids both older and younger, and even those who used to pick on him. The birds twittered and tweeted while the sound of the creek made Azriel thirsty.

Sometimes Azriel wished he had the Mark of The Son so that he could drink living water whenever he wanted. Not only did it heal nearly any sickness, nearly all wounds, and fill the person with energy as though they had awoken from a nap, but it also tasted better than any food or drink he had ever had to the point where nothing even came close.

He wondered why everyone didn’t worship the father god, why father worship was shunned and discriminated against. From what little his parents told him about the father god, he was the god who created all other gods and that all other gods were extensions of.

“If that is so wouldn’t that mean all the gods everybody worships are just a lesser version of him?” he pondered upon that question before getting stopped by Hansel.

“Morning’ Az,” he beamed.

Azriel nodded in response.

Hansel was now seventeen years old and had to take up the reigns of his father’s work after his death. His mother had died before Azriel was born, and now, he was all alone without his brother and father.

His father had some kind of sickness that couldn’t be cured by living water; his parents tried every day. The town were force to watch as over the span of two years a healthy man had all of his hair fall out, and lose the strength to stand up or even raise an arm. It was devastating for Hansel to have lost everything the way he had.

Azriel wished he could understand what he felt with his whole spirit but simply couldn’t. The day Henric died, nearly everyone close to him cried except Azriel. Nobody held it against him, nobody but himself. He wanted to cry more than anyone else, but not even a tear slipped from his eyes.

Azriel didn’t know it, but without Azriel, Hansel would have been completely broken. His demeanor to keep moving forward when the future looked bleak, his will to never give up or to feel sad for himself when misfortune struck, his ability to run toward danger without consideration for the what-ifs, those were the strengths people saw in him, and those same strengths trickled down to them.

Hansel gave a devious grin, chiming, “So did they tell you yet?”

“Who-?” asked Azriel, tilting his head in confusion like a puppy. “O-Oh. Yeah, so you heard about that.”

Hansel laughed, “Sure did. Everyone heard. Apparently, all of the work you’ve done here really impressed Hans so much that he was willing to stick his neck out for you.”

For a second, Azriel thought the secret might’ve been blown but then remembered that they didn’t technically have to know about him killing the wendigo if it was only Hans who went speak with the duke on his behalf.

He continued, “Remember, being a knight is not as simple as being strong. If it were just about strength and stamina, you would beat everyone there for sure—not even a competition—but it is also about your fighting abilities with weapons and what skills you were born with.”

Hansel’s smile grew weak as his mask began to slip.

“I’ll be rooting for you, but don’t expect to make the cut. Most of the people there will be nobles with three times as many skills as us peasants and a whole lifetime of training: something’ which us commoner can’t afford to have.”

Azriel nodded, they finished their conversation, and then he continued up the hill with his hand cart.

Soon after the death of his brother, Hansel had gone to Hans asking to be trained in the art of swordsmanship so that he may be able to protect the town. Hans was willing to teach anyone who came to him. However, after some time, his goals turned from protecting the town to getting accepted into the knight’s academy. Hans had told Hansel that if he could defeat him, he would advocate for him; that day never came.

Azriel considered whether seeing Hans support him so readily made Hansel feel animosity towards him. Only he couldn’t see himself feeling the same way towards Hansel were the situation in reverse, but then again Azriel saw no value in knighthood, prestige, honor, valor, or any of those other words that he fundamentally failed to comprehend.

A few minutes passed when Azriel arrived at his destination. Without a moment of rest, he got right to work building his castle. Unlike Milone, however, he had zero intention of replacing broken parts every day, so he substituted the sticks with mortar: it was a lot more reliable. It wasn’t a castle either; it was a watchtower he wanted to use to better view the horizon he loved so.

Azriel had nearly finished constructing the tower, only having to set up a sort of railing at the top so that going up would be safer for the children. The building was a sturdy cylindrical structure composed of mostly flat chipped stone bricks held together with mortar.

Going up and down the steps, Azriel spent his day working on the tower up until five o’clock when the magic clock tower rang. That was the time when the peasantry finished their day of work.

A lord multiple generations ago had it constructed in all of the villages in his barony, setting it to ring at five o’clock so that the peasants may avoid fighting about the distribution of labor. Nobody alive was still making them follow it, but they became accustomed to it, and now the people of Hildenfreide still follow it.

Flipping off the tower, he double jumped just before hitting the ground. He knew no one was looking, at least not yet. Bringing the cart across a bridge—he had constructed—to the other side of the creek, Azriel approached a small peculiar-looking structure that diverted some of the creek’s water inside.

The modest creation was constructed much like the tower, but this time with round uncut rocks that left tiny holes between them that Azriel couldn’t properly reach and fill with mortar. This was his first construction, which explained why it had such poor build quality.

Setting the hand cart down beside the structure, he grabbed a bundle of chopped firewood and stepped inside.

In the stone hut, a tiny wooden half-pipe funneled water into a tub fixed above an open-air furnace. In the tub, the constant freshwater inflow drained out into another half-pipe, which flowed back into the creek.

Azriel took the firewood, evenly dispersing it beneath the suspended tub, and then from a stone shelf, he grabbed a fire-stone, a red stone with glowing gold markings that sped up the process of starting a fire with friction. He hadn’t a clue how it worked, why it worked, or what god it was a product of. Bluntly he didn’t care to learn; he wouldn’t remember an hour later.

Taking the red stone into his hands, he rubbed it back and forth against one of the wood logs until it singed a line of flames into the fibrous surface. Setting the fire-stone back on the stone shelf, Azriel laid down flat on his stomach and pushed the logs around to get the fire to spread faster.

Then grabbing a long stick, Azriel pushed a latch open, letting the smoke from the furnace escape into the sky. After that part, all he had left to do was wait till the water got steamy enough for his taste and then quench the flames with a pale of water.

A few minutes before the water reached his preferred temperature, Azriel felt it, the approach of a group of girls or rather the group of girls. He could always tell that they were girls because he sensed the general shape of their bodies whenever they moved.

Last year when spring began, a girl came out to peep on him nearly every day through the gaps in the stones that couldn’t be filled well. By the end of fall that year, there were three girls, and since the beginning of spring this year, there have been five.

When Azriel tried filling the holes with grout, they would scratch holes elsewhere, thinking he wouldn’t notice. It made Azriel feel a little unnerved because they were too young to be looking at boys that way, but he wasn’t personally ashamed of his nakedness being watched, so he just gave up. He certainly didn’t want to expose anyone and ruin their reputations since he was friends with everyone in the village, including whoever they were.

He defeatedly sighed, thinking, “At least they’re not adults. That would be a major red flag.”

Throwing the pail of water on the fire, he undressed as quickly as he could and hurried into the tub, sinking under, and holding his breath. He sensed as they moved around to find a hole with a better view.

“I’m such an idiot for not cutting these rocks.”

Twenty minutes passed by, and the water started to get cold. Azriel stood up and climbed out of the tub, walking toward a square towel cloth he used to wipe his body down. Only after he started redressing did they seem to have their fill, leaving as quietly as they came.

Azriel held his hand to his face and shook his head, cogitating, “Now I’ll never be able to tell anyone I have the Sense Presence skill till the day I die.”

Stepping outside, Azriel flipped the ceiling lid back over the structure and left with his hand cart.

Returning home was a lot easier of a trek for the hand cart as it was downhill all the way back to the hamlet. The sun was starting to set, and the cool air felt extra cold against his freshly-washed skin. He knew he had to decide whether he would accept the plans his parents proposed for him.

He didn’t have any desire to leave Hildenfreide; he really loved It here in this town that he worked so hard to make his. If it were just his will alone, he would stay here for the rest of his life without a second thought, but it wasn’t just his will that mattered to him. His parents were pushing him to do it, the entire population of Hildenfreide fully stood behind him, Hans had to convince the duke to take a risk in formally recommending him, and the fulfillment of Hansel’s dead ambitions rested solely with him.

He had to do it, not for him, but for all the people he had come to love these ten years. It was a strange feeling, love, something he hadn’t known for far too long, something it took a long time to regain. It came back in the end, stronger than ever, a driving force that would push him back into a world which he had come to view as hell.

Parking the hand cart behind his house, Azriel walked back around and entered. He would be leaving for Hilton.