The next day. I did my tasks as usual, then went to the river. I caught some fishes, but didn't change my location like I used to. I stayed in the same place to cook my fishes. I was about to eat my meal, when I heard some noises not far away. I grabbed the food, and stuffed it in my mouth as quickly as I could. In good time too, because a few village brats arrived. They were a bit younger than my common "enemies", but that was perfect. The village brats noticed me, as I stuffed the fishes into my mouth. One of them shouted "There he is!", and immediately gave chase. I on the other hand, ran away. I didn't want to run away completely, I wanted them to search for me. That was my real objective. If no one could teach me how to hunt, I would learn that myself! If no one could teach me how to sneak, I would do it myself too! I lost them a bit, and hid behind the bushes while staying completely still. When they arrived, one of them was at an angle which exposed my position. He shouted "There he is!", while the other two added "Get that slave!". I ran away again, and hid in different area. I played with them like this, for around half an hour. Until they got tired, or perhaps too bored and left voluntarily. I was kind of disappointed. 'I mean, a bit of difficulty and they already give up' I thought. Although they found me every time, I wasn't discouraged. I had to learn by myself. No one was there pointing out the mistakes I did. No one was there to instruct me, how to sneak properly. I decided to think about it more, after my training with the throwing daggers at my house. I trained furiously with the wooden daggers. I wanted to get to the point, where I could throw five daggers at once, and all would hit different areas of the target. At that point, I could only do that with two daggers. This might seem weird. If I were able to achieve that with two daggers, then I wouldn't I be able to achieve that with three, or four. That was not the case. A misconception. Holding two daggers in my palm, and throwing them at the same time, was my limit. If I had three, then the accuracy would suffer a lot. By a lot, I mean I would miss the target. This was annoying me constantly. I didn't know how to improve on that. 'What can I use, to increase the accuracy?' I thought. This question plagued my mind a lot. The only solution I could come up with, was nimbleness. If my fingers were nimble enough, I could use that to launch another dagger or two. I tried it couple of times and it was difficult. My fingers were not nimble, and flexible enough. I wondered how to make my fingers more flexible and nimble. Even though I thought about it for a while, nothing came to my mind. I could only leave it for later, when I found a way. I still had time. If I tried to rush things, it would only do more bad than good. My training ended shortly after that. I wanted to think a bit more about my sneaking. As far as I figured, there were a few requirements I needed to fulfil, in order to sneak properly. First and foremost, my steps needed to be light. This meant, I couldn't make noises when I walked. This could be practiced, and I already had an idea in my mind. I could practice using twigs, sand, leaves and glass. I could simply dump loads of rubbish onto the floor in my house, and try to learn walking on that. With some practice, I could learn how to be noiseless. It wouldn't be hard to gather all those things either. 'I can find twigs pretty much anywhere, and leaves? Well it's autumn already, the fallen leaves are everywhere' I thought. Sand was even easier to find. Glass was also something, I could get my hands on easily. The people of the village drank a lot of alcohol, finding an empty bottle wouldn't be that difficult. I decided for that to be my next step in learning how to sneak. Second requirement, I needed to be traceless. But when I thought about it, I could practice that at the same time, as the other training. If I learned how to move through sand, twigs, glass and whatnot, without leaving a trace, I would become traceless too. 'That's like, killing two birds with one stone' I thought. There was one more requirement I came up with. I had to learn how to blend in. Clothes were a good idea, but I didn't have that luxury. I was a slave, and only had one pair of clothes. They were already tattered, but what could I do about it? I had to find a way of deceiving people, without the need of using different clothes. I had to be invisible, at least in a sense, to other people. Making no movements, was one way of achieving that. But this also depended on the environment. If a lot of people were walking around, and I stood doing nothing, I wouldn't blend in at all. 'If someone is not looking for you, then the chances are they are less likely to spot you' I thought. What I needed, was a situation where someone was looking for me, and couldn't find me. I would have to train that at the river, with the help of those village brats. Those guys would go after me everywhere. Sort of like friends, but without any friendly advantages. I now had a much clearer plan of action. With that in mind, I went to sleep. During the next day, I collect some sand, twigs and whatever I needed, while on my break. Villagers stared at me sometimes, but they always stared. Fortunately, they said nothing about the sand twigs and whatnot. After all, I wasn't supposed to have possessions. But it seems they simply labelled me as crazy. Bottles would be more difficult, so I wanted to collect some during the evening. When my final task at the doctor's place was done, I headed to the river. 'I wonder what their faces would look like, if they actually knew that I wanted them to find and chase me?' I thought. I did some fishing and ate my second dinner, but to my surprise nothing else happened. 'What the fuck?' I thought. Usually they would be all over this place, but now? Not a single soul in sight. I was a bit afraid that they gave up, and wouldn't chase me anymore. Normally I would be happy, but I needed those damned bastards now. I decided to investigate if something happened. 'Maybe it's that so called young master. They would usually throw a party, when he arrived' I thought. When I entered the village, I noticed another commotion. I got closer, I saw a person kneeling, while being surrounded by people. The Village Chief Rand, held a sword to that person's neck. 'Was someone trying to kill that bastard? It's a shame they didn't succeed though' I thought, and watched attentively. Rand said, "You have two choices. You become a slave here, and I will let you live. After five years, you will be free to go. Or I kill you right now. What's your choice?". The kneeling person's head lifted, it was a woman with brown hair, and a scar on her face. The scar looked quite severe, and didn't improve her looks at all. She gritted her teeth, and answered "Fine! I will do it as long as you keep your promise!". It seemed she wasn't stupid enough to waste her life completely. I would also choose five years of slavery, over the instant death. In five years, you can develop yourself. With that, you could either escape or even kill the Village Chief. There would be loads of time to plan stuff out. Rand replied, "Good. If you try to run, you will be severely punished. If you try to harm anyone, you will face punishment as well. If you want food, you will have to work for it. Carry out all your tasks, and after five years the freedom will be yours". 'So it's the same bullshit lecture, that he gave to me. Go figure' I thought. Rand then said something, that got me sweating. "You will live with the other slave, we don't have houses to just give out. But follow me first. I will give you some items you will need". 'SHIT!'. I thought to myself. If she is going to live in the same house as me, all my plans would go to waste. I rushed to my house, and took down all the stuff related to my training. I cleaned up everything, then laid down on my bed. I was waiting for the uninvited guests. While waiting, I thought about my training. 'Where should I continue? At the river? What if someone sees me. Besides, today was special. Tomorrow, I'm sure those brats would be back at it again. There was also this guy who always shouted "GET BACK TO WORK", every time my break got too long. He was probably spying on me, even though I never actually saw him' I thought. That guy must've been good at sneaking. But it wasn't like he would teach me anything. There was only one place, I could think of. The Blacksmith's Workshop. I was alone in there, and if I finished two ingots very fast, I would have time to practice my throwing skills. The problem was, the amout of time. 'I'm there for only two and a half hours. Even if I manage to finish the ingots in about an hour, this leaves me with about an hour to practice... An hour of training daily... that's not much… WAIT! That's it' I thought. I had to stop thinking about that though, because the doors to my house opened.