The place Berak entered was one of the huts lined up along the edge of the logging camp. It was where the serfs dragged in for forced labor were gathered.
That word, gathered, was meant quite literally. It was just a place to herd them in to sleep, with no other function whatsoever.
Stepping inside, Berak saw straw scattered in patches over the floor. And men piled on top of it. Beyond that, there was nothing at all.
The place was full of a musty stench of damp straw mixed with sweat. He could hear the snoring of those already asleep, too.
The spots on the straw were already all taken. Five men lay with their legs and arms practically overlapping, and the only space left was the corner by the wall.
The straw didn't reach that far. So the dirt floor lay bare and damp. Wind seeped in through the cracks, spreading a chill and the smell of earth.
It was too cramped to even lie stretched out. The grown men's legs sprawled everywhere. Berak had to squeeze himself into the gap. One shoulder pressed against the wall. He could feel the texture of the dirt, too.
Just then, one of the men lying beside him glanced at Berak.
"Kid, what village are you from?"
"Stonehill."
"Stonehill... Ah, wasn't that down south near the stream?"
The man muttered for a moment, then turned his head away indifferently.
Hearing the answer, a man across from them shifted and muttered.
"...He's even younger than my son."
It was a simple remark without any feeling in it. The moment he finished speaking, the man turned away without a second thought. Soon everyone fell asleep.
Berak didn't sleep. He quietly looked up at the ceiling.
It was cold, uncomfortable...... perhaps even more cramped than where he slept at home, but Berak didn't feel bad. Because of those letters shimmering before his eyes.
[Stamina: 248]
[Strength: 14]
[Refinement: 0]
New letters had appeared. From experience, he knew it was a good thing for him. How it was good, he could find out by watching steadily, just as with the farm work.
Amid the excitement, a worry suddenly crept in too.
'[Stamina: 248] [Refinement: 0]. These were 'getting sturdy,' though.'
Since Berak couldn't read, he had always thought of those two as one lump.
But today, [Strength: 14] had popped up right between them. As if 'getting sturdy' had been split in half.
Surely this wasn't going to make him less sturdy.
The sudden worry kept Berak awake for a long time. All the more because he had stamina to spare and couldn't fall asleep right away.
He was still too young to drive away pointless worries.
***
The work at the logging camp wasn't easy enough to let him keep chewing on a worry he hadn't settled overnight.
"Drive it in deeper! We need to turn it!"
"Out of the way, it's coming down!"
The laborers' shouts tangled with the roar of falling trees and echoed.
Berak was clearing twigs like yesterday, but the atmosphere didn't allow him to relax one bit.
THWACK.
He brought the axe down on twigs tangled like a spiderweb.
THWACK.
The next branch. And the one after that.
THWACK, THWACK, THWACK.
Bark and chips flew up. Some caught in his collar and dangled there, and some struck his cheek and stuck.
'Ugh.'
Before he knew it, a burning sensation filled his whole arm. From shoulder to elbow, his tendons pulled taut as if about to snap.
It was the same as yesterday. Overflowing stamina couldn't cover up the muscle pain. Only, unlike yesterday, no one suggested he do something else.
Berak gritted his teeth and endured all the remaining work.
「Strength + 2」
「Refinement - 2」
And then, without fail, the letters appeared. Even through the pain, Berak felt proud. The letters were a reward for another day's hard work, and a token promising change.
The next day, the trembling in his arms had subsided. When the blade bit into a branch, it no longer bounced out from the recoil like before. It went in a little deeper. More firmly.
「Strength + 2」
「Refinement - 2」
A few days later, he realized the burn that came when he brought his arms down had lessened. Before, his shoulders felt on fire after only a few swings, but now the pain came late even after swinging for a long while.
「Strength + 2」
「Refinement - 2」
As the days went by, the difference grew clearer.
Branches that used to take ten more chops now came off in one or two, THWACK, THWACK.
THUNK.
He could clearly feel the blade biting in through his hands. By this point, there was no way he couldn't know.
'It's power. I'm getting stronger.'
There was no big change in the 'sturdiness' he'd worried about. Only his strength was growing.
[Stamina: 248]
[Strength: 40]
[Refinement: 0]
'The shape that changes every day is [Strength]. So does that mean 'Strength' is power? But why does [Refinement] stay the same? It shows up together with 'Strength.''
Frustration welled up in his chest.
Of course, his body changing was amazing and good. But now he wanted to know why. If those shapes appearing before him weren't mere illusions, there had to be a way to read them.
'If I could learn letters, would I be able to tell?'
It was an opportunity never given to serfs. No one in the village could read. The village chief included.
But Berak didn't want to live his whole life not knowing, like them. He wanted to know for sure what was happening to him.
'I need to learn letters. But where can I learn them?'
Even as his thoughts went on, his hands didn't rest. His strength had grown enough for that now.
"Hey, kid."
Berak looked up with a start. He'd been thinking things that would be trouble if anyone found out, so he reacted more than he should have.
"What're you so startled for?"
The man who'd come up close leaned against a nearby tree. Berak had already roughly guessed, but seeing that, he was sure of the man's status.
'He's a freeman.'
Not all the laborers were in the same position. They were divided into serfs conscripted for forced labor and freeman laborers who earned wages.
Freeman laborers had separate quarters. Unlike the serfs lying piled on top of each other on damp straw. There was a small brazier, and the floor was covered with plenty of straw.
Some didn't even use the quarters. They lived in nearby villages, walking in each morning and going home in the evening.
Meals were the same. The serfs split the leftover grain porridge, but the freeman laborers got better portions. Even if just a little, there was meat or bread on the side.
Even the overseers' attitudes differed. With serfs, beatings and yelling came first, but with a freeman, their tone was a bit softer.
Trying to chat in the middle of work like this was only possible because he was a freeman.
"What's your name?"
"Berak."
"You can call me Martin."
Berak stared at the man's face. Of everyone here who'd asked his name, he was the first to tell Berak his own.
Martin pushed off the tree, came over to Berak, and squatted down.
"So, was it you, or your parents?"
"Huh?"
"Aw, you don't have to play dumb. It's not like things can get any worse now that you've been dragged all the way out here."
"I don't, really understand what you mean......"
"I'm asking, was it you or your parents who committed a crime? Didn't you get on some bigwig's bad side real good? This isn't the first time I've seen a little one at a logging camp, but it's the first time I've seen one stuck out here all alone like this."
This logging job had started at the tail end of winter, and it was a long one set to last months. So they had gathered mostly adults as laborers. Berak, the only boy mixed in among them, naturally stood out.
"It's not because of any crime. They said they brought me because I work well."
"Well, they did say you're a kid who works without getting tired....... Who'd believe that? I heard the other day that one of the overseers even asked the Forest Warden directly. Since you're a 'kid who doesn't get tired,' can they just work you nonstop until you croak? Isn't that how the higher-ups want you dealt with? That's what he was getting at."
To Berak, hearing this for the first time, it was a pretty chilling story. He was confident about working long hours, but what if it meant no sleep and no rest? There was no telling what would happen.
"Hm. But if what you say is true, you didn't commit a crime. And so far they just work you a bit harder than the other serfs. Then don't tell me it's real? You don't get tired no matter how much you work?"
"It's not that much. I'm just kind of sturdy."
He hadn't panted for breath in a long while, but that was all he said.
Somehow he felt he shouldn't fully reveal what only he could do. It was the same reason he hadn't told anyone about the letters.
"Well, being sturdy's a good thing. Isn't it?"
Making Berak's nervousness seem silly, Martin let it pass as no big deal.
CRACK.
Even while they talked, Berak's arms kept moving. Watching, Martin cut in.
"Hey. Give me that hatchet for a sec."
Martin took the hatchet, stood beside the thick branch Berak had been chopping, and lightly raised it.
"Look. If you just hack straight down like you're doing, the wood keeps bouncing the blade back, and your arms only hurt more."
Martin tilted the blade slightly, then brought it down diagonally toward the base of the branch. With a THOCK, the branch came off cleanly.
"You've got to strike at a slant like this, along the grain, for it to bite. Don't just dumbly hack straight on. Think of it like digging in from the side."
He immediately took aim at another branch. This time he swung twice in a row. The first opened the bark, the second split the wood beneath. The branch dropped with a thock.
Martin held the hatchet back out to Berak.
"Here, try it. At a slant, like just now. Watch the grain and the angle."
Berak took the hatchet and imitated what he'd just seen. He raised his arm and tried to bring it down at a slant, but he put too much force into it, and the blade just stuck fast.
The branch, only half split, hung stiffly from the blade and swayed.
"Hmm."
Martin watched for a moment from the side, then let out a snort of laughter.
"You think you'll get it right on the first try? Just keep what I said in mind when you swing. Don't just put muscle into it."
Leaving those words, he walked off elsewhere.
Berak gripped the handle again. He felt that it wasn't just words the man had left behind in this spot, but something else too.
No one had ever treated Berak like this before.
Showing him first, kindly explaining. Not yelling or hitting him when he failed.
THWACK.
Because his thoughts were scattered, his swing carried more force than it needed to.
***
After that, Martin often struck up conversation. Like, hey, going well today?
Sometimes he'd even give him a little bread or meat, calling it 'leftovers.'
Berak sometimes imagined what it would have been like if someone like him had been his father or brother.
Adjusting to the logging camp went smoothly too. There were days off work. And days the letters didn't appear even after working, but either way, the shapes changed steadily.
Once he reached [Strength: 80], twigs mostly dropped off with a thock, thock. Even Berak couldn't really tell whether it was from learning the technique Martin had taught him, or because he'd gotten so strong.
From then on, Berak was put to work steering trees as they fell.
A big tree didn't just fall where you wanted it simply because you cut it. If it broke the wrong way, it crashed into other trees standing nearby and knocked them down, or wrecked the logs tied up in rows.
At worst, it even crushed people. In the forest, the weight and speed of a single falling tree were scarier than a charging beast.
So the woodcutters hooked ropes, drove in thick wedges, and jammed in levers to turn them. Everyone shouted so as not to miss the moment it fell.
Berak's part was right in the middle of it all.
The moment of setting a lever or hauling on a rope. A spot that called for a short but huge burst of strength. The greater the pushing force, the more the falling tree bent toward the desired direction.
Berak did the job splendidly. Whenever his hands joined in, a struggle became easy. After that happened time and again, word quietly went around among the men. That he was reliable for his small size. How many trees had come down without anyone getting hurt, thanks to this kid?
But even that didn't last long. Once he hit [Strength: 120], his main job changed.
Felling trees himself. Since it meant cutting deep into big trunks, it was mostly a job for the strongest laborers. Among the serfs, only Berak was picked for it.
"Heh, that axe is more than half the kid's height."
"Still, that one can be trusted with it."
And at some point, Berak began holding back his strength.
It was chopping that took others dozens, hundreds of swings. But he felt he could bring a tree down in just a few. Maybe even in one or two, if he went all out.
The reason he didn't was for fear he couldn't control how fast the tree fell.
No, maybe that was an excuse. He could just clear everyone away.
He was already drawing plenty of attention, and he had a feeling that if he showed that much strength, he'd be treated as some 'strange thing.' That reason weighed more.
'Yikes.'
Seeing the axe sunk halfway into the trunk from relaxing for just a moment, he quickly yanked it out.
[Stamina: 248]
[Strength: 252]
[Refinement: 0]
Looking at the letters he could check anytime... Berak went on chopping as if just giving the tree light taps, tap, tap.
"Hey. Strong kid."
Berak, who'd been chopping half-heartedly as if playing around, felt a guilty twinge and turned his head. It was another laborer with a big axe slung over his shoulder.
"Shift change. The Forest Warden's asking for you."