“We brought some men up to patch up the stables below,” Hallman said, striking a lordly pose.
“And while we’re here, I’ll check on your work.
You’ve done well.” Torry, meanwhile, had already wandered off to look at the horses.
Torry had once been the knight’s own servant, the one he trusted most—he’d been on battlefields, had killed men, and held a special fondness for horses.
“Thank you for the kind words, Steward Hallman.
It’s all thanks to your wise management.” Kent swallowed the urge to vomit and flashed a fawning smile.
“Hmm.
You’re growing up, Kent.” Although Kent was a slave, he was still part of the household, so to speak, and the shrewd steward didn’t want anyone stabbing him in the back.
That was why he smiled at everyone—though with his weaselly face, the expression came across as comical and out of place.
“Good lad, Kent!
When spring comes, you should take the guard test.
Pass it and you’ll be trained for a while, then join the garrison.
If you’re lucky enough to serve the master directly, even better.” Torry walked over with a hearty laugh and clapped Kent on the shoulder, nearly knocking him over.
Torry had a hidden responsibility back home: to scout for promising talents.
If he found someone with real potential, it would be a great accomplishment for him.
The ideal candidate also had to know horses.
A knight usually owned several fine mounts and needed no fewer than ten squires.
Those squires looked after the horses, cleaned the armor, helped the knight dress and undress, and served as cannon fodder if the knight ever had to flee.
The knight’s only job was to fight; everything else fell to his retainers.
But Torry couldn’t say all that openly.
“Thank you, Captain Torry.” This time, Kent’s gratitude was genuine.
What young man didn’t harbor a spark of ambition?
What truly drew him, though, was the chance to leave this remote mountain corner—a legitimate, above-board way out.
“Right, keep up the good work.
We’ve brought you three months’ worth of grain and salt, plus a few sets of clothes.
The road up here is rough in winter, so we’ve given you enough to last.
There are also some iron nails and tools—mind the stable doesn’t collapse under heavy snow.” With those instructions, Hallman and the others headed back down.
The stable had already been repaired—in truth, just reinforced with iron nails.
Hallman had brought a few dozen laborers, so the job was done in under an hour.
“There’s still time—let’s take a walk in the forest.” Kent watched the shrinking figures, realizing he had already fully slipped into Kent’s identity.
He glanced at the bare forest in the distance, and his mind started working.
He trudged through the thick fallen leaves, carefully scanning for withered, dried-out vines.
Beneath those vines lay what he was after: huge tubers, much like sweet potatoes, buried deep in the soil.
They were sweet and delicious when roasted—and in this world, sugar was a true luxury.
Kent had also discovered a few enormous beehives, either inside rotting logs or in hollows in the ground.
He planned to come back after the first heavy snow to harvest those little treasures.
“Heh, lucky me—another nest.” Kent almost shouted for joy.
Why call it a nest?
Because beneath a single vine of those sweet-potato-like tubers lurked at least a dozen or more, weighing anywhere from dozens to over a hundred pounds.
Carefully, he parted the grass and prepared to dig.
“Swish, swish, swish—thud!” Kent heard the grass rustling, and before he knew it, a rabbit the size of a lamb crashed headfirst into a tree and passed out in spectacular fashion.
“Ha!
What kind of luck is this?” Kent hurried over, sickle in hand—he carried it for protection.
He’d been craving meat like crazy, but safety came first.
A lamb-sized rabbit could bite a man; even if it didn’t kill you outright, the wounds could fester and bring all kinds of diseases.
“Excuse me, but who are you?” A voice came from behind just as Kent was reveling in his good fortune.
“Ah!
I’m the horse keeper sent by Lord Terry.
And who might you be?” Kent nearly jumped out of his skin.
He spun around to find a plain, honest-looking hunter, so he immediately invoked the lord’s name to puff himself up.
“I’m from Kuli Village.
Came up the mountain to hunt a bit of game for the New Year.” The old hunter’s eyes were fixed firmly on the rabbit in Kent’s hand as he answered dryly.
“Old man, why would someone your age climb this mountain?
Where’s your son?” Seeing that the man was well along in years, Kent asked curiously.
“Dead.
All of them.
I’ve only got a grandson, seven years old.
There’s no food left at home, so I had to come up and try my luck.” The old man’s eyes held nothing but numbness—not a trace of sorrow.
“Ah, old man, take it.
Take the rabbit back with you.” Seeing the old man’s pitiful condition, and noticing the bloodstains on the rabbit’s hindquarters, Kent made a generous decision.
“Thank you, young sir!
Thank you!” The old man started to kowtow on the spot.
“Wait, old man—here, take some of this as well.” Kent quickly scooped away the soil with his hands, pulled out a cluster of the tubers, and handed more than half to the old man.
“Bless you, sir.
This is cassava—a real treasure!” The old man kept bowing as he thanked him, even naming the plant for Kent.
“Go on, go on!
If you don’t leave soon, it’ll be dark.” Kent watched his hard-earned meat walking away and felt a deep, gnawing regret.
“Oh, by the way—you’re new to the ranch, aren’t you?
Not far ahead there’s a patch of land with no trees at all.
Don’t go near it, young sir.
They say it’s haunted.
That whole area used to be forest, but one night thunder seemed to boom from the back mountain.
By morning, the forest was gone.
Only bare rock remained—rock that looked as if it had been scorched by fire.
That was decades ago, back when this land didn’t even belong to Lord Terry.” The old man had only walked a short distance before turning back to deliver this warning, then hurried on his way.
Kent’s heart had leapt when the old man turned around, thinking he was coming back to return the rabbit.
His mind had raced: “If the old man gives me the rabbit back, do I take it or not?” But that wasn’t the case at all.
Frustrated, Kent fiddled with the strange egg again that night.
Not even an iron nail could scratch its shell.
Defeated, he went to bed, silently resolving: “Tomorrow, I’m definitely going to check out that place the old man mentioned.”
After returning to the hut, with nothing else to do, Kent resumed his qigong practice.
He noticed that he could now hold the posture for a full hour, and the flow of energy inside him was growing more and more distinct.
But at the same time, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he might be doing something wrong.
Back on Earth, practicing qigong had only ever produced a few faint red dots of light behind his eyes.
Now, though, bursts of color bloomed in every shade imaginable—like getting smacked hard in the head and seeing stars.
And what he felt certainly didn’t match the tidy “circulating through so many heavenly cycles” explanations he’d read online.