A little later in the second month of my time working for the Marrows, one of the laborers came over while I was sweeping the rear-walkway for the estate and said,

“Hey, Sebastian. It’s grocery day. Mike got shitcanned for showing up drunk, this week, and not showing up at all a couple of times, last week. We’re gonna need you to help bring in the shipment that had been brought by the Merchant.”

People here sometimes called me Sebastian because, well, it’s my last name. Then some of those people would mistake it for my first name, because Sebastian was one of those names that could be a last name or a first name. I didn’t particularly mind. I loved my parents but I had no clue what the hell a “Jilbert” was supposed to be, and I didn’t particularly like having to try and explain it to people when I barely understood it myself. Also, it beats just being called “new kid”, or “new guy”, or “dumbass” like a lot of folks used to call me when I just started..

Anyway, having built up a certain level of familiarity and confidence in my time working for the Marrow clan, I just nodded waved to let the guy know I’d heard him, and said,

“Thanks, I’ll be right there.”

The laborer nodded back and wandered off. I quickly finished sweeping. Then I dropped my broom off in the groundskeeping supply shed, and I headed over to the rear-gate of the estate where supplies, and other goods, were generally delivered. I joined in with the other staff that were helping to unload the groceries from the merchant’s wagons. As always, I was the youngest one there amongst the eclectic mixture of older-teens, young adults, and middle-aged men. And I’ll admit to being proud of not only being able to keep up with them all but having to hold back to avoid standing out. The three stats that I never stopped investing talent in were Strength, Constitution, and Wisdom.

Strength had let a panicked me snap ropes that a would-be slaver used to tie up me. and a bunch of other kids that were begging in the streets of a certain city that I’d passed through. The Constitution stat kept me from getting sick from the weather and hard living. Constitution also kept me from dying when I messed up and ate some poisonous mushrooms because I’d gone two straight weeks without a proper meal and the mushrooms had looked like a safer variety that grew in the woods outside my old hometown.

I figured strength and constitution would one day be my breadwinners. It was possible that I might continue working with the Marrows until I was an old man like Achilles. The relationship between the Clans and their commoner-staff was often long and intergenerational. People didn’t change jobs too often because that kind of trust came at a premium, and honestly, outside of combat-oriented fields, there weren’t that many jobs, or job applicants, available.

If I continued staying with the Marrows, after I grew strong enough I’d try to join their house-guard. From what I’d seen working security came with better pay, benefits, and overall status inside and outside the household. If I did especially well as a house-guard and earned enough merits I might even be adopted into one of the Marrow clan’s lesser-households.

Even if I didn’t stick with the Marrow clan, having a strong and sturdy body would never be disadvantageous. The armies, the guilds, the sects, and the faiths were always looking for new talent. This was a dangerous world, filled with countless ideologies, and all of the survivors amongst them were always in search of the strength required to keep from being trampled upon.

This dovetails into why I never stopped my investments in Wisdom. Wisdom was basically the Constitution for the mind. Wisdom strengthened one’s spirit and one’s regeneration of magical energy. Wisdom strengthened one’s mental stability, and it assured that others couldn’t easily influence, or infiltrate, your mind. If ever I decided to start showing off a little of my talents, I’d need Wisdom to keep from being played to death, or potentially enslaved.

Besides those three stats, Strength, Constitution, and Wisdom, I’d cycle my investments of talent between Agility, Dexterity, Intelligence, Perception, Charisma, and Luck. While it was nowhere near as continual and persistent as my investment in what I considered my primary stats, I invested in Perception and Intelligence the most often.

The way I saw it, being sturdy enough and strong enough to deal with trouble was all well and good, but being able to see it coming and react in time, was also very important. In fact, if it weren’t for the fact that life had basically taught me that no matter how far-sighted I was, I would probably one day find myself forced to deal with trouble even if I saw it coming, I might have considered switching out strength and constitution for intelligence and wisdom, in my roster of permanent talent-investments.

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Anyway, the point is, that by this point in time, I had 4 to 5 times the strength, endurance, and stamina of a grown man. This is why, I didn’t mind when the younger laborers left me with the task of unloading the last of the groceries from the merchant wagon, because the older laborers had left them and clocked off hours ago.

While I was busy bringing things off from the wagon and carrying it into the small refrigerated warehouse where the family kept their domestic goods and supplies, I felt a familiar tingling between my shoulder blades. I was being watched again, and my perception stat was high enough that I could not only tell that I was being watched, but that I was being watched by a particular set of eyes. After looking around, I found her. She was hiding in the branches of a tree of all places. Like a bird.

After bringing in a few more crates of food and drink, I stopped in front of the tree and just sort of...Dithered. I figured she wanted something. It was uncomfortable being stared at for so long, even if I was mostly sure that she meant me no harm. Eventually, after I carried a few more boxes, I ended up breaking the ice first.

“M-, Miss Marrow? Did you need something, Miss?” I said.

Her response was a high-speed projectile that hit me square in the forehead and made me decide from then on to invest in agility and dexterity more. It hadn’t hurt, but I figured if I could be taken by surprise by a little girl in a tree, I’d be screwed if something seriously dangerous ever wanted to take me out at range. I also decided to invest more talent into studying the [Tale of the Soldier]. I hadn’t exactly been slacking in my studies, but the story seemed to boil down the experiences, skills, and lives of various forms of military personnel throughout multiple worlds and periods and history, in a way that kept only the most boring, grueling, and viscerally terrifying aspects of military life.

I was still eleven-years-old, and the nightmares I had as a residual effect of my studies had made me a bit gun-shy when it came to that story. If actual reading had been this painful when I was a child, I’d probably have stayed illiterate. It wasn’t just that I was an immature youth touching things that were probably far more intense and extreme than I was ready for. I found myself coming back down with the twitchy, gloomy, dark feelings that had haunted me directly after the destruction of my town. I now had some very extreme reactions to loud noises, and overly quick movements, that I hadn’t had before. When I said a story gave you all the broad and varied experiences and knowledge of its subject matter, I meant “all” the experiences. Not just the useful ones, or fun ones.

I picked up the thing that was thrown into my face and realized it was a bar of chocolate. I looked down at the chocolate and then I looked up at the girl. Thoroughly confuzzled.

“I told you that I’d reward you…There’s your reward, a whole bar of chocolate for your efforts...and your discretion,” said the girl. Glaring down at me imperiously as if I’d stolen the chocolate instead of having it literally launched at my head.

“Ah...Um, thank you. Are...are you sure?” I said. Not wanting to pocket the chocolate because in this day and age such treats actually were quite expensive. At least in this region. The money to buy this bar of chocolate could buy me twenty loaves of bread. Which was also just enough to get me sold off as a crime slave.

“Y-,...yes,” said the girl. Seeming almost visibly hurt as she said so.

I considered what to do….On the one hand, this was a dangerously extravagant gift for me, right now. On the other hand, I didn’t want to offend the little Miss, in case her gift was given in earnest. Ultimately, I decided to take a small piece of the chocolate and throw the rest back up into the tree.

“Hey, what are you doing!” said the girl. Deftly catching the candy bar out of the air, and impressing me by managing to keep her balance in the tree while doing so.

“I’m not that big a fan of sweets,” I lied. Thinking of my love for my father's honey cakes.