Standing in the house, I wondered 'What the hell is their problem?'. I did nothing to them, we never talked nor met each other in the past, so why create more problems for me than I already had? I figured that this must've been the Human nature playing its part. I was just a slave to them, although I didn't think like that about myself. I was from a village as well, and much bigger than that. What right did they have to treat me like that? Strength! I was alone, if the whole Freemount Village were to stand with me, they would become the slaves, not me. I began noticing, how Humans were fake, and how they used numbers to overwhelm the weak ones. If I was healthy, at the top of my condition and could retaliate, would they still look for trouble with me? I assumed no, but because I was weak and by myself, they knew I could do nothing. Why not prey on me. With these thoughts in my mind, I went to bed. I knew the days ahead would become more difficult. But other then preserving and focusing on my own goals, I could do nothing else. Time went by, and a month passed since I started working for the whole village. The spring was ending, and with it came the summer. Past this month, I had to avoid the young people of this village, and do my tasks at the same time. They would sometimes come looking for me, when I was in the fields or carrying the water. They actually never disturbed me when I was smithing or cutting wood. Maybe because I had a weapon in my hand, or maybe because they were scared of the people who owned the place. After my work was done, I always went to the river to catch some fishes. These people started to look for me there as well. I had to change my spots often, in order for them not to find me. They of course did find me a couple of times, which resulted in a chase. Sometimes, I managed to get away, while other times there were too many of them. Without the ability to retailate, I could only get beaten up. Although life was like this, I managed to improve as well. Because of my fishing, I restored some strength. Although my skin and muscles still looked terrible, it was much better than a month ago. I had more strength, but I didn't flaunt my strength to anyone. It still took me the same amount of time to carry the water. I took similar breaks when cutting the wood. I still made the same amount of ingots, and I still used a stone to plough the ground. Although, the ploughing changed after two weeks. The reason was simple, the field was already ploughed through. The farmers sow the seeds, and my tasks changed of course. As for the hoe, I never produced it in the end. I actually found some metal scrap, but it wasn't enough to create a hoe. Now that I didn't need the hoe, I decided to leave the scrap for later. It would surely come in useful. My task changed from ploughing to watering everything on the field. Not just the area that I ploughed, no. I had to water the whole field. They were much more reasonable this time, and gave me a cart as well as barrels that no one tempered with. I could use the cart and barrels to transport large amount of water to the field, but it still required load of strength to move the heavy cart. In the beginning, I was barely able to water everything till fve o'clock. With time though, I got used to it and had no problems finishing that task. The crops began spouting rather fast. My task didn't change to clearing the field from weeds, like other farmers did. I only had to worry about watering everything. Thanks to my new task, I could sometimes overhear a conversation, and learned couple of things. Apparently, the old man that "rescued" me, was the Village Chief. He was also the strongest amongst the men in this village. I learned that the woman who chased me many times, and beat me up just as many, was his granddaughter. They had some kind of body strengthening method. That was the reason why this woman was so strong. I was intrigued by the supposed book they possessed. I wondered what type of things could it contain, but I had no desire to actually steal it. I was sure it was heavily guarded or hidden somewhere. If I tried something stupid, I would lose my life for sure. Another person the farmers talked about, was the doctor. Apparently, he was an outsider that only the Village Chief knew. He was invited to live in this village by the Chief, and agreed. Besides learning that, I also learned that his skills were quite good according to the people. I could attest to that in a way, he did heal my broken arm completely, and I had no complications ever since. They also talked about how the so called young lady, was a future star of this village. That she would marry someone from a large village, and that her future was bright. I knew she was arrogant and vain, but that didn't change the fact, I did nothing to her. 'Why bother with me?', this thought baffled me a lot. I couldn't find any logical explanation. On that day, when I arrived at the blacksmith's workshop, for some reason the blacksmith was still there. That was weird to me, he was always absent throughout the month I worked at the workshop.Something was up, I just felt it in my bones. He saw me enter, and said "Today, I will show you something different. This will be your job from now on. Understood?". I just nodded my head in confirmation. This time, he took two lumps of Iron Ore, and threw in another lump of Coal into the furnace. When all of that was melted, he took it out to pour it into the bar mould. After cooling it a bit, he placed the bar on the anvil and struck it with his hammer. I noticed that he was hammering only one half of the barm not whole of it. When one side of the bar was flattened completely, he placed it upwards, and strucked a few times. The metal began curving on its own, until the flattened, and not flattened parts met. He then flattened that complately, and returned it to the furnace. The metal softened again, and he repeated that process four more times. I could see he was already tired after the fifth cycle. He then melted the bar or rather whatever was left of it, and poured it into the ingot mold. After cooling it, the ingot didn't look dull and grey, but shiny and more silvery. The whole process lasted about three quarter of an hour. I was happy that I got almost an hour of break. The blacksmith finished the ingot, then turned around towards me while wiping his forehead. He said "This is your task from today onwards. Five repeats for each ingot, understood?". He didn't even wait for my answer, and simply left. I was supposed to repeat what he just did. I went to work, and repeated the process that blacksmith showed to me. I took two lumps of Iron Ore and one lump of Coal. I threw that into the furnace, and waited for it to melt. With that taken care of, I poured the molten metal into a bar mold, and cooled it a bit. I took the hammer and... well hammered the metal. "Clang", "Clank", "Clang"... I stopped. That metal was about two times harder to flatten, then just normal Iron. I used more strength, and was able to make a dent. I decided to heat it up a bit. When I did that, it was more workable. 'I guess that I have to maintain a specific temperature to be able to work on it, otherwise I will have to put in a lot of strength' I thought. Even heated up the metal was really tough, but it was workable. I did the process once, and had to take a break. 'This is harder than the previous ingots I did. No wonder he struggled so much with it' I thought. After the break, I reheated the metal, to work on it again. After the second cycle, I was too tired to continue, I had to rest again. I've rested for about quarter of an houre, and went back to work. I was barely able to finish one ingot by noon. The blacksmith came in, and looked at the still hot ingot. I cooled it properly, when suddenly the blacksmith grabbed it from me for examination. After a while, I could hear the iconic sentence spoken by this intelligent and worldly person. "You may leave now". I always wondered if he doesn't get bored of saying one and the same thing. 'Would it hurt him to say something like "You can go" or "get lost"?' I thought. Either way, I went back to my house to rest. Of course, I encountered some youngsters on my way, and had to run. My house was like a sanctuary. I didn't know what rules they were taught, but no one ever tried to break in to that house or follow me in. I was happy that they didn't, but it was weird nevertheless. When I was done with the last task of the day, I went back to my house. With one meal taken care of, I headed straight to the river. I was more proficient at fishing with the net. I got more profivient at creating it as well. Sometimes, they would find my net hidden somewhere. They always destroyed them, whenever they had a chance. I had to build couple of them throughout the month. I caught some fishes with the net, and I moved to another place. I didn't stay in one place for too long, I didn't want to be detected. After cooking and eating the fishes, I hid the net and went on my way back to the village, with some thoughts in my mind. I still had 11 months to go, before I received my freedom. But I was sceptical about that. 'Would they really let me go?', this thought entered my mind often throughout the time I stayed at this village. I was trying to come up with a plan of escape, in case they went back on their words. Now that I knew the old Village Chief was the strongest among the village people, I had to somehow escape his grasp. I could create a weapon from the scrap I had, but It was still to early to do that. 'Maybe I would be able to get something better in the future I still have plenty of time to eworry about weapons' I thought. Having a weapons didn't mean I would be able to harm the Village Chief. 'If his granddaughter is this strong, then he is at least two times stronger than her, even though he is old' I thought. I racalled the situation when I first met that old man. He used a cart to transport me, and the bear's carcass back to the village. The problem was, how did he put the dead bear on top of the cart in the first place? 'He should be as strong as a bear, that was why he could lift it onto a cart' I thought. In order to escape, I needed to plan for that. I needed to practice my skills on top of getting my strength back. I decided that, I will use some of the scrap metal I had for that purpose. I didn;t want to make real weapon yet, I just wanted a sharp piece of scrap, to shape wood. After some more thinking, I came to one conclusion. 'Dagger is the best choice. It's small, and easy to use. When I have couple of them, I can practice at my house. In case someone tries to find something on me, I will only take raw wood with me and shape it at the house' I thought. If they find some wood on me, what could they say? On the other hand, if they found an actual weapon, even the ones made from wood, they would get pissed and I would get punished. I wasn't going to give them a reason to punish me. I collected some wooden logs from the Woodcutter's Lodge then went to the place I stored my scrap. I was cautious about my surroundings when I went there, I didn't want anyone to dispose of my scrap. When I retrieved one of the sharp pieces, I decided to hide it in a place where no one would look. I will spare you those details, but it was difficult to walk nevertheless. I arrived back at the house. Fortunately, no one inquired about the wooden logs in my hands. There weren't many people around anyway, it was dark already, and those that were around didn't give a shit about me. When I closed the door, I went to work straight away, I wanted to finish it as soon as possible and be ready to practice as much as I could.