Chapter One: Stepping Into the Outside World

[This book updates twice daily, with a chapter at noon and another at night.]

Chapter One: Stepping Into the World Beyond

At first, Shaya Thunder was plagued for days by the old man’s evaluation of him.

With his rather limited education, he understood only that “creative” seemed to be a compliment, but “unable to die in peace” sounded anything but good.

The old man had been thoroughly irresponsible with Shaya’s education. It was so minimal that Shaya could barely recognize eighty percent of the characters in the yellowed, tattered books the old man left behind—and as for understanding what he read, less than half of that. Even so, the old man forbade Shaya from touching his collection, and for this, Shaya had been beaten more than once. Only when the old man was deep in a drunken sleep would Shaya dare sneak a peek.

Most of what he read was filled with words like “cavalry,” “maneuver,” “flank,” and “encirclement.” There were battle plans, discussions of transporting supplies, methods of deploying troops across different terrains—riverbanks, plains, canyons, and so forth.

At first, Shaya thought these were war stories, much like the legendary battles the ruined bards in town recounted. But soon, he noticed a difference. The content of the old man’s books was far less dramatic—frankly, they were dull and dry compared to the bards’ tales.

Shaya had twice mustered the courage to ask the old man about them. The first time, the old man simply whacked him on the head so hard it swelled for three days. The second time, the old man was drunk; instead of beating him, he kicked him to the ground and cursed, “Back in the day, when I led troops, if I’d met a disobedient brat like you, I’d have had your head off…”

If the old man’s drunken ramblings were to be believed, he had “once” been a renowned swordsman on the continent—and even “once” a general.

Was that really true?

At the very least, Shaya was sure that a general would never be so poor he couldn’t afford a decent drink. Yet the old man drank only the cheapest rye whiskey—fiery and sour—and even that was bought with the few coins he could scrape together.

“If he’s a general, then I’m the Emperor himself,” was Shaya’s conclusion.

Still… was the old man praising or criticizing his axe skills?

Fortunately, he no longer had reason to trouble himself over it.

Because the day after uttering those words, the old man died.

In his own words, he died in a very “creative” way.

When Shaya returned from chopping wood, he found the old man sprawled on the floor, lifeless. He’d died en route—having crawled out of bed toward the cabinet where he kept his bottle. Sadly, he was too old and frail; halfway there, he expired, his hand still stretched toward the drinks cabinet.

In this, the old man was nothing if not unique—even his death was singularly so. He hadn’t realized the bottle atop the cabinet was already empty—not a drop remained.

Shaya buried the old man.

He did so behind their dilapidated, drafty house, digging a shallow pit in a hollow on the hillside, filling it in with earth and stones. But when it came time to place a marker, Shaya was confronted with an absurd dilemma—after all those years, he didn’t even know the old man’s name.

Before he was eight, he’d called him “Pa.” After eight, just “Old Man.” The townsfolk called him things like “drunkard” and “old bastard.”

Shaya sat before the grave all night, sighed, split a piece of wood, and carved a crooked line upon it:

“Here lies the Old Man. May his soul rest in peace.”

He went to town and sold the most valuable thing he owned—the battered axe. It fetched three copper coins, which he spent on a bottle of liquor.

A three-copper bottle was, without question, the finest drink Shaya had ever bought.

But he poured the entire bottle over the old man’s grave, watching the liquor seep into the earth, not tasting a drop himself.

At dawn, stiff and frozen, Shaya finally rose. Standing before the grave, something complex and indescribable flickered in his eyes.

“All right, old man. You’re gone. Now there’s only me left.”

…

The first problem to solve was filling his stomach.

Although he could be called a professional hunter—in fact, it was no exaggeration to say he was the best hunter for hundreds of miles around.

At thirteen, he’d gone up the mountain to chop wood alone and killed a ravenous bloodthirsty direwolf with nothing but his battered axe—a beast that roamed the Wildfire Plains, a low-level monster whose hide was, when enraged, harder than a turtle’s shell, whose teeth could snap a hunter’s spear, and whose movements were swift and lethal.

That time, Shaya severed its head with a single blow.

A single, casual swing.

Truthfully, at just thirteen, Shaya had been so terrified he nearly wet himself. When the wolf leapt at him, he’d barely been conscious, acting only on the instinct honed by thousands of practice swings—bringing the axe down as he always had.

Then… he felt a hot gush of blood splash his face. When he opened his eyes, the wolf’s snarling head lay on the ground, severed at the neck, the body behind him.

He stood stunned for a long while before excitement set in.

So… I’m already this strong?

But when he carried the carcass home and told the old man what had happened, the old man was anything but pleased. For two reasons: “After all that training, if you can’t even kill a little wolf, you might as well bash your brains out on a rock.”

And then came the real reason for his anger:

“You idiot! Don’t you know that chopping off the wolf’s head ruins the pelt? That wolfskin could’ve fetched two silver coins—enough to keep us in drink for three months! Now it’s not worth a tenth of that!”

The old man wasn’t wrong.

When Shaya hauled the wolf into town, many were interested—until they saw the ruined pelt. In the end, no one bought it, so Shaya fashioned himself a fur jacket from it, and he and the old man ate wolf meat for days.

Ugh… best not to think about wolf meat.

Though the bloodthirsty direwolf’s flesh was tough and sour, for Shaya—now hungry for a day and night, frozen stiff—the memory was almost unbearable.

Yet, Shaya decided not to return to the mountains to hunt.

He didn’t want to be a hunter.

The young are always full of dreams; he wanted to venture out, see the world.

At the very least, he thought, finding work as a helping hand in town was better than wasting his life away in these hills, like the old man had.

Go to town, find a job—even as a stable boy. Perhaps, with his strength, he’d be noticed by a mercenary company and taken on as a lowly retainer.

Though his stomach rumbled and his hands and feet were numb from the cold, Shaya’s heart was full of hope.

Lacking his familiar axe, Shaya took the soot-blackened poker from the hearth and tucked it into his belt. Dressed in the patched wolfskin coat, his straw sandals worn almost through, carrying nothing but hope, he descended the mountain.

This was the first step of Shaya Thunder into the world beyond!

In the words of those wandering bards, this was when “the wheel of history begins to turn.”

Yet as our protagonist left the mountain, there was no such “wheel”—only his worn-out sandals, his empty stomach, and his swimming head.

[This new book needs your support! Friends, add it to your favorites, vote for it! Help boost its popularity!]