'Nimri said I will need to make my own knife and fishing spear. Will Orin teach me how to do that?'
'Yeah, he will supervise you while you are making them, but while you are there, I expéct you to make a few tools for yourself for the future. A fisherman's knife and spear, a self-defense dagger, maybe even some light armour. Once you get your system, you should also be able to make yourself your first proper weapon if you can get the correct materials for it.'
'But the smithy will have all the ore and everything there already, right?'
'I am not talking about ore, I am talking about beast parts. If you find the right stuff, you can use it to make weapons far better than just the steel or iron stuff most people use. That's why we're going to the butcher's shop next, you need to meet your final instructor.'
The pair walked along the road towards a wooden building that matched the style of the village, but was by no means one of the regular cottages. Out front, there were beast pelts spread out on wooden frames, and there was a faint smell of blood and meat in the air.
After pushing the door open and entering inside, Cass immediately recognized the place as a butcher shop. There was what seemed to be a selection of dried and preserved meat on some of the shelves, and on the counter, there was the carcass of some kind of cattle animal, which was being broken down by a young boy around the same age as Cass.
Lucius smiled at the boy and spoke softly 'Good afternoon, Darin. First of all, this is my son, Cass, I imagine you will be seeing a lot of him from now on, so please do get along. Is your father around today?'
The young boy bowed his head to both Lucius and Cass and replied nervously, ' Good afternoon, my lord, young lord master, ummmm, yes, my father is home, excuse me for a moment while I go fetch him'.
The boy was speaking to Lucius as though he were walking on eggshells. The fear in his eyes was readily apparent as he dashed into the back room. Cass understood very quickly that this was probably the way common folk treated nobles in this world, and inwardly, he vowed to do his best to make sure he could alleviate these fears in the village residents in the future when he took over from his father. He did not want to be feared just because of his position.
Darin returned shortly after with a tall, lean man, with a puzzled expression, and whose gaze seemed to pierce into Cass. 'I dunno, Lucius, his hands seem pretty soft and dainty. Running around in the woods might not be suitable for a prissy little lord like this one.'
Cass felt a little irritated by the suggestion that he might be a soft, spoilt child. During his time in the army on Earth, he had undergone wilderness survival training. 'The decision to stay away from the forest has not been mine to make. I would happily enter there to engage in whatever activity my father has in mind for me, so maybe take me there and observe my attitude for yourself before making comments on my soft upbringing.'
Slightly taken aback by the supposedly 10-year-old Cass' response, a reply came, 'Yeah, kid, and what if I take you into the forest and you act all arrogant like a little lord, disregard me and get yourself hurt or killed. Your attitude could be the difference between staying friendly with your pops or me losing my head.'
'Well how about you lay out what going into the forest could mean, and I will ease your worries'
'Well, Lucius, I guess the kid has at least got a quicker wit than you do! He sounds more like an educated lord than you do, at least! Alright, kid, here's the deal. We will be going close to and into the edge of the forest to hunt ordinary game, and maybe 1 star beasts, with bows and javelins.
After killing or trapping them, we will be either transporting them live back here to sell to monster tamers, or we will be dressing them in the forest and bringing them back to butcher them for meat and beast parts. The forest is dangerous, and if we are there and you don't listen to me, you could get hurt or even die, so what are we going to do about that?'
Cass gave an immediate reply. 'You decide when I am or am not ready for something. If you think I am getting out of line, feel free to slap me around a little, I am sure the old man and my mothers won't mind. If I whine too much, you can just tell me to return to the village and then never take me out again. How about that?'
'I can do that, but keep something in mind; I don't work for your dad. He might be the lord of the village, but he doesn't own my hunting business the same way he owns the others around town, so that means what I say goes. If I want you gone, you are gone, no arguments. Also, you will be working for me, so most of anything you kill while you work for me is mine; the leftovers are yours. Do we have a deal?'
Open-mouthed, seeing his son negotiate an employment deal by himself with the hunter, Lucius felt the need to step in. 'Cass, you can't go deciding these things for yourself. You and your step-mom might be fine with you getting some slaps if you step out of line, but Liz would never accept it. For Harric's own safety, that can't happen. The rest all seems reasonable to me, though. So Harric, are we good to go?'
'Well..... um.... yeah.... uh. Lucius, don't tell Liz I agreed to smack him about if he misbehaved, I was just trying to lay down the law of the land, you know. I don't have any real plans to beat him or anything. I don't feel like being on the receiving end of one of her spells again. That time in the outpost when she almost drowned me after we had that falling out still gives me nightmares.'
'Hahaha, don't worry, I know hitting kids isn't really your style. Alright, I will send him over here next week, and you can sort him out then. I am gonna leave a gold coin with you too so that you can get him some half decent hunting gear.'
After leaving the hunter's cabin. Cass and Lucius made their way home, got shouted at by Adeline for dragging the day's dirt into the house, bathed, ate, talked, and made their way to bed. In his mind, Cass reaffirmed his goal to support his family and help grow the village in the future.