Frieren: Serie's Apprentice

[Sinseki Era - 21 Years Prior, Winter]

[Northern Nations · Ob Hills]

On a country road through the hills, a roughly-made carriage slowly traveled.

Inside the carriage, Gut leaned against his teacher and let out a long breath, saying:

"It's still more comfortable riding in a carriage."

"But the process was really not easy."

Two days ago.

Since the group left Sword Village, over ten days had passed.

During this period, the group had crossed the difficult Alt Forest and the monster-heavy Lant Region, finally reaching a road that had been leveled.

Even though it wasn't wide, even though it was narrow and required frequent detours due to being in hilly terrain.

But it could accommodate carriages.

Looking at this road before them, Gut and Hafka exchanged glances, both nodding as they each formed the same plan.

Among their group, only a minority like Gut and Hafka had trained their physical fitness.

The pale-faced Zenn and girl Sola, whose face was covered with fatigue but still gritting her teeth to persevere—this state was more typical of most mages.

After all, even someone as strong as Serie showed visible mental fatigue after the long journey.

Therefore, Hafka, who felt sorry for his sister, couldn't be bothered with rest upon reaching the village. He immediately called upon Gut, who had the same idea, and the two split up to inquire around the village, seeing if they could hire a coachman to carry them to Äußerst, or even the fortress city Vorig ahead would do.

However, Gut's situation wasn't going smoothly.

After circling half the village, although he successfully found two or three coachman households, after talking with them, he discovered the male heads of household weren't home.

Either they had gone to take on merchant caravan jobs, or they had been hired by other people in recent days.

But in either case, waiting for them to return would take at least ten days or more.

After sighing in disappointment, Gut walked toward the village tavern—this was where he and Hafka had agreed to meet. His side had no hope, so he could only expect Hafka might have some success.

After entering the tavern, Gut ordered a cup of locally-brewed beer and found a seat by the main door, sipping while waiting for Hafka to arrive.

In the center of the room stood a burning stove, and combined with the alcohol in his drink, even in winter, Gut didn't feel cold.

However, Hafka was a bit slower than expected. After waiting a while, this figure finally pushed open the door and entered.

"Sorry I'm late, something happened on my end."

"No rush, sit down and explain slowly."

"Mm."

After Hafka sat down, he originally wanted to order whiskey from the tavern server—after all, both the alcohol content and flavor would be much better than ordinary beer.

But after glancing at senior brother Gut drinking only beer, he immediately changed his unspoken words and also asked the server for a bottle of beer.

As a mouthful of liquor went down, under the warm breeze in the room, the chill on Hafka's body dissipated, and he began his account.

"If the information I got is correct, senior brother, both our situations should be the same."

Gut was stunned. "You mean the entire village has no coachmen available for hire?"

"Correct."

Hafka confirmed, then began explaining.

"After visiting several households and getting negative answers, I stayed longer at the last place and learned the reason for this situation from the coachman's family."

"Just a few days ago, a merchant caravan transporting important supplies was attacked by several bird monsters in the wild. Multiple carriages were severely damaged, but fortunately the cargo sealing remained intact."

"Therefore, the caravan boss paid big money to hire away most of the village's coachmen. As for the remaining one or two, they were also hired by travelers who didn't want to continue with the caravan."

"Tsk, so that's what happened."

Gut clicked his tongue, then frowned slightly. "Then our plan is probably..."

"No, there's actually still a chance."

Hafka interrupted, though a trace of hesitation flashed across his face, obviously this idea wasn't very perfect.

Gut spread his hands, gazing at this junior disciple. "Might as well explain. Anyway, there are no other options."

"Alright." Hafka took a sip of beer and began describing.

"According to the old woman who chatted with me, when the caravan came to the village, they also brought back a carriage that wasn't too severely damaged and left it at the village carpenter's house."

"Also, some of the village coachmen's horses are getting old, so they keep an additional horse at home for future replacement."

"So I was thinking, if we could get both of these things, combining them would make a proper carriage."

After hearing Hafka's idea, Gut's furrowed brow still didn't relax.

"The feasibility is there, but there are also quite a few problems."

"First, the village carpenter might not have finished repairing the carriage yet. Second, even if we secure both the carriage and horses, what about the coachman to drive it?"

"All the village's drivers should have been hired away, right?"

"I can do it." Hafka said steadily.

"When I was at the country estate, I learned how to drive horse-drawn carts and ox-carts from the household servants."

"Although it's been some time since I tried, past familiar skills should still be reliable."

Looking at his junior disciple's eyes that held considerable confidence in himself, Gut pondered.

If that was really the case, it wouldn't be impossible to try.

After finishing the remaining beer in his cup, Gut nodded to Hafka. "Then let's try it."

"I'll go find the carpenter to check on the carriage, you go to the coachmen's homes to borrow horses."

"Mm." Hafka responded. "Then, meet at the inn tonight?"

"Sure."

At the carpenter's house on the village's east side.

Gut, who had only found this place after asking several villagers, the moment the carpenter opened his door, couldn't stop his eyelid from twitching.

Because at that very moment.

The carpenter in the courtyard was holding an axe, bringing it down on the damaged carriage with a chop, as if he wanted to split it open to use as firewood.

"Spare the carriage!"

Gut called out in alarm. Before the carpenter's wife who opened the door could react, he rushed to the carpenter and seized the axe from his hands, preventing him from causing further damage to the carriage.

The carpenter was so startled by Gut's sudden appearance that he jumped up and nearly wet himself after collapsing to the ground.

Fortunately, after subsequent explanations, the carpenter understood Gut's intentions.

After asking his wife to pour a cup of hot tea for this customer, the carpenter pointed at the damaged carriage with his axe and explained to Gut.

"Customer, look here—this large piece is the carriage's load-bearing board, an extremely important part of the carriage."

"Mm."

Feeling the axe marks on it, Gut nodded emphatically.

After seeing where the customer's attention was focused, the carpenter sighed.

He pointed to another spot—a place that didn't look too problematic from the outside, only slightly deformed—and said:

"Here is where the real problem lies."

"Because of this damage, this load-bearing board can't be used anymore. It needs to be removed and replaced with a new one."

"Coincidentally, we're running low on firewood at home, so I thought I'd chop it down first, and when spring comes next year, I'll dig out a suitable piece from the forest to replace it."

"I see."

Gut expressed his understanding, then under the carpenter's incredulous gaze, he reached out and snapped off the load-bearing wooden board that the carpenter needed an axe to chop.

From the cross-section of the deformed area, a terrible crack could be seen inside the board. Gut nodded, admiring the carpenter's professionalism.

This wooden board really couldn't be used anymore.

Little did he know, the carpenter was now looking at him as if seeing a ghost.

"That... that, young man, you couldn't be a demon, could you?"

"How could that be possible." Gut curled his lip in annoyance. "I'm just an ordinary, unremarkable mage."

After repeatedly confirming that the customer before him was truly human, the carpenter finally breathed a long sigh of relief.

"Master, if I could bring back wood suitable for making load-bearing boards from the forest right now, do you have confidence you could repair it within two days?"

"This..."

The carpenter stroked his chin thoughtfully. "The other parts of the carriage, I've mostly already repaired."

"If there really is suitable wood, it would just be a matter of planing it out and installing the new load-bearing board. Two days should be no problem."

"It's just that the forest is too far from the village, plus with winter snow and active monsters and beasts, getting wood at this time is too danger—"

The carpenter's words stopped halfway as he thought of Gut's earlier scene of easily tearing apart the wooden board. It seemed for this young man, the winter forest wasn't so dangerous.

So after swallowing, the carpenter said to Gut:

"If you can really bring back suitable wood, I have no problem delivering within two days."

"That's wonderful. Master, let's discuss the price."

"This..."

The carpenter looked at the accident-damaged carriage before him with a troubled expression. "Why don't you name a price."

"To be honest, this carriage was actually given to me by the caravan boss as collateral for repair costs on other carriages and cargo sealing. He said when he completes delivery and gets payment, he'll buy it back at a reasonable price on his return trip."

"If you're buying it now, I really don't know what price would be appropriate."

"I see." Gut's eyes flashed with understanding, so he simply stated the price of a normal new carriage.

The carpenter was naturally delighted to agree immediately and promised the customer that as long as materials were available, he would definitely repair it to be more durable than new.

Gut smiled, asked him for the location of nearby lumber areas and required wood specifications, then left without further delay, walking quickly toward the lumber area, hoping to bring back suitable wood before dark.

Meanwhile, on the other side.

Hafka's progress wasn't going smoothly.

Unlike carriage parts that could be arbitrarily replaced, horses as living creatures were each different.

The horses kept by coachmen were all "partners" they had spent long periods with. Some had developed understanding with their coachmen through familiarity, making them responsive to control and easy to handle.

As important tools for making a living, selling or leasing them was something the coachmen's families didn't dare decide on their own.

Therefore, even after finding households that kept spare horses, Hafka's negotiations weren't going smoothly.

After learning his intentions, the family immediately became resistant, stating they wouldn't sell or lease to outsiders.

Until...

Hafka pulled out gold coins from his purse.

Facts proved that for most "not for sale" items, as long as enough money was offered, they could actually be bought.

Seeing that sum of gold coins that the family's breadwinner couldn't earn back in several years of work, their compromise was exceptionally straightforward. They even offered to give the horse a full wash and deliver it clean to Hafka's hands.

After jointly signing a transfer agreement, Hafka breathed a sigh of relief.

His side was roughly settled. He just wasn't sure if senior brother's side was still going smoothly.

Night.

Gut collapsed on the inn's soft bed like a dead pig, his stamina completely drained—really, not a drop left.

Heaven knows how exhausting it was to drag and roll the timber back to the village from the lumber area.

And this was after Gut had carefully processed it, completely removing the tree's roots and branches, keeping only the central log portion.

But even so, its weight was still not to be underestimated.

His actions after returning to the village caused quite a stir, and countless villagers, while marveling, also actively helped.

Finally, with the joint assistance of many villagers, the already exhausted Gut managed to transport this section of log across half the village to the carpenter's house before dark.

Even the subsequent journey back to the inn required junior disciple Hafka's support for the depleted Gut.

Conveniently, since they had left the group first, Serie simply booked their rooms together.

This not only facilitated communication about their plans but also saved Hafka from having to find the teacher for keys.

After entering the room, Hafka first threw Gut onto the bed, then opened the room's window, pulled out an exquisite silver cigarette case from his chest, and lit a thick, long cigar facing the window, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

Since he was among the first to help, after jointly moving things across half the village, Hafka was also quite tired. Having one now was perfect for relaxing his muscles.

Amid the smoke, looking at senior brother lying corpse-like on the bed and thinking of how he had single-handedly dragged an entire log from the lumber area to the village, Hafka couldn't help but marvel at his monstrous physical constitution.

At the same time, Hafka didn't forget to tease him verbally.

"Senior brother, did you notice? Some of the village girls, after seeing your feat, had their gazes practically glued to your body."

Gut silently rolled his eyes at Hafka, too tired to speak.

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Powerstones?

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