Walking. It had become the bane of his existence. Where his former mentor had gone everywhere on foot and even tried to imprint on him how walking had everything to do with freedom and putting his foot down wherever and whenever he went, Gawain was not like that. While it went without question that the two of them had never truly been carved out of the same cloth, the ashen haired youth had come to think of walking as being rather dull. In recent times, he had already been walking all the way from the forsaken region after having done quite a good deal of training, made his way over to the common region to do even more of the latter, only to get caught up in a rather peculiar plot to frame someone for the murder of their wife. To say that things had gotten rather heated was a bit of an understatement, though the whole ordeal had proven to be fairly interesting.

Not being the type to stick around where he wasn’t wanted, he had taken a moment off to get his bearings so that he might return with a fresh pair of eyes and be of sound mind. Of the things he had been made to do, most of it had come natural to him as he was not often hard pressed into doing things hated. After all, when it came down to doing something he did not want to do, he simply wouldn’t do it, and then that would be that. This time however, he was sent out to collect a flower that was needed in order to construct a cure for the previously mentioned victim. Not being much for botany or herbology, the fact that an acquaintance of the mayor of Kiten had offered him a good sum of money to retrieve it from the forest of witches was all of the incentive he needed. Thanks to him taking on that chore, one could say that he had more or less plummeted himself into the belly of the beast. And the best was far from done with him.

But now here he was, having once again walked from one place to the next in order to find something new to do so that he might take his mind off of what had happened earlier that week. But more than that, he had come here to find himself a new mode of transportation.

Being quite the good listener, Gawain had picked up whispers of how there was a merchant crafting brooms in Kikka. Truth be told, he hadn’t quite been in a position where he truly wanted to visit the place and take in the sites, not after what his former mentor had told him. Quite frankly, he did not believe himself to be ready to take on some of the things that had been rumored to move around in the shadows of that place. Still, the way he saw it, if civilians could freely move around that place once again and go back to living their daily lives, the chances of these things coming after him here were slim to none. Besides, once he managed to get his hands on his very own broom, moving from place to place would become a lot more pleasant. When he wandered over to the place after having asked around about its location, it seemed that he was not the first to make his way over there.

Listening in on the conversation, it appeared as though the merchant was looking for some able bodied individuals to help him fetch the wood he needed with which to craft his brooms. Claiming the trees themselves were fairly small and not all that difficult to cut down, Gawain honestly had expected more. In his mind, the trees that were fit to be turned into brooms were the kind that would swing back at whoever might try to put an axe to them. Ensnaring roots, branches that struck like whips or bludgeoned like blows of a hammer. To think that most of the magic more than likely came out of the way in which the wood was treated and prepared and not from the tree itself was almost a mood killer. Still, if the man wanted someone to fetch the wood and would consider handing him a free broom in the process, the haggler in him could not possibly refuse such a good deal.

“Indeed it shall be. We’ll bring you enough wood to fill your entire order before days’ end!”

Introducing himself without actually introducing himself by merely making his presence known, the large smirk on his face only went to lend more credibility to his statement. Or rather, it reinforced the fact that they would be able to fill out an entire orders worth of wood in one go. For a moment, a fairly awkward silence fell over the room as the merchant looked him over for a bit, took a breath and let a deep sigh escape from his lips. Heading out into the back room for a moment and returning with a pair of axes, they seemed to have been sharpened beyond belief. But that much was to be expected. After all, if they had to work with a blunt axe and brought back a bunch of wood that had been beaten to the point of becoming brittle, the brooms he’d fashion out of them likely lost a lot of their durability. And seeing as how this was an order for the magic knights, he likely wanted to deliver some of his best work.

Reaching for the nearest of the two axes, Gawain placed the head over the back of his shoulder, letting the handle rest on top of it like he imagined a real logger would before stepping outside. Once there, he would wait for the other guy to come out and get this show on the road.

Having waited around the corner for the other guy to meet up with him, Gawain began walking towards the supposed location for these trees they needed to cut down. Resting his fingers carefully around the wooden handle of the axe, he listened as he was being spoken to in a tone that did not seem amused. It mattered not, they’d get the job done whether they were able to see eye to eye about such a simple task or not. Hell, if it came down to it, they could chop trees in their own section of the forest and get their chores out of the way without even locking eyes once. Though it did not seem to have to come to that, as Gawain wasn’t the type to get constricted in words, nor would he get angry when he got a stern talking to. No, quite the opposite. When he put his mind to it, he was what could be called a conversationalist, a thing many would not expect from someone his age. That said though, it could be debated that the live he had lived up until this point had shaped him well beyond his years.

“The secret to hearing your discussion and “Barging in” on it as you put it is one and the same. You left the front door open, so it wasn’t all that hard to hear, nor make my way in.”

Though he was joking when he put it like that, the truth of the matter did not change. For it was exactly as he put it, having heard the discussion while on his way to the very same merchant they were now supposed to help together. It was one of the reasons why he personally enjoyed shutting the door whenever he made any deals with people that he did not want anyone else barging in on. In fact, the mayor of Kiten had done the very same thing when he brought him into the room where he discussed his dealings with other nobles and people with important stations throughout the town and region. Funny though, that even that solid oak door hadn’t managed to keep their discussion from reaching the ears of the culprit behind the vampire attacks. Though to be fair, it was not the doors’ fault, as it was hard for it to block out sound from someone whom they themselves had invited into the very same room as they were.

“Pardon the supposed subterfuge Asahi, and trust me when I say that there is nothing that requires hiding. Most people I’ve worked with couldn’t give a rats ass as to what my name was, as long as they got their chores and tasks done. The name’s Gawain.”

Wandering ever closer to the nearby forest, it was a good they didn’t need to stop along the way for some reason or another. In fact, one might go as far as to say that they were progressing rather splendidly. Due to the time he and his former mentor had spent in the forests of the Aristaeus basin, Gawain had been given some insight into nature, as well as magically enhanced nature. It didn’t take him a whole lot of effort to make a difference between a birch, an oak or an elm. Since they were all so common in these regions of the continent, finding the one tree that stood out would not be all that hard. Besides, since they were looking for small trees in a forest, he didn’t think locating the ones they needed would give them a whole lot of trouble. But that was really nothing more than wishful thinking based off of his own knowledge of the natural world.

Moving away from the main road and heading into the woods, he thought about how different nature was out here. While it was still plenty comparable to the forsaken region, there was a lot more logging happening in the common region because money had to be made. That, and the forests here were a whole lot less threatening. Sure, there might be a wolf or two or even a cougar. Hell, he had even heard about there being a bear or two out there somewhere, though that was nothing compared to the forests found in the forsaken region. Being so close to several other countries and mana regions, there were plenty of rogue mana beasts wandering in and out of the place that were far more formidable opponents. Not to mention that they’d have very little trouble killing and devouring humans in the time it would take them to cry out for help. As such, Gawain wasn’t worried in the slightest.

“Hmm… how do I put it. There are people in this world that love seeing results for the work they pay for. If that result takes a turn towards the negative, they’d like to pretend they were never affiliated with you at all. Not knowing the name of the person you are trying to deny tends to help with that.”

Pushing aside a branch as he moved onward, he thought back on those people in Kiten. While things had mostly turned out pretty well, it was hard for him to forget how they had initially established their contact. What with how the mayor had told him that they’d essentially deny having ever worked or even met with him if he came back too late to aid in saving the victim. That they would drive the stake through her heart and pin it on their supposed culprit before letting the militia of frightened and angry civilians deal with it. Whether it came down to him being hanged without a trial was all perfectly acceptable to them, as long as they at the very least made it seem like they were in control and were capable of maintaining said control. Truly despicable as far as reasoning went, though he had come to expect as much from those in positions of power with a reputation to protect.

“As for the trees, I do not, though I have a pretty clear idea as to what we should look for. Since I know just about every kind of tree that grows here, it all comes down to finding the one that’s different. A simple process of elimination, finding your query through ruling out what we don’t need.”

“Fortunately yes, though it could be debated that I don’t deal with them enough. While good with money, the average noble isn’t what you’d call worldly. They’ll try to barter for every penny when they could fill a lake with them, but if you tell them you’d need to fight a dragon, they’ll at least pay you the minimum for what they believe killing one might be worth. Not to mention that there’s no such thing as dragons in Clover, but they don’t need to know that.”

Sniffling as he laughed to himself for a bit, it was true that many of those people were awful. Most of them hadn’t worked a day in their life, most of the money they had was passed down to them from their parents and their grandparents before them while most of them never truly saw the outside world if it wasn’t from behind their own windows or inside of a carriage. Truth be told, it was the kind of life Gawain was glad he didn’t have. For him, going out and doing whatever the hell he wanted was about as good as it was ever going to get. That said, he was still quite young, so there might come a time where he might enjoy owning a house or actually having a home to begin with. But all of that was something that he would deal with when and if the time came. For now, he really had nothing to worry himself over other than finding these trees that would soon become brooms for a new generation of knights. And one for himself, obviously.

It would be quite the time saver to have a broom around if it meant getting from one part of the country to the next, at least until he learned how to use his magic in a way that would allow him to fly. For as it stood, the amount of magic he could properly utilize was still rather limited, even though the prowess and the mana was clearly there. In truth, it was really the willpower that was lacking, as he hadn’t shown a whole lot of interest in the use of magic just yet. Which was fairly odd, given how his four-leaf grimoire should have been a rather deciding factor when it came to his day to day life and what he chose to dedicate himself to. For where some teens his age already knew they wanted to either become a magic knight or not, Gawain himself had no idea what he wanted to be. And not for lack of trying, as he had pondered the question many, many times. But as it were, the freedom that came with being his own “man” was all he really wanted or needed.

“It would indeed, which means the ones we’re after can’t be too far from here. I’d imagine that when trees are cut, more are planted in the area to keep the place from going barren and keep business from drying up. So factoring in human laziness, I imagine we should goooo…”

Pausing as he spoke, he took a few quick glances around the area. As there were no footprints to look for, there were things called elephant trails that were made when people and animals repeatedly wandered along the same path. Pushing down and eventually flattering and killing the grass in that area, it made for a lasting dirt path. While he really only saw one such path, he imagined that it was created by the loggers, and later on by animals such as deer and wild boars that simply followed the path of least resistance. With that thought in mind, he could say with some degree of certainty that this was the path to follow.

“...There, probably.”

It seemed as though his assumption had been correct. This passage was one that had been made purely by trampling the ground time and time again, both by nature and civilization. Good. It made their job of locating the proper trees a lot easier, as there was no sport to cutting down a bunch of saplings that wouldn’t provide them with any wood whatsoever. The danger with saplings was that there was no telling whether or not they’d be left with any usable wood once it had been dried out properly. And that wouldn’t do, as a broom that would snap under the weight of a boiled egg was about as useful as a horse that could only walk backwards at a snail’s pace. As such, it would be logical to find exactly what they were looking for if they just kept going straight onward until they reached their destination.

“You’re quite right, because these are exactly the trees we’ve been looking for.”

A simple statement, but no less true. These were the not-quite adult versions of the saplings they had passed by earlier, and by that he meant that they hadn’t been here for several decades yet. Imagining most of these trees wouldn’t reach that age due to the fact that they were cut down and logged before being replanted, it seemed like humans needing this kind of lumber was the only reason why they even grew in this region. Implying that they were more than likely not native to Clover, or at the very least not native to this region of Clover, Gawain wondered what kind of an impact it would have had on nature when they introduced them here when they did. After all, when introducing an invasive species into a new biome, it always had repercussions of some kind, and part of him wanted to figure out what those were. But not today.

Taking the axe and giving one of the nearby trees a good swing, it seemed that he hadn’t mistaken just how much they had been sharpened. As was the case with swords, sharpening an edge could only be taken so far before one damaged the integrity of the blade. This axe was no different. Sharpening the edge to the point where there was no truly fine edge that would snap off at the first sign of resistance and friction, it bit into the tree quite deeply without any sign of chipping. Placing his foot against the stump so he could pull the axe out, he pulled it back and performed another wide swing at the exact same spot. Not missing his mark by an inch, Gawain dug his way deeper and deeper into the tree. Figuring that if he could keep this up, he could eventually cut the tree down and make it fall in a place where he wanted it to, dealing as little damage to the surrounding trees as possible.

“Five you say? Hah. I’m not a pack mule capable of carrying that much. Besides, I lack at least a pair of arms for that kind of weight and girth.”

In saying that, Gawain wasn’t exactly lying. He was a fifteen year old boy who knew a fair amount of things about the natural world, was fairly adept when it came to reading both humans and animals, and was no idiot when it came to bartering. What he very much was not was a musclebrain like his former mentor, the man who was initially intended to become the next captain of the black bulls. Had he been more like him, he would have carried those five on his own with a single arm. Needless to say, he was not like that at all. Where the black knight had been a true alpha male, Gawain was too much of a free spirit to be bogged down with intense physical training regiments and swordplay. He had done plenty of that on Skjaergard to know that taking lives with his own hands and the weapon they held was not something he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

Where it seemed at some point that that was all there was for him, it had been roughly two years since he had been released from a fate of eventually becoming a murderous raider himself. And how far he had come already. There was really no comparing the version of him that existed now to the version that existed back then. He was actually quite happy these days. So instead of complaining about how he could physically not lift that much and walk all the way back, he tried to apply his mind to the situation.

“Approaching things logically, and factoring in the size and width of your average broom, if you were to cut the whole tree down the middle twice, you’d be left with roughly four brooms a tree, as well as some leftovers.”

Walking around the log for a bit to ensure that his assumptions were correct, Gawain was rather reassured shortly after. It seemed rather certain that he was right after all. Going by that logic, he thought about the amount of brooms the store owner might logically need, judging by the low amount of knights that signed up in recent times. And yes, that too was something he had been keeping an eye on, as he himself had been pondering on whether or not he should have become a knight at some point. Feeling like it might have been more challenging for him if he had some kind of a rival to compare himself with and to force his own growth, keeping track of those that signed up seemed like a good idea. Granted, he did not have full insight in the exact amount of people that joined, nor did he know them all personally, but he did keep track of the magic knight exams. And that at least let him know that there weren’t a whole lot of rivalry worthy people around right now.

“So if we choose to go by that kind of sound reasoning, bringing five in total would already constitute roughly twenty new brooms. And since the man did not specify any numbers, I imagine delivering on twenty individual orders would already be a bit of overkill that might even award us some additional funds.”

Thinking like somewhat of a businessman would, delivering this much should award them a bit of extra, as the amount of wood they delivered for brooms would have been more than enough to fit the order. While he could not be one hundred percent sure of that particular assumption, he could at the very least make an educated guess to it based on what he had seen. Continuing to cut away at the tree, it fell over in the direction he had imagined it would, missing the other trees and keeping it from damaging the surrounding woods. Cutting off the leaf bearing branches at the top and leaving them where they were, he imagined nature would eventually reclaim them. It was after all what fungus was for, reclaiming what would otherwise go to waste, break it down to the building blocks that make up the sum of everything so that everything can start over year again. It was the only reason the forest wasn’t filled with dead trees stacked on top of one another.

Having made his point, Gawain figured he should take things a step further. Knowing the limits of his own body pretty well, the aim was to carry as little as possible, but not make himself into the kind of person that didn’t carry their own weight. At the end of the day, all he cared about was getting enough wood to get his own broom made, which was something a single log was more than capable of doing. But they had struck a deal with the owner of the broom shop, so that was something he would have to honor. If not, what was the worth of someone’s word?

“And since you’re older and stronger, how about I carry two and you carry three. Sounds fair enough right?”