Chương 23: Before the Horn

The green bell had not called the whole village into panic. That was the first thing Ren noticed from Elna's arms. Elna carried Ren toward the church green with Bren on one side and Tessa on the other. Bren kept the axe low against his leg. Tessa held the slate flat against her chest as if hiding it would somehow make everyone stop looking at it. People came in coats half-fastened and work aprons still tied. One man carried a hammer and had shoulders like a doorframe.

Another had rope looped around one shoulder and a voice already raised in complaint before anyone had given him work. A mud-kneed man arrived with a boy trailing behind him, both of them smelling faintly of wet earth and goats. Children stayed close to skirts, sleeves, and belt ends. Doors remained open behind families who had not decided yet whether they were attending a meeting or preparing to run back inside. Nobody screamed. Nobody ran. Nobody had blood on their sleeves. Ren made himself breathe slowly.

The horn from the last loop had dragged people out after violence had already reached them. This bell had brought them out while the road was still quiet, which gave the village time to turn worry into preparation before terror ruined everyone's hands. A broad-shouldered man stood near the church steps with one hand resting on a heavy cudgel at his belt. His hair was mostly gray, his nose had been broken at least once, and people kept glancing toward him before they spoke too loudly. Ren guessed that was Hadrik.

The name had moved through too many adult conversations to belong to anyone soft, and his company spoke volumes. Hadrik was the man people fetched when a problem needed more than family worry and less than a priest. Tovin stood on Hadrik's right with his spear in hand. Mara stood on the left with her basket over one arm and her eyes on the crowd. Bren moved closer with the axe. Elna kept Ren against her hip. Tessa's fingers whitened around the slate. Tovin spoke first.

His voice carried across the green in the same plain tone he used on roads and fences. Tovin told them about the marks, the old cart road, and the signs in the scrub. He never said goblin. He did not need to. By the time he finished, parents were pulling children closer and adults were looking toward Hadrik for orders. Niko opened his mouth once. Mara looked at him. Niko closed it. Ren approved. Then Hadrik stepped forward.

He looked across the crowd and pointed toward a broad man with a hammer hanging from his belt. The man had sawdust on one sleeve, a square jaw, and the calm expression of someone just waiting to be given work.

"Garron," Hadrik said.

"West ditch before dusk. Take another man with you." The hammer man nodded once. Hadrik turned toward a narrow-shouldered man with rope looped over one arm and irritation already written across his mouth.

"Jorren, goat run and the low fence by your shed."

"I was already getting rope," Jorren said.

"Then enjoy being right while tying it." A few people laughed, thinly. Hadrik pointed toward a mud-kneed man with a boy half-hidden behind him.

"Rusk, wet sacks by the old cart turn and the mill path. Take your boy if he has legs enough to follow you." The boy straightened at once.

"Bren, bar your house," Hadrik said, "then bring that axe back if Elna can spare you." Bren glanced at Elna. Elna looked at Ren, then at Tessa, then back to Bren.

"Bar first." Hadrik raised his voice.

"Children inside before the light thins. Anyone who argues can argue with me while carrying water." People moved before they finished looking convinced. They had mud, scrape marks, Tovin's caution, Hadrik's orders, and a child's slate that adults could stand near without admitting the impossible. It looked like progress was being made. A seed of hope swelled within him. Ren would take it.

By the time Elna carried him home, Hadrik's orders had already become work. Bren shaved the swollen edge of the door bar until it dropped into place cleanly. Elna moved water and cloth closer to the cellar hatch. Tessa set the slate on the table, stared at it too long, and turned it facedown. Outside, the village answered in pieces. Garron's hammer struck near the goat run. Jorren's complaints traveled down the lane with the rope.

Rusk's boy dragged a wet sack past the house while Rusk threatened to make him wear it. Farther off, Niko shouted Tovin's message with more importance than breath.

"Keep children near houses until the old cart road is checked!" Lysa's correction followed from somewhere near the green.

"Properly checked!" Tessa hugged the slate against her ribs.

"Hmph. He keeps saying it wrong!" Ren would take miracles in whatever damaged packaging the village provided. Elna had made him a blanket nest near the hearth so she could keep him in sight. From there, Ren could see the lower room: door, bar, table, hearth, Tessa's feet, Bren's boots, and the spoon near the table leg. The road stayed out of reach. So did the west ditch, the old cart turn, Tovin, Hadrik's watchers, and every answer he wanted. Baby sightlines remained a design crime.

He pushed both palms into the blanket and lifted his head until his neck began to tremble. The house smelled of woodsmoke, milk, damp wool, and Bren's fresh-cut shavings. Outside, hammer blows and raised voices kept moving through the lane. The village was working. The work was useful. And it still felt too small. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. The first goblins had killed a sleeping house.

The larger ones had broken people after they had already started organizing. A village bracing for a strange animal might survive the first wave and die to the second or third. Ren pressed his fist into the blanket. Do more, he thought at the door, the road, and the entire stubborn world. The door did nothing. The world continued being inconsiderate. With no adult to command and no safe way to shout the future, Ren decided to do the only thing he could. And so he trained.

With no adult to command and no safe way to shout the future, Ren trained. He began with Appraisal, because mana spent in peace was less expensive than ignorance during danger. The spoon cost one point. [Spoon] [Mana: 33/34] He tried it twice more. [Spoon] [Mana: 32/34] [Spoon] [Mana: 31/34] Ren scowled into the blanket. Reality had confirmed the existence of cutlery three times and charged him for the privilege.

Appraisal was useful, but it was expensive enough to become a liability if he used it carelessly during danger. He also knew that if he Focused hard enough and tried to learn more about it, the System would tell him more about it, but… What would he even want to learn about a spoon?! He shifted to Mana Sense before irritation made him feel any more stupid. The blue charm Elna had brought downstairs hung above the hearth shelf. Its cool thread touched the room more clearly than anything else.

Elna stood near the table, Bren remained by the door, and Tessa moved between the slate and the window. Their worry brushed against his senses, but Ren left it alone. He opened Mana Sense too wide and immediately regretted it. The room crowded in: charm, hearth, wood, wool, Elna's worry, Bren's steadiness, Tessa's quick fear, old ash, warm bodies, and the faint room-drift between all of it. Too much perception still strained his head. Ren pulled back at once.

The room returned to woodsmoke, wool, milk, and ordinary sound. He kept only the charm's thread in awareness, thin enough to hold without dragging the rest of the room with it. That worked better. Mana Sense did not need the whole room. It needed a controlled target. He still lacked the control needed to keep it active forever, but one day… Yes, that would be one of his goals. For now, Focus helped hold that target steady.

Ren narrowed his attention around the charm, loose enough to spare his head and firm enough to keep the shape from slipping. He waited through three breaths, and felt the clarity stay. He checked the no-longer-quite-so-hidden resource with care. [Focus: 13/21] His Focus was lower than he wanted, but still usable. He returned to Appraisal with the same narrow hold. [Spoon - Eating Utensil] [Mana: 30/34] The spoon gave more detail for the same visible cost. He tried the door bar next.

[Door Bar - Reinforced Household Brace] [Mana: 29/34] Ren almost laughed. Bren had shaved a beam and jammed it into brackets, and the System had recognized the job instead of the craftsmanship. It seemed Appraisal could give function, condition, and context when Ren asked with enough care behind the attempt. He glanced toward Bren's axe and stopped. That was too visible. Ren planted his face into the blanket before anyone caught him staring like a trapped quartermaster. Elna noticed anyway.

"Tired?" Ren let his limbs go loose. Humiliation had tactical uses when one was a baby. Elna crossed the room and rubbed slow circles between his shoulders. His body wanted to melt into the warmth, while his mind wanted to keep measuring mana. Both impulses tried to occupy the same skull and made each other worse. It was the thing he least understood and wanted to learn the most about, as quickly as he could.

He also had a very limited amount of it to use, but his earlier test with Mana Sense showed him something– There was loose mana in the room, just floating in the air. The charm gathered it cleanly. Living bodies held it warmly. Herbs near the shelf carried faint green traces. Ash held almost none. Wood held sleepy threads pressed into grain. What if he could harness it? Gather, replace, or reuse whatever Mana he had lost? Ren ignored the people. Family was not fuel, and people were not wells to take from.

He reached toward the air instead. Nothing moved. He tried again, and still nothing moved. His own mana sat beneath his ribs, small and already lower than he liked. [Mana: 29/34] Ren kept his attention on the air. He wanted loose mana, unheld mana, the faint room-drift that belonged to no one. He drew. A faint dryness brushed across his inner sense, but the number did not rise. He drew again. Still nothing. He drew a third time, Focusing on it to his utmost, and then… Something shifted beneath his ribs.

[Mana: 30/34] Ren froze. Elna's hand paused on his back.

"Ren?" He drooled, mostly on purpose. Elna resumed rubbing. One point might have been natural recovery. It might have been the attempt. It might have been the System choosing the funniest possible timing. He needed repeatability. Ren thinned Mana Sense, narrowed Focus, ignored the charm's held mana, and reached for the air again. The inner pool resisted, but then it seemed to… align? His mana turned toward the attempt, as if a channel had remembered the direction water preferred to flow. [Mana: 31/34] Two points.

The method was slow, awkward, hard, and beautiful. The System opened. [Hidden Stat Unlocked: Knowledge] [Knowledge: 1] Ren went still. Elna's hand stopped again. This time he did not manage the drool fast enough. The message waited above him, plain and unexplained. Knowledge. Another hidden stat. … Whatever did it even do? Ren stared until the words blurred. The timing was obvious enough.

It had come from repeated testing: Appraisal, Mana Sense, Focus, failed draw attempts, and finally a repeatable pull from loose room mana. That told him where it came from. It did not tell him what had changed. Ren reached for the air mana again, carefully. The charm-thread stayed cool above him. The room-drift stayed faint. His own mana answered with less fumbling than before, as if the path from sense to draw had been cleared of a few snags. [Mana: 32/34] Ren almost shook with relief. There.

Knowledge made the attempt easier to repeat. It did not give him control over the room. It did not give him facts he had not earned. It did not solve the raid waiting outside the walls. It made his grind plans expand. He just had to make it more useful than 1 mana gained in a few minutes! He practiced in careful turns after that. He used Appraisal for labels, narrowed Mana Sense before his head tightened, and drew only from the loose room-drift. The charm was not his. People were not wells.

By the time he felt the edge of real depletion, his thoughts had begun to blur around the numbers. [Skill Level Increased: Appraisal Lv. 4 -> Lv. 5] He stopped. Elna noticed his expression.

"You are making that face again." Ren blinked up at her. Tessa came closer at once.

"What face?"

"The old-man face."

"He has lots of those!" Ren made a protest sound. It even worked! …Probably because he was genuinely offended. Bren glanced over from the shutter.

"If he is making faces, he is well enough." Elna gave him a look that could have sharpened knives. Bren returned to checking the latch. Ren let himself rest while the house continued around him. The sense beneath his ribs recovered slowly, but it recovered with less confusion than before. Knowledge had not explained itself clearly enough yet. But it didn't need to. It was useful, and that was enough for Ren to put it to grind.