"Yes, you did good, sunshine."

  Lina giggled as she received a head rub, she totally did it this time.

  "But there are some other things that I need to talk to you. I had only three expectations.

  That you show her around, tend to her wounded arm and give her something to eat. She looks like nothing but bones, and these half-rotten rags she wears.. how could you even endure this stench. It is great that you could move a big stone, but listen now, the serfs are our responsibility. They need to be healthy, fed and content. They know they are Serfs, they know their fate, but it is important to not be cruel and give them work they cannot do. I know, I know, you did it. But it was costly to her, was it not?"

  Lina was ready to burst out to defend herself, but she was now an overseer, too and that meant she had to wait and think first, too.

  She remembered that Rot really did smell bad. Very bad. And she said many times she cannot do things, often because she is too weak. It really wasn’t fair to let her drag stones. She looked at her father with a mixture of feelings, none of them particularly good.

  "Where is she now?"

  "I had Clod carry her into the barn, she is still out."

  But Lina could do it. It was her responsibility. She stood in front of her father, trying to act as grown-up as possible.

  "You have to bandage her arm. And give her bread soup as food the first few days"

  A ray of sunshine woke me up. I let out a soft, content “mmh” that turned into a strained “ugh” as my body spoke up. The world came back into focus in slow, hazy stages.

  The scent. The overwhelming smell of hay and animal stench that clung to the back of my throat.

  Next, my new, seemingly omnipresent friend: muscle pain.

  My stomach growled. I slowly stood up and looked at my hand. It was bandaged, a decent job.

  Some hope flared up. Mission accomplished, I guessed.

  I looked around and found myself in a barn. It looked like I had at least two neighbors. "Good morning Mr. Ox, and to you as well, Mr. Horse. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

  "What are you talking about, Rot?" I turned around and found Lina trying to hold her laughter while the horse neighed

  "It is a matter of politeness to introduce myself to my new neighbors. Good morning Lina. May I suggest we go for breakfast? I am literally starving."

  "Yes I'm here to pick you up. Let's go", she said, leading the way and soon we were in a small kitchen in one of the houses. "Leets.." Lina murmured while picking some vegetables, a few loaves of bread and some spices.

  "You will eat light meals at first. So I’ll make you bread soup" she gestured for me to wait and prepared the meal, cooked it over the fire and et voila, bread soup. I ate slowly, but I ate everything she gave me.

  "Thank you, Lina. I enjoyed your meal"

  "What are we going to do today?" Lina asked

  "Everything but stones please" I gave her my puppy eyes.

  "Yes, I think I made a mistake and gave you a task that you were not able to do. Sorry about that Rot, I didn’t want to be mean"

  "Water under the bridge. As for what I can offer... I can teach you, probably almost anything you can imagine. But we should begin with writing and numbers and calculations. These are the most basic and most used skills and every single person should master these, you could even go as far as to say a human is heavily impaired without these skills. Best part? It is super easy!" I made my offer and really hoped I made it sound tasty enough, because I no longer thought I was made for real work.

  "I can already count to potato" Lina said proudly

  "I don't think this is how numbers work" I deadpanned "Do you want to learn? Numbers are the easiest." They had no Arabic numerals, but it was a decimal-based number system. Great, no need to reinvent math.

  "Numbers..." she murmured "yes why not?"

  "Should I teach only you? Or someone else too? I think I can handle four people, but they must listen and follow my instructions or it will not work"

  "How long will it take?"

  "I think only arithmetic and maybe some first steps into math might take one afternoon. But without practice and application the knowledge will be fragile"

  "You say you can teach me and three others numbers in one day? You know that scholars are so expensive that we can only use their services in town Rot? You are so weird sometimes"

  "It is almost like I am not from this planet" I laughed, this felt cathartic.

  "What is a planet?"

  "That is something I can teach you, but it is knowledge that requires more basic knowledge"

  "How is a bridge built?"

  "What kind of bridge? There are arch bridges, tension bridges, and beam bridges? Probably arched ones."

  "The bridge at the mill. It looks like this" she gestured an arc with her hands.

  "Oh, that is an arc one, that is quite easy to explain. Because of gravity the bridge's weight pushes down and the force is directed against the stone arc structure so the whole force is redirected to the ground on both sides of the bridge which acts as support. We can build it ourselves, the trick is to keep the arc construction held in place until it's finished. Only if the arc is complete, can you remove the support or the gravity will bring it all down" I slipped into lecture mode as Lina was listening attentively.

  "Noo.. what is gravity? And I know force, but isn't it like if I hit you?"

  I ruminated on how to explain that by measuring the world precisely enough, we can derive almost everything we know about the firmament.

  "Gravity and force are actually the same, which is a recurring theme in knowledge. Hitting me would be using force, but I am talking about a more abstract concept. Force is something I can describe in Numbers. Force is mass multiplied by acceleration. So if you hit me, it would be the speed and weight of your hand plus how fast your hand has accelerated if we measure each of these steps, we can exactly calculate how much force your hit would apply."

  "No way, now you are just making stuff up."

  "Do you want me to.. prove it?" I gave her a smug look

  After an arduous day of physics experiments and teaching, Lina became a firm believer in gravity. It kind of blew her mind. And so she also became a firm believer in my teaching skills. So that was how I became her personal teacher. Even the old man only attended my class once. He had a glimmer in his eyes afterwards. My position rose clearly above serf level. And after a few weeks I was rather treated as a respected guest.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  My body recovered well and I was even gaining some real flesh on my bones. What recovered even better was my mind. The structure and stability my new life provided was balm to my beaten self. And finally got some clothes. Nothing special, just an itchy tunic.

  I became good friends with Lina, but I never managed to connect with the other serfs. Lina said I spoke too well, they didn't see me as one of them. It's not like I feel ostracized. It feels like living with the supermarket staff.

  Thinking back on my horrendous first days in this world, now I was at least safe and had some food. Like a vacation on a farm.

  And so time flew by. One, two, three weeks.

  Until one day Lina told me to prepare for a journey to Thornhold.

  “Father told me we would travel to Thornhold for business. I told him I need my teacher. So now you’re coming too.”

  She looked absurdly proud of herself, like she had just outplayed a grandmaster. I had to physically stop myself from patting her head.

  “Thornhold? What’s there?”

  “The seat of the Baron. The guilds are all there. We’ll be selling our grain. There’s a market, too.” She paused. “Father wants me to learn how to bargain. He says… he says I need to learn the price of things.”

  The way she said it, with a slight tightening of her jaw, told me this wasn't just a lesson in commerce. It was a lesson in power. Her father was grooming her. And me, by extension, was now part of that curriculum.

  "When are we leaving?" I asked.

  "Three days."

  Three days to prepare.

  "How is your progress with the times tables?"

  "I am already at twenty. 14x12 equals 168"

  "Divide that by two and subtract 5"

  After two seconds Lina shouted "SEVENTY-NINE"

  I grinned at her. And so did she.

  We did some extra work on trade and how money really works. Just enough to face a vampire determined to bleed you dry.

  After my work was done I took a short walk to the ox barn. I really liked the big guy. He was simple, honest. And didn't ask me what a planet was. Just stood there, chewing, a massive monument to placid existence. I offered him an apple I'd 'acquired' from the kitchen stores. He took it with a gentle slobbering sound that was, in its own way, a kind of conversation.

  The next two days were a blur of packing, last-minute lessons on barter strategy, and a strange, growing sense of anticipation in me. Thornhold. The ominous feeling that grew in my chest wasn't baseless. What were the chances that there was more than one town in this area? I wish I could just sit this out. I remembered my perilous situation in my spawn point only hazily.

  The morning of our departure was crisp. A small cart, loaded with sacks of grain, waited in the yard. The old man stood beside it, arms crossed, his face unreadable as usual. Lina bounced on the balls of her feet, practically vibrating with excitement.

  I stood there in my new, slightly-too-large tunic, a satchel of my own at my side. I knew exactly what was in it. Everything I needed. And my Needle. I had gotten it back yesterday. It came with emotions I trusted even less than the world around me. I even upgraded it to a makeshift shiv with a real handle and a leather sheath. I knew I was too attached to it.

  I looked at my hands. My fingers were no longer raw and split, the skin was clean. I still looked like a famine victim, but a cleaner, better-fed one. I was no longer just Rot, the beggar. I was Rot, the useful asset.

  The road grew harder under the wheels sometime around midday.

  Not suddenly. Just… gradually. The soft give of packed earth turned into something flatter, more stubborn, carved by traffic heavier than grain carts and farm wagons. The grass along the sides thinned into dust and flattened weeds.

  The air changed too. Not foul. Not yet. Just crowded. Smoke somewhere far ahead. Cookfires. Leather. Too many animals passing the same stretch of ground day after day.

  We passed a wagon loaded with timber, the driver hunched forward like the road itself was an argument he was losing. He barely looked at us. His eyes slid over Lina, paused on the grain, then caught on me for a heartbeat longer than comfortable before moving on.

  Behind him came two boys pushing a handcart stacked with clay pots. One of them stared openly. The other watched the road like he was afraid of tripping more than anything else.

  No one waved.

  No one greeted us.

  The road wasn’t hostile. Just busy.

  Beside me, Lina shifted closer to the cart’s edge, pointing ahead at a faint smear of darker grey against the horizon.

  “Smoke,” she said, bright, like she’d spotted a festival banner.

  I nodded.

  Maybe it was.

  Maybe it wasn’t.

  She kept talking after that. Not to me, exactly. More like to the space in front of us.

  “Father says you have to know when to stop pushing. If you push too hard, people remember. If you don’t push enough, you starve. So you have to know the middle.”

  Her voice had that careful tone she used when she repeated his lessons. Straight-backed. Certain. Practicing the shape of authority.

  I watched her hands as she spoke. Ink smudged into the lines of her fingers. Small cuts across her knuckles from work she still insisted on doing herself.

  Hands that would sign things one day.

  Orders.

  Prices.

  Maybe worse.

  “You’ll be good at it,” I said.

  She turned, surprised, like she’d forgotten I was there for a moment.

  “You think so?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Because you listen.”

  That satisfied her more than praise usually did.

  Up front, her father shifted slightly on the bench. Not turning. Not reacting. Just… adjusting. Listening without admitting it.

  The cart rolled on. Slow. Steady. Patient.

  I watched the traffic instead of the horizon. Counted loads. Counted tools. Noted who owned the road — and who hugged the edges.

  The world was getting louder without raising its voice.

  I adjusted my satchel against my hip out of habit.

  The weight settled where I expected it to.

  The shape inside pressed faintly through the fabric.

  Good.

  I forced my attention back to the road before the memory attached to that shape could fully surface.

  Ahead, the air thickened into a grey suggestion of something larger than fields and hedgerows. Not visible yet. Just… present.

  Lina hummed quietly beside me, still watching the smoke.

  Her father drove like he always did — like the road had already agreed with him.

  And there I sat wondering if Lina’s success would decide whether I was worth keeping.

  Thornhold didn't so much appear on the horizon as it did gradually congeal out of the landscape. A smudge of grey that slowly resolved itself into stone walls, a cluster of rooftops, and a single, stark tower that clawed at the sky. The air changed, too. The clean scent of earth and grass was replaced by a complex mélange of woodsmoke, unwashed bodies, livestock, and something worse.