Bakery (Socializing I)
Kaalsuo was peacefully sleeping at his bed when a loud slam awoke Kaalsuo from his slumber.
"Hey, Kaalsuo~! Wake up, it's time for breakfast!" Chrysea broke down the door, calling Kaalsuo to the kitchen to have breakfast. As a result, Kaalsuo lazily headed to the kitchen due to his perfectly good dream was interrupted.
Kaalsuo was now five years old. A lot of things have happened since then. One of the primary things that has happened was that the house wasn't not only renovated but entirely reconstructed.
Their new house had just recently finished construction and his father was the reason as to how they constructed their house. With his wealth accumulated from barbarian raids and his comrade's volunteering to help in the construction, they managed to transform from a poor sad peasant house to a fairly average yet comfortable cottage.
That's not all. The construction wasn't done in a year nor was it in half of that. The duration for him and his comrades to complete the construction of the house was in an entire month which was impressive considering the medieval methods in constructing such houses.
It was all thanks to the efficiency of his father and comrades in constructing the house that it worked out in the end and quite possibly their general abilities assisting them in the construction. An example was Alsram casually lifting a whole block of cobblestone and grinding it to the right size with no tools other than his literal hands.
By the end of the construction, Alsram and his comrades even considered changing occupations to construction workers by the fact how fast they completed the construction of the house and also how dangerous their job as a barbarian was.
The amazing part was that they actually considered it. Thanks to their work, the surrounding villages of the region began to transform from yet a filthy peasant house to a more middle classed looking house. Of course, the occupants of the constructed house were still peasants according to wealth as they still tended to their crops and livestock.
However, the valley wasn't like Europe where feudalism reigned supreme. There were no nobles in the valley and no centralised government to rule the inhabitants. You'd think that with it, law and order would not exist and chaos and theft would reek havoc but you're wrong.
Religious beliefs and practices of the valley made up for these, teaching the children on important values. Civilising the inhabitants of the valley without need of a government.
There were still police, guards and a general army in the valley but they weren't tied to the government and only to the religion. It could be said that it was a theocracy but still, there was no head of power.
The so-called peasants of the valley weren't really peasants but independent people. They could become magicians, philosophers, farmers and even a barbarian if they wanted to.
But there was one thing that remained unchanged and that was Kaalsuo's social life. Besides Schiessemann and his relative family, he had absolutely no friends whatsoever.
It wasn't that he was isolated from other people or the children of the region didn't like him. It was his decision to remain unsocial considering they were kids, from a medieval period too.
He had nothing in common with the kids of his area thus he just remained with no friends. Kaalsuo didn't mind too as he didn't intend to have friends anyways. He often eased his boredom by hunting in the forest with his pistol, the Mauser C96.
However, his family did notice that Kaalsuo often just went hunting in the forest rather than hanging out with some friends like Zwischez when he was as young as Kaalsuo himself, at least biologically.
They were worried that Kaalsuo wasn't used to finding friends and in turn, having absolutely no friends at all. Thus his mother decided to go on a mission to finally give his son a social life and this was the first step.
"Hey Kaalsuo, want to have some bread with some butter?" Chyrsea said to Kaalsuo. The butter wasn't as good as the ones from Earth but at that point, Kaalsuo had already forgotten most of the taste of the food on Earth with the exception of that tasty poison. He still clearly remembered the taste after nearly 5 years.
Kaalsuo, being lazy, responded by nodding instead of just talking. He was still too occupied with his interrupted dream as he tried to remember the cool dream he had dreamt.
"Um hey, wanna go get some bread from the local baker shop later?" Chrysea suggested. Upon those words, Kaalsuo's mood immediately brightened up. He had eaten some of the bread from the aforementioned shop and it was really good.
'Step one complete.' Chrysea thought, smirking. Kaalsuo caught a glimpse of the smirk and was slightly confused as to what she was smirked about and shrugged it off.
The infrastructure of the region too was significantly better than what it was three years ago. The once dirt roads only meant for pedestrians and certain livestock were now upgraded to a more durable, hard cobblestone road that allowed for wagons and carriages to move more faster and safely.
Oftentimes, the dirt roads back then was filled with potholes every step you took which would've been a nightmare for any wagons or carriages moving on the nightmarish roads.
Kaalsuo and his mother were walking down the side of a road which led to a newly constructed area specifically for commercial purposes or shops and other stuff. The commercial town wasn't too special and all but it overall looked more aesthetically pleasing than it's surroundings as trees, flowers and other decor were placed.
Surprisingly, glass windows were actually common which was weird due to how glass windows were expensive and nobles and royalty were the only ones that owned it on Earth. Perhaps there were some people manufacturing glass for free, who knows?
"Oh, we're finally here!" Chrysea said enthusiastically, pointing at the bakery. The exterior decorations of the shops were nothing special to be exact. Just some tree plants and a rug at the entrance of the bakery.
"Yay." Kaalsuo said in an slightly unenthusiastic manner which led Chrysea to assume that Kaalsuo wasn't interested in the bakery.
"Don't you like the bakery? You sound a bit too uninterested." Chrysea asked Kaalsuo.
"Huh? Yeah, I like it." Kaalsuo responded. He realised that he was partly to blame that he was sounded unenthusiastic thus he decided to make an effort to be more enthusiastic.
"Don't you want to go inside and choose what you want?" Chrysea asked Kaalsuo. She didn't know what Kaalsuo wanted for his delights thus she asked him just in case as a precaution.
"Nah, I'll just wait here. Just give the usual bread like at home." Kaalsuo replied. He knew that the regardless of the kind of bread that were sold, the overall taste of the bread from the bakery would've been better and more delightful than the ones at home.
* * *
"Um, here's your bread." Chrysea handed Kaalsuo something that had never seen before in this current world. The shape was roughly spherical and seemed uncannily familiar to something back on Earth. Initially, he thought that this was just some regular bread, only shaped to be somewhat a sphere. However, he was proven wrong when he decided to not question it and bite it.
As it turns out, the "bread" was actually a cream puff which was one of the delights he absolutely loved back on Earth. At that point, he was holding back tears of joy. He could finally get some cream puffs now that it was available to him.
"By the way, where are we heading?" Kaalsuo asked his mother, wondering where on Earth was he going. Besides, he had never been to this region of the valley. Unlike his region where thicker areas of forest were situated and less farms were present, the region they were heading were more flat and was more suitable for herding sheep and goats albeit subtly sloped as it was still a valley. However, his mother kept quiet.
Believing that his mother knew where they were going, Kaalsuo simply didn't question where they heading. If his mother knew where to go, there was no need to be worried.
Kaalsuo didn't realise until the direction in which they were heading went straight to a field where kids were playing. The moment he saw that they were going straight to that direction, he knew he had to accept his fate.
He knew that he had to eventually socialise with other kids his age, at least biologically. It was finally his time to come and he decided to accept it.
"Hey Kaalsuo, why don't you play with the kids over there while I go somewhere else for a bit, okay?" Chrysea said, while pushing him to the field. She actually had no plans at all initially but quickly improvised an plan to execute in case Kaalsuo somehow does get suspicious for some reasons.
When he noticed that Chrysea was straight up pushing him to socialise quite literally, he already knew he was about to do the one thing he had avoided for the past three or five years of his life.
Socialising.