12 Chapter 12- OLSON'S BLACKSMITHS

It was early in the morning, the sky was still a bit dark. With light breeze flowing through the trees making the leaves rustle. In an empty patch of land, there was a young man bare-chested swinging a sword continuously at empty air. The amount of sweat following off of him showed that he has been at it for some time.

{It's time. It's already 5:30 and you have been doing this for an hour. It's time to stop.}

{You should clean up and have your breakfast. Others have already prepared it. The sun should also arise till 6'o clock and then it will be time for you guys to start travelling again.}

'Yeah, you are right Arthur. Anyways I was about to stop. I have already done the basic exercises for today and also practised fundamental sword stances and swings that Harry taught me last night for the past 2 hours. Have to say even though this is just the basic grind, it feels very exhilarating for some reason.'

This was unmistakably Oliver. With a big smile hung on his face he started to clean his body up before dressing himself and going for his breakfast. He had been practising sword since last night as if a ghost of a warlord had possessed him. If not for Harry stopping him and forcing him to go to sleep he might have stayed awake swinging the sword like a maniac.

{Oliver have you given a thought that you might have been a battle maniac? This world might have been the right place for you. Who knows this world might have brought out the real madman within you.}

'Aren't you the one who has had the biggest change in his personality? After all, you used to sound much more robotic, and now...'

{As I have already told you earlier I am not just some robot AI, I have a soul and am fully capable of thinking and adapting.}

{You could say that I have been evolving like all humans}

'I see. Anyways this is much more convenient. We able to communicate with thoughts, it much more simple and I seem much less paranoid.'

{As our souls are joined, it's as easy to read your thoughts as thinking for me. Even if you were unconscious and weren't able to think, I would still 'feel' what you want, but in form of simple emotions.}

{Anyways you should go for your breakfast others are waiting for you.}

'Yeah'

Oliver Wore his tunic and went for his breakfast. "Good morning Harry, Eline. And how are you doing this morning miss Erica?" said Oliver while touching the cheek of the little girl in the lap of Eline. Erica just replied with her usual 'Gugu gagas' and her laughter while waving her small little hands in the air.

"Good morning Oliver I see you have already completed the basic set of sword swings."

"Yeah, I have a habit of doing early morning exercises. It just helps my brain work throughout the day and also makes me feel refreshed. So after my exercises were done I started with the sword practice."

"Good, you should practice them as much as you can till they become second nature to you. Then we will add more variations to them."

"Ok now enough about that, let's have some food. We should be starting our travel as soon as we are done with it."

"Hmm, thank you for cooking"

"Haha, no problem. It's just a small thing after all we were making it for us anyway so one more person won't matter much. Plus seeing your work so hard in the morning, won't be good for your body if you skip a meal."

Oliver nodded and began to much down his food.

After finishing their food they packed the remaining stuff and climbed up the carriage. The coachman whipped the horses and slowly clopped into the distance.

....................(fast travel)...................

Their rest of the journey remained mostly uneventful. As they rested in relatively safer areas, there were no more thugs that came to harass them. So Oliver was also able to focus on his sword practice day and night. Surprisingly he improved at a rapid pace. Even Harry was surprised, if he hadn't seen Oliver progress in front of him, he would have never believed that Oliver had just been practicing sword for just a bit more than a week.

Finally one day in the afternoon the carriage arrived in front of a huge metal portcullis. Portcullis was connected to huge stoned walls. The 20-foot huge walls that towered in front of them were the walls of fortification of the capital city of Piyastia Kingdom- The Nonem City.

At the portcullis, guards were standing checking each person who wished to enter the city. At this time the coachman said" listen you guys sit quietly and let me do the talking with the guards. This will save us some entry charge. You see every person who wants to enter the capital city has to pay a sum of 2 silver per person of course children aren't counted. But I know a couple of them for some time so they let me go in without paying most of the time."

The guys just nodded in response, after all, if they could save a couple of silver then there is no need to put their nose somewhere it didn't belong.

Coachman reached one of the guards and said with a large smile, "Hey Meyers how have you been."

The guard replied with a sigh, "Hey Peyre, I have been... good "

"And how's your wife doing these days. Haven't seen her in some time."

"You know the usual.....angry"

"Haha you say that but at least you still have one left with you, not like our boy Tim here." commented the coachman while pointing towards the other guard, who looked away while ignoring the conversation.

"Sigh... sometimes I wish I didn't," Meyers remarked.

"Anyways I have to go inside, I have a couple of travellers with me."

The guard just signalled to another to open the portcullis without even replying. Seeing it open coachman hurried back to the carriage and drove it down the road into the capital city.

While travelling down the road Harry commented, " Capital sure is different, with all these big, big buildings and long roads. And see all these shops and people, it's almost as if is I have entered a carnival. And the most surprising thing is that all this is just the outer city. I have heard that the inner city had much bigger buildings even though there aren't as many people rooming around and have a lesser number of shops."

" That's true, although there aren't that many shops in the inner city all the shops there are a hundred times better than these." said the coachman" There are even the royal palace and the institute buildings in the inner city. Once you see them, you will come to know what the true capital city is."

"Anyways you guys want to be dropped at the mercenary guild right?"

"Yeah, I want to register there the first. I have heard that they also provide residence to mercenaries and their family."

Coachman just nodded and asked," And what about you Oliver where do you wanna go?"

"Well I don't know the name of the place but I think it's the biggest blacksmith shop in the capital city."

"Oh, you are talking about Olson's blacksmith shop. Yeah, I know where it is. I will drop you right after them."

After around 20 minutes of more travelling, Oliver was standing in front of a 3 storied tall building. It had written on it in big bold words 'OLSON'S BLACKSMITHS'.

After seeing the building even Oliver was impressed with the grand feeling the building gave. After all, Oliver came from a much technologically advanced world where there was no shortage of skyscrapers and buildings with grandiose architecture. Just when Oliver was in awe of the building, he heard the sound of breaking glass.

[Smash]

The next thing he saw made his eyes bulge out of his socket.

He saw a young man around the age of 20 flying out of the window of the second floor screaming at the top of his lungs. And.... then he fell face down on the road.

After a second of silence, he heard the manliest voice he had ever heard in both of his life combined.

He heard, "You little brat, you dare say that my weapons are cheap. The next time you say some bullshit like that, I will fucking through you off the city walls. Let's see how lucky you will be after that." from the same window.

Seeing the guy laying on the floor without making a single sound Oliver blinked audibly.

'What the fuck have I gotten myself into now?'

Oliver cleared his dry throat and slowly distanced himself away from the 'presumably dead' body and slowly entered the building. The first thing he saw was a person's towering body in front of him. This guy had a height of at least 6 feet 3 inches, and a body so jacked that it could have been only a creation that the god makes himself. The guy had complete medium-sized silvery- grey hair which matched with his perfectly kept grey beard and moustache. He had a light tan color all over his body. And his face screamed of masculinity.

The guy had his arms crossed, he looking directly into Oliver's eyes and then said with the same manliest voice that Oliver had heard before, "Hey pipsqueak who the fuck are you and what the hell are you doing in my shop."