Lloyd leaned forward with an objection of his own. “But, Grandpa, in books and novels, they say they don’t have to use treants in the capital, just normal beeches and cedars!”
“Sigh… You believe everything you read in books?” His grandfather shook his head, wiping the sweat from his brow.
“Lloyd,” the woodcutter interjected, frowning. He couldn’t let this slide. “If you use a normal tree for firewood, it would only last for three hours, tops. Treants burn for three whole days! You see the difference, right?”
“Yup. Even an idiot knows which is better! You’d never make it through the winter burning them piddly or’nary trees.”
“I know treants are better, but…”
(Side note: Treants are terrifying monsters in the shapes of trees that stab passersby with their roots, sucking nutrition out of them. Normally, these treacherous trees vanish when they’re cut down, but if you fell them before they notice you or if you get very lucky, they leave wood behind that is extremely valuable and sells for a high price. It wasn’t normally used for firewood. If any merchants saw someone burning treant wood, they’d let out a bloodcurdling shriek for sure.)
The woodcutter leaned back against a pillar, folding his arms, speaking at length about his trade. “Woodcutting is a hard profession. This town has homes and warm places to stay in winter thanks to the sweat of our brows. Whether it be firewood or fish, you can’t just dismiss it by saying you’ll buy it! That attitude alone makes you unfit to be a soldier.”
That hit Lloyd hard.
When he saw that, the woodcutter hastily added, “Er, that is…I’m not saying you have to learn all the tricks of my trade before you can go to the capital. Walking without making a sound, blending perfectly into the forest—these might not be skills you need in the city.”
(Sorry to burst your bubble, but woodcutters shouldn’t need those skills, either.)
“…I apologize. I got a little worked up,” he continued.
Lloyd kept his head down, starting to regret his rash decision to announce that he wanted to enlist.
The young man with the sword spoke up again, his tone pointed. “The problem isn’t what kind of fish they have, dude. The biggest problem is that you’re trying to become a soldier even though you’re super weak.”
“I know you’re much stronger than I am.”
“When we were sparring together the other day, I held back a lot, you know. But you were still in bed for a full day afterward! …Everyone thought I was the bad guy, like I’d been bullying you or some shit.”
“Urp…”
The young man shook his head. “Sigh… Plus, you should be able to heal a broken bone in an hour, max.”
“It wasn’t just one! I had compound fractures all over the place! That’s why it took a full day!”
“Listen to yourself! Everything should heal in three hours, and I’m being liberal here! Your grandpa used to heal them with one long scream!”
(Side note: A broken bone is usually considered a serious injury, and it’ll leave you stuck in a cast for at least a month…although I think you know that already.)
The young man drew his old-timey sword with a hilt decorated with two snakes, brandishing it as he lectured. “For one thing! A blow from this old thing shouldn’t be breaking bones! What was this dull lump’s name again? Girlsbar?”
“Something like that. Currybar? Excalibur? No, maybe Klondikebur?”
(Side note: This ancient blade’s name is definitely Excalibur, the mystic sword that the legendary King Arthur used to cut down 960 enemies. It’s a pretty famous sword that went by other names—including Caliburn or Callibrand.)
“That’s right, Klondikebur. Yum. Sounds like a frozen treat.”
The mystic blade was not getting much respect. No one even noticed that the real name had come and gone with the wind.
“I swear, if my dad hadn’t foisted this thing on me, I sure wouldn’t stoop to using anything this dull… Anyway, if you get hurt from crap like this, you’ll never get anywhere.”
Jumping off of this point, his grandfather tried a new angle. “And, Lloyd, it isn’t only yer physical strength. Your magic is useless as tits on a bull!”
“Oh, right… Can you cast anything?”
Lloyd had winced the moment this topic was mentioned.
“Uh,” he started, reluctantly. “I know the procedural stuff, but…the only spell that really works is that one that makes it rain…”
The young man shook his head dramatically. “Geez, rain falls on its own even if you don’t do anything! You oughtta at least be able to make boulders fall from the sky like the chief… What were those called? Meteors?”
“Darn right,” the chief purred. “Oh, shucks. That sure takes me back! I remember using ’em to drive off those monsters that appeared in the mountains ’round back.”
“Those things were really something. They kept going on about how they were gonna ‘destroy the world’ because there were ‘too many humans.’ Ha-ha-ha!”
Hmm, it seemed this started a stream of reminiscing.
“And get a load of this! The other day, one showed up in human form, yapping on and on ’bout something. When we had it backed into a corner, it was all, ‘It’s been a long time since I assumed this form!’ and turned into some sort of lizard thing! I laughed my ass off!”
“Why not show up that way in the first place? You took it down while we were fetching the chief, right?” someone asked the older lady.
“Yeah, I just gave it a few whacks with my broom, and that was all she wrote. But it took forever to clean up and—!”
They veered so far off topic that the general vibe was starting to resemble a banquet, so Alka clapped her hands a couple of times to get everyone back on track.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence.
“That’s enough of that,” Alka said. “Lloyd.”
“Y-yes?”
“Ya heard everyone out. But I reckon you’re not changin’ your mind, right?”
“Right.”
She took a long look at the quiet passion in his eyes.
The time has finally come, she thought. I was hopin’ making him read all them books about soldiers would get his imagination going.
That certainly sounds like an ulterior motive. She gave Lloyd a kind smile that betrayed none of the satisfaction of seeing her plans pay off.
“All righty. I’ll let ya leave this village and become one of them soldiers in the royal capital.”
““Chief!”” the entire crowd yelled as they leaped up to their feet.
“Quiet down,” Alka ordered, raising a hand. “I reckon ya experience true growth by gettin’ out of your bubble. Lloyd needs to widen his horizons.”