Today is January 4^th. A carriage is currently making it’s way towards the eastern outskirts of Ayrilia. Inside the carriage on top of the driver’s seat there sits the old merchant Raylon Hawkinson, who is currently driving toward the village of Chansa in order to take in his newest disciple, Haja Altwald. He is currently humming the song “gloria mortuis”, a traditional song that was popular during his time in the Ayrilian military. Even though he would never go back to his time of serving and though he experienced things, which he would forever regret experiencing, Sir Raylon strangely connects a lot of nostalgia with this song and his time as a soldier.

The song was used to honor their fallen comrades and give them a farewell even after they died. Perhaps it is the occasion that inspired him to think of the music’s lyrics or perhaps it is simply a matter of old age. Nevertheless Sir Raylon continues on the trail to his destination village and is steadily making progress on his way.

It is already noon, when the merchant is able to dimly make out the village-walls in his field of view. In order to create a bit of security, the Chansa village as well as many other desert-villages are built into a previously created mold in the ground. This is done to protect the houses from any potential sandstorms, that would otherwise cause a strong disturbance in shooting the small particles of sand into the air and damaging the village’s inhabitants. As a further precaution as well as a military decision, there are multiple meters high walls circling the interior and arching inwards, almost looking like a cage or an eggshell. This special way of construction provides a decent amount of cover from the strong winds as well as being robust enough to withstand an enemy’s frontal attack for a short period of time. Though this way of construction also has its downsides, its general defensive capability against strong pressure are decently high with high cost-efficiency.

The main entrance to the village is a thick iron-door, that is opened and closed using the lever rule in combination with enchanted rope.

Typically, the entrance is kept closed due to various reasons but today, Sir Raylon can already tell from afar that this is not the case.

Curiously, he continues on his way and as he comes closer to the gate, he can make out an increasing amount of detail. In front of the open gate, there are around 200 people standing there at the doorstep to the deep Sonim-desert, showing that almost the entire village is gathered there.

Raylon can make out the young children playing games with each other and running around the crowd, the able adults, securing a decently sized parameter around their spot and protecting their peers from potential dangers of any kind. He can even make out a small piece of shadowy space for the elderly that has been created through the clever usage of clotheslines connected to a high-altitude position on the outer walls and the ground as well as their (presumably-)dirty clothes.

<<Well, it seems like quite the welcome for someone like me>>, he quietly says to himself, chuckling lightly.

Obviously to him, this little gathering is not intended as a warm welcome for him but rather as a strong farewell for the young Haja. Though he did expect a decently large part of the Chansa community to take part in a farewell party due to the nature of secluded communities and their strong sense of unity, Raylon never would have guessed this amount of a reaction to the young boy’s departure.

<Sure enough, he has a certain charm to him, that attracts attention. That guy was right to make him a merchant, alright.>

While keeping up his normal business smile, Raylon is making his way to the crowd.

___

Haja has always attracted the attention from everyone in the village. He never did anything special to deserve this kind of attitude from his peers. Nobody truly understands why but it just became like this.

Every time Haja takes a walk through town, the people stop to look at his running back as he is strolling between the houses and turning in different directions, inspecting the things around him.

Every time that he asks them about something, every time he needs help from them, every time he seems to be in a peril for whatever reason, the village adults seem too eager to help him, too hasty to partake their wisdom and skills upon him, too happy to see the young boy smile as he evolves under the constant stream of knowledge, not knowing what will become of him.

This effect has become more prevalent throughout the last 4 months, ever since Haja actively utilized his wide array of built-up connections to prepare for his upcoming journey. In the last 120 or so days, Haja has talked with every villager separately, whether it be the children, adults or the elderly.

In some instances, he was seeking their knowledge or their skills. He was learning their craft and trying to imitate it and acquire its basics. Other times, he was simply conversing with them, trying to find out their hobbies, tastes, likes and dislikes. He told them in a

straight-forward manner, that he did this as an exercise for his occupation as a merchant but over the time his skill in speech and conversation increased by leaps and bounds.

No matter the other person, he always seemed to find the right words to make them listen to them. While he talked, they would eagerly be glued to his lips and when he let them talk, they just couldn’t stop spewing out whatever he wanted to know.

There was one incident, where Haja had a conversation with Mr. Raka, a farmer and a father of two children and they were talking about Raka’s main source of income and his methods of preparing the fields. Haja held this conversation in such an impressionable way, that Raka accidentally told him the whereabouts of his leftover savings for the future of his family and even went as far as to propose gifting him a portion of those savings, simply because he was taken away in the mood of their small-talk(Of course, Haja declined and promised the old man that he would keep his money’s whereabouts in a safe location).

The scariest thing is the fact that similar incidents to this one have happened before to the young boy.

Anyway, the point being that Haja has become a focal point of the village due to his kind and charismatic nature resulted in the village being vehemently saddened by his departure and holding this farewell-get-together as a result of that. The young boy has already been imparted with a decent chunk of luggage for the journey, most of which he had to turn down for the sake of limiting his carrying weight.

The moment has arrived with the arrival of Sir Raylon. Unlike the expectation created from a gathering of this size, the actual farewell was fairly simple.

Haja simply turned towards them in a place, where everybody was able to get a good grasp on him and bowed down deeply. He was silent for a total of 4 seconds and stood back upright.

Then he raised his hands to his mouth and shouted in a loud voice:

<<THANK YOU EVERYBODY!!! I WILL BE BACK!!>>

A simple but effective way of saying goodbye. Anything else has already been said before, so there were no more words to be said from his perspective. The crowd was silent for a second before erupting in an ear-numbing cheer.

Be well on your journey!

Don’t forget us, while you are gone!

Haja!

Be healthy!

Become rich and come back on a golden horse!

Haja!

Don’t forget to eat a lot!

I’ll miss you, Haja!

If you need money, don’t forget the location we talked about-!

Shut up, father! Good luck, Haja!

Haja felt overwhelmed for a second by this strong response but he decided to give them one last smile and a wave before climbing into the carriage of Sir Raylon, greeting him as his new master and the two of them riding off onto his first large journey around the continent.

The crowd watched them leaving until they vanished behind the far horizon and then some before finally going back to their usual places.

The last ones left on the space in front of the gate were the guards responsible for its opening and closing mechanism and Haja’s parents. Hemilia Altwald was leaning on her husband Razeff Plumbum. Both of them had tears in their eyes as they saw off their child for what was essentially an eternity. They had both the feelings of concern and sadness inside their hearts, but the prevailing emotion that they felt was a certain faith in their child.

We believe in you, Haja. No matter what happens, you will always have our support

This silent last wish was carried over the wind like a warm breeze, completing his departure.

___

The two have driven away westwards from the village and after traveling for an hour in silence, Raylon breaks the silence in order to fill Haja in on his future plans for his new apprentice.

POV of Haja Altwald:

<<OK, so let us go over the planned future course of action, my apprentice.>>, Sir Raylon says to me.

What are you talking about?,

this is obviously not my answer to his statement. After talking with my fellow Chansa villagers for a long time, I now realize a few things about this situation:

1)Even though I have tried my best in order to learn a lot about the occupation of being a merchant and fulfilling the tasks, which Sir Raylon has given me a few months ago, I was only able to complete a small amount of them. I am especially lacking in the regions of politics and history, because I oftentimes pushed those topics back for other, more interesting ones, when I started my preparations. I know a decent amount of words and I am able to articulate myself very well thanks to Miss Lepaf and the Tailors but I am relatively bad at writing and at calculus. Geometry and physical fitness as well as cartography are my strong points. On the other hand, I had a ton of problems when reading the story, which I had to read.

In short, I am lacking in a lot of areas.

2)In my research I found out how high the entry requirements are for earning yourself an apprenticeship from a renowned merchant like Sir Raylon. Not only would one normally need money and the proper connections to the merchant but they would need to undergo a myriad of tests of different categories in order to be acknowledged by their master as a potential candidate. Even then, most people had to compete for the spot of merchant apprentice, since especially in densely populated cities they apparently are one of the most sought after jobs out there. Aside from that, even the entry-level of apprenticeship is directly connected with the required transaction of an outrageously high fee, which I doubt that my grandpa was able to give to my new master in full.

This means that not only am I currently in debt of my new master, no, I also don’t even meet most of the requirements that a normal apprentice would need to reach. Thus I am currently living on borrowed time.

I expected Master to bring this topic up and prepared beforehand on how to deal with this.

Silently, I take out my backpack and hand over a total of three book, which are filled to the brim with my notes and the results of my work.

Sir Raylon picks up the books and skims over them. Shortly after, his poker-face momentarily crumbles and I can see a look of surprise flashing over his face. He is quick to go back to his normal expression but I see and grab that opportunity and proclaim:

<<As you can see, I have worked hard on completing the assignment, that you have given me, Master. Please take these three logbooks as a symbol of my effort and hard work, that went into them.>>

Master changes his gaze from the contents of the books back to me. I can feel my words being at the center of his focus, so I continue speaking with a confident expression on my face

<<I have been made well aware about the favor you are showing my deceased grandfather, Hamish Altwald. However, I do not wish for such a great burden to be on his shadow, which is why I want to give this proposal to you, Master. >>

I change my posture into a kneeling one and look up at him, seeing his face slightly relaxed, making a confused expression.

<<I truly wish for you to take me in as an apprentice merchant, learning from your craft, learning the art of trading and traveling the world in the process of it. It is my dream to one day travel this continent on my own and learn about its multiple facets as a merchant and as an explorer. For that I wish to learn from you, Master.

In return, I want you to think of this service of yours less as a loan to your friend and more as an investment into a future merchant, who is going to give you an appropriate return, once enough time has passed. Please take a look at the logbook “Haja’s logbook”, which I have given you. Inside it, you can see the trade history, that I have made with the money you have provided for me. The pages in question are marked with a red stripe on the side. >>

I gesture him to take a look at the book and he does as told. His eyes widen at the sight of the pages as he flips through the entire trade record, that I have created over the last 4 months.

Incredible. Truly incredible, I hear him mumble. This shows me, that my strategy is working

<<As you can see, I have made a series of successful trade with over 74 different people and through my smart trading I have taken the 100 Yar, you have given me and traded up into a total of 640 Yar, resulting in a net profit of 540 Yar.

This shows, that I am truly capable of being a merchant, even though my starting position may seem worse than that of the other people you might know.

That’s why, I want you to tell me your price. Whatever reasonable price you tell assign to me in exchange of your work as my mentor and master, after only 6 years of apprenticeship I am confident that I will have paid it back by then. This is my proposal.>>

I stop looking my new master in the eyes and stare at the wooden carriage beneath me. I don’t hear an immediate answer and thus I wait. After a while, I hear a hearty chuckle coming from my master. I look up and see him chuckle, confused as to why he is reacting in this way.