Mark Vol 1 Chapter 2

Mark got ready to go out panhandling. After that, he would usually run errands for a chance at extra money. He walked while refreshing his memories.
There were several shops in this village. Madam Kate’s small inn and old man Roland’s tool shop, and a leather shop run by the red-bearded Robert.

To be frank, apart from the leather shop, the rest were all poorly run. There was also a self-proclaimed firewood shop run by Hall. That place sold the firewood piled at a corner outside their house, but apart from the Madam Kate, who regularly needed fires, there weren’t many customers to speak of.

At the very least, Mark didn’t think that place was a proper shop. But still, since he didn’t know much apart from panhandling and gathering twigs, he visited that place often for work. Even now he was heading towards Hall’s place.

“Mark. Come over here.”

On the pa.s.sing street, someone called out to Mark. When he looked around to see who it was, he saw Robert. Robert was a man who was in his forties, growing a red beard. But he didn’t like it when he was called an uncle. He wanted to normally be called a mister. The person himself said it was because he was yet to be married, but Mark thought regardless, if you were forty years old, you were an uncle.

“What is it?”

“When I say come, you should just come without asking”

Robert laughed humorously while beckoning with a finger.
Most of the villagers disliked the children on the streets, because they were dirty. Even so, because it was a small village, everyone knew each other by face and the children would occasionally be given errands to run in exchange for food or some copper.
The villagers didn’t want to see corpses turning up in their village either.

Robert didn’t really hate the street children. To be exact, he wasn’t really interested in them. But he was much better than the hooligan Jax who would beat someone just for pa.s.sing by.

From time to time, Robert would call one of the children and give him work for some copper. There were times when the work he gave wasn’t proportionate to the copper he gave, and if the work wasn’t done properly he would give only half the promised copper.
If a child was unlucky, he would be given a half eaten piece of bread. But some children liked it, saying it was better than dark bread.

Ron, from George’s gang, claimed that he would learn to tan leather and chased after Robert, so Robert often gave errands for Ron to do. But as a result of moving about so much, Ron lost his eyesight the last month when he was noticed and beaten up by Jax, and he couldn’t go around begging for money anymore.
Because Ron was deemed just another mouth to feed, he died while being beaten every day without rest by George. He was buried in the back of the mountains.

“You’re free right?”

“I’m busy.”

“What do you mean busy. I’ll give you 3 copper so run me an errand.”

“What is it?”

For now, Mark decided to hear him out. The quota demanded by George was 3 copper, so doing this job would free him of that worry.

“It’s not much. Go to the mountains and pick me some Phyllis.”

The work given time to time to the children must have been this. But Mark had heard there wasn’t many who properly received their copper after doing this work.

“What’s Phyllis?”

As if waiting for those words, Robert drew back into his shop. Soon after, he came out holding a slightly large leaf in one hand. Apart from its green color, nothing special could be discerned. In his other hand was a linen pouch roughly the size of Mark.

“This is it. This leaf is called Phyllis, and I need it for tanning leather. You just need to fill up this pouch with the leaves and come back.”

“I’m not doing it. Who would do such bothersome work for 3 copper?”

“Haha. Then how about this. Actually, Phyllis isn’t easy to differentiate without an eye for it. Among your gang members, there was none who could properly gather only Phyllis. That’s why I first offered 3 copper. It’s obvious you would bring back all sorts of other leaves with you. But if you can bring back the pouch full of only Phyllis leaves, I’ll give you 10 copper. How about it?”

“What if other leaves were mixed in?”

“Then it’d be your fault so I won’t give you the copper.”

“Show me that for a bit.”

Mark decided to have a look at the leaf first. He thought there must have been some noticeable difference.

“Righto.”

Robert chuckled as he handed over the leaf. Mark took it in his hands and looked over it all over. The leaf was a light green color, with rough and uneven edges. He paid closer attention to its shape.

“If you look closely the leaf is split into 5 parts. Are all Phyllis leaves like this?”

“That’s right. That’s the leaf characteristics. Will you do it or not? If not, I’ll just ask Jimmy over there who’s pa.s.sing by.”

Turning his head back, Mark saw Jimmy from George’s gang staring over at him.

“I’ll do it. Give me the pouch.”

“Alright.”

Taking the pouch, Mark glanced at Jimmy. Jimmy had already turned away and was going up another path.

“You owe me 10 copper if I bring the pouch full of Phyllis leaves. If you don’t, I’ll set fire to the shop and run away.”

“Don’t worry about it. When have I gone back on my word?”

“I’ve heard you’ve done it plenty.”

“That’s because none of the kids did their work properly. I can give the copper only when they perform well.”

Robert grinned while laughing. Mark found it suspicious, but if he did it well it would get him 10 copper. With 10 copper, he wouldn’t have to work for 3 days. Putting aside the problem of food, he needed time to practice magic.

Mark followed the path out of the village, going into the mountainside. He could see several traps laid out by the villagers. There was a time before when Jimmy was caught trying to steal a rabbit from one of the traps and half beaten to death. After all, it was easy to get caught doing such things, since the village was small, and the street children would be the first to be blamed.

Mark climbed up the mountain a fair bit before stopping and looking around the nearby shrubs. The reason he had agreed to this errand was because he was confident. Searching for the same looking leaf was easy in itself, and back when he had closely examined the Phyllis leaf, he noticed a strange smell from it. If he couldn’t find them by appearance, he would search by smell.

Mark picked a leaf from one tree and checked it. If it wasn’t the right one he would throw it away. Alot of the leaves he picked looked similar, but they weren’t Phyllis leaves. But eventually he came across one that looked right. The shape was similar, and so was the size. He gave it a sniff, and was certain it was Phyllis.

He picked the leaves from that tree and put them all into the pouch. The smaller leaves were left out, just in case Robert would point them out. He then paid close attention to how that Phyllis tree looked like. Soon he could tell apart the difference between regular trees and Phyllis trees. The other trees looked to be about 10 feet tall, but the Phyllis trees were only about 7 feet.

To make sure if it was just this tree that was small, or if it was really a characteristic of Phyllis trees, he began searching for others. It wasn’t long before he easily found another one. He became certain that Phyllis trees were indeed around 7 feet tall. And like that, it was only 2 hours after he left the village before the pouch was full. But he had no intention of going back so soon.

Mark wanted to practice the magic right then, which he was planning to do at night. Since it would be impossible to do in the village, he was intending to practice magic after finishing panhandling and sneaking out of the village. But seeing as he was out here anywhere, he decided why not then.

First was to bring up the image of the magic he wanted to use. Next was to chant the spell while making the motions. Finally, was to shout out the name of the magic. This was the order he remembered.

Mark had never seen magic arrows used in front of himself before. But Suho had seen it before, in movies and games. If this was really a fantasy world, then the knowledge Suho had known would apply here.

He imagined a magic arrow forming in his hands and shooting forth. Then he chanted the words for the spell while making the hand motions.

“The mana dwelling within me, respond to my calling and destroy my enemy with the force of a hammer, faster than wind. Magic Arrow!”

He felt something. It was right at the moment he began incanting the spell, that a change occurred in his body. When he yelled out the name of the magic, an arrow shaped object burst forwards out of his left hand. The magic arrow crashed into the tree in front of him and disappeared.

Mark approached the tree to examine the spot of impact. It was slight, but there was a small dent. At the very least, it seemed stronger than what his fist could do.
In the midst of happiness, he was considering something else.

He had thought that the magic arrow would fly out of his left hand into the direction he was aiming to. That was why he had intentionally stretched out his left arm towards the tree. But the result was that the actual point of impact was slightly different to where he intended. So he decided to try it once again. This time he pointed his left arm at a completely different tree as he chanted the spell.

“The mana dwelling within me, respond to my calling and destroy my enemy with the force of a hammer, faster than wind! Magic Arrow!”

The magic arrow formed and burst forth. The spell hit the tree he intended to hit again. His line of thinking was correct. The aim of his hand and the direction of the spell had no relation to each other. The spell would fire towards only the place imagined by the caster.

But still he decided to aim his hand towards his target. It was much easier to create an image in his mind. And if the target was to dodge, he could change the direction of the spell using the aim of his hand. He thought this needed practice.

Mark collapsed beneath that practice tree. It was probably that he was tired from using magic arrow twice. There was many things he wanted to test, but he needed to be patient. Using up all his mana might have made him unconscious. At least, that’s how it was according to Suho’s limited memories.

It was important to check how much mana he had, but it couldn’t be today. If he pa.s.sed out and didn’t wake until night, Robert might not give him his copper saying he was too late.

The trees were dense in the area Mark was in, so the direction of the sun was hard to find. But it hadn’t been 3 hours since he left the village in the morning and entered the forest. He thought that it must roughly be noon now.
He decided to return now. It was time to get those copper and return to this forest.

Mark left the forest and got back into the village, and headed towards Robert’s shop. The door was open so he simply entered. The smell of glaze used in tanning leather poked at his nose.
Robert was sitting at the counter.

“You’re late. I would have thought you’d be back in 1 hours.”

Robert looked a little annoyed, so Mark quickly spread out the pouch full of leaves.

“I was late picking out just the Phyllis leaves. Here, look.”

Robert got out from behind the counter and further spread out the contents of the pouch. After looking through the topmost leafs for a moment, he went into the backroom of the shop. Not long after, Robert came back out holding a roll of linen, which he spread out on the floor. He overturned the pouch onto the linen.

“Hmm…”

Robert carefully looked at the spread out contents of the pouch. It seemed he was trying to find the least fault with the haul of leaves. After a while of looking, he raised his head.

“You have a good eye. To be honest, it’s a simple errand, but none of the beggars from before managed to do it.”

“I want the 10 copper.”

Robert rose to his feet and went to the counter. He opened a small box there, and took something out.

“Here’s 10 copper. Next time I run out of Phyllis, I’ll find you.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Taking the money, Mark left the shop.