Limits

When I woke up the next day, I didn't have time to create throwing daggers anymore. I had to run the errands for that stupid village. I could only create those daggers when I was free and that was during the evening after I was done with all the tasks and fishing.

The day passed mostly uneventfully with the exception of the fishing adventures that fueled my recovery. Some youngsters found me when I was cooking the fishes. I had to grab them and run. Fortunately they were not as fast or as strong as the granddaughter of the village chief, they had no chance to catch up to me. I consumed my fishes in relative peace when I've lost the pursuers.

In the evening back at my house, I finally managed to create 5 throwing daggers. Now what I needed was some kind of target. I could throw them at the wall but that would create noise and someone might investigate. Just because young people of this village didn't dare to enter the house, it didn't mean adults couldn't. The example would be the doctor or the village chief.

I decided to use the pillow for my practice. It was rubbish anyway and if it had some more holes, it wouldn't matter that much. I took the piece of scrap and dug out a nail from the floorboards. Rusty but still useful. I took a rock from outside and "hammered" the nail together with the pillow onto the wall.

The target was a bit small. If I missed with the dagger, it would still make a sound. I decided to use the quilt as it was much bigger. It was rubbish too but when I thought about it, it was summer already and I wouldn't need it anyway.

I replaced the pillow with the quilt after finding another rusty nail and the target area was much better. I had no paint or anything so I couldn't draw any type of human figure on the quilt to make the target more useful. After thinking for a bit I came up with the idea of getting some coal from the blacksmith's workshop. There was loads of it because the furnace had to burn something, coal was one of those things.

That plan would have to wait till tomorrow anyway, I couldn't go there now. For now, I tried to learn the technique not the accuracy and so simply threw the wooden daggers at the quilt. I was trying to find optimal way of holding and throwing them. The training didn't last for too long, I still had to go to sleep in order to be rested for the next day.

Because summer started, days were becoming longer and nights shorter. The next day when I finished with my water carrying task, it was already sunny. Moving on, I completed the wood cutting task and went to the blacksmith's workshop. As usual, the blacksmith was not present. I stole one piece of coal and did my task. I managed to create 1 and a half ingot. I mean half because I was at the 3rd repeat of the process. When the blacksmith arrived, he examined both my ingot and unfinished work and said his famous sentence.

He would probably finish that ingot himself. I could do two of them no problem in the time I had but I didn't. What would I gain from working hard? When I arrived back at my house, I draw an outline of a person on the quilt. It resembled the old man village chief a bit. I added different target areas I wanted to aim at.

I didn't start the training as there was one last task to complete. This would have to wait till I was done with everything today. When I went out of my house, I noticed a commotion not far away. When I got closer, I could hear the villagers talking about something important. Something about a young master from the Grasshill Village coming to visit today.

No wonder there was a commotion outside. Someone important was visiting from a much larger village and this caused people to talk about all sorts of stuff. I wanted to hear more but when the villagers noticed me, they looked at me with anger in their eyes and commanded to leave and do my work.

I did just that. Although knowing stuff was one of my goals, I didn't want to face any punishments for no apparent reason. I've watered the field and as usual after the diner which was of better quality this time, I went to the river in order to catch some fishes.

No one disturbed me that day. I guessed it was because of this so called young master and they didn't want to bother with me. I only wished it was like this everyday. With full stomach at least for a while, I started returning to my house. In the village, I noticed festive atmosphere. Everyone was busy doing something but it was none of my business, I just went straight to my house.

I started my practice. I tried to hold the daggers in different positions while throwing them. The most suitable and comfortable position I found was holding the dagger flat in my palm. To throw it, I would swing my hand and release the dagger from my palm.

With this technique I could hide the weapon inside my sleeve and throw it unnoticed. It was a good technique and so I practiced that. I tried aiming for the eyes, throat, heart, legs and arms. I aimed for legs and arms because the target area was bigger, also because I could slow down my opponent. As for the eyes, heart and throat these were fatal points in human body, therefore I wanted to have good accuracy when aiming at these parts.

I wasn't green when it came to accuracy anymore. Most of my throws were on the target I drew once I got used to the way of holding the dagger. There was a problem of the dagger hitting the target but not with the "sharp" edge. These were just wooden daggers and had no edge but hitting the target with the handle or with the side of a dagger would make no damage to the real target. I had to work on that.

I practiced like this for couple of hours and decided it was enough for today. It was time to hit the bed. When I stopped practicing, I could hear the voices of cheering, laughing and overall happiness outside. I was too focused to hear them during my training and only noticed them after I finished. I came close to the door to try and listen in on the conversations.