The plan

To get ahead in life, and to stay alive in disaster-plagued Azeroth, he drew up a rough plan.

First, he had to learn to read. This was important, the very foundation of everything. For a commoner like him, learning to read would be difficult. He would have to find someone literate, then get the money to pay for lessons-probably a few gold coins. The former would not be hard; there were scholars in Shante City, the nearest city to their village. The real problem was the latter. Those were gold coins. Even if his parents worked for years without spending anything on food or drink, they might never save that much.

So he could only rely on himself. But he was just a little brat. He could not invent something and make a fortune like the protagonists of fantasy novels. As far as he was concerned, that was completely unrealistic. In a medieval setting like this, the raw materials to invent those things simply did not exist. There was no industry in the Middle Ages, no chemical feedstocks-almost nothing at all. Besides, he did not believe anyone would remember how those things were made. Take porcelain: he only knew it was made by firing clay at high temperatures, but he had no idea what kind of clay to use or how to fire it. And in this era, everything required starting capital, even being a peddler.

If the first step of his plan revolved around money, the second step still revolved around money. Once he could read, he would also have to learn the basics about this country, its politics, history, and culture. All that knowledge was in books, and most books were in the hands of the nobility.

Almost every lord built a library and opened his family's book collection to the public. Of course, these were only the most ordinary books. There would be no books about professions.

In the past, those selfish nobles would never have opened their collections to the public. But later, more and more professionals emerged from among commoners and impoverished nobles. These professionals were deeply dissatisfied with the nobility's control of knowledge, even sparking riots. With the royal family constantly stirring things up and exerting pressure behind the scenes as well, the nobles were finally forced to open their collections. Even then, access was restricted, and the nobles imposed all sorts of conditions.

For example, Andre Fettel, the lord of Shante City, opened his books to the public, but anyone who wanted to enter and read had to meet three conditions. First, they had to be a subject of Lordaeron. Second, they had to pay five silver coins. Third, they could have no record of criminal activity in his territory. And that was only for the lowest, first floor. To read more advanced knowledge, they had to go to higher floors, and to do that, they had to accept the lords' harsher conditions.

In fact, unless those noble families were fools, they ought to know that these books were a family's most important possessions, especially books concerning professionals. Those would never be placed in the library, but hidden away in secret. Even members of the family would have difficulty getting to read them.

That made acquiring knowledge even harder for him. Even if he had money, at most he could read the most ordinary books on the first floor. For anything else, there was no way except to join one of those noble families and serve them.

So his third step was to enlist. If he wanted supernatural power, joining the army was his only option besides pledging loyalty to a noble. In a sense, enlisting also counted as pledging loyalty to the royal family, and the royal family were nobles too-the greatest nobles of all.

But getting ahead through military service would be much harder. If he had any other choice, he would not want to enlist. Becoming a soldier meant facing the cruelest wars, and one careless moment could cost him his life. In particular, he might very well have to fight Orcs from another world. Whenever he thought of the Warcraft game he had played in his previous life, those Orcs had seven or eight hundred health points, three times as much as human soldiers. That alone showed how powerful they were.

If he ended up under an idiotic commander, it would be no different from going to his death. Those nobles, especially, did not care whether commoners lived or died. But he had no other choice. Without some extraordinary stroke of fortune, commoners remained mere commoners, while nobles remained high above them.

The final step was to become a professional. He had heard the term from the village elders. Among commoners, professionals held a standing like that of nobles, except that nobles represented authority, while professionals represented strength. In any case, commoners saw both as impossibly far above them. In a sense, becoming a professional also meant becoming a noble, one without a domain.

Professionals enjoyed all the basic privileges of nobles. In Lordaeron, the best-known professionals were knights. A Lordaeron knight was not simply someone who rode a horse; it was a profession. They possessed tremendous strength and powerful physiques. Most importantly, they had a special power within their bodies, a crucial distinction between professionals and ordinary people. Commoners respectfully addressed these professionals as Sir Knight or my lord.

At first, he had not actually wanted to become a knight. He preferred mages. The main problem was that he had no choice. Once he enlisted as a soldier, becoming a knight was his only option, and even that would be difficult. Although every war brought reports of someone or other becoming a knight, he knew perfectly well that this was merely a way for the royal family to encourage commoners to enlist enthusiastically. A simple comparison between the number of commoner soldiers and commoner knights made that clear.

As he settled on his plan, he began putting it into action. But he had absolutely no idea where to start. Money was much harder to earn here than in his previous life, especially since he was just a little brat who knew nothing. He could not even do manual labor.

With no other way forward, another five years passed before he finally found an opportunity.

Their village was called Hill Village because it stood on a hill. But its name did not matter. What mattered was their village chief. His name was Jack, a very ordinary name; there were several Jacks in their village alone. But Chief Jack was no ordinary man. He was the only person in the village who had gone out adventuring, the only one who had become an adventurer, and an adventurer officially registered with the Adventurers' Association at that.

Some thirty years ago, Old Jack had not yet been old. He had left the village dreaming of becoming a noble lord and spent thirty years struggling to make his way outside. The world beyond the village was nowhere near as wonderful as he had imagined, especially for a countryman like him with no skills to speak of. To survive, he had done almost every kind of odd job and had even spent some time begging in the streets. It was not that Jack had not wanted to return to the village back then, but he could not accept giving up, nor did he want to face his old friends' ridicule.

In the end, he persevered. Finally, during a winter when he was suffering from hunger and cold, he met his master. His master was an ordinary knight, an impoverished noble. With no money to buy a slave, he hired Old Jack instead. Old Jack was truly devoted to his knightly master. Although his master did not treat him particularly well, he did give him a few opportunities. Old Jack became an adventurer, though he was only somewhat stronger than an ordinary person. After all, no master would be generous enough to give a slave a professional's training methods. And his master was only an ordinary knight himself.

Still, while adventuring with his master, he occasionally gained a few things himself. During his time following his master, he accumulated more wealth than he had in all his previous years combined. Most importantly, his master found him too useless and taught him to read. That skill alone would keep him from starving wherever he went.

A few more years passed after that. His master went into Tirisfal Glades with several mercenaries and never came out again. After waiting for several months, he finally realized that his master would never return. Disheartened, he went back to his hometown. With the wealth he had accumulated over the years and his status as an adventurer, he became the village chief and had held the position ever since.

When Allen heard that their village chief could actually read and was also an adventurer, he decided to keep pestering Old Jack. At first, he did not know Old Jack very well and did not dare reveal his intentions rashly. He simply took advantage of his age, trying to win Old Jack's favor and get close to him. Unlike the other children, he was not frightened by Old Jack's fierce appearance. The other children feared and stood in awe of him because he looked so fierce and ugly and was also the village chief, and they instinctively kept their distance.

In truth, Old Jack was merely unattractive. He actually liked children very much. He had spent most of his life adventuring with his master and had neither a wife nor children. By the time he returned to the village, he was already old and no longer had any inclination in that direction. But he still longed for a child. The village children were all frightened by his appearance, which had left him somewhat disheartened.