Freefolk of the Eighth District

Clang!

Clang!

The heavy sound of hammering rang out. The forge inside blazed fiercely, and the heat reddened Romon's dark face.

Bare-chested, his bronzed, powerful muscles flexed as the vicious scars on his body trembled rhythmically with every hammer blow.

The red-hot wrought iron slowly changed shape beneath his strikes, gradually forming into the blank of a standard-issue iron sword.

A boy of about ten stood opposite him. Using iron tongs, he picked up the glowing sword blank and tossed it into a stone basin of water.

The icy water met the red-hot sword blank, instantly sending up a cloud of steam.

Romon casually grabbed a filthy towel from the rack and roughly wiped the sweat from his face and body before saying to the little boy, "Ace, your old man is heading to the tavern at the east end of the street to wet my throat. By the time I get back, you'd better have that sword blank polished, or your backside will pay for it."

"Got it, got it."

Without even looking up, Ace skillfully clamped the sword blank in his tongs and set it onto the anvil, where a few sparks still remained.

"I don't care if you go drinking, but don't get drunk and fight people like last time. Not only did Mom and I have to pay a fine at City Hall Plaza, you got twenty lashes too."

"You little brat!" Romon's dark face reddened even more, like an old cat with its fur standing on end.

"That time, they provoked me first. Ulu insulted your grandfather's grandfather, Citizen Nar. Your ancestor followed the great city founder Rhonamuth, escorted the people as they fled the pursuit of the Ice Demons, passed the Thirteen Trials, and came to the Promised Land of the Elegant Goddess, where they founded the prosperous and powerful Medimous City-State."

Romon took a deep breath and declared loudly, "We are not some ordinary freefolk family, my son. Remember this: we are descendants of citizens, and we have an honor that must be defended."

"Yes, of course our ancestors' honor must be defended. But our purse is also painfully flat. We need to control our tempers and put our energy into regaining Citizenship—such as letting me study and learn to read—instead of hammering this damn sword blank."

Ace answered calmly.

He raised a hammer nearly half his own height and struck the sword blank with a series of clang, clang, clangs, gradually smoothing its surface.

Romon opened his somewhat dry mouth, wanting to say something, but no words came out.

Looking at his calm, busy son, he sighed, turned, and headed outside. "I understand," he muttered.

Ace removed the sword blank from the anvil and walked over to the whetstone.

The rhythmic scrape of sharpening rang out as Ace expertly ground the blade blank, but his thoughts drifted back to three years ago.

He had been reincarnated from a university researcher on Earth. He remembered that when he had first crossed over, the world had spun around him, and in his daze, he had been drawn into a mother's womb.

Only when he turned seven in this life had fragments of his past-life memories awakened. He had forgotten much, but he had remembered much as well.

Skyscrapers, endless streams of cars, computers, smartphones, and ever-changing forms of entertainment—all of it was gone, forever beyond his reach.

The fusion of his memories from two lives had given him a severe fever. Fortunately, his mother in this life had cared for him attentively, and he had gradually endured the side effects of those merging memories.

A child did not know much, but at least he could speak the Common Tongue of this land and had a complete family. He counted as a proper local resident.

Over the past three years, Ace had deliberately gathered information. He listened to Romon boast, listened to his mother tell Myth stories, and never missed a bard's singing performance. At last, he had roughly figured out this world.

This world appeared to have gods, dwelling upon the unseen and untouchable Mount Kaya.

The city-state where he lived, Medimuss, lay in the southern part of the Salia Peninsula, in the Promised Land of the Elegant Goddess.

The king of the city-state was Rhonamuth, son of the Elegant Goddess and founder of the city.

If there are gods, then there should be supernatural beings as well.

Ace thought so, and he constantly kept an eye on the phenomena around him.

The city-state's nobles truly possessed strength, speed, jumping ability, and reflexes far beyond ordinary people. Even commoners, including the city-state's soldiers, could not compare to a noble child barely half-grown.

He had heard that in the uninhabited wilderness beyond the city-state, countless monsters roamed, possessing all manner of supernatural abilities.

Making full use of a child's talent for asking why, Ace had questioned many people about how one could become like the nobles.

Every answer had been the same: nobles were descendants of gods, born far beyond ordinary people. They were humanity's rulers ordained by the gods, and mortals could never become like them.

In a world where supernatural creatures definitely existed, yet where he was destined to remain a mortal, Ace felt unwilling to accept it.

Still, he remained optimistic. His current position was too low, and he had come into contact with too little, so the information he received was extremely limited.

Only by entering the middle and upper ranks of the city-state could he gain more information and more opportunities.

Even if there were none, he could later capture wandering monsters or even draw blood from nobles. Perhaps he could still uncover the secrets behind their supernatural abilities.

Ace's goal gradually became clear: to enter the middle and upper ranks of the city-state—in other words, to become a citizen.

The Medimous City-State was a young colonial city-state, founded less than a century ago. It brimmed with vitality and held ambitious plans for expansion.

The city-state was surrounded by Barbarian Tribes and wandering monsters, while other civilized nations lay far away.

The nearest cluster of civilized nations was in the northern Salia Peninsula, making this a city-state that greatly valued martial prowess and expansion.

The Medimous City-State was the Promised Land of Media, the Elegant Goddess. Her direct descendant, the divine son Rhonamuth, ruled here from the peak of the city-state's pyramid. Below him came the nobles, citizens, freefolk, and slaves.

As for becoming a citizen, Ace had heard his father ramble about it many times. There were three requirements for a freefolk to become a citizen.

First, literacy. Second, serving in a low-ranking public office for more than three years. Third, earning merits equivalent to killing ten enemies.

If a citizen's descendants failed to meet all three requirements after three generations, the fourth generation would automatically lose Citizenship.

In other words, Ace's family had declined precisely in Romon's generation, changing from a citizen family into a freefolk family.

Romon was a decent man of the city-state. He was broad and burly, skilled in Sword-and-Shield Combat, and had enlisted several times as a heavy infantryman with his own weapons and armor. He had cut off the heads of more than ten barbarian warriors and killed several monsters.

His only flaw was that he was not clever enough. He could not learn to read, and when he failed the examination at the age of thirty-five, he finally lost his Citizenship.

Along with it, he lost a series of citizen privileges: preferential tax rates, reduced penalties for crimes, annuity rights, and the right to participate in the Citizens' Assembly and the Council of Five Hundred.

Unable to live in the First District, where public order was best, he could only move to the Eighth District in the south of the city and make a living by forging for the city-state and its residents.

In his youth, Romon had worked tirelessly to inherit Citizenship. Only after losing it completely and nearly spending all the wealth left by his ancestors did he consider marriage. He and Marina, a freewoman from the Eighth District and Ace's mother, took a liking to each other and settled down.

More than ten years had passed since then. Romon was now in his forties and had gradually become a skilled blacksmith, building a stable little home in the Eighth District.

But his love of drinking meant that he always spent the family's savings, leaving him without the means to pay for Ace to learn to read.

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