In the Golden Valley Kingdom, literacy among commoners was rare. For most people, being able to write their own name already put them ahead of the crowd.

Roland and Sean had attended a parish school funded by the church when they were young, which made them unusually educated by local standards.

Even so, the parchment defeated them.

They spent half the day bent over it, trying to make sense of the text, and came away with almost nothing.

Roland traced the faded ink with his fingertips. Sweat gathered at his hairline.

After a long effort, he managed to pick out only a few phrases: "silverleaf grass," "nightshade vine," and little else.

The rest might as well have been another language.

For the first time since transmigrating, Roland felt the weight of illiteracy.

The parchment was clearly old. Someone had gone to the trouble of sewing it into the lining of leather armor. Whatever was written on it, it had to matter.

"Forget it, buddy. These damned words are splitting my skull..."

Sean collapsed onto the ground like bread left out in the rain and waved a limp hand.

"You keep it for now. If it stays with me, I probably won't figure out what it says before I die."

Roland accepted without argument.

They searched the area again. Once they were sure nothing had been left behind, they headed out of the woods.

The trip back was uneventful. Before noon, they reached the estate.

"Buddy, when I'm not around, look after yourself. If anything happens, go find my father or Uncle Peyton. I spoke to them before I left. And..."

Sean kept talking for ages, every bit the fussy old mother. He only stopped when he finally ran out of warnings.

Then he gave a reluctant wave and continued down the road.

Roland watched him go, drew a steady breath, and turned toward the estate gate.

After hiding his belongings in a familiar concealed spot, he hurried to the smithy.

The moment he crossed the threshold, dozens of eyes pinned him in place.

One stare cut sharper than the rest.

Roland followed it and found Marco glaring at him. Fury twisted the freckled face. His teeth ground audibly.

"How is this bastard completely unharmed?"

Marco's fingers tightened around the iron tongs until his knuckles whitened.

"Did that trash Sam take the money and skip the job?"

Roland caught the resentment plainly enough, and his suspicion settled into certainty.

"Heh... so it really was him."

Keeping his expression calm, Roland looked around the smithy and noticed that more than half the apprentices were gone.

There was almost no time left before the assembly Hawk had set. The missing apprentices had made the same choice as Sean. They had given up on the examination two months from now.

"Most of the ones who stayed are children from blacksmith families..."

His eyes moved over the youths whose forging skills were roughly on par with Marco's and only a step below his own. The ease of the holiday vanished.

"All of you, stop what you're doing!"

The booming voice arrived before the man did.

Hawk strode into the smithy with his hands clasped behind his back and came to a halt in front of the apprentices.

He gave Roland a small nod, then addressed the room in a deep voice.

"Before the holiday, I told you I would test your knowledge today."

The old blacksmith brought his hands forward and unfolded a cheap strip of paper made from birch bark and linen.

The dense writing on it made Roland's scalp prickle.

"Now, come up one by one and read what's written here!"

Time crawled under the weight of silence. By the time the test ended, dusk had settled over the estate.

Roland stood with his head lowered and his shoulders slumped among a cluster of equally defeated apprentices.

Hawk's scolding rolled through the smithy, loud enough to make their ears ring.

On the other side, Marco and the few who had passed kept their heads down, snickering and trading smug looks.

Hawk's face had gone red. Thick veins stood out on his neck, and the strip in his hand crackled under his grip.

"You blockheads! You can't even read the most basic contract terms. How do you expect to bargain with caravans in the future? How will you calculate ore prices?"

He slapped the strip onto the nearby anvil with a heavy smack.

Several apprentices flinched and ducked their heads lower.

"Look at what this says. 'If the delivered goods fail to meet standard, compensation must be twice the deposit.' A sentence that simple, and you still stumble over it. You can't even recognize the word 'compensation' properly!"

He gave a cold laugh, his gaze sweeping across them.

"At this level, a vegetable seller on the street could cheat you out of every coin you own."

"And trash like you still want to make a name for yourselves in blacksmithing? You'd be better off going home to farm."

The smithy went dead quiet. Only the furnace crackled.

Hawk breathed hard, chest heaving, the anger still not spent.

A mild voice broke in.

"Mr. Hawk, do you... need me to step aside?"

"No, Mr. Bronson. You came at the right time..."

Hawk forced down his temper and barked, "Idiots! Heads up. This is the teacher responsible for your knowledge lessons, Mr. Bronson!"

Roland looked over.

Beside Hawk stood a tall, painfully thin man.

He seemed to be about thirty, with a hunched back and a wide gray robe that made him look even frailer. Long fingers worried at his messy brown hair, and his gaze stayed fixed on the floor. Whenever Hawk raised his voice, he shrank toward the shadows like a startled quail.

The newcomer's appearance immediately set a few of the youths whispering.

"This guy is supposed to be our teacher?"

"What, you know him?"

"My uncle said he came from the Royal Capital. Chased noble lords for some kind of research funding like a beggar, all the way from the Royal Capital to here..."

Royal Capital. Research funding.

The words sounded oddly out of place in this world, and they reached Roland's ears.

He paid them little attention.

His mind was already busy calculating how to master more letters as fast as possible.

Marco's group had passed the knowledge test. Now they could put all their time into sharpening their forging skills, while Roland had to divide his attention with literacy.

That small gap in time might be enough for those blacksmith sons, boys who had grown up around hammers, to catch him or even overtake him in forging skill.

"And I still need strength training, plus the occupation change to Blacksmith... Tsk. The Blacksmith Apprentice examination starts in two months. There isn't enough time..."

A sharp clap cut through his thoughts.

"All of you, shut up!"

Hawk clapped hard, the dull sound echoing through the smithy.

"I'm giving you one month."

The old blacksmith's voice landed like a hammer on an anvil.

"Anyone who still can't pass the knowledge test after that can pack up and leave! Do you understand?"