It was nearing evening as the sun cast its orange glow. And ever since they returned from shopping, Ernest hasn’t done a thing which made him bored.

If there was one activity he could have done, that would be for starting a trial for making a soup. However, without ingredients, there was nothing he could do.

"This is so boring," Ernest grumbled.

An hour later, Anna knocked on the door.

"Ernest, dinner is ready!"

"I’ll come!" Ernest replied quickly.

Ernest pushed himself off the bed before walking towards the door and into the dining area.

Well, "dining area" was honestly generous.

It was just a wooden table placed near the kitchen with a few uneven chairs surrounding it.

Anna had already prepared dinner.

Two wooden plates rested on the table beside bowls of stew and several pieces of dark bread.

Potato stew again.

Honestly, Ernest expected that already.

The smell itself was simple.

Ernest quietly sat down while Anna placed another pot near the stove.

"For father again?" he asked.

Anna nodded lightly.

"He’ll probably eat later."

Again, she said it so casually.

Like it had already become part of daily life.

The family eating separately.

Victor arriving late.

Anna finally sat down across from him.

"Eat before it gets cold."

Ernest nodded before taking a spoonful of stew, and then ate it. The taste was bland, lacking flavor, and would taste nice if it had salt or seasonings.

But after several days in this world, he slowly started adapting.

A little.

As they quietly ate, the only sounds inside the house were spoons lightly hitting wooden bowls and the crackling of firewood from the stove nearby.

Then suddenly, the front door opened. Heavy footsteps followed immediately afterward.

Victor.

Ernest instinctively looked toward the entrance.

His father stepped inside the house looking even more exhausted than before.

Soot covered parts of his shirt and forearms while sweat darkened the fabric around his chest and neck. His boots were muddy again, and his shoulders visibly sagged from fatigue.

The man looked like someone who had spent the entire day fighting the world itself.

Victor closed the door behind him before noticing Ernest already seated at the table.

For a brief second, surprise crossed his face.

"You’re here..."

His voice sounded rough and tired.

"I’m feeling better," Ernest replied.

Victor stared at him for another moment before giving a small nod.

"That’s good. That means you can start working with me tomorrow."

Oh yeah that’s right, Ernest recalled that kids in this era would work at a young age to support their families.

There was no such thing as a "childhood" here the way modern people understood it.

If a family was poor, everyone worked.

Even children.

Especially children.

Ernest blinked slightly while staring at Victor.

"...Tomorrow?"

Victor walked toward the table before sitting down heavily on the chair.

"You already rested," he said while removing his gloves. "Can’t afford to lose more time."

"Dear, he just had fever," Anna said softly.

Victor sighed while rubbing his forehead.

"I know."

His voice lacked anger.

Only exhaustion. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

The man looked like he barely had enough energy left to even continue the conversation.

Still, he continued.

"But we already lost a lot of time."

Anna lowered her gaze slightly after hearing that.

And honestly, Ernest understood both sides immediately.

Anna worried because her son almost died from fever.

Victor worried because their family could barely survive financially.

Neither of them were wrong.

That was simply how brutal poverty was.

One sickness alone could destabilize an entire household.

Victor finally grabbed the bowl Anna handed him before quietly eating.

For several moments, nobody spoke.

Only the crackling of the firewood and the faint sound of spoons touching wooden bowls filled the room.

Then Victor suddenly looked toward Ernest again.

"You’ll only do simple work tomorrow."

Ernest blinked slightly.

"Simple work?"

"Cleaning tools. Carrying smaller things. Working the bellows if needed."

Yeah, he recalled his father working at a blacksmith workshop. If that’s the case, that would have been the work of the original Ernest. He also recalled how the original Ernest worked there.

And it was arduously hard.

Very hard.

The inherited memories became clearer the moment Victor mentioned the forge again.

The heat.

The smoke.

The constant hammering sounds that rang inside the workshop from morning until evening.

Even the original Ernest’s small body used to ache after work.

Pumping the bellows alone was exhausting. It required constant movement to keep airflow feeding the furnace. And when the blacksmith worked on larger projects, the heat inside the forge became unbearable.

Then there was the carrying.

Coal.

Iron ingots.

Buckets of water.

Finished tools.

Even "simple work" still demanded physical effort.

And the original Ernest was only around ten years old.

Honestly, modern labor laws would probably classify this as child abuse instantly.

Ernest quietly looked down at his thin arms again.

This body was still weak from sickness and years of poor nutrition.

Working at a forge tomorrow would probably hurt like hell.

Still...

Part of him was genuinely curious.

A real medieval blacksmith workshop.

As a mechanical engineer, that was fascinating.

Primitive metallurgy was still metallurgy.

Even if their methods lacked precision and industrial efficiency, it remained the foundation of engineering.

Without blacksmiths, civilizations could not advance.

Metalworking was one of the pillars of civilization itself.

Victor continued eating silently before suddenly speaking again.

"Master Hollen’s been in a bad mood lately."

Anna sighed softly.

"Again?"

Victor nodded.

"His assistant just left him, leaving him with a huge pile of paperworks. And he couldn’t find a single one who could read or write."

Paperwork.

That word immediately caught Ernest’s attention.

A blacksmith workshop handling enough business to require paperwork meant they probably dealt with contracts, delivery records, material inventories, or merchant requests.

Interesting.

Very interesting.

Victor took another bite of stew before continuing.

"The merchants keep complaining because orders are delayed."

Anna shook her head lightly.

"Well, if nobody can organize the requests properly..."

Victor grunted.

"Master Hollen’s wasting time searching through stacks of papers every day now."

Ernest quietly listened while eating.

Then suddenly, something clicked inside his head.

Wait.

If literacy was rare among commoners...

Then even basic reading and writing already held value in the labor market.

Actually, that made perfect sense.

A skilled craftsman who could also handle records and contracts would become far more useful than ordinary workers. They do inventory tracking, order management, material records, and even primitive businesses still required organization.

And he could read and write. He could sign up for it. But he knew that if he applied for it, his family would grow suspicious. Like sure he has a background from reading and writing in his earlier years but to become fully literate? That would raise too many questions immediately.

Especially Victor.

The man was tired most of the time, but he was not stupid.

If Ernest suddenly walked into the forge tomorrow and started reading merchant documents fluently after years of being practically illiterate, people would definitely notice.

And in a world this primitive, standing out too much could become dangerous.

Ernest quietly continued eating while thinking carefully.

He needed to move slowly.

Very slowly.

Back on Earth, intelligence and talent usually earned praise.

Here?

Acting strangely could easily make people suspicious.

Especially when literacy itself was uncommon among commoners.

Victor suddenly let out another tired sigh.

"Master Hollen nearly smashed his desk earlier," he muttered. "Spent half the morning looking for an order slip."

Anna shook her head lightly.

"That bad?"

Victor nodded.

"He keeps mixing merchant requests together."

Victor continued eating while grumbling under his breath.

"He says literate workers are impossible to find unless you’re rich enough to hire merchant sons or church people."

Merchant sons.

Church people.

Again, literacy remained tied to wealth and status.

Actually, the more Ernest learned about this world, the more he realized knowledge itself functioned almost like a class barrier.

If commoners could not read, then they stayed trapped in labor work.

Meanwhile merchants and nobles handled contracts, records, accounting, and trade.

Education literally changed social mobility.

Back on Earth, people constantly complained about school.

Meanwhile here?

People would probably kill for the opportunity to become literate.

Victor suddenly glanced toward Ernest.

"You still remember some letters, right?"

Ernest froze slightly for a split second.

Careful.

Very careful.

"...A little," he answered cautiously.

Victor nodded once.

"Hm."

Then he pointed slightly with his spoon.

"Master Hollen said if someone could at least sort papers properly, he’d pay extra. But I knew you won’t be able to live up to his expectations so don’t."

Well why bring it up in the first place? That is the words Ernest wanted to say to his father.

"Tomorrow, don’t forget, you are going to work," Victor said.

"Yes father," Ernest acknowledged.

Victor gave a small grunt before finishing the rest of his stew in silence.

The room slowly became quieter afterward as only two of them were left, him and his mother, Anna.

"Ernest, if you think you can’t do it, I can just speak to your father," Anna said.

Ernest shook his head. "There’s no need for that, mother. I think I can work tomorrow. I’ll be careful and won’t push myself too far."

"I’m glad to hear that."