Suguru learned that effort did not equal value.
It was something the city taught quietly, without ceremony. You could work until your hands split and still be invisible. You could endure smells that made others gag, carry loads that bowed your spine, and sleep with hunger gnawing at your ribs—and none of it guaranteed tomorrow.
Morning came anyway.
He returned to the tannery before the sun had fully risen, the river still cloaked in mist. The foreman barely acknowledged him. A nod, a gesture toward the vats, and the day began.
Scrub. Lift. Turn. Carry.
The rhythm was brutal in its simplicity. By midday, his arms felt hollow, like they belonged to someone else. His mind drifted only when his body refused to.
That was when it happened.
A wooden bowl slipped from his grasp.
It struck the edge of the table, tipped, and overturned. Thick stew spilled across the surface and cascaded onto the stone floor, splashing against another worker's boots.
The sound was small.
The reaction wasn't.
"Damn it—!" The man shoved Suguru hard in the chest. "You blind?"
Suguru staggered back, barely catching himself.
"I— I'm sorry," he said quickly, bowing before the words had fully left him.
The foreman looked over.
Not at the mess.
At Suguru.
For a moment, Suguru thought this was it. That one mistake—one bowl, one slip—would erase everything he'd endured to stay.
"Clean it," the foreman said flatly. "Then get back to work."
No punishment.
No reassurance.
Just continuation.
Suguru knelt and wiped the floor clean with a rag that had already seen worse. His hands shook, not from fear, but from the understanding settling in his chest.
Here, you were only worth what you could still do.
That evening, he was paid three coppers.
He stared at them in his palm longer than necessary.
Three small, dull coins.
Heavy.
He spent one on bread. Another on a bowl of thin porridge that tasted mostly of water. The third he kept, fingers curling around it as he walked.
It felt like proof.
Not of success.
Of survival.
That night, he followed the sound of steel.
The training yard was quieter than usual, lit by a few lanterns. Fewer men practiced now, movements slower, fatigue visible even in the experienced.
Suguru stayed near the edge, as always.
One of the older men noticed him.
"You watch every night," the man said without looking over.
Suguru froze. "…Sorry."
"You don't hold a blade," the man continued. "You don't train. You just watch."
Suguru swallowed. "I don't have one."
The man finally turned. His eyes were sharp, but not unkind.
"That's not what I said."
He tossed something at Suguru's feet.
A stick.
Crude. Uneven. Barely shaped into the suggestion of a sword.
"Grip it," the man said.
Suguru hesitated—then did.
It felt wrong immediately. Too light. Too awkward.
"Stance," the man said.
Suguru tried to mirror what he'd seen. His feet slid. His balance wavered.
The man shook his head. "You'll hurt yourself like that."
"I know," Suguru said quietly.
The man studied him for a long moment. Then he sighed.
"Come back tomorrow," he said. "After work. Don't be late."
That was all.
No promise.
No training.
Just an opening.
Suguru bowed deeply.
That night, lying against the familiar stone wall near the stable, he didn't sleep right away.
His hands ached.
His body protested.
But something else sat beneath the exhaustion—small, fragile, and dangerous.
Expectation.
He crushed it before it could grow.
Morning would come.
Work would demand its due.
And if he wanted more than survival in this world of old stone and older rules—
He would have to earn even the right to try.