Reshaping Horizons: Mushoku Tensei

The proudness of a father

Working...
Not exactly the ideal situation, especially considering that I'm still a child. Are there no child labor regulations in the Asura Kingdom? Are we sure this whole thing is even legal?

Ouch...

I got reincarnated into another world, with the ability to do things people here could never imagine. I could invent things and become rich, learn to wield a sword and become an adventurer, explore this world, full of new things and landscapes, and discover who knows what...

But I'm about to spend my childhood working.

Double ouch!

I've been going to The Emporium for the last few days now, officially starting my job as Elijah's apprentice. What can I say about this week? On the first day, the old man-how I've started to call him-showed me around. I had already seen the shop when my lovely jewels were destroyed, but this visit was more "job-oriented."

He showed me where everything was. The shop was rather small and didn't have the capacity to have multiple sets of tools, so we all shared the same set. These ranged from various kinds of saws to chisels, clamps, rulers, what seemed to be a caliper, hand drills, and even metalworking tools like two anvils and a small forge placed beneath the building. We all shared this set, so if Elijah was using a tool I needed, I'd have to wait for him to finish. However, the range of tools was so big that I don't think I'll ever face this problem.

I'm forgetting someone... Aren't I? A little girl followed us for the whole visit, frowning every time I entered her vision. Apparently, she didn't like Elijah's idea of letting me work here. I swore to myself that if she did something strange or said something bad, I would hit her with my wooden sword. But in the end, I didn't really want to argue, especially on my first day. I tried hard to stay calm.

You can call me Gandhi, expert of self-control and pacifism. I'm no longer Kael.

Anyway, let's move on. There's no job without proper pay, or at least some kind of wage. According to Elijah, I wasn't going to get paid directly by him. Instead, I would earn money from the jobs he delegated to me or from the ones I secured myself. So, for example, if someone came in asking for a new wheel for their carriage, I would get paid by that customer for doing the job. Of course, Elijah would take a cut since he was the head of the shop and provided the tools. He took 50% of all my earnings. I'm not sure how to feel about that, it doesn't feel fair, but I didn't come here to get rich-just to learn. Making money in the process was just a bonus. Oh and obviously, we split the jobs: Elijah handled the most difficult or complex ones, for obvious reasons.

In the next few days, Elijah showed me the practical side of the job. He gave some basic demonstrations, cutting a piece of wood with a saw and chiseling it a bit. During these demonstrations, he explained how to hold the tools properly to avoid chopping off my fingers and how to "understand what to cut" by drawing guides on the original wood plank. After that, he gave both Alara and me a plank each, and we had to emulate what he did. Needless to say, I completely failed the task. I mean, I didn't lose any fingers, which I consider a victory... But I don't think Elijah saw it the same way.

We kept going with practice for a bit, doing simple tasks like hammering nails into pieces of wood, sketching things, and building them from scratch. This happened mostly in the early mornings, while in the late mornings, Elijah called both me and Alara to discuss what we had learned and give us the chance to ask questions about what we had tried to apply.

But now, let's talk about the results I got in these days. As I said before, I suck at this. There's nothing more to say.

I am completely unable to use a saw to cut things. I was trying to create a small wooden cog out of a thin piece of wood. Why, you might ask? Cogs are the basic units of every machinery. If I am able to create them, I can potentially create anything. Imagine building a tank in a fantasy world-a wooden tank that shoots... something. I haven't thought that far yet, but you get the idea. Well, I failed.