Chương 70: Kaleem and Saleem(1)

Walking down an alley on Crutal Kingdom, is a little illustratian boy.

Well not exactly, little as he was 17 years old. His name is Kaleem, he has been working by his father's side ever since he was 9 years old. Putting in hours in the Forge.

He started off with tasks as simple as they could be, such as making it easier for his father named Saleem who currently is 46 years old, to reach Iron Ingots.

Although their names similar, everything else about these two fine people is different.

Let's start with height for example. Kaleem is 5.5 foot tall while Saleem is 6.4! Not to leave out, Saleem's arm only, is as big as Kaleem's waist.

Kaleem is tad more kind hearted, while life has turned Saleem's heart a bit cold.

However, getting to the point. As Kaleem grew older, his responsibilities grew along with him.

Apart from being a bit cold, Saleem cares a lot about his son. So he does not wish to burden him with too much responsibility.

But Kaleem is known as the most ambitious illustratio in Crutal Kingdom. Taking his father as an example who works almost 12 hours a day, he insisted to share the same amount of burden, this young.

Saleem of course never allowed it, but his son worked after midnight to ease the burden on his father's shoulders the next day, even though Kaleem himself is busy at the forge a good part of the day, assisting his father.

In some days the youngster even did half a shift throughout the strongest insist, he even does deliveries almost daily. It is no doubt that Kaleem is overly ambitious for someone so young.

However, as Blacksmiths are rare and weaponry is valuable, any Blacksmith would be overwhelmed with work.

A cart of Iron Ore usually being very heavy, bringing it from the mines to the forge is mostly Saleem's task. To him that heavy cart is like carrying two bags of wheat.

The man is abnormally strong, Blacksmithery made him even stronger but he lost his hair because of it. [Or weeds, both terms acceptable.]

It doesn't plague his appearance though, he looks much better without it. It compliments his body shape.

Saleem being once again overwhelmed with work, forgot all about picking up the cart of Ores from the Mines, which is done twice a week.

Guess who used the opportunity to help without being told too. You guessed it, Kaleem.

Disappearing as if in mid air, used to sneaking just to force in more work in the forge.

Running his way to the Mine which took him about 10 minutes, he lied to the Miners that. "My dad sent me here to fetch the Ores, he doesn't have enough time to come here."

Kaleem, doing deliveries and sometimes bargaining, gave him some abilities of speech craft. So it became tad easier for him to manipulate Miners.

Grabbing the cart's handles and actually lifting it off the ground after trying 6 times. His insistence to help his father as a main motivation, starting his journey to reach the Forge.

To his advantage, the Mine is on top of a hill. The road isn't too steep but it would make moving the cart full of Iron Ores way easier.

He had to turn the cart to the left bit by bit to direct the cart towards the main road, through a bit of effort he was successful.

A full grown man can lift and keep the cart under control down that hill but under great effort that would tire the entire body.

His first 20 feet of pulling the cart stood stable.

On the 30th foot it became twice as easy thankfully, as if his effort understood and aided by the divine.

As he reached his 50th foot, he started practically running with the cart at speeds no illustratio could reach.

He ran for 10 minutes straight when he got up here before to pick up the cart and he didn't stop to catch his breath.

So his stamina depleted quickly now, making it impossible for him to keep up with the speed of the cart who's getting faster and faster.

To his tremendously bad luck, he tripped and fell face first to the ground.

The cart having wheels big enough to support a heavy shipment, at least worked to his aid today.

Thanks to those big wooden wheels, Kaleem was able to slide underneath the cart without taking any fatal damage but a couple of small bumps and bruises.

As he fell face first to the dirt, he heard a loud crash shortly after.

By the worst ever luck, the crash was caused because of his father, Saleem.

Saleem saw the fast approaching cart, and given no time to clear the way, by instinct he grabbed the two wooden cart handles.

After making contact with Saleem, it arose from the ground, leaped over him and got tossed 30 feet away, and tumbled for another 10.

Over 20 of the Ores fell on his head and body. The impact on his chest was nothing but a bit of bumps and bruises but the impact on his head...

The Iron Ores knocked Saleem out cold and left a bloody wound on top of his head.

Due to more miss fortune, only Kaleem saw what happened.

The closest Guard is a kilometer away and just one wouldn't be of help when it comes to lifting a 300 pound man.

Kaleem ran towards his father, struck with shock, not believing what just happened. This feels like a nightmare.

He yelled for help several times with all of his lungs and with tears in his eyes, seeing his father in such a condition and blaming himself too.

Lifting the Ores from his father one by one, he threw them as if throwing feathers.

After removing the Ores, he tried to lift his father.

But it feels like moving a boulder. Kaleem is only 90 pounds, he could never lift a 300 pound man.

A moment after Kaleem felt a huge sensation of pain all over his body. He could feel every vein pumping strong like hell.

Letting out a strong shout, that actually caught the attention of a Guard 1 kilometer away. He grabbed his father's right arm with such power, he almost ripped it off.

Grabbing his father's left leg after, he managed to actually lift him off of the ground as well and putting him above his shoulders.

His body isn't breaking in half due to the weight even though his feet sank a couple of inches in the dirt, his father felt like a bag of wheat to him now!