Thirty miles southwest of Lane, by the brook at the foot of Mount Lamere, an old man in ragged clothes, with a yellow face, shaped like dry wood, was staggering north along the stream.

Before reaching the creek, the old man had been walking along the Lamel Mountains for more than a month, and there was no trace of his pursuers behind him. For a month, he walked through the dense forests and mountains, staggered on uninhabited paths, bypassed castles and villages, slept in the open, drank frost and snow, avoided all human tracks, and survived here with a small bag of black beans and grassroots mountain rats. A day further on, through the wilderness in front of you, you will be the southern border of the Count of Burgundy.

"Damn it," the old man cursed softly as he walked step by step towards the boulder in the snowfield, his bare toes already chapped and pus-draining, and the wounds on his back oozed dark blood......

About twenty miles south of Lane, Art, who was riding on a green mule, removed the water bladder hanging from the front saddle and poured a sip of water with ale. He was in a good mood, and had slept beautifully in the haystack at the edge of the field last night, and the green mule had followed him with a free dinner.

On the way back, Art took a detour to Ryan Manor, and he made a note of the manor's housekeeper's hatred, but he didn't want to cause more trouble now.

The strength of the green mule's feet did not disappoint Art, and the evening after leaving Tinetz, the boulder pile he had passed had appeared in the white snowfield, and he planned to settle in the boulder pile tonight.

The snowy sky is getting grayer and darker. Art jumped off the mule, took off the mattress and a bundle of firewood tied to the saddle, removed the saddle, took off the reins, and pulled out a bundle of hay and placed it under a boulder pile, the green mule grazes under the boulder, and Art picks up the dead wood and prepares to turn the boulder to find a place to shelter from the wind and snow to make a fire to keep out the cold.

As soon as he turned the boulder, Art glanced at it, took a step back in shock, threw away the firewood, and pulled out the hunting knife at his waist.

Just around the corner, a dark shadow curled up.

"There are wolves!" Art's heart was in a bad mood, his back was close to the boulder, and the hunting knife was raised flat on his chest, and he gently moved his probe...... It took him a long time before he slowly put down his hunting knife.

"Bastard!" Art scolded heavily.

......

Art slowly approached the fellow who had fallen in the boulder, half-crouched forward and patted him on the shoulder with his dagger, and when he saw that he did not respond, he opened the placket of his shirt and stepped forward to remove the half-cut scythe from the man's waist with a worn-out linen handle......

The snow had stopped, and the blazing light of the boulder pile was red, and Art faced the fire with his back to the boulder, holding half of the burnt rye bread in his hand. Beside the fire lay the unconscious old man. Art examined the old man, and there was no way to save him—he was breathless, his back was bleeding, his ankles were swollen, his feet were purple, and his toes were bleeding pus...... The only thing in the grain bag around his waist was a little mouse, which had bitten off his head and froze hard, and a few pine nuts.

Art dragged him to the fire, poured a few sips of hot water and paid no more attention, he was not God, and could not bring back a man who was about to go to heaven.

Until the next morning, when he began to pack his bags, Art did not go to check the old man's snort and heartbeat.

Packing up, Art placed a small half of a piece of rye bread and the broken sickle beside the old man, and gathered the remaining embers from the fire. With that done, Art rolled over and strode away.

"I've done everything I had to do, I can't take a dying bad old man back to the valley to waste food......"

"I didn't die without help, because the old man was already angry......"

"God is merciful, He may have come to his senses, eaten bread and left ......"

All morning, Art's mind was filled with the shadow of the old man, and he had to admit that the memories of his past life made him a little womanly.

"Damn!!"

"Phew~~" Atler grabbed the reins and turned the mule's head.

......…

A month later.

In the nameless valley, at the fence of a forest hut, Art is leading a green mule back from a ravine five miles away, carrying a wild goat with four hooves tied to the bark of "blea".

"Master, you're back~" An old man with a ruddy complexion in a short shirt, trousers, and a sheepskin jacket greeted him, took the reins from Art's hand, and carried the wild sheep down.

"Cooper, don't call me lord anymore, I said I'm not a master, you can call me Art." Art corrected the stubborn old man named Cooper Alverd for what he called himself.

"Okay, sir~" Cooper bowed slightly.

A month ago, Art's kindness saved the old man's life. After carrying the old man back to the valley cabin, Art used the common sense accumulated over the past three years to mash some useful leaves and grass roots and put them on the old man. The old man's life was tenacious enough, and the soup and fresh water and the grass bed and the hearth in the grass bed house by the door dragged him back from heaven to earth. In less than ten days, the old man could get up from the grass bed and make a fire to cook for Art; Half a month later, the old man repaired the inside and outside of the wooden house, and wrapped hemp rattan around the fence outside the yard to reinforce it.

Old Cooper didn't talk much, let alone mention his past, and Art didn't inquire into the roots, and there was no one who didn't want to go around preaching about the past.

However, Art could see that for a long time, the old man had a hard time. After his injuries were basically healed, Art once asked old Cooper, intentionally or unintentionally, if he wanted to leave.

"It's a cannibalistic hell outside, but here is the real world." Cooper shook his head in refusal.

"As long as you let me stay here, I'm willing to be your servant." Cooper said it sincerely.

Art was noncommittal, he could not afford to raise an idler, but he was also unwilling to drive the poor old man away.

The following winter, Art saw the old man's abilities and was glad that he had not left the old man in the wasteland to feed the wolves.

Three years ago, Art had built the hut, which was only seventeen feet long and fifteen feet wide, in the summer and autumn, and for several years, Art had built a sparse one-man fence around the hut just to prevent wild beasts from attacking.

After recovering from his injury, Cooper Sr. has been banging, slashing, chopping. He covered the exterior walls of the hut with thatched clay, and opened a small window with a wooden lattice next to the sunny wooden door. In winter, the hut was always filled with smoke because of the fire that needed to be kept warm all night, so old Cooper made a fireplace with a flue out of stone clay at the base of the wooden wall on the left side of the entrance, and Art began to like this capable and stubborn old man......

With the arrival of winter, there are fewer and fewer animals roaming the forest, and apart from riding a green mule to a few traps every once in a while to try his luck, Art rarely goes out to hunt. When the weather was clear, Art led the mules to the forest to hunt pheasants and hares, while Cooper carried a linen bag in the nearby woods to pick up dried fruits such as pine cones, beech, acorns, and hazelnuts, or to pick edible grass roots.

Some simple tools bought back from Tignets became the hands of God in the hands of the old man. During the day, he followed Art up the hill to pick up dried fruits and cut grass, or to beat near the cabin; At night, he would make a square table, a round stool, or a wooden bowl and spoon from scraps of wood by the fireplace.

"Master, can we tear down the east fence and expand it?" Cooper stopped what he was doing and looked up to say to Art, who was skinning the rabbit.

"Why?" Art feels that the fence is now very strong and durable.

"During this time I have cleared the woods on the east side, and I think we can tear down and expand the fence on the east side, and then move the stables and lambfolds outside the fence into the fence, I am worried about the green mule and the goat, and I have seen wolf footprints in the vicinity these days." Cooper said worriedly.

Art was convinced.

So in the days that followed, Art became Cooper's right-hand man.

…………

The ice on the water of the stream began to melt and thin little by little under the breeze, and the sound of the busy winter on this side of the wooden house had just quieted down.

On the north side of the stream, it has changed its appearance at this time.

A flat open field about fifty feet long and thirty feet wide was densely surrounded by a ring of pointed birch fences more than a man high, and the gate faced the stream;

Entering the gate, against the wall on the right side is a stable with a wooden fence around the pillared thatched roof, and next to the stable is a sheepfold, in which a green mule and a goat are grazing pasture;

To the left of the gate, the original fence has been completely torn down, and a cobblestone path leads from the gate to the original wooden house, opposite which is a newly built thatched hut about ten feet long and eight feet wide. Between the large and small cabins is a passage about ten feet wide.

On the wooden table in front of the fireplace of the big wooden house, a large plate of softly boiled lamb was steaming, two large wooden cups were filled with ale mixed with water, and a honey-smeared roast rabbit was bubbling on the wooden grill in front of the fireplace.

Despite the water, a large glass of ale wine was in his stomach, Art was already a little drunk, and old Cooper was even more drunk.

"Sir, today is the most enjoyable day I've had in years." Cooper said with a wine burp.

"Yes, you're a stubborn old man with a lot of ability, and you've changed this place in just three or four months. Now that you have your own house, you are the second inhabitant of this uninhabited valley. Art said happily.

Old Cooper tilted his head and drank the rest of the ale from his glass.

"Master, is that line on the wall your family motto?" Cooper half-squinted at the wall behind Art.

"Until the lamb becomes a lion," Cooper whispered.

Art suspected that he was hallucinating, and he stared at the old man in front of him in amazement.

"Yes, sir, I am literate and can write." Cooper's eyes turned slightly to Art.

"Please forgive me for keeping my past a secret, I should ......be honest with you," the old man recounted his past through the strength of wine.

…………

Forty-five years ago, Cooper Alverd was born in the abbey of Alferro, south of Provence. That's right, he was the bastard son of a monk.

As a young man, Cooper grew up in a monastery and received a systematic theological education.

At the age of thirteen, the monk died of illness, and Cooper, who was still a minor, was expelled from the monastery. For the next seven years, Cooper worked as a beggar, a thief, a bartender in a tavern, a pack-carrying laborer at the docks, and a clerk in a trading house......

At the age of twenty, Cooper's life took a turn for the worse.

That year, Cooper followed a caravan to Genoa, where he met an old craftsman who was renovating the temple in the Holy Church of Genoa.

With his brilliant talents, Cooper became an accomplished builder after only three years of apprenticeship, and soon the old craftsman married his daughter to Cooper.

Cooper, who has experienced a difficult life, knows how to work hard and fight. In the following ten years, Cooper built town stone houses for merchants, manor castles for knights, and participated in the construction of churches and monasteries......

At the age of thirty-two, Cooper was already a young artisan in Genoa.

At the age of thirty-seven, Cooper independently designed and supervised the construction of the Abbey of Bousara, a feat that led to Cooper's reputation as a builder by the Genoese Architectural Guild.

But then, Cooper's life took a turn for the worse.

In his second year as a builder, a monastery in La Palo collapsed, and the chief designer committed suicide in fear of sin, and Cooper, who had been involved in the design of the abbey, became the natural scapegoat. The ecclesiastical court found Cooper guilty and confiscated all his property; The building guild banned him as a builder and banned him from practicing construction for life.

Resentful, Cooper left Genoa with his wife and children and returned to Alfero to cultivate land in an ownerless wasteland.

God rewards hard work, and five years of sweat have turned the ownerless wasteland into fertile fertile land.

Just when life was promising, the neighboring lords and county tax collectors began to visit frequently. The lord demanded to "recover" this "fertile land" that had belonged to him; The tax collector forced Cooper to pay a huge grain tax that he had "owed" for five years.

Cooper was overwhelmed by the oppression and fought for it. Angered by the lord and the tax collector, they colluded with a gang of robbers to attack Cooper's small farm, and the female killed Cooper's wife and daughter, and cut off the son's head.

Cooper, who narrowly escaped with his life, went into hiding, survived, and waited for revenge.

Last summer, the Duchy of Lombardy in the south invaded the southern borders of Provence, and the whole south was in turmoil.

Cooper took the opportunity to sneak back to Alfero, assassinate the tax collector, and cut off the head of the lord's only son with a broken scythe on the bed of the lord's mistress.

As a result, the lord launched a thousand-mile hunt for Cooper......

It was during the escape that Art rescued him.

"It's also a run! It seems that the world is sinister, right? Yate didn't just sigh.

"Sir? I didn't get it. Cooper didn't understand what Art meant by "also."

"It's nothing, Cooper, you can stay here in peace, the enemy can't find here." Art comforted her.

…………

Spring returns to the earth, and everything recovers.

A little further downstream from the creek in front of the door, in an open field about half an acre, weeds more than a person tall had turned into a thin layer of ash. Art held a light plough in his left hand and swung a long whip in his right hand, driving the green mule in a decent manner...

"Master, you better stop, you really don't have the life to be a farmer." Old Cooper hurried forward and snatched the plough from Art's hand.

"Your deep and shallow ploughing method at this time, no matter how strong the horse is, it will not be able to withstand it, and the wheat seedlings will not grow evenly in the future~" Old Cooper smiled and took the plough from Art's hand.

"How is it that a plough that is as good as an arm in your place is better than a broken iron hoe when it comes to me?" Art turned his head to look at the ridges of different shades behind him, scratched his head, and said stupidly.

A month earlier, just after the bitter winter, Art had taken a trip to Tignaz on a green mule with silver coins. When he returned, in addition to two large bags of hulled wheat and rye bread, the green mule carried a single plough and several iron hoes, iron rakes, short sickles and other agricultural tools, and the cloth bag in the front saddle contained barley seeds. Wheat and bread were to be bought by Ath, and they could not have eaten meat every day; The seed farm implements were bought at the strong plea of old Cooper.

Art had seen farmers farming in his past and present lives, but he had never cultivated the land himself, and he did not think that he had to rely on farming to survive, the valleys and forests were enough to satisfy him, and even with the addition of Cooper, he could always feed the hard work. But after the stubborn old man stumbled upon an open wasteland on the south side of the valley, he kept begging Art to let him try to reclaim it~

Unable to resist the stubborn old man, Art had to agree.

Art also knew that half a day's journey south of the Nameless Valley, through a low valley, was a vast, flat valley sandwiched between two north-south mountain ranges, and the stream on the side of the Nameless Valley stretched into the valley and merged into a trickling river. When they first arrived in the Nameless Valley, Art and his father had explored the plains of the valley, which was a much larger and more uninhabited wilderness......

But Art had no intention of telling Cooper about it for the time being, or the stubborn old man would have to shout at once to reclaim the entire barren land of the valley into fertile fields.

As the weather gets hotter day by day, the barley in the wasteland sprouts little by little. Looking at a large field of lush wheat seedlings, the wrinkles on old Cooper's face also stretched day by day.

As soon as he had finished his work of covering the wheat field with thorns and dead branches, the old man began to busy feeding the cattle again.

Three days ago, Art had gone into the mountains with a hunting bow to shoot a few pheasants and hares. In the spring and summer, everything grows and multiplies, and Yate rarely goes into the mountains to hunt, but the smoked meat and thick soup for several months make Yate a little tired of eating.

In a tree hollow, Art found seven or eight newly weaned boar cubs, and after making sure that the mother boar was not nearby and there was no danger, he quietly took the three young piglets.

Back at the cabin, he excitedly handed the piglet to Cooper, and asked him to smear it with wild honey and make some roast suckling pigs to treat his internal organs.

But the old man's eyes as he stared at the little piglets lit up again......

"Cooper, it's useless, I've tried to feed it." Art said as he quickly pulled out his hunting knife and planned to do it himself.

"Master, master, wait, you let me try, I will definitely be able to feed~" Cooper stepped forward to stop Art.

The old man began to be stubborn again. So, next to the sheepfold where the two wild goats were kept, there was another pig's nest where the three little piglets were sleeping.

………

"Master, do you see if our sheepfold is in space? Can I still take a few more wild goats back? The stubborn old man patted the broken blades of grass stuck to his chest and walked over to Art.

"Do you think that's your flock? Now those guys have learned to be clever, and they won't fall into my trap at all~" Yate, who didn't eat honey roast suckling pig, was really not in a high mood, and Yate didn't plan to hide in the valley and deal with livestock and wheat fields for the rest of his life. He needs to farm, but not in this way.

"Or I'll try my luck tomorrow......"

"Whatever you want!"

………

The heat is slowly dissipating, and early autumn is approaching.

For a whole summer, Art seemed idle. In the spring and summer of previous years, when there was less hunting, Art would maintain and repair hunting bows and arrows, make trap tools such as trap nets and other traps in the cabin. More time he was mending wooden houses, clearing drainage ditches, and reinforcing wooden fences. And this summer, Art is obviously a superfluous person, except for helping old Cooper harvest barley at the end of summer, most of the rest of the time he is either in the wooden house to maintain and make autumn hunting tools, or ride a green mule and carry a hunting bow to explore the depths of the valley~

The nameless valley when early autumn arrives is filled with the joy of a bountiful harvest.

Old Cooper's carefully tended land contributed all the fertility accumulated over hundreds of years, and fifty pounds of barley seed grew into three hundred and five pounds of wheat grains after a spring and summer; The wild sheep in the sheepfold also produced a steady stream of fresh milk, and the small piglet that survived in the pigs' nest became a guy fatter than two goats, and even the wooden house was planted with wild parsley and cabbage......

They will be able to be self-sufficient for a long time to come.

"Maybe it's good to just hide in the valley."

"Don't forget the oath you made." As soon as the thought came to mind, it was extinguished

............