You have to wait for the work to be completed at the forge. You walk around the village and chat with local residents.

Obviously, the blacksmith will need significant time to complete all the work in accordance with your order.

Smithing armor and weapons is not easy and requires considerable time and effort.

You will have to wait until the blacksmith completes your order. But wasting time on monotonous and useless waiting would be impractical.

Therefore, you decide to take a short walk around the village.

It's morning now. You hope that the blacksmith will have time to finish the work before evening time. You still have time to think about your plan to hunt the monster.

You walk around the village and chat with some of the local peasants. Basically, locals can't talk to you for long.

The reason for this is that most of the peasants are now busy and rushing about their usual routine affairs. Life in the village always requires regular and hard work. And now your gaze notices peasants who are carrying logs (probably to repair some building), peasant women who are carrying sheaves of twigs and branches from the forest (obviously, this is fuel for the stoves that warm the huts). You also see peasant children carrying containers of pet food.

However, some of the locals have the opportunity to chat with you. For example: you see one old human peasant woman sitting on a bench near the house. She is sewing something. The dull look of her tired eyes, her flabby wrinkled skin and her hunched figure - all this easily allows you to understand that this is a very old woman. She is probably about 70 years old. Or even more.

You approach this peasant woman and start a conversation with her about recent events.

The old woman has difficulty maintaining her attention. She periodically deviates from the topic of conversation and begins to tell you about the “good old days.” However, you manage to learn something potentially useful from the words of this old woman.

In particular, her following phrases attract your attention: “Ohh... Ohh... I always said that in the good old days there was no such damned scourge because people were more pious and did not anger the gods... The gods would have helped us overcome this wicked terrible threat... But in Nowadays, people began to behave inappropriately... And sad consequences were not long in coming... Damned monsters... Deaths in the night... Strange symbols..."

You clarify: "What do you mean? What are these strange symbols?"

The old woman says: “Ohh... It’s unpleasant even to say this... I remember... This young boy told me... Jacob... He noticed some symbols on the corpses that were brought from the western road to be buried... Poor family... They just wanted to escape from the village and be saved..."

Strange symbols on the corpses of some victims. You are trying to clarify the details, but the old woman cannot say anything specific.

In addition, you were somewhat influenced by the words of this old human woman that “divine blessing” could help in the fight against the terrible monster.

You think: “Of course, there is a great deal of exaggeration in this woman’s words. However, to increase the likelihood of success of my hunt, there is some merit in trying to get the help of the local priest..."

You ask an old peasant woman about where the local temple is. And she willingly explains to you where you need to go. The small building of the local temple of the Church of the Equal Deities-Brothers is located in the northern part of the village. The old woman utters an incomprehensible phrase about the “special” character of the temple’s abbot, a priest named Bernard. It's not clear to you what she means. But, based on her explanations, you understand that the priest Bernard is the only representative of the clergy class who lives in this small village.

You still have quite a lot of time until the blacksmith finishes working on your armor and your weapons.

You can try to find out more information or enlist the help of one of the local residents in the upcoming hunt.

For example, you can find that peasant Jacob who noticed strange symbols on the corpses of the monster's victims. Perhaps Jacob will tell you something useful. Or he may help you in some other way.

Another option: you can look for the local priest Bernard. It is possible that he can give you useful advice or even take part in the hunt as your assistant (if you can convince him).

In addition, you may have other options for how you can make good use of your waiting time...