Whenever something hadn’t gone right, I’d told myself it would be okay. That was why my frustration curled into a smile, and my failures were a lesson. It was the same as the job interview. It was the same as Guiral’s interrogation. It was the same as any other droning on about my life. And so, in order to be a proper adult, I didn’t allow myself to lose face.
Qawasumi and I sat in the local bar housed within the Adventurers’ Guild. It’d been a few minutes since Guiral’s questioning and leaving that room; The employee from before had tried to console me but I soon dismissed her. There was no use in wallowing in pity. My sulking was only allowed in my thoughts. I just sat there, with a blank face holding my composure. The rattle of metal trays and idle chatter distracted me from negative voices that bounced around my brain. There was no use to them.
A waiter came by, finally noticing our inert silence. “Have you decided on what to order yet?”
I lifted up my face, my busy mind trying to translate what her question meant. “W-”
Qawasumi raised her hand from the seat across from me. “Water for both of us, please.”
“Eh?” The waiter stepped back and turned his head to me. “Just water?”
“Yes…” My murmur soon trailed back into an enthusiastic one to ride along with Qawasumi’s order. “Yes, water.”
The person bowed and walked away. With how I did with Qawasumi watching, she knew how pathetic I was during the questioning. So I opted to stay on the bright side.
“Mister Kaizenji.”
“Yes?” I shot up quickly, as I racked myself for more words to use. “Very difficult, I think!”
“You can drop the act. Your face is just like my mother’s.” Qawasumi planted her head on her hand, looking away. “A face that doesn’t want anyone to know what they're thinking.”
“Face?... Mother?...”
“Tch. Nevermind.”
Qawasumi and I left soon after receiving the water. When they arrived in cups, I realized that it would be unwise to drink tap water from another world. Microbes, or whatever people called it whenever they went to other countries. She gave me another angry stare, but I didn’t want to risk spending a long time hugging whatever toilet was in this town. By this time, I had already decided something.
Even at Level 0, I wasn’t going to give up. If my level couldn’t be raised, then it just meant that my Max HP, DEF wouldn’t increase. Since the only stat that I could raise indefinitely was my Lingual Cognizance, focusing all my energy on that would prove more useful.
Time passed. I would return back to the door to check on it once in a while, although I seldom returned back through it. I still kept that rock in the wedge, though, just in case. My mother wouldn’t dare to enter my room in the apartment, which made easier excuses to run away to this parallel world. I shouldn’t call it wishful thinking but hope that this world was better than the real one. I wished to leave my past pains and past life stuck behind that door. Soon I began to think, why did I need to protect that door?
And so, I convinced myself that this world was better than the latter.
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[System Announcement] Lingual Cognizance UP |
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154 >>> 168 +14 |
“Yah, to think that you’d become good at Wawaqi,” Otoko, now known as Totshigui Sorah, said to me a month later. I’d just finished recording some more vocabulary in the Wawaqi language, lounging out in a hammock. Totshigui and Qawasumi were tending to some game they’d recently hunted; Skinning out the animal and preparing it over the small fire. I closed my notebook while laying back to stretch.
“Really?”
“I’m serious, Mister Kaizenji.” He assured twice, standing up and wiping the hard-earned sweat off his forehead. “In no time, you’ll begin tackling Aweda.”
“Aweda…” If I recalled correctly, Totshigui taught me some Aweda back in our first encounter. I solemnly smiled. “There’s no need to, right? I’ll only need to speak Wawaqi if I’m staying here in this area.”
“Incorrect.” Qawasumi pridefully put her hands on her hips with attitude. “Aweda is the lingua franca, and Wawaqi is only spoken in this country. D’you even remember what language you heard in the Adventurers’ Guild?”
“Bokensya Kyohkai? Oh, that…”
Totshigui hoisted a wooden stick over the fire before chopping with a small knife, cutting through her words. “The Guild is under Aquitaine. Therefore everyone must know Aweda. It’s also the easiest language branch to unlock and learn.”
My hands began to crumble the leather notebook in my hands. “But since I can’t increase my level cap, I won’t be able to unlock language branches. Most importantly… your Lingual Cognizance.”
“That’s why you can learn Aweda first, and prove Officer Guiral of the Royal Marshal, that you are ‘worthy’.” He laughed softly afterward, walking around before seating himself below the hammock. Holding a bracelet with a red talisman-like charm, he brought his legs together into a ball. “Just like you, I… still have some things holding me back.”
Officer Guiral. That guy in white I first met in the Adventurers’ Guild, who interrogated me about my origins. That voice that called out to me when I came to this world had warned me of the Royal Marshal. I still had no clue on what the organization entailed, nor what were its functions. Even if I went on past Itogutshi and headed for other towns, I would be denied at every Guild since each one was under Aquitaine, and thus the Royal Marshal.
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[System Announcement] Lingual Cognizance UP |
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183 >>> 204 +21 |
Every once in a while, Totshigui would spend time alone in Itogutshi. That always left me alone with Qawasumi, who still disliked me despite my lengthy stay. I accepted the fact, and never sought to redeem myself with her. There was nothing to redeem in the first place. Due to Totshigui’s worries, Qawasumi needed to always guard me, and I had to accompany her whenever she ran her own errands.
I asked her once, while she was practicing archery near a residential area, “How did you and Mister Totshigui meet?”
“Sorah?” Qawasumi repeated as she pulled her bowstring and the feather of the arrow brushed her cheek. “Don’t just suddenly talk to me while I’m concentrating.”
“Right…” I was sitting down to the side on the grass, basking in the sunlight. “Sorry.”
She shut one eye and aimed at the archery target a few hundred meters away. “We’ve known each other since we were small. I wasn’t opposed to him, but I would’ve done just fine without him.”
“Well, that’s a bit harsh to say about your childhood friend.” I leaned myself back and turned to the azure sky. A bit cloudy. “I’m sure he’s been a good fellow.”
Qawasumi let go of the bowstring as the arrow rushed forward. It wasn’t even a couple of seconds before a thud sounded on the straw target afar as I felt the slight bend of wind glide through my hair. I clapped for her showcase of abilities.
“Woah, good one, Miss Qawasumi! I haven’t seen any arrow miss yet!”
Then she stomped her foot into the grass. “Don’t jinx it. It’s a static target.”
I helped her clean up the pseudo-archery range, which wasn’t much of a hassle since it was an empty field surrounded by housing. I felt a bit jealous myself, since I couldn’t think of anything I was good at back in school. Maybe Qawasumi would’ve beaten my university’s archery team alone. I made my way toward the target, a bundle of hay, and started plucking the arrows from it. Qawasumi packed up her belongings, and I handed the arrows to her.
“You know how hard Sorah has worked towards his dream, right?” She started a topic right out of the blue. This was a first. I nodded my head slowly.
“Hm… Mister Totshigui? Dream?”
Qawasumi stuffed the arrows into her quiver, pausing after each sentence. “We take on quests in the forests so we can earn money. I just pity him and his circumstances a bit, so I thought I would help him out.”
“What a tsundere.”
“‘Tsundere’?”
“‘Tch. Nevermind’.” I mimicked her tone while shrugging my shoulders.
As I walked away laughing, Qawasumi’s face went beet-red as she sped up after me. “Oi, what does ‘tsundere’ mean? Tell me!”
Although I was forcing myself to joke and laugh, I told myself if it would be fine. Now that I was in this world, the need to worry no longer mattered. Perhaps my instincts warned me that it was not. Every night the thought of home intruded into my mind, and I tried so desperately to expel it from me. My palms would sweat, and blankets would feel like a microwave. I indulged myself in this parallel world for what it was.
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[System Announcement] Lingual Cognizance UP |
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250 >>> 436 +186 |
Two months had passed, and I was heading my way toward an area of Itogutshi I didn’t know. Plastic bags full of books weighed down my arms and hands as my legs slugged forward despite how heavy my body thought it was. As I walked deeper, the roads became narrow and the buildings grew taller. Each passing building was more derelict than the other, as glass crinkled under my feet and wooden roofs creaked in the harsh sunlight.
Eyes stared holes into me from all around. From the windows to the slightly ajar doors, this must’ve felt like what tourists in Manila faced. Squatter settlements. Illegal housing, built from any kind of construction material. My suit stood out in a place like this. I quickly hastened my pace, remembering Totshigui’s description.
Eventually I came across a humble hut with several stories, with a desk station underneath one of the eaves. Poles of metal and planks jutted outward like a thorny plant.
“Ah, thank you and sorry for the hassle.” Totshigui stood up from the desk as I handed him the plastic bags. “These will surely supplement my studies.”
Inside them were loads of picture dictionaries for the Japanese language, with English translations. I brought them during a trip back to the door in the forest, back in my days of middle school. “No problem. You sure you want to learn Japanese?”
“Yes, I would. How could I not try to learn the language of a dear friend?” He looked through each of the books and flipped through the pages. “I want to learn more about your world.”
“Be honest, ‘friend’. You want to increase your Lingual Cognizance, don’t you?” I grinned while he returned a small one back.
“That is also a part of why, but you are special here. We should take more time to learn about each other… At least, that’s what I want to believe,” Totshigui explained, before setting down the bags. “Mister Kaizenji, care to stroll with me?”
He told me that this was the poorest place in Itogutshi. The slums were, in fact, void of the Royal Marshal and adventurers alike. Children played with mud from the local sewage, shoes were a luxury, if not everything. All I could do was keep my head down from the stares given at me.
“Mister Totshigui, so you live here too?”
“Yes, my parents and three siblings live here. And there they are.”
“Brother Sorah!” One of the kids playing in the mud threw themselves at him, splashing dirt all over the area. I felt disgusted by how repulsive the child was, but I immediately remembered that this was their life. I had no right to judge their circumstances. “Who is that?”
“It’s Brother Kaizenji Kawari.” Totshigui patted his little brother on the head, kneeling down for a hug. “What’re you doing?”
“Hehe, playing with ‘em dirt!” The boy proudly smeared some more onto his face. “One day, we’ll play with sand at a place called a ‘beach’, right?”
Totshigui smiled warmly at his little brother's innocent words. "One day we will. We'll go to La Plage together and play with sand all day long."
I butted in, instantly regretting the interruption of their time. “La Plage?”
“It’s the most prestigious city in this world, located far west in Aquitaine.” Totshigui got to his feet, wiping the mud off his scarf and silver hair. The red talisman-like charm swayed in his wrist. “If I study hard enough, then I’ll take my family there. And I’m only one step away. The Imperial Examination in Great Zhou, the kingdom closest to Waqwaq.”
“Yeah! My big bro’s super duper smart. He’s told me all about the things we can do there! Like the beach, eating in restaurants, and even buildings made from glass!”
So that was his big dream that Qawasumi briefly told me about. That was why he needed money. To enter the Imperial Examinations in the nearest nation from here. The power of education… I guessed it still applied in this world.
Him and I continued our stroll through the narrow alleyways and ghetto streets, meeting some of Totshigui's neighbors along the way. They greeted him warmly, and he introduced me as a friend from a distant land, which sparked curiosity and intrigue in their eyes.
“It’s rare to see Sorah stick with someone other than his family, and Ruri, of course,” one of them commented to me while they stood talking from a doorway. “Mister Kaizenji, you better watch over him now. He’s got a record for hiding his problems. Just like that one time he cleared my debt suddenly when the Kokmin were after me.”
Totshigui scratched his head, rubbing his foot into the ground. “Well… It’s easier to share an experience with a new friend than someone you know.”
He ignored the last bit. I lifted an eyebrow. “So you tell Miss Qawasumi and I to watch over each other when you need to be watched too, huh?”
“That’s different. Ruri’s… I don’t want to make her worry about me too much.”
“But she wants to help out. She spends her time helping you achieve your goal.” I had to say sorry to Qawasumi but, I needed to let him know how she felt. Totshigui covered his face, his covert smile turning into disappointment.
“She’s… Ruri said that she wanted to practice her archery skills with us taking jobs from the Guild. Why didn’t she tell me?” He stepped forward with such intensity in his fists, and for the first time I backed away. “My aspirations shouldn’t matter to anyone. She has far enough things to worry about with her mother, and-” He caught himself mid-sentence and shut himself up. Totshigui loosened his hands. “I apologize. I shouldn’t be concerning you with other people’s problems, Mister Kaizenji.”
“...”
I’d gotten to know Totshigui and Qawasumi for more than two months. And it was now that I realized that I had no obligation to speak of their complications and dilemmas as an outsider. Sure, they shared snippets of their life and their personal thoughts with me, but did I really think I could try and tackle their relationship? Their dreams? Their struggles? It forced me to think about my own life, and what I’d done in it. About whether I really had aspired to become someone I wanted to be, or if I’d become a loser that avoided his responsibilities by staying in this world.
Thus, I doubted myself yet again whether everything was okay.
