Chapter 6
‘Wait, what about the languages that I can already speak?’ I asked after thinking things through. And having a bit of the fish. It had cooled enough for my sensitive mouth. And what a treat it was.
‘None of those are spoken in the Realm of Mesily.’
‘Seriously? Not even English?’ I asked after swallowing my first food since coming into the Realm of Mesily. It was official, I could feed myself. Hunger would not be the thing that undoes me.
‘No.’
‘What if I learn the languages without the Skill?’
‘The moment you begin learning a local language, the Skill will be acquired automatically and activated. It will take more effort than if you had just acquired the Skill with the Common Tongue language already attached. The end result will still be the same.’
‘And if all my General Skills are already selected?’
‘Then you will be unable to learn any language. Everything you try to learn will be immediately forgotten.’
That was just messed up. To me, it sounded like the System would be erasing everything I try to learn if it didn’t follow its rules. ‘You know that is just wrong, right?’
And I was trying to teach right and wrong to an AI. How low could I possibly go?
‘If you push too hard, one of the existing General Skills could be removed to make room for [Language Proficiency].’
‘Which one? Do I get a choice in the matter?’
‘No. The Skill is selected randomly. And any Skill lost, losses its Levels.’
Noted. Don’t try and beat the System. Not unless I’m ready to face the consequences. I was already on the last pieces of the fish. I decided to call up my [Status] to see what other questions I could ask.
[Human : Hartie][Level: 10]
Status:
[HP: 810/1062]
[MP: 1102/1487]
[SP: 1515/1637]
What? Oh, right. I needed to use the [Identify] Skill on myself to get the full details. But the numbers in my [Status] didn’t make sense at all. Especially the [HP] and [SP] ones. It looked like they had plateaued off. I had had more than twelve hours of rest, and they hadn’t fully recovered from their numbers since the last time I had checked.
‘Clare, why have I not fully recovered my [HP] and [SP]?’
‘You did not have the energy needed for full recovery.’
Food. It was because I was hungry. That made sense, but only if I was back on the old Earth. I was in a magical realm; I should fully recover everything with time. It even said so in the explanation Clare gave me. Twenty-four hours unless… ooh, the impairments. I guess being hungry could be considered an impairment.
Having done away with the fish. I climbed down to my dying fire. Without me to attend to it, it had already been reduced to embers. I used my staff to dig up soiled around it and cover it up. Then went to the river to clean up the staff.
The sun was still eastside by the time I was done. With nothing else to do, I decided to resume my trek downriver. A slight rustle of leaves in the direction where my tree was brought me to stop even before I had made no more than ten steps. I looked around, but everything was silent. Maybe a bit too silent for a forest. There were no chirps, fluttering of wings or cries from monkeys like I had heard the previous day. And I knew I wasn’t considered a threat in the forest to warrant such a reaction. That could only mean one thing.
Something dangerous was nearby.
I looked around, quickly turning and turning. But I picked up nothing. The rustle didn’t come back again. The predator was there, lying in wait. Either for me leave, or for me to make a mistake and then it would pounce. I couldn’t see it, but I was sure it could see me.
With my safe zone already compromised, I decided to continue heading downriver. Albeit cautiously. Back on the old earth, the biggest predator in the forests was always a big foresting dwelling cat. The jaguar or the tiger. Both of those would make easy meal of me. At one meter seventy-five and weighing seventy-two kilos, I couldn’t measure up with them at more than a hundred kilos and their sharp teeth and claws.
Finally, my measurements were back.
I walked on at a fast pace and without looking back. Only glazing sideways every once in a while. I didn’t even dare venture into the forest again. My hubris had been crashed and I wanted to get to the nearest civilized area as fast as I could. More people around meant that there was a chance of someone who wasn’t me getting killed. Thereby increasing my chances of survival. What were they called in the old armies? Hmm... ooh, right. Arrow fodder.
After an hour of walking, I began to slow down considerably. It was safe to assume that the predator chose not to pursue little old me. With a relaxed mood, I began to notice that the river had widened considerably. Another tributary must have joined in with the one I was following while busy being scared. Or it could be that the one I had been following was the one that joined another one.
As I was checking out the forest, I noticed a large-leaved plant that had leaves large enough to cover my backside. And frontside. After a few minutes of deliberation, I quickly approached it and went to pick two of them leaves. But I stopped myself. The surrounding vegetation showed signs of having been grazed but none of the leaves on the plant had been touched. Not even by caterpillars. I decided to [Identify] it just to be on the safe side. The front and backsides were very sensitive areas, and caution was required.
[Poisonous Hedera Vine]
I walked away without even trying to figure out whether it was a touch or consume kind of poison. No thank you, to all.
After a few minutes of walking, I came out of a bend and stopped. A few hundred meters ahead, I could see what could only be a bridge. There was a structure crossing over the river. I was too far to know for certain, but it was safe to assume that it was made of stone. It had four piers, two at the banks of the river and two in the river proper, with an overarching bridge on top of them. The arch stretched further away from the banks to nearly disappear into the edge of the forest, making the whole bridge nearly three times the width of the river.
I stood there dumbfounded for more than a minute at the realization that I was finally going to meet other people. Then I remembered my state of dress and promptly ran into the forest for cover. I couldn’t appear to people as I was. I needed to fashion something to offer a modicum of decency. I was no longer under the impression that I was in a hunter-gatherer period. Not that I would have approached those people as I was either.
I immediately began scouring the forest for large leaves that weren’t poisonous and supple plants that could provide flexible barks to be fashioned into threads. The entire endeavor took me close to half an hour but I finally had a leaf cover for me frontside. Tied around the waist. And with that, I decided not to go anywhere near the bridge.
Like before, I climbed the tallest tree I could find to find out if there were any towns or villages nearby. It took a few trees to find one that allowed me get over most of the canopy.
There was a wooden palisade surrounding a sizable area a ways to the north east of my current location, located on the same side of the bridge as I was. The road left the forest to a clearing outside the palisade. It joined the palisade wall before skirting it, continuing past through the fields that stretched behind the walled in area. The clearing stretched further and spread out as far as I could see. Either it was the end of the forest on that side, or they had cleared a considerable size of the forest for agriculture. As far as I could tell, there were no residences outside the palisade walls.
On the other side of the bridge, the canopy rose higher still, preventing me from seeing anything. But I did see a small carriage approaching the bridge from that side. It was being pulled by a single horse with what appeared to be a single person onboard. I couldn’t tell any more than that, but I was able to determine that it was quite a distance from the bridge and approaching at a slow pace. They were not in a hurry. If I wanted, I could easily make it to the bridge before they did.
There was no way I was getting in that palisade dressed as I was. Maybe they would need identification documents, or a toll even. I had none of those. I could try hitching a ride with the small carriage, but there was no telling who was on it and what they might decide to do.
First order of business was to find clothing, then I could try entering and figure out what was necessary. And for that, I decided to stalk the carriage until I could determine whether it was safe to approach it or not.
I descended from the tree, careful not to ruin my leaf cover and began my approach to the road, angling for a kilometer or so off the bridge. Slow and steady a pace I kept. I didn’t want to arrive too early and have to spent time waiting for the carriage, or too late and find them already past.
Twenty minutes into my trek, I heard voices and laughter. By my estimation, the carriage shouldn’t have made it that far. Even if it picked up speed. Plus, I was way too in the forest. And the voices sounded close than where I thought the road should be.
I made a detour and slowly but carefully approached the voices. The closer I got the more distinct they became but I still couldn’t understand what was being said. Then it dawned on me, [Language Proficiency]. I had yet to pick the Skill.
‘What language are they speaking?’ I asked Clare, hoping for it to be Common Tongue. It was the one that came loaded with the Skill if I remembered correctly.
‘Common Tongue.’
‘Thank you, universe.’ Or should I start saying Mesily instead of universe? That seemed more appropriate. Mental note: substitute all old earth names for Mesily. I hoped I would remember.
‘Load up the Skill [Language Proficiency].’
We went through the routine confirmation process. And an understanding of a language I didn’t know before dawned on me. One moment I knew I could only speak and understand four languages, and the next, that number was five.
“I’m speaking in Common Tongue,” I said, just to test it out. It flowed smoothly, no different from how I spoke English. But I knew I was speaking a different language. I switched up the phrase through all the other languages I knew just to make sure everything was alright.
“I’m speaking in English.
“Naongea Kiswahili.”
“Nabonga Sheng’.”
“Nineenete Kikamba.”
Good, I was still good.
I moved closer still, straining harder to pick up any discernable words. I kept glazing around to make sure that I wasn’t inadvertently exposing myself. In all senses of that statement. In a few minutes, words began trickling in.
“… going … you?” someone asked. I thought they sounded male, but I didn’t want to assume too much.
“No. … pub,” someone else said. Also sounded male to my ears.
I listened in on the half sentences as my comprehension of the language fully set in. And the conversation became clearer. I stopped approaching when I saw the first person. A tall big man with a clean shaven head. He was wearing a black T-shirt and grey pants. The little I could see of his boots hinted at black, or a very dark brown. He had a club on him, thicker than his arm with a bulbous end the size of two fists. It appeared as long as two-thirds of his arm. I decided to name him the bald one.
He moved again and disappeared in the underbrush of the vegetation. I crept around the area, trying to maintain the same distance from where I had seen him as I moved towards the road. I wanted to keep the group between me and the bridge. If they were bandits, then they were most probably watching that side for the coming carriage. If I had seen it, they most definitely saw it too.
After a few minutes of sneaking around in the underbrush, I finally saw their camp. It was a small clearing, barely larger than five meters, with a small fire going in the middle. Around it were five figures that I could clearly make out. A tree was blocking my complete view of the clearing. It was possible there were more that I couldn’t see. Adding a potential sighter of the carriage, that brought the approximate number to seven people.
Of the weapons I could see, there was at least one bow and several swords lined up against a tree just at the edge of the clearing. The bald one was leaning against the tree blocking my view, and then there were two others, slender of build and nearly as tall as the big guy. They wore near similar outfits, greys for the shirts and browns for pants. One had black boots and the other grey boots. They were light-skinned like the bald one with mops of black hair. The other two were sitting down and I couldn’t make them out properly.
“They are approaching, ten minutes out,” a new guy said as he made it into the camp. He was wearing green-grey pants and shirt, completely blending in with the vegetation. On him, he had a short sword at his hip and crossbow on his hand.
I had a thought of trying to [Identify] them, but pushed it away. I had read that in some instances, it was very possible for the person being [Identify]ed to known about it. If that were the case in the Realm of Mesily, then I would essentially be signing my death certificate. Against them, I would die. I could already tell that they were higher leveled than I was.
“Let’s move out. You know your places,” the first voice said. It belonged to one of the sitting figures. I assumed him to be the leader.
He got up, together with the other figure, and the whole group disappeared into the forest. Heading towards the road.
I debated for a few seconds on what to do given my level, before following them.
