I stared emotionlessly at the demonic adventurer who just violated me, yes. I should have thought about cutting off his throat, but I did not, for some reason, that would be not something I'd do. But I tried to not get killed, so I just so ever so slightly moved back a few inches from where I was sitting and quietly answered.
"I'm obligated to, if that turns you on."
"Hah! A whore with a sense of humor, I like you already, come here girl."
He sat up and wrapped his arm around me to pull me to lay down with him, skin to skin; though I was now clothed while he's still naked to his skin. God, he smelled weird, like a really strong wild flower, it's not bad, just strong and noticable.
"I'm sorry, but you have to pay extra if you want to continue..."
It's bullshit, 15Qo was for the whole night, David could do as much as he'd wish. But I lied to client just because I don't want to work anymore, my entire body ached the moment I touch him. Most importantly; I can see the thing poking through the fabric of the old blanket, like a pole more than anything, and I want to puke straight away, still feel my throat aching.
"Girl, I have enough money to buy you." He smirked, caressing my face. "How about you come with us? Emily and Omen are also very curious about you, I'll pay you more than what you'd make in a week."
That was... absolutely terrifying, what he just said. As if this is another command rather than a request or question. So I tried to reply in the best way I could.
"I'm waiting for a friend, I have unpaid debts in this town. I am not leaving anytime soon in the future."
Oppose to what I thought would happen; another hour of torturement or immediately death, he just shrugged it off and hugged me tight while he eyes wandered off.
"That's unfortunate. Say, are you from another continent? Your language is weird."
!?
In a moment of shock, I turned my head around to see my diary was floating in mid air for him to read, right behind my head, he was toying with me while checking through my stuff.
"You really are poor, you sure you don't want to take up on my offer? You can pay off the debts you have quite easily, too."
"Give it back! You can't just open other people's diary like that!" I tried to reach my arms out to grab the floating notebook, yet he didn't need much effort to hold me in place with one hand while the other covered his yawn.
"Oh, a diary? A life of a whore? How boring."
That was when I realize, people here don't use English. They speak English that I'd understand, yes. But their writing system is completely different, so the alphabet I'm using was completely gibberish written by a toddler with no real meaning, but they use numbers to count so there's a numeric system?.
"It's a diary, but a language... From another place, yes. Stop touching my stuff."
"I see that there's the same word on every header followed by 1-2-3-4..." David smiled, pointing towards the word Entry on top of each entries I wrote. "So this word must mean Day, right? Day 1, day 2..."
He's sharp, I must give him that, he just flip through pages and almost got a word from a completely strange language correctly. It's "entry" and not "day" but close enough, I don't want him to learn anymore, just in the case that someone learn that I'm from another world. Still in the man's grasp, I turned to begging rather than struggling.
"I'd appreciate it if you give me back my belongings. It's a gift from my friend."
As ever, he ignored me, just like he did when his team confronted him, must be a trait to do what he want and only what he wished.
"There's some words that in the first letter are being written taller than other... You make them taller everytime you switch to a different paragraph and go down a line. But there are Like these words that kept on being taller than the other with seemingly no rule, "Jack" "Hewi" or "Tanya", over here we have "Desmond" or "Botol" "... How do you say these words? Why are they different from most other words? Are these special rules or do these words have a different meaning than others?"
"GIVE IT BACK!" I screamed, terrified of what he could do. But struggling and begging won't work, so I slam my head against his chin.
"That's loud." David smiled, holding me in so tight that I felt like I was being crushed. He ran his blueish hand through my entire body, while rubbing the horrific thing down there on my thigh, he then whispered to me:
"What if I say no?"
"Then I'll try and kill you." I said, trying my best to raise my head and look up at him.
"You'll die, girl, haha." He claimed.
"I'll be happier than now."
He was still chuckling, but it died down very soon after that. David used magic to float my diary back to my table, before resting his thigh across mine, locking me into his body as nothing more than a body pillow.
"Whatever, I'm going to sleep now."
The night ended, I did not win, I did not conquered my worse enemy, but rather spared and forgiven by the demon after I have already dead.
I woke up the next morning sweating bullets, tired, frail and extremely uncomfortable everywhere on my small body. The same problem arose; I only have this one pair of clothes, so now I can't change to get any more comfortable, and if I want to bathe or clean myself in anyway, I'd go back to the river in the woods that I met Hewi or the pond that I passed out at. Torturous to say the least.
64Qo to my name, what can I get with that, I wondered? Bread is 3 and pair or leather clothes is 100, while my stay per night at this inn is 2. Do I need anymore in this life rather than just food and a roof? Is a life completed once you're finished your journey or shall you take more from the cookie jar with greed fogged the mind?
I walked out of the inn, paying for last night stay, which now I have 62Qo to my name.
I walked around town and decided to visit the commission board again... There's not a lot of requests left...
Wait.
This was not English, but I can understand it.
Is this the perks of being reincarnated? I'm basically trilingual. I can speak English, but I can write English in my world, but I can understand and read the English of this world... That's 3 different things, I assumed?
This terrified me to my core, for some reason. Though I elected to ignore it, simply because it is best for me to focus sorely on making money, my next target is to get a new pair of clothes... Even if it's trash clothing, it's better than having nothing at all, only one pair is not enough for me to live, if my clothes get wet I'd be more than dead... And it's going to smell, not like anyone care but I'd rather be on the safe side. Browsing through the pamphlets... Kind of, those were all out of my league, hunt a boar? Chop woods? Full-day labor? I could not even run a mile in my current state of only bread and water in my stomach for 4 days straight after being violently abused. But soon I heard footsteps closing in nearby.
"Oh, hello, Trek, am I right?"
It was Trek, the kid whom I met on my first day here, who teased me of being Hewi Cocksworth's wife. He was even more of a crowd fitter than Hewi, for the knight; he had blue hair and great physique with shining armor, while this young man; like barely 20. Have black hair and no distinguishable feature, apart from the fact that he's a bit tall, just one head over me.
"Ah, hello miss! Are you looking for work?"
I see that on his hand were a note and a pin, he was going to post something, too.
"I am, are you about to post one? Though, I am not that old, calling me Tanya should be fine."
The guy was rather full of life, I can see it in his eyes, unwavering and proud, he reminded me of myself from days ago. Destined to be great, one day or another, maybe very soon.
"Yes, miss Tanya... Erm, I mean, Tanya. I am going to post a work note, we don't have a woodworker here in Deshla. But I need some wooden weapons to practice with! I'm paying 7 coins for someone to help me craft a sword."
"Weapons?" I raised my eyebrows, amused and asked. "Are you planning to be a knight or of sorts?"
"Even better, I want to be an adventurer! I'm going to travel the entire world!"
The word he just spoke sickened me, just for a little bit. Though I know it's not his fault, so I tried not to show any reaction.
"So you're practicing with wooden weapons? Why not just a stick?"
"I can't feel the weight of sticks, miss T- Ahem, Tanya. And it doesn't feel the same, I can't practice blade alignment."
"In that case, may I take up that offer? I would like to help you make a sword... A typical longsword, correct?"
"You know how to woodwork!?" Trek, surprised, gasped. "I'll be blessed, thank you miss! Here is the work note."
Little did he know, I don't know how to do woodwork. But I'm going to pick up that skills while trying to help him, hopefully. I don't have anything but time on my hands anyways, I'll get back to the inn and figure it out later. A knife? I could rent or borrow it from Botol, Henry or the other Tanya. Or I could consider buying one... As cooking equipments for the future when I'm not around a tavern or a bakery, I wouldn't want to eat bread all my life, either.
"So... Tanya." Trek spoke, looking at me with hopes in his eyes.
"Yes?" I answered
"Do you want to go sit down? How about the benches around the square?"
"Oh, we'd work together?" Confused, I asked.
"Yes? That's why I only offered 7Qo, I want a helping hand and guidance."
Crap, there goes my plan of just "yolo" it, to redo it over and over to train myself. Can I back out? Too late now, I suppose.
"If you're fine with it, we can do it in my room at the inn, we'll do it on the floor so there's more room to work and clean up later. I'm not suppose to be out in the sun for too long, too, I suppose."
Trek looked at me, dumbfounded, I looked back at him, dumbfounded, some men passed by and looked at us looking at each other, also dumbfounded, they looked at each other, dumbfounded. I then went :O with my eyes and mouth widened, I just realized I; a prostitute, who got a history of hoeing around with 3 guys after 3 days of staying in town; just invited a young man over to my own room.
Rookie mistake.
"If you-"
"Sure, that works."
I tried to take back what I said, but he already accepted, things went fast. As they said, once you've thrown the rocks, they're going to fly no matter what you do.
We went back to his backyard to gather the wood he saved up first, just a log bigger than my whole arm. Trek had no problem carrying them while I watched, It was still morning or early noon when I led the young man back to my place, to Botol's surprise and the curious eyes of men and women that saw us on the way, I hope they don't think the wood is going to be a dildo or something. And like a bashful teenager, Trek kept his head down while trying to speed walk.
I told Trek to ask miss Edinburgh to show him my room first, while I went to the store down the streets to get tools... I got a sharp kitchen knife which already cost 20Qo, after carving wood with it I probably could get it clean and continue to use with cooking, anything else? Oh, a small chisel... It would cost 12, that's everything on top of my mind right now.
From 62, minus 32 so now I have 30Qo, which is less than half from before. How costful a life of a whore is.
I opened the door to my room, not knowing what to expect, but not exactly the sight of Trek sitting on my table reading my diary. Still affected from what happened last night, I rushed over to yank it off of him.
"Don't touch people's stuff like that!"
Terrified, Trek clapse his hands over his head.
"I- I'm sorry! Please, I promised that wouldn't happen again! The window was opened and... Wind flung the pages, I was curious with your strange writing and... I'm so sorry!"
I frowned, staring at him in anger for longer than necessarily, I guess I shouldn't have left it on the table, either. Either way, I've calm down and sat down flat on the floor next to the log that he brought.
"Let's get to work, a longsword, right?"
Trek nod, and I look at it, observing it very carefully, resting my eyes on it, watching it, staring at it, seeing it, gazing on it, I kept my vision on it for as long as I possibly could.
"You don't know how to woodw-"
"I don't know how to woodwork yes." I replied, casually embarrassed that I wasted someone's time.
"We can figure this out... Somehow."
We spent the next hour carrying a log of wood to every place in town, first to the lumberjack and asked to borrow an axe to carve the hard shell around, then we went to the nearest river and bring a bucket of water to wash it, before heading back to Trek's home to get some whetstone, which will be use to smooth out the surface of the log while we're working with it.
Trek also noticed that my kitchen knife would be... Not ironically useless in this situation so he got the a smaller drawknife he happened to have. The most I've contributed to this conversation was existing.
We went to the local lumberjack and asked to borrow his axe; since as far as I know, axes are expensive and you can't just straight up buy them from the local salesgirl down the street... Maybe?
We brought the whole thing home and I can swear on the lord that Botol thought I and Trek was just that kinky because in no other reason I would bring so much weird tools back to my room. But though, we tried to focus on our task. I used the small knife to just barely nick the shape of the sword; then held the log still while Trek had the axe to trim the rough dark excess wood edges, we were left with just the whiter inside, which sounds racist in some context, indeed.
Now what? We'd need a bigger tool to carve a shape, but our resources are limited, so I used some ink to mark the shape of the sword, making sure the two won't forget, before alternating between using the handaxe, drawknife and chisel to carve around the rough shape. After a grueling of what felt like ten years (though when I asked Botol it's only been 2 hours), we got something... Not that bad, but definitely not up to standard of any time, here or mine.
We put the axe to the side, I got my chisel, Trek got his drawknife and we did the finer details from bottom to top; the hilt should be first, I'd pay attention to the contours, making sure there's a comfortable weight and feeling to it, seeing how rough it is, I was tempted to use the whetstone to smoothen it up, but Trek digress and told me to wait after we're done one more step, which is doing the finer details: carving out the hilt, pommel, guard and blade.
But before that; we took a slight rest, like an hour of just laying down on the floor and staring outside of my window. I also went on and write the beginning of this entry, yes, the part were David almost learn a new language, so that I won't forget the details when night came. Then we came back to work very soon, having less dopamine was quite enjoyable, by the time we were done carving out the shape, finer details and making sure it actually looked and weight like a longsword that actually could be swung. We both went to work on the whetstone.
A horrendous day work, sweats covering my only outfit, but after all.. We were done.
A longsword, two sides of blade, a handle that is comfortable for gripping, and the weight seems realistic... I don't know, I haven't hold a sword before and same goes to Trek. What's left of us was using something to coat the wood with, some wax or oil; but the young man said he'll take care of it. So what's left of me is to clean off this room full of wood and splinters that if Miss Edinburgh sees she'd choke me out.
"Thank you, Tanya! Here is 7Qo as promised. Please let me help you clean this place." Trek said.
"Thank you, but no need for that." I took the money, but rather won't allow him to clean, I then continued,
"You have already done most of the work, I've been paid but my work is insufficient compared to yours. You can go ahead and return the axe to the lumberjack, Hoffman."
He hesitated, but I insisted, so Trek walk out of the inn and through town with an axe and a sword on his shoulders, oh man this is going to be a wild stories for the gossipers. And the thought of that was funny to me.
I asked Botol Edinburgh for the broom, and she pat on my sweaty shoulder.
"I've never thought that boy would grow up to have his first time to a beautiful girl like you." She said.
At this point, I don't think I should even tell her the truth, maybe she didn't see Trek leaving with the finished wooden product and just assumed he left with his pants unbuckled. So I went to clean my room, getting all the splinters and wood out of the floor, into a bag downstairs and dump it all into the forest nearby; the pile that they'll burn at the end of the week, double as fuel for a small feast too I've heard.
Of course just sweeping with a broom was not enough, I'd pick individual smaller pieces off of the floor onto my palm, too. It sounds like a tedious job, but rather was quite enjoyable since I don't feel the passage of time here, everything is so slow here, I have no purpose, no job, just... Live, day by day, I don't have responsibilities or requirements to meet.
Picking up trash felt so good, as if I was doing something great and significant in this ever so lasting life. I was just finishing up when...
"Tanya?" A voice, Trek to be exact, he was holding something neatly folded.
"You left something?" I asked him.
"No... Uh, you told me about your current situation, how you only have one pair of clothes and... I have this, my mom made it when I was 14 and I've outgrown it, I was hoping you would have it, it could help you."
I looked again, and it surprised me, a white shirt; not a shirt, a long-sleeved tunic made from wool and complimentary trousers in blue. This is definitely male clothing, and even though he said 14; it looked loose and definitely bigger than the leather I've been wearing for 4 days straight.
"I really appreciated it, thank you, Trek. But I'm not keen on receiving gifts, can I try and pay you?"
"No problem, Tanya. You already helped me lots with my sword, you can repay me one day in the future when you're rich and I'm a great adventurer whose name echoes through every valley of the world."
I chuckled, turned quickly to a giggling sound, mesmerized by the young man, he believed that I'll be rich one day? It is rather comforting to hear that. I could not convince him otherwise now, he wouldn't pay me and I do not want to feel like owing anyone, so there was a solution only a prostitute can think of.
"Do you want to stay the night then, at least? Free of charge."
"...Uh- Don't you think it's a bit early for that?"
I looked outside the window, indeed it was still barely evening.
"I do reservations." I replied.
Another awkward silence as predicted, I smiled casually, because no answer would change me, bad or good.
"I'll come... Tonight, can I invite you to dinner after that?"
'Oh god' I thought, did I catch myself a nice guy? I chuckled, but shook my head.
"You never got yourself into this kind of thing, did you? I can not let you do that, young man. Just come over after dinner." I said, speaking like a true professional; one who never even lose his virginity before reincarnating.
