After our initial greeting, Juuta brought me back to the cabin, where I found his daughter trying to wash my blood off the doorstep. I helped her to clean it—I happen to know a few tricks regarding this specific matter—and then he introduced me to her. Her name was Liiti, and she was somehow more withdrawn than the drake, whose name I came to understand was Garrt.

As Liiti prepared some spiced warm water for us to drink, I sat down and tried to communicate with Juuta. Something I soon found to be a fair bit more difficult than I had hoped. He, in turn, found a similar difficulty in trying to explain his own circumstances.

Thankfully, there were a few mutual linguistic quirks. Nodding meant yes, shaking your head meant no. When I tried to give him the thumbs up, though, he almost threw me out of the house. After that, I tried not to do too many semi-complicated hand signs.

Since my main goal of communicating that I wanted to find a church of the god of knowledge was turning out to be a bit of a bust, I decided to stay for a little while as I figured out how to explain my goal to him.

They served me lunch, which I was too polite to decline. Then, I followed along with Juuta as he went out to hunt, helped him find and catch a long-legged hare, and then assisted him in the skinning process afterwards.

Day turned to evening, Liiti began teaching me words, one by one, and so began my brief but pleasant stay with the Jagar family.

Apparently, two weeks, when spent in good company, doesn’t feel like a very long time at all. Our friendship may have gotten off to a rocky start—or should I say stabby? Bazinga—but once the blood was all cleaned up and Amour’s arrow was no longer in the picture, things went swimmingly.

A few days into my stay, I also happened to realize something. For some reason, I was dead-set on heading straight for the god of knowledge’s church. However, I’m starting to reconsider. I think there might be a much simpler way of finding one of his churches, without having to learn an entire language to do so.

I just have to find one of the human embassies scattered here and there.

Moleman didn’t talk about them too much, but from what I could infer, there are actually quite a few of them, at least one in every capital, and oftentimes in the larger cities, too. So, if I can get to one of those, I’ll be able to talk to them in one of the human languages, tell them where I need to go, and simply follow their directions!

There’s only one issue with this amazing plan.

I’m a wanted criminal. If they figure out who I am, they’ll capture me, ship me off to whoever wants to kill me the most, and chop! There goes my head. And, sure, I don’t mind dying all that much, but it’s antithetical to my goal of getting better. Which, mind you, I can’t do if I’m dead. Simple math.

Honestly though, it doesn’t change much. As long as I hide my brand and look somewhat presentable, I’ll look too different from my wanted poster to be executed in good faith. So, that’s my goal! Very cool.

Since I was taught the words for human, city, group and go, I’m able to string together a question to try to prod at my current location.

Unfortunately, I don’t know what ‘Kaiterdom Delet-Zol’ means.

Or, I wouldn’t have, if he didn’t happen to own a coin. An old one, he explained. Unusable, because it showed the face of ‘leader’, ‘dead.’

I stare down at the Emperor’s face. Same guy I saw encased in Cocytus’ ice a month or so ago. Hmm. Ah. Right, okay.

The sigil on the back of the coin—a rising sun—cements it. I’m in the split-horizon empire. Again.

…Damn it!

Alright, alright, alright, I’ve calmed down. I’m cool. Let’s think about this for a moment.

There are pros and cons to being in one of the countries that are most gunning for your head. I’d normally say that the cons outweigh the pros by a lot, mostly because I can’t think of any pros, but I’m sure there’s something, right? Some aspect of this situation I can turn to my benefit, to make all of this work out all that much better, to connect my situation with where I want to get… Hmm…

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Hmm…

…Hm? Hm. Hmmmm…?

…Hm! Haha! No way that’ll work! But, I mean, if it does, it’ll make my work that much easier. I wouldn’t even need to—well, that’s only if it works. Not to mention that if it works too good, I die. That’d be a bummer.

…Though, not more than most other results.

—That decides it! I know exactly what to do.

Two weeks have come and gone, but now, it’s time for me to get on my way.

Which brings us to the here and now. I’m sitting at the table, a map spread out between me and Juuta. Liiti is sitting to the side, observing closely. This map is actually not the original. This is a copy I made of Juuta’s own map, using a piece of leather and my claws to engrave the details as best as possible. It’s not exactly big, and it only shows the closest villages, but with it, I can see the nearest city; a small one with hardly a thousand inhabitants called ‘Kippu Statt.’ That’s my goal. But, to get there, I’ll need to pass through a few villages, which Juuta is currently explaining to me. Simple stuff. He’s explained this before, so I’m not listening very closely.

Go there, pass over this creek, go beyond a small village… Simple stuff. Once he’s explained the path I’m to take, including which houses to stop at if I want a quick cup of tea, he rolls up the map and hands it to me. Despite only knowing me for two weeks, he already understands me well enough to mark the path I’m supposed to take. I’m terrible at following plans, so this will be a Godsend when I inevitably get lost.

“Not over ten day,” he says in simple Aetongue. “Have care, hunter animal many on path. Fennrick strong, not death, but…”

“I have care,” I say back to him, receiving the map. “Hoeksak strong.”

Smiling, he sees me off to the door. Liiti hands me a small leather bag, filled with strips of dried meat and a small knitted doll, made to look like me. It’s got a big toothy grin, and long claws. I pat her head, and give her one of my many stuffed rat plushies in turn. “Named Sven,” I explain. “Have care at Sven.”

She nods at me, smiling ear-to-ear. “Delight to visit,” she says in her simple little child’s voice. “Delighted.”

Her father concurs. “Delight, very.”

“You, also,” I reply. Then, I head down the path described, waving to them as I leave. They wave back at me. Everything turned out for the best. Don’t you love it when it happens?

Once I’m far enough that they can’t see me, I pull out my map. Let’s see here, the first bit is the same path we used to walk to trade stuff with Janne, so I know it easily. No issues there. However, after that, I’ll be continuing up the road Janne takes, stop by his house to hand over a bottle of liquor Juuta made, and then continue into the village. According to Juuta, I could stop by the church if I wanted to. If I remember correctly, the church was for the god of harvest, but I don’t have any business with him, so I think I’ll just keep going.

I put my map away again. Right! Off we go, into the beautiful tomorrow!

Of course, I did eventually get a little lost. I’m not sure exactly where, but I think I went straight ahead when I should have taken a turn. At that point, though, I had already left the first village and was heading for the second. I’ve been able to stick to a proper road, so I think I’ll get somewhere if I only stay on it, but I’m still starting to feel a bit nervous. The map isn’t making sense anymore. Which way was north again? Not the hypothetical north—the real one.

This road has to be the one over here on the map, it feels like it’s going in the same squiggly kind of lines, so…

Sniff sniff sniff. Hm? Oh, people! I can smell people coming!

I pause on the side of the road and watch with barely hidden excitement as a small carriage approaches around a bend. I wave to the driver, who waves back before realizing that I don’t look right. Once he’s close enough, I jog up to him, and he, being a polite sort of person, slows his carriage to a stop. I hold up the map, wave at the everything of it, and say, “Where this?”

A second ago, he had a look of abject suspicion, but it’s starting to go away as he realizes I really mean no harm. “Ah, an you efre askett where we be? This be…” He hums for a second, and I try to figure out what he’s saying. “There,” he says, pointing at the very westernmost part of the map. “Go you where?”

I look at the map before pointing to the city I was heading for. “Kippu Statt.”

“Ahh, I too! Teer you upp kii farretthenne?”

Most of what he said was completely new words, but I think I know what he’s asking. I nod deeply, smile, and say, “Yes, me delight to!”

He waves me up onto the carriage, and I get on. He gets his drake moving again, and we start rolling. After a minute or so, he glances back at me. “Are you… hoeksak?”

“Yes, me am,” I answer.

Which apparently excites him enough to start retelling an entire story—one I only barely catch due to the difficulty of his language. Man, I’m really looking forward to getting the all-tongue skill back, not understanding people sucks. Still, I’m pretty sure he’s telling me about how he once met a human, and they presumably got along. This is good news for me, since it means he won’t mind bringing me to the city. During this talk, I also get his name—Fiir-ette. Weird name. Then again, he probably thinks Fennrick is a pretty weird name too, so we’re even.

Getting to the city only took a few days, all of which I spent traveling with Fiir-ette. In return for the ride, I shared my dried meat with him, and he let me in on what he’s transporting—barrels full of wine. We drank a bit together, and I made the clever choice of not getting too shitfaced. Only a little bit.

Again, it’s not easy understanding someone you barely share a language with, but with some dirt and a stick, we’re able to communicate grander narratives. Using that, he was able to explain that he was actually the son of a nearby farmer who had recently decided to dabble in doing fruit wine. So, now, he was transporting the wine to the nearby city to show the regional judge in the hopes that it might be deemed good enough to make primarily. Not a lot of money to be made in the fruit-game, I suppose.

Since I’m a polite sort of feller, I communicated in return what my mission and purpose was. He found it very engaging, and we continued sharing stories throughout our days together.

On the fourth day of our travels, we reached the city. At that point, he had already marked his farm on the map, and told me to come visit if I was ever in the area again. I, likewise, told him that if he wanted more meat of the kind I’d given him, Juuta’s cabin was always open to new traders.

And then, we parted ways.