“Ienus Rob, einus Elincia,” I said under the attentive glance of Elincia’s emerald eyes. I am Rob, you are Elincia.

Elincia nodded across the campfire and a smile of satisfaction tugged at her lips. Her features had a strange timeless look to them that made me doubt her age. Her skin was smooth and fair, yet, her smart eyes were wise beyond her apparent age. Ultimately, my lack of vocabulary and the memories of my mother’s chancla prevented me from asking.

“Eique nus?” I asked, hesitantly.

“Elincia,” she answered.

“Ieque nus?” I asked again.

“Rob.”

Elincia clapped exactly two times, a gesture I quickly recognized as some sort of unspoken ‘good job’. It was funny that Elincia celebrated even the smallest of my successes. Kind of cute even. If I had to venture a guess, she had already worked with small children before. Maybe she had a little sibling, or a child.

Conditions fulfilled.

You have obtained a new skill.

Scholar unique skill [Master of Languages] acquired.

As always, the System prompt startled me. My brain was once again kneaded like dough and stretched like noodles, to the point I was about to lose balance. The sensation receded after an instant and I found a mint grammatical framework carved into my brain. Common. I couldn’t speak it because my inner dictionary was empty but strangely enough, I knew how to arrange sentences.

New mental note; ask Elincia if everyone in this world felt the same after learning a new skill. As far as it didn’t leave permanent neurological damage I was kinda okay with it. I decided the System wasn’t as bad as I initially thought.

Blinking repeatedly, I waited for the sensation of having an empty dictionary engraved in my brain to disappear. But it didn’t. Whatever change the System had made to my brain seemed to be permanent, which was worrisome in its own way. The perspective of a System that could control my brain was creepy to say the least.

“It is what it is,” I sighed.

Taking advantage of my new skills was the only reasonable course of action, so I started pointing at things, prompting Elincia to say their names in Common. Myinch meant tree and also wood depending on the context. Jilp meant stone. Sje meant floor, ground, and the lowest part of something. Sa’ meant branch and twig. Tsuil meant knife, blade and eyelashes for some reason. Feeding the empty dictionary inside my brain felt as good as eating the golden fruits. Was this the System’s true power?

From time to time, Elincia stopped paying attention to my demands and surveyed our surroundings. Given her bow skills and the agility she displayed during the fight with the Black Wolf, I assumed she was a Hunter or an Archer. And if my RPG knowledge was translatable to this world, she also had some sort of vigilance skill. Whatever it was, no monsters came near the camp.

After exhausting all the material objects around us, I went for more intangible things. I pretended to eat from a plate. A timid smile crept on Elincia’s lips as I mimicked, but she managed to remain stoic. Ma meant eat. Kwut meant sleep. Jik meant drink and read. ‘Drinking a book’ was technically a correct sentence in Common.

I learnt about twenty common verbs when the System popped another sudden prompt in front of my face.

New word learned!

Words learned: 301

Rank: Twaddling Toddler

My brain, assisted by [Master of Languages] compiled meanings and conjugations at a record speed as Elincia taught me words and concepts. I was so immersed in the activity that I didn’t notice the passage of time. From time to time, Elincia’s face relaxed and she seemed to enjoy our conversation just to return to her cautious ways a moment later.

“I’m not a monster, you know?” I said in broken Common when I ran out of concepts to mimic.

Elincia shrugged her shoulders, raising a wall between us once more.

“We are in the Farlands, you better start assuming everyone you meet here is a Mimic. Even if you are not a Mimic, you can be a Bandit or something worse,” Elincia said as if it was the most obvious thing. “But I don’t expect a Scholar to understand how to survive in the Farlands.”

“How do you know my class?” I asked, ignoring her derisive tone. There was something behind Elincia’s snarky attitude other than common mistrust. At least she was trying to use simple language to talk to me.

“You have a skill called [Master of Languages], that’s how you are learning Common so fast. I might live in the butthole of the kingdom but I’m not that ignorant,” the white-haired woman shrugged her shoulders again. It seemed like my time of asking questions had run out. “I need answers. Who are you? Where are you from? What’s that thing strapped to your chest? And remember, if you lie to me I’ll leave you here.”

Despite the fact I spent the last years constantly receiving shit from my former boss, I wasn’t a fan of being threatened. Instead of snapping back, I took a deep breath and pondered over my answer. There was a time for snarky comments and a time for using my brain. And I couldn’t ignore the fact the System had told me to hide my place of origin.

[Awareness] flooded my brain with possible explanations. Maybe the inhabitants of this world knew about dimensional travelers, and they didn’t like them.

Luckily, I was a great liar.

“I’m Robert Clarke, a humble Scholar from the City of Light,” I said, extending my hand towards Elincia. She looked at me like I was crazy, so I explained. “You would grab my hand. It’s a greeting from my land, to show each party is unarmed.”

Elincia didn’t move from her seat.

“Stupid. You can’t tell what skills someone has with a handshake,” she said, ignoring my greeting and keeping her hands under her cloak. I hoped she wasn’t pointing at me with a hidden mini crossbow. “I have never heard of a City of Light, sounds fake.”

Expecting at least the benefit of the doubt seemed to be asking too much and my blood was starting to boil. People around me always regarded me as a relaxed dude, however, even I had a limit. And my limit seemed to be stranded in an unknown forest with ravenous beasts trying to eat me.

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“Look, lady, I was peacefully surveying a property when I fell through a trap door and woke up here in the middle of the Farlands with only an obscure warning from the System. I have killed creatures I didn’t know existed. I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, and I’m fucking tired,” I said, indiscriminately mixing English and Common. I was starting to lose my temper. “So, if you could stop giving me shit, I'd appreciate it.”

Elincia recoiled and I instantly regretted my words. I wasn’t making a good case to win her trust. Unexpectedly enough, the woman raised her hands with her palms forward, her face suddenly showing signs of regret.

“You are right, I’m sorry. You have only helped me and I took my frustrations out with you… and I’m sorry you can’t return home, you must be going through a lot right now and I’m not helping,” Elincia said with an apologetic tone. As the words came from her lips, it became apparent I wasn’t the only one going through a lot.

The conversation died and the only sound that disturbed the forest silence was the cracking of the logs on the campfire.

“Let’s start again,” Elincia stood from the boulder she was using as a seat and limped to the campfire. She sat next to me and awkwardly extended her hand. “Elincia Rosebud, Alchemist level twenty four. Don’t you dare say anything about my last name if you know what is good for you.”

My jaw hung open for a solid second before I could react and shook her hand. It was soft. I pantomimed zipping my mouth shut and Elincia gave me a confused expression. The woman tilting her head was the most delightful gesture I had seen in my almost thirty years of life. She didn’t seem to understand what I was doing so I showed her the zipper of my jacket.

Elincia was beyond fascinated by the mechanism to the point she leaned over me to have a better look. When I offered her the jacket she flatly refused, hiding her hands inside her cloak once again.

“Looks expensive and I probably don’t have the money to pay for it if I break it,” she shook her head energetically.

Suddenly a shadow settled on Elincia’s face so I changed the subject.

“Where are we anyway?” I asked.

Elincia grabbed a small branch and drew a few lines on the ground.

“We are in Ebros Kingdom's northern frontier, about three weeks away from the capital, in a remote shithole called Farcrest under the rule of Marquis Astur, protector of the frontier and bla bla bla...” Elincia pointed out with her stick.

The Farlands encroached all the northern and western part of the kingdom. I unintentionally frowned at the notice we were in a kingdom. I wasn’t eager to deal with royalty on top of the already dangerous monsters, I just hoped their laws regarding foreigners were not brutal.

Elincia noticed my gesture because she quickly added. “Living near the Northern Farlands isn’t all that bad. It’s been ten years without a Monster Surge so you could say it's a peaceful place.”

If the Black Wolves weren’t ‘all that bad’, I didn’t want to imagine what kind of abomination inhabited the ‘quite bad’ places. Well, that was a partial lie. The mere idea of seeing dragons and other mythical creatures from Earth was hyping me a bit more than expected.

My expression must’ve given me away because the woman instantly scolded me. “I’m not saying the Farlands are a safe place, they are no place for a Scholar no matter how adventure hungry you are.”

Under Elincia’s harsh eyes was a quite protective personality.

“I had enough adventure for a lifetime already,” I lied.

“Pff, typical Scholar, going out to see the sun for half a day and calling it ‘adventure’,” Elincia mockingly said despite having scolded me two seconds earlier but when I turned to reply I saw the mischievous smile on her lips. She was teasing me.

“For your information, I already killed a Corrupted Bear and an Elder Black Wolf. Un-fucking-scratched,” I opened my arms for Elincia to see my wound free body.

“Aaand, unsurprisingly enough, the Scholar blatantly lies like a typical Scholar,” Elincia crossed her arms under her cloak and glanced at me with her deep emerald eyes. “So… you found the camping gear before or after crossing the magical trapdoor?”

The woman’s skeptical tone returned and a mask of mistrust took over Elincia’s face again.

Then it hit me. I was an Earthling molded and used to the customs of my own land. Back on Earth, meeting a random person on a trekking trail was just a chance of engaging in small talk. The possibility of finding a stranger with nefarious intentions was real but slim at best. However, the same rules didn’t apply in this world.

“The trapdoor took me to a near perfect copy of the building I was surveying. All the camping gear belonged to the owner of the cabin except for my shoes and my pants,” I explained.

“And you couldn’t return through the same trapdoor?” Elincia continued relentlessly dissecting my story. Maybe the fact I wasn’t suspicious of Elincia was a suspicious gesture per se.

“Do you think I would be here if the trapdoor was a two-way portal?” I pretended to be deeply offended.

“I guess not?” Elincia doubtfully conceded. “Scholars are well known to poke their noses into dangerous places from time to time. When they are not locked up with their books, they like to peek into places full of mystery like the Farlands where the magic runs free and lawless.”

That was quite an accurate description of myself.

“I’m more of a teaching focused Scholar,” I replied, trying to deflect her accusations.

But she had a point. When I was a kid I dreamed of being an explorer Indiana Jones style to discover forgotten temples with magical portals to other dimensions. Then I learned there was nothing left to be unearthed. However, I was here, in a magical world with a woman who had never heard of planet Earth. It struck me as funny, little Robby wouldn’t believe what awaited him in the far future.

Elincia suddenly perked up and glanced towards the forest. I thought I saw a glint of mana swirling around her emerald eyes but before I could notice, it was gone.

“We overextended our stay, we have to go," Elincia stood up, putting her weight on her healthy leg. The sun was high in the sky but I knew from experience that afternoons were short at that point of the year. We only had a few hours to leave the forest behind before dusk.

“I saw like three dead Black Wolves down the ravine,” I said, suddenly remembering the mangled corpses I had found earlier.

“Yeah, one or two days old corpses. Nothing to worry about, I’ll get you out of the woods before anything could find us,” Elincia shrugged her shoulders as she quickly put out the campfire.

We scavenged the few things in Elincia's camp that survived the Wolf’s raid and started walking south. Elincia led the march and guided me through the forest until the terrain became rockier and rougher and the trees more scarce. Even with her wounded leg, she didn’t complain once.

As we left the trees behind and we reached the skirt of a steep rocky hill, Elincia slowed down and pointed towards a hidden path between two rocks.

“Black Wolves didn’t usually venture out of the forest. If you ever get lost in the Farlands, stay out of the forest and next to the mountains unless you know exactly where you are going,” Elincia said with her pedagogic tone of voice. “And avoid fighting at all costs unless you know you can win.”

“Now you sound like my mother lecturing me before going camping,” I said, enduring the slope of the hill with the help of [Improved Stamina]. At that point I loved the System as much as I hated it.

“I get that from time to time,” Elincia turned around to give me a tired smile. As we crossed the hidden path between the rocks, Elincia suddenly stopped. “It was fun to teach you how to speak Common, and sorry for being an asshole, Robert Clarke. I think this is our goodbye. If you hug this mountain you will reach Farcrest by tomorrow.”

“What? Why?” I asked. The woman’s sudden goodbye caught me off guard, I was under the impression we were going in the same direction. “You aren’t going to Farcrest?”

The light on Elincia’s face faded away as she shook her head

“I’m here to gather herbs and I can’t return empty handed,” the woman sighed with a sad expression. “And before you come up with any Scholar solutions, yes, I already tried to buy the ingredients back in Farcrest but with the war in the western frontier, prices are sky high.”

I closed my mouth. To her credit, I was totally going to say buying the ingredients and taking advantage of her class seemed wiser than venturing into the Farlands.

“But you are wounded…” I objected, I was starting to like the girl and her blunt yet genuine style.

“One of my kids is sick. I can’t leave without ingredients to brew the medicine,” Elincia cut me off, panic almost showing on her face.

My heart sank. Despite having a sick child at home, Elincia had taken the time to patiently teach me the basics of her language. It might be a long shot but my backpack was full of the Alchemical ingredients I had looted the day before. I pulled out my backpack and revealed the inner pockets filled to the brim with high magical concentration herbs. Elincia let out a small squeal and her eyes twinkled upon seeing my stash of weeds.

A special skill wasn’t required to see that my loot was valuable.

“I’m willing to part with some herbs in exchange for a guide, what do you say?” I tried to sound as if I wanted to do business instead of handing herbs out of pity.

“Dire Cress, Moon Laurel, Deadman Nettle, Red Rat-tail…” Elincia listed the ingredients as I opened the pockets of my backpack. Then, suddenly, she rubbed her eyes and let out a sigh full of relief.

Elincia looked at me with her reddened eyes and smiled.

“We have a deal, Scholar Robert Clarke.”