I have been avoiding Truffles.
I’m walking toward the camp, and I’m feeling tremendously anxious about this.
I’ll be very honest with you; I feel so guilty that I would gladly dig myself a hole and stay in it for the rest of my life if it was up to me. But this is one of the lessons that my father – not my mother, surprisingly enough – taught me.
Like, maybe someone would argue that what happened in the inn was not my fault, but I was the one who escalated it. And that’s how people got on top of my pal Truffles—the kid is clearly sensitive. I’ve met people like him who would stop going out of the house because of bullying.
What if I did enough damage to cause that because of my instinctive reaction? What if I had put this guy in a situation that he would have never encountered without me?
I feel this gripping anxiety grab my throat and spread along my shoulder blades.
I see Stan from afar in his usual spot under the statue, and for a second, I’m tempted to go up to him and ask about Truffles before I face Blondie himself.
Nah. That would be cheating. Goddamn it.
I steer away, right to the camp, violently scratching the back of my head—my very own anxious tick.
I swallow multiple times and slap my face to calm myself down.
When I start seeing the first homeless people, at least a small smile appears on my face. Quite a few of them are now sporting some fresh cuts.
OH, SHIT. Dammit, I didn’t swear. I can make an enchanted pseudo-electric razor!!! YO! THAT’S GOING TO SPEED UP EVERYTHING!!!
Wait, can the [Blacksmith] make pieces so small? Mmm. I’ll need to ask Raul. I’ll draw up the blueprints for them later.
Anyway, I’m here to apologize to Truffles and check on him. And you know what, I’d come here with Tiberius and Quintus the week before the beating, but I haven’t cut any hair since. It’s time I fix that.
I see Truffles laying down on a patch of grass in the sun with his comical peg on his nose and napping?
I walk up to the man and take a big breath, “Yo, Truffles. What’s up?”
The guy’s eyes shoot open.
…
“Joey?”
“In the flesh, brother. Listen—”
Truffles interrupts me with a deep, relieved sigh.
"I, uh, I thought you were too scared, um, to come out of the house. Tiberius and Quintus told me you holed up in the house."
“What?”
"So, the thing is, like, I was beaten up by some soldiers, right? And I really wanted to help more, but you know, I don't really have any fighting skills; my parents are way better at that than me. And also, Stan – he said not to bother you with the soap until you're feeling better. He said I have to be more considerate of what other people think—my father says the same. He says hi, by the way.”
“Who? Stan?”
“My father. He should be back in town in a month.”
I look at the blond guy in front of me, wondering if I just completely misunderstood the type of person I thought he was.
“Wait, aren’t your parents…”
“Dead? No. They are [Bards],” he says with an awkward shrug.
“Do [Bards] travel a lot?”
He nods and then doesn’t say anything else.
Wait.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
I’m getting derailed here.
“Listen, I was actually the one who wanted to apologize for what happened. I made it worse, and that was absolutely stupid of me. Maybe there was a way to avoid that fight.”
“Acid bombs,” Truffles mutters while squirming a little as he gets up. “I—I want to study how to make acid vials. That’s how some [Alchemist] fight. Next time, uh, we melt the [Soldiers].”
What the hell is happening here?
“Melt? As in, kill them?”
“My father says that bullies and dangerous threats are better handled in a swift manner. I sent him a letter, and he told me if I can make them, that’s the best way to get rid of enemies who don’t have magical protection. He also offered to buy the ingredients for me, but I refused. I don’t take money from my parents.”
“Truffles, my man, I think I need you to stop talking right now and take this from the top.”
“Okay.”
…
“Let me see if I understand,” I say to the blond guy who’s scarfing down one of the many sandwiches I brought. “Your family is made of two high-level [Bards] who both work for nobles and the Adventurer’s Guild. Your family is rich. Like, extremely rich. You want to become an [Alchemist], but you know that if things are too easy, you will not get the levels in the right way.”
Truffles nods along as he bats his eyelids nervously at me.
“Dad has been on a long quest with a bunch of people to defeat a group of [Necromancers]. Err, mom too. Both went. But my dad has the attacking songs, I think. And my mom has the ones that protect. But sometimes, they switch. But when they switch, they say that—”
“Wait, wait. My brother in Christ, please, let me finish before we get lost again.”
If there’s one person who can apparently ramble more than me, it’s the blondie. I hadn’t pinned it down like that the first time around, but it’s also true that I haven’t really spent much time with him, have I?
“So, your parents are two very high-level adventurers. And you live like a homeless. Nod if I’m correct.”
He nods.
“Ok. So, your family is very well and alive and could take you out of poverty at any moment.”
“My dad sends me money every week through the Merchant Guild. I always send it back.”
“How much money does your father send you, out of pure curiosity?” I ask, flabbergasted.
“A few hundred,” he shrugs.
“Damn, a few hundred silvers? You could rent a really nice house for that!”
“Golds,” Truffles says without missing a beat.
“WHAT?!”
…
I grill Truffles for half an hour before I get an idea of the actual person I have in front of me.
“My dad sends me money for myself. I don’t want it. I want to get my class on my own. The only thing I accepted from him is this,” the dude carefully fishes out a silvery medallion from his dirty clothes and opens it for me.
As the thing comes open, a beautiful melody starts playing, hummed. As a few words start coming out, Truffles jealously closes it and puts it back around his neck.
“That’s my mother. They had it enchanted for me. I send them a letter with my progress every week. Sometimes, I want to lie because they get really worried. I told them Stan is helping me out. They really want to meet Stan. Oh, and they said they want to meet you as well. My dad told me he would get me a formula for acid bombs, but I think mom was trying to tear the letter apart because it was all crumpled up. I really want the formula for acid bombs, but I don’t accept free knowledge. It makes you stagnate.”
“So, you just read books on Alchemy and try out stuff?”
“I can’t read.”
I look at the guy in front of me who drops these bombs on me without blinking.
“What?!”
“I can’t read. I can read letters, but words are very hard for me. They… mix.”
“And how are you learning Alchemy, then?”
“My dad says he learned to sing by singing. I’m trying to do the same.”
I facepalm so hard I think I just gave myself a bruise.
If my mother is watching from above, she’s tearing her hair out at the thought that no one is helping this kid.
“So, you see letters all jumbled up? Are they reversed sometimes?”
He nods curiously.
“They are all over the place. They are upside down, reversed, and sometimes, they compress inside a word. My dad tried really hard to teach me how to read and even brought me to a few [Healers], but my eyes are fine. My eyes are actually very sharp. Not as sharp as my nose, but still good.”
“I can slightly help with that,” I say cautiously.
I have dated a girl for a while who also dealt with dyslexia. Sorry, I meant that she taught dyslexic kids how to read. I remember asking her a bunch of questions about it. Now, I’ll be extremely honest, I have no clue if I can actually be of much help. I can probably do a little more than what the Middle Ages did to people like him, though, that’s for sure.
“It’s fine,” Truffles shrugs. “My dad has tried a lot. I just can’t read.”
“Not exactly,” I say, exhaling loudly. “The problem is in your head. You can train yourself to recognize letters more efficiently, though.”
“How?”
“Gimme a second.”
[Advanced Mana Sense]
[Light Manipulation]
I form a big ‘T R U F F L E S,’ all spaced out with letters as big as the blondie’s torso and with the space of another huge letter in between.
“You can recognize letters, right? Let’s see what you’ve got.”
…
“T-R,” Truffles starts spelling out his name very slowly. It takes a minute, but by the time he’s done, he looks very pleased with himself.
“Small letters are the worse if you are dyslexic. My advice? We can practice this stuff together every day. I can use some [Light] practice, and you can try harder and harder.”
Also, I think to myself, you might actually get a skill that would help you read.
I don’t say it out loud to avoid jinxing it. If it happens serendipitously, it’ll be much, much better. If he knows about it, he might form some sort of a mental block in that regard.
“I—” Truffles looks disoriented.
“It’s fine, man. I also thought that I really needed to get you the soap recipe. I just need to think it through to make sure you can get the ingredients in the easiest way possible. If you can read and write stuff down, it will be much, much easier for you to become an [Alchemist].”