Admittedly, It’s fairly hard to have a good conversation with someone through an intermediary, like a translator. However, Freid was trying his hardest to talk with me, mostly due to his own curiosity towards my smithing skills.
After the third or fourth round of questioning, though, I had resolved to learn the local language. It was much too cumbersome to rely on Bea, and have her translate every question Freid had—And there were a lot of them. In addition, I could see Bea becoming more and more annoyed with his seemly endless range of questions, from things like my birthplace, my parents, and my race, to other things like my level, the food I ate the most of, and the infrastructure of the Continents.
I easily spent a few hours answering his questions, but it felt like a period of time three times as long had passed. And, even worse, there was no indication that he would be slowing down any time soon.
Eventually, Bea and I had to conspire together, and make a valid excuse in order to escape.
And thus, we ended up in the palace’s library, just a little late for my slightly less than real tutoring session.
“How many books are here?” I asked, slightly in awe of the library.
Coming from Earth originally, a simple library wouldn’t normally be enough to impress me. In fact, I could go to one of the libraries located in a big city, and find three times as many books there. However, it wouldn’t necessarily have the same charm this library does, with it’s long stacks of finely carved wooden shelves, and leather bound books discolored by age and use. It wouldn’t have the soft light streaming in through dusty windows and sputtering mana lights set in key locations, or that musty old-book smell.
Besides, I remember that books were going out of fashion on Earth, with the advent of portable handheld devices able to hold entire genres in their memories. Though, most weren’t reading books anyway, preferring to watch TV, or use the internet.
However, there was no such thing here. People could only rely on books for research, unless they wanted to learn via word of mouth. Thus, a library would be a haven for anyone thus inclined.
This one seems curiously empty of people, though. There weren’t any signs that there was another person in the library besides Bea and I, an odd thing for a library so well kept, and in the middle of the palace. I had imagined that there would at least be some scholars frequenting the tables set up inside, but there was nobody, and I couldn’t see any signs that there was a librarian either.
“It’s so empty here…” I said aloud. Bea heard me, and shook her head sadly.
“It’s the royal library. Those who want to come here are not allowed to, and the ones that are, do not hold any love for books.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, somewhat confused by what Bea had said.
“Simply, that you need a seal of approval from the royal family to enter this place. However, because of some of the books here, the royal family scarcely hands them out.”
“Then, why am I here? I don’t have a seal of approval.”
“No—you have something better. After all, Joan let you stay in the palace.”
“Oh—Her authority supersedes that of the royal family’s? How does that work?”
Bea smiled conspiratorially, and spoke in a soft whisper almost mockingly.
“It’s well known that if Joan wanted to rule, she would be. But no—due to laziness, she placed another family on the throne, and let them manage the day to day business.”
“So, as long as I stay with Joan, I can do whatever I want?”
“Technically, yes. Though, I’d advise that you keep from upsetting the nobles or the royal family, since things could get a little troublesome.”
“But, entering the library is fine?”
“Yeah. Nobody should care enough to do anything about it.”
“Then, I guess I should start studying. It would be a shame if I couldn’t converse with people by myself.”
Bea nodded.
“Are you sure that you don’t need any lessons from me? It’s much easier to learn a language with someone guiding you, after all.”
I shook my head, reaffirming that I wouldn’t need her help in this. I got a feeling for the spoken aspect of the language from Freid, and his endless questions.
To most, just hearing a language for a few hours, then having gotten a grasp of it’s basic sounds and structure seems completely impossible. I’m sure that most have realized that I’m not normal by now, and as such, shouldn’t try to apply such paltry common sense to me.
It should only take me a few weeks to master speaking, and even less time to understand writing. After all, anything needed to learn how to read is here, in this library full of books.
So, I picked one of the thinnest books I could find, immediately recognizing it as one intended for children. Inside it, crude drawings of various animals and objects were sketched out, with graceful looking words written underneath. It kind of reminded me of Arabic, a language spoken back on Earth, but greatly simplified. All the letters were connected in a flowing script that was easy to understand once you knew what you were looking at. For instance, there was a word set before the subject of the picture, which I recognized as this language’s equivalent for ‘the’. And, going by what I had heard from Freid, I knew how the word should sound. It was through cross-referencing like this, that I gained a basic knowledge of the language’s alphabet, and what sorts of sounds the letters are able to make as well as when they are made.
In other words, I now have the fundamental basics for the language’s grammar. Now, I just need to practice in order to learn more vocabulary, and grammar rules. And to do that, I need to read more, and listen to others speak.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
All in all, I spent around five hours in the library, coming out just in time for dinner. In fact, I ran straight into Bea, who had left halfway through my little study session, complaining about how boring it was. She was returning to tell me about the dinner when I turned the corner outside the library, nearly knocking her over as she did the same.
“Ah, are you hungry, Kai? If you want, there’s a dinner set up at the same place we had breakfast with Joan and the War Council.”
“Yeah, that would be great. Though, am I able to take books out from the library?”
“Of course. Just, try to put them back, would you?”
“Sure. Now then, you said something about dinner?”
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The food was good, and I got to listen to some more of the native language here. Like Bea had said, the people at the dinner were the same ones that had been at the breakfast—The War Council, she called them. Considering that all of them held significant positions in the military, it made sense. I learned that there was a second War Council, though. However, that one was the royal family’s War Council, and was mostly filled with those generals and nobles who didn’t had the ability to join Joan’s Council—Where all the real power was.
In fact, I learned that the whole palace was nearly divided in half, not metaphorically, but literally. Half the palace grounds were dominated by Joan, and whoever she enjoyed having near her, like me, and her War Council. The other half were for the Royal family, and they used it for audiences, feasts, and living quarters. It explained why the palace felt so empty to me, since this half was largely uninhabited and unused. Apparently, I would know if I had accidently wandered into the Royal half of the palace, since there were people and guards everywhere, while Joan’s half was fairly barren and empty.
I asked at one point why there weren’t any guards in this half of the palace, even though there were on the other. I mean, wouldn’t it be easy for an intruder to enter the palace on our side, and go from there to the other half?
Joan just laughed at that.
“Well, first, they would have to escape detection from all of us here at this table—and even in the extremely unlikely event that they pull that off, the Royal guards are no fools. They would catch someone suspicious fairly quickly, no matter where they had come from.”
After understanding this, I found it silly to have even considered my question in the first place.
Though, most of the people at the table seemed pleased and proud when Joan had stated that it would be difficult to get by them. It gave me the impression of a bunch of children becoming happy that they had been praised by their parent.
After the dinner, I went with Bea to the bath again, and came out feeling relaxed and fresh. The large bath felt very empty with only the two of us in it, but was still satisfying. After leaving the bath, I changed into a simple one-piece dress. It seemed like the curse that had befallen my during the Summit followed me here, keeping me from my comfortable pants and shirts. That is to say, the only things that the maids here claimed to have in my size were dresses. I could always wear the clothing I had found on Ascension Island, but those were currently in my room.
Except the boots. Those were now taking the guise of shoes matching the dress. After all, they were the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever had.
As we left the bathing room, Bea asked if I would be able to find my way back to my room. Of course, I said yes.
We went our separate ways, and I forgot about something rather fundamental.
That is, was I supposed to turn right or left from the bathing room?
Ah. I’m completely lost, aren’t I?
Well, I’ll find my room eventually. I hope.
Though, these corridors look a little familiar now. Maybe I’m getting closer?
No, I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere back there, since everything now looks totally foreign. I don’t think I’ve been to this part of the palace yet.
In fact, I was furiously thinking about how I would get back to my room, when I seemed to collide with another person.
Wait, I say collide, but that would imply that both sides took damage. No, I stayed were I was, like I was hit by a small breeze, while the unfortunate kid that ran into me fell backwards, arms wind-milling through the air in a poorly conceived attempt to regain balance.
It became clear that it hadn’t worked when the boy fell on his bottom, and glared at me angrily from the floor.
“How dare you!”
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Author's Note:
Sorry it's short, but I've been busy with a few things now that my life has settled down.
Firstly and foremost, I would like to speak about the nature of this story.
That is, I've made it up as I went. I never really planned beyond the point where Kai gets forcibly transported outside the continents. I knew that it would happen, but not how I would get there, nor what would go on afterwards. That's part of the reason I've slowed down a little, since I need to get a grasp of where I'm going with all this. I don't want to disappoint anyone with a subpar story, after all. So, for those who might have been fearing it a little, no. I am not dropping this story anytime soon. It will reach an ending, though, sometime in the distant future.
Before that, though, the other reason the releases have slowed down, is that I'm working on a second story.
Yeah, that's right.
And, it will be much, much better quality than this one is. With a better storyline, as well. Just think of Divine Bladesmith as my warm-up.
I'll let you guys know once I start releasing chapters for it.