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By the time I’d reached Otoko and Onna’s destination my vocabulary increased immensely. Otoko taught me some more words along the way and even went out of his way for some basic sentence structure. If I was a deity, I would’ve given him my blessings already. Just by his crude instruction, I felt that I had a grasp on the inner workings of the language.
To start off, it turned out that he was teaching me two separate languages. I didn’t know what either of them was called, but there were significant pronunciation differences in the two sets of words he would teach me. One was much similar to a European language, while the other bore resemblance to some Asian tongue.
“Arrived. This is Itogutshi.”
I was able to understand more and more of Otoko’s words as at the end of the forest’s clearing was civilization. Not a small hamlet or village, but a local town with a gate filled with traffic. Wagons pulled by dragonesque horses. Stone pathways lined narrow streets filled with vendors and coaches. People wore robe-like garments that varied in autumn red, orange, or green. They reminded me of something familiar. Children frolicked in the alleyways, and clotheslines decorated above me. The fresh chill of the wind ran down my suit like a cool dampen towl, and my shoulders immediately relaxed.
My mind reminisced about my father’s hometown. Everything about how the leaves scattered to the ground, to the gabled roofs and one-story buildings, reminded me of a bittersweet memory.
It was here where I truly heard Otoko and Onna’s language being spoken—people arguing in the stalls, customers idly talking in the plaza, all a smooth sail of vowels and consonants entering my ears at once. I could hardly contain my awe when various stat screens appeared everywhere, apparently they were just as common as people on phones.
“This… good…” I tried to form my own sentence. ‘Good’ was the only way I could describe this town in their tongue.
“Hm, you think so?”
Otoko couldn’t go into details, but he prepared me some rudimentary grammar rules for the local language of the region. In a language, the most fundamental parts of a sentence was the subject, verb, and object—SOV. For example, a Japanese sentence would be structured ‘I apple bought’, or SOV. From what I learned in English class back in the day, it would be SVO, or ‘I bought an apple’. Luckily, the language of everyone in the town including Otoko and Onna was SOV; The same sentence structure as Japanese. Honestly… I wished I knew more than speaking like a caveman the entire time.
“I’m going to do some personal business on my own.” Otoko walked in front of me and Onna. “Ruri, can you take…”
I’d forgotten that this entire time, I never knew any of their names, nor did they know mine. I stepped forward and gave a slight bow. “Kaizenji Kawari.”
He returned the gesture with a bow as well. “Nice to meet you. Ruri can take you to the Adventurers’ Guild to register you in.”
“Hold on, why do I have to do it?” Onna, now I knew her by ‘Ruri’, butted her way in. She crossed her arms.
“Mister Kaizenji needs to register at the Guild, but he can’t do it alone. I would love to help…” Otoko’s face became somber as if remembering something unlikeable. His neutral expression contorted, and returned to normal. “But this is something important I have to attend to. I’m counting on you, Ruri.”
Onna still tried to respond back while he blended into the crowd. “Wait, Sorah!... Hmph.” She turned to me, who was still trying to process the conversation. Her eyes glared and I perked my shoulders. “What are you waiting for? I’m taking you to the Guild.”
I couldn’t understand most of what Otoko ‘Sorah’ told Ruri. He was going to go off on his own somewhere and wanted Ruri to take me to a… I didn’t quite understand the place. Following Ruri, her braided blonde hair and blue cloak made her stand out like a sore thumb among the sea of townsmen. She didn’t even wait for me to catch up while I tried to weave my way through the crowd. This young woman really hated me that much.
I’d finally caught up to her as she made a right turn to the next street. “Miss Ruri…”
“That’s Qawasumi Ruri to you.” She barked back with verbal fangs. I’d accidentally used her given name.
“Okay, Miss Qawasumi… Where go?” I asked her in the simplest of phrases as she stopped in front of a building.
‘We’re already here.”
“This place what?”
Qawasumi snapped back towards me. “The Adventurers’ Guild. Do I need to spell it for you? Bokhensya Kyohkai. Boh, khen, syah, kyoh, kaih!”
She mimicked Otoko in the way she enunciated the word. I should mind not to refer to Otoko as ‘Sorah’, since it was probably his given name as well. “Bokensha Kyoukai. That what?”
“Uh… you know. A place where adventurers can increase their level caps, take quests, and all that stuff.”
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“Bokensha?...” I tilted my head. She looked at me as if I had the IQ of a monkey trying to speak Mandarin. I just couldn’t comprehend the complexity of the sentences she spat out. My pride had been swallowed with each question already. Qawasumi stomped her feet on the ground.
“Forget it, we’re going in!”
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Soon after I figured out what ‘Bokhensya KyohkaiAdventurers' Guild’ meant, and I’d never wanted to bash my head on a wall so hard before. This language stuff was getting to me. The Adventurers’ Guild was the place where every child went to raise their level cap as I observed through the indoor windows inside the facility-like structure. As such, the children would be stuck at Level 0 unless they were taken here. A cap at Level 0?
I swallowed a bit more of my nonexistent pride walking through these hallways. Never mind the veteran adventurers hanging out at the bar, I was practically on the same level as toddlers sitting in those rooms with interior windows.
However, the thing that I feared the most was, how to raise my level cap.
“Ah, Miss Qawasumi,” A brown uniform-wearing employee of the Guild came up to her and me. “And this is…”
Qawasumi flicked her hair and moved aside. “A person named Kaizenji Kawari. He would like to increase his level cap.”
“Oh my, I see you’re the same as ever with that attitude, Miss Qawasumi.” The employee gave a practiced smile, as she came up to me. “Mister Kaizenji? Don’t mind her too much. She just hates men… more than women, in general.”
A misandrist? I couldn’t imagine. No wonder why she disliked me from the beginning. Even Otoko, who it appeared like she knew deeply, albeit spoke harshly to him. Otoko… he’d been a good man for toughing it out.
“Nice to meet you. My name Kaizenji Kawari.”
“Well, Mister Kaizenji, I would gladly assist you in increasing your level cap. Would you mind showing me your profile?”
I heard the word ‘zuhyo’. Supposing that meant I needed to show my stats. My hands floated in front of me as I recalled what they’d taught me. “Tahblo.”[https://i.imgur.com/pVlHsIG.png]
The words obeyed my command and manifested the stats in front. As my eyes moved down, I noticed that my skills category had something new. Was that always there before? The employee came over to my side to look, with her practiced smile still showing. And it dropped in a matter of seconds. Her lips drooped down as her eyebrows tensed up. Her happy work demeanor toned down as she fixed onto my screen for more than a minute.
“Something wrong?”
“Hm, hmm… Alright, Mister Kaizenji. In order to increase your level cap, you’ll be seated in this room. I assume that you’ve prepared yourself for the interview?” She nonchalantly sauntered over to the nearest room, which through the windows was empty of people. “Wait there, okay sir?”
Without understanding, I confidently said the only word people used when they didn’t understand anything. “Yes, ma’am.”
Personless chairs filled the room aligned with long rows of tables and a blackboard. Sunlight peeked through the clerestory windows. I tapped my foot against the leg of the chair, while boredom encompassed my anxiousness.
Qawasumi stood at the other end of the interior windows in front of me, not at all paying attention. I decided to get up from the chair and head towards the glass. Through the windows, I could peer into the hallway, where I noticed that employee talking with someone. They were also in uniform, but different from the one the woman wore. Unlike the brown blazer-like covering, they were clad in white.
My instincts told me what this could possibly be. They were most likely going to interview me in some shape or form. The table arrangement had dictated it—one table in front and a row of others in the back. A company’s HR would dictate someone’s future, someone’s path, someone’s life. That feeling of failure crept up my back, a spine-chilling anxiety that consumed every job seeker wearing the armor called a suit. A salaryman’s first hurdle.
I checked myself in the glass’ reflection, straightening my tie and making my hair look somewhat presentable. If I was right, then first impressions were necessary. Projecting confidence, predicting questions, and taking a deep breath, all of which I’d gained from losing in the recruitment race many times. But I did not know what questions to prepare, nor was I aware of what I would be asked. My CV was my stats, and that was about it. A spontaneous interview.
The most worrisome part of it all was the obvious language barrier.
Thus the door swung open with a deafening creak, breaking the silence I had in the room. Immediately I returned to my seat, straightening my back and keeping my head up. The employee held the knob as another figure walked in with such presence, it was impossible to ignore that something was off. A man, who was my ‘examination proctor’ wore a long white jacket buttoned to the teeth; A large stature where his head barely hit the head jamb, with a faint scent of seniority that I could not tell if his white hair was from old age or from youth. The employee closed the door, and I heard a clicking sound.
“Name’s Guiral. I shall be your proctor for today.” He fixed his attire and took the seat behind the table in front of me, as I predicted. Guiral… His name and appearance clearly weren’t from this area. My hands tensed and my chest tightened. “Mister Kaizenji Kawari, where are you from?”
‘You’ and ‘where’ were the only words I understood. I gulped and spoke from my diaphragm. I had to be honest. “I Japan… Mister Guiral.”
His eyes narrowed into a piercing glare. What I saw in his pupils wasn’t an interview. It was an interrogation. “‘Japan’... And what is your mother tongue?”
“...Japanese, Mister Guiral.”
“...” He propped his arms and rested his chin. His gray eyes began to shimmer as if he stared into my true self, or saw through my façade. I quelled the shivers of my shoulders and the trembling of my hands. “I’m afraid you aren’t worthy of having your level cap risen.”
‘Aren’t worthy’? What did that even mean? Guiral got up and pushed the chair aside, before marching off. “Mister Guiral—”
“You shall remain at Level 0. That’s all there is to it.” was his last words before a click sounded and he opened the door. Qawasumi stepped to the side of Guiral as the door flung outwards. As I unconsciously stood to my feet and reached my arm and hand out, he slammed the door shut. Once it closed, Qawasumi slowly opened it again ajar. My arm dropped to my side. I swallowed my spit once again while my lip curled up into a venting smile.
I had failed again. I had failed in the real world and failed in this one. And so, my level would remain zero.