After staring at the sky for a few seconds, Lina started walking forward. She wanted, needed to get out of this cursed forest, but not knowing where the next town was, she had no other option than just walking in a straight line until she found something other than trees, bushes and People who wanted to capture her.
The forest was dense and rather dark, but the light shining through the canopy made the forest look less threatening and more like the ones she knew from Earth. There were some differences though, which she had time to notice, now that she wasn’t in immediate danger. The forest was eerily silent, there were some sounds, but not the amount she was used to. It seemed there weren’t as many loud insects here. Additionally, she couldn’t recognize the plants, which was to be expected, but there were enough similarities to the trees and bushes she knew from Earth, that she wondered if that really was a coincidence. Now that she thought about it, wasn’t it weird that there were humans here?
Caught in her musings, Lina failed to detect a small, furry animal before it slammed into her guts. She coughed and sputtered as she collapsed, only with immense exertion of willpower managing to keep standing, and stared at her assailant. A cute little ball of fur with big, round eyes took a run-up to slam into her again. Not wanting to be done in by something like that after surviving her first day in this world, Lina swung her sword at the thing and… missed. It was fast. Having failed to attack it, the animal slammed into her again, thankfully this time she was on guard and protected herself with her other arm, although it still hurt like hell, and she almost expected her arm to break, it was enough to keep her on her feet and take another swing. This time she hit and spurting blood from the cut, her enemy lost its vigour.
Now more careful than before, the fur ball circled around her, trying to find an angle to attack. Lina tried to keep her eyes on it, but it was difficult, the thing was small, fast the colour of a tree and knew how to hide behind the thick undergrowth, so the inevitable happened and Lina lost sight of the thing.
She had always hated the suspense filmmakers and video game companies liked so much in situations like this. Most of the time everyone knew a jump scare was coming, so it was often not a good tool to create meaningful tension. Now, that she was in the situation herself, she hated it even more.
“Shit, shit shit.” Lina cursed, while frantically trying to find the thing again.
Every time she heard leaves rustle or a branch crack, she pointed her sword in the direction the sound was coming from, but it was all in vain, she only found her enemy when it crashed into her side, making her stumble and almost fall to the ground. The next attack was aimed at her legs, which finished the job and caused her to fall over. Luckily, her ineptitude in physical combat surprised even the animal. She didn’t fall like a martial artist, but like a stumbling fool, swinging her arms around like an American wacky wavy inflatable tube man, hitting the animal hard with her arm in the process.
Groaning in pain, she tried to get up. Her legs weren’t broken but they hurt like hell and her arm was pulsing in pain, but instead of focusing on the throbbing sensation, Lina remembered her situation and looked for the animal, panicked, and against all odds she saw it caught between two thick roots and a few thinner ones. Her unintentional slap and the rebound from the animal’s own velocity had been enough to wedge the animal between them and now that the thing couldn’t build up momentum it couldn’t get free on its own. Capitalising on her luck, she hobbled towards it and stabbed the whimpering animal before her continence could stop her. Again and again, she thrust her sword into it, telling it to die in the process, even though the animal had died after just the first stab.
Breathing hard, Lina calmed down. She didn’t feel good about maiming the animal, but she didn’t exactly feel bad either.
Now with a clear mind, she healed herself again, this time taking care not to overdo it. Her arm was still a bit sore when she felt her mana supply getting low, but it wasn’t anything to be concerned about. Having tended to her wounds, Lina tried to identify the animal.
‘Forest bone breaker. Although these small, common animals look cute and harmless, they are anything but. Using their innate magic, they have the ability to slightly lower and increase their mass, making their tackle attack a danger to any unaware victim. Having thick and springy fur, they are almost immune to blunt damage, which makes them very hard to deal with for any unarmed target.’
Lina blinked, she had expected to get the name of the monster, what she hadn’t expected was the battle advice. She should take care to remember to identify her future opponents, not that she planned on fighting more, but she had a feeling, that trying to live as a pacifist in this world wouldn’t be an option.
Now more vigilant and aware of her surroundings, Lina continued her way through the forest, until she heard voices. Instead of just approaching them, Lina carefully made her way toward them while hiding behind trees and bushes, her sword at the ready. Soon, she was close enough to take a look at the origin of the voices. Two injured people sat on the ground, their backs against a huge tree, but something seemed off and as Lina carefully made her way closer to them, she realized what it was. She had watched so much anime, that at first, she hadn’t identified it as unusual, but now that she had noticed it, she couldn’t unsee the strange hair colour the two people exhibited. The smaller one’s, probably a woman, hair was copper coloured, whereas the taller person’s hair looked a bit more like bronze. The colours weren’t too different from normal hair, but the metallic sheen was interesting.
That wasn’t the only thing that was odd, though, they both had slightly pointy ears and oddly sharp-looking teeth. It wasn’t on a level that would suggest they were pure carnivores, but it was slightly uncanny. Other than that though, they looked good, really good, almost superb, like athletes combined with supermodels. The taller one was obviously a guy, his features chiselled and with his powerful shoulders arms and legs, he almost looked like a Greek statue, just a bit better. Lina smiled at the thought of him being as small as those statues down there. That would be funny. The other one seemed to be a girl, with a practical, medium-long haircut and almost pixie-like features. Together with her fair skin, she looked almost like a fairy, if it weren’t for those dangerous-looking teeth.
Lina wasn’t sure what to do. On one hand, approaching random strangers in an unfamiliar land wasn't a good idea, and her experiences with the first people she met only reinforced that fact. On the other hand, she really needed someone to guide her out of the forest, and those two didn’t look like bad people. Lina knew, that this wasn’t good reasoning, but how else was she supposed to get out of this place? Sadly or luckily, the decision was taken from her as the woman pointed at Lina.
Before she could do anything, the other one of the two was next to her, having moved faster than anyone had any business doing. Startled, she stumbled backwards and landed on her butt, looking up at the person who had drawn his dagger.
“That went great.” Lina thought sarcastically to herself as she was tied to a tree.
After having so graciously failed to even attempt running away, she had been disarmed and captured. Now at their mercy, Lina had tried listening in on their conversation, but she couldn’t understand a word, which was weird given that she had had no trouble understanding the three bandits.
Eventually, the two switched their attention to Lina and approached her.
“wdbnonwbl rginweg degn egio wegpin?” The guy asked. Well, it sounded like a question at least.
Not able to understand anything, Lina just cocked her head and stared at him questioningly.
The guy asked again, this time slower, but Lina just shook her head and said, that she couldn’t understand him. Probably concluding, that she indeed couldn’t understand anything, her capturers conferred with each other until the girl took out a small metal disc, which she then placed in Lina’s hand.
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After narrowly avoiding being smashed to a pulp by the troll and against all odds killing the monster, Sayu and Konrad felt their exhaustion. The fight from start to finish had lasted for almost a day, all the while running away, avoiding the other dangers the forest held and dancing on knife’s edge.
The fight had been way too close and the two adventurers were more injured than was advisable in the weald, their health potions not enough to deal with their wounds. They would need the help of a healer to get back into fighting form again, so after placing a few alarm runes, they slumped down against a tree to regain at least some of their strength.
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“After we rested a bit we leave this forest. I don’t care for your sword, and I don’t want to tempt fate any further.” Sayu stated matter of factly, leaving no room for any arguments.
Konrad nodded. He wanted to get his sword back, but it wasn’t as important as their lives.
“I agree, even a monster on the weaker side could probably do us in when we are in this state.” Konrad responded, sighing in self-admonishment. They had been arrogant and it had cost them. Their misjudgement of the dangers a monster like this posed had almost been bad enough to deprive them of the chance to learn from it. At least they would never do something like that ever again, or so they promised themselves. In reality, they would probably forget their near-death experience soon enough.
While they rested, they talked about what they had done wrong and what they should do the next time a monster was stronger than they had expected. Being so enthused in their conversation, both of them missed the first alarm rune going off, but both fell silent as the second one rang. And then Sayu spotted her, a person hiding behind a tree watching them.
Konrad sprang to action, not wasting even just one second, he was beside their observer in no time. His target, obviously not having expected it, startled and demonstrated that she didn’t know what she was doing.
“Not a combatant then.” Konrad mumbled before his eyes went wide in surprise, making him forget the pain moving so fast while he was injured had caused.
There it was, his sword in the hands of that little girl in a dress that was so out of place in this forest, that Konrad almost thought he was seeing things.
Snapping out of his surprise, Konrad stopped wasting time and disarmed the girl who didn’t even try to resist. After that, he tied her up and went over to his sister.
“Hey, you won’t believe what I found.” Konrad grinned as he showed her the sword.
“How? Why did she have that? Do you think she is with those thieves? But that doesn’t make sense, she is just a child.”
Konrad shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Not only does she not seem like a combatant, but like someone, who didn’t expect to be in a forest. How does something like that happen? Do you think it could be possible she was their prisoner and somehow escaped them?”
“Hmm, maybe, but I don’t think so. Why would they have brought her here and how would she get her hands on the sword and escape them? It doesn’t make sense. Maybe she can tell us what she is doing here and how she found your sword. We can always kill her later if we think she is a danger to us.”
Having decided their course of action, Konrad went over to their prisoner, Sayu staying away, observing from afar in case the girl had any unexpected tricks.
“Who are you? What are you doing here? Where did you find that sword?” Konrad demanded, trying to sound like one of the guards when they thought you had done something wrong. After she didn’t respond and just looked at him questioningly, he tried again, speaking slower and clearer. Maybe she was just dim, a bit slow on the uptake, some people were like that, but when he noticed, that she still couldn’t understand him, he went back to Sayu.
“I think we don’t speak the same language.” Konrad told Sayu.
“How is that possible? Everyone speaks Common, even those who live in other kingdoms. ” Sayu frowned.
“I know, but she doesn’t. Do you still have that thing we found in that old mage tower? You know, the one they used to allow people to understand common before it was so widespread?”
Sayu took out the small disc on a string, which was densely inscribed with a script she didn’t understand.
“Of course.” she nodded and placed it in their captive’s hand.
“Can you understand me now?” Sayu asked.
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Lina was so surprised, she could suddenly understand them, that she didn’t answer immediately, which caused the other woman to frown. As Lina saw that, not wanting to annoy the two too much, she quickly answered while nodding profusely.
“Y-yes, I can understand you.” Lina confirmed.
“Good, what are you, a child, doing here? Where did you find that sword.” The woman asked with no small amount of suspicion and hostility in her voice.
“I am not a child!” Lina reflexively answered.
As the woman raised an eyebrow, she remembered that she probably shouldn’t act like that, given that she was tied up and at the stranger’s mercy.
And so Lina explained all that had happened. How she became sleepy, suddenly woke up in the forest and so on. She left out the bit about other worlds, computers and magic. She wanted to look harmless and trustworthy, not like an unpredictable, dangerous lunatic. While she talked, having trouble not speaking too fast, she saw the expressions of her captors easing. When she was done, the woman sighed and cut Lina loose.
“You just woke up in the forest and don’t know how you got here? Maybe you just lost your memory? That sometimes happens, I’ve heard. Where are you even from? Do you know how to get home?” Konrad chimed in.
“Well, yeah, I don’t know how I got here and I don’t know how to get home. I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you where I am from, but it is very far away.” Lina answered, she really didn’t want to talk about other worlds, it just sounded too weird.
“Hmm, I guess it doesn’t matter.”
“I couldn’t detect any lie in what you said. I am Sayu and this guy is my brother Konrad.”
“Ehm, nice to meet you, I guess? My name is Lina Engel. Can I ask you something? “
“Sure, go right ahead.” Sayu said smiling, much more amenable, now that she knew Lina wasn’t an enemy.
“Oh, but first I gotta ask, why do you have two names? It’s pretty odd.”
Lina was surprised by that question, but when she thought about it, it kinda made sense. On earth surnames didn’t exist for a long time in most cultures, you were just Tom, the baker's son, which eventually became Tom Baker, but if your population wasn’t too big and not highly mobile, that wasn’t necessary.
“It’s normal where I am from.” she answered. “Just call me Lina, it’s fine.”
“Alright, so you wanted to ask me something?”
“Yeah, thanks, so why could I understand the guys who chased me but not you? And why can I understand you now? As I said, I am from very far away and don’t know anything about this land or its people.” Lina asked the obvious questions.
“Oh, that’s easy. Do you know what a hereditary gift is? ”
Lina nodded, remembering the message she had gotten.
“Well, before Common, the language everyone speaks now, was widespread there were two kinds of people who prospered. One was the mages who made those discs, that help you understand the language. They were so hard to make, that only them and the nobles they sold them to used them.” Sayu pointed at the disc in Lina’s hand.
“You are lucky I even have that thing, by the way. We found it a while ago and kept it because they don’t sell well anymore, but most don’t have something like this.” Sayu said.
“The other kind was an old merchant family with a hereditary gift, that gave them the ability to understand every language. With that ability, they more or less had a monopoly on international trade, but as the world became more linguistically united, they lost their advantage and fell from grace, however, having been around for so long, their descendants are almost everywhere. It’s a pity, the hereditary gift is so dominant, that it often comes through instead of something more useful, so many people essentially have no hereditary gift any more.” Sayu explained with a wry smile.
“It’s not completely useless, some people still mostly speak their traditional language, but those become less every year and even people in pretty isolated regions know enough Common to get by, so many people with that particular hereditary gift think the world is unfair and resort to crime. A rather stupid way of thinking if you ask me.” Konrad shrugged.