Okay so, just a single book was not able to sate my curiosity. I kept asking Mom questions and questions and she kept on dodging them. So, I eventually went back to James, with Den of course.

I returned the book.

“I have some questions,” I said.

“Sure,” he seemed to be in an oddly Zen mood. A relaxed smile with barely any questioning glares at all. And smelled?

A rather, rather familiar smell… hmm….

“Did he eat something funny?” I whispered to Den. I was tempted to say ‘smoke’ but didn’t want to give it away.

“Might have,” he said. “But it’s normal, don’t worry about it.” Oh yeah, he knew.

Anyway- “According to this author, Westerners were really horrible people and demons were of course worse but, they didn’t mention much about why the church makes less than average people disappear.”

“Hmm… I think you got this a bit wrong,” he said. “The church doesn’t make just anyone disappear it’s-”

“Let’s not,” Den said.

“No, let’s,” I said. I got that he was trying to shield me from something but not knowing was only going to make me more anxious.

He sighed and gave up.

So James continued. “The church is mostly based on the West and unlike the south, it’s really tough there. So, they usually don’t permit below average individuals to live since they’ll only bring down the civilization.”

“I see…” Yeah, I got what he meant.

If you let below par individuals live, eventually those individuals would make more below par individuals and at that point if you got hit with a natural disaster, your race would be finished.

And if the land was exceptionally cruel, it was only a matter of when, not a matter of if. I could totally see where he was coming from. Yet… “But… no one choses to be born bad…” I mumbled.

‘Shit, that came out way sulkier than I attempted.’

I was trying to sound a bit more my age but these days I only sounded weirder and weirder. Den patted me on the back but he had no words to offer. James either.

I didn’t really want to be comforted though.

“Do you have any other books? Other than your story books,” I said.

His face twitched for a second. “I think my cousin had some. I can provide you the books, but they’ll cost you.”

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Cost me… money. Yeah, money. I still didn’t know anything about money. “Cost me what?” I spoke innocently.

“Coins boy,” he smiled. “Do you know what they are?”

I shrugged like an ignorant little boy. He chuckled.

“They’re used to buy things,” Den said. “Think about it, you wouldn’t give away something precious to you to strangers, just because they asked nicely, right? You’d want something in exchange, and coins are for that purpose.”

Rather rudimentary but efficient explanation. “But I don’t have any.”

“Lucky for you, I do.” Well, someone was feeling generous today. “How much,” Den said.

“Two gold a piece. They cost her about five a piece, I think. I’m giving you a massive discount.”

‘They use gold and stuff…’

Yeah, I didn’t buy that. No one was dumb enough to believe he would sell something that was worth five gold for two. Either the books were heavily ‘shit’ or unreadable. Or he was just upselling them.

Den’s smile more or less crumbled. I guess his pocket wasn’t that generous. I pulled on his sleeve, stared at his eyes. “I don’t need the books,” I said.

He took a breath in, and then one out. “We’ll buy em!”

Excuse me what?

Hey, I said I didn’t want any!

Didn’t seem like he was going to give up trying to be a dad, so I instead took charge. “Only the one, I want of course,” I said. I’d just pick the best one and call it a day. Sure the guy was probably scamming us, but Den trusted him, and for now… I was going to trust him.

James rolled his eyes and went out, motioning us to follow him.

We followed. And he took us to the house next to his. The fancier one. Larger than our place and way cleaner. We went in, and found the whole place… empty. Empty of people.

His cousin wasn’t around but he still messed with her stuff anyway.

“Take your pick.”

A wooden bookshelf, filled with about thirty or so books. Different colored covers, and mostly skin covers. Thick-ass books. And rather fancy too. Okay, maybe the guy was serious about the whole five gold thing….

‘Guide to Askavanian Religions.’

Wait, they had derivative religions?

‘The Tale of Five Soldiers.’

‘The Dragons Are Coming!’

‘Reborn to be a sorcerer!’

‘Demigods Are Coming!’

Mostly just stories. But given this fantasy world’s track record, they probably had some form of truth in them.

I kept on checking the books and some books were in weird writing. “What are these?” I wondered.

“Written in Western tongue,” James said.

No wonder. “Can you teach me how to read Western?”

“Sure. Will cost you 1 gold.”

I grimaced. 1 gold to learn a language? “I’ll learn it myself-”

“Ask Zena, she knows Western,” Den said. “Just give her a Honeycrisp and she’ll happily teach you.”

Honeycrisps were the apple nectarines and the most cultivated fruit of this village; they looked like apples but were totally nectarines. Wait, did this place have a name though? Upon asking, Den, yeah, no. Our village was nameless.

Anyway, I didn’t know what these books even said, so I asked James to translate the titles.

He listed off the titles in a monotone voice. Dude didn’t have a care in the world.

Eventually, one book caught my attention. ‘Magics and the spirits. An intermediate guide.’

“Is there a beginner one?” I asked.

“No.”

He kept on listing the rest of the names and they were all not worth my attention.

‘Black?’

Most of the books had colorful spines and covers but, this one didn’t have a title page and just a black cover. I opened it and although it was written in a combination of Southern and Western tongue, I didn’t understand any of the contents. However, the book was about spirits, and even had illustrations…. I didn’t put it back.

I kept on searching the whole bookshelf but found absolutely nothing of importance. “I’ll take this,” I said. It sucked that the book wasn’t necessarily a beginner one but hey, any information was better than nothing.

I kind of wanted the religion one too but… yeah, without really knowing how much a typical gold was worth, that was hardly a good decision.