He stared at the words in front of him so hard that he could’ve sworn they would simply melt away into the air. But to his disappointment they did not. So after that he attempted to read it, but to his disappointment there was no voice with the words and he had no idea how to read.

He felt an urge to bring my finger to one of the two boxes and push on it. As soon as I did the box went away and he could focus on other decidedly more important things. First of which was why the villagers had taken the time to move him out of the well and onto a random field that hurt to sleep on. Not having much to do, he sat and pondered this. He pondered for what felt like hours even if it was truly only 27 seconds. After his time pondering he realized that they must have brought him out here to be eaten by the wolves. Luckily for him he must have smelled more like well than food and was ignored.

But why did they want him eaten by wolves? He supposed it could have been the soldiers that did this since he had stolen from many nobles many times but something like this had never happened, even if he had been forced to fall in the well plenty of times. Since his curiosity was begging him to discover what happened he stood up and looked around. All he could see was yellow grasslands for miles and miles that reached all the way to some mountains in the skyline. He didn't recognize any of the mountains or this huge field. Now he was even more confused. Even if it was some nobles they’d be too greedy to spend that much gold just to send him away on a carriage just for stealing pocket change a few hundred times.. Having nothing better to do, he started walking towards the nearest mountain while attempting to solve the mystery.

After about 3 hours of walking he was starting to get bored. An odd mystery could only intrigue him for so long until it started to hurt his head.

He took another check of his surroundings and noticed a small building’s roof at the edge of his sight. Finding hope that he would be able to talk to someone inspired the man to start running the entire way. Then he had to stop to take a quick breath. After that he was back to walking because he realized he wouldn’t be able to speak if he was busy panting.

After walking for around 40 minutes he was finally nearing the house. Now that he was closer he realized that it even had a pasture with crops next to it. He walked up to the door and worked up the courage to knock 3 times.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Now he simply had to wait. And so he waited. And waited. He waited until he could bear it no longer and voiced his concerns.

“Hello? Is anyone there? I’m not sure where I am and I’m feeling a bit peckish,” he said.

After waiting just a few seconds the door was finally opened by an old man who looked like he just woke up.

The man spoke with a slight slur in his voice, “Who are you and why shouldn’t I explode you into tiny little bits?”

The young man opened his mouth to speak, but with sweat running down his forehead and knees trembling, nothing but a light squeak came out. Gasping for air he tried again and succeeded in making a sentence this time. “My name is Lucan sir! I didn’t come here to steal I’m just trying to get to the nearest town.”

The old man looked Lucan up and down, noticing the dagger hidden away in a boot.

“My name is Hamlin, nice to meet you. I’m a bit confused about what you mean by the nearest town though. The closest town isn’t for around a hundred leagues from here.”

This news shocked Lucan and gave him a start. He was sure only a day had passed since his light stubble was still the exact same length.

Hamlin noticed his shock and raised an eyebrow.

Wanting to get back to his activities he fetched a map from right inside the door. “From your reaction I’m assuming you have no idea where you are. This is The Great Fields. It’s a barren land that stretches for thousands of leagues,” he pointed to a spot somewhere in the middle of a large yellow spot, “this is where you are right now. You’re in good health and have no supplies on you so I genuinely have no idea how you got here.”

Lucan was in absolute shock from this information. His mind boggled to attempt coming up with an idea of how he got there but it came up short. Worse yet, he noticed there were those damn words all over that map. He couldn’t read any of it and he knew that had to change fast. In his old town really no one knew how to read so there weren’t really any words used anywhere. If they were as common here as he thought then that would be quite an issue.

“ Mister Hamlin–”

The man put up his hand, “Lucan, please just call me Hamlin.” Lucan took a breath that he didn’t realize he’d been holding and began speaking again, “Hamlin can you teach me how to read? It wasn’t a very common skill where I come from and I’m beginning to realize it may become more important than I thought it was.”

Hamlin just stood there and stared at Hamlin for a solid five seconds, and during that moment the awkwardness was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

“How do you not know how to read? It is something that the king ordered be taught to everyone multiple centuries ago. Do you come from a different nation or just an extremely rural area?”

“I’m from out of town,” Lucan immediately answered with an almost too innocent smile.