After a few repetition of the same gesture, trying to be as simple as possible, I sharply inclined my head toward the exit to see if the old man understood.
- ... Sto bene... sto bene, sono solo caduto vado avanti... vado avanti...
- ALLORA MUOVITI!
I could only nod at the expectant face of my hostage, if he believed I understood their exchange it's all in my favour. Then, still pressing my knife on his throat, I lightly tugged him in the opposite direction of his companion.
When we finally, trying not to accidentally hurt him while walking was hard, were further away from the exit I stopped. The old man almost tripped, maybe matching my pace was harder with is feet, but my grip on him avoided another fall. He trembled like a leaf for the whole walk, but the stronger contact made the seeming impossible feat of making him shake even more.
In the end it was getting so ridiculous that I made him sit on the floor while I squatted in front of him. I thought that maybe sitting would not only calm him down, but also lower his chances to escape.
When he settled down I slowly removed the knife from his neck, and made a scene out of putting it away. That seemed to calm down the old man more than my next move of putting my free hands in the air. Well my hand gesture sure isn't so universal like I like to think.
Having confirmed his breathing normalized, as "normal" as this situation can be, and his tremors subsided I put in front of the old man the bolts I collected earlier. Trying to make him understand I was worried about getting attacked again was going to be impossible with the language barrier.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
So I approached the problem in the only way I could think at the moment. Pointing at the bolts I spoke as clearly and calmly as possible...
- Bolts.
The man watched me with a quizzical expression, so pointed at the various item at hand one at the time while uttering their respective names.
- Shield... Breastplate... Greaves... Vambraces...
I excluded the weapons to not agitate him again, finally after repeating this production for three time he maybe understood the meaning off the whole thing.
He also started to speak slowly while pointing.
- Frecce... Scudo... Corazza... Schinieri... Cubitiere...
His way of speaking were uncertain but clear and after the fourth time, I urged him to continue to repeat when he was stopping, two windows popped into my view.
Skill's upgrade condition metSpeech recognition => Speech recognition I
Language's acquisition condition metIsland's language learned
This two messages made me happy for the success of the experiment, it seems also the windows were invisible to the old man. But they also made me think that, if I was a translator, I would have flipped the imaginary table at the appearing unfair ability.