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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 make 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.
Den 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 want to be comforted.
“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.”
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 have some forms 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 Xena, 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 of 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 much- 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 interest. “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.
***
It didn’t occur to me just how precious gold was. Not because it was pretty but because it had a whole lot of uses. And this world wasn’t an exception.
Not only was gold used as jewelry by the upper-class people but magicians and sorcerers often used gold as a catalyst for various spells. I hadn’t seen the sorcerers because most of them were in service of kings or churches or famous rich people....
Anyway, just 1 cold coin was enough to provide ration for a bachelor for up to 1 whole month. Aka, it was worth about a thousand bucks.
And Den blew two grand on me and my book hunting.
How I knew this? He told me of course! Well, not me specifically. But he told Mom; or was forced to. Mom brought us outside, made us hold or rather pull our own ears and just stand in the sun and reflect. It was sort of chilly today, so the sun actually felt pretty good.
A weird sort of punishment.
But I kind of felt relieved she wasn’t spoiling me rotten. I wanted to be spoiled sure, but I didn’t want to randomly pick up the habit of spending money frugally. Especially other peoples’ money. This was a nice reminder. I felt shit though, and awfully embarrassed.
Why?
Because we had visitors... Lyra and Lia had come to visit and they were peeking at us from the window....
Sigh.
Fuck.
***
Mom gave me a lecture on money.
She was holding it back till I reached my fifth birthday when she would have started giving me an allowance. So, she really was keeping track of my birthday?
Anyway, the values are as follows.
1 Gold= 10 Silver
1 Silver = 10 Copper
If 1 gold was 1 grand, then 1 silver was 100 bucks and 1 copper was 10 bucks. They even had a minor currency called small iron which was valued 10 times less than the large copper so 1 dollar. And yes, apparently, things were really expensive in this world, especially books.
I felt shit about making Den buy me the book. But the dude bought it out of sheer pride!
Anyway, we both promised we’d be careful about money and mom agreed to give me a monthly allowance of 1 copper. She also confiscated the book for safe keeping till I learned my lesson.
Shocker....
“I’m not letting the two you roam unsupervised anymore,” Mom said, pouring us some soup.
Den gulped but- “Did you make anything other than soup?”
We didn’t have a large table, so we all came outside and just sat on stools while Mom handed us bowls.
“No.”
Den didn’t say anything else.
“Do you even know how to cook anything else, Lin?” Lyra asked.
Mom said nothing. For the first time I actually saw her blush. Okay so, my assumptions were not off the mark. She really didn’t know how to cook.
Yet she learned how to cook meat soup just for me. Because I always complained the soup was bland and stuff... Maybe I’ll complain some more.
“Is 1 gold coin, really a lot of money?” Lia asked.
Birds chirped quite a lot today. Wait, actually there were birds I hadn’t seen before; rather fat and white. Winter birds? Was it winter somewhere else?
“Yes dear, remember those large pineapples daddy brought you? They cost 2 copper each. You could probably buy hundreds of them with a gold coin,” Lyra said. Was it me or had her stomach swollen considerably?
Hmm... I’d say, she was at least 6-7 months in.
“But he bought a book...” Lia stared at me as though I was stupid or something.
Yeah, I didn’t blame her. I was pretty stupid myself.
“Mom... I want to learn a new language,” I said.
The two most used languages were the Western Tongue and the Southern Tongue. There were also two minor languages, Demon Tongue and the Sea Tongue but since most people knew at least one of the main two languages, people didn’t bother learning the other ones. Though I had a feeling it had more to do with looking down on those people, than anything else.
“You already know the Western tongue,” Mom said.
“Yes, but I don’t know how to read it...”
She stared at me, almost conflicted. “Read and then what? What will reading anything get you? I say practice with Den and-” She paused, sighed once. “You just want to learn how to read Western Tongue, right?”
It was almost as though she was afraid....
“Yes...”
She eyeballed Den for a few seconds. “Alright. I’ll talk to Xena.”
All this time, Lyra was giving me quite the smirk but she hadn’t said a word. She was just enjoying the show?
But yeah, I really did piss off Mom. I had to properly apologize otherwise things were only going to get worse.
After lunch, Lyra and Lia left. They’d come to see how I was doing and check on Lin. Once they were gone, Den also left, giving me the perfect opportunity to help Mom clean up and have a proper conversation.
“I didn’t know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not mad at you for not knowing. I’m mad at you because you didn’t even tell me you were going. And when you went there, you just-” She sighed. “I thought you were smarter than that... but I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to punish you like that.” She finished cleaning up, washed her hand, dried it and then picked me up in her embrace. “Money is the basis of life but it also leads to corruption and bad times. I don’t want you to become a conceited idiot who doesn’t know the inherent value of things and misuses trust.”
I kept quiet. I didn’t really know what to say. I’d messed up, but it wasn’t my fault. But some bits of it were my fault. That hurt her.
It hurt Den.
It hurt... me too.
“But let this be a learning experience,” Mom smiled. “So, you don’t mess up in the future.”
“Right!”
***
My training session went smoothly. Den gradually raised the intensity and by the second month, I was running five laps around the house, walking to the outskirts of the forest and even swinging a wooden knife at Den. He didn’t give me any pointers or lessons on how to wield a knife and just seemed to let me be on my own device. I guess he was letting me try out how this worked and stuff? I was getting a better handle at swinging but my accuracy and movement were pretty shit.
I made some progress in the stamina department but I didn’t really gain any strength. My body shaped up better than my previous chubby version but I was still pretty chubby regardless. Given how I wasn’t even five yet, this wasn’t going to go anywhere for a while. Hard to imagine I used to be thin as fuck. Didn’t matter though.
Den made me repeat our training sessions three times a day. He wanted to increase the count to four but Mom forbade him. I bet Den just wanted to come see Mom and needed me as an excuse.
“By the way Sol,” One day before leaving, Den produced an envelope of sorts from underneath his shirt and threw it at me. “I’ll be out for a week. Keep practicing.”
A clothed envelope; I caught and opened it ... just a crude short knife and a leather cover; somewhat sharp? “Thanks,” I said, but he was already gone. I strapped the knife to my belt and went inside to show Mom.
...
On my spare time, I asked Mom about how to make money and how things worked around here. She was happy to share that she didn’t really work to make money. Instead, she grew veg, sew clothes, gathered food, hunted stuff, all by herself. And has been for years. Basically, she was alone. I wasn’t sure if she had any family or not, but she never spoke about them, so I didn’t feel like asking either. We’ll cross the bridge when we got there.
But Mom did make ‘some’ money. Mostly from the hunting sessions. She’d hunt with the others and get a portion of the hunt money. Apparently, people in the village bought meat, skin, or other parts of a hunt for some money.
“Doesn’t that mean you could have sold the tiger?” I wondered.
Mom smiled awkwardly. “Yeah...”
Anyway, I kept pestering her about stuff; this world was amazing. First of all, there were much bigger cities inside the forest. Towards the long south, there was a capital city called Aihan. A massive Honeycrisp tree lay at the center, and the fruits were said to be twice as large as the ones found here. They were sweeter, tastier or so Mom emphasized. Not to mention they even had a bit of tartness which made them truly divine.
My mouth watered at thought. And I stared at Mom with hope. “There’s also the holy church there, so we can’t go,” she said.
My mouth opened in disappointment but I wasn’t going to be a bitch about it. “I see.”
“I’ll buy you one for your fifth birthday though,” She smirked.
“Yesh!”
***
The next day, Mom took me to Lyra’s place. Or I thought so. But instead of entering Lyra’s house, we took a slight detour and moved past theirs, towards a much fancier looking one.
Just a standalone house, or rather sort of a mansion in a sense. Obviously built out of wood just like any other house around these parts but, but this particular house was wide, two floored and had color. Paintings outside, on the wood. And not typical doodles but rather... actual paintings. Some even good; murals, insignias, patterns of waves, sun, stars. They even had flowers outside!
“One of her kids paints,” Mom said knocking on the front door.
She was married!?
I could have sworn she looked younger than Mom and....
We waited by the door. I stared around. They had a fence like ours and ponds of their own; four ponds to be precise. There was fish in there. Some of the fish jumped around. Such clear water....
People in this world didn’t have filters, so they had to keep the water clean. They boiled water regularly. But since most households didn’t have a pond like this, that more or less made water a precious commodity. Especially clean water like this.
In other words, Xena was terribly rich.
A few minutes later the door opened and we were greeted by a boy younger than me; probably three. “MOOM!” The kid yelled back, running too.
His mom came soon. Xena. Dressed in a rather baggy dress, and caked in dust. “Oh hey, thought you were coming next week?” She had some dust buildup on her nose yet her eyes sparkled as she greeted us in. I still couldn’t help but marvel at just how shiny her skin looked. Was she using some sort of special cream or something?
“No, we’re actually a week late,” Mom said.
“Oh... okay.”
“She always gets the date wrong. I mostly have to cover for her,” Mom said.
The inside wasn’t really all that impressive. There were paintings here and there and on occasion, weird malformed clay sculptures. But aside from that, it just looked like a typical house, like ours. Just bigger and with more rooms and a separate floor. Very spacious.
Why’s it so bright in here? They had a second floor, so it probably wasn’t a hole in the ceiling. So what? I examined the ceiling quite closely and eventually found the source. A lightbulb like structure. A tad larger than my head, and a tad bulkier too. Yet, the light it released was hardly enough to compete with a typical 10–15-watt LED. The light was well defused and very mild. Maybe because it’s still sunny outside?
“What is that?” I said. I didn’t see any wires or other electrical appliances, so maybe the bulb wasn’t electrical?
“That’s a Magic Lamp. They’re really popular these days,” Xena said. “Oh, and feel free to take a seat. I should be done in half an hour.” She took a hand broom and went upstairs. While her small boy just stared at us from across the room, staring awkwardly.
“They’re really expensive,” Mom said.
“I’m not asking you to buy me one,” I said.
She didn’t say another word, and I didn’t either. Sometime later, Xena came back and the real talks began.
“So,” she smiled. “You ready to learn a new language!?” She’d washed her hands but her face and hair were still a bit dusty.
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
