I Know Where the Treasure is!

Xan walked out from behind the pillar into the light. The group of eleven people watched him as he lightly carried his hammer. He noticed that every person in front of him had a level marker, health bar, and another bar. He wasn't sure what information the last bar conveyed. When he looked at the rankings compared to his he was shocked. According to his ranking, he was a level one apprentice warrior. The weakest among this group was level sixteen. The highest-ranking was a level eighteen.

A group of masters he supposed. Of course, as he thought about it, when was he ever afraid of someone stronger than him. If he wanted, even considering his limited intelligence, he could play these people in the palm of his hands. Maybe it was time to have some fun for the first time in this new world.

The older man who called him out looked at him with some interest. This fellow was a level seventeen. The man stood with his back straight and wore gold and purple robes. On his left breast a sword piercing a duck or something. Maybe he was from the Heavenly Duck Piercing Sect he laughed to himself. The man was clearly a warrior with his aggressive sword at his side.

Of the other ten people present, four more were warriors, two were mages or something similar, one of them looked like an assassin, two were a kind of magic warrior, and the last one, the most powerful person here looked to be a level eighteen beast tamer. Next to him was a large wolf wearing a kind of beast armor. He wore brown and green clothes with various pelts hanging from his body. He seemed to move partially hunched over as if he were a dangerous beast about to attack. He reminded him of BattleCat, a more villainous person of his acquaintance.

"Greetings great ones," Xan said with a bow. He was new to this world and wasn't sure what proper etiquette to use. Everyone likes having their egos buttered up.

"Who are you," the dick piercing older man asked blandly. "Elder, my name is Hitchens Redstone," Xan replied. One of the best pieces of advice he received in a movie was "to never tell anyone your real name." Anytime someone asked him for his real name he would make one up on the spot.

"Little Hitchens, why are you here?" the older man continued. "Sir, I was walking in the woods when I heard the fighting. Initially, I hid away in the forest, but suddenly everything went quiet. I came out of my hiding spot and found all these dead people. I came into this place to see if I could find anything useful," he said. "And did you find anything useful?" the duck piercing old man asked. "Yes, sir, I found this hammer. Well, really, I found the hammer outside but I was hoping to see what else might be in here," he said.

"Are you a thief," the duck piercing old man asked. "No, sir," Xan said. "Then why are you taking things that don't belong to you?" he asked. "Sir, everyone is dead, none of these things belong to anyone," he responded with a confused look on his face. "Young man, do you see all of us here?" the older man asked. "Yes, sir, I can see you all quite clearly," Xan beamed with a smile. "We represent the elven strongest powers in the area. Everything here belongs to us!" duck piercing old man said.

Xan displayed a look of surprise and worry on his face, "Would you like the hammer back?" he asked. "No, we don't want this hammer, I want to know what else you have taken!" the old duck piercer shouted at Xan. "Sir, no..nothing, sir, I just found this hammer," he responded. Bullies, or people trying to show off how great they are, love it when you are scared of them. If they shout you jump. This way, the world seems to be working properly in their view. Xan played along with the show old duck piercer was putting on. It was obvious they would think he had taken some things since he was the first person in the guild.

"How are we supposed to believe you," the old duck piercer challenged him. Xan was stunned, couldn't this guy see he didn't have anything on him. "Hmm, sir, you ask a very good question. I'm really not sure how I can prove I haven't taken anything. I have nothing other this hammer, but as they say, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, therefore, it may seem like I have nothing but I could have something. The only problem is, I'm not too sure how I can prove I have nothing, after all, truth is in the eye of the beholder," Xan started to speak a lot of nonsense. This was one of his favorite techniques. Over the years, he found that speaking nonsense could accomplish a few things. People who thought they were very smart thought nonsense talkers were very stupid. This old duck piercer thought himself to be very smart but he was probably very stupid otherwise how could he accuse Xan of having something when he clearly had nothing.

Another positive of speaking nonsense is people will either call you on speaking nonsense and then discount you or if they are stupid but very prideful they might think you know something or have said something very smart. Not wishing to seem stupid they might accept your nonsense just to seem they know what's going on. Finally, it was useful for quickly figuring out what kind of person you were dealing with. In this case, Xan wanted to figure out what type of people he was dealing with.

Looking at the eleven people in front of him he could tell the beast tamer thought he was speaking nonsense and disregarded him, several others in the group seemed to think the same. All of these people probably thought Xan was stupid; which probably meant they were overestimating their own intelligence. The remainder seemed to be seriously pondering his words, these people were probably stupid and either wanted to seem smart or were confounded by his words. The ones who were usually stupid and prideful were the ones who felt the need to say something usually agreeing with your nonsense. Duck piercer didn't let him down. At first, he seemed startled by Xan's answer but then seemed confused. "I suppose what you say makes some sense," the older man said at last. Just as he thought; Duck Peircer was stupid but prideful.

"I think what we need to do first is split up and look for the treasures," the beast tamer said. "Split up, you mean so you can hog all the treasure?" another person challenged. "Mr. Vister, I only meant to suggest we should split up so we can save time. How many hours do you want to spend looking around here? Right now our apprentices and disciples are gathering up the treasures on the battlefield. Do you really want to have them waiting around as we all huddle through the guild together?" The beast tamer said out of exasperation.

"If you're looking for treasures, I know where they are," Xan said with hesitation. "Boy, you better not be lying to us!" Duck Piercer said. Once again, Xan was very stunned by the kinds of stupid things Duck PeircingMan could say.