Bandits; Rustic Language

The small city disappeared into the horizon as the rickety carriage departed for a wider, unknown world.

.. or at least that's what he thought.

"We'll be stopping at the next town for a few days to see if anyone wants to buy our wares. If sales are good, we can stay there for a few months before we pick up our journey again."

He didn't know why but he started having second thoughts about joining these guys.

"I thought we would headed to a big city."

"Pssh! Why would you think that?! We're wandering merchants!"

Looking around at all the grossly estimated and overly priced wares, he couldn't help but shake his head.

"If you're a merchant, then all homeless men are merchants too", he thought silently

Staring at the weird carvings underneath each ware and item, he realized that he still had no knowledge about the world's language.

"Mr. Marty, what do those carvings mean?"

"Huh? Can't ya read squirt?!"

"He's an orphan, Marty. It'd be a miracle if he could"

Once again, Johan butt in. He didn't know why but he could already guess that Johan didn't like him. However, he didn't know if it pertained to him as a person or because he was an orphan.

Either way, he didn't bother to find out, after all, he wouldn't be staying with them much longer.

"Oh right! But he's gonna need to learn if he's going to help us around the shop, right?"

"Marty! Don't get any ideas"

"I'm right, aren't I?"

"Yes, but that's not for us to decide"

The conversation went back and forth between them and he didn't bother to interject. It didn't matter what they were talking about anyway. He was going to find a way to study the language. It didn't matter what they thought.

Pretty soon, a small forest came into view.

"Here it comes, be prepared Johan."

"Always"

"Oi, kid! No matter what you see or hear, don't make a sound. We may not be able to save you."

He simply shuffled back into the cart and sat between some boxes. Of course he already had some idea of what was happening.

These woods were probably a hunting ground for monsters. They were preparing to get into a fight.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, the sounds of metal clinking and people grunting rang out. He could always go out and take a look, after all he thrived in a bloody environment, but instead, he sat down and ignored everything that happened.

It wasn't as though he wasn't curious or eager to fight too, but he knew his little body would be unable to help with anything. Plus, he wanted to get rid of that bloodlust he developed in his past life.

"Get to the carriage. We're gonna be rich."

An unfamiliar voice neared the carriage and he instantly realized something was wrong.

"Isn't it supposed to be monsters? Why are there suddenly bandits?" he muttered again.

Felling the nature of events seemed to be shifting off script, he crawled along the bottom of the carriage towards the back making sure his shadow wasn't noticed on the tarp.

Right then, the shadow of the bandit appeared on the tarp covering the cart, however, before it could draw near enough to touch the cart, the white tarp was suddenly stained with blood and a gaping hole appeared in the tarp, while a longsword covered in blood fell on the cart.

The shadow outside fell to the ground awkwardly and he instantly put the pieces together. Someone had thrown their sword towards the bandit.

Soon, the noises died down and the dwarf brothers, Marty and Johan appeared again. Although they weren't related by blood, they had known each other for a long time and had even started the pawn shop business together.

They were covered in blood and the metallic smell invaded the air in the carriage. Looking around, Johan picked up the sword making him realize it was him who threw it earlier, while Marty simpled cleaned up the blood spill.

"Oi, kid! You alright?"

"Bandits?" he simply asked.

"Yeah...Yeah! They're famous around these parts."

Marty looked at him for a few seconds before replying, as though shocked that the kid hadn't thrown up because of the blood.

'Maybe he's already used to this kind of thing since he's an orphan and all. Poor kid!'

"I thought you were gonna fight monsters?"

"Haiz! This is why I said you should be taught to read."

He stole a glance in Johan's direction before shoving his hands down his pants and pulling out a wrapped up book.

"Don't tell Johan I gave it to you. It's an elementary language book. When you finish it, I'll give you a higher one."

He didn't need a higher one because he only needed to recognize the characters for him to be able to piece them into words, however he didn't need to tell Marty that so he just took the book, gave Marty a "thank you" and was about to leave when Marty said something.

"Don't be mad at Johan. He's sensitive and he cares for you."

"He is also an orphan so he gets very touchy when he sees another one. He's hard on you because he wants you to grow up tough."

"So even though he's always against you, he's actually secretly cheering for you, because you remind him of his younger self."

As the words found their way into his brain, he couldn't help but turn to Johan.

'What a weird guy!' he thought before smiling at Marty.

"I'll work hard to make him happy."

Marty once again shoved his big toothy grin in his face and turned around to talk to Johan.

~~~~~

It had been two days on the road and the skies were slowly darkening as the sun dipped beneath the horizon; dusk slowly set in and the cacophony of insects filled the air.

He had been studying the language for these two days, aside from helping Marty and Johan occasionally.

He had even picked up a few cooking techniques from Johan and had some workouts with Marty.

His progress on the language however was far behind his progress on the other two skills. Even with his knowledge, it took him a while to understand less than a quarter of what was written in the parchment.

Although Marty and Johan said that he was actually quite fast, he had expected to be done with the language after reading through it a few times.

According to their estimates, it would take him two weeks to understand the entire elementary language and then they could move on to the intermediate grade.

As frustrated as he was, he was also riled up. Researching the language had been very entertaining for him and he began to ponder about other hobbies he never got to try.

"I'm going to try everything in this lifetime", he muttered.

Since then, research had been his favorite time of the day. Everytime, he would disappear to study more of the language and soon, he had finished the elementary book.

By then, they had been on the road for a month with most of that time being spent in a lot of cities along the way.

They had originally arrived at the first city a few days after he had learnt quarter of the language book, but some incidents made their arrival short and as such they had decided to head straight for the capital, especially since they realized his reading capabilities; they were determined to put him into an academy.

Since then, they had visited five cities and he had spent some time cooking, working at the pawn shop and making money.

He was determined to enjoy life to the fullest.