Swamy woke up in the morning.

‘Time to get ready I guess’ he thought as he yawned. He had a late night yesterday. It was only the first day of the game, called Long Island, but it was quite eventful.

He took a shower and dressed in a shirt and jeans. And he was off.

His apartment was just 20 mins away from his university which gave him some time to sleep a little but last night he had kinda stretched himself. He knew he had to go to college in the morning but the excitement of finding something new kept him in the game.

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After getting the system message which said he was on the right track, Raka continued reading more picture books. When he first started, every fruit picture would increase Language of Ilmentia Island by 1%. However after 6% it slowed down so that every 4-5 pictures would now increase 1%.

Raka kept reading more and more picture books till the increase in experience crawled down to about 50 pictures for 1%. He still persisted. Knowing he was on the right track made him stubborn and he felt that if he had to read every picture book in the library, he would. But the experience he was gaining was trickling down.

By 19%, he had to read almost 150 picture names to get 1%. He was slowly getting worried that he might run out of picture books before he even got anywhere close to a 100%.

“Show skill, Language of Ilmentia Island”

Language of Ilmentia Island: 19.93%

"When the learning of the language of Ilmentia Island reaches 100%, you will be able to communicate with the residents of the island.

‘Seems like it slowed down again. Better find some more books.’

Thinking that, he started collecting more picture books. He had found almost all of the simple ones which had fruits, vegetables, animals, birds, vehicles and a lot of miscellaneous ones which had a bit of everything in them. He was now beginning to find a lot of the same pictures in the other books which did not increase his experience at all.

Ofcourse he judiciously avoided all the books which dealt with the island. He knew he would never get them right. Not yet atleast. Finding no more books, he went back to the desk where he had this stockpile of the books he had already read. He had started worrying of what would happen when he runs out of picture books.

‘Well I will worry about it when I get there’.

He started reading those books hoping that it will have some new pictures. The first two did not. He moved to his third one and fortunately, it had a few.

You have grown. You Age is now 2.

Language of Ilmentia Island: 20%

“You can now speak certain words which may be understood by the people.”

"When the learning of the language of Ilmentia Island reaches 100%, you will be able to communicate with the residents of the island."

He read the message again and again.

‘Certain words??? ’ What words could he use now! So far all he had read had been names of stuff from the real world. Though now that he thought it, what were real world books doing here in the first place.

‘I guess it’s for the adventurers like us. It’s to help us start learning the language.’

‘But the bigger question is what words can I use now? How do I find that out? Should I start talking to the npcs trying words in random?’ Raka was confused.

He looked at the message again.

‘Hmm, age is 2. What could it mean….’

On a hunch, he took out a book that looked like a story book. He looked at the cover. The title was still in the island’s language. He recognised some characters having seen them before but he still couldn’t understand it.

Still he opened the book and looked at one of the pages.

Raka smiled.

‘So that’s how it works.’

On the page he found some words in English. The rest were still in the island’s language though. So the more I learn the language, the more the system translates the local language into my language. It was similar to Royal Road in that sense as the system translated all languages into your language. But in this case the system had a condition of you needing to learn the native language first.

He opened one of the picture books he had read before and saw that all the words had been translated to English now.

‘That confirms it.’

Raka was feeling quite pleased with himself when,

“Satiety has reduced to 10. You are hungry. If Satiety falls more, you will be affected by negative conditions.”

He opened his bag and took out a piece of bread. Took a bite and,

“Ugh!”

The bread was tough and pretty hard to eat. It tasted bland and tasteless. He somehow bit into it, piece by piece, chewed and swallowed.

“Satiety increases by 30”

For now he was good. He took a water canteen and took a drink.

“Satiety increases by 5”

‘Well if I have to eat it again, I might pass out from the strain of chewing’.

Deciding that, he stood up and made for the streets. He would try one of those methods of getting food he had read about.

*

Raka walked the streets looking for a food shop. Though he didn’t have any money yet he figured he had a better chance of begging food from a food shop than anywhere else. He walked around looking at the various shop displays.

There were a lot of stores on the island. He passed by looking at their window displays for a bit. A shop was displaying some designer clothes; the one next to it had a leather armor display on a mannequin while the one across the street had a heavy armor display. Walking a little more, he could see a shop displaying all sorts of knick knacks. It seemed interesting so Raka looked a little more closely. There were all sorts of things made from metal, stone, strings, sea-shells and things he couldn’t recognize. The more he saw it the more it looked like one of those tourist stores which sell souvenirs.

A little further some shops were actually selling fish. He saw some tuna like fish, some long nosed fish, a fish which had really sharp and long teeth (shark evolution maybe) and some other which he could not even say whether they were fish.

Everything seemed new and interesting.

He saw a couple of people talking in the native language. He could now understand some simple words here and there though most of the conversation was still gibberish. And then,

“Language of Ilmentia Island: 20.1%.”

He could raise his language skills by listening to people talk. Realizing that, he tried listening in more but being aware of not making it look like that he was actually eavesdropping. After all, people don’t take to eavesdroppers kindly. He went close to a group, heard for a bit and then walked off to the next.

Soon he came up on a food shop; it had various kinds of good food, cakes, etc on display. He stood outside for a bit thinking of the best way to approach.

He knocked on the shop door and waited.

No response. He knocked again and waited.

No response again. He simply knocked again.

A lady came outside looking angry and started shouting a bit of angry gibberish.

Raka listened for bit, slowly making as sad and miserable a crying face, he could manage. He thought to actually cry for a bit, but being a guy that didn’t seem like a manly thing to do. So he simply pretended, as much as he could.

He wouldn’t win an award for his acting, however…

The food shop lady looking at him calmed down. Raka had got his chance.

He started rubbing his tummy and bowing. The shop lady realizing it, smiled a little. She went inside the shop and came out with an apple and gave it to him.

“Apple”

“Language of Ilmentia Island: 25%.”

Raka froze. He had said it from force of habit as he had been practicing all this time. He suspected that the lady understood it as well. She smiled some more and shook her head and replied with some gibberish which had the word apple in it.

Raka quickly looked around. A couple of drab toga clad players, who probably had the same idea to beg for food, were staring at him open mouthed.

‘Shit!’

Raka had intended to hide his information as much as possible to gain an advantage. He didn’t think that he would never tell it. But he figured that once he gained enough of an advantage, and if no one else had figured out his method, he would post it on the forums himself. But now, these two seemed to have realized it. Even though they wouldn’t have understood it, but here they saw a player say something and the shop lady happily responding.

Raka started waving his arms, hoping it would fool them. The shop lady looked a bit confused and then shrugged and walked back in the shop.

He started moving ahead, away from the library and the couple followed.

‘Just as I thought, they weren’t fooled.’

Raka kept walking for a while here and there aimlessly, sometimes stopping to look at a display, all the while hoping that these two would get bored and leave. But that didn’t happen. He didn’t have a choice now. He thought of a plan and then started walking towards the library.

Once he reached there, he simply moved towards one of the shelves on the main floor and opened up a book and started looking up and down, as if he was reading it. He did this for a few minutes turning a few pages, then put down the book and started reading another.

After going through a couple of books, Raka put them back and logged out.

*

Swamy looked at the clock which said 2 am. He had been playing for almost 6 hours. But he was still a bit excited and couldn’t fall asleep. He wanted to go back in but he had class in the morning. And he didn’t want to go back when he knew those two would be there.

He hoped that the plan would work and successfully fool them but he wasn’t sure. One of the people following him was a girl who seemed to observe, not just look at, him. Intelligent women are not easily fooled, he thought remembering his mother.

He sighed hoping that the damage done would be reduced a bit. Maybe they won’t find the kids room. Maybe they won’t know to look in the picture books, after all there was an entire floor, maybe they will be fooled and keep looking at all the books…

Thinking this and that, Swamy dozed off.

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Swamy headed to college.

“Hey Swamy”

“Hey Rajan, whats up?”

Swamy met Rajan at the gate and they headed together towards their classroom.

“NOT good at all. Spent my whole night trying to figure out this game Long Island”

“Yeah its tough, ain’t it”.

“Right. Wait! You started playing Long Island as well.”

“Yeah”

“Ah, brothers in pain!” Rajan patted his back with a sad face.

Swamy simply smiled.

They took their seats and a while later the classes began. Though a lot of stuff had been in his mind this morning, Swamy put everything aside to focus on his lectures. This class was one of his favorite teachers, Prof. D’souza. He didn’t have a problem with the other professors, but it was just that they didn’t have a perspective that Prof. D’souza had. He truly saw things in a different way which showed in his classes. His classes were always filled to maximum. Even students of other branches came to sit in his classes. Some times they took it as their free elective subject. Other times just cause they had free time.

Students, having free time, and wishing to sit in a class in university, hmmm guess that says it all!!

Today, he started an interesting topic as well.

“How do we relate to ourselves in Virtual Reality? Do we look at ourselves like having got a second chance to make ourselves as we would have liked without all the mistakes we actually made in real life? Making a better history, that is. Or do we look at virtual reality as an extension of real life, so that we can enjoy our real lives more fully?”

“Let’s divide ourselves into groups and come up with arguments for both these cases. So I want equal number of teams for each side.”

Students started rearranging themselves. Some people stuck with their friends while seating so they simply sat there. Others quickly moved and soon formed groups. Rajan, called over a couple of girls from the front row and his other neighbor and we made a group as well.

Swamy looked at the girls approaching.

‘Damn bastard! Both of them are quite pretty. How the hell did he get to be so popular!!’ was what Swamy actually thought but….

“Hi I am Sneha!”

“Hi I am Himali!”

“Oh hi, I am Swamy, nice to meet you!”

Sneha had lovely black long hair, with black eyes with a hint of grey and pink lips and a suitably placed nose. She was slim, about average height and had a bracelet on with some kind of green stone. He later found out that it was called Turquoise to signify a December birth.

Himali on the other hand, had black curly hair which fell down gently on to her shoulders. She had pretty deep black eyes and smooth lips with a cutely pointed nose. She had on a very small nose ring as well as a couple of small earrings.

The other guy on the other hand was plain looking, thin, wearing stylish glasses, and branded clothes and had an air of nonchalance about him, as though the world’s problems will solve itself on its own one day.

“Hi, I am Manish, you can call me Mani” he said.

They soon had a good discussion going on about the topic.

..…Swamy however was worried about a much more fundamental problem. Manish had stood up and moved to sit in front of them and Himali had sat next to him. Sneha on the other hand took Manish’s vacant place next to Rajan.

‘Ah the irony!’, Swamy sighed….

During lunch, all five of them sat together, much to Swamy’s chagrin which he hoped did not show, and started discussing about the game.

“So all of you started playing Long Island?” asked Swamy.

“Yeah! Rajan recommended me to try, and I did.”

“Yup, as Manish was joining, I thought I would try it as well.”

“In my case I think Rajan had to beg me to join didn’t he?” said Sneha while looking at Rajan.

Rajan sheepishly said, “That’s probably true, but I thought you would enjoy the game, honest!”

Sneha replied, “But it’s so damn hard. I can’t talk to anyone, so I don’t know what to do or how to get any quests. I can’t even talk to other players either.”

“Hahahaha true that” said Himali. “I hate the bread too. God if someone doesn’t figure out a way to earn some money, I would die of hunger soon. Though I think we got around a way to talk to each other didn’t we Manish.”

“Please say you are not talking about hand signs or whatever.”

“Actually no”, Manish replied. “You can friend someone. You just have to create a party with them for a while first. Not long though and then you will be able to PM each other. Himali and I usually party ourselves in other games as well so fortunately we discovered this.”

“Yeah and as for food, you can beg the local people. They usually give you an apple or stuff like that. But it doesn't always work so you may have to try a couple of times.”

“Wow so you guys discovered that too?”

“Ah no, someone had posted a couple of methods on the forums and we tried that.”

“Hmmm”

“So you guys must have started on the same place then”, asked Sneha.

“Yeah we started in Gurrow village, in Ilmentia island. We are humans.”

“Really I started in Dalmund island, Manaka village. I actually wanted to be an elf, but when I tried, the system said that this race is not available as yet.”

“Yeah me too. I tried orcs, goblins, giants, werewolves and whatever I could think of and the system always said, that this race is not available as yet. Whats up with that? Could it be that only humans could be selected at the start? By the way I started at Dalmund as well.”

“Could be. Maybe as we discover them we would be allowed to change to them. Or after we discover them they would be available to newer players.”

“Its possible, and what do you think about the no stat situation. Did you figure out a way to generate stats?”

“Not yet, we are still trying. I was running and weight-lifting all night yesterday. But there was news on the forums today. I did not get a chance to read it fully, but I think it said that someone had found a clue that the way to talk could be in the library.”

“Oh really…wow!! About time that! So now we can actually start enjoying the game. Though it makes you wonder if you get this at the start what does the game have in store for you later on…I am excited. Been a while since I felt this excited. I just hope it doesn’t turn out to be a dampener.”

“Yeah us too, we are hoping to really start our adventures. And figuring out how to generate stats are fun on their own, I have been trying loads of different things, hahahah I even tried leaving the city. But I couldn’t. Got a system message saying that I have not grown enough. Could be related to age you think?”

“yeah could be………..

……………..

……………….

………………..

Swamy quietly listened to every conversation noting points of interest in his mind. He nodded here and there but most of the conversation was being carried on by the other four and he did not feel like talking so he resigned himself to listening and sipping on his juice with an occasional ‘Oh’ or ‘Ah’ or ‘hahaha’ here and there.

He pricked his ears when the clue to the library post was mentioned, and nodded like everyone else, not showing his extreme agitation.

Lunch ended and all of them went back to their classes. Swamy walked a little slow behind them thinking all the time.

When he arrived home in the evening, the first thing he did was open his laptop and look at the forums. Sure enough there was a post with a heading ‘Clue found to communicating with locals’ which had quickly become quite popular over the day. He opened it and read the first post,

“Hey,

I and my friend just logged out from the game and we have incredible news to report. Seems like someone has found out how to get the skill to talk to people. It happened like this.

We had just gone to the food shop at Ilmentia island to beg for some food when we saw this guy ahead of us taking an apple from the shop lady. And then he said something. We couldn’t understand it but the incredible thing was the shop lady responded back to him. We were staring at him when this guy suddenly turned around, saw us, and then started waving his arms. It was extremely suspicious and I think he did that to hide that he could talk to the shop lady. We followed him and his suspicious behaviour continued as he started walking like he had nothing to do looking at the shops and what else. Then he went to the library, and started looking at some books. And then he logged out.

I think he thought he lost us in between so went back to the library. But then he saw us again, so he started looking at random books and after a while logged out. Like it is gonna give us a slip. But its definite that the library holds something which will help people talk.

I and my friend are gonna look for it. Asking other people to join to make the search easier.”

“Is it true?”

“He wasn’t just pulling your legs was it”

“Oh finally a clue. Lets go to the library.”

“Now we know where to look, we can simply comb the library from top to bottom”

“I am not in Ilmentia island. Can I go to the library at my island?”

“Please tell us if you find something, pretty please!”

……………..

…………….

………….

There were several replies, some questioning and some joining in to help.

Swamy went to his capsule.

*

Raka opened his eyes to see a crowd of people surrounding him. He glanced left and right,

People were opening books, looking at them and putting them in a stack on the table. There seemed to be five people working on every shelf. People sat down on the ground while looking at those books. Some were crawling while taking out books from the bottom shelf. Some stood on a chair and were trying to reach the higher ones. Altogether the floor had almost a hundred people. He assumed that there would be as many people in the above floors as well. About 500 people were at the library already and more seemed to be coming in.

Suddenly the guy next to me looked up from a book and made some signs,

"Please go help on the 3rd floor" was how Raka translated it.

“Alright” waved with a thumbs up and Raka started moving towards the stairs. The guy went back to looking at the shelves for more books.

Raka quietly changed his direction and left the library. He looked outside; it was late afternoon in the game. He started walking here and there and found the streets to be completely void of players. There were still one or two who did not seem affected, but most of the players had gone to the library. Even the ones logging in seemed to hurry to the library.

The clue to talking had that much of an impact.

Raka smiled. His plan had worked magnificently.