Her feet felt stuck to the ground. The woman watched on, weary and wide-eyed, as the farmer proffered his outstretched hand.

Clothes? Is he… Offering me clothes? She couldn’t help but feel incredulous, somewhat.

After everything she had done, from rummaging through his crates in the search of clothes and even going so far as to steal his produce--though, she tried to make up for it by cleansing the dirty wool he had stored; she would've left money or something else of monetary value, if she had any--he was offering her clothes.

Naturally, she couldn’t help as her mind wondered about the possibility of it being a trap. Though, the chances of that seemed slight.

For one, she’d have far less escape routes if he trapped her in the storeroom, not that he knew she’d never go there again after being caught.

Two, he was unarmed. Sure, she was well aware that offensive magic existed in this world but, based off how the farmer reacted when she used [Leech], albeit briefly, she doubted he was versed in such things.

And, finally, and perhaps the most salient point, he was unlikely to be able to hurt her. [Leech] seemed to set him on edge--the way his face contorted and tensed up suggested a degree of uncomfortability being near her. Not to mention, she doubted there’d be any white monsters nearby, tending to stay close to the fog, she presumed, which meant he was unlikely to be over level 5.

Her boon, her higher levels, her specialisation and maximising her potential all lent credence to her belief that, in this dynamic, she was the more powerful of the two.

And he was just an old man; he wasn’t exactly intimidating, even if he lacked the small, frail bodies she was used to belonging to the elderly.

It was all that reasoning which persuaded her to reach forwards, grabbing the clothes from the farmer's hand.

Once her hand drew back, and the farmer made no movement other than to withdraw his own hand, she gave the clothes a quick once-over.

That they were made of a processed fabric was the first thing she discovered. After that, the quality of the thread as well as the stitching surpassed her own garments. Size-wise, it had clearly been adjusted for her, loose but baggy suggesting it had been reduced in some way.

Quickly, she unhooked her cloak, placing it gently on the ground with care, before throwing on the make-shift dress. It was of a dark, reddish, almost burgundy colour, with sleeves that crept up to the back of her hands and a skirt that cut off sharply around knee height.

Once she was actually wearing it did she realise that it was probably originally a tunic for a much taller person, the sleeves being rolled up and the skirt clearly having been cut.

Although she was still underdressed by her standards--a fact that made this interaction no more easy to bear--it was far better than nothing, and she savoured the feeling of fabric against flesh. Whereas the cloak could sometimes irritate her skin or trap heat in an uncomfortable way, this tunic was far better, the material softer and lighter on her body.

No matter how much she wanted to keep a stoic face, not letting her emotions get the best of her, she couldn’t help but smile a little.

With her rustling around now finished, the farmer turned around, his face far more at ease with her presence, now.

The man paused for a few seconds, evidently thinking over some things, before saying a few more words.

And there it was. Again. Strange, foreign sounds, clearly holding some intelligible meaning to them but incomprehensible to her ears.

At first, she refused to believe it; her emotions must’ve been too high, and too startled, for her to have correctly caught what the man said initially.

But now? Her worst fear had been proven; she couldn’t understand the language.

Her heart sank to her stomach as realisation and understanding whelmed her, and just a slight tinge of panic, as well.

At her lack of reaction, the farmer paused mid-sentence (at least, she suspected it was in the middle of a sentence) as he stared at her strangely. Carefully, he spoke a select phrase and then waited for her response.

Forcefully, the woman dragged her gaze back to the farmer, determined to try her hardest. Maybe I do know the language and have just forgotten it?

She chewed over what he had just said, analysing the phonemes, the change in pitch and cadence, trying to see if anything was recognisable to her ears.

Nothing.

The man spoke again--a different phrase, this time. Though, there were similarities:

The beginning and ending of the phrase sounded like they were the same words as the previous sentence, so maybe they were indicative of something?

His pronunciation of the phonemes, as well, were somewhat uniform, with pitch being the major difference.

But still, nothing.

Fuck me. At least I won’t accidentally say something stupid, so that’s a plus, I suppose. There doesn’t happen to be some kind of translation skill, does there?

Linguistics

0th Tier

[Linguistical Immersion] (1/10)

Greatly enhances your ability to decipher a language

Cost: 1 es/min

[Archive Language] (1/10)

Submit a deciphered language to a personal codex

Casting Time: 1 min

Cost: 50 es

[Translation] (1/10)

Communicate innately in any deciphered language

Cost: 10 es/min

There is. But is it worth it? The ability to be understood also confers the ability to make a fool of yourself.

It was the easy solution, and one that was at least somewhat synergistic with her current build, but the ease of it sent a sour taste in her mouth. It was almost like cheating--she was aware of how silly a notion that was but she couldn’t help it.

Her attention was dragged away from her interface and back to the farmer when he took a step forwards, pointing at the stew she was neglecting.

The food was collected in a clay cauldron she had formed, hardened under heat and cleaned of impurities and disease with cleanse. It took her a little bit of time to push through her sensibilities telling her how dirty it was before she began to use it for food and water.

Currently, it housed a simple concoction of meat, water, and vegetables, leaving a delectable aroma wafting through the air--far better than anything she had eaten before.

The farmer pointed again, saying something as well, not that she could understand.

Nevertheless, she struggled to tilt the cauldron over, pouring the food into another bowl she had made, wary of the boiling liquid spilling onto her--no longer bare--skin.

Since she decided she’d stay here in this patch of woodland for at least some time, she had actually gone out of her way to develop some crockery.

Bowl in hand, she stared at the farmer, trying to ascertain his intention.

Does he want some? He wasn’t pointing at her hands but still at the cauldron. Doesn’t seem like it.

Although she was hungry, and the temptation to eat was strong, she’d feel an extreme awkwardness at eating in front of the man.

Her desire for satiation won out, in the end, and she quickly gobbled the food down.

Just in case, however, she poured out some more and passed the bowl to the farmer, making sure to use [Cleanse] while she was at it, a soft, green light enveloping the bowl.

The man hesitated for a bit before reluctantly taking the bowl. He held it in his hands, occasionally changing how he held it as the heat got to him, before apparently deciding to actually taste it.

He ate all of it, in the end, but certainly wasn’t as eager as the woman was.

Giving the bowl back, he decided upon a different tact; he gestured at the food, then at her dagger that she kept in a very loose and badly-made sheath, before miming something.

Something about the food, my dagger. Using my dagger? Cutting something… Oh; what I used to make the stew.

She scrambled away quickly, digging through some bushes before she pulled out a fur pelt. There were a few there, none of them processed into anything yet. The woman had contemplated offering them to the farmer in exchange for food and possibly clothes but ultimately decided against that decision; to suddenly begin trading with the person you were just stealing from was far too embarrassing and scary for her.

Not to mention, what would a farmer want with some old pelts, anyway?

She held up the fur, a strange blue colour--one assuredly not a natural pigment, she believed--that came from an animal similar in size and shape to a fox that she was familiar with.

The farmer eyed the held-up pelt, as well as looking at the partially hidden collection as well. His eyes widened slightly, pointing at the pelt, then behind him at the sheep, and saying a short phrase accompanied by a short nod. From his demeanour, the woman gathered that he seemed thankful.

But what is he thankful of? Killing the foxes? I suppose it'd be harder in his situation than most.

Part of her wanted to return the nod but she stopped herself quickly.

From there, the farmer proceeded to gesture a variety of things, having gotten into his head that the woman was unable to understand whatever he was saying.

Overall, she was glad he was trying to accommodate her but inwardly cringed at how stupid she must seem.

If she understood correctly, he was offering her to sleep in his house rather than sleeping rough in exchange for her hunting foxes. And something to do with the sheep, though she wasn’t sure what he meant exactly.

She didn’t respond right away, the farmer waiting to see what she would say--or, rather, gesture.

There was a whole variety of factors to ponder upon, all weighted differently. As much as she was comfortable camping, sleeping roughly, and even getting used to the coldness--made much easier since her acquisition of the cloak--she couldn’t deny that sleeping in a warm house was appealing.

To help come to a decision, she focused her gaze on a tree within the farmer's sight. It was slim, definitely unable to hold her weight if she climbed up, and not that tall. It still held on to a few leaves but was sparse compared to evergreens.

She glanced over her essence, as well as [Leech], before feeling the mental bridge unfurl. A ponderous flood of energy drained out of her--nearly a quarter of her total--as she was subsequently filled with vitalising life energy.

What she saw was a recent development; phenomenal, green light, similar to a ray of sunlight illuminating dust particles in the air, stretched out from her heart towards the tree in a matter of milliseconds.

This had only started happening the past few days; the light had begun as barely visible--she thought she was hallucinating for the first few times--but solidified slightly, becoming a tad more saturated. She wondered what could've caused this change in perception, looking through what skills had levelled up, before coming to the conclusion that the change correlated with [Well of Essence] levelling up.

The tree, meanwhile, suddenly began to curl. It’s bark cracked in places, peeling off and chunks dropping to the ground. All the leaves grew discoloured and patchy before falling as well. Even the branches, the thinnest ones, shattered and splintered apparently at random.

And all of this happened in only a second.

A grand total of 550 points of damage was dealt to the tree.

The farmer stared at the now dead and wilting tree in awe, his mouth slightly agape, his eyes wide, and his posture far more tense than before.

Some might say it was a frivolous use of essence, and the woman would agree. That said, though, she couldn’t help but feel slightly better, slightly more secure, after the display.

And, besides, with [Meditate], it’d take less than three minutes to recoup the essence cost.

With mutual understanding in place, the farmer retreated back to his house, the woman following a distance behind. The man retrieve his bow, startling the woman as she prepared herself to run off, before quickly reassuring her as he let out the sheep, free to run around and graze.

Now that she could get a better look at them, she was actually surprised at how similar to their Earth counterparts they were. They weren’t of an unusual colouring, nor a non-standard size. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say they were sheep from Earth.

Maybe, when their wool had grown out after being shaved recently, the differences would become more obvious.

So, for the rest of the day, the woman ran about, essentially. The farmer made sure the sheep were grazing where they should be, helped out by many wooden fences, while the woman ran between patches and patches of trees and burrows, looking for foxes.

She had done a similar thing for the past few days--though, with far more discretion--and so had learned what to look for.

That didn’t mean foxes were easy to find, however; they were perceptive critters, both skittish and agile to boot. Rather than sneaking up on them--something far harder to do with these animals than the ones in the forest, she noted--the woman, instead, took them out from a distance.

Even without [Seeker Mastery], a level 10 [Leech] could still reach 40 whole metres, which was more than enough.

She hadn’t really experimented that much before but now, at such a distance, she was beginning to discover the intricacies to how [Leech] targeted something. Although, with [Leech] at its lowest power, it still dealt 110 damage, killing foxes in one second; that severely hampered active experimentation.

One thing she found out was how occlusion affected the skill. As soon as the foxes felt themselves draining of life, they’d immediately dart away somewhere. When this happened to be a tree in between the woman and the fox, the skill cut out abruptly, the mental link severed.

Thankfully, it didn’t hurt at all when that happened. Although she would use 10 essence, sometimes, the fox would still be alive, indicating that when she would lose sight of something, not all damage would go through even though she was still taxed the full amount.

A very unfair system, in her opinion, but there wasn’t much she could do about that.

On the same note, it brought up the interesting point about latency; although she wasn’t yet sure about it, it felt like the connection always broke down a tad later than when she’d lost sight of the fox. Whether that was an actual latency problem or merely her reacting non-instantaneously was another question.

Another thing was the speed of the connection itself. Establishing it was just as quick as always, once the target was within her sight. Unfortunately, she couldn’t specify ‘fox’ and have the skill target the creature for her; she still had to search with her eyes, looking for the specific entity she was targeting.

By the end of the day, when she heard the farmer shouting for her to return--which is how she interpreted his loud calls of attention--she had successfully hunted three foxes, two of which were found together.

All-in-all, a much greater harvest than any other day before, largely attributed to her unfettered ability to run around, covering a much greater amount of ground. Additionally, she could also spend more time hunting rather than making something or scouting, as well.

The woman couldn’t deny it; having explicit permission greatly helped things.

As the sky was darkening, clouds covering the once beautiful blue canvas above them, she shared her spoils with the farmer. Together, they skinned the foxes, storing the pelts in a crate in the storeroom while the meat--how little of it there was--was hung up in there as well.

The woman wasn’t entirely sure that would keep the meat from decomposing but she admitted she knew very little in this regard; her experience in preservation was only really a fridge and freezer and nothing else.

While they were doing that, however, a loud crack thundered through the sky, the door reverberating as both the woman and the farmer looked around.

The old man, however, ever experienced, knew exactly what that was. With purposeful strides the young woman lacked, he exited the storeroom, picked up his bow and quiver, a knife, and bundles of sticks with fabric wrapped around one end. With one look outside, he quickly shrugged on a thick cloak as well.

Curiosity over taking her, she followed.

The cloud covering was heavy, with rainfall now beginning. It was light, sure, but the sky foretold bad things in the future.

The farmer walked over towards the shelter the sheep were currently in, double-checking all the locks before walking over to another building--this one made of a combination of wood and stone. She wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but it contained a large bucket that the farmer struggled to pick up.

Although the old man seemed to know what was going on, never hesitating, he seemed tense and his movements were noticeably hurried.

She quickly walked over, helping the man carry the surprisingly hefty bucket of what must’ve been a liquid with how the weight kept changing as they swayed while walking.

The man smiled at her, giving her another little nod, before pointing towards where they were going.

Once at the fence, it had already descended further into nighttime, ambient light far diminished. To combat this, the man uncovered the bucket, revealing a thick, viscous, black liquid beneath.

He dipped one of the fabric-wrapped sticks into it, pulling it out as the liquid clung to the fabric, not even dripping a drop. He gave the wooden stick to the woman, which she grabbed after her surprise quickly wore off.

Pulling out some flint and steel, he dashed some sparks on the liquid, lighting up in a hot and bright flame almost immediately, causing the woman to promptly extend her arms further away from her. She adjusted her hands, positioning the torch to her side and slightly behind her head to retain some level of night vision.

Now, they could see far better.

Next, the man picked up a brush he must’ve taken with him, dipping that in the liquid before slathering it along the fences.

She stared in disbelief, wondering whether he was going to do what she thought he was going to do.

It seemed that the farmer only had one brush for the woman kept her distance, offering light but not wanting to be too close to the liquid with an open flame. It took some time before the man seemed happy with how much of the fence he covered.

And then he actually did it; with the same flint and steel, the fence lit up like a beacon, the flames travelling from one end to another rapidly.

Confusion compounded with awe; this was the first time the woman had seen such a large, naked flame before. The way it illuminated the pure, black, night sky… There was a certain beauty to it.

A beauty the farmer didn’t stop to appreciate. Picking up the bucket in a hurry--she was wary to help carry it now--he carried it further along the fence before reaching an unpainted section.

Once there, he repeated the same thing; slathering the fence in the liquid before lighting it up.

By now, the rain was thundering, pelting down forcefully and utterly soaking the ground, turning the dirt into a thick mud.

Even occasionally, there was a flicker of lightning before the resonant clash of thunder. And where did this lightning hit? The patches of woodland, of course, such as the one the woman had been camping at recently.

When she saw the isolated trees catch ablaze, she looked upon the farmer in a slightly new light.

Did he know this was going to happen? Did he consider it?

One thing was for certain; the man had experienced all of this before.

And the fire wasn’t even dying out in this torrential downpour. Whatever that liquid was, it seemed capable of keeping a fire going even under all this rain.

They carried on painting and lighting the fence until they were done with about half of the total circumference. Facing the caldera, all of that side was now in a large blaze for reasons unknown to the woman.

Sure; it was strange to set light to your own farmland but the complete lack of hesitation the farmer showed suggested it wasn’t just a spot of idle arson.

They didn’t finish going the whole way around. Throughout all of it, the farmer was on edge, constantly stealing glances towards the caldera.

By the time he had decided he was finished, he began a run back towards his house, before quickly turning back around and taking the nearly empty bucket with him.

Naturally, the woman chased after him.

He arrived at the sheep's shelter, their baaing and bleating loud to her ears, and climbed on top of it. She clambered up right behind him, able to see all of the farmland from this elevated viewpoint.

He unstretched his bow from around him, withdrew an arrow, and waited, staring straight towards the caldera, shrouded in darkness.

Tension was high; the only sound the woman could hear was that of the noise of the rain, the distress of the sheep, the periodic clap of thunder, and her own resounding heartbeat.

Together, they waited.