Chapter 8: Time to Explore!

Little author's note: I was binge-reading Polymath Redux and thought that my way of perspective was too narrow, which is why I am trying a somewhat broader view now. (Tell me if you liked it) PS: The thumb of my right hand is numb, wtf?

-------------------------------- 3rd Person, all-knowing

The sun drowned in the horizon, it's rays of light coloring the sky in a twilight of red, orange, violet and yellow. It was'nt really cold, yet you couldn't call it hot either. Vor was walking down the dirty road, it wasn't actually a real street since people walked over the ground for so many times that it formed something similar to a path. While proper streets exist in this world, they only are built in a city.

As Vor looked around he noticed the gazes of kids, as his gaze met theirs they ran away. This led Vor to ponder a brief moment, 'Am I scary?', while such thoughts ran through his mind, he failed to notice that the expression he was making while thinking looked quite intimidating. The fact that he boasted about 1,90 meters of height and was quite muscular didn't help him in that aspect. The citizens weren't that tall in the Kingdom of Aseran, the usual adult men was only 1,75 meters. Men in the northern countries were usually bigger, but they would obviously not live in the Kingdom.

Vor did not only scare little kids, but the young men and older men were cautious of the newcomer, glancing with uncertainty in his direction, thinking, 'Uwaah. He sure is big.' , Vor was oblivous of this, but he was pondering why everyone was so much smaller than him, but he concluded that it wasn't too different to back in his time as a dragon, with the exception that he can now enjoy the literally small things in life.

While farmers usually had to work hard in the harvesting period, they still manage to relax at evenings. Thus the tavern at the villages center was crowded, inside and outside. It was full of life . Vor was flashed, he never had seen so many people as once, with the exception when he used to crush them, but now he had to blend in. This was only of moderate success, the gloomy looking handsome giant was behaving like a village boy would in the capital, earning him strange looks.

'I am the most normal out of all normal humans!' was going through Vor's mind while he awkwardly went towards the tavern. The tavern was big and not shabby, it was a half-timbered house and looked well maintained. He opened the door and was greeted by noise, the spacious room with mutiple tables and chairs were filled by people, mostly farmers with their buddies and a few girls. As he went inside the tavern slowly got more quiet until there was utter silence and everybody just looked at Vor, everybody had something different in mind as they eyed him.

'What did I do?,' Vor didn't know how to behave in such a situation, he didn't even have a clue how to behave in human society anyway. 'Whats up with their expressions?'

'Huuge.' thought a brownhaired short guy. While the men were impressed with Vor's height and athletic built, the women and girls were appreciating the same things in a different way.

"His long hair is black, it looks sooo smooth." whispered one girl to another, who replied: "But did you see his eyes? They are golden! And his body is to die for." The two girls weren't the most beautiful girls in the kingdom, but they were very pleasently to look at which caused the boys who were sitting with the girls to look at Vor with envy. "You two obviously don't know what you are talking about, just look at this heavenly face, even with that alone he would be the most handsome person in Tavin!" retorted a woman in her thirties, this lead to a heated debate between the women and if one debates about taste, it was bound to get louder. And it did. A few moments later the tavern was already as loud as it was when Vor went inside.

'Is it over? But I didn't do anything, why are they even debating about my appearance in the first place? Did the goddess somehow give me a grotesque appearance? This doesn't seem the case from their reactions, but it seems to attract attention, unwanted attention.' pondered Vor as an older man approached him. It was the same old man who kindly stood in for Markus. He seemed by far older than Markus, short statue and short grey hair, yet he seemed rather fit. His blue eyes still maintained a certain youth, he was clothed in a farmers attire and spoke to the youngster.

"Well, aren't you the lad who was with little Sera? Why aren'tcha at her side?"

Vor was quite surprised by the man's way of speaking, but he managed to get a grip of himself and responded. "Indeed I am. You may call me Vor, I wanted to explore this village of yours, it looks even bigger when you are inside it." While he still wasn't comfortable to speak with more than one person at a time, he wasn't too bad to speak to one person. Even as a human he retained the knowledge and capability of his dragon brain.

The old man was pleasently surprised by Vor's praise and grabbed Vor by his arm, thinking something along the lines of 'He will have 'n interesting story.' Arriving at a table with 3 people he finally said. "Grab a seat lad, I'm Maximilian! These two youngsters are Marie and Lisa " he gestured at a cute girl with auburn short hair and blue eyes, she seemed quite athletic with rough hands presumably from working on a farm. The other girl Lisa seemed very meek and quite intimidated by Vor's presence, she had blonde hair and brown eyes. She was about 10 years old and was quite thin, unfit to work at a farm.

'Wow, he sure looks strong, I wan't to spar with him!' thought Marie with a devilish smile. She was quite the troublemaker, being 15 years old and always looking for a fight. Her dream was to be a renowned warrior, which was unlike the usual girl, yet she wasn't mustered for the army. If girls wanted to fight they had to carry the expenses for their education themselves. Thus she worked at a farm since 5 years, saving money to finally get educated in the knights school of Medeth. She also knew that she will have a harder time to be acknowleged by men in the military, yet she didn't care.

"Young lad, don't be shy, sit in front of me and next to Marie!" declared the old man Maximilian as he gazed onto the handsome young man still standing awkwardly at their desk.

Vor finally sat down while he thought. 'How did I even end up in this situation. I can't go now can I? That geezer, what does he even want?... Wait! Lisa? Wasn't that one of the childs living with Markus?'

Vor eyed Lisa, who met his gaze for a short moment instantly looking away from him. "Are you a grandchild of Markus?"

Marie looked interested in Vor and Maximilian was waiting for Lisa to answer, he wanted her to be more open towards other people. "W-What if I am?" she looked quite defensive, but she was quite intimidated by Vor's huge stature, this and the fact that she was quite meek resulted in this behavior.

"You don't have to worry, you have done nothing to incur my wrath." 'Yet' spoke Vor he wasn't used to this behavior, but then again he wasn't really used to any human behavior. "In fact, I will be sleeping at your home tonight."

"WHAT?" now it was Marie whose voice bursted out, one could misunderstand what Vor said, especially at her age.

"Well that shouldn't be too surprising if he is with Serayana. He will stay at their home Marie, I don't know why you are so worked up." said Maximilian, but he actually knew why she was so surprised, he had such thoughts once too back in the day.

"He's with Serayana?" blurted Marie, she was equally surprised as Lisa. She liked Serayana but she disliked the fact that Serayana was always fawned over by the village boys, yet she couldn't really bring herself to dislike the loner of the court. "I will make my way towards Medeth tomorrow, I think you two will be going too? Would you mind if I tag along? I want to go to the Kights Academy to learn how to fight!"

"You have to ask Mistress, I wouldn't mind more company." answered Vor, he was eager to question her about that academy, since he was interested in the combat humans use, even if it didn't really had any use to him, he wanted to be able to use weapons like a normal human would.

"Now, now , I want to hear about how you've met Serayana and what happened to her that she was all tattered." spoke Maximilian as this was the reason why he actually pulled Vor to his desk.

Thus Vor told them his story, leaving out a few details and using the background Serayana came up with. After finishing the story he only thought 'It's time to get back to shorty.' Vor wanted to leave quickly, yet he somehow was escorted by Marie who came with him to speak with Serayana and Lisa who just wants to go home. Thus the three of them made their way back, only the moon shining upon them.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I will cut the chapter here, sorry I don't have more time. :P

Does somebody have a good cover for this story? Because I don't.