Myles’ POV

Myles had gotten two skills since meeting Atakarr, and the latter of the two, [Tongue of the Deran], was, without argument, the strangest skill he’d gotten yet.

Tongue of the Deran_ Lv. 1/10

Type: (active)

Improves your comprehensive, speaking, reading, and writing ability of the language of the Deran people.

As soon as he’d gotten the skill, words, proper sentence structure and enunciation (among other things) for a language he had only just heard for the first time a few minutes ago had flooded into his brain. He did not know where the knowledge was coming from, nor how the system had access to said information, and Myles was quickly starting to suspect that it would be best if he did not think too much about it.

On the other hand, the former, which he had gotten when first faced with Atakarr’s nakedness, was definitely the most embarrassing skill he’d ever gotten.

Mental Fortitude_ Lv. 1/50

Type: (passive)

Increases your resistance against all forms of mental and emotional tampering per skill level.

Not really because of what the skill did (since even though Myles wasn’t quite sure what the System meant by ‘tampering’, it was obvious that this would be a very useful skill to have) but more because of why he’d gotten it in the first place.

Embarrassment or not though, Myles was glad he’d unlocked the skill as he focused on Atakarr; the very naked (focus!), cloven footed, horned woman carrying what he now knew was a corpse. Which he was really burning to ask about, but he figured Atakarr might not appreciate it so he didn’t. There were many other things he could ask about instead.

Before he could speak though, Atakarr beat him to it.

“Where are you from?” She asked.

Myles understood her reasonably well; annoyingly, his comprehension of the Deran tongue seemed to considerably exceed his ability to speak it. But then again it is often easier to understand a foreign language than speak it, due to all the extra little things that go into speaking a new language. And considering all the knowledge he’d received of the Deran tongue had gaping holes in them that he assumed could only be filled by skill levels, Myles figured it was a safe bet to say that he would not be eloquent at Deran for some time yet.

Back from his tangent, Myles remembered Atakarr’s question and answered. “Earth. I is Earth.” Myles sighed. This was going to be a pain until he got those levels.

“Earth,” Atakarr repeated the word slowly, rolling it around her tongue as if tasting it. She must have decided she liked it, because she asked next, “what is it like?”

Myles looked around at his bleak, dry, monochromatic surroundings. “Pretty,” he said.

Atakarr’s dark, glassy eyes trained on him. “In what way?” She asked.

Myles hesitated, searching for the words to explain. “More... colours,” he said slowly. “More... wet. More... air. More sun. More sky. More sand. More plants. More animals. Just... more.”

Ding!

Congratulations! [Tongue of the Deran] has levelled up.

Tongue Of The Deran_ Lv. 1-->2/10

Not even the influx of new knowledge of a language he never really learned distracted Myles from thoughts of his home. His home which he would very likely never see again.

“It sounds like the places in the stories,” Atakarr said.

“What stories?”

“The stories the elders tell us. Of the worlds of the Realm. Of our home, before we were stranded here.”

“Ah.” Myles had wondered how Atakarr and her people (he’d just always assumed there were others as she just hadn’t seemed like the Robinson Crusoe type, but mostly because of the pretty obvious evidence she had slung over her shoulder) had come to be in a place like this, he supposed it made sense that they would have been stranded here like he was. Although Myles was pretty sure their circumstances had been pretty mundane, unlike himself who seemed to have just dropped out of a hole in space-time. “Something our share then.”

Atakarr cocked her head at him, brows adorned with a contemplative frown. “You’re speaking better,” she said.

“Oh, uh...” Damn it. He should have known sudden improvements like that would be obvious. Well, nothing for it but the truth. Or a part of it at least. “I tell you, I own gift for speak.”

Ding!

Congratulations! You have unlocked the skill [Fibbing].

Fibbing_ Lv. 1/10

Type: (passive)

Improves your ability to tell half-truths and white lies on the spot per skill level.

Would you like to slot in this skill?

«Yes» || «No»

And a lot of other things too, apparently, Myles thought, for the first time ever declining to slot in a skill. He was running out of space anyway.

“That’s quite the gift,” Atakarr said. “Is it unique to you, or do all Earth people have it?”

“No, just me.” As far as he knew anyway.

“Is it common for Earth people to have unique talents like yours?”

“Not really. Well, maybe. Hard to know. We many.”

“How many?”

Myles did not know the Deran word for billions, or if there even was a Deran word for billions. “Very many,” he said instead.

Atakarr frowned in dissatisfaction. Myles couldn’t blame her; ‘very many’ was hardly specific. “Enough to fill every world in the sky?” she asked, pointing with her spear at the dozens of islands floating in space around them.

Myles nodded. “And many more,” he said, causing Atakarr’s eyes to grow wide as she seemed to attempt to visualize that many people.

“You is not many?” Myles asked, even though he already suspected the answer.

Atakarr’s face closed off immediately, almost like she’d flipped a switch and turned off her ability to express emotions. It was rather eerie. “No, there are ninety-four of us.”

“So few,” Myles said before he could stop himself.

A hesitant pause. “We were more. But there was an outbreak. Many didn’t make it.”

“I sorry,” Myles said.

“Don’t be. It happens from time to time, this was hardly the worst.” They walked in silence for a bit, then: “How did you come to be stranded here?”

It was an obvious subject change, and Myles was thankful for it. “Not know,” he said. “Not...” he sighed, not knowing the Deran word for ‘remember’. “Just... wake here.”

“You just woke up here?” Atakarr asked slowly, as though making sure she’d heard him right or confirming he had said what he’d meant to say.

“Yes,” Myles confirmed. “Just wake here.”

“Where’s your ship?” Atakarr asked, glancing around as though expecting to see a space-faring vessel parked in the distance.

“That what I say, no ship. Just wake here.”

Atakarr stopped, turning to fully face Myles, and the teen had to actively force his eyes from straying from her face. “So you don’t know how you got here? At all?”

“No.” Myles shook his head.

“This Earth,” Atakarr said then; slowly, making sure he caught every word, “what province is it in?”

“What?” Myles asked confused, wondering if maybe something had gotten lost in translation. What did she mean by province? Did she mean system? Or maybe galaxy? Whatever she meant, Atakarr was clearly still waiting for a response, so Myles said the first thing that came to mind. “Um... Milky Way?”

The expression on Atakarr’s face told him that was the wrong response. She said nothing about it though, asking a different question instead; “And where are you right now?”

Okay, this was strange before, now it was just ridiculous. Did he look like he knew where he was? “I not know,” Myles said with more than a touch of exasperation. “Dead Rock?”

“Not the island.” Atakarr tapped the ground with the butt of her spear, then lifted it and gestured with its point to everything around them. “The realm. What is its name?”

“It get name?”

“Yes, Ahunna.”

Atakarr watched Myles closely for any hint of recognition, but the young man just kept staring at her blankly, wondering why she expected him to know the name of a place he’d clearly never even heard of until he mysteriously landed here.

“I think you’re a beyonder,” Atakarr finally said.

“A... what?”

“A beyonder; someone from outside the realm. A portal must have swallowed you and spat you out here.” She gave him a once-over, an expression he couldn’t read in her eyes. “You’re lucky. They say not many living things survive the experience.”

Myles swallowed. A deadly portal? From beyond the realm? He’d figured out he was in some sort of alternate reality but still... he needed to sit down.

“Come, we’re almost there,” Atakarr said, resuming her walk at a faster pace and Myles had no choice but to follow, almost needing to jog to keep up.

After a few minutes and one level up in [Tough Cookie] (turns out walking on rugged terrain with street sneakers counts as grinding), Atakarr and Myles made it to a cluster of large boulders that almost seemed to be in deliberate disarray.

Using her spear, Atakarr rapped a six note rhythm on one of the boulders; a code, Myles realised.

From the shadow of two boulders leaning together, a girl stepped out into the low-light.

The girl, rather unsurprisingly, had the same noteworthy features Atakarr possessed. They looked very different besides that though, with this girl wearing her braid longer and being about a head shorter than Atakarr, putting her at almost eye-level with Myles.

Myles barely noticed any of this though, what he really noticed about her was that first, like Atakarr, this girl too was as naked as the day she was born; the second thing he noticed was that, unlike Atakarr who looked like a woman in her early, maybe mid, twenties, this girl was very clearly a teenager, like him. Now, it is important to note that Myles had been fighting a constant battle (read: barely holding the line) against Atakarr’s nudity all this time, so seeing another naked girl on top of what he was already going through suddenly caused Myles to develop problems with certain parts of his anatomy.

It was inevitable really.

Nice as the view was though, Myles was a gentleman (ish), so he forced his brain, which had long since succumbed to the hypnotic power of boobs, to restart. And was rewarded for his trouble as [Mental Fortitude] went up a level.

“What happened to Frezz?” The girl asked.

“Stupidity,” Atakarr replied.

Myles shifted then and the girl’s attention instantly snapped to him, she must not have noticed him at first.

“Hello,” Myles said with an awkward wave, having no idea what the proper way to greet a naked girl was.

“Seeng, this is Myles. He’s a beyonder. And he speaks Deran,” Atakarr said.

“...How?” Seeng asked amazed.

Myles had a feeling that question would be coming up a lot. “I own gift for speak.” He explained.

“That’s quite the gift,” Seeng said.

“That’s what I said,” Atakarr said.

“Seeng?” a male voice called from behind Seeng, and all three looked to see someone stepping from the same shadow between the two boulders that Seeng had come out of.

The person who stepped out was male and a teenager like Seeng. Naturally, he was just as naked as the other two members of the tribe Myles had met so far, and Myles found that a naked guy somehow made him more uncomfortable than two naked females.

Weird.

More importantly though, don't these people have any clothes? They're taking the whole native thing way too far.

“Paan, Atakarr’s back,” Seeng said, and Myles cocked his head at the humour in a part goat male bearing the name Pan. He wondered if it was deliberate or just a crazy coincidence.

Paan didn’t look like he heard Seeng though, because his eyes were focused completely on Myles. “Is that...” he said slowly, then: “Are those clothes?”

Atakarr sighed. “Come on, let’s go in,” she said, walking into the shadow that Myles had already figured was the entrance/exit to wherever Atakarr’s people called home.

One by one, with Myles trailing behind, the others followed into the dark.