Rune looked around at the crowd as they hovered around him. There were multiple demi-humans around him and they seemed to surge up to him as they tried to talk to him and thank him. There were several people around him pushing the wave of people back to let him keep his space.

The people of the village he was in was called Aymren.It was a small village under the Storveld empire. This village was small, but its main source of income was alchemy. It seemed like they farmed, but used alchemic potions to help grow their food.

Rune was interested when they spoke of this and he was going to watch how they synthesize the potions and creations. His thoughts were interrupted at this point when he heard a girl’s voice in his head.

Rune focused on the task at hand. He followed the elderly man who he had saved. He was the village chief, Hersker, who was one of the ten most powerful alchemists within the continent they were on, Suthelling. He was walking towards the side of his house which was right next to the village hall.

For most young alchemists, they would start at the village hall, but it seemed like it burned down somehow after being coated in intestines and blood for some reason. No one knew how it burned down and they certainly didn’t know that it was where Rune murdered roughly around 100 enemies. There were bones there though, but Rune took them before they were discovered.

At the side of Hersker’s house was a pair of doors leading down to a laboratory under his home. He had to cast a spell to unlock it and, because of his precautions, the warrior couldn’t take anything. They walked down a stone staircase to reach an open area that had tables, books, and equipment strewn around the area.

Hersker moved to a door and knocked on it. There was no answer and he knocked again. Then he tried to open the door with the door know, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Would you please help me? This person usually doesn’t get out of their room and I wanted to introduce you to her.”

Is this your daughter? Well, if anything happens, it is your fault for telling me to forcefully open it…

Rune moved up to the door and grasped the doorknob. Then he turned it as hard as he could when it turned too much and the doorknob broke out of the door. The door now had no lock, but it was open. Hersker opened the door and Rune’s hypothesis was correct.

“This is my daughter, Sophia. She is a great prodigy for alchemy and she can definitely help you with your studying alchemy!”

The village chief was definitely trying to hook Sophia up with him. Sophia was sitting in a chair and turned around at her desk. He could see that there was a large bed and a wide table and a closet, but that was the only furniture in the room. The rest of it was cluttered with materials and glass vials and books.

When she turned around, Rune could see that she was clearly a beauty. Her hair was a pale blue and her eyes seemed to see everything with a light green color. Her complexion was pale due to her staying inside most of the time. Her physique was on the thin side and she seemed to be in her late teens. She also had tall, pale blue ears that stood from her head and she had a fluffy tail of the same color coming from her rear. She seemed to be a different breed from her father who was likely a fox man with ears that were less tall.

It seemed to Rune that she was a sort of Anubis, like an an animal person with ears that stood straight up and is like a jackal, but she had pale blue ears and hair like her father. The only other likely answer was that her mother was something else.

She looked at Rune with curiosity. Then she glared at her dad and started to scold him.

“Did you tell him to break my door?! I thought I told you that I only lock my door to focus on my studies!”

“Well, I thought that, being the great and beautiful prodigy you are and descended from the intelligent Anubis lineage like your mother, you should have an assistant or apprentice. Thus why I have brought Rune here!”

Hersker seems proud of himself that he brought someone worthy of her to her and he emphasized several parts of his speech to Rune. If Rune could sigh, then he definitely would sigh heavily at this point, but he did now know that he mother and Sophia are or used to be Anubis.

“Dad!! I don’t need an apprentice!!”

“But he wants to learn alchemy!”

Hersker was starting to sound whiny, like a spoiled brat wanting more things. Rune was about to turn around when Hersker gripped his shoulder and tried to force him into the room. Of course, being the being with superior power, he did not budge an inch. When Sophia saw this, she started to argue again.

“Why isn’t he speaking either? Too afraid? And where did you pick him up? He’s all dirty and has some dark liquid on him.”

Rune looked down to see that he still had some blood on himself and he saw that the dirt was actually bone dust. He forgot to clean himself. However, the father immediately had a clear counter that was very much true. He cleared his throat and started to speak.

“No, I’m pretty sure that he is mute. In fact, the first time I met him, he only wrote words in the dirt. Also, I found him when we were attacked earlier today, but he disposed of the attackers within a few minutes.”

“Oh,sorry…”

She looked down as she thought about her terrible behavior. Then she grabbed something off her desk and stood up. She walked to him in five short steps and handed him a crystal. She urged him to take it by holding his hand and placing it into it after a moment.

“This is a telepathy stone. It allows you to speak into the person who you can see’s mind. Try using it.”

Since telepathy usually takes the voice of what you would normally sound like, even if your vocals are messed up or you were born mute, it would sound like what your voice would or should have been at the user’s age. In this case, he was 16 and his voice was masculine and relaxing, but also extremely monotone due to his lack of empathy, mercy, pity, or other things that a normal human had and he didn’t.

“Uh, um… Y-your welcome.”

Sophia was holding her hands together and was squirming from side to side as her face became red. She looked up at him after a moment with her head still down. It seemed like she was nervous and had a crush on him. She now saw him as a hero and she thought that he sounded cool and must be amazing to defeat the attackers. Sophia was attracted to people who were strong and able to protect her.

Both the chief and Sophia’s eyes became wide and their jaws dropped. Hersker moved him away and up to the ground level. He whispered furiously at him.

“Why didn’t you say that sooner!! I can’t believe that this is blood and bone powder!! That is kind of important to mention. That is a part of a corpse or deceased person!!”

They reached a well and Rune was taking some of the water from [Water Sphere] to cleanse himself. He rubbed off the coagulated blood and the bone dust. Then he cast [Water Sphere] and replenish all the water with pure, clear drinking water as the other buckets were full of dirty water full of disgusting things.

Then he cast [Fireball] and made it sit in place around him to evaporate the water. Multiple people stared at him, like Sophia who climbed up the stairs to see how he was doing. Rune stretched his chainmail joints and swiveled his helmet towards Sophia who he saw in his vision that was wider than that of a regular person.

Sophia jumped and ran back down to her room and flumped onto her bed. She grabbed her pillow and started to hug it. The only thoughts on her mind were: “Why is he so powerful?” and “Why is he so cool?”

Rune disabled his magic and walked back downstairs. Hersker followed suit and he guided him to a specific table that had books on it. He saw basic, elementary alchemy books on it.

“Well, we do have some in the back… Why?”

Hersker led him to a metal door which he unlocked with a spell and Rune followed him inside. There were shelves of books and potions and paper and materials around the room. Hersker pulled down several books from the shelf and handed it to Rune.

“Here are some books. What are you going to do with them?”

“Okay?”

Hersker left the room and Rune waited a moment before taking off his helmet. The abyss inside was now a blood red instead of a bright orange color that used to be there. He dropped a book into his hollow body and he gained basic alchemy knowledge that he seemed to be able to access at a moment’s notice. With this accomplishment, he plopped the other books in along with it and he donned his helm again.

He left the room and walked back to Hersker. He passed by Sophia’s room whose door was opened and saw her muttering his name and drooling as she hugged her pillow with her body. Rune was kind of scared that there might now be a fanatic who wanted him to the point where she would do this kind of creepy behavior. He shuddered at the thought of yandere girls and moved on, disregarding her actions.

“Oh, good! They were disposable anyway! Do you need anything else?”

“Well, we do have a forge, but we rarely use it. There is, however, a near infinite power source for the fire. There is one person who works it. Look for Brann. He should be at the edge of the village.”

He finally found what he was looking for, but it was not what he hoped for. It looked shabby and the pillars holding up the roof was cracked. You could see an pavilion in front of the forge which was used to house the weapons and armor. He could see a chimney with billowing smoke coming out from it. He approached the door and was about to knock when the door opened inwards.

Rune apologized as he accidently rapped the person in the face like one would a door to knock. The person was holding their face and crouching on the floor.

“Owwww!! You caould be mowe caweful nest time!”

A bear person opened the door and was speaking strangely due to Rune hurting his face.

“Anyway, I am Brann. The local and best blacksmith in this village!”

I dislike people who boast about themselves too much. Also, he recovered way too fast to being injured. He must have faked it.

“Fear not loyal customer because you are dealing with the best of the best! People come from all round the village asking me to forge them things!”

“Oh!! You want me to take you under my wing?! I dunno, I have requests from too many people to accept a random person…”

Rune started to leave and Brann’s face became desperate.

“Uh, ah, that doesn’t mean I won’t hire you, but I need to know that you are dealing with the best around here!”

“Agh!”

Brann held his chest as he was hurt by Rune’s harming words. He fell to the ground, completely defeated with the mental damage Rune inflicted with words alone.

Rune started to use a rude approach because his normal neutral approach would likely be taken advantage of. So, to be convenient, he switched his talking style into something more casual and nonchalant, but also with rude wording.

"Grrr. Fine, I'll teach you, but only the basics."

If Rune could grin at this point, people would be afraid for his grin would show his intentions and his intentions were usually to kill and slaughter a great many things. Luckily, no one knew what he was thinking, but he was going to prepare some better items which would be new in this world.