Chapter 19: Towards Safety ii

As she read the strange characters again, she recognized patterns. She could see similar shapes and curves throughout the boxes. She focused on those figures, the shapes sharpened in her mind, the letters and numbers which eluded her so many times before had become recognized by her.

She no longer saw them as random lines but as letters. She couldn’t read still but she at least knew that there was a pattern, and with that, she could solve them.

The epiphany caused a great deal of shock to the girl, she sat there staring at the boxes, trying to decipher the text. She compared the current board of stats to ones she had seen days before. The change was subtle but present, either that or she remembered incorrectly.

Roy and Isbeth had finished looting what was left behind, finding few valuables they could carry. Isbeth waved to Cerise but Cerise didn’t respond. She walked closer to Cerise and waved her hand again, this time just in front of her face. Cerise still didn’t respond, her attention had been focused on her memories instead.

Isbeth turned around as if to ask Roy what to do but all she got in return was a shrug. Roy walked up to the girl and carried her with one arm in a fireman’s carry. Cerise was held with her legs facing forward and her upper body held over Roy’s shoulder.

Roy and Isbeth began walking eastward towards the Balros Mountains separating the former Balros Empire’s territory from the Helios Kingdom. Although they were named after the Balros Empire, the entrances through the Balros Mountains were actually strategically held by the Helios Kingdom. Usually during times of war, no one is able to go through these small gaps but Roy and Isbeth had a way around.

Crafters from Viscor are highly sought after for their skills. Simply having a Blacksmith to provide weapons and armor in a war dramatically increases the combat power of a unit, and at that, an Alchemist capable of producing acids that melt through solid metal armor would be extremely valuable for both offensive and defensive stratagem.

Both Roy and Isbeth were prepared to sell their services for a hefty price as well as a home in Helios.

In the meantime, Cerise was still sifting through her memories looking for words. She had long since figured out the basic structure of the letters with her 26 INT but her understanding had been limited due to the lack of access to proper words.

She had counted 22 different letters and 10 different numbers, or that’s what she assumed they were as they had different placements compared to the letters and far less in amount. She could loosely tell that the special brackets and the like were some sort of separators? She wasn’t sure. Her limited vocabulary kept her from completely understanding the series of boxes and words.

She instinctively understood that those numbers affected her in some way. STR related to her muscles’ capability and movements, INT related to her thought processes, WIS related to her mind, CON related to her health, AGI related to her speed, and LUK was most mysterious of all. How he knew all this was left uncertain but as she doesn’t understand how the numbers work, she could only guess which stats were better than others.

Moving on, the strange line and double circles truly confused her. Was it an indicator of some sort? It was present only in the final column and that middle box. Were they related to numbers somehow? Her thoughts continued in such a repeated cycle until a cold voice interrupted her thoughts.

Skill [Lesser Reading] has been obtained

A feat has been achieved! Self-Taught (+1 INT, +1 LUK)

‘!’

A surge of information flowed into her brain. She understood what the letters were, and as it turned out, there were actually 26 letters, not 22. She counted the numbers correctly and now she knew their ordering. She could pronounce the names of the letters and numbers now but actual words? She had to try at least.

A new box had appeared right below another, spelling out Lesser Reading. She said the words out unconsciously, butchering both words as the language, for some complicated reason, didn’t have phonic pronunciations.

“Lehsor… Riahdin?”

“Hmm?”

Isbeth heard the girl’s quiet voice with her keen ears. She could recognize it as Lesser Reading but the pronunciation seemed rough. Wait. Reading?

“Roy! Look at this!”

“What is it?’

Isbeth pointed towards the girl currently over his shoulder. She took out an oddly familiar book and held it out to Cerise.

“Can you try reading this for me?”

Cerise didn’t think Isbeth would hear her. Her scarlet eyes looked over the book, the fancy silver letters she had mistaken as markings earlier made sense to her. Her thirst for knowledge caused her to do as Isbeth asked, butchering the words completely.

“Thi behjinors guyd to intodutori mahgic?”

None of the words were familiar to her. She became confused. What did they mean? Her thoughts stopped when she felt the arm holding her slacken, letting her land nimbly onto the ground. She came face-to-face with a slack-jawed Roy and Isbeth squealing in delight like a child she saw once on the streets of Viscor.

“See! Cerise is so cute!”

“Wouldn’t any child be capable of at least this much?”

“Well, before she sounded kind of cold y’know? But that innocent way of speaking is adorable!”

The two debated over Cerise’s words. The girl in question though became even more confused as her name kept appearing in their discussion.

“Did I do something wrong?”

Her voice properly pronounced those words as she had answered them many times in the past.

Roy however, noticed a strong contradiction between her botched attempt at reading and her current clear pronunciation.

“Hold on. So you can’t read but you can talk just fine?”

“Nn.”

“Then can you tell me what year it is?”

The question that Roy gave her was one she couldn’t answer. Not just because of her ignorance of the current date, but because of the fact that she didn’t know what ‘year’ meant. Her vocabulary extended only to questions she heard in the past and a few snippets of conversations, nothing more. She shook her head causing Isbeth to take the girl into her arms.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you can read by the time we arrive. Roy, mind carrying the bags for me?”

Roy stopped for a moment, looking at the bags Isbeth carried and the ones he himself had. He scratched his head before softly sighing.

Roy accepted the heavy load and slung them across his back and waist, even holding some with his hands.

“Why does it feel like I’m a father now…”

“Shut up and take it like a man. Anyways, see here?”

Isbeth took out a paper and some ink and started writing letters down. She then drew several crude figures of animals above the words and pointed to them with her fingers, explaining what they were and how they were spelled.

“See this? It’s a cat, C-A-T. This one’s a dog, D-O-G. The one here is a wolf, W-O-L-F. And thi- Uh.”

The image of the wolf evoked a feeling of deep regret within Cerise, one which gradually surfaced on her face as Isbeth spelled out the word. Thinking that the image she drew caused this, Isbeth quickly scribbled them out and decided to make a lighthearted joke to lift Cerise’s mood.

She drew a four legged mammal with a large chest and sections inked in. A three letter word written underneath the well-endowed creature.

“Look Cerise!”

She pointed vigorously towards the drawing.

“This is a cow. Touch the cow. Do it now.”

The joke held no value towards Cerise, nor did it mean anything to Roy. Even Isbeth didn’t know why she had decided on it in the first place. She was stupid. She could have chosen anything else to do but she just had to choose to make that joke? It was completely random and one which only she would understand.

The poorly constructed joke didn’t cause Cerise to laugh but it had distracted Roy just enough for him to slip and fall under the massive weight of their spoils. The loud yelling and the following impact broke Cerise away from her despondence.

Isbeth awkwardly helped Roy up only to be greeted with a few of the lighter bags being shoved towards her.

“Take these. You can carry at least this much and still teach the girl properly right?”

“Fine.”

Isbeth resumed teaching Cerise basic words, however, she completely avoided the topic of animals now after their previous incident and instead talked about common words such as colors. The topics covered went over a wide range of words starting from the most basic of words such as ‘I’ and more complicated one such as ‘Hydrochlorothiazide Lisinopril’ which Cerise couldn’t even remember how to spell such a word even with the letters written out on a sheet in front of her. Nor did she know how Isbeth knew of it in the first place, merely receiving a reply of it being an Alchemist’s secret.

But thanks to the lessons, Cerise got another message which she was happy to receive.

Skill [Lesser Reading] has leveled up (1)

Name

Cerise

Age

16 Days

Race

Lesser Devil (Scarlet)

HP

53/53 (+.018/s)

MP

112/112 (+.034/s)

SP

38/38 (+.032/s)

STR

15

INT

30

WIS

21

CON

18

AGL

27

LUK

4

Current Ailments | [Hunter’s Eyes] Sealed (96%)

Skills

Level

Proficiency

[Demonic Vitality]

1/10

59%

[Rendering Claw]

1/20

3%

[Hunter’s Eyes] {Hunter’s Mark}

3/10

3.9%

[Lesser Reading]

2/5

.1%

[Blood Bound]

0/5

N/A

[Twisted Fate]

N/A

N/A

The three continued along the southern path towards the first checkpoint through the Balros Mountains as swift shadows began dancing across the continent, bringing news of the destruction of Viscor and the loss of nearly 5,000 units to Virandi. The remainders of the Balros Army that once planned to occupy the city were now forced to settle down temporarily just west of what used to be Viscor. They secured their positions and waited for further orders, unaware that their two of their original targets had managed to slip past them unnoticed.