Finally, the last disqualified taker of the quest before Nine met his current lecturer was….. a 15-year-old kid.
At first, when Nine met her, he acted nice, not wanting to scare her off because of his current reputation, but the moment they started the lesson.
The kid turned out to not know how to read and write herself. When asked why she took the quest if she herself didn't know what to do, she answered somewhere along the lines of:
Needing the money to start her proper life as an adventurer. Because of the five-silver-coin fee for applying, she couldn't buy the proper equipment to start hunting monsters in the forest.
Though she could just take the collecting herbs quest, it wasn't enough for her to save up to buy equipment. The pay for this quest was just enough to feed her once a day and stay the night in an inn.
It's been two months since then, and she still couldn't save enough money to buy a single blade, since the cost of a blade was around 30–45 silver coins.
Nine, hearing her situation, couldn't help but think how lucky he got earning a large amount of money in his first quest. Although it was obvious she was a native in this world, he somehow was in a better situation than her.
Nine couldn't help but think how high his luck was when he met a good-natured quest maker that temporarily gave him magic items that increased his stats by tens of points and even in percentage.
In the end, Nine told her to go back to the guild to give up the quest and decided to take her to the adventurer shop to buy her a simple dagger to use.
Letting her start taking a monster subjugation quest. With this, Nine was left all alone again in the library, waiting for the next takers to come.
***
Location: Library, second floor, around 11 a.m.
I quietly wrote the characters of the alphabet of this world on a paper. Although it was a tiresome act, I still continued on.
Pieces of paper scattered around the floor below my feet, with rows of the same characters within them, from top to bottom, front and back.
This was the result of my studying within the last couple of weeks. On the table, stacks of paper scattered in front of me, along with a tiny box.
Stretching out my arms for a moment to rest them, I thought: 'Just a bit more and I can finally say that I'm not illiterate,' before going back to my writing.
Though the events of the last couple of weeks were horrible due to the horrible takers, I still managed to learn something from them, especially from the male adventurer with his group and the perverted woman.
Thanks to these two, I figured out which letter of the alphabet was first and last, along with how to write them in a much simpler way than I naturally did before.
"You've improved so much in this last week…" a woman's voice said to my left. "I guess everyone can learn this much within weeks, if they push themselves hard enough." She said, checking my last works in the other papers on the table.
"Thanks," I replied. "But I mostly improved this much thanks to your ability. If I did this alone it would take me much longer."
"...Tch. You should have taken the compliment rather than saying those words." The woman said, pointing at my current work. "You misspelled that."
Checking the pointed word, I realized I truly did misspell the word: "World," by spelling it as: "WurIb."
'This world's alphabet is just too weird to write,' I thought as I erased it. Although it had been three weeks already since I started learning, I still couldn't get used to how the writing in this world was.
How the alphabet of this world was like a combination of Chinese and Arabic, then doing it in Russian cursive. I know it doesn't make sense, but it somehow does after all this time.
It was pure hell for me on the first day, but after two weeks of repeatedly writing them, I finally got used to it that I would only have a minor mistake now.
"Don't be discouraged by it, will you," the woman said to me. "Not everyone can improve this much in such a short time."
"I know. But I just hate myself for making such a mistake after doing this for so long." This woman's name is Marie. I met her the day after the last taker quit.
Being in another world without anyone knowing or understanding me, I felt lonely most of the time. Though I continued with my routine in the first two days back then, I would always find myself alone when night came.
Having no one to truly interact with me, I would explore the town. From the adventurer stores, the bathhouse, the succubus brothel, though I never went in, and even the slums in the southwest of the town.
When I was walking around the slums, I heard someone talking loudly. Since I had nothing to lose, I thought to myself:
"Why not find where it was coming from? It's not like I lost anything valuable, besides, if someone tried to rob me, I'm confident enough to deal with them."
So I made my way to where those voices were coming from. When I found where it was, I found three men walking out from a rundown house. Entering the house.....
I found her laying down in a corner, with her top exposed and a funky smell in the air. I'm not dumb enough to not understand what happened. I knew this woman just sold herself for the few silver coins on the floor.
So I decided to leave her there. Just because I can help her doesn't mean I have to. I was just sent into this world without any duty given to me. It's not my responsibility to do something about this kind of situation.
Before I could even turn around, she said my nationality in my original world, leaving me asking her how she knew that. She answered:
"It's my innate ability, the power to see the truth. And because of it, I know you're not from this world."
Getting my answer from her, I still decided to leave her behind. She might figure out that I'm not from this world, but it wasn't enough for me to take her in with me.
Just like before, she said something that made me unable to move forward:
"I'll help you!" she said, her voice filled with confidence. "Right now, you're trying to learn this world's language, and by the looks of it, you haven't improved that much."
"Pay me, and I'll help you master this world's language, in writing, reading, and even talking with it." Though she was spot on about my situation, it still wasn't enough.
"I have the unique skill called: Lecturer. This allows those who learn under my care to have their learning improvement go up 300%." Those words were enough for me to go back to her and shake her hand to teach me.
Since then I've been learning under her, and true to her words, my learning capability truly increased. It increased so much that in three days being with her, I managed to talk in this world's language and tell the difference between the two languages.
Since then, a week has passed, and in a week or two, I can say that I would master this world's language entirely, erasing one of my worries I have since arriving in this world.
That is how my mouth moves when I'm talking. Before the system found me three weeks ago, I couldn't understand the language the people around me were using.
It was alien no matter how much I tried to understand them. After the system gave me the black string bracelet, I somehow understood them since then.
In that moment, I knew this bracelet I had didn't simply allow me to store and take out the things I got from the system, but also allowed me to talk and understand the language of this world.
I still couldn't put my faith into it. Sure, it helps me right now and maybe until I die, but what if and what if only..… this thing's function just stopped one day?
The ability to talk and understand this world's language suddenly disappearing without any warning….. can I confidently say: "I'll just learn it then!" without breaking apart?
After thinking about it, I knew this was the stupidest thing. After years of depending on this bracelet's language function, I knew it would be impossible for me to start learning this world's language without giving up.
So on the first night I was in this world, I decided: since it was still early, I would master this world's language on my own and stop depending on this bracelet's language function before it disappears.
*****
End of chapter: 13