《Chains of logic》
Prologue
I felt the chilly breeze hitting my face.
The surprising sensation temporarily derailed my thoughts.
¡°It is rather odd for the temperature to be this low in July, especially considering that this is supposed to be a tropical area¡±, I thought while considering if the drastic change was due to the first stage of the nuclear winter.
Looking up I notice that the sky is clear enough to see the stars.
¡°I might as well enjoy it while I still can¡±, I chuckled quietly and slowly laid my old body onto the grassy plain.
The ground was a little warmer than the air above it. Closing my eyes, I thought back on the time when I lived relatively peaceful, thinking I escaped from the horrors of my childhood.
¡°I guess this is as far as I can run. I am unsure, whether it is good that my problems caught up to the rest of humanity before they reached me, but I am certainly not going to complain¡±, I chuckled again while feeling a deep melancholic sadness wash across me.
Opening my eyes again after waiting a few seconds to let my eyes adjust to the darkness, I feel my linear thought processes slowly ebb out. Sensations from both my body and mind become murky, losing my sense of time I silently observe how the tiny specks of light move across the sky.
Suddenly a sound from the intercom at the steel door behind me, rips me out of my thoughts. I kick my brain into work mode, and hurry to the door.
¡°Are you there Matt?¡±, a distorted feminine voice asks.
¡°I¡¯m here Caroline! Is everyone ready?¡±, I replied.
¡°Yes, Peter was closing the fuel valves and John just finished helping me with the last pieces of cargo¡±.
¡°I¡¯ll be right down. You should board as soon as possible. We¡¯re already far luckier than we have any right to be. The fanatics could¡¯ve had a unit nearby. If Charles had betrayed us any earlier we would¡¯ve been toast¡±.
¡°See you in a bit¡±.
The intercom went silent.
I swiped my card across the detector and entered the code in the keypad hidden behind a fake stone in the wall. When I first started working here, I always thought that my employer was paranoid. After figuring out what kind of machines they stored here, my opinion changed¡ drastically.
No place on Earth is safe enough for things like those. Whoever hid them here should have destroyed them, or at least sent them to the Moon.
I slowly walked down the stairs, while trying to avoid bumping my rifle into the concrete walls and the steel pipes above my head.
Reaching the rudimentary control room, I sit down in front of the monitors and turn them on. I spent some time looking at the security footage from the other entrances to the facility, to assure myself that the fanatics have yet to arrive.
I switch to the camera on the inside of the capsule and turn the radio on. It was a rather old one and I doubted that it was designed to reach much further than the immediate area around the facility.
Not that it mattered.
¡°Are you guys ready for the launch? We don¡¯t have all night¡±. I spoke towards the microphone.
¡°Wait, we need to talk about what to do with Charles. All of you have been trying your hardest to dodge the subject the past few hours¡±, John said.
I started feeling annoyed. The na?ve humanist in John could apparently not keep his mouth shut, even when he really should.
¡°Caroline do you care to explain it to him? I have to power up the necessary systems¡±.
In truth, I already started doing it after turning on the radio, but I needed an excuse to escape the time consuming task of explaining why we should refrain from letting a traitor with detailed knowledge of the things we were trying to protect escape.
¡°Caroline we can¡¯t just kill him, he probably doesn¡¯t even understand how any of the artifacts work. He¡¯s an astronaut, not a physicist¡±.
¡°It doesn¡¯t matter John, the fact that Charles knows that it¡¯s possible to construct artifacts like these makes him a threat¡±.
¡°He barely even paid attention to them. He didn¡¯t even ask questions about how they worked, until after Matt got the reactor up and running, and he only told the fanatics our location when he talked with them on the phone.
He probably didn¡¯t even understand the science behind the FTL drive we found. You have to at least be retarded to not understand something that simple. How the hell is someone like him supposed to be a threat?¡±
¡°John, you¡¯re forgetting that the fanatics are holding a lot of scientist hostage. What do you think they¡¯re going to do after they figure out, that Earth isn¡¯t the only place they can potentially spread their wretched influence to?¡±
I watched them argue back and forth, while glancing at the monitor showing Charles¡¯s cell. He was sitting hunched over on one of the cardboard boxes, with his head between his hands.
He did not resist when we locked him there. He probably thought that we would let him go, when his friends turned up.
He was out of luck.
I started charging the advanced capacitor located at the very top of the underground facility.
I looked at the digital clock above the door, and said; ¡°Two minutes until the launch procedure begins¡±. It interrupted John¡¯s and Caroline¡¯s little quarrel and John conceded. Since Peters silence meant he was siding with Caroline. Not that any of them would have time to change what was going to happen with Charles anyway.
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¡°I hope you guys remember the plan. The navigational computer, I programmed is going to bring the ship into a high orbit around Wolf 1061 b, after the ship exits the wormhole. The planet is only 13.8 Ly from Earth, so the margin of error on the exit coordinates is relatively small. Worst-case scenario is that the ship has to decelerate rapidly over the course of a few hours. Once the ship is in a slowly decreasing orbit around Wolf 1061 b, you need to assemble the FTL drive, before the ship starts skimping the atmosphere. The plan is to use stray atoms to power the reactor, if it doesn¡¯t work there¡¯s still reserve fuel for at least two years. More than enough time to reach one of the other planets in the cluster that has a suitable atmosphere. Everyone¡¯s job during the trip is as follows: Caroline, try to keep everyone alive. John, try to keep everyone from going insane¡ rer. Peter, try to keep the ship from blowing up, please¡±. I said jokingly to alleviate some of the tension.
¡°Matt¡¡±, Caroline started: ¡°We¡¯re all very happy to have known and worked alongside you¡ sorry¡±, I could see the other two give a slow nod in approval.
I grumpily replied; ¡°We already talked about this. There is only a tiny chance that I can survive the trip. Two years of fuel are far more valuable than a corpse, not that the corpse wouldn¡¯t work as fuel for the reactor. I prefer to stay behind and erase all evidence. My life¡¯s work is in the computer on the ship. Keep it safe, in my place¡±.
I pressed the button for starting the launch procedure and a quiet rumbling indicated that the facility was working on removing the exhaust from the launch chamber.
¡°Sixty seconds until liftoff¡±. I said while pulling the lever to retract the giant doors at the top of the silo.
I cut the connection to the capsule, and watched the number on the display decrease.
¡°¡ 5,4,3,2,1¡±
The floor shook. I hit the big yellow button to discharge the capacitor.
All the cameras on the outside of the facility instantly showed a snowstorm. The excess energy from the formation of the stable wormhole, just a few hundred meters above the silo, instantly disrupting any picture they should be sending.
The shaking stopped, leaving me with the sound of the facility removing the fumes left behind by the rocket that carried my friends off this shitty planet.
I felt numb from the sadness washing over me again. With a herculean effort, I heaved my tired body out of the chair and towards the stairs.
As I made my way up the stairs some of my old scars started acting up again, I ignored them as I had gotten used to the pain a long time ago.
I passed by the storage room that served as Charles¡¯s cell. He was busy trying to break down the steel door with his bare hands. ¡°He probably heard the launch, and thinks that sound was the arrival of his ¡®friends¡¯.¡± I thought; ¡°Let me just snuff out that glimmer of hope he feels. Damn traitor!¡±
¡°That sound you just heard, were your brothers determined on reducing this place to rubble.¡± I bluffed, towards the door.
¡°Please let me out, they have my family. I had no choice!¡±
I felt resignation at the utter foolishness of the statement. My reply was harsher this time; ¡°Do you seriously think that your wife and daughter are in a state, where they¡¯re going to be happy to see you again. That¡¯s assuming that they¡¯re still alive, which his highly unlikely.¡±
Walking on, while ignoring the screaming. I did not have a large surplus of time, so I could waste it on a fool.
Finally, I reached it. The device that allowed us to open large wormholes.
I started reprogramming it. The coordinates for the entrance of the wormhole changed from 300 meters above the silo.
To just five meters below the lowest point of the facility. The size of the event horizon, increased to engulf the entirety of the research facility. Lastly, I set the coordinates for the exit far outside the known part of the universe. To accomplish this, I had to shut off all safety measures, except for the overload prevention.
The location of the exit did not matter. Since the wormhole would shut down in the middle of transferring the facility. The first problem with the currently programmed wormhole, is the massive diameter of the event horizon. There was no way the meager amount of energy, currently located in the capacitor would be able to keep it stable.
The second problem is that once the capacitor enters the wormhole, the energy needed to keep it open, and stable vanishes.
When the wormhole vanishes, the matter in transit reenters normal space and undergoes a massive relative deceleration.
Best case, scenario is that whatever is traveling through the wormhole turns into a cloud of elements.
Worst case, scenario is that it turns into pure energy, which would most likely end up as a cloud of free hydrogen atoms.
Both scenarios where perfect for what I had in mind.
I dragged my old body back down the stairs again, and dropped myself in the control chair.
Watching as the sun slowly crept up over the horizon, I thought about what I could have done differently.
Concluding that human nature is far too prominent in most humans. For me to change anything, far too many humans would have to look past their own delusion, and accept the harsh reality.
¡°Impossible!¡± I thought, while pressing the yellow button.
Two minds are better than one
Wherever I looked there was darkness.
The weight of my body was missing entirely, yet I could still move around.
It was impossible to determine with accuracy since there were no landmarks, but it definitely felt like I was able to move freely. The feeling was nothing like walking. Rather it was like willing my view to move in a certain direction. Similar to the way humans feel, when they decide to walk in specific direction.
Looking down, I noticed that the ground seemed to consist of a strange black material. While looking at it I noticed tiny waves on the surface. Wondering why I could feel nothing below my feet, I noticed that something else was out of place as well.
A brief moment of contemplation later, I rotated my view 180 degrees and looked in the direction where I thought; I had seen a glimmer of light coming from.
In the distance, a floating orb of light cast an eerie glow across the dark surface of the liquid. The new source of light was ever-changing, colors, brightness even the shape of the orb seemed to change from time to time.
There was nothing else to investigate in this place, so I willed myself towards the chaotic orb.
Another surprising thing happened as I did so. There was no way to notice it before, because of the lack of landmarks, but when moving my view, it happened instantly.
The orb was big. Far larger than I had originally thought. Standing a fair distance from it, the orb still took up my entire view. The surface seemed to consist of some kind of gas. The gas had different colors and pockets of different colors moved across the surface at incredible speed, before vanishing below the surface.
Some areas of the orb where so black that it seemed like they continued all the through the orb and the tiny specks of light moving into these areas slowed down, and soon they disappeared entirely.
Moving my view lower after deciding to study the strange planet-like orb further. I saw something that surprised me even further and piqued my interest. The black liquid from the silent ocean below the orb seemed to solidify into some kind of plant growing upwards towards the underside of the orb. The bottom was hovering, what seemed like a few centimeters above the black sea.
¡°Well, this seems like a terrible idea, but what is there to lose. It is impossible to check whether the orb is harmful without a body and there is nothing else in this space. Even if there is. I cannot move there¡±.
I willed myself into the place where I approximated the location of the center from the outside.
High above me a bright blue ball of light illuminated the inside of the orb. The inside seemed to be covered entirely by the strange black material, which was visible in some areas on the outside of the orb. Occasionally a speck of color would appear, only to blink out of existence after a moment. The room itself seemed to be perfectly spherical, with the blue light in the center. Tiny dots of golden light where frozen in the air around the blue core. They seemed to have emanated from the core, as they formed a pattern typically seem during a radial emission of particles.
¡°This looks like the mental encyclopedia I created, when I was in my teens. I lost myself in my studies and went a little insane from isolation. It turned out to be far more useful than I initially anticipated when I created this visual representation of my knowledge. Thanks to it, I managed to hold onto important information as I grew older.¡±
Imagining the usual interface for my mental database, I tried to access it. Instead of just staying as an imaginary interface as all laws of nature dictated it to, a half translucent screen appeared in front of me.
¡°This confirms it. I am currently unconscious, or dreaming. Did I fail?¡±
A mental command later and the screen showed my last moments, but the recording continued after I pressed the button that should have ended my existence. Apparently, the concrete ceiling came down and the recording ended shortly afterwards.
¡°I probably repressed the conscious memories, because of the trauma. Weird, this should only happen after a while. Did something happen afterwards?¡±
Focusing I tried to access the next memory, but something went wrong. Instead of showing it on the screen, a blue arc of lightning emerged from the core and hit one of the golden dots close to it.
The next accessible memory was a picture of two faces, one male and the other female. The quality of the recording was horrible. It was like looking through a thin layer of milky glass.
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¡°Impossible, the encyclopedia cannot store information from dreams or other fictional sources. I went through great lengths to prevent the creation of pseudo-memories.¡±
Many of the memories after that point were recordings of words and sentences in an unknown language. Without much context, but there were enough reoccurring words to at least identify some of the basic structure. It seemed to be somewhat similar to some Asian languages, but with far harsher sounds, as heard in German and Russian.
¡°This language is pure cancer. I hope I can avoid learning it.¡±
The most recent memory stored in the database was, a picture of a tiny hand reaching forward to grab the skirt of a woman. The quality of the picture was flawless.
¡°There are many possible explanations for why I am in the body of a child, but they do not matter right now. The likeliest explanation for why I am conscious right now is that the child¡¯s brain is simulating an adult brain, by sacrificing time efficiency. This means that the child is probably in a comatose state right now, and time is moving much faster on the outside than it feels like in here. I need to restrict access to my old memories, or the child is going to go insane and get himself killed. I need to hurry.¡±
There were several options available to me, but the only option that preserved all my memories and my sanity, was to create the mind of a child by removing all the knowledge I gained while aging. I was effectively going to give myself a weird kind of schizophrenia.
Then I could gradually give myself more knowledge from my encyclopedia. When I reached adulthood, my brain would reach a similar state to when I died and the two personalities would surely merge on their own.
I moved out of the orb and looked at the swirling mass of colors that represented my own mind.
I had no idea what the different parts of the orb represented, but I knew that I would need a core if I wanted to create something similar to it. Since I had no idea how exactly any of it worked, I just decided to copy the core of my current mind.
A tiny blue ball appeared in front of me, it slowly drifted towards the black liquid under me feet. When it reached the surface of the ocean, the liquid suddenly surged upwards and engulfed the ball. Then the ball started gaining altitude again. It stopped after reaching a height of what seemed like half a meter above the black ocean, the ball now looked like a black orb barely visible in front of the black background.
I still needed to add selected knowledge from my encyclopedia; I did not dare add the unfiltered memories that were swirling around my original mind. I was afraid of what would happen if I let certain unrefined memories slip into the mind of a child. I would rather, temporarily lose all memories of what happened before I created the mind, except for knowledge I transferred from the database.
The first knowledge I added was the picture of my presumed father and mother, as I did so a single point of light emerged from the gigantic orb, flew over, and touched the surface of the black ball in front of me. The light disappeared into the black ball and it grew a little larger.
When I added the knowledge of the language father and mother were speaking, I realized something about the fabric mom was wearing in my most recent memory.
¡°Damn. I didn¡¯t realize it before but it seems like civilization has regressed, or maybe I¡¯m not even on earth anymore. Mother was wearing clothes made from rough wool and the craftsmanship suggests that it isn¡¯t something created with modern means. Civilization is currently somewhere before the industrialization. I absolutely need to survive; I have no idea what¡¯s going to happen the next time I die, and I probably won¡¯t get a chance like this again.¡±
I added the knowledge of all my learning techniques, all my survival related knowledge and basic knowledge of human social behavior. My outlook on humanity was very pessimistic in my last life and I knew that the knowledge would probably affect my actions, but at least the pessimistic attitude would most likely keep me safe from humans that were trying to trick or harm me.
Finally, I added restrictions to the actions I could take. I created a restriction that prevented self-sacrifice, since I seemed to have a tendency to get myself killed this way. The only other restriction I added was a little something, to prevent myself from raping anyone. I had no idea what kind of world I would wake up to, and I certainly disliked gambling.
Tiny beginnings
I pulled the arrow as far back as I could, while still being able to aim.
The tree acting as my target was roughly twenty paces away. It was a thick tree with low hanging branches. The hunters of the village had used this exact tree as a target for generations. It also served as a test for the young boys that were born as the third son.
The church of Arica had very strict regulations for small farming villages like the one I lived in. The firstborn was supposed to overtake the business of the father, the second born should act as a reserve in case the heir died. If nothing happened to the heir, the second son should travel to the next city at the edge of the human kingdom, where they were going to colonize new land and he was going to join one of the expeditions.
The training of the third son was entirely different from the other two, instead of learning about farming and superstitious crap. The third son was always going to train in basic combat and with bows from an early age. After finishing their basic training, they could call themselves hunters, but their job did not only entail hunting for the settlements. The job also entailed guarding the village and they conscripted as troops instead of the farmers in case of a war.
¡°This system was put in place to support the rapid expansion, this kingdom is probably experiencing. While at the same time ensuring that they have sufficient defensive strength.¡± I thought while calming my shaking hands.
Arica is the goddess of fertility, which is why she has the most prominent altar in the temple of our village.
¡°The people of this kingdom seem to have a large pantheon of gods. Considering the temple has an altar devoted to a god of travelers, and a bunch of other gods with minor roles.¡±
Letting go of the arrow, I watched as it hit the middle of the tree and fell to the ground.
I walked over and checked it for damage. The fletching so worn, due to my continued training it fell apart in my hand.
¡°Now I need to wait until Walter wakes up... damn.¡±
Hunters in training only practiced with a single arrow, to teach them not to be wasteful with the thing that stands between them and death. If the arrow broke, they had to request a new one.
The person I had to ask for new arrows was the only smith in the village of Ascot. He lived together with his wife and sons at the edge of the forest, close to the little stream that emerged from the forest and drove the watermill next to the smithy.
Walter was a man of few words. He preferred the universal language of grunting. Sometimes I had a sneaking suspicion that he was deaf, but tried to hide it by never having a decent conversation.
The training ground was close to the smithy, it was right beside the stream that also drove the mill.
I collected the little iron pot I had used to cook water from the stream. The water had cooled and I used it to fill my waterskin. The rest of the lukewarm water I used to wash my face.
The other people in the village made fun of me for carrying the iron pot with me. Especially after they found out that, I used it to pre-heat my drinking water. Most people in the village tried to avoid drinking water altogether and made beer from one of the plants cultivated near the village.
My father had tried to get me to drink some of his homemade beer on my big brothers tenth birthday, when I smelled it, I got a very bad feeling and refused. I got a similar feeling whenever I tried to drink the water directly from the stream. One night I got the weird idea to boil the water before drinking it, since then I lost the feeling of imminent danger.
Making my way across the plain, looking at the different flowers in full bloom, I thought about one of my weird dreams. In the dream, a woman with nearly black skin fed me and played with me. Never before had I seen such a woman in my life, at first I thought it was one of the demons, the priest always talked about, but she had none of the telltale signs of a demon. She had neither horns, weird eyes nor inhuman appendages.
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Whenever she appeared in my dreams, I felt sadness and a little fear.
I reached the mill; the door to the main building had a chair beside it, for costumers and family members. There was nobody around yet, due to the early time of day, so I sat down and waited for Walter to wake up on his own.
Nothing is worse than a grumpy smith is, and considering why I was here, I really should keep from ruining his sleep. He came back from buying materials yesterday night. From what I managed to figure out, the distance from Ascot to the port city of Rockfell is at least one and a half days of travel on foot. Walter had to pull the materials he purchased back with his little wagon. The people of ascot had no way to buy an animal to do menial tasks for them, so Walter had to do everything himself. His oldest son Scott was still too young to help him.
¡°The little shit should be helping his father in the smithy instead of fooling around with the village heads daughter. I¡¯ve been training since I turned four years old, and that idiot is nearly eight.¡±
My mother and father gave me a little bow for my fourth birthday, after talking with some of the hunters they told me, they considered it the start of my training. Before my parents gave me a bow, I had no idea what I was supposed to do when I grew up. All the other children seemed to be doing some kind of training, while I was just doing nothing all day. Later I found out that, it was a normal thing for kids below five years of age, and that I was the weird one.
When I started my training archery, I was barely able to use the bow. I had keep trying for an entire month until I finally became able to shoot far enough to hit the tree at the shooting range, from an acceptable distance.
In hindsight, my parents probably gave me a bow when I was so young, because they wanted me to give up on becoming a hunter, at least until I was old enough. When I kept going to train, mom and dad stopped, paying attention to me and even actively avoided me. At the time, I thought it was due to my failure to live up to their expectations.
When I turned six years of age, I asked Walter to reinforce the front of my bow with Iron, to improve the strength. I was too small to use the large longbows the hunters used, but the bow my parents gave me, had gotten too easy for me. To the point where I was afraid to break it.
Walter told me he had never tried to reinforce such a small bow before.
That was the moment I realized why the villagers looked at me weirdly when I walked by, and why the other children in the village kept away from me. Up until then, I thought it was due to me being born as my parent¡¯s fourth son.
I slowly dozed off in the chair, training at night was an essential part of becoming a hunter, but it still took a toll.
***
The sound of metal scraping against a hard surface penetrated my dazed mind. Opening my eyes and rubbing the sleep out, I looked towards the door of the main building.
Walter walked out and continued towards the latrine behind the house. I decided not to bother him yet, for obvious reasons.
When he came back, he noticed me, and strode towards me. He stopped and looked down at me, other people might mistake his actions as threatening, but I knew this was his normal behavior so I ignored it.
Holding the broken arrow out in front of me, I looked up and said; ¡°My arrow broke, can I have a new one?¡±
¡°Harrumph¡±
He grabbed the arrow from my hand and walked towards the forge. I decided to interpret the grunt as ¡°yes¡±, and followed him.
We entered the building with the forge; Walter walked over to the anvil and used it to break the arrowhead off, before throwing it in a box with scrap metal. He took the rest of the arrow and dumped it into the cold forge. One of the walls had a row of low barrels standing along it. Walter rummaged around in three first barrels, until he pulled a single arrow out. The arrow was far smaller than all the arrows he had pulled out previously. He handed me the arrow and dismissed me with a nod.
I lowered my head in thanks and walked out the door.
Bunny?
Right before I closed the door behind myself, Walter hollered: ¡°Ey! Ken, remember the suggestion you made for improving my store¡±
I turned around and said: ¡°You mean the map?¡±
Walter ignored me, or he had trouble hearing me from the door, so I walked back in the room.
He was busy rummaging around a leather pouch, he grabbed from one of the many crates.
¡°Ah, here it is.¡± He took out a thick piece of leather with markings on it.
¡°The merchant I bought my materials from had it on display. He sold it to me for a single piece of silver. ¡±
I moved closer to Walter¡¯s ear and said: ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s a great deal, considering you, estimated a decent map to cost at least five pieces of silver, or even a gold coin. Are you sure that it isn¡¯t fake?¡±
¡°It¡¯s pretty worn.¡±
¡°Can I see it?¡±
¡°Sure!¡±
He placed the map in front of me on the workbench and I unrolled it.
¡°Where is Ascot on the map?¡±
¡°It¡¯s the one that¡¯s closest to the forest.¡± Walter said while pointing at it.
¡°Wait a second, Is Rockfell really this large?¡±
¡°No, the hunter who made the map was probably guarding the city wall. That¡¯s why he included the different districts and since it¡¯s hard to make tiny details on a map like this, some of the sizes are wrong.¡±
¡°This should help lure travelers to your store, especially if they¡¯re lost.¡± I said while slowly backing off towards the door, with a grin on my face.
¡°You cheeky brat!¡± He hollered after me when I walked out.
Suddenly remembering something, I turned around and yelled: ¡°Don¡¯t forget the harvest festival later today. Hilda is going to be furious if you don¡¯t take her.¡±
I walked back towards the village, with my bow over the shoulder and the iron pot with my waterskin inside, fastened to my back with leather strips.
I noticed a sudden movement in the corner of my eye, I stopped and sidestepped to left. The stone flew narrowly past my head.
When I turned my head and looked towards the source, suddenly there was a stinging pain on the right side of my back.
The ones that had thrown the stones were a group of girls in their early teens. They were grouping together and were giggling, and then the last member of their little clique emerged from a bush.
She was undoubtedly the one who hit me with the rock.
I recognized her. Her name was Beth, she was the daughter of the newest farmer in the Ascot, and the other girls probably pressured her into doing it, due to her unstable social position.
That way she would the one to take the blame if the stones had harmed me seriously. It was a very real possibility considering I was seven years old, while some of the girls looked like they had reached their marriageable age, which was fifteen.
Nothing I could do about it, if I took my revenge on one of them it would probably turn out to be the wrong one.
In fact, the person that orchestrated these attacks was most likely the nun working as a servant for the old priest.
She was in charge of educating the young girls in the village, at one point I had asked her to teach me how to read. She had looked at me as if I had suggested killing someone and told me that only people of the temple or nobles could learn such a thing.
At the time, I tried to argue my point, but she ignored me and banned me from entering the temple for a week, she even talked with my parents.
When the older girls of the village began attacking me a few days later, it was hard not to notice a correlation.
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¡°The price of being the first to go against tradition, I¡¯m just glad that I wasn¡¯t older when it happened. They would¡¯ve probably beheaded me.¡±
Ignoring the girls, I kept walking back towards the center of the village, while keeping an eye on my surroundings and listening for the characteristic sound of someone throwing a rock.
I was afraid of turning my back on the group of girls, but on the other hand, I wanted to deny them the satisfaction of achieving their objective.
Assuming that they were not attempting to kill me.
***
The temple was a building made from wood, with symbols painted on the outside. The villagers maintained it, but the only person allowed to repair and clean the altars was the priest himself.
I kneeled down in front the altar dedicated to Arica, the others from the village were joining me as well.
The priest stepped in front of the altar and started preaching: ¡°This great day lady Arica has granted us a plentiful harvest. Thus I will recite a prayer in her thanks.¡±
Last year I had been bored out of my mind during the entire mass, but at the same time, I noticed something crucial.
The priest was reading the prayer from Arica¡¯s altar, perpetuated in the stone.
If I could remember the entire prayer, I would be able to inspect the altar afterwards and learn how to read by analyzing the writing.
Therefore my eyes were hanging on the priests lips during the entire service, trying my hardest to remember every word.
The mass concluded after the priest burned a few of the plants, cultivated on the fields around the village.
I left the temple together with the other villagers, only to circle back around a nearby farm and entering the temple again.
The temple was empty and I could hear the sound of the harvest festival through the walls.
Keeping my face expressionless, I walked closer to the altar. The altar itself only consisted of a block of stone with writing on it, but wooden planks with paintings on it adorned the sides, they were added by previous generations in thanks to the goddess. There was a good possibility that another one was to be added this year.
The symbols one the stone seemed mysterious at first, but after watching the priests head while he read them, I noticed that the correct way to read them was from left to right. This helped immensely.
***
I felt something dripping from my nose, looking down I saw a small pool of blood in the sand. When I tried to turn my head to look around, I felt a splitting headache.
¡°What happened, did I fall into some kind of trance. I¡¯m starving and I really need to pee.¡±
When I exited the temple, the sun was standing low in the sky, meaning it was late in the day.
I could hear panicked screaming, in the distance.
¡°What the fuck is happening now?¡±
I ran towards the sound.
***
Suddenly something hit me in the side, the world spun and the next thing I felt was my body hitting something hard.
When I looked up, I saw a beast with snow-white fur, nearly twice my height standing above me and looking down at me with tiny red eyes.
A single word in a, to me foreign language, flashed past my dazed mind.
¡°Bunny?¡±
Author note: The reason why the pacing is this fast, is because the MC can''t remember every small detail at the time when he tells this story. Also, I hate boring myself and my readers out of their minds.
Is this Australia?
The beast looked similar to the rats I had seen around the village, but it was standing on its enormous hind legs.
Suddenly pain washed across my body, as I became aware of the injuries I had suffered from being smashed into the wall of a house.
The beast had many arrows sticking out of various parts of its body, and I could hear the yells of people coming closer.
There was no chance that they would arrive in time, if the beast decided to harm me further.
The beast slowly lowered its nose towards my unmoving body. I could see its head coming closer.
That was the last straw. I made a jerking motion, grabbed the arrow from my belt and jabbed it deep into the eye of the beast with a fluid motion.
The creature pulled its head backwards in shock, but I was faster. I grabbed onto the beasts neck and pressed some of the arrows sticking out of its flesh deeper inside.
It shrieked in pain and tried to shake me off by throwing its upper body around.
I held onto its thick fur and continued to push the arrows deeper. The shrieking turned into a gurgling sound while I kept my head pressed into the creature¡¯s fur.
Suddenly I felt a crushing pressure on my entire body and the sound of people yelling became muffled. I tried to roll around to shift the weight above me off, but I had trouble doing so, because my arm hurt.
When I finally managed to free myself from under the dead creature, I noticed a large group of onlookers standing close by.
I could hear some of their conversations.
¡°Mom, why does he look so indifferent?¡±
¡°Don¡¯t look honey you shouldn¡¯t associate with someone like him.¡±
¡°Even the Ratling didn¡¯t want to eat him. Usually they eat everything they can get close to.¡±
I leaned myself against the dead Ratling and calmed my hammering heart while checking my body for injuries.
My left arm hurt enough to make it troublesome to move without jerking in pain. I had deep claw marks on my chest and I could feel something warm on the back of my head.
None of the villagers made a move to help me and stayed at a distance.
I spotted my bow stood up and grabbed it. The string severed, it just looked like an odd piece of wood reinforced with metal.
¡°I need to deal with my wounds before the Adrenalin wears off.¡±
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
I started walking towards the shooting range where I had trained earlier that day.
The fire from earlier was still smoldering and I had it flaring up in no time. Thanks to the wood, I had stashed nearby.
I used the water from my waterskin to clean the bleeding wound on my chest. Then I turned the iron pot around and placed it over the fire. A few minutes later, I grabbed it, while protecting my hands with my shoes.
I placed it on the ground beside the fire with the wrong side up. Then I took off the blood soaked clothes on my upper body, breathed in and pressed my bare chest against the hot iron.
Pain!
Fumbling around, I somehow grabbed a stick and shoved it in my mouth to prevent damage to my tongue and teeth.
A few seconds later, it became impossible to withstand the pain, I ran to the nearby stream and submerged my body in the water, while only letting my face stick out.
I watched as mine and the Ratlings blood gave the water a light red tint.
***
The day was already ending when I got out of the water, I felt exhausted and it hurt when I breathed.
My skin was wrinkly from staying in the water for such a long time and there was a red circle on my chest where some of my skin had come off.
There was a plant I had seen the other hunters, put on small wounds growing near the stream. I walked back to the fire, took the pot, and filled it with water, before dropping a fistful of leaves from the herb into the pot.
When the water started steaming, I dropped my ruined shirt into the pot. While my shirt was boiling, I used the time to gather more of the herb and carry it back to the fire.
My left arm felt a lot better, so I was able to wring my old shirt dry without keeling over in pain.
I put the leaves on the gigantic wound on my chest and covered it with my old shirt, before laying down on my back next to the fire.
I drifted off to sleep.
[End of chapter one] (Tiny beginnings)
Author note: Sorry for the short chapter, but there¡¯s a natural break in the story here.
As of this chapter, you guys should have enough material to give me an in depth review so I can change some of the things that piss you off about my writing. Admittedly you only have a single character to work with, but that''s because [Spoiler].