"I could bet that the Trekker's corpse is still hidden where my old self has found it, contrary to him, this kid Ulrike seems smart enough to keep a secret," Marco thought, blue glassy vines swelling in between the wall hard rock, it all felt like the mine was alive.
Marco eyed the nonplussed boys, especially the leader of the lot, the wide-mouthed Ulrike at the front.
"What are you doing here?" A bald Brown-skinned man barked from behind, making his way in between the kids using wide swings of his long cane.
Marco recognized him, he was Gal the man responsible for the scavengers. "Why are you not in the camp?"
"I took a little sudden nap here," Marco answered, smiling toward Ulrike.
"Slacking off, huh?" Gal pocked Marco's chest with his cane. "You're fortunate enough I'm on duty today— Go back to the camp, I shall deal with you later,"
Marco nodded and stalked away feeling several feverous gazes behind him.
"From my memories, I'm a part of a sorry bunch called the scavengers, formed mainly by sold or abandoned kids, and charged with sightseeing the deeper areas of the mines for possible corpses." Marco recollected, deriving his own assumption, "The mines are colonized by Roteaters, a hollow-eyed humanoid creature, made after a dark wizard fails to fulfill a blood-pact curse. It's most likely that we are just baits for the real miners to know the most beast-frequented places,"
He knew he could not go back to the tent camp, Ulrike would surely attempt to pull something on him again, and in another way, he preferred to be alone.
Marco navigated through the crisscrossed tunnels relying on his muddled memories, and finally landed on the Trekker location.
He gaped at the size of the thing, the debris suffocated creature had a body of a giant snake with the hue and appendages of a salamander.
Marco scanned the rotten body for a couple of minutes, he has pondered the matter of the beast corpse in the way, and considered the idea of keeping the Trekker location hidden—Still, with an ambitious witness ready to stab him in the back and the fact that he had no plans of staying at this place for such a long time for it to be worth the trouble, he dictated that it would be far better to just glean the maximum benefits he can extort from Scar the owner of the mine while he's staying here.
And he would start from here, Ulrike can only dream of benefiting from the Trekker.
***
After one hour of Marco's rebirth, a sudden panic had risen in the main chain of the mines, the miners heard footsteps coming from an unused tunnel— fear-struck they all looked over their shoulders, alarmingly raising their shovels and pickaxes for a possible Roteater attack, but after they discerned the figure of the coming boy, they all cursed and got back shoveling for corpses.
The scavengers weren't even worth berating.
The coming Marco headed to the only two-story wooden structure in the mine, a dilapidated cottage, where Scar set up his office.
He found the door ajar and did not bother to knock.
Scar was just about to pack his things for a trip to Mortemhill when he heard the creaky sound of the door being pushed open and a boy peering out of it.
He scowled ready to redress the bold kid when he heard:
"I found something,"
Looking over, he found a long recessed incisor tooth held in the kid's palm. Marco defiantly stepped forward, putting the teeth on the desk and waiting for further instructions.
Scar a bit taken back switched his gaze to the tooth, he grabbed a jeweler loop from a drawer and gave the large hoary incisor a brooding inspection.
"Most definitely! This is a beast tooth," Scar's eyes twinkled. "A large one at that— possibly a...Trekker,"
His expression brightened considerably, the scavengers had never found a beast of this magnitude, in fact, he could not remember them finding anything, it was truly a startling surprise to him.
"You did us a great service, young one. Let's not waste any more time— Hurry and lead the way," Scar excitedly said, forgetting about his trip and getting up at once, "Rillon!— Where that man goes when you need him,"
Marco nodded his head and snatched the chair below the cottage window, dragging it along the timbered floor, and methodically sat on it.
"We shall go when it's due time," Marco put his hands on his thighs, facing Scar with a look that did not suit his age.
Scar frown came back deeper, no miner had even dared to step on his office let alone a scavenger.
"And what does that supposed to mean?" Scar said.
"It supposed to mean that I'm offering you a deal," Marco said, still submitting what Scar interpreted as a conning merchant smile.
"A lowly scavenger wants to negotiate with me?" Scar heartily laughed. "Do you even know who I am?"
Marco did not answer, instead, he reached for the wild apricot basket perched on the table.
But just when he sought to take the first bite, he felt something cold on the side of his neck.
"How dare a scavenger enter this place," The man with the voice from behind shouted holding an axe to Marco's narrows.
"I'd save you the trouble," Marco responded, not twitching once.
"Rillon, Wait!" Scar immediately ordered, peeking at the other side of Marco's neck, he found another Trekker tooth, ready to be buried inside the kid's neck.
Marco continued, "Your welcome to try me," his sunken eyes growing dimmer.
Scar waved his hand, panicked, "Rillon, drop the axe,"
Rillon sneered and did what he was told.
"Applaudable verdict," Marco said, taking a bite from the apricot. "Let's now get to business. I can speculate that your mine did not find even a single beast for at least 3 to 8 months, am I right?"
He paused, seeing that Scar did not flout his claim, and added, "The other mine at the other side had found 5 in the span of one month," Marco did not lie, in his memories, he heard one of the miners whisper about it.
Marco saw the faint twitches on Scar's face and decided to press further on his wounds.
Unexpectedly, he grabbed the axe butt with his hand, starting Rillon, and repressed the axe to his neck, tone getting rougher, "Everything you own is just like this axe, blunt and rusty. Don't you hear the hungry upset miners? They all know you losing customers, and soon even the most loyal ones will turn their back on you,"
"And your point being?" Scar's mood soured by the minute, all that this kid claiming had some degree of validity to it, nonetheless, it nettled him that it's coming from a scavenger.
"You need this beast badly," Marco said, "And to your misfortune, the only human that knows its location is a lowly scavenger"
Scar glimpsed the unbothered look of the kid while the ax-afflicted blood seeped from his neck, and for that juncture, he wished he was negotiating with a miner, not a scavenger. The mine life was harsh— even harsher on those poor kids roaming around and going against not only hunger, and Gal's vicious beatings, but also against all manner of dangerous beasts.
From his observation, he understood that those scavengers had long ceased to care about their lives.
"A deal is what you said," Scar snorted finger thumping the table, as he settled on his chair, "Speak,"
"I need a job," Marco announced, he knew he could not ask for money, at least not in the mine current state, the best thing he could do now is to collect as much information about this world and most importantly 'Witchcraft'. And the only thing that can offer such a thing at this stage is regular trips outside—specifically to Mortemhill.
"And what could a kid do?" Scar said, raising an eyebrow.
"You lag an accountant, someone that will count your profit and expenditures," Marco said, "I know how to read, I can help you,"
"I could read?" Marco thought, for some reason he felt like he could understand any language.
"Bullshit. Only the wizardkind and nobles can read Rosarphin," Scar interjected, "From where would a scavenger learn such a thing?"
"That's not important is it?" Marco said, "You can test me whenever you wished to,"
Scar did not waste any time and pointed his finger at a golden sign above the door, it was an antique kind of Rosarphin writing, traced back to his grandfather's first deal with a wizard.
"I inherited this plaque from my grandfather, read it for me," Scar said.
"With pleasure," Marco responded, shifting his gaze to the plaque.
Marco struggled in the beginning, the characters in this language were in a complete disordered mess, yet with each passing second he glanced at them, he gained a different pitch, and it wasn't long before he could collocate the sounds into words and eventually full sentences.
"Fellow Wizards and Witches be aware of old Beartbottom baits, he could swindle the dead from their graves," Marco read, only now realizing what he just uttered.
"Bearbottom," Scar table taps halted as he muttered, the word was none other than his grandfather nickname.
Scar was literate himself and understood Rosaphin, his father secretly solicited a wizard to teach it to him, for the privilege of reading was only allotted to the wizardkind and their few human associates.
The bulky man grew uneasy rather than awed of the boy's ability. Who in the hell would teach a scavenger Rosaphin? And how could a kid finish mastering it at such a young age?
Scar rounded the table, and said, "Very well, let's supposed that you got the job, what of the Trekker corpse?"
"I can give you the location right now," Marco said. "The brain however would be kept hidden as an assurance that you would not turn on your words,"
"What do you mean hidden? You know that the brain is the most wanted part of a beast, You could keep it hidden forever, why would I trust a scaveng—"
"Two months," Marco cut in leaving Scar gaping, "And I would reveal its location,"
Scar closed his mouth, air steaming from his nose, "Great,"
Marco stood up, "I suppose I can move to the miners camp too since I'm an official worker now,"
"Yes, you can," Scar answered, this kid strained him more than the sourest wizard his memory can recall.
Marco walked past Rillon and turned his neck back. "I would also have my fixed share of food, just like the miners,"
"Of course,"
Marco crossed outside leaving Scar sighing, and just when the man slouched comfortably on his chair, Marco appeared again from the door, walked past Rillon, and snatched the apple basket.
"Breakfast," Marco sounded.
Rillon this time shouted, "Anything else?"
The kid looked up and pointed at the miners outside the window, "You probably need to fire some of them, preferably the complaining ones," He shrugged and stalked away.
Soon, Scar and Rillon were left alone.
"What was that?" Scar uttered, "A damn Roteater?"
"No," Answered Rillon following Marco's track with his eyes. "It's the kid I thought died yesterday."
______________
[AN: I still do not fully understand how this app works, but I understood that there is some kind of voting system going on, either way, please vote for faster updates.]