Lucio looked up at the sky, trying to gauge the time unsuccessfully. He shook his head before trying out different methods to conjure a flame.
"Flame! Fire! Burn! Ember! Flame Thrower! Flare Blitz" He said out loud, from random words related to fire to literal moves from pocket monsters series.
"Hmm….Maybe this magic system is different?" He thought for a while before chanting with his arm outstretched towards the pile of wood "Oh god of fire, grant me the flames to burn the thing in front of me."
He felt lucky as there was no one in the surroundings to see him do this humiliating thing. Lucio tried many more chants with different patterns until he got bored.
He took a sturdy branch and walked in a direction which was opposite to the river, carrying all the mushrooms using his shirt as a bag. It was dangerous to walk shirtless in a forest but that was the only thing he could think of until he found a large leaf to hold the mushrooms.
A few hours passed and Lucio felt tired, his legs wobbled as he sat down under a tree to rest. A few minutes later when Lucio decided to continue his journey, he heard the rustling of leaves and yelps of an animal that seemed to be caught by surprise.
The sound came from his right and Lucio stood still and listened quietly. The yelps soon turned into Squeals from which Lucio could hear annoyance and fear just from the sound alone.
A few meters away from where he stood, there was a pig that was hanging in the air, trapped in a net. He looked for a tree that could work as a good cover and climbed onto it. After making sure that he was covered properly by the leaves, he waited.
'Hunters usually leave traps like these all over the forest and check them all once a day, taking the prey with them and resetting the traps. This is a golden chance to just follow the hunter instead of roaming aimlessly and getting trapped' Lucio thought as he waited.
Hours passed as the sun moved from the east to west. Lucio waited patiently as it was a waste of energy to walk around in a forest, aimlessly without a fire or a weapon. It was also safer to talk to the hunter and ask for help.
Most humans had a tendency to help each other in Oscuro, especially the commoners from villages. The temperature fell as the noon passed and soon a man and a boy appeared a few hundred metres from where Lucio was located.
Lucio heard them talk in a language that he didn't understand and frowned 'Last time we were able to understand the language pretty well….'
He opened the [Administrator system] , only to see a bunch of notifications in bold letters on the screen.
[
Successfully linked Planet Earth to Planet Oscuro.
(You have received 1 free purchase ticket (1-star))
Congratulations, User base reached 100 on the first day of launch.
(You have received 1 free purchase ticket (1-star))
Hidden Quest Complete : Administrator personally enters Oscuro on the first day of launch.
(You have received 1 free purchase ticket (3-star))
Purchase tickets allow you to buy anything of a particular tier from the shop for free.
]
Lucio quickly opened the [Shop] and looked through the items, searching for any item that would help him understand the native language. He found five items that had the word language in them.
[Language mastery (Tier-1): User can understand and speak three human language (most spoken language at the location where the player receives this skill)]
[Language mastery (Tier-2): User can understand and speak five human languages along with being able to read and write one of the five human scripts of the user's choice. (most spoken languages at the location where the player receives this skill)]
[Language mastery (Tier-3): User can understand and speak all human languages along with being able to read and write three human scripts of the user's choice. (most spoken languages at the location where the player receives this skill)]]
[Language mastery (Tier-4): User can understand and speak all human languages along with the languages of other intelligent species. User can read and write all existing scripts of the languages that the user knowns.]
[Language mastery (Tier-5): User can understand and read all existing languages along with being able to read and write the scripts of all languages. (Language of devils, demons and angels)]
He bought the basic version of language comprehension and closed the screen. To Lucio, the conversation below was more important than upgrading or buying anything from the system in his current situation.
"We found another one, kekekeke. But seriously, it's so much easier to steal the other village's prey than to sit around and improve our trapping methods. Let the others do the work for us while we take away their precious fruits of labour." The man said as he laughed loudly and the boy beside him simply nodded his head in agreement.
Lucio's eyes narrowed 'So they're just thieves…' He noticed the man having a knife tied to his belt and decided not to engage. His life was precious after all.
The pair pulled the pig down and tied it with some ropes and were about to take it away when a shout pierced the calm atmosphere of the forest.
"STOP RIGHT THERE, YOU THIEVES!!" A man with brown hair and wrinkled face shouted as he ran towards the pair with a knife in his hands. He looked like he was in his forties but he was quite quick.
The thief pulled out his knife and stared at the man who stopped running "We are two and you are just a single person. Do you really have the confidence to stop us?"
The brown haired man looked at the two seriously and ignored the boy who quietly climbed down a tree that was behind the thieves with his palm covering his mouth. The man had already understood what that action meant and looked straight into the eyes of the thief to not raise suspicion.
"Why do you keep stealing our prey? This is not even your village's territory."
"Your village has pretty talented hunters and amazing traps but all we have are infertile lands and an incompetent village chief. We do this to earn our daily meal." The thief replied as he leaned forward, ready to strike the man in front of him if he ever made a move.
"Then does that mean I can kill you to stop MY daily meal from getting stolen?" the man said in anger. "You also killed one of our young hunters!"
"Kekekeke. I didn't ask him to fight me. But that hot-blooded kid just ran at me only to get his throat pierced."
The brown haired man took a step forward and the thief tensed up, ready to strike but he only felt immense pain that assaulted his head before he lost his consciousness. The young boy was too stunned by the event that occurred in front of him to notice the brown haired man running towards him.
Both the thieves were tied up by the man and he introduced himself "Thank you for your help. I would have been injured if I fought them both alone."
Lucio nodded and replied "My name is Samael. I was lost in this forest for a week and well…. Can you help me get out of this forest if I give you some mushrooms? They're on the tree."
"What are you talking about? Just come with me and I'll even give you a place to sleep for a few days. You don't have to pay me anything. You can call me grandpa Han."
"Okay…" Lucio said as turned around to bring the mushrooms he had hidden on the tree.
He then followed grandpa Han to his village silently. An hour later, they arrived at the village with the two thieves and a pig. Han took Lucio to his house and said "You can wait inside while I take care of matters of these thieves."
Lucio nodded and walked inside. The house was big but it had only three rooms. One of the rooms was locked and the other two were the living room and the firewood storage.
Lucio silently sat in the hall and placed the mushrooms on the floor. His shirt had become black at the place which had the most contact with the mushrooms. He sighed as he waited for Han to arrive.
Han came back with a two leather pouches that were filled with coins and threw one at Lucio and said "Here you go Samael, I sold the two to the village chief as slaves. The pouch I gave you just now has the amount that I got for the guy to took down."
Lucio accepted it and nodded "Thanks… Do you have anything to eat? I'm starving…."
Han replied with a bright smile "Yes, we are having a feast tonight so you only have to wait until the sun sets."
Lucio nodded and opened his [Administrator System]