From the moment Aghora and his brothers entered the open field this old man had been staring at them.
He had been teaching the youngest children for at least two decades now but he had never seen a five year old enter this place, not that it was some kind of forbiddden thing but it just never happened since children at that age were very out of control.
Aghora was calm and composed yet his eyes were still full of curiosity even after sitting down the child did not act up but only carefully watched everything around him.
When all the children he was expecting had gathered around he stood up and cleared his throat. He got up with a walking stick and used it to point at Aghora.
"Child what is your name?"
"Senior, I am Aghora" Aghora answered while standing up
"A fine name, it suits you well from what I see but do you know why you are here?" The man said with a warm smile.
"My father said I will get my questions answered when I come here"
The man was interested so he asked a question but this time his head was turned towards Kroll and Krey, "Is this true?"
"Yes senior, Aghora is our youngest but he asks so many difficult questions thats why father sent him here" krey was the one who spoke up.
The old man nodded as if in understanding then he spoke.
"Take your sits, I have decided. Today I will tell a story from my time to welcome Aghora-" as he said this the children gave exited cheers something he quickly interrupted by striking his walking stick on the ground.
"Many years ago, our country was attacked from the northern sea by a country of beasts in the continent. The beasts came with an army twenty thousand strong.
How the beasts came from sea is still difficult to understand and I would not believe it if had not seen it myself. For those men used a strange power to calm the wild waters perhaps one of their gods.
Well, at that time I was a grand priest so I led my own men into that battle.
My men and I had been easily taking those beasts, but those men kept landing on our shores in the thousands, and perhaps our prayers to end the fierce battle reached the goddess because one of the eight great saints came from the capital to that battlefield.
He wore the cloak of the advowrer and with it he cast a whisper that was a large as a mountain. The beasts fled at the sight of it but the saint destroyed their boats and our armies surrounded them..."
The story was still on going but Aghora was no longer paying attention, he was frowning though and in deep thought.
'I should've taken those fantasy and history films a bit more seriously' he was thinking about how his ife would be in this world, everything was boring he guessed this man was telling a ficticious story and couldn't be bothered to pay attention.
"Child what is the matter?" The old man had noticed that Aghora lost interest in his story and this time the behaviour of the child was very noticable as even grown men would pay close attention to war stories.
But as he asked this question all of Aghoras brothers felt as if something bad was about to happen.
"Senior, Are the beasts that invaded our country not people?"
The old man was dumbfounded, now felt like he understood something so he slowly asked "Are these the things you asked of your father?"
Aghora gave a childish affirming nod, causing the old man to sigh out of frustration.
"Alright, you and your brothers should stay after I finish today, I will answer any questions you have at that time."
After that the old man didn't bother to interrupt his story even if Aghora wasn't listening, but he still occassionally gave confused looks at the boy.
The story and a round of questioning lasted four hours so Aghora had all that time to be distracted by his thoughts.
Aghora had long realized he seemed to be smarter in this world, with just his memories from his past life he didn't amount to much in that life because he didn't even remember a lot of things. But in this new body, his mind was more powerful, he could recall things he was sure he couldn't recall in the past and he now frequently developed complex trains of thought. The only drawback was that his emotions seemed to have been dulled, the only persistent one being a growing sense of boredom and irritation.
"Ehem, Child so about that question you asked, what did you mean?"
The question made Aghora snap out his train of thought, he didn't notice that as the sky began to turn yellow the other children had began to walk away.
"Senior, a servant of my fathers household told me I am born of the Navira tribe, of southern Noi. I was thinking that the beasts are just people from a different tribe".
The old man nodded knowingly, "Child, you are correct but there is something you don't know. Noi means people, as we say 'speak the language of people' it is a reflection of how our people live. Look around, this plaza is full of our people and many other kinds of people, that is because in the land of Noi you are a human if you treat your fellows as a human and you are a beast if you act like a beast".
'I am human because you are? thats f-cking brilliant'
The old man didn't know what Aghora was thinking but seeing the boy become wide eyed to his response he smiled in satisfaction.
It was sun down so the different groups of children had began to leave the plaza. Daran, Zamir and Grypha had come over as they usually would walk home together so seeing the old man converse with Aghora made them confused.
Seeing the other children walk come over, the old man had wanted to walk them home but because of Zamir he was sure they wouldn't take a straight route home so he just told them they could go home.
The walk was longer because they took a detour to the port since that was where Zamir lived.
For Aghora all he had to do was silently follow while the other boys had their own conversations.
Throughout the walk Zamir kept complaining about how Daran and Grypha had an easier time at their lessons. The lessons for their age group was more about physical exercises and training for a traditional great sword called a tekka.
The whole time Aghora was reflecting on what he learned that day.
First was the fact that he was from a small but powerful country of dark skinned people, probably this world was still in the classical age.
That this country was called Noi and it was ruled by two literal gods, Sinna the creator and Daji the advowrer, his family being privilegded because his father was a monk serving the temple of the advowrer. In fact the position of being a monk was like being a low ranking noble in a feudal system.
Aghora wasn't paying attention to the story the old man told but he was still able to get some information from idly listening.
Looking at the environment of the town, Aghora kept noticing things that made him more certain that this society was unlike anything he knew from his past life.
The roads were wide and laden with stone, the city was full of soldiers in metal armour a few of whom did not hide that they were following the boys.
"There is so much about this world I have to learn"