I quickly ran to the cupboard and began to take out the food. These were both yesterday's uneaten dishes from the tavern and the host's personal supplies: eggs, dried fruits, jerky.
"You decided to eat all this at once?" the old man asked sarcastically.
I stared in surprise at the table piled with food.
"Why take it out twice? It'll be just right for dinner."
"That's true too," he laughed. "Okay, go wash up. I'll do everything myself."
"Where can I wash up?"
There was a pause, and then Viziliy patted me on the shoulder.
"Yeah. Now we'll both have to get used to a lot of new things. If, of course, we don't die today."
"Where can I wash up?"
"There's a barrel outside. The black one."
The cold water finally brought me to my senses and raised my mood even more. I wanted everything at once: to run around the property, look at the people and their way of life... But all this paled in comparison to the questions that were making my head swell.
When I returned, the old man was still cutting something.
"Remember where we left off yesterday?" he asked.
"You wanted to tell me why we need each other."
"Exactly!" he nodded approvingly and pointed to a wooden chair next to the table. "So. Why you need me is obvious: without me, you're screwed, even if you're not identified as an outsider."
"Why's that?" I asked and reached for a piece of bread.
"Just when you cheered me up with your attitude, you immediately upset me with a stupid question!" the old man, without ceremony, slapped my hand. "Come on, answer yourself."
"Because we attract events?"
"Troubles. Yes, mainly because of that, and also because you don't know a damn thing about this world and will die even in a case where you could have survived... Here, for example, you grab bread without asking from angry old men."
It wasn't clear from his face whether he was joking or not, so I decided to change the subject.
"And why do you need me?"
"Well, firstly, while I'm teaching you, you'll be helping me with the household. I'm old now and my hands aren't what they used to be," he grinned, putting the untouched leftovers back in the cupboard. "At the same time, you'll understand how everything works here, get to know the people and so on."
"And secondly?" I asked, eagerly looking at the food and figuring out where to start.
"And secondly, you'll help me clear the territory."
The old man sat down across from me and nodded at the food, inviting me to start the meal.
"From wolves?"
I immediately grabbed a chunk of cold meat and took a huge bite out of it.
"From various monsters, bandits. We'll clear out caves, one village needs to be dealt with..."
I swallowed with difficulty the piece of meat that got stuck in my throat and immediately washed it down with ice-cold water. First of all: how does he know such words? Apparently, the system somehow adjusts our speech, although he didn't know what "tattoos" and "rhetorical" were... Well, okay, these are details.
"What did they do?"
"Is that important?"
The old man was intensively chewing something, not looking at me.
"Of course."
I returned to the food, but just in case started taking smaller bites.
"It's good that this is important to you," he winked at me. "There is a reason, but we'll talk about it later. In general, I'll need your possible help... Ah, it's a pity you didn't appear ten years ago, or better fifteen. Then we would have had a blast!"
"You're having a pretty good blast now..."
"This is against the background of these fools and you... I can't venture into the sea forest or to the border of the Empire anymore..."
"What's there?"
"Ass," the old man laughed and pointed his finger at some dubious color and substance dish. "Try it. I made it myself!"
"From what?"
"Try it, I said!"
I carefully scooped up the incomprehensible crap with a wooden spoon and smelled it. It smelled only slightly less disgusting than it looked.
"I don't want to."
"What if I say that if you don't eat it, I won't help you."
"I'll think that you're an old, complexed geezer wanting to self-realize at the expense of the weak."
"I didn't understand half the words, but I got the message," Viziliy laughed again. "Actually, it's good for male potency."
"I don't have problems with potency, but with the presence of a woman."
"Well, that's not a question for me."
I put aside the substance and moved on to the egg pie. No wonder the old man reminded me of a seasoned KGB agent yesterday. Every second question of his is a kind of test. But I don't care. I have established views on life, and I'm not going to change them even for the sake of beneficial people.
"What about leveling up here?" I changed the subject. "Is two levels a year really considered a good indicator?"
"For local riffraff, yes, but you're an outsider. You'll progress faster anyway, and with me much faster, if you don't die before your time, of course..."
"And magic and the like?..."
"Wait for the second level. Everything will open up there and I'll explain in more detail. It's hard for you to understand now."
"What if you're not around?"
"Then your task is to make sure I am and that I'm satisfied with you."
What an ass with a handle... I looked at the grinning old man and managed to grab the last piece of meat, which he had just looked at.
"And what about this test?"
"Ah!" his face, which had become displeased for a second, spread into a smile again. "There's a stationary searcher here. It's much more powerful than my rune. We need to approach it and check if it detects you. And if yes, then at what distance."
"Sounds simple."
"It is," Viziliy looked me in the eyes, "but if you're detected, your fate won't be very enviable."
"Why's that? Won't they hand me over to the local feudal lord?"
"Son, we're in the middle of nowhere," the smile disappeared from the old man's face. "There are no feudal lords nearby, and the village where this thing is installed is the very one I want to deal with. And it's not really a village at all, but an old half-ruined fortress. And very unpleasant residents live in it. And they're unpleasant because they're dead."
***
In general, no one was surprised by the presence of the undead in the world of sword and magic. But, I must admit, meeting them, practically in the first day after arrival, was not part of my plans. My level is still the first, and my ability to turn into a hobbit won't help here at all.
But old man Viziliy didn't leave me a choice. Moreover, he didn't want to inform all the villagers about the situation, so we went as a trio. The third turned out to be that same big guy.
Viziliy gave him a long story about how I was supposedly his long-lost, amnesiac grand-nephew and that the blood relative needed to be urgently leveled up.
"Holy shit!" our new companion squeezed out, listening to the story in which there wasn't a word of truth.
As the old man had told me, Lynch was the son of his deceased best friend. He had raised him practically from the cradle, and therefore he would never go against his will. The thirty-three-year-old man was a bit slow and because of this sometimes boorish, but generally kind and, what's more valuable for our task, strong.
"How did they heal your arm?" I asked a question that had been on the tip of my tongue for a while.
"Why is he using formal speech with me?" the man asked Viziliy.
"Well-mannered," the old man shrugged, "or a fool. But still a relative."
"Blood is sacred!" Lynch nodded his head intensively.
"How is it usually done here? I mean addressing people," I butted in again.
"If they're not old enough to be your grandfather and of the same rank, then it's informal," the big guy explained.
"So what's with your arm?"
"Granny Profinya owed for the barn roof. So she healed it without waiting in line."
No details followed, and although I was very interested, I kept further questions to myself for now.
"Will they give me any artifacts at least?"
The interlocutors looked at me simultaneously, were silent for a few seconds, then exchanged glances and burst out laughing in unison. My outstanding intuition suggested that this was more of a "no" than a "yes"...