Gestation by John Gold (tohfa e dulha read online .TXT) 📕

about needing intelligent creatures to create a weapon, and I won’t technically be breaking any of Eliza’s rules.

∞ ∞ ∞

Current location: Heron Island.

Beach

An old, gray-haired man in a robe points at me and says something.

“Gernu piri! A rgen tu moto.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Bere?”

∞ ∞ ∞

Knowledge area: Haaron tongue +0.001%

The more often you hear and repeat languages you don’t know, the faster you learn them.

∞ ∞ ∞

“Bere?” I repeat.

Thirty minutes later, we’re starting to understand each other. I’m naked, and that’s not considered respectable. I hand him a silver coin; he gives me something like shorts and a shirt.

Village children shorts

Shorts made from simple cotton. The last gasp of fashion for paupers.

Durability: 77/100

Village children shirt

Shabby child’s shirt.

Durability: 81/100

The old man’s name is Romul. He’s a local who enjoys walking along the beach in the morning, and that’s why he came across me. Even in the village, you’re not supposed to walk around naked. I answer the old man’s questions about where I’m from and how I came to be here on the fishing island. The ship from the continent comes by once every two months, with forty days left until the next one. There are no taverns or inns. He does explain how to find lodging, however.

“Study professions and sign yourself out as an apprentice in the dockyard. Or go talk to the local blacksmith. He’s married to our local sorceress, so she might be able to help you out, too.”

“Thanks for the advice. I’ll probably start with the wharf.”

Romul walks off along the beach, leaving me to head toward the village. I can hear the hubbub of the docks from here.

The village itself is at the foothill of a mountain and reaches all the way out to the ocean. It’s populated with wood and clay buildings one or two stories high, and there’s a port with ten log piers. It’s all about the same as in my village.

I’m thrown for a loop at the wharfs, however, by a local brigadier who turns out to be a smart guy.

“Sagie, you have more strength and skills than anyone in the brigade, and you’re still a child. You’ve done more than they’ve done in their whole lives, so I can’t take you on as an apprentice. If you hadn’t mentioned your skills, I might have tried to figure something out.”

It’s unusual. The brigadier is protecting his workers’ self-esteem.

“Got it.” Perhaps, I shouldn’t have said anything, but he’s right. They would compare themselves to me and start to feel jealous. “I’ll head over to the blacksmith. Sorry to bother you.”

The brigadier pauses when he hears that.

“If you’re going to see the blacksmith, there’s something you can do for me. I never have time to pick up my nails. Could you get them for me?”

∞ ∞ ∞

Quest received: Collect nails from the blacksmith.

Description: Brigadier Quartavius Caris needs you to pick up his order of nails from the blacksmith.

Reward: Variable

Refusal: A worsened relationship with Carius

“Sure, I can do that.”

∞ ∞ ∞

You accepted a quest: Collect nails from the blacksmith.

∞ ∞ ∞

“But where does he live?”

“Show me your map. I’ll draw it for you.” In a flash, he draws the entire ocean, complete with the surrounding waters. “My main skill is cartography. Being a brigadier is just a job, so drawing maps is more of a hobby than it used to be.”

The map turns out to be detailed with houses, roads, and labels. He even added a map of the currents. What kind of skill must that be for him to draw something that detailed so quickly?

I fish on the pier until morning, enjoying the smell of the wood and water, the easy, hand-made fishing pole. Light glistens off the waves. I haven’t been this happy in a long time. Even if I’m not in the big world, I’m happy. There are people here, good food, skills, professions. I’m not worried about what I lost at all. I’m just going to keep moving forward. I have something more than skills and attributes, after all. I have a family.

As it gets toward afternoon, boats start to sail in, coming back from their morning fishing. I fish for a couple more hours and quietly learn the Haaron tongue as they unload. I have time. There’s a quest, too, and a long wait until my probation with the Hunters.

I let the little fish go, just keeping the big ones. Thanks to my fisherman profession, which is all the way up to 250, I can catch anything. I can even land the nasty ones.

All day long, I sit on the pier, and suddenly, I have the urge to go for a swim. I pull off my clothes and dive in. Even though it’s getting on toward evening, I can see the bottom perfectly. My lanterns work underwater, and the four minutes I can hold my breath enables me to catch crabs.

I’m having so much fun that I almost drown. My dolphin kicks are a blast, the water flows past my body, and I feel weightless. Even after the sun goes down, I want to swim some more and go see the corals down at the bottom. Fish swim around them, and there are mollusks and plankton, too. Everything glows with phosphorescence.

After dropping down all the way to the bottom, I start opening mollusks. Without noticing it, I’d swum almost two kilometers away from the shore. So many pearls! They’re all different colors and sizes, and a Level 198 mollusk with a shining black shell grabs my attention. The poor guy tries to fight back, and then tries to eat me when I open it. Inside, there’s a black pearl the size of my fist. It’s the most valuable I’ve found, and I decide not to push fate. The nighttime predators are waking up, anyway, so it’s time to hurry back to the bank.

I spend the night sleeping on one of the piers.

Everything’s simple in real life. The psychologist has stopped getting on my case, and Vaalsie and his team of collectors is leaving me alone, too. I think the