I hissed in pain, wincing at the sensation of medicine being applied to my acid burns. Turns out ripping slime cores out like it's Kung Pao Fury leads to long lasting chemical damage. Which is fascinatingly ironic, considering the ooze can be distilled and used as burn treatment and fire resistance cream.

"Honestly dearie, the first time you visited I would have chalked it up to simple inexperience, but you should know better by now," Marscha commented, adhering the bandage in place.

"Yeah yeah, I know I know. Was the heat of the moment, should've considered the fact that they digest stuff with their own body. Barely felt anything until the adrenaline wore off"

Which was fun, considering we only had the kind of meds to keep it from getting worse. Poor hindsight on our part, but we weren't expecting what the lizardmen dubbed the 'Hivemind Slime' based on my comments of hive mind mentality.

The old medicine woman shook her head. "It's going to leave lasting scars, and quite frankly you'll have to change these bandages frequently. Do you still have any sensation in your fingertips?"

I grimaced at that. "Kind of. There's a lack of… temperature in them. That's all I can really call it. Left hand's a little better than the right at least"

"Can you feel the bandages on your skin at least?" She asked, to which I nodded in affirmative. A mixed sigh of disappointment and relief escaped her nostrils. "Good, it could have been much worse than that. Just be careful about how hot or cold something is, but other than that you should be good. I want you back here in a week to check on the progress young man"

I murmur a thank you, and get up from my seat. I grimace at the lack of feeling as I push the hut's curtain to the side and into the main room. Some of us had already gone home, only exhausted from the work of fighting for our lives, but a couple of us were in here for medical treatment. The albino himself went to the elder's hut to make a report on the situation, hopefully they'll be able to get their heads out of their asses and see we can't afford to infight anymore.

I pace through the village, waving a bandaged hand at one of the children with a smile. He smiles back and waves, resuming his play with a couple of friends as they laugh. Ah, music to my ears that is. I'm glad that they can live here in peace, if only I could do the same. A shame, I've got a mission to fulfill, but it'll all be worth it in the end.

Speaking of… my level up. Despite only being a few months, I've already managed to level up six times. I know that those slimes were only a couple levels beneath me, but the sheer amount of them made things hellish. I think I'm gaining a better understanding of how much experience I'll need before my next level up, but that's also taking a bit of guesswork into it based on my current climb. I imagine it's going to progressively get more difficult to level up the stronger I get. Not unless I can find areas with stronger foes. Maybe the Katze Plains, I heard undead were pretty prevalent there from some of the villagers, but that's still a ways off and they're not fully sure where it is other than 'east'.

I shake my head. I'm gonna have to spend a couple weeks here teaching the villagers some more stuff while I rest, but thankfully my students have been coming along nicely in their studies. And as that one lizardman said, even some of the adults have been asking me questions about joining my classes. Damn, if this keeps up I'm gonna have to push some of this off on Lulu. Poor girl, she's already been busting her hump between Marscha's studies, my experiments, and the lessons she's been joining and practicing for. God, I need to make that up to her. An enchanted pendant maybe? Copper would work, and I think I saw some crystals back in the slime den.

Oh, in other news, the newly dubbed 'Frost Copper' has taken off. The big ol' artisan who's name I still haven't learned seems to have enjoyed a lovely report from the Hoplites that had joined our expedition. As a result, the elders have at least decided that some of my stuff is worth investing in, even if it's for weapons and armor. As a result, they've dedicated some resources to silt gathering for the sake of more properly equipping everyone with the stuff.

Still, that doesn't stop the production of other things, and it's only a matter of time before I see a few people working with copper tools and copper cutlery. Hell, I've already seen a couple of baubles here and there in the village. She seems to genuinely enjoy forging too, apparently something about it feels 'natural' to her. Might have to bring her into the 'Circle of Secrets', my faux illuminati. She'd certainly benefit from knowing tips and tricks, and having her as a dedicated craftsman of a high level would certainly help.

"Still need to learn her name…" I muttered to myself, scratching at the beard on my face. That's another thing I'll need to handle, getting a razor made so I can make a clean shave.

I hear a rumble in the distance, and look in the sky. Damn, it's gonna rain later. Might wanna do what I want now, because I'm gonna have to keep these bandages dry. I take a look around, weighing my options. I could either hit up the artisan huts and check them out, check on the fishery and see how that's going, or Lulu. Hmmm… I think I'd be remiss if I didn't pay that girl a visit, I haven't seen her at all since I came back from the quest.

I already make my way, hiking to where she most likely will be.

I gently rap on the archway to the hut, getting a muffled 'come in!' from inside. I push the curtains aside and squint, muttering a soft {Darkvision} to better move around and take in my new surroundings. Her hut was small, but it was littered with papers and various implements. I even saw a few samples of alchemical and scientific components tucked away on shelves. What caught my eye though was Lulu herself, barely looking up from her seated position.

Though that minimal effort was all it took for her to realize I was over. "Oh, Nolan!"

She put down what looked like a paint brush and stood up, coming up to me to give me a tight hug. I chuckled, rubbing her back with my gauzed hands.

"I didn't know you were back yet, I've barely left the house for the past couple of days. Miss Runo always came by instead for our lessons since this is where I'd take the no-"

She cut herself off, looking at my hands with dismay. She picked them up in her claws, inspecting them. "What happened?"

"You'll hear the full story from some of the others, but the long and short of it is we bit off more than we could chew," I tried to brush off with a chuckle, but she wasn't having it.

"Nolan," She said with a rare firmness I'd never seen her direct at me before. "What. Happened"

I wanted to brush it off, but she caught me off guard. I couldn't say or do anything but stare at her blankly as I tried and failed to come up with the means of making light of what happened. So I spoke. I started with the strange slime behavior, the discovery of the den, all the way to the end. It felt like a long tale, and I couldn't help but almost feel misty remembering that sickly sweet wave of gratitude that thing gave me. Eventually, I'd wrapped the story up with our return.

"... and… after we cleaned up the majority of the slimes we came back. A couple of us needed medical, but nothing too severe. From the sounds of it, I got the worst of it"

"Oh, you stupid…" She muttered, shaking her head. "You should have come back and gotten more help!"

I winced at that. "The slimes were already in large numbers and replicated quickly, so fast that by the time we rounded everyone up it probably would have been too late. I… we played the cards we were given. Sorry, for what it's worth. You ain't gotta worry 'bout me though Lulu, this dog's still got a few tricks left in 'em".

She shook her head at that with a huff. Trying to push the conversation along, I took notice of the brush and what… looked like some kind of paint?

"So uh… what've you been up to in here that you'd make Marscha hike out here for lessons?" I asked.

"Oh!" She blurted, before coming around to the table and waving at the pictograms she'd been painting. "I still haven't fully grasped English enough to be capable of writing it, but I remember what you taught us about 'phonetics', so I've been using that and sounding out the letters to guess how words are spelled. I'm trying to record as much information as I can from Miss Runo, so that we can pass it on to future generations''

I blinked at that. "That's… actually pretty amazing. I imagine we'll go ahead and bind your work in a book cover once you're done recording what you can. Has it been coming along well?"

"I don't know, I may have misspelled some words or completely ruined it for all I know…" She half-mumbled, looking down and away.

"If you'd like, I could maybe… proofread it? I've got time to kill since my hands need to heal, so I might as well sit down and help, y'know?"

"R-really?!" She stutters, shaking her tail.

I chuckle at that. "Really"

She giddily steps off to her cooking range, starting the fire with a spell. "I'll brew some tea then! It'd be nice to have you over!"

"Mmm, let's see… I before E, except after C… that's a common enough mistake. There are rare exceptions, and you still need to watch out for other words that are spelled differently, but you seem to mostly have that part down. I'm impressed, if you sounded these words out you could definitely consider them readable"

"I'm just so confused by all the subtle differences and spellings. This language is hard"

I snorted at that, taking another sip of tea before I continue. "You should see some of the other languages from back home. English is by no means an easy language, but there are worse choices. Hell, half the reason is so bad is because english borrows a lot of its words from other languages and writings. Also why it's got so many weird rules. About as bad as Deutsch at any rate"

"Deutsch?" She asked

"Well, y'know, it's…" I trailed off, before looking at her carefully as I realized what she said. "Uh… Gutentag? Möchtest du Brot und Wasser?"

She almost went cross eyed at my words. "Er… what?"

"Holy shit," I said with astonishment. "German… doesn't translate?"

Lulu narrowed her eyes at me in confusion. "You're making more sense now, but I still don't know what you're talking about Nolan"

"German is a language from my homeland," I said. "Not just written, but spoken. Deutsch was the pronunciation for the language in its own tongue. I was just speaking it, hell you spoke a brief portion of it. Tell me, when you hear 'Wasser', what does it sound like to you?"

"Er… Wasser?" She half-mumbled, her tongue almost folding out of her mouth at an odd angle. "That was… strange. Trying to repeat what you just said"

"Wasser in German means 'Water'. Now say water"

"Water?"

"Now say 'Wasser' for me"

"Wasser…" She mumble-spoke again, looking down in thought. I could see the gears turning though, and it's obvious that the situation was starting to become increasingly unusual for us.

"I… all this time we've been speaking, I've only ever been hearing it spoken in my home tongue, English. That is not at all what your people are speaking though, are they?"

"I… don't know?" She said with growing confusion. "We've… only ever known this tongue. One tongue. We thought it was the common tongue?"

"Does it have a name?" I asked.

She scratched her head at that, looking down with more confusion and uncertainty. This is proving to be quite the brain teaser now. I considered something else, a word in another language.

"Try… Agua," I said.

Lulu almost seemed reluctant now, but nodded. "Agua… what does that mean?"

"It also means water. Two different words, er, let me write them down for you to see"

I pulled out the paint brush and grabbed a spare sheet of paper. I then carefully jotted down the three words, side by side. She stared at them long and hard, seemingly trying to piece this mystery together. I, meanwhile, was coming to a conclusion.

"I… I think I know why this is happening…" I muttered. "Remember those 'secrets' I let you guys in on?"

She nodded, looking me in the eyes with seriousness.

"What… what if… there's something translating our language for us here? I thought it was strange that we could communicate with almost near perfect precision despite being completely different cultures from opposite ends of the world. We never had anything like that because this language was never my first language, that's why we have separate spoken languages in our lands to begin with. What constitutes the barrier between translation of a known language and translation of unknown? Between a second language of speaker A and its translation into the first language of speaker B?"

I scratched my chin at this carefully as I stood up to pace, Crusch now deep in thought with the information I'd brought to the table. I really didn't want to bring something up that could completely shatter worldview and expose a system like this, but my mouth was moving faster than my brain could keep up with.

"There… there might be an answer," Lulu began. "We have several creation myths passed down among the tribe, ours especially. One of those myths is known as 'The Great Fish of Babel' by our ancestors"

I blinked at that, and stopped in my pacing to stare at her. "Wait… say Babel again, slowly"

She looked at me with concern, before she mouthed the words. And they matched her lips.

"Babel"

No… no fucking way. That… that isn't right. That raises way more questions than I ever wanted it to. I stared at her with wide eyes, mouth agape, before I felt weakness in my knees. I slowly sat down against the hut wall I was close to, staring away from her as I thought out loud.

"Babel… as in the Tower of Babylon? That… heh, makes sense actually"

I shake my head, realizing that I'd almost forgotten that this was a world full of cheaty shit magic and stuff made by dystopian era gamers. Of course there would be a reference to the bible somewhere aside from the Theocracy's 'Angel' summons. Probably a few other references here actually, I should keep an eye out for those now that I think of it. Who knows, it could probably even lead me on a trail for player items, which presents an interesting opportunity considering I'm possibly the only living otherworlder here at this time.

Come to think of it, didn't Pandora's Actor speak German? As in, actual German? Yeah, there is so much going on here that isn't right… but it presents new opportunities as well. If whatever the hell is in place doesn't automatically translate what's considered to be a second language, then that more or less means we have our own code now. Er, kind of. My German is shit, but I can at least make my way through basic conversations.

"So… Nolan… what does this all mean?" Lulu asked, breaking me from my thoughts.

"Well it means a few things. I'll have to get back to you before I have any sure answers to this, as most of what I have is heavy speculation. Lulu, I hate to ask this, but this revelation… I think it needs to stay in our main circle of secrets, at least for now. Maybe once we have a better understanding we can share it, but until then we need to be tight-lipped, alright?"

She nods in acceptance, accepting my plea to keep this hush hush at the very least. With that out of the way, I can't help but sigh and think back to the original topic at hand.

"So, with that said, back to writing… English… now that you understand it's base components and origins, perhaps you can see why it's such a difficult language now. It's put together from different tongues. In fact, I'd encourage linguistic growth amongst your own, maybe even develop your own words based on local dialect and expressions. Do keep in mind that things still need to be kept uniform enough that anyone who knows the language could read without much issue, as well as the capability to infer from the structure of the page roughly what you're trying to get across"

She went back to her usual meek and studious self, nodding and paying rapt attention. Say what you will about the kid, she's a damn good student. Money's on her being a suitable teacher for the tribe by the time winter rolls around.

Crusch Lulu has joined the Party!

Nolan Potts, Human (Karma: 70 [Neutral]) [19/24 Spell slots used]

Classes: Brawler (5), Ranger (3), Druid (5), Clothier (3), Translucer (1), Unused Levels (1). Total Level (18).

Spells (Druid): Frostbite, Entangle, Create or Destroy Water, Guidance, Jump, Cure Wounds, Dust Devil, Protect from Poison, Hold Person, Spike Growth, Lesser Restoration, Water Breathing, Darkvision, Sleetstorm, Ice Knife

Spells (Ranger): Animal Friendship, Speak to Animals, Ensnaring Strike, Conjure Animals

Items of Note: {Humble Beginnings}

Party Members are as follows…

Member One: Todone, Son of Kodrotti, Toadman (Karma: -10 [Neutral])

Classes: Toadman Warrior (9), Brawler (9), Martial Artist (1), Total Level (19).

Member Two: Yulg (Karma: 50 [Neutral])

Classes: Goblin Marauder (1), Brawler (8), Warrior (4), Cleric (1), Total Level (13)

Member Three: Crusch Lulu of the Red Eyes (Karma: 50 [Neutral])

Classes: Awakened Elder Blood Lizardman (1), Druid (6), Spirit Shaman (3), Summoner (1), Scientist (1), Total Level (12)

AN: Eh, work fucked my schedule up big time next week. They scheduled me for hours I already established that I can't work at the interview, and have done nothing to change the schedule even though I've made it more than clear three times now that I can't work it. Under normal circumstances I'd try to power through, but this stuff is 'close one day, open the next, close the day after' levels of tomfuckery that I wasn't expecting. So either way, I'm probably not gonna be able to write anything until that's sorted out. Could be tomorrow, could be a week. I'll get to y'all when I can, but for now let's do some reviews.

Accountless Fan: I ain't saying shit other than 3). He's gonna be getting some interesting stuff happening for himself, I can offer that much.

Spatialyeti8: Get dunked on ya fuckin' nerd. Expect more stuff like this from here on out XD

StarShow: Highly appreciate the praise. I'm actually a little against most stories with game-like elements. Not necessarily the idea itself, moreso the rhythm and delivery of it. Exceptions do apply.

To everyone else giving praise, much appreciated. Glad that my fun is giving everyone else some fun.