28 The Answer

(Morgan Pov)

I think I found out why Sacaeans are renowned as trackers. If you lose shit in the plains, you better be good at finding it. There is one thing I both love and hate about Sacae, it is how open the land is. When you lose an animal or someone, you have no idea where to start looking.

They literally could have gone off in any direction you weren't looking. If you choose the wrong direction to search, good luck. You just gave what you are searching for more time to escape your line of sight, and when that happens it is frustrating.

If you choose to search in the wrong direction, you better hope that you realize you are searching in the wrong area as soon as possible. Losing an animal is the worst, you not only lose a source of food, but you also lose a source of wealth.

I'm an amateur at tracking things, but herding these assholes has led to my tracking skill steadily gaining experience. On one hand, I want to improve my tracking skills just in case I lose an animal. On the other hand, I don't want to keep losing animals to the point my skill levels up.

Should I just tag each sheep with magic and not deal with this problem anymore? Then again I don't want to rely on magic too much. In the event I run out of magic or can't use it anymore, I should have the skills to deal with any situation I come across.

But, magic makes life so much easier for me, dammit. I hate making decisions where there is no right answer. Why do things in life have to be contradictory and complicated? I don't want to think about things, I just want to lay down and relax.

But the grind never stops, There is honestly something satisfying about the grind. Seeing progress is intoxicating in its own weird way. I honestly have fun doing work at times, but is it wrong to also enjoy lazing around. Why am I getting philosophical about losing a sheep?

Hassar was right, you do end up thinking about life and other weird things just to pass the time. I previously used this time to come up with ideas for spells and theories about magic. That was a somewhat productive use of my time. I should think about answering Hassar's question.

A week and a half had gone by since Hassar asked me a question. And I still haven't come up with an answer. What was the question again? Please tell me I wrote it down? Shit, I did not write it down. I stopped trying to think about an answer a while back and I forgot the question in the process.

I wonder, what I am going to tell Hassar today? I guess I have to do what I do best, improvise. The shit you come with on the spot is either really good or really bad. Either way, this is going to be a memorable experience for sure.

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"Have you come up with an answer Morgan?"

"What was the question again?"

"You don't remember how? I thought you would write it down in that book of yours."

"I didn't because I thought I could remember the question."

"How good is your memory? I see you writing things you don't want to forget a lot, and forgetting what I asked you isn't helping you at all. Give me an example of your memory being good."

"Okay. Yesterday was the 50th time I saw you spill your drink."

"Why do you remember that? Actually, I have a better question to ask you. Why are you keeping count of that?"

"It all started 3 years ago when I saw you spilling your drink for the first time. For some reason, I remembered that the second time I saw you do that. Then I remembered that during the third time, and then the fourth time. Eventually, I wanted to see how long I could keep this up."

"Is that why you stare at me when I eat? Wait, you stare at a lot of people when you eat. What are you thinking when you do that?"

"I don't stare at people, I just like looking in a general direction when I eat. And I like to think of things about things when I eat. The problem is I do it even when there is someone in front of me. When I do start to pay attention to others, I somehow catch people doing weird things.

Did you know that Delger likes to put the things he doesn't like eating into his son's bowl when he isn't looking? He is very fast at doing it, but I caught him doing it one time. After that, I kept paying attention to him. The funny thing is that Anchin doesn't notice when he does it."

"No, I did not know that. If you can remember little things like that, I can believe you when you say you have a good memory. I'll repeat the question for you then. Why are you an important person in my life? You don't need to spend a week thinking about an answer, it's very simple."

"It's because I keep things you don't want people to find out a secret."

"What? I don't have any secrets that I need you to keep for me."

"I noticed that whenever Madelyn is on cooking duty, you tend to have a hard time eating the food. I sometimes see you spit out the food, and I even saw you throw out the food at one point. I thought you knew it was her on cooking duty, your actions match up perfectly.

When you eat her food, you look very serious and you try to hide any signs of disgust. When you really don't like the way it tastes, you tend to eat alone. And even though you hate the way the food tastes, you always try your best to finish it all."

"That was her on cooking duty!? I never knew that, please don't tell her what I do!"

"You don't need to tell me what to do, I already know things like this should be a secret. I just thought you knew all this time. I thought it was sweet seeing you try your hardest to eat the food your wife cooked."

"I didn't know it was her, it's the women to decide who has to cook for the day. They are in charge of a lot of things inside the camp, and they usually don't tell us who did what for the day. I just knew there were some days I didn't like the food that was made."

"Just to let you know, she is the person I want most on cooking duty. She is the one who cooks the best wolf meat, and I really like the unique taste her food has."

"Morgan I don't trust your sense of taste, you eat poisonous berries because you say they taste better than the other berries. You shouldn't eat those berries, you don't know what they will do to you."

"They won't hurt me, let alone kill me. I have eaten far more poisonous things and lived to tell you the tales. For example, a mushroom that when eaten is supposed to kill a person didn't do anything to me. All it made me do was hear the sounds the colors made."

"When did this happen? Why did you eat the mushroom?"

"Yesterday, Lyn put it in my food when I wasn't looking. All I noticed was that the food tasted different, but it was good. When I noticed Lyn trying to eat one of those mushrooms for herself, I panicked and I took it from her and ate it. I then spent a lot of time explaining to her why she can't do that."

"Thank you for doing that, but that also proves I can't trust your sense of taste for food."

"I don't know if this helps, but you are the only one who has a problem with her cooking. Everyone else is okay with it, I even made the effort to ask what they thought about the meal and if they enjoyed it. They all responded pretty positively to the food that they ate."

"It does help, but it doesn't make me any better. I'll just give you the answer before we end up talking about something else. The reason why is, because I simply see you as another member of my new family. It was a bandit attack that killed my tribe, the people I considered my family.

I spent some time wandering the plains aimlessly, with the sole goal of gaining strength. My journey led me to Lycia, where I worked for a noble for some time. I met Madelyn, fell in love with her, and to be with each other we eloped.

It was rough for us at first, but you know what happened next. We found others like us and decided to create something great. Going through the hard times with the others, allowed me to feel closer to them, to bond with them. In time, I started to see them as my new family.

I had found myself a new family, so I thought others could too. When I had brought you here, I had hoped that in time you would consider us as your new family. I know I consider you part of my family, it has been fun watching you these past 3 years.

Interesting and strange things tend to happen around you, so it's fun to hear about those things from you. You also have a lot of ideas to help out the tribe, some of your ideas work and some don't. I asked around this past week, and we all truly consider you to be part of this new family.

The main reason people have said was, they have seen you work hard on those new and strange ideas. Your sincere hard work has touched all of us here. It's hard for us to reject a person who works so hard to do right by us."

It feels so nice to hear a confirmation that my feelings are being returned. One of my flaws is, I can get easily attached to people. In my previous life, there were many times where I felt I was close to a person. But, the feelings weren't always mutual, and it hurt when they betrayed me.

I'm glad that my hard work wasn't in vain, I got what I wanted most. I just wanted people to fill the void that was left in me when I came to this world. I just want a family and a few friends, that's pretty much all I want. I can wait for the other things, I don't want to be too greedy for now.

I am confident that I will get what I want in the future, I just need hard work and sincerity to get it. I definitely don't want to forget this moment, I am writing this down right now.

"Morgan, how do you decide what you want to write down in that book?"

"I write about things that would be dangerous to forget, things I need to be careful about, and important events in my life. So that means I also write about events or memories I consider to be precious. This is the day I learned that I am truly considered a part of this family."

"Why are you so afraid of forgetting things? You have a good memory, you can remember the smallest things people do in front of you. You can even make a list of all the things you can remember."

"Well, dark magic tends to mess with the mind, if you aren't careful it can even turn you into a different person. You can forget the memories that made you into the person you now are. I don't want that to happen, so I write everything down just in case."

"Why do you keep using dark magic then, if you know what it can do to you?"

"I have 3 reasons why I keep using dark magic, despite how dangerous it is. One of them is that it makes me feel safe. When I use it, I have a sense of control and power. Things I need if I want to help or protect the people I care deeply about.

That leads to my second reason, I would rather lose parts of myself than to lose the things I find precious. I don't want to lose any more people in my life, and if all it takes is a sacrifice on my part. Honestly, this seems like a good bargain to me, and I wouldn't hesitate to do that for you and the others.

The last reason is mainly sentimental and not really about practicality. I don't ever want to forget a connection I have with a person. So every time I do an action associated with that person, I remember them and the effect they had on me or my life in general."

"So this is how you remember the master that took you in. If that's the case, then there is nothing I can say to convince you to stop then. At the very least promise me one thing then."

"Okay, tell me what you want to do."

"If someone close to you ever desperately pleads with you to stop using dark magic. I want you to stop using magic as soon as you can."

"I will promise to at least try."

"That's more than enough, we are similar people Morgan. I know that for the people you care about, you will always try to do right by them. I know that you will always listen to their cries, even if you may not stop.

Listening to them will prevent you from having to walk on that dark path you are so afraid of. And if it doesn't prevent you from going on that path, the people that care for you will walk alongside you on that path. Well, we talked for long enough, let's get back to work."

"Right."