14 Language

As the light in the City of Mirage started to dim as evening came along. The streets were illuminated with a special light on each street.

*knock* *knock*

Penta wakes immediately to the sound of knocking on his door. Realizing he really was in a bed and finally not in the underground. He smiled at the feeling of not waking up to pure darkness where only dirt and loneliness waited.

He gets up jovially and opens the door only to see the pretty Celia smiling back at him.

"Penta," She says.

"Celia, yes" He repeats while showing an inquiring look to her.

She simply points to a book in her hands. Seeming to realize her intentions. Penta couldn't help but nod his head profusely as he smiled became even brighter. He may be a roach in this life but the happiness he felt this last day almost seemed worth the torturous months he spent getting here. Almost.

"Yes.Yes.Yes.Yes.Yes.Yes." Penta just kept repeating the one word he knew and Celia couldn't help but giggle at his enthusiasm.

Penta invited her in with one arm as Celia walked in before sitting at the desk that was provided by the Inn. Penta only realized he had a desk at that very moment since the bed was far too distracting the first time he came in.

As Celia sat on the chair, Penta leaves the door slightly ajar as he didn't want her to think he had any bad intentions before sitting right on the bed that was facing the desk and smiling at her while indicating with his face to go on.

"So Penta, I'm going to be teaching you how to read and speak today. I brought this picture book to make things simpler for you." Celia says in a soft voice as she never really taught anyone how to read and speak but her father recommended her to get a picture book as it could help relate the image to the words.

She opened the book and started reading while showing the book to him. This was one of the stories even she had read when she was young.

"The story of Valor's greatest Shaman Eustace"

Penta saw an image of a person with golden robes with mystical looking red shoulder pauldron's holding a staff that glowed brightly.

Immediately, Penta knew this book would help at least with basic communicating since he could just ask for the name of the pictures and continue from there.

He pointed at the person and looked at Celia. She responded " Eustace", he pointed at her and said "Eustace" and she seemed surprised but said "No" while shaking her head. He wanted to find out what these people were called but she misunderstood. He felt like this might not be as easy as he thought but continued nonetheless and pointed at himself, her and the guy before she understood and said:" Human."

Smiling Penta go what he was looking for and just worded everything he knew while nodding for "Yes" and shaking his head for "No" while pointed at Celia and saying "Human."

Celia smiled as Penta seemed rather smart so thus they continued.

Within an hour Celia was shocked at his learning speed as he remembered all the words and pictures she had taught him.

Within two hours, Penta was well beyond the picture book and was trying to get basic language knowledge such as the words "Come, stay, leave, stop, hurry, slow, fast, up, down, etc"

What shocked Celia the most was the fact that he not only knew the words from the picture book, he also knew the writing of the words as he learned them as she saw him scribbling with his finger. Penta came off as a genius at learning to her.

After two hours, she eventually decided it was enough for today and left while feeling pleased with having such a good student. He was really smart but Penta knew this was mostly related to how his mind's clarity, memory, and recall was vastly improved ever since he had transitioned from a simple roach emperor to a humanoid roach emperor.

The debt to Old'Ban was really getting heavier as Nature's evolution was the key to all this success as he would probably not even get a chance to visit a city had he never evolved from a giant roach and more likely than not would have been hunted down for his body.

As he was laying on his bed and remembering everything he learned, he generally got the gist of the great shaman Eustace's story. The man was a living legend for shamans and people across the continent as he had single-handedly defeated the various high-level beasts that were roaming the land's and hunting humans while creating a society of shaman's who could stand on their own feet while surviving in this tough world.

Where did he learn the mystical powers of becoming a shaman, Penta didn't know but he liked the story and the images were very well drawn of different beasts that looked like ancient predators and mythical creatures.

"Wonder what rank he was?" Penta mused before comfortably falling back asleep in his cozy little bed.

The next day, Penta was lost as to what to do so he simply decided to go get some more beast meat so that Celia would teach him more.

Coming down the room after having the hardest time ever leaving his cozy bed, he spotted Celia cleaning the tables and came up to her.

"Celia! Help!" The word help took a lot to get Celia to understand as he had to put on a panicked expression while soundlessly and dramatically calling for help as though his wife was dying and he needed someone's assistance to which Celia had laughed her heart out before having taught him the word.

"Oh, what do you need Penta?" Celia asked after having turned around and spotted the muscular brown guy.

"Going to forest. Need money for door back. Bring meat!" Penta did the best he could to get his intentions across.

Celia simply smiled at his explanation and nodded. She knew the guy was strong though he was barely able to speak, they owned a restaurant so whatever he could bring would always be a welcomed addition to their menu.

She went to the back where Claud was busy cleaning the kitchen and took out a few bronze coins.

"Where are you going, Celia?" Claud asked as he wiped the pots.

"Oh this isn't for me, I'm giving Penta some money for the gate entrance fee. He's apparently going to the forest again to get some meat for today." She replied.

"Oh, is that so. Haha, guess he should be fine after killing a bone boar so efficiently." He simply noted and continued his tasks.

However, Penta suddenly appeared next to Claud almost scaring the old man.

"Mother of! You nearly scared me to death! What hell you want kid!?" Claud asked while calming himself.

"Big knife! Need for meat!" Penta tried his best again. He knew he probably sounded idiotic but everyone starts somewhere.

"Huh? Uhm, okay." Claud reached out for a spare butcher knife and tossed it over to him before shouting again: "You better give it back to me! I only got two of those!" Claud clearly didn't mind lending it but he sure as hell didn't want to have to buy another spare.

"YES!" Penta saluted like a soldier before rushing out with the coins he got from Celia and the butcher knife from Claud.

"What an odd kid. Be careful around him Celia, wouldn't want my poor daughter getting anything weird." Claud mumbled while Celia simply giggled at the odd gesture Penta performed.

"Finally, luckily that Claud guy was rather nice but I was asking for a sword. Guess he didn't have one. Whatever I can finally have a chance at one of those bastards with this." Penta thought as he ran towards the gates where he came from.

People were actually even more worried this time considering the barbarian was running with a butcher knife and some were worried he was there to start problems but as soon as they soon him, he had already disappeared into the distance.

Running to the gate, Penta once again saw Mathias and Serge.

"Hey what the hell are you doing! Running with a weapon like that!?" Mathias stopped him immediately as he saw him rushing towards them with a butcher knife.

"Get meat, oh! Here!" Penta gave him the coins he got from Celia before rushing away again.

They stood awestruck at what just happened and before they came back to themselves from the abrupt situation, Penta was already long gone.

"Hey, wasn't that the kid from yesterday?" Serge asked confused, and Mathias just nodded.

"Hahaha, the first time someone pays me to leave." Mathias laughed as he understood from what Penta said that he was going out hunting again before laughing at the kid having paid him to leave. He already told the kid it was fine but he still paid him for yesterday's entrance.

"What do you think he's going to bring back today? Bone boar again?" Serge asked curiously.

"Just going to have to wait and see Serge," Mathias replied before getting back to his daily routine.

Penta made a mad rush as he was eager to try something new today after having tasted the divine meal yesterday. He was a little hungry since he didn't eat before leaving but his body was well beyond going down from the lack of a single meal.

Penta rushed at almost full speed and dashed through the farm while heading back over the hill to the forest. It took very little time considering how fast he was.

The farmers only noticed a blur leaving behind a trail of dust before going back to their chores.

Arriving at the forest, Penta tried remembering where his prey might be.

He soon had a vague idea and rushed deeper into the forest. Another hour or so he finally managed to get to the area he was looking for.

The habitat of the Blood bears. He figured with a nice cleaver like this he could probably take the thing down as he wasn't reconciled with the fact that he didn't get to taste one yet.

He wasn't going to go after the mother bear guarding her cubs but another one and so he started to prowl around the forest searching for one.

The search lasted two hours before he finally saw one near a small river. The iconic blood fur made it quite hard to miss in the daylight.