[Belarus] - A month within the forest

The second Oz's mind was set on something he was bound to follow through. As the next day came around he approached a hungover Ifum with the request of staying in the forest for a month at the most and Ifum agreed instantly. After all in her eyes Oz was her benefactor. As this news passed through the giant tribe the giants were jubilant at the prospect of Oz sticking around as it was an interesting sparring partner to have stay with them. Oz made it clear quickly though that he would only spar with a certain amount of giants between certain times so he wouldn't be sparring all the way into the night and would have time to rest and work on the translator he so desperately needed to move on from this place.

With all the pieces in place Oz and Alfreda got comfortable and prepared to settle in the giants forest for a month.

.

When someone is focused on something you find time passes faster than when many things are happening at once. Oz's schedule was solely focused around making the translator and sparring giants. Days seemed to flow by as he set him mind on these goals. Each day sparring the giants Oz found that his hand to hand combat was improving leaps and bounds. It wasn't anywhere on the level of a 'martial artist', as a matter of fact Oz imagined if a marital artist saw his moves they would call them 'crude' or 'rough'. However, compared to when Oz arrived at the forest first there was a noticeable difference in how he carried himself in a fight a month onwards.

During fights now Oz preserved his strength and released it in bursts. His handling over his own 'Augmentum' spell became much more smoother even whilst using it wandlessly and the continued use of 'Augmentum' wandlessly slowly stacked up and even allowed his magical capacity to grow by a small margin. Oz was a special case in this matter as he was a boy who was only 14 years old and was at the peak of the second step of magic. It was an unprecedented growth rate compared to other wizards and witches his age. Progressing to the next step though was something Oz knew wouldn't be possible without some sort of 'burst' or 'catalyst' and he planned on the Ambrosius ritual being just that. Regardless, even though he was stuck at the peak of second step it seemed as though his magic capacity still had room to fill out. Compared to other witches and wizards at his level, his capacity was at least 1.5x more than there's and it was growing steadily due to his constant use of only wandless magic.

As for progress on the translator Oz found himself struggling for the first week looking into it. The runes inside the translator were very complex and Oz had to take apart the translator handed to him by Ifum carefully so as not to ruin any of the runes and magic left inside. After many nights of constant studying of the translator though Oz started to eventually understand how it functioned, what it did and how it worked.

When the translator was activated with magic, any words said in 'giant tongue' would be translated real time into Oz's ear. When Oz spoke back in English it was translated back in real time to 'giants tongue' and pretty accurately at that. It bared resemblance to something like 'google translate' however with the added asset of magic it seemed to be more accurate in its function. After understanding how it translated English to giant and vice versa Oz goal then was to create a magic translator for all languages. He struggled continuously to no end figuring this part out. It was all well and good knowing how the translator Ifum gave him functioned however making it so any language could be understood was a lofty task.

As the month in the forest came to a close though, late at night Oz finally cracked the cypher and managed to produce a magic translator. Looking down at the table in the center of the tent was a brooding Oz.

'Okay... this should hopefully translate all human languages'.

Putting the translator on his right ear he looked over at Alfreda who sat opposite him. In her hands was the English to Belarusian book they bought in Minsk when the first arrived in Belarus. During this month Oz requested Alfreda to learn as much Belarusian as possible so he could properly test his translator when it was done. Using the book they had bought and some of the more intelligent giants who seemed to understand a few words and phrases Alfreda gained a baseline knowledge of the language rather quickly. Considering she was an ancient elf who had learnt other beast languages before she was definitely starting off easier with her experience.

"Okay Alfreda, speak to me in Belarusian".

Oz turned on the translator as Alfreda nodded, with Oz signal she began to speak.

"Вашы мухі адменены" ("Your flies are undone")

"Не, яны не!?" ("No they aren't!?")

Oz's eyes darted down and he heaved a sigh of relief noting his flies weren't actually undone. Alfreda giggled at Oz's display and started to give a soft clap.

"Congratulations master it seems like the translator worked".

Lifting his gaze up Oz looked at Alfreda with a grateful smile. He also noted in his head that recently Alfreda had become much more 'playful' in her tone with him. It was a stark contrast to when they first met in Merlin's hideout and she was robotic in her tone only devoting herself to him as someone of Merlin's bloodline.

"Finally we can move on from this place... Not that I hate the giants here but its just the same thing over and over again. Sparring and feasts...".

Oz looked over the table at the translator Ifum had given to him, He sighed as he looked at it and put it in his pouch along with his own translator.

"Master, do you mind telling me why you need both translators? I thought the one you made translated every language?".

Oz looked at Alfreda with a weary smile as he began to explain.

"That was the main conundrum I had when I was making the translator. I initially wanted my one to translate any and all languages however as I started to approach adding runes to translate 'Magical beast' tongue I started to have many failures. Whilst you were busy studying a bit of Belarusian I tested my translator with some giants and the words sent through seemed to get jumbled".

"Only recently did I realise the reason why. Magical beasts and creatures such as yourself and the giants here, your mother tongues are imbued with slight magic. In comparison, muggles that speak languages across the globe have next to no magic residing in the words they are saying... well there's probably incredibly small trace amounts however compared to Magical beasts and creatures its comparing an ant to a mountain. When the translator accepts beast tongue into it, the magic imbued within the words seem to through it off guard corrupting the output".

"To put it simply. Giant's tongue being imbued with magic makes it so an entire translator is needed for that tongue specifically whereas muggle tongues like 'Belarusian' or 'Romanian' have next to no magic and no interference is caused when all these languages are put within the translator via runes".

Alfreda listened to Oz's long winded explanation nodding along. By the end she seemed to understand the gist of the situation.

"Is it possible then master to eventually make a 'dragon tongue' translator?".

Oz laughed at Alfreda's questioning and shook his head.

"You've seen what happens when I use spells with dragon tongue as an intermediary. The spells output increase tenfold. Dragon tongue isn't just 'imbued' with magic its almost 'made' with magic from the ground up. If I tried to add a rune to translate that sort of language...".

"It would undoubtedly blow up violently in the persons ear, probably killing them".

Alfreda paled at Oz explanation, understanding that a dragon translator was certainly a pipe dream at this point.

"Honestly I event think something like 'parseltongue' may even be too much. I've heard that people can use 'parseltongue' in India to conjure magic and that magic is a bit stronger than the usual 'Latin' phrasing we use in England. It probably wouldn't cause the translator to explode but it would certainly break it after a couple uses".

With all this discovered Oz noted in his mind that only certain beast languages could be translated by him and he would have to make separate translators for each. When it started to get to languages like 'Dragon-Tongue' and 'Parsel-tongue' thought, translators just wouldn't cut it and it would be better for Oz to grasp the language himself instead of using a device as an intermediary.

"Tomorrow morning we will leave this place Alfreda and head towards India... I'm itching to see what this 'Rakshasa' looks like".

Alfreda nodded at Oz's words and both of them went to sleep that night. Oz sleeping sounder than usual now a task he had been working on for a month nonstop had finally been conquered...

.

("Do you really have to leave Oz? All the giants here have grown fond of you!")

Stood opposite Oz was Ifum who seemed to be somewhat upset at the prospect of Oz leaving the giant forest. Oz sighed hearing her requests and replied back matter of factly.

("We both know its not natural for a 'little wizard' like me to stay here in a tribe like this. Besides I have a lot of things I need to do out in the world and I only have around a year to do them. Im on a time crunch here, I can't spend anymore time moseying around").

Ifum's head dropped as she stared at Oz in front of her. After some mumbling she seemed to slap her thigh and spoke loudly at Oz's reasoning.

("Fine... Fine! However promise me that if you come through this way you will stop by for a spar or two?")

Oz smiled at Ifum and simply nodded. He turned to walk away from Ifum before remembering one last thing to mention to her.

("That's right... Ifum. There's one thing I need to warn you of before I go")

Ifum's ears perked up as she heard Oz was leaving her with a parting message. She leaned her giant body forward closer to Oz ushering him to speak his mind.

("If you see any death eaters come this way trying to convince you to 'join' them kindly stomp on them in my name for me will you?").

Ifum seemed confused as Oz's words as she spoke back to him.

("Death eaters? You mean the little group that followed the dark lord all those years back in Britain? I thought they were gone nowadays!").

("Sadly they are back on the move again... as a matter of fact they already tried to contact your tribe at least from what I can guess. Any guesses who they may have reached out to?").

Ifum sat quietly for a moment and Oz could see on her face she was straining for an answer. After a minute of silence a lightbulb seemed to appear above her head and she looked down at Oz with a shocked expression.

("Golgomath!? you think he had connections with the new death eaters appearing!?").

Oz chuckled and calmed Ifum down.

("It's only a simple guess although I have reason to believe its more true than not... Anyway seeing as though I helped you with Golgomath its only natural you help me with this little matter right?").

Hearing Oz's request Ifum smiled widely.

("No problem Oz! If those little death eaters come anywhere near our tribe I will squash them instantly! Ill even roar your name when I do it!").

Oz cringed as he regretted his earlier words.

'Dear Ifum that was only a figure of speech... oh well'.

Leaving Ifum with these words Oz had fully finished his business at this giant tribe. He had killed Golgomath, resolved the inner dispute and had now a gurg in place that seemed to respect him greatly and even was indebted to him. Using this indebtedness he was able to turn Ifum to his side, plucking off one of the assets of the dark lords army that would have appeared in the canon had not Oz been here to prevent it.

Oz and Alfreda swiftly left the giants forest bidding goodbye to the many giants who were already sparring this early in the morning. Many showed reluctance at seeing them go however they understood that they were deadset on leaving. As they approached the exit of the forest though, Oz saw a baby giant crawl over towards him.

("I was wondering if you were going to show up").

Looking at Cronus, the baby giant Oz named on one of his first nights here, he was actually up to Oz's chest already, Oz patted the baby on the head. Looking behind he could see the mother and father not too far away. During his stay here for a month this giant seemed somewhat attached to Oz when he was around always crawling over to see him. When he was in the babies sight. Oz crouched slightly looking the baby giant in the face, it wasn't the prettiest sight in the world but Oz did admit he felt slight attachment to this little guy.

("Grow up to be strong little guy... maybe next time I come around this area me and you can spar!")

The little giant Cronus seemed to put on a tough expression hearing the word spar making both Oz and Alfreda chuckle. Oz gave Cronus one last pat on the head before waving him and his parents goodbye. Approaching the 'keyhole' area they had entered in from, Oz cloaked himself and Alfreda as he knew the forest was being monitored.

Stepping out of the warded giants forest, Oz and Alfreda darted out of the forest they had entered into a month or so back now eventually finding themselves near Usad'ba Grebnitskikh once again. Looking back Oz saw the forest and felt a slight melancholic feeling leaving that place.

"So... whats the plan now master".

Both Alfreda and Oz uncloaked and stood near Usad'ba Grebnitskikh. Oz thought for a moment before deciding the next course of action.

"Let's buy some more food and such somewhere as we seem to be running a bit low first... afterwards we will head towards India".

Looking up at the sun in the sky Oz's eyes flashed as he recalled what the date was.

'That's right... they will be back in Hogwarts again very soon'.

Oz reached into his pouch and pulled out two mirrors.

'I best start checking these more often...'.