XXX. The Sounds

"It will be done, Master" answered Dag, enthusiastic.

After training, Dag and Magni went down the trail to the farm.

Magni untied the horse from the fence: "See you tomorrow".

Dag nodded his hand, while his master walked away.

It was full morning, the sun began to sprout from behind the clouds, illuminating the mountain and the valley below.

Dag returned to the farm to get a bucket to fill with water to wash.

He kept thinking about the undead. He did not know why, but he thought his decision not to say anything to Magni was wise. He felt this thing particularly personal, without knowing why.

The shrill voice of that humanoid continued to hammer his head.

After washing himself with the cold water of the mill and the soap he had brought with him from the temple, Dag sat at the table and opened before him the scrolls he had managed to bring.

There were 4 level 1 and 2 level 2 scrolls.

Level one: Overpowered Strike, Call Of The Berserkr, Perforate, Slam

Level two: Iron Skin, Niva

Dag lined them up, tidying up each other. His goal was to complement his daily training directed by Magni, with the learning of each of those scrolls.

The last time he was able to learn Earth Stomp's in just one day, arousing the astonishment of the other temple warriors.

The sun was still up. Dag's stomach was starting to grumble.

Dag opened the door leading from the main room of the building to a second room, where Magni had left the provisions.

Among the various goods, he took a hare.

In the main room, near the table, there was a small fireplace with a narrow chimney that ran on the wall up to the ceiling.

With the steel and the splinter of pyrite lit the fire to cook the hare meat.

Fortunately, Magni brought him mead and Dag drank it accompanying the meat.

As he grabbed the hare's thigh, he began reading the parchment entitled "Call Of The Berserkr".

Like the last scroll he had read, it explained step by step how to perform the technique, how to position himself and what image to display in his mind.

Call Of The Berserkr allowed the warrior to accelerate the pumping of blood into his veins, thus increasing his own speed of movement and the power of his attacks, but at a larger energy cost.

After carefully reading the scroll, Dag extinguished the fire and began to sleep on a bed that felt like a pallet.

"We see you"

These words echoed in Dag's head. He remembered the day of his Temporum: the Xis were interrupted when even their infallible machinery returned values never seen before.

- UNKNOWN: 2%_SYST_ERR0R_

What did that mean? Even the omniscient Xis could not decipher it.

And the - ROMAN: 4%?

Why 4%?

Dag knew nothing about his parents, he only knew that his father had died, who knows where, who knows how. Probably killed during the extermination of the Xis.

Maybe he was the one who was from the Roman Pantheon? Or his mother? Probably the dominant Norse gene was his father's. He would have loved to have known them.

There were many questions that Dag kept asking himself by turning in the straw bed of the farm, but they were questions to which he could not answer.

The Xis had thought of everything. The human race had no chance of being reborn, except by submitting to their strict rules.

Did the other Earthlings on Skjold have his own conscience? Did they ask the same questions?

He didn't meet one, he only knew about another Earthling: Brann.

Dag thought of his childhood friend, Hiro. He was one of the most reliable friends he had ever known, perhaps the first and only.

In any case, now he was on the planet Skjold, his questions had to wait. The only thing that mattered was getting stronger. The power would open new doors for him.

Late at night, among the hoots of the owls in the woods, at last, he fell asleep.

At dawn, he opened his eyes, as if he had a biological alarm clock. He was no longer accustomed to the rooster song of his house, on top of the hills of Jerhest.

He recalled the training he had to undergo: he would walk all the way uphill, pass the clearing where he could train, and reach the stone blocks.

He rose swiftly from the bed, laden with a new spirit. He felt a familiar itch on top of his right arm, this time above his bicep, just below his armpit.

A new rune had appeared!

It was that of Call Of The Berserkr, he was sure, verified by the scroll of the ability.

It had happened again.

He had learned a new level 1 ability in record time. Dag noted that it was enough to rest for a long enough amount of time to learn a skill.

"How is that possible?" he thought.

"Will it have anything to do with my new powers?"

As these questions were asked, Dag left the farm, locked the door, put it under the removable brick next to him, and with his sword tied to his back by a leather strap he began to walk.

Climbing down the street as he walked, Dag noticed something different in his way of perceiving things around him.

The sounds.

He perceived sounds relatively distant from him as if they were very close.

The song of the birds, the rustling of the trees: he could hear every detail even from meters away.

Without questioning too much, he kept walking. Probably all this was also due to the quietness of that side of Mount Torden and the clarity of its rarefied air.

Dag reached the clearing among the black pine trees.

He went straight ahead, leaving it behind. The air was drier and colder than the previous day.

As the altitude increased, it began to get heavier, and Dag felt a weight coming from above him.

Now he understood why Master Magni's fighting style was so fluid and fast: for who knows how many years, he had trained in those woods, with that heavy air.