I walked through the markets in this village. Everything here was way out of the ordinary. Out of human knowledge.
I turned on my watch as I looked at the amount of coins given to me.
I should buy a decent outfit.
The oversized clothes Grandma gave me were also old.
I went to a clothing shop, as the watch showed.
Not many people.
That's good.
A man was fixing the clothes. Here, there were people who wore skirts from the Victorian era, also modern shirts and pants, and a few others—let's not talk about them.
I picked up a white shirt and black jacket. As I went up to the counter and bought them, the price was good, I guess.
I walked through the streets.
I noticed a few things here.
At first, I thought these people talked the same language as me. But for brief seconds, I would hear some other language words, then they would get translated.
Same goes with writing.
It's like having a translator without any aid.
I don't know if I should say it's good or suspicious.
Did that Elric do something, or someone else?
For now, I couldn't worry about that.
I saw a library.
Perfect.
I went inside as I was greeted by an old man. I went up to the shelves and looked for something useful. Anything to know about the Wardens.
I looked through every shelf. One caught my eye.
An old book. It looked like it could fall apart anytime.
I picked it up, and the dust went into my nose.
Great, the dust allergy would get worse.
I opened the book and looked for anything about Wardens.
The first few pages only had the old tale of Sillia.
I searched.
"Found it."
There were writings, but a few parts were tampered with, like someone had scribbled over them.
Wardens.
They are the people who hunt those monsters named Wanderers.
Low-level Wardens usually hunt. They gain the orbs, give them to the system, and get the option to either receive coins, enhance abilities, or obtain wish points. Wish points help contact Lords when power is needed.
Well, that's what Elric was talking about, I guess.
Next were middle-rank Wardens. These Wardens obey high Wardens and get special spy missions to locate Wanderers.
And high-level Wardens obey Lords and do necessary stuff.
Other parts were blacked out.
Great.
I didn't get much information, but the concept was clear.
Before I could go to the next page, I heard the old man's voice.
"Seems like someone likes history. It's rare to get these type of folks."
I smiled as I spoke.
"Just curious."
I got up and left. It's good not to catch attention.
I saw posters for the tournament for selecting Wardens.
I wouldn't sign up, but I needed to get to this 13th Lord, and for that, I needed someone for training.
I looked things up through the watch.
This thing was pretty useful, like Google.
I bet it tracks movement like the government does with AI.
I shouldn't make moves that look suspicious.
I went to the place where the "trainers" were supposed to be.
Two houses.
One house looked old and dirty. Didn't look good enough.
I looked at the other one. It looked pretty decent for training.
I went up there.
There was a required payment poster.
Am I the one seeing too many zeros?
I have coins, but I wouldn't waste them.
I sighed and made my way to the old house.
As I knocked, a flying broom went past me.
"You loan sharks shouldn't come in. I will give the money later, you pieces of shit!"
I heard an old man yelling.
I blinked twice.
He looked at me.
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
I looked at him.
It feels like a meme now.
I spoke first.
"Are you a trainer for Wardens?"
The old man replied, "Ahh, you must be a poor folk looking for coins. Leave, lad. I don't teach people who want to become Wardens for coins. You could die, you know."
"1 thousand coins is enough?"
It's half the price requested by that other house. But it should work.
The old man looked at me and quickly came closer.
"Oh sure, dear. You must want to become a great Warden. You came to the right place. Come in, come in."
I came in.
Well, I could see who the real gold digger was.
The old man let me into the old house.
It was dirty, as I thought.
He led me to the backyard.
"Listen, for your first training, just sit here for a while, close your eyes, and hear your surroundings."
I looked at him dumbfounded, but listened.
Was this old man really a trainer?
The sun went down.
It's really painful sitting around all day. I did open my eyes sometimes, but the old man would notice right away.
He finally invited me inside.
The room looked clean now.
As I sat in front of the room, the old man asked,
"How many birds do you think there were?"
By all the chirping of them,
"Probably like 4–5."
"Pick one," the old man replied.
"4, I guess."
"There were 6."
"6?" I questioned.
"5 birds and one bay bird."
I twitched my eyes. How could I tell if my eyes were closed?
"How many frogs?"
"3?"
"Wrong."
"How many butterflies?"
"How am I supposed to see? My eyes were forced to be closed."
The old man sighed and put down his spoon.
"A Warden's first thing is to enhance their senses. If you can't see, use your ability to hear. Every single sound. If you can't hear, use your smell.
You can't always use your sight in missions.
That's enough for today. Leave."
I couldn't even touch the food before the old man kicked me out.
I walked through the empty street.
The old man was right, I guess.
Maybe he wasn't that bad.
I went to Grandma's home and found the door open.
Did something happen?
I quickly went in to find Grandma talking to a girl.