Otherworld Adventure

Meet and Greet

After making their way through the village, the group eventually arrived at a building that was somewhat larger than the rest.

It was made of logs and wooden planks but it had an elegant design. The wood even looked like it was polished and waxed. Although it wasn't anything magnificent, it looked cozy to live in.

As they got closer to the house, Cecil noticed that the house's front yard was well lit. He looked towards the sources of the light and saw a 'light stone' embedded in the wall just above the door.

Since it was closer than the lampposts he passed by earlier, Cecil was immediately fascinated with it, wondering how could a stone actually emit such an intense light. When they entered the house, the buffed man muttered something.

"****."

And in the next instant, the dark room was lit up brightly. Cecil was surprised and started looking around. He looked up and on the ceiling, he saw another 'light stone'.

It wasn't only this room he was currently in. He noticed that all the rooms of the house had also lit up. For a second there, Cecil thought that the buffed man had used magic or something.

His eyes brightened at the thought, but when he saw the 'light stones' it instantly made him deflated. It wasn't magic but only something akin to a light bulb, a piece of technology. Cecil stood by the door with a blank look. He only snapped out of his thoughts when Lucia began dragging him into her house's living room.

He let himself be led by the girl. When they arrived next to a couch in the living room, Cecil placed his luggage on the side and sat himself down. He looked around nervously. He was far from home and was practically estranged in some unknown place.

He couldn't help but grow nervous and worried now that he was in a rather safe place. Lucia saw this and sat next to him.

"Cecil?"

"Huh? Lucia, what's up?"

"**** ****** Cecil! Hihihi!"

"Wha?"

Cecil couldn't understand a single word she said and his only response was a confused look. Seeing his daughter try and make conversation with the strange boy, the buffed man who was sitting across from them on a different chair grunted to catch their attention.

Lucia turned her attention towards her father and the two began talking. Cecil couldn't understand a single word they were saying. He only heard Lucia say his name once and the rest was just gibberish to him.

He started looking around again and saw that the woman wasn't in the room with them. Cecil was just about to say something to Silver, but then his wolf joined in on the conversation between Lucia and her father.

He felt quite frustrated enough that he was nearly about to punch a wall or something. Being left out and not understanding anything was really bothersome to him.

'This is really annoying! I feel like a mute! If this was back on earth, I wouldn't be like this! I already learned many of the different major languages of Earth but here… I feel so helpless…' He lamented to himself. He tried distracting himself by looking around the room once more, trying to find anything that could attract his attention away from the conversation the other 3 were having.

While the three were having their conversation, the woman who Cecil presumed to be Lucia's mother walked back into the room holding a tray.

She came up by the man and placed the tray down on the table. On the tray, there were steaming buns on a ceramic-like plate with crystal-like cups filled with a black steamy liquid by the side.

It looked like she was preparing this in the house's kitchen earlier. The woman started handing the plates and glasses out to everyone and Cecil received his very carefully. The things looked quite expensive so he didn't want to accidentally break anything.

After handing them out, she went back into the room she previously came out from which was most likely the kitchen. She returned a short while later with another tray. This time she came over to Cecil, or more exactly, to Silver's side and placed the tray down.

On the tray was a large bowl filled with big slices of dried seasoned meat. She also placed another bowl with water in it next to the meat-filled bowl before smiling at Silver and backing away. Seeing that, Cecil turned towards the woman and bowed his head in thanks.

"Thank you, Ma'am."

"Heeh? ** *** **** *** ******? You're welcome."

Cecil said his thanks in their language which made the woman surprised. It wasn't only her. The man was also somewhat surprised when Cecil said his thanks. Although the pronunciation was still a bit awkward, at least he was able to convey his gratitude.

On their way to the village, Cecil learned the words "You're welcome" from Lucia. The girl also taught him the words of the surrounding objects that they had passed by. Although he wasn't proficient in any of them, he at least still remembered how they were pronounced.

He could at least identify the things he saw and wasn't a total i***t in the language that Lucia and her family were speaking. During their trek through the forest, Cecil felt a huge sense of relief because there weren't just monster animals that existed in this world. Normal types of animals were also in abundance. He had been worried that all of the animals in this world were monster-like.

Cecil also asked Lucia to teach him how to say yes and no. They were just basic things, so it was still impossible for him to hold or understand any form of conversation, however, he could at least identify a few words that they were saying.

After the surprise, the woman took her seat beside the ma,n, and then, with the exclusion of Cecil, the others continued their conversation. What rang in Cecil's ears while he was slowly eating the things served earlier were the voices of the 3 people speaking in an unknown language and Silver's constant barking.

He could pick up some of the things they were saying, things about a forest and river so Cecil deduced that Lucia's parents were probably asking her how she had met up with him and Silver.

Silver was barking in between their conversation and probably giving them his 2 cents. During the conversation, the expressions of the man and woman kept alternating between seriousness and surprise.

They kept glancing at Cecil from time to time too. With how they were acting, it looked as if Silver had somehow explained to them about their unique circumstances and how they met up with Lucia.

After an 'extensive' conversation, Lucia's parents looked like they had come to some agreement with Silver. The man said something to the woman and the woman got up and walked out of the room. He then turned towards Cecil and pointed at himself.

"Za***."

"Eh?"

The way the man was acting was similar to how Lucia tried to tell Cecil her name so he quickly understood that the man was trying to introduce himself.

"Za*i."

"Zaki?"

"Yes, Zaki."

"Okay."

Zaki then pointed to Lucia and pointed back at himself.

"Lucia, ** ********."

Cecil tried reiterating the word that Zaki said with difficulty, "Da****er?"

"No, daugh**."

"Ohh, daughter."

Cecil didn't know the meaning behind the word, but from how Zaki was trying to interpret it, the meaning was something along the lines of daughter or child.

Once he got the gist of it, Cecil had been right to think that the man and woman were indeed Lucia's parents. Lucia's mother came back into the room holding a book and a few scrolls of paper along with what looked like a feather quill.

'Stationery of this world, I guess?'

The woman smiled at Cecil and put the book and stationery in front of him. Zaki then says something to the woman and she also tries to introduce herself.

While pointing to herself she said her name to Cecil.

"A***."

"Anna?"

"Yes, Anna."

Anna then points at Lucia and says the same thing as Zaki.

"Lucia is my daughter."

"Okay."

Cecil was gradually starting to understand what they were saying. A small sense of accomplishment began welling up inside him. Lucia nudged Cecil and smiled at him. Then she pointed towards Anna and Zaki and says a few words.

"Cecil, this is my ****** and ******."

"Uhm, m***er, and fa****?"

"*othe* and **ther."

"Mother, father."

"Yes!"

That small sense of accomplishment was slowly growing bigger, but it was then coldly stomped on in the next second.

"Cecil, **** **** **** *** *****."

'Damnit, right when I was feeling happy with myself.'

After gesturing and saying something slowly, Cecil finally got what Lucia wanted him to do when she handed him the book. He took the book and looked at the title. He couldn't read it, but after opening the book, he found that it turned out to be a book for learning this world's language.

On every page of the book was an illustration of an object and a word below it, followed by a couple of sentences written right below the picture.

"Ahh, this is exactly what I needed!"

"Cecil, *** *** ***** *** ******** **** ****."

Knowing the family's kind intentions, Cecil stood up and bowed his head deeply, and expressed his gratitude.

"Thank you very much!"

Cecil thanked them in Earth's language, but they seem to understand what he meant. Feeling that it wasn't enough, Cecil went to his make-shift bag and rummaged through its contents. He took out what was left of the roasted bear meat and handed it to Anna.

"Please take this as my thanks!"

"Ara? **** **** ******** bear's meat?"

"****? ******** bear?"

Zaki and Anna look at Cecil with astonishment and then with eyes as if they had finally believed something. It seems like Silver had told them about how they killed the bladed bear. To Cecil, the expression of shock and surprise from the two looked a bit exaggerated.

'Was the bear really that strong? I mean, although I lucked out when I faced off against it, it had many glaring flaws that an adult-likee Zaki could make use of.'

Putting the thought to the back of his mind, he took out the already roasted bear meat leftovers wrapped in leaves and placed them on the table. He then opened the leaf and found that although it was now cold, a unique fragrance came from the meat as soon as it was exposed to the air.

Smelling that, Lucia's mouth began to water and she grabbed Cecil's knife and immediately cut up a small portion of the meat and stuffed it into her mouth. Cecil smiled helplessly at her before he turned to look at Zaki. The man seemed a bit embarrassed for the lack of manners his daughter had just displayed. Cecil didn't mind it and gestured towards him to have a bite himself.

With a smile, Anna stood up with the raw meat that Cecil passed to her in hand and said something to Zaki before she walked back to the room that she had been coming and going from since earlier.

Zaki turned to Cecil with a serious face. He looked at the young boy's face for a while before smiling warmly at him. He then got up and walked towards the same room that Anna had just entered.

With the two parents gone, Cecil turned towards Lucia who was stuffing her face.

"Lucia, thank you."

"Hehe, you're welcome, Cecil."

Cecil pointed towards himself and said.

"Cel, you can all me Cel."

"Ca~l?

"Cel."

"Cel!"

Cecil turned his attention back to the book and grabbed a scroll and the quill. The book made things easier for him to learn. He looked through a couple of simple pictures such as rocks, grass, water, etc, and wrote the words on the scroll.

He wrote a couple of words, almost filling in half of the scroll. He made sure to space the letters apart and then wrote down the equivalent meaning of the words in Earth's language right below.

It was harder than he thought. The words and letters didn't exactly match Earth's language's equivalent. Just like the difference of words or letters between foreign languages. Being a little stumped, Cecil stared hard at the paper, and all of a sudden, Lucia grabbed the quill from his hand and she started writing down letters on a scroll and started pointing at them while pronouncing what they sound like.

"*!"

"Ei?"

"*!"

"A."

"Yes!"

After Cecil went through this world's entire alphabet with Lucia over and over again for about an hour, a delicious aroma wafted into the living room from the kitchen.

Cecil, Lucia, and Silver's noses began to tingle at the delicious smell. Silver got up with his tail wagging vigorously and began trotting over to the kitchen. Lucia cheered happily and led Cecil by the hand to the kitchen where the scent was coming from.

The kitchen had a table in the middle with a cupboard at the far end of the room where there was a sink and beside the sink was another long table. At the end of the table,e there was a pit on the ground with a fire burning in it and there was a chimney above it.

There was also an open door on the left side of the room from where they entered. Taking a peek inside Cecil saw a lot of plants and other foodstuffs stored within the room's shelves. They all looked normal and he remembered seeing a few of these when he was walking through the forest earlier.

Finishing his observation, Cecil saw Lucia's mother setting the table and Lucia's father lightly roasting the bear meat from earlier while sprinkling some seasoning on it. He was doing it skillfully. There weren't even any burnt marks on it even after roasting the meat for so long.

Lucia's mother welcomed them and gestured for them to sit. She also prepared a small table for Silver at the side which had a big plate on it.

Lucia pulled Cecil to a chair before taking her seat at the chair beside it. Cecil took his seat while anticipating the meal to come. It would undoubtedly taste much better than the unseasoned meat he roasted earlier today.

After a couple more minutes, Lucia's father finished barbecuing the meat. He picked it up carefully and set it on the table at the side of the fire pit. He then took out a knife and started cutting up the meat into smaller chunks. In the meantime, Lucia's mother began placing a few other dishes onto the table.

After the food was set, Lucia's parents took their seats in front of Cecil and Lucia. They say something aloud, but Cecil couldn't understand what it meant. After they said their piece, the 2, including Lucia, close their eyes and start chanting something together.

'A prayer?' Cecil thought.

He quickly followed suit and closed his eyes. He couldn't follow what they were saying so he inwardly uttered a prayer of his own.

'I hope my family is also saying their graces while having dinner right now.'