Blood Assimilation

Chapter 169 - Acruxia

Even though Randy had to learn the language directly from the old man, he did not mind it too much. And occasionally, the old man's family members joined in on their lessons with curious ears, especially when the old man was using the language from Randy's world. 

However, Randy quickly grasped the basics of the sentence structures as he already knew the characters and how to enunciate them, except that he needed to learn how to use them in a sentence. 

Thus, it only took him four days to learn their language perfectly, and he was now able to engage in a normal conversation with them. 

That surprised everyone in the village, seeing as how the young man who did not know how to speak their language when they first met suddenly spoke fluently in their language. 

Furthermore, Randy had described his origin as someone who came from a place far away from his current location. 

Unexpectedly, the people in the village, including the old man and his family immediately assumed that he meant that he came from a different continent within their world when they heard this. 

Naturally, Randy did not pass up an opportunity to formulate and establish his identity in this new world, and therefore, he readily accepted their words to be the truth. 

With that, everyone understood why he had such deep red hair despite being human and thus started treating him differently, especially the young girl who initially thought he was some vampire rather than a human. That was why she ran away quickly when she saw Randy manipulating blood. 

Of course, she bowed countless times in apology for her actions at the time. In response, Randy only shook his head and told her that there was no need for that since she only misunderstood the situation based on what she saw happening at that time and that the fault mostly lied with him. 

However, after a few days of spending time with the family, when they got close enough, eventually, the young girl could not take it anymore and curiously asked Randy about his ability to manipulate blood. 

Hearing her inquiry, Randy was inwardly startled for a moment since he needed to give a believable explanation, and he did not prepare one beforehand.

After pondering for a few moments, he came up with something on the spot and then told her, and surprisingly, she believed his words without questioning him any further.

One might wonder what Randy had told her enough for her to believe him without any shred of doubt? 

Naturally, he used the excuse that he came from a different continent as the reason for his unusual ability. He explained further by claiming that his tribe had a certain spell that allowed them to manipulate blood and another spell that used the blood of others to search for information regarding certain things. 

He claimed that these were his tribe's secret spells, so he would not reveal much about the specifics. 

With that, he proceeded to explain further by saying that the special requirement for that searching effect of the spell needed him to consume the blood of others beforehand, which was why he was about to consume that blonde man's blood right before her eyes without thinking about his surroundings. 

Moreover, to give out an explanation about how he got into the forest in the first place to the people in the village, Randy merely said that he was somehow abruptly teleported into the forest without any warning at the time.

Therefore, he did not know where he was when he came to at that time before suddenly hearing a screaming voice that ended belonging to the young girl. However, when he saw what was happening to the young girl right in front of his eyes, he decided to save the young girl and ask her for directions afterward.

With this being his origin story, the old man's family, the fierce bulky men, the women, and children within the village finally let down their guards, and instead, they sympathized with the lost young man. 

Ultimately, the way they treated him had changed dramatically to the point where he was now considered a member of their village within these past few days since he did not have anywhere else to go in a strange place where he found himself. 

However, after learning enough about the world through his time in the village, Randy suddenly told them one day that he wanted to visit a city, find a job, and then perhaps find his way back home after accumulating enough money.

The old man and his family members were surprised by his sudden announcement, but they understood his intentions, and instead, they convinced him to stay for a little bit before heading out. 

…

One week later.

And just like that, Randy had spent an entire week in the village. During the week he spent in this nameless village, Randy had also learned the name of this world, which was called— Acruxia. 

Naturally, Acruxia was a world of magic and weapon users. But there was also a concept of level of strength where one's level would be measured when seeking different occupations that required the appropriate level. 

Randy had no idea how that works since his world did not have the concept of levels. Although there were realms of the practiced energy, which could be akin to levels to a certain extent, those are very different concepts.

That was because the people in his world needed to practice their meditation techniques to increase their strength through the accumulation of energy and breaking through. But this world might be different in that aspect. 

In reality, Randy once heard in the academy that there was another method to get stronger in terms of one's basic statistics in his world without practicing a certain energy accumulation technique. But he had never experienced it before, so he did not know how it worked. 

That aside, he also learned about the reason why the old man could speak his world's language, and it was completely unlike what he had thought when he had first heard the old man speak in his world's language. 

Before, when he first heard the old man speak his world's language, he had two speculations regarding how that was possible. 

The first speculation was that the old man had learned the language from the survivors—  in other words, the people from his world who came here before him might have taught the old man about their language. 

However, he dismissed this thought as there was no way someone would spend their time teaching the old man their language if they could not speak the other party's language themselves.   

The second speculation was that the people in this world somehow knew about their language or coincidentally developed the same language against all possibilities.

Although Randy found this speculation hard to believe, he could not refute it either as he did not have extensive knowledge regarding such matters.

However, according to what Randy had learned from the old man, the reason why he could speak in his world's language was mostly because of this world's human's royal family that had started using this new language all of sudden a few decades back. 

At the time, they claimed that it was a new language devised for the nobles, and only they and their servants could speak this language among themselves.. The old man also stated that he used to be a servant in the royal capital city before moving to this part of the continent due to his circumstances back then.