Holistic Fantasy Chapter 81: Predicament, arriving in a foreign world for the first time
“…”
The gazes and stares being thrown his way made Noah who was holding onto his cloth sack frown. He continued frowning for quite some time before he took a look at his surrounding.
The residents of this city would stare or look at Noah in an odd manner. Some of them whispered to each other in a very suspicious manner, apparently Noah’s very amusing for them.
These residents probably aren’t attracted to the fact that he came from another world.
Probably, something about him is garnering the attention of those around him.
He had only made his advent in this world so it wouldn’t be wise to draw too much attention just yet.
Despite the odd appearance of the buildings around him, he didn’t make a big fuss, at least, he didn’t openly express it.
About 30 minutes earlier, Noah entered this city.
Just by slightly shifting one’s gaze upwards, one could see the heaven-piercing black monoliths at any corner in this city.
Using his abnormal sense, he could detect faint waves coming from these monoliths. These unidentified waves are preventing the monsters from swarming into the city. The monsters are kept at a safe distance away from the city although Noah can still sense them wandering around outside the perimeter.
From this, Noah gleaned a few useful intel.
Outside of this city, there are many hostile monsters like the one that attacked Noah. These monsters which are similar to the magic beast in his first world had more bloodthirst in them, causing a serious hazard to any human within their reach.
The humans apparently gathered around these monoliths that deterred the monsters and made their living here with these monoliths being their only protection from the monsters that are outside.
Noah isn’t too sure about what the situation is like elsewhere on this planet. For more details, Noah reckoned he should find somewhere that he can start piecing together information from.
However, here lies an issue.
To gather more information, one would normally head to a bar, hotel, or dining place. Start peeping in conversations or starting conversations and the information will start flowing in.
Noah felt troubled as he didn’t know where to start looking for places like that.
There’s a very simple reason for his current predicament.
“Eh…”
Noah observed the building around him before he sighed in a dejected manner.
“I can’t tell which ones look like a bar and which one doesn’t.”
That’s right, Noah can’t tell these buildings apart from one another.
The buildings are built using different architectural designs from what Noah is familiar with.
These buildings are made out of bricks and mirrors, most of them are at least over 10 or 20 meters in height. There are also buildings that are about the same height as the buildings he is familiar with.
However, these buildings looked so similar in both scale and design it’s hard for him to distinguish what area of the city he is in. The signs on the building would help if only Noah could read and understand the language of this world.
More importantly, something else caught Noah’s attention more.
There are metallic constructs that serve as transportation tools for the residents of this city. These metallic constructs moved at varying speed but they all seemed to obey magic tool like constructs that looked like a pole which would emit different light at different intervals. The transportation tools all stopped or moved according to the light of these magic poles.
Noah had started developing a sense of what is going on around him but there are still many more things he needed to understand. Naturally, Noah felt like he is being bombarded with all these new things.
Noah felt constrained in regards to what he can and cannot do. He mimicked what people around him did and otherwise stopped himself when the people around him stopped. He held himself back from doing anything to avoid causing an incident because he was careless.
Luckily for him, after a bit of time, he spotted something that drew a smile on his face.
One of the buildings among the many appeared to be a book shop.
There are racks of books there with old books and new books here and there.
Books?
I reckon there is useful info inside those books.
The books are basically Noah’s lifeline.
Noah immediately headed towards the book shop.
5 minutes later, Noah came out with a very frustrated expression.
The shop operator is a senior citizen that is as amicable as they come. But, no matter how friendly the senior citizen is, he had three reasons why he felt a headache coming on.
1: Noah didn’t understand his language.
2: Noah can’t read the words written in the books.
3. Noah’s currency isn’t the same currency as this world.
Noah had hit a temporary road block on his journey.
“Hai…”
Noah noticed that he had sighed one too many times in this world.
“I need to focus on solutions.”
Noah had high comprehension and nigh eidetic memory.
If not for those 2 components, Noah couldn’t have learned from scratch the language of Fairy Tail’s world. Not to mention, he achieved such a fluency that he can talk with other people fluently by just reading a few books.
Given the chance, Noah can express communication abilities given the right linguistic in put.
But, Noah first needs to talk with people. Then, he needs to sense the nuances between spoken words to accurately determine when to use a certain phrase and when not to use a certain phrase. Given enough time, this would allow him to increase his fluency to a level where he can easily talk with other people without many confusions.
Going by this logic, Noah started a conversation with the store operator thinking that he could be able to establish a basic fluency.
But, within 5 minutes of speaking with Noah. The store operator noticed that Noah probably isn’t going to buy anything so he asked Noah to get out of the shop while looking troubled and spouting phrases he is not familiar with.
He had managed to grasp a few simple phrases though. He now knew how to say “correct”, “Yes”, “No”, “How are you?”, “Excuse me” among many other simpler greetings and replies. He had more to learn until he can communicate with another resident.
“No choice.”
Noah rubbed his temples.
“Although it would irritate or draw judging glares from other people, this is my best alternative yet.”
Noah started getting to work.
By going to work, Noah is going to find partners to chat with.
Noah started roping pedestrians in if somewhat forceful. The conversations they started couldn’t be sustained. Noah experienced multiple outcomes.
Some of the more passionate pedestrians would get afraid of talking to Noah after a bit of time and they would inevitably run away.
The cold ones were irritated by Noah and decided to give Noah a knuckle sandwich. They would have punched Noah if Noah hadn’t sent them packing through the alleyways.
Some of the more confused pedestrians continued their word games with Noah.
The ones pressed for time resisted Noah’s aggressive approach and they ran away with all their might.
Finally, Noah was escorted by a good Samaritan to a building with personnel in uniforms. The people here had helmets and black sticks by their waist along with metallic cuffs. Truthfully speaking, these people didn’t look friendly.
After 2 or 3 days, Noah came out of the building in a satisfied manner. He left in his wake, dozens of people who are thoroughly burnt out from their jobs. These people probably aren’t getting up anytime soon.
It was only after some time did Noah know that place he came out of was the police department. Those hostile people who Noah bothered until they got so fed up they vomited blood are the cops working there.