Chapter 50

  What Are You Saying?

  The red-skinned rhino man didn’t seem to notice the weapon pointed at him as he shook off his coat of ash. Dark, beady eyes scanned the fallow forge. His was the gaze of an expert surveying his domain. Eventually the beastkin grunted, a sound somewhere between displeasure and reluctant acceptance.

  It was only after the Terranoceros Ignis got a good look at the workshop that he finally returned his attention back to the human-adjacent figure in his smithy.

  “Desine facere,” the monster Elijah presumed to be a Terranoceros Ignis said, pushing the weapon that had cut clean through stone aside with his finger. Seeing that this person wasn’t hostile, Elijah dropped his guard and tried again to talk:

  “Who are you? What is this? What do you want?”

  “Quid?” The creature asked, cocking his overlarge, double-horned head.

  “What? I don’t know what that means,” said Elijah, unsure why he couldn’t comprehend the rhino man’s words. Thus far, the sixteen-year-old had been able to understand anyone, be they bird or kangaroo. What was different about this guy?

  After a moment of contemplation, the red-skinned man nodded. He walked over to the largest of the workbenches. Elijah followed along, watching curiously as the monster man opened a cupboard and began rummaging around. Ash filled the air, and the teen was forced to cover his face. It didn’t help much. Three great sneezes reverberated across the lake of lava.

  When the dust cleared, Elijah saw the Terranoceros Ignis holding up a golden cube victoriously – a block of metal, about the size of the teen’s palm, and covered in something similar to Norse runes. Not seeing anything special about the cube with his mundane eyes, Elijah activated his Mana Manipulation Skill and looked again.

  The sweaty youth was nearly blinded by the dazzling array of mana surrounding the object. Some colours were brighter than others. The mana types he understood best shone like a lighthouse in the mist. The creamy yellow of sound mana, the pale chartreuse of comprehension mana, and what he believed to be the translucent blue glow of mind mana, to name but a few.

  Elijah was forced to turn away, lest he lose his mind to the whispers of magic attempting to forcefully impart their secrets. It was in so doing that the teen caught a glimpse of the mana held within his blade.

  Unlike the mystery cube, the weapon wasn’t stuffed full of myriad mana but instead radiated one colour with incredible luminance. The mana motes were packed in so closely that, to Elijah’s eye, the blade was all one colour – white.

  For a moment, the young man was entranced by the hypnotising weapon. He had never seen so much mana in one place before – no wonder it could cut through rock like crunchy butter. Was it metal mana, or perhaps sharpness mana? Was that a thing? How did enchantments work anyway? Were they like a spell, mana directed by intent?

  The teen’s musings were cut short when the Terranoceros Ignis made a snorting sound that may have been a cough. Elijah deactivated the Skill and turned his attention back to the rhino man.

  “Loqui,” the Terranoceros prompted.

  “I don’t understand. What does that mean?” Elijah responded. Confusion screwed up the lad’s features as the red-skinned monster man gave him a thumbs up before rolling his hands, indicating that the teen should keep going.

  “Plura talk,” he encouraged.

  “Wait, did you just say the word ‘talk’?” asked Elijah, excitedly.

  “Quo more loquimur, eo more fabrica interpret poterit,” replied the stranger, encouragingly.

  “I think I got some of that,” Elijah responded, his ears picking out the few words he understood.

  “A couple more verbis, and this should be completum!” The rhino man exclaimed, his thick, stubby fingers rapidly caressing the edges of the magic metal box.

  “Say, that was very nearly English!” the sixteen-year-old exclaimed in turn.

  “English?” the Terranoceros repeated, as if tasting the word for the first time, “I don’t know much about the human lands and languages therein; I have never heard of English.”

  “What do you mean?” Elijah asked. Confusion somewhat put a damper on his enthusiasm. “You’re talking English right now.”

  The rhino man pointed to the box on the desk and replied, “No, I’m not. This here is a sphere of translation!”

  “Sphere? But that’s clearly a cube.” Elijah stated.

  A slight frown marred the Terranoceros Ignis’ features as he let out a low rumbling grumble – a sound more of annoyance than of anger. The teen wisely decided to skip over the odd name and return to marvelling at the device before him:

  “So that ‘sphere’ can translate my words into your language and vice versa? But your lips look like they're moving to make the sounds I hear; there’s no asynchronicity. How does that work?”

  With less enthusiasm than before, the now understandable rhino man revealed that he honestly had no idea. The sphere of translation was a gift from a friend, a master enchanter. They were the one with the baffling sense for names, and that was the least of their eccentricities.

  Apparently, this enchanter – an elderly goatkin woman with more years on her than hairs – was a bit of an oddball. Even so, she was so good at her craft that if she had said water was red, Rubeus – the rhino man – would be forced to nod his head and agree, lest he lose out on her services.

  For some reason, the topic of this mysterious ‘friend’ appeared to be a bit of a sore spot for the monster man; his shoulder slumped as he spoke, and the excitement fled his voice, so Elijah wisely chose to drop it.

  Rubeus was curious about why and how a human had appeared in his Trial, a Trial meant only for Terranoceros Ignes. Perhaps by way of apology for bringing up memories the other man clearly found painful, the teen decided to tell the tale of how he had wound up in the Trials. Rubeus seemed most intrigued.

  After it had become clear the story was not going to be a brief one, Rubeus fetched a pair of carved rock chairs that were suspiciously comfortable and a large triangular object covered in runes that, when activated, cooled all the air in a given area simultaneously, greatly helping with the heat coming off the active volcano right next to them.

  A couple of hours passed without Elijah noticing – the teen spoke fluidly and near constantly and was surprised by just how much he was willing to share. Once the retelling was over, the young man felt much better – save for a slightly sore throat.

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  Elijah didn’t know why he felt compelled to tell this stranger, Rubeus, his story. Perhaps it had all become too much to keep bottled up. Perhaps the rhino man’s eagerness and willingness to listen without interruption or judgement was so disarming that the teen couldn’t help but spill his guts. Or perhaps it was because Elijah had noticed something, something rather intriguing. If his assumptions were correct, Rubeus would never be able to tell the teen’s story to another soul.

  The silence that followed the ending of his tale stretched out interminably and began to become uncomfortable. Sensing the mood, the surprisingly affable Rubeus started to tell his own story in that gravelly bass he called a voice.

  The red-skinned bipedal rhino had been born to a tribe of thirty or so Terranoceros Ignes, in a place very similar to the Trial in which they conversed. Except, he was born on Terra Torus, not in whatever pocket realm the Systems tests took place in.

  The teen was desperate to ask about Terra Torus; he had seen the name in some notifications and believed it to be the planet monsters inhabited when they weren’t undergoing milestone Trials. But Rubeus had sat and listened patiently to Elijah, so he would do the same.

  Rubeus’ tribe was one of only seven on the third plate. His people had been slowly dying off year over year. The Terranoceros Ignes weren’t a very fertile people; they only lived around 50 years, and their horns were a potent alchemic ingredient. They were hunted like animals.

  There were only two reasons the red rhinokin hadn’t been wiped out: their habitat – barren rockland and active volcanoes – and their natural affinities for earth and fire mana. Rubeus demonstrated the point by holding up something that looked like a dark red version of Elijah’s slime core and making a tendril of lava float out of the lake and into the air before separating out into cold, hard rock and a burning, red flame.

  Again, questions bubbled through the young man’s mind. Elijah wanted to ask what Rubeus meant by ‘natural affinities.’ Thanks to the owlish professor’s lecture, Elijah was given to understand there was no such thing as a natural affinity. According to Tawny, affinities were supposed to be gained through study and understanding.

  Elijah wanted to ask why a sentient species would be hunted for a part of their body they could live without. Wasn’t a horn sort of like fingernails that didn’t grow back? On Earth, rhinos had their horns removed to prevent poaching; was that not a solution for the Terranoceros Ignes?

  He wanted to ask why a volcanic hellscape would be any kind of deterrent in a world where people could improve their stats to a point that it wouldn’t bother them.

  The teen didn’t ask any of his questions and tried his best to hold onto them. Rubeus was on a roll, and Elijah wasn’t about to stop him.

  Rubeus continued speaking, oblivious to Elijah’s erratic thoughts. The rhino man tried to be modest, but Elijah got the gist of it: Rubeus was special, a prodigy – if you will.

  In addition to his race’s innate ability with fire and earth, Rubeus was a dab hand with metal mana – which he demonstrated by taking out a bar of dark grey, pearlescent metal from beneath one of the workbenches, separating it into a thousand tiny stars, and making them dance around Elijah’s head, all with only his mana and a light grey orb Elijah suspected was a metal mana-aligned monster core.

  Rubeus explained – in his low and gravelly, yet somehow soothing, voice – that he had used this ability to aid his craft. He was, like his mother before him, a blacksmith. The Rhino man started life by making weapons for his tribe, using whatever pig-iron they could get their hands on.

  It didn’t take long for the young Rubeus’ talent as a smith to become recognised. Despite the subpar nature of the metal within their lands, the Terranoceros Ignis’ weapons were never brittle; they always held strong.

  His ability to make quality weapons caused his name to spread throughout the tribes of the erupting mountains. Trade among the red-skinned rhinokin boomed, and ties between the disparate groups became stronger.

  Over time, the tribes became closer, and within a decade, the Terranoceros Ignes forsook their nomadic lifestyle in order to begin building settlements – the defence of which was only possible thanks to Rubeus’ weapons.

  The metal mana-wielding monster grew in skill until his name was known across the third plate. If someone wanted something smithed, they came to Rubeus – there were none better. Elijah suspected this to be hyperbole, but he didn’t say anything.

  The Terranoceros Ignes expanded their territory; the superior armour and weapons gave them an edge over any who would hunt them. They were on track to be one of the great powers of the third plate, in spite of their low numbers, and Rubeus was eager to see the day his kin were revered as the most powerful faction.

  Sadly, he died before that day came to pass. His death wasn’t caused by anything untoward. There was no betrayal, no great injustice, no murder; his time had simply come.

  At the ripe old age of forty-five, Rubeus dropped dead, clutching at his heart. He had been working for three days straight on a war hammer, intended for the king of the dwarves – a gift to help build his people's influence.

  To the hard-working Terranoceros Ignis’ surprise, death wasn’t the end; at least, not for him. Rubeus recalled standing over himself, looking over his slumped body in the middle of the forge and feeling… nothing. A dreadful calm had suffused his consciousness, and he was incapable of feeling anger or sadness.

  Just as the elderly rhinokin’s spirit was about to follow the call of the beyond, a notification appeared before his ghostly eyes. Rubeus had accepted the System’s offer and become the arbiter of his monster race’s first Trial, the Trial they undertake upon reaching level 25.

  For the rest of his existence, Rubeus had been charged with testing his kin in any way he saw fit. Since blacksmithing had been such a large component of his race’s rise to prominence, he wanted to make sure every member of his race was at least proficient in the profession.

  Gesturing to the tables, he told Elijah that, at times, he could have up to a dozen of his kin undergoing the Trial at once. Apparently he wasn’t easy to impress, and some took months to smith something to his satisfaction.

  Despite what Rubeus said, Elijah noticed that only one workstation had tools laid out upon it, and they were covered in a thick layer of ash. It had been a long time since so many people had been working this smithy, which only served to reinforce the teen’s assumptions.

  Once Rubeus’ tale finally concluded, Elijah, having waited patiently, finally asked the question he found to be most pressing:

  “Why do you need a sphere of translation?” His words were spat out in a rush, having finally been able to escape his lips, held back only by a sense of propriety.

  Rubeus, for his part, looked confused. It took him a moment to realise what he was being asked, his mind still firmly rooted in the past.

  Once the rhino man came back to himself, he answered with a question of his own:

  “What do you mean? We don’t speak the same language.”

  “I know that, but all the other beastkin I have met I can understand. If I listen carefully, I can make out the sounds my ears are actually hearing, but by some grace of the System, the words are translated before they reach my brain,” responded Elijah, shivering slightly as he said the last.

  Rubeus stroked his rough, red-skinned chin in thought.

  “I’ve heard of something similar, though as I recall, that was a function reserved for the five divine races, the ones the System doesn’t regard as monsters – Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Elementals, and Khati,” the rhino man replied, having given the topic some thought.

  “Thanks for the exposition,” Elijah said offhandedly, his mind already wandering away with itself.

  Something must have changed. The teen thought back to his earlier suspicions. He looked at the sky. Rubeus waited patiently for Elijah to work through whatever he was thinking about. The ashfall was much lighter near the summit than further down. One flake fell maybe every ten minutes, if that. Even so, the workshop was covered in over a foot of ash.

  “Rubeus?”

  “Yes?”

  “When I came here, you were standing in the middle of the smithy, standing as still as those statues on the way up here, covered in ash?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why?”

  “When no one’s undergoing the Trial, I am forced into a sort of sleep – time passes but I have no awareness of it. Why do you ask?”

  “50 years?” Elijah mumbled, his 15 points of Intelligence working overtime.

  “What was that?” Rubeus asked, not at all following.

  “For a foot of ash to build up, assuming each flake is 2 mm in diameter, that’s what? 50 years? Your years might be different; I don’t know how the sphere of translation handles units. Either way, that’s a long time without anyone entering the Trial.”

  “I suppose so, but what does that have to do with anything?” asked the rhino man as he began idly brushing the ash off his workbench.

  Elijah didn’t say anything for a moment as he let the other man think through the implications. When Rubeus froze, the colour draining from his red skin, Elijah continued:

  “I think at some point in the last 50 years there was an update to the System.”

  “No,” Rubeus said, his voice faint.

  “I think it expanded that translation feature from the five races to all the sentient races on Terra Torus,” the teen went on.

  “It can’t be,” the rhino man replied, not really listening.

  “I’m sorry to say, but I believe the reason the Terranoceros Ignes’ weren’t included in that update is because they were no longer on Terra Torus… I believe… I believe your race may be… extinct…”

  Rubeus didn’t respond. His eyes were locked on the pool of lava just beyond the workshop; a single tear rolled down his craggy face. Elijah placed a hand on the large man’s shoulder, and for a time they just stood there, staring out over the molten lake of rock.

  The teen didn’t know what to say. He felt incredibly awkward. Perhaps he shouldn’t have said anything. His mind was often too quick for his own good. With nothing else he could do, the sixteen-year-old stood uncomfortably beside the rhino man, waiting for him to break the silence.

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