'There it is the little village on the edge of the woods, the trees have become a lot scarcer replaced by grasslands, and it is still pretty hilly. The village looks like it is growing nut trees like the ones I found in the woods and I also see herds of animals in the distance.'
As Marcus got closer he was able to better make out the animals and could see that they were goats and some type of yak.
'The goats look pretty normal but those yaks are a bit smaller and stouter than the ones on earth. Now that I think about it, these goats are the first animals I have seen that look almost exactly like animals from Earth.'
Once Marcus got to the edge of the village he began to see quite a few people picking nut and taking care of animals. The people soon noticed Marcus as well and started to stare and whisper to each other. Soon one of the men who looked like he was in charge came towards Marcus.
The man started to speak to Marcus with a concerned look on his face, but all Marcus heard was gibberish.
'Crap I do not know the language that these people speak… wait I almost forgot I have the langue token I was given when I first came here.'
Marcus took out his language token and the next time the man spoke he received a notification.
'Would you like to learn Borealian?'
'Yes please.'
Information suddenly filled Marcus' head giving him a major headache but after a few moments the headache stopped, and his head was filled with a new language.
"Miss are you okay."
"Yeah I am fine just a bit of a headache."
'Wait did I just understand him, and I talked back as well, my first human conversation in what feels like an eternity.'
"Ah you had me worried there for a second I thought you were badly injured. Might I ask who you are and why you came out of the Great Gome Woods?"
'Shit what do I say, I guess I should just steal Irene's identity at this point hopefully this is not like a village from a horror movie where they sacrifice outsiders to their god.'
"Um my name is Irene and I come from the small logging community about three days north into the woods."
The man's face suddenly had a solemn look as he stared at Marcus, he pondered for many moments before he opened his mouth to speak again.
"There certainly was a girl called Irene that lived in the small community a little north of here and you do have striking resemblance to her but she had a horrible burn scare on her face and shoulder."
'Wait the scar is gone, when did that happen, did my lesser regeneration skill heal even such an old wound, it may not be the fastest but it sure is effective.'
"Ah yes I did have a scar on the left side of my face and shoulder but I recently got a healing skill that has gotten rid of the scar."
The man Looked at Marcus full of suspicion, Marcus knew that his story sounded pretty farfetched since he imagined self-healing skills were pretty rare. Marcus thought quickly and took out the knife tied to his waist and cut his index finger.
Marcus showed the man how the wound began to close at a visible speed until around ten seconds later it was closed. The man looked at Marcus with a face full of shock, how a random girl in the middle of the woods could get such a rare skill was baffling. By the time the man had collected himself a small crowd of people had amassed around Marcus
"You really are Irene then, I am sorry for doubting you but if you do not mind me asking do you know what happened to the rest of your community. The normal shipment of wood was supposed to come a week ago and we thought something bad might have happened when we noticed the goblins occupying the trail."
Marcus then told the tale of the slavers that came through and ransacked the community and kidnapped the women and children. He told the story truthfully for the most part until he came to Irene's death. In his new version Irene was stabbed by one of the slavers and left for dead when she miraculously awakened her healing skill and spent the next month recuperating and gathering supplies to make the trip to the village. The village folk had looks of surprise and then sorrow and anger on their faces after hearing the story.
"I am incredibly sorry for what happened to you and your family, those men did pass through here about a month ago but they told us that they were here to pick up a large order of lumber. If we had known they were slavers we could have tried to stop them."
Marcus looked over the villagers and while he appreciated the sentiment he knew that these unarmed villagers who all have a single digit level other than the lead man had no chance of stopping the armed slavers.
"Thank you very much for you condolences but could you tell me which way those men went I have to go and save my little sister no matter what."
Many of the villagers started to cry at Marcus' words some because of how touching it was and other because of how futile it would be to try. The man who had been speaking to Marcus walked up and put his hand on Marcus' shoulder and said.
"Listen Irene I know you must want to save your sister with your entire being but you should give up and stay here. Even if you did pull off a miracle and found her, rescuing her would be impossible. You should just stay here and we will help take care of you, it is already a miracle that you are alive you should not through your life away on a futile quest."
Marcus was surprised by the concern and sincerity of the man, but he has already promised that he would see Irene's last wish through to the end.
"I know that you are concerned for me but I have to do it, I already promised myself I would save Lilia no matter the cost."
The villagers seeing the resolution in Marcus' eyes knew that there was nothing they could do to stop him.
"Very well at least stay the night here in the village, you can stay at my house so you can talk to my dad, he knows this area the best out of any of us."
"Thank you I will take you up on your hospitality, by the way is your dad some kind of traveler or something."
The man had a slightly disappointed look on his face when he heard Marcus but soon began to laugh.
"Was I really so unremberable that you do not recognize the village chief's son?"
Marcus looked at the man with a surprised face and quickly made up something about how the injury made his memory a bit fuzzy in some places and that was why he did not remember the people of the village very well. The man had a sad look on his face but introduced himself as Amos. Amos led Marcus through the village and stopped outside the largest building. He then turned around and said.
"My old man knows a good deal about the surrounding area and should hopefully be able to point you in the right direction of those bastards."
