PRM Chapter 13: The Druid is Honest

Chapter 13: The Druid is Honest

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Sulo

 

Myka retreated bitterly to the side of the tree trunk. “I really don’t want to ride on a Druid’s back. It’s strange. Although you are a buffalo now, I still don’t want to… It’s really strange.”

Sylar continued to approach him, Myka continued to retreat, looking left and right trying to think how to persuade him. Myka regretted that he didn’t study spells before. Now he couldn’t even teleport.

As the buffalo moved, Myka retreated. At last, Sylar had no choice but to restore his human form. He sighed and held out a hand to Myka. Myka was relieved, but didn’t understand what Sylar wanted to do.

“It’s far away from your village. Since you don’t want to ride a buffalo, you probably don’t want to ride a horse or a camel or something else,” said Sylar, looking softly at him. “I’ll take you back in some other way.”

Myka had never seen an animal called a camel he asked, “You mean teleportation or something?” 

“No, it’s not arcane, but it’s like that,” Sylar continued, extending his hand. “Come and hold my hand. I promise it’s just a hand. Although I like you very much.”

“What?”

Why didn’t you put your hand out in the past! Myka couldn’t understand the logic of the other’s three sentences at the moment. Were Druids creatures with different ways of thinking than ordinary people? 

Sylar continued to smile and grabbed Myka’s wrist. Myka found that there was a dimple on the right side of Sylar’s face when he was too close. Fortunately, he wasn’t wearing a little wild flower now, otherwise it would be more difficult to look at him directly.

The Druid read a strange phrase and Myka waited for the dizziness to hit, but it didn’t happen. For a moment, the place where they stood changed, not the edge of the forest at night, but to a dark little room.

The wooden window of the house was damaged and the moonlight came in through the window. The house was turned upside down, the bed was turned over, and the things in the cabinet were all over the floor. Myka looked at it all in a daze… This was where he lived, the bedroom of his house.

“Why did you send us to my house?!” Myka moaned. As far as he knew, teleportation spells required the mage to be extremely familiar with the target location. He thought that Sylar would only send him back to the village.

“It’s not teleportation, but it’s similar.” Sylar said.

“You said that just now!” Myka looked around, confused and heard the wind blowing in through the open front door.

Sylar grabbed Myka’s dropped hand and looked at him sideways. Myka was dazed by the scene in the room and didn’t remember to break free.

“Myka? What’s the matter with you?” Seeing Myka stay still, Sylar finally began to feel something was wrong. He clearly remembered how easy it was to surprise Myka.

Myka pointed to the chaotic room, his voice almost trembling, “Why did they do this…”

Sylar couldn’t understand, “Don’t worry, I can stay here to help you clean up.” The excitement in his voice was clear when he said the previous sentence. “Goblins and orcs are very savage creatures, they are good at destruction by nature. Myka, you’re not hurt. You’re smart…”

“I don’t mean that,” Myka shook his head. “This… it was not done by them.”

He pointed his finger to the box pulled out from under the wooden bed, the cupboard in the corner, and the closet.

“The robbers took a box of gold coins, which I saw when I was taken away,” Myka said, “but the box next to it was also opened, as well as the closet. There are arcane words on the box and wooden door. It’s not a trigger magic, but a few magic spells I wrote in Jinsha paint to look good. And the bandits… They were afraid of magic runes,” Myka remembered what happened in the cave with King Hollis. “They don’t know the common language, and they don’t understand labels. They don’t care about glass vials and powders.”

Sylar got a sense of what he meant. He asked softly, “What have you lost?” 

“Ten thousand solvents, two bottles of silver refining paste, a box of dry powder and a box of imaging powder,” Myka shook his head helplessly. “Some of them are very expensive… There are clothes missing. My God, they were supposed to be in the cupboard over there. It was the clothes for one of my customers. They sent it here for me to apply special powder. I haven’t finished it yet.”

At this time, Myka found that his hand was held by Sylar. Sylar’s palms were hot and sweaty, and Myka pulled his hand away.

“You mean the people in the village did it?” Sylar asked.

“Yes. Look at the jar. I also had money in it,” Myka went over and reached in and touched it. “The jar was moved from the top of the cupboard to the table, indicating that they had seen what was in it, but they didn’t take it away. There was no lack of money at all. Orcs and goblins will definitely take money, and the people in the village… They probably still have some scruples. They think it’s a little too obvious to take my money directly. It seems that the nature is not the same… What’s missing are all small things, and my personal necessities are not rare at all.”

Myka sat by the bed, barely able to pick himself up. He thought of the words he had heard when he was taken away from the village by the jackals. The lady scolded him for not appearing earlier.

No matter how stupid King Hollis was, the people would be afraid and angry when his monsters broke into the village and made a big scene. What’s more, the merchant and many guards were injured innocently. All the robbers wanted was the village’s pink robed mage.

Although the people in the village were almost invisible to him, he could not say how friendly they were.

“Myka, I’m sorry. I can’t help you with these things.” Sylar naturally sat next to Myka, with his legs against Myka’s legs, and reached out to cover Myka’s hands in a pose similar to those of sewing women who came together to say intimate words.

Myka moved awkwardly to the side and politely moved his hand, “No, I’m fine. I’m not a person from here originally, and my relationship with you is not close, so it’s nothing.”

“I can’t change other people’s minds, but at least I really like you.” Sylar said, his face unchanged.

Myka couldn’t even turn his head and stare at him. This was the second time today, the second time to hear “I like you very much”.

Myka couldn’t tell if he should be shocked, confused, or ignore it… Maybe Druids talked like this, he thought. They even talked to rocks and they talked sweetly around trees. Sylar was a reliable mage and a trusted friend. Myka persuaded himself. Maybe Sylar thought the same, but in different ways.

“Sylar,” Myka said with some difficulty, “I’m glad to meet you as a friend, sincerely, but can you stop talking like that all the time?”

Sylar looked at him with his head tilted. He looked like a big animal. He didn’t know if it was a habit from being an animal for too long.

“I mean, sometimes the way you talk is very… I don’t know how to answer.”

“Then there is no need to answer, no need to demand. Not every bird or tree answered me…” Sylar said.

Myka felt defeated, “But you are talking to a human being! And I always wanted to say, can you stop following me?”

“I didn’t mean to follow you, I just followed you naturally.”

What is ‘natural’, it’s still stalking… Myka, putting his elbow on his knee to hold his forehead, decided to overcome his weakness and talk to Sylar.

“Sylar, I used to be friends with some forest rangers. Sometimes they are very similar to you,” Myka said. “For example, they don’t think that emotions, behaviors and so on need to be covered up. They express them directly. They don’t like hypocrisy, and they don’t have superficial interpersonal skills… However, some languages are only suitable for a specific time and for a specific object, which is the case for ordinary people. It’s easy to get upset or misunderstood if you speak to anyone like that without any difference.”

Sylar’s face was blank after listening to the string of words. Myka wondered if he understood.

Sylar thought for a moment and said, “It is true that arcane art distorts nature to generate power, and the magic of all things is given by nature itself. So mages are reserved and awkward, while sons of nature are frank.” After that, he looked at Myka and said with shame, “Don’t be angry, I said it’s not you, but for their essence…”

Myka was not angry, of course, though he didn’t understand where the ‘mage’s insinuation’ came from. Sylar often spoke without logic between the first sentence and the next.

“Can you tell me directly what you are worrying about and what you misunderstood?” Sylar asked.

The moonlight on Sylar’s face made his eyes moist and shiny. It was a tough face for an adult male, but Sylar had a way to make his eyes as innocent as a puppy.

Even though it was more shameful to say it, Myka decided to tell him, “For example, you’ve been following me all this time, and I feel panicked. What’s more, I don’t know what you are usually like. Maybe you can say your love to little animals and big trees, but few friends talk like this… For example, ‘I really like you’…”

“But I really like you.” Sylar interrupted.

Myka was frustrated. Sylar didn’t seem to understand what he had said. “I really admire you and would like to be friends with you, but friends don’t talk like this,” Myka said. “For example, we can talk about those silly elves together, maybe we can go to the forest to find herbs… This is how ordinary people and people outside the forest make friends. Those other words will make people feel it is too abrupt.”

This time Sylar finally nodded, as if he understood, “Okay. As for you, you have not known me for a long time, so you must feel it is abrupt. But it is not for me. I knew you when I was in Fenglin and followed you for many years. I’ve liked you for a long time, so I didn’t think there was a problem. It’s my negligence. But that’s why I want to know you. I should tell you that.”

Myka covered his face with both hands and regretted mentioning the topic. Why did this Druid say so frankly that he had been following him for many years?

“Myka, I will continue to follow you when I need to in the future,” said Sylar, making an even worse promise. “Please don’t worry. I won’t oppose your practice, interfere in your life, laugh at your career, deny what you want to do, or steal your things. I’m no different from a stream, a pigeon, a mass of moss by the wall. Because, I want to be a part of your life, and will never destroy your life now.”

——You’re clearly destroying it!

Myka just wanted to run out with his head in his arms. Compared with the previous robbers and rude villagers, what the Druid said now was the most terrible thing he had encountered in recent years.

Sylar added, “I will not be like your neighbors, curious about you, but despising you; I will not be like Sovili to judge you.”

Myka was surprised. Sylar said a name from a long ago. Then he thought, it was not surprising. If the white headed rabbit he saved from the trap was Sylar, then Sylar of course knew of Sovili. And Sylar followed him for so long… He probably knew what happened later.

In the face of the stolen room and the name just mentioned, Myka almost forgot how happy he laughed a few hours ago.

“It’s just that everyone’s opinions are different,” Myka said. “I don’t question myself because of what others say or do. Whether it’s something I lost, or Sovili, I’m sorry for that, but not too sad. Don’t worry, I have thick skin.”

“I think you’re a contradiction,” said Sylar, looking askance at him. “You can explain the pills to the customers and not be shy when you mention they change the hardness. But when I say I followed you and like you, you’re shy.”

“That’s two different things!”

Myka knew that the Druid was right. He never blushed when he was at his shop, but he was embarrassed when Sylar stared at him and blinked coyly.

So he tried to explain it to the Druid, and secretly congratulated himself that the topic left that name behind easily — a former friend, a soldier named Sovili.

Oh, to avoid misunderstandings, let’s say in advance that the former friends here were the literal friends and best friends. There was no other meaning, just the basic of friends…