The guy began to study the book. The pages were memorized with incredible speed, it was enough just to scan them, and the text seemed to be imprinted in the brain. From the side it looked like the young man just digs into the book looking for pictures. But he clearly underestimated his abilities, he had a couple of hours to fully understand the book.{The local alphabet consists of 52 letters, the language itself is quite complex, a lot of terms, an abundance of polysemantic words, the meaning of which varies depending on the situation described.}
Earlier Kyon estimated how each symbol sounds, so now he could easily translate written text into spoken language.
{Now I know 80-90% of simple and 40-50% of complex words. This is enough to support not very abstruse conversation.}
Usually understanding language needs communication, but as for Kyon it was enough to close his eyes and imagine a conversation with yourself. h.e.l.lo, schizophrenics.
The guy realized that the symbol on his label meant «Kyon». The name of the good-natured fat man was Bob, by a curious coincidence, symbolized short tail. And his companion Mob something was in tune with crowds of people.
The book «Thild of talent» told the story of a man who found an abnormal child in one of the remote villages. The child stuck in the emotional and spiritual development of a three-year-old baby, unable to do evil, not burdened with human vices and weaknesses, not knowing hunger, cold, pain... and with his inherent irresistible desire to give, to give.
Having spent a lot of time studying this unique boy, the man did not notice how he fell in love with the child, like with his own son. He began to reveal the world, human nature, morality, explain the principles of life and survival... Although the child was quite smart, his heart did not change in any way, no matter how hard his named father tried.
Then the man decided to radically affect the nature of the child and went in search of the legendary Heart of desire, in order to change the nature of the boy from the inside. Also, the story indicated that the man had a unique body, due to which ру was stronger than ordinary people.
This was the end of the first of three parts of this amazing story.
The plot did not appreciate Kyon – it seemed to be too unrealistic, more like a fairy tale «for small». But the morality of this «fairy tale» revealed the curious traditions of the world.
The book constantly mentioned that the world was ruled by force, and tangible, physical force. The weak people stayed at the bottom while the strong soared to the heights... At first, Kyon decided that «force» meant the mind, the vitality, integrity, cunning, but nothing of the kind. Force meant the force in the literal sense of its manifestations.
Kyon had barely decided that it was a trivial fantasy, someone"s unhealthy fiction, but the world was too thoroughly designed. The force were not only the combat skills and physical strength, but also a kind of spiritual development.
Kyon didn"t believe in the soul, but "fictional" system development in the book interested him. As far as he understood, there were several areas of soul development, each consisting of 10 separate stages. The higher you were at the stage of development, the stronger the power of your internal elemental energy – and in the outside world it already transformed into a certain attacking force, such as, for example, a jet of flame, lightning, flying over long distances stone boulders…
{Wondrously.}
Kyon"s thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.
A tall male-supervisor with the formation of a slave of the 2nd rank broke into the hospital. There was an unconscious body on his heels.
«What happened to him?» - Martha exclaimed anxiously.
«...Obstructed by stones...» - muttered the visitor of the infirmary with hesitation.
«With stones, you say?» - the doctor squinted suspiciously.
«Mm ... Yes.»
Martha put her hands on her hips, panting like a pot:
«Tell me, who beat him?»
«I can"t, or I won"t count the bones.» - The warden was clearly afraid of someone.
«Don"t worry, I won"t tell anyone. Spit it out.»
The man spoke softly with hesitation:
«It was Mob. He was absolutely furious. He"s usually more reserved. Just please don"t give me away, he knows I saw everything.…»
«I see, poor man, put him on that bed.» - She pointed to the empty bed – «And you may go.»
Martha, shaking her head, watched as the victim was laid down, and then brought a device like a magnifying gla.s.s and, pouring a drop of energy into it, scanned the body. A couple of bruises, a few cracks in bones, a broken rib, not to mention the numerous bruises and abrasions... {What subman for this Mob?} - the woman sighed sadly. Having provided the guy with the necessary help, she, drooping, went to her office.
{Of course, I understand that he likes me, why to vent on wrath on other people?} - She mused, staring unseeingly at the pile of doc.u.ments on the table.
When someone got injured, that person was brought to the hospital by a responsible supervisor, but Mob always did it himself, so it was not difficult to guess at his true motives. Martha felt a nasty pang of guilt that he was so careless to yell at the butcher, and now because of her outbursts other people were affected…
Kyon silently watched everything with one eye open. Okay, so the bald guy and this new guy got hit by a Mob.
It was noon. Although it was impossible to determine the position of the sun in this stone box without windows, the bright glow from the lamp increased by a third – apparently, artificial lighting changed depending on the time of day.
Martha, constantly looked back, carried «smuggling» to his abode.
The bald man was still dozing, and she, quietly coming to Kyon, put a tray before him:
«Actually, you"re not supposed to have lunch, so I brought my own. Eat. But don"t tell anyone!»
There was a hill of rice topped with a fragrant piece of meat on the plate . A gla.s.s of compote and a couple of unusual fruits on a tray completed the composition «ordinary lunch».
«Thank you, but aren"t you hungry?»
Martha smiled at his good nature. He didn"t speak so much before, but today he pleased her with complete sentence.
«No, I already ate, don"t worry about me.» - unfortunately, her stomach treacherously rumbled at this moment. Blus.h.i.+ng, the female rushed into the office and slammed the door, shouting finally the only thing: - «I"m on a diet!»
Of course, there was nothing of the kind of any «diet». But the mother"s instinct, which was playing out, insisted on showing the boy at least some care.
Kyon smiled, hungrily examining the contents of the dish.
{Amazing person. But it is still unclear why so much kindness to my modest person. Perhaps, I remind her someone from her past. On the other hand, I look pretty cute.}
The smell of baked meat, which could rarely be found in these places, made the bald man open his eyes. From one glance at the food in his stomach rumbled and involuntarily flowed salivating because he did not even have time to have breakfast.
Kyon turned to the bald man looked attentively and read his name on the forehead:
«Borya, I will share with you, but don"t tell anyone.» - and with these words he held out a small slice of meat and fruit.
Martha looked out at the voices and shook her head disapprovingly. She realized that the guy was forced to share the meals, otherwise he would face problems, but she missed meals which was spent in vain – after all, she brought lunch to him specifically and not to this... injured man.
Borya did not refuse, and swallowed the «present» at once. When all was finished, he savagely wiped his mouth with sleeve and asked:
«Are you Kyon? The Kyon who missed three days ago?» - and without waiting for an answer: - «Oh, s.h.i.+t, I can"t be mistaken... You"re the one jerk for the whole village! Where you been?»
«Yes, I am. Where I"ve been, where I"ve been... Where I"ve been is gone. Although, it was probably better than this dump. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you the details – a cobblestone aptly got into my head, and all the memories blew as the wind, and I woke up here…»
«hha, you have sense of humor, and its already a good sign! And yet, three days without food or water... and you"re tougher than you look. In appearance you look like a person easy to be killed. You know how your warden John was punished for not keeping track of you?»
«Warden John?» - Ken frowned questioningly.
«Your head must be seriously hurt... Do you remember anything?»
«Nope. Absolutely nothing, I have no idea what"s outside the room. I can barely remember my name.» His goal was to scout the situation, getting information from this nut-head man.
Borya remembered about his debt for meals and willingfully started to devote the young colleague to bring him caught up:
«John, this is your warden, he is responsible for the 28-th group of... yours, I mean.»
«Is he one of the employees?»
«You don"t even know that? In general, look...» – the man sat in bed comfortably and proceeded to the story.
From the words of Borya Ken got to know that the mountain range belongs to the Stones family, and now they were in one of the three mines in the ridge for the extraction of spiritual stones. It was said that it was here they found the mine because of the ancient catacombs. They continued someone"s works, so to speak. A few thousands of slaves worked in each mine and for convenience they were distributed into 16 individual sectors, the three hundred people in each. Kyon worked in the third sector, where Bob, Mob and Martha worked. The superiors, Martin and Flitz, were in charge of the entire mine.
In order to ensure convenient and effective control, there were used formations on slavery formations. They not only tracked the location and viability of marked objects, but also could show their status. The most common, of course, was the 3rd, lowest, rank. The supervisors responsible for their group of 9 people have the 2nd rank. The leader which was the only chief of the sect – Byron, the 1st.
The working day lasted 15 hours. On the only day off at the end of the week here came the shop, stopping for a couple of hours at each sector. It brought letters and products and it was possible to buy endurance potions, medicines, tea, beer, exchange local currency for the world one and send to relatives.... And you could buy freedom there.
Ken already realized that the local «slaves» are like workers with very low status, because they still retain some freedom. For instance, they might earn and spend money, legal day off…
Salary was paid once a week. If the daily norm was met, there were provided only food portions and water. Overfulfillment of the norm allowed to obtain mine currency. Outside it swas just paper, but here it was a valuable resource that motivates everyone to work effectively and, as they said, «plow like an ox.»
Borya told about the dubious benefits of the 2nd grade (separate bedroom from the rest of the «slaves»), and about the prerogatives of the 1st rank, who not only had the right to a personal living s.p.a.ce, but also they could order a woman... About the last paragraph the bald msn told with extreme jealousy.
The first mine consisted mainly of peasants. Those who voluntarily signed a contract to send money to their families every year.
In the second, there were ordinary criminals, serving time and at the same time bringing «benefit to society».
The third mine was meant for the out-and-out criminals, hostile races, captured prisoners…
{Martin and Bob said I was brought separately from the other slaves. I wonder what I"ve done. Maybe someone exposed me?…}