The Echo of a Dead Language

She averted her gaze, her expression a carefully constructed mask of detachment. The woman was beginning to get on my nerves.

I watched the subtle twitch of a muscle beneath her eye. So, she could hear and understand me perfectly. I was still contemplating what to do with this silent companion when a voice cut through the market din, calling my name.

“Axel.”

I turned toward the sound. It was Kyoto, weaving his way through the throng.

“Well? What is it?” I asked with a smirk. “Feeling lonely already?”

“No, that’s not it,” he said, his face etched with an uncharacteristic seriousness.

“A problem, then? I gave you every last coin I had. There’s nothing left.”

“No, it’s not about the money,” he insisted. “It’s the language. The language is the problem.”

“The language?”

“Yes. Shortly after I left you, everyone around me started speaking… incoherently.”

“What were they speaking?”

“Gibberish,” he said, his eyes wide. “A language I’ve never heard, completely alien. I was so thrown off, I decided to find you and ask what was going on. Your… distinctive clothes made you easy to spot from a distance,” he continued. “But just now, as I got closer, everyone suddenly switched back to speaking Nihonese. Do you have any idea what’s happening?” He looked genuinely perplexed. He was serious.

Hold on. He said everyone started speaking Nihonese again? Was that possible?

“Did you just say they’re all speaking Nihonese now?” I asked, my tone shifting to match his gravity.

“Huh? What are you talking about? Aren’t you speaking Nihonese right now?”

“No,” I said slowly. “I’m speaking English.”

“You’re speaking perfect Nihonese,” he insisted. “Fluent, in fact.”

And just like that, it clicked. Of course. It wasn't that everyone in this world spoke English; it was some kind of translation effect. A boon from the Deity—wasn't that one of the things the Little Princess had mentioned? That had to be it. I recalled that while I couldn't read their writing, I could understand their speech. It must only translate the spoken word, and only within a certain radius of me.

But if Kyoto lost the effect when he walked away, did he not have one of his own? Why? We were all summoned. Was his boon somehow lesser than mine? No, that didn't feel right. Something else was at play.

My gaze drifted back to the silent woman standing nearby. Could she be the cause? She’d been with me this whole time. No, wait, I could understand the language from the moment I arrived, and she wasn't there before the summoning ceremony this morning.

The threads of the mystery were already tangling.

“Listen,” I said, trying to lay it out clearly. “To me, you and everyone else are speaking English. To you, I and everyone else are speaking Nihonese. That has to mean some kind of translation magic is at work. Centered on me, like you said.”

He nodded, showing he understood.

“Why it’s just me, I don’t know yet,” I added. “Since we were all summoned, maybe we each received different gifts. Different boons.”

He seemed to finally grasp the implications. “So if I don’t have it, the other two probably don’t either,” he mused. “They must be just as confused. We should find them.”

I agreed. My eyes scanned the area and landed on the beautiful, sullen woman from before. She was standing not far off, watching us, her expression a mixture of frustration and isolation. She was clearly in the same boat.

I raised a hand in a small wave. Her eyes met mine for a second before she deliberately turned and slipped behind a colourful food stall. This woman was going to be difficult.

Just as I took a step to follow her, a commotion erupted from a nearby stall.

“You worthless filth!” a man’s voice boomed. “How dare you bump into me!”

The shout came from a portly man draped in expensive-looking silks. Kyoto, the woman, and I all turned toward the sound. The portly man was furiously striking something on the ground with a heavy-looking walking stick.

As I looked closer, I saw his target. He was swinging his cane at a small girl, who was crouched on the cobblestones, shielding an even smaller child with her own body. Angry red welts and bluish bruises already marred the skin of her arms, neck, and back.

My mind reeled. Was this man, clearly a wealthy lord of some kind, publicly beating children? And no one was stopping him? Could a simple bump have provoked such a savage response?

To hell with it. There was no time to analyze. I had to intervene.

I broke into a sprint, but the woman was already there. I had moved on pure instinct, but she was closer and had moved just as fast. She hadn't hesitated for a second.

She threw herself over the children, taking the blow meant for them across her own back. The heavy cane connected with a sickening thud. A red welt immediately blossomed on the exposed skin of her back, but she didn't so much as whimper. She just took the hit, her face hidden by a curtain of long, black hair. She wouldn't show it, but I knew it must have hurt. A maternal instinct, raw and powerful, had driven her to shield those kids.

“What’s this?” the fat man sputtered, momentarily surprised. “Who are you? Are you their mother?!” He hefted his stick again, preparing for another swing.

I finally shoved my way through the ring of onlookers. I let my forward momentum look like a clumsy stumble, crashing into him and tackling him ‘by accident’.

“Whoops, my apologies,” I grunted, landing squarely on his broad back and driving him to the ground. “It’s the heat and the crowds, you know? Makes a man dizzy.” While feigning lightheadedness, I made sure my weight was anything but gentle. I drove an elbow into his shoulder blade and a knee into his shin—all my weight focused on his weak points. As I ‘pushed’ myself up, I made sure to press his face firmly into the dirt. He let out a pained squeal.

Two burly men suddenly pushed their way out of the crowd. “Lord Vazzan!” His bodyguards, no doubt.

“Gaaah! Get him off me!” he wheezed. The bodyguards shoved me aside and hauled the fat noble to his feet.

“You peasant!” he shrieked, spittle flying from his lips. I noticed with some satisfaction that one of his front teeth was now missing. “You have no right! Do you know who I am?”

“My apologies, my lord,” I said with a placating gesture. “It was an accident. The crowd surged, I was pushed.” I vaguely gestured toward one of the bodyguards. It was a complete lie, of course.

The burly men shook their heads, their expressions fearful.

“It matters not!” the noble yelled. “You were the one who struck me and cost me a tooth!”

“Hold on!” Kyoto had arrived, stepping forward from behind me. “You’d assault someone for accidentally bumping into you on a crowded street?”

“What kind of twisted logic is that?” the noble bellowed for all to hear. “Are you a simpleton?!”

“WHAT? A SIM—DID YOU JUST CALL ME A SIMPLETON?!” Kyoto looked personally offended, launching into a tirade. “So, because you’re rich, you get to beat people? Because you have a higher station? What the hell? What if someone who was sick bumped into you? What if a blind man bumped into you? In fact, what would you do if you bumped into a lamppost? Would you attack the helpless lamppost? Honestly!” Kyoto’s voice dripped with theatrical victimhood.

The onlookers, who had been silent before, began to murmur and chuckle at the fat noble’s expense. The tide of public opinion was turning.

“YOU! BEAT THEM! BEAT THEM UP NOW!” the noble shrieked, backing away from the jeering crowd and pointing a trembling finger at us.

As his two brutes started toward us, their master let out another cry.

“Aaah! What do you think you’re doing?”

I glanced past them. The fat noble was no longer retreating. A towering old man now stood in his path—the same strange man with the straitjacket-like pants and dangling belts. It was the mad old man, Voktah.

His grim face split into a malevolent grin. “You just ran into me.”

He bent down and picked up the fallen walking stick.

“Here,” he said with a sly smile, “let me help you up.”

He lifted the cane high, and it sliced through the air with a vicious whistle before it came down.

CRACK!

The sound of hard wood on soft flesh was sickeningly clear.

“GYAAAAH!” The noble let out a shrill, girlish scream.

“Oh, my mistake,” Voktah said calmly. “Did you need more help?” He swung again.

CRACK!

The sound was even louder this time.

“UWAAAA!” The noble tried to shield his head, and the blow caught him squarely on the right shoulder.

“My lord!” The two bodyguards snapped out of their stupor and rushed toward their master. One tried to intercept Voktah and was rewarded with a sharp crack of the cane to his side. The other struggled to get the whimpering noble upright.

“GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

The bodyguard practically carried him away.

“I’ll remember this!” the noble screamed over his shoulder. “You’ll not get away with harming a noble to protect some… some demi!”

So, he was a noble after all.

“Anytime, fatso!” I yelled after him as he vanished into the dispersing crowd.

A smattering of applause broke out, and a few onlookers came over to offer their thanks and admiration. I gave them a brief nod and turned my attention to the woman and the children.

“Are you all right?” I asked, my eyes on the angry red line across her back. It would probably be gone in a day or two.

“I’m fine,” she said, her voice tight with concern. “But the children…”

Just as I’d thought. Beneath that icy exterior was a fiercely compassionate woman.

Both children were unconscious. The younger one, maybe eight years old, had likely fainted from terror. The older girl, perhaps thirteen, seemed to have passed out from the pain of the blows. As I checked her injuries, I noticed something odd. Peeking out from the hair on top of each of their heads was a pair of soft, brown rabbit ears.

“Rabbit ears!” Kyoto gasped, his serious demeanor long gone. “We saved bunny-girl lolis!” He seemed to know what this meant.

“You know what they are?” I asked.

“Of course! That fat noble said we protected a ‘demi.’ He must have meant a demi-human! Like these girls. A race of people with animal features.”

“And you know this how?”

“It’s common knowledge!” he declared. “Standard stuff in any world with magic!”

“Right. We can debate fantasy tropes later,” I cut in. “For now, let’s get out of here and find somewhere safe to look after them.”

I moved to lift the older girl into my arms. We needed to get the unconscious children to a clinic, or at least a quiet room. As we turned to leave, the woman moved with us without a word. To my surprise, old Voktah fell into step with our group as well.

I was starting to get a read on these people. This ugly, unforeseen incident, it seemed, had just forced us all to show a piece of our true selves.