//Translation of ancients included in: square brackets [xxx], author’s notes and paragraph comments//

“Leto magnari. Kosha?” [Do you have someone speaking many languages?] As much as Layn knew about the ancient, it wasn’t even close to being enough to hold a proper conversation. But in terms of communicating on the basic level, with enough effort, even sign language would somehow suffice.

But it wasn’t efficient to communicate in this way. With the precious few drops of mana remaining in his aura, Layn was very conscious about using magic and wasting this sparse resource away. Yet, the ability to readily communicate with others was of utmost importance. And with every moment that Layn spent with the group, he was becoming more and more aware that for those people, the ancient tongue might just as well be the mother-tongue!

The implications that such a situation would lead to, were too grand for Layn to bother his head with them for now. Responding to his request, the leader of the group gestured at the rest of his friends, calling forth one of the cutely dressed girls to his side.

Wrapped from head to toe with what seemed like a single, long strip of expensive cloth, one could tell the gender of that girl only by the superly delicate figure and feminine traits on her cute face. With even a single one of those two giveaways missing, Layn wouldn’t have the doubts to make any assumptions in the first place.

After all, who knew how those strange people would react if he were to accidentally mistake the gender of one of them? From the worsening of their relations to the public humiliation and execution, there was no telling how great such transgression was for the locals and their culture.

“Irea, leto magnari. Kaka?” [I (Irea) speak many languages. Do you?] Placing his hand on the girl’s shoulder, the man sent a questioning look to Layn’s face. But instead of trying to speak the common tongue once again, something that Layn already knew would end in failure, the archmage actually took a step forward before placing his forefinger on the girl’s forehead.

“Satte!” [Stop] Noticing the strange move, the leader of the group instantly unsheathed his weapon, pointing it threateningly at Layn.

“Maste, maste.” [Calm down, chill out] Calming the man down, Layn closed his eyes. With so little magic energy, he couldn’t afford to waste even the minimal amounts of it. Starting with the standard diagram for the thoughts transfer, he quickly removed all the parts that he considered to be spare, before finalizing the formula on an imaginary piece of paper. Filing it with magic, he then directed it through his fingers to the girl’s head.

“Kah!”

Stepping back as if someone struck her head with a hammer, the eyes of the girl widened greatly. At the same time, Layn instantly recalled an image of a vast plain, before focusing on it for a moment. With the thoughts transfer, he didn’t need to name it. After all, the same image that he focused on, would appear in the vision of the girl!

“SATTE!”

Before she even managed to finish her retreat, the girl already shouted towards her leader, whose sword was falling at an astonishing speed towards Layn’s forehead. Rather than betting on fighting techniques or special moves, the man clearly wanted to dispose of the potential threat in the form of Layn as swiftly as possible. Thankfully, the girl’s sudden shout managed to stop his sword before the leader of this ‘reconstruction group’ would force Layn into actual defence.

“Naola?” [Plains?] Releasing a sigh of relief seeing that the sword of her leader properly stopped, the girl turned her face back towards Layn before uttering a single, questioning word.

“Naola. Parien?” [Where are the plains?] Seeing that his technique didn’t end up failing due to the extensive inference in its structure, Layn could sigh a sigh of relief. The word standing for the plain didn’t appear in their discussion even once so far. The fact that this girl brought it up made it obvious that at least to a certain degree, the thoughts transfer seemed to work.

“Magnari waxetta, magna magnari.” [A lot of walking, very, very much – Its an insanely long journey on foot] Pointing with her hand towards the same direction that Layn came from, the girl used the enhanced form for magnari, implying just how far Layn would have to walk to reach the nearest plains.

“Kette, kusanari, kusa kusanari.” [The settlement is super close]Before Layn could ever respond, the direction that the girl was pointing at changed, this time to the complete opposite of where the nearest plain apparently was.

‘So the settlement is rather close, huh? Well, it’s not like I can get much more out of them.’ Sighing deeply as he shook his head, Layn cut off the thought link to the girl. Twitching slightly upon the release, the girl looked around at first, before suddenly dashing towards the man that almost attacked Layn before.

“Rexa, magna Rexa magnari!” [Expert, super-strong/great expert] Spitting those words in quick succession, the girl stood exactly between her male leader and the archmage. But there was something wrong. According to the guess that many of the archaeologists made, Rexa was the word that the modern Rexus, the king came from.

But it didn’t make absolutely any sense for this to suddenly start calling him with a pretty similar word, that Layn sadly failed to understand.

“Kaka… Etto. Etto gare.” [I, okay. I will do that] After a moment of hesitation, the middle-aged warrior finally lowered his sword before shaking his head to the sides as he moved aside. As soon as the girl noticed it, her eyes lit up as she ran towards the archmage.

“Kaka Irea. Kakeshi?” [I’m Irea, and you are?] Nodding her head and pointing her finger at her chest, the girl spoke. Then, she then raised her head back to look at Layn’s face with sudden, extreme interest.

‘Well, given how she called me something before… Eh, let’s just go with the flow.’ Shaking his head to tear the useless doubts out of his head, Layn brought his eyes back at the face of this energetic girl.

“Kaka Layn. Irea kakeshi magna ronoh.” [I’m Layn. Metting lady Irea is a great honor (official greeting)] Lowering his head while responding to the girl’s introduction in the only full form that he could remember from the class, Layn bit his lip.

What was initially just a guess, now turned out to be practically certain. Even for the most hardcore reconstruction group, there was no way they would abandon all the goods that the modern civilization had to offer. But in this camp, not a single modern appliance could be found!

With this last straw of hope now gone, Layn could only bite his lips.

Because only when the pain was strong enough could he free his head from thinking about the only one remaining possibility.

“Kaka ronoh..” [The honour is mine (reply to the greeting above)] Not letting Layn claim the honors of meeting her but taking the honors of meeting him for herself instead, the girl smiled.