Survivor: Definitely Not Minecraft

After converting all of the fabric into coins, I took the paperwork inside, plopped a stone block down in front of my workbench as a stool, and got down to studying. Sorting through the notes, I found the section that Esmelda had dedicated to pronunciation and laid it beside her list of basic phrases.

Like everyone else, I’d taken some foreign language classes in school, and they hadn’t stuck. Rote memorization was a drag, and I’d never had the motivation to dedicate myself to it. I’d learned what I needed to for the tests, and promptly forgotten it all afterward. While I was a very goal-oriented person, I hadn’t always been consistent in my pursuit of them. It was common for me to get deep into a project, focus on it exclusively for weeks, and then dump it for something shiny and interesting. My attention span left something to be desired, a weakness that had become less prevalent as I got older, but my method for getting things done often seemed like a race against the clock of my waning interest.

That being said, there was now a very good reason for me to put in the effort to learn a language. Only a handful of the people here spoke English, at least in this region, and speaking it exclusively marked me as a potential enemy of the state. While I had no expectation of being able to fool the nobles into thinking I was a native, at least I could learn enough to be able to interact with the people of Erihseht apart from the few polyglots I’d run into already.

By the time I got through reading the pronunciation guide, my eyes were already glazing over. The letter ‘m’, followed by a consonant at the beginning of a word, was pronounced as ‘im’. ‘Mneijn’ was ‘imnejn.’ Great, but what about that ‘j’ in the middle of the word? And even if I was saying it right, what did it mean? There was no definition on that page. Esmelda really was going to have to tutor me if I was going to get anywhere with this.

Well, maybe not Esmelda. There was no reason to tick off the mayor by spending too much time with his daughter when Tipple could help me just as well. I could bring it up with him when I went into town in a few days. It did annoy me a little that Boffin had given me that stipulation, but it wasn’t an unreasonable request. Though I liked being around her, it wasn’t a big deal in the scheme of things.

With my thoughts wandering, my fingers tapped idly on the parchment in front of me.

The writing disappeared.

The paper remained, it was just blank, and under my hand, there was a new coin. Dark, glossy, and smooth as glass. Ink was a harvestable material, and my System had something to say about it.

Journal Quests Notifications Materials Crafting

[Ink]

Congratulations! You've successfully extracted the essence of knowledge and obtained some ink as well. This dark treasure holds the power of imagination, ready to become anything your pen can dream.

Journal Quests Notifications Materials Crafting

Achievement: Reader (1)

You have collected your first example of the written word, and a new tab has been added to your journal. Your posterior superior temporal lobe has been adjusted accordingly.

“System,” I said. “Did you just do something to my brain?”

There was no response. The new tab in my journal was labeled “Library,” and it included a table of contents with only one entry, the pronunciation guide. I looked at the page of common lillit phrases, and read a few of them out.

“Bongu. Kif int? X’jismek?” The words were nonsense, but I said them with confidence, and they felt right. While the idea of having an ability that directly interacted with the functioning of my brain was disturbing, I couldn’t argue with the results. It was pretty cool.

Tapping my way through the loose parchments took about twenty minutes. It wasn’t like memorizing a list. I couldn’t recite what had been recorded on those pages, but when I looked them over in my logs, I knew what the Lillant words meant without having to refer to the translation. And not all of the pages had been about Lillant, I now had a smattering of Sprache as well.

One of the books Esmelda had brought me was an empty journal. The other was a collection of lillit folk tales. The text was remarkably uniform, but it was definitely handwritten. There was no printing press in this world, or at least not one that was commonly available. A book like this was valuable in a way that books in my world were not. Without mass production, every copy was unique.

Why had she given it to me? There was no way she could have expected me to read it on my own just from the notes, but it could have been something to flip through and get a feel for general sentence construction, or for reference once I’d had a few lessons. Some phrases popped out at me. The language had articles, and I could read basic relationship words like “with,” “on,” “to,” and “from.” The majority, however, was still gibberish, even if I had a good idea of how to read it aloud.

I was going to see her again in a few days, assuming she came to the church for Tipple’s forum. Ruining her book and becoming fluent in Lillant in the process could wait. Seeing her had distracted me. My goal for the day was supposed to be crafting iron.

There wasn’t a lot of material for me to waste on experimenting with new formulas. Armor was not the goal for day one, as it would be too resource-intensive. Eight ingots were enough for the essentials; a sword, a pick, and a shield. I was a little nervous about trying to harvest the ingots, even though the System had assured me that I now could. If they didn’t convert, I would be stuck in the Stone Age forever. I put the books and papers aside to upend the sack of iron onto my work table. Patting them with my hand didn’t get me anywhere, and I started to get nervous.

Even though these were ingots, maybe the System was treating them as raw iron because they hadn’t been harvested. I grabbed a pick, started tapping, and was relieved to see cracks begin to form in the metal. A moment later, there was a satisfying pop as the material disappeared and a corresponding coin appeared in my hand. It looked and felt like a normal quarter, except there was no embossment of any kind.

Dropping it back on the table got me a perfect brick of iron, a little smaller than the ingot it had come from. Hefting it, I guessed it was maybe fifteen pounds. The original ingots were somewhat irregular, so I was going to lose a little iron in the conversion process, but in the end, I had eight coins to work with.

Pick first. I placed the materials in the crafting grid just as I would have to make the stone equivalent.

Plep.

Journal Quests Notifications Materials Crafting

[Iron Pick]

Formula: Iron Ingot (3), Stick (2)

Nice pick! Iron tools will last longer and mine faster than stone. They’re also easier on your back.

I held the new tool with relief. It was certainly lighter than the previous version, and its edge felt sharper. Apart from mining, it looked like it would puncture a zombie skull with no problem. My confidence restored, I refilled the crafting grid with the formula for a sword, leaving my status screen open to watch the notification appear.

[Iron Sword]

Welcome to the future. This weapon is a sign that you have crawled up out of the cave-man era ready to be a, well, better-equipped cave-man. With a weapon like this, the creepy crawlies will be no match.

Stepping away from the work table, I took a few practice swings. It was better balanced than the stone and didn’t put as much strain on my wrists and forearms. The blade was thinner, and I could comfortably use it with one hand. The weapon also came with a cool Damascus pattern on the blade, trippy streaks of dark and light.

I was nervous about making the shield, as my supply of iron was down to a few coins, and I wasn’t completely sure I remembered the recipe correctly. Six planks arranged in a kind of Y shape with the iron placed in the center top slot. I pulled the lever. There were not many conceivable scenarios where having spent countless hours playing Minecraft would present you with an advantage in life, but thankfully, I had been isekaied into one.

[Wooden Shield]

Formula: Planks (6), Iron Ingot (1)

Nothing like having a wall between you and the enemy, and what’s a shield but a wall you can carry around? Don’t let those pesky mobs get under your guard. Rub this in their grimy faces!

The shield was two feet in diameter, reinforced with an iron rim and studs. Basic, functional, and with a surprisingly ergonomic grip. With this in my right hand and my sword in the other, I finally felt like a real adventurer.

Bill laughed. The sound gave me goosebumps. He was crouching in the center of his cell, one eye gone, the orbit broken, and the other barely visible beneath the loose flesh of his damaged face. The super zombie didn’t lunge at the fence, or even appear to notice me as I approached.

“What are the rules?” I said. “Is there any way to kill you permanently?”

Of course, he didn’t answer me. If he was trapped, at least, he wouldn’t be able to give me problems when night came. I would have to observe the mobs and see if their behavior was different than before. I could assume he’d been controlling them, but I had no idea how he had done it. With mental commands, Bill could give the zombies instructions from where he was. Was the line of sight an issue? Distance? There were too many unknowns for me to make any assumptions about how it worked.

“Make yourself comfortable,” I said. “This is your new home.”

I was tired of hearing him laugh, and I couldn’t be sure that he’d never be able to work his way through the fence posts. The other shamblers didn’t have patience or make plans, but now that he was up and moving again, he might gnaw his way through.

I walled off the cell with granite blocks and tried to put him out of my mind.