Gumu-1

The cart owner was right. Everyone in the village knew David and what he was. When he asked the other cart owners about their costs, many of them simply refused to take him with them. While some people raised their prices to an exorbitant amount which David could not pay.

But talking to all these cart owners was worth it in the end as David found an important piece of information while talking to them. And that was the fact that this place is simply a small island. And one could reach the mainland via ships. And there is only one port on this island which is located in Gumu.

David then thought that crossing a big sea would make enough distance between him and Gulapo. So he decided that he would go to the mainland and then from there he would see what to do next…

Unfortunately for him, currently there is only a single man in the market that could take him to Gumu…

***

David's whole body was shaking as the cart moved forward. The cart that he was sitting on was an old cart. The cart looked similar to the old-style carts that David remembers seeing in his old social studies book. The cart was jam-packed with people of all shapes and sizes. The cart had no seats of any sort, that is why everyone was sitting on the base of the cart.

The only thing that was remotely good about this cart ride was the fact that the cart had a roof made by sewing jute strips together. This hid everyone from the sun which was now directly on them.

David was sitting in the back of the cart while facing backward. Yet he could still sense the tense atmosphere in the cart. And the credit for the tense atmosphere goes to an old lady that was traveling with them. After David had paid the fees for the cart, everyone started boarding the cart. At that time, everything was normal.

But when that old lady came, she recognized David. And then she started throwing tantrums about David. Apparently traveling with Siberian is a very very bad omen. That is why she wanted a refund. But the cart owner didn't want to give her one. And so they both argued with each other and started yelling.

Before the yelling began, none of the cart's fellow passengers knew that he was a Siberian. But after they heard their yelling, everyone started eyeing David as a freak of nature. Some people also came forward as they also didn't want to travel with David.

But the cart owner told them that even if they didn't want to go, they are not getting any refund. In the end, all the people agreed and they set off from the village….

***

David was sitting at the edge of the cart. His legs were hanging from the back of the cart. As he was sitting at the edge of the cart, David could feel every bump and rock that the cart was going through. Going through a bumpy road was hard enough, in addition to that the cart was moving very slowly. As the cart was very heavy and considering its manufacturing quality, the cart owner was moving very slowly.

David was getting irritated by all the bumps and the slow-moving cart. And then there was all the whispering and silent cursing. All the other passengers in the cart were whispering behind his back. Because David's back was towards them, they thought that he could say anything that they wants. Little did they know that David's body has a good hearing ability. Thus he could hear everything that those people had to say.

David was getting frustrated with all of this, but It was then he remembered that the seat of the cart owner was big and wide. It could easily accommodate him and the cart owner. Remembering that, David jump off from the moving cart. After he jumped off, he landed safely on his legs. Then he ran towards the front of the cart where he saw the cart owner chewing on a drum stick while driving the cart. David then quickly jumped on the driver's seat and sat down.

The cart owner was shocked when he saw David sitting with him in the front. He then started yelling…

"Oi! You can't be here. Go back!" the cart owner yelled. David expected this much. So in the end he did what he should have done a long time ago. He took out a knife from his back and put it on the man's balls…

"Listen to me, fucker, I paid 20 coppers to be on this cart. That means that I can sit wherever I want. If you don't like it, then you must give me your balls as compensation. So let me ask you again. Do you have any problem with me sitting here?" David while glaring at the man.

"No No… Now put away the knife." The cart owner said hesitantly.

"Good. My name is David by the way." David said after removing the knife from the balls of the cart owner.

"Grum." The cart owner said with a grumpy look on his face.

"Grum it is a very nice name," David said. Then after waiting for a few seconds, David said "Listen Grum, thank you for taking me to Gumu. I still appreciate your courtesy even though you charged me an outrageous amount." David said. Hearing this Grum looked at David with a confused look.

"As a Siberian, not many people are willing to travel with. Yet you still fought all those people. I really appreciate it." David said.

It was the oldest trick in the book, but it worked like a charm. David said some cheesy lines to Grum about how he was an orphan and how people use to harass him. And in his life, only Grum and Gulapo were the only people that ever stayed by him. And he really appreciates it.

David then acted as though he would just cry. Seeing this Grum's eyes who were grumpy a moment ago, started getting soft. Seeing this David smiled inwardly because this trick never had failed him…

***

"So have you met other Siberians on this island?" David asked Grum.

"No… This island is full of immigrants that were harassed by Siberia in the past in one way or another. That is why all the Siberians are killed as soon as they set foot on the island." Grum said grimly.

"Man, Gulapo must be a very strong creature to hide me for all of those years," David said.

"Of course he is. He is a Fishman. The bodies of Fishman are very sturdy and strong as they live under the constant pressure of the sea. Only awakened one could compare their strength with those Fishmen." Grum said.

"Awakened one? What is that?" David asked.

"Awakened ones are the beings that have supernatural powers. Those people could do things that we normal people could never imagine doing." Grum said.

"Like?" David asked.

"Like… Oh yeah… Once when I was a little kid, I saw an awakened one. He came to my village to hunt down a beast that had been terrorizing our village for months. That awakened one spew fire from his mouth and had the strength of 10 oxen. He slammed the beast to the ground and burned that beast to crisp. I still remember it clearly as that awakened one patted my head with her soft hands and the smelled her flowery smell…" Grum said.

"So awakened ones are women?" David asked.

"No. Men too can become an awakened one." Grum said.

"Wait… Does being awakened one is related to magic potential?" David asked Grum…

"Don't know what magic potential means. But I have heard that magic is something that is associated with awakened ones." Grum said.

Hearing this, David started thinking about his situation…

He knows that the lazy God sent his ass to this world to complete the task. And that God also gave him some abilities as well that would help him in completing his tasks. David remembers clearly that the baldy who broke his nose asked him whether he awakened his magic potential by seeing his ability.

So does that mean that David was an awakened one as well?

"By the way what will you do when you will read Gumu?" Grum asked breaking David's stupor.

"Well, I was thinking of going mainland," David said.

"Valgoore?" Grum asked.

"Is that a place?" David asked.

"Yes, that is a place. How dumb are you? You are going to the mainland and yet you don't even know the place where you want to go." Grum said.

"Well, I just want to get off this island," David said.

"Hm… I can understand. As a Siberian, it must be tough to stay on such an island where everyone hates you." Grum said.

Hearing Grum's sentence, David started to get a little bit irritated. He just couldn't stand all the racist people of the world. He is getting discriminated against just because he was born in a vicious country is no reason for being so rude to him. The owner of this body was born there, but it is not like he lived there. He didn't commit any sort of atrocities, then why was everyone discriminating against him…

And the worst of all was the previous owner of this body. Why the hell did had to tell everyone in the fucking village about his origins. Couldn't he just shut his mouth and kept it to himself. David then promised himself from that day onwards that he would never mention to anyone about his origins ever again. Thus he would hide that he is a Siberian from everyone. After all, it is not like his identity as a Siberian is written all over his face…

"Grum, have you ever visited Valgoore?" David asked.

"Twice," Grum said.

"What kind of place is Valgoore?" David asked.

"A very nice place. I wasn't able to explore Valgoore to the fullest, but I saw all the main attractions of the city. I saw a Tain there. A real Tain." Grum said enthusiastically.

"What is a Tain?" David asked.

"It is some sort of metallic beast. It was made by awakened ones. This metallic beast is very powerful and pulls tons and tons of weight behind it." Grum said.

"Really? Sounds interesting." David said.

"Yeah… Do you know there is a separate path made for this metallic beast? And this beast runs on that path only. When it runs the whole world starts to tremble. I am a very poor man, thus I was not able to travel on the Tain. But my uncle did travel on it once….." Grum then started telling David all kinds of things about the metallic beast.

David on the other hand was perplexed as he heard Grum's description of the metallic beast. And no matter how he looked at it, Grum was talking about a train. All of his descriptions described a train.

Previously David was thinking that this world is different than Earth as this world has monsters and magic. But hearing about the train, David started to think that maybe this world isn't very different from the earth after all. This made him think about what kind of other things this world has that are similar to Earth…