57. [Manifestation] 2

Ok, could someone please tell me why someone would want to use a nose or an ear as a way of expressing themselves?!!

An eye might even be acceptable since it can transmit some emotions and it would be disturbing to say the least to be stared at by a giant eye floating in the sky (not to mention that there are also gods who use eyes as symbols, like Horus or the all-seeing eye of the Illuminati). The same goes for a giant mouth in the sky, in fact it would be even scarier than an eye, especially if it could talk.

A giant foot appearing in the sky would also be scary since it would be easy to imagine it coming down hard and crushing you. And the most obvious choice would be the hand because it is the most versatile.

But a nose and an ear?! How would that be the least bit useful?! What would the nose do?! Sniffle all over everyone and people would be scared if it sneezed?! And the ear?! What would a giant ear be good for? You wouldn't even be able to intimidate with something like that!!!!

At least because of the size (relative to NPCs, like that little hand holding a little figure on Google Maps) it could be scary at first, but once they got used to it it wouldn't matter (probably). Unless it was programmed that they would have to react with fear and reverence regardless of the player's choice.

In that case it would be really fun to see their reaction to fear of a giant nose or ear, but since my style has always been more serious, I chose the only option that could really be useful to use. At least in my head it should be.

I was partly right, after the initial surprise of the options and clicking directly on the hand, which as soon as it appeared on the screen started to wave to people, soon a small box with 5 types of hand positions appeared. One of the boxes showed the hand waving that was already selected, another with the hand pointing, another with the hand making a stop sign, another making a positive sign, another with a negative sign and finally a closed fist.

That wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I clicked on the hand, not that I was thinking much either, I only clicked on reflex after I saw the ear and nose. But at least it's possible to work with it, each position that the Boxes placed the hand in could yield a different reaction from the NPCs, like now.

Several were showing emojis of confusion, fear and one or two seemed to wave back. Taking advantage of the fact that they were still paying attention, I selected the pointing hand and a cursor appeared on the screen with the hand changing position, placing it above the couple and I drew a line out of the village, indicating that they should leave and then I clicked on the hand making the Stop sign and placed it above the crowd, this should be pretty easy to understand, right?

'Let them go and stay where they are'

-------------------------

The hand that appeared out of nowhere waved for maybe two minutes before suddenly stopping, it then pointed at the villagers and then made a wait sign. It then pointed at me and the girl who had protected me and then stood up and walked to the edge of the village and pointed towards the forest.

It came back soon after and repeated this action 2 more times, even the most simple-minded of the villagers could understand what the hand meant by this. The question was: why?

Why did it want us to leave the village?

To protect us or to protect the villagers? Had it been sent by something with a specific purpose to help us or was it some extremely strange kind of phenomenon? (although I highly doubt that myself).

Or could it be that it was even something from my father trying to make me go with him, as he has been doing since my mother died?

After the hand made the gestures, the villagers began to speak in whispers among themselves, it was not necessary to hear them to know what they were saying.

"....leave them?..."

"What would that thing do?.... The girl too?"

"Is that what made the others fall down screaming?..."

"....lightning in the sky..."

"Freak?... Demons...."

"Monster?...."

Several ideas came and went between whispers, while perhaps for the first time in my life these were not of mockery or anger and I was not the center of them. Even the children who were usually the noisiest were quiet about what had happened, looking at the golden hand floating not far away.

I took advantage of this moment of "calm" to get some idea of how the girl was. Fortunately most of the things they threw at her were just trash that left her dirty but not smelly, not many stones or things that would hurt her, those were mainly for me.

She was still very dirty and scared about what had happened, the dress that the family had bought for her from one of the rare merchants was ruined, with pieces of spoiled food and mainly mud with some tears from some stones and one or two marks of blood but nothing serious.

As soon as I thought about her family, I saw an older man and a woman coming from one of the streets towards the center of the square. The villagers were so busy with their speculations that they barely noticed, or if they did notice, they thought it wasn't even worth doing anything to stop them.

"MY DAUGHTER, are you okay?! What were you thinking about?! Staying in the middle of this confusion?!!!!"

The young woman's mother came screaming and throwing her arms around the young woman's small body, not caring about the smell or the dirt.

"It's just... they were being very cruel to Mr. Bogar... and I didn't want him to feel any more pain..."

As always, an annoyingly naive girl, and the main reason I didn't mind if I had to break the necks of one or more villagers if they tried anything, even if I ended up dead shortly after.

"Looks like they went all out this time... how are you, brat?" The girl's father asked me.

I gave a small sneer before answering.

"As if that were much worse than usual."

"...true..."

The girl was the only one who was kind to me, the reason was the example set by her parents who, even though they didn't like me (whether because of my origins or appearance), were still respectful enough to get along, talking normally and giving me a decent payment for the hunts I brought.

Unlike all the other villagers who, when they didn't simply take most of it and leave me alone with a few coins of very low value, still always made a point of insulting me or spitting on me, literally.

The parents were at least fair, despite the clear hostility they had, especially the father. Which I understood honestly, if I were in his place I would feel the same way.

I was about to tell them to take the girl and leave, but it seems I wasn't fast enough.

"TAKE EVERY ONE OF THEM AND SEND THEM TO MY BASEMENT RIGHT NOW!!!!!

A hoarse voice behind us, coming from the eastern slope, the village leader was being carried in a kind of chair by two younger men, followed closely behind by her "security group". Even though she was a rickety old woman, with wrinkled skin, almost blind and a small hunchback, the woman still had the strength in her voice to be heard by everyone in the square with ease.

Her shout immediately took the villagers out of their whispered conversations and made them rush back to the square where there were now 4 people.

Seeing the situation, the old village leader with her "security group" (about 8 strong men with basic but still dangerous weapons, such as swords and iron clubs), the 4 in the middle of the square and the giant golden hand a little further away. Everyone could already see that things were going to get even more complicated.