Language Pack

"You said earlier that you wanted to catch a mount. Don’t tell me you meant these giant spiders?"

After breakfast, Yinsen called everyone together. Once they had packed their gear, they left Goldshire and headed south into the forest again. They had only walked for a short while when they encountered something rather unpleasant.

"Of course not."

Over breakfast, Yinsen had only casually mentioned that they might consider catching a mount. The mount he had in mind was not easy to catch in the first place. He had merely said it in passing, reminded of that mount whose reins he had wanted but never managed to farm back then. Now, it seemed he might have a chance to capture the real thing.

Unfortunately, wanting something and doing it were entirely different matters. Before he had enough confidence, he would not devote too much energy to it. What Yinsen needed to do now was complete the "quest" at hand, then establish contact with Marshal Dughan. If possible, it would be best to use Marshal Dughan to connect with certain people in Stormwind City. That would help with his future plans.

Of course, even if Marshal Dughan could not do that, Yinsen did not particularly care. He had already more or less confirmed which Timeline he was in and knew what the greatest crisis in Stormwind City was at present. If he truly wanted to integrate into the Stormwind Kingdom, the simplest way would be to bring back Varian Wrynn, known as King Varian. What could be a better choice than getting connected with the King?

They swiftly wiped out the giant spiders, barely slowing their advance at all, and soon found Fargodeep Mine.

"Our mission is reconnaissance?"

"Yes, reconnaissance."

They openly climbed to high ground without making any effort to hide. After killing several ugly kobolds wandering outside the mine, Yinsen and Logan stood there and looked down below.

Whether the kobolds were simply stupid or blind, not a single one noticed them despite how conspicuously they were standing there.

"There are quite a few of them, but they’re scattered all over the place. Their vigilance and Combat Power are both so poor that we could clear out every one of these creatures called kobolds, one by one."

As a battle-hardened veteran, Logan’s reconnaissance skills were naturally excellent. Given sufficient weapons and ammunition, he could easily clean out all the kobolds below.

"It may be called reconnaissance, but we can make the reconnaissance a little more thorough."

Logan understood Yinsen’s meaning. These kobolds posed no threat to them, and Yinsen could not be bothered to report back again and again before returning to clean them up. So he wanted to finish the mission in one go: clear all the kobolds out of Fargodeep Mine.

"You don’t need me for something like this, do you?"

Loki had been standing nearby the whole time. Opponents like these could not possibly interest him, much less make him want to crawl into that dark, filthy mine. He would rather stay outside.

"Indeed, we don’t. So what do you want to do?"

"I heard there’s a city nearby. I want to take a look."

"We’ll be going there later. There’s no need to be so impatient."

Loki looked at Yinsen. "Why can’t I go conduct some ‘reconnaissance’ on my own first? Don’t you trust me?"

"I really don’t." Yinsen was not deliberately trying to embarrass Loki. Even Loki understood exactly what Yinsen was worried about. "There’s someone in Stormwind City right now who is very difficult to provoke. I don’t want to alert her."

The Black Dragon Princess Onyxia was currently active in Stormwind City under the identity of Katrana Prestor. Most of the Stormwind Kingdom’s power was secretly controlled by this Female Dragon, and the turbulent undercurrents beneath the kingdom’s peaceful and prosperous surface were all the work of this Black Dragon Princess.

According to Yinsen’s plan, they would have to face this Female Dragon sooner or later. That did not mean they needed to alert her now.

As an "adventurer" who could not even explain his own origins and had no background whatsoever, he was naturally at a disadvantage when it came to credibility. Rashly confronting the Black Dragon Princess at this time would only put them at odds with the Stormwind Kingdom. Meanwhile, the Black Dragon Princess would be more than happy to create an enemy like Loki for the kingdom. After all, no matter who lived or died, she would be the ultimate winner.

Yinsen did not hide any of this from the others in the team. As they cleared the kobolds from the mine, gathered the wealth they had left behind, replenished their funds with gold and silver, they listened to Yinsen recount the gossip surrounding Stormwind City.

"This world really isn’t safe."

Although Logan had long known this world was far from simple, he had not expected a legendary black dragon to be lurking so close by. And not just any black dragon, but one with great intelligence, capable of magic and transforming into human form.

From Yinsen’s descriptions, this Black Dragon Princess truly lived up to her status as a major villain. Even Loki recognized her as a formidable enemy. With his still-unfamiliar Ice Power, he did not know whether he could defeat her.

"A black dragon?"

Logan put his firearm back into the pack on his back. Using that kind of weapon in such an enclosed space would be torture for his ears. He chose to use his wolf claws to deal with the nimble kobolds instead.

By comparison, Selene performed far better than he did. Agility and speed had always been her strengths, and the dark space did not affect her performance. After centuries, she had long grown accustomed to such environments. Almost every strike landed on a kobold’s vital point—yes, Selene had also stopped using firearms. Shooting inside a mine was simply too painful.

Selene was now using two short swords. They were very ordinary weapons taken from the Goddess of Dawn’s standard armory. They had no special abilities, much less the attribute of never being damaged.

Yet in the hands of the experienced Selene, those short swords displayed tremendous Combat Power. After so much fighting, because the blades had always struck the softest and deadliest parts of the kobolds’ bodies, they had not suffered the slightest damage. A simple wipe left them looking as good as new.

"Fast, agile, and experienced in battle. If Selene learned some Death Knight skills, I wonder how much stronger she could become."

As they advanced in fits and starts, Yinsen carefully recorded everything that happened in Fargodeep Mine, including how many kobolds they had eliminated.

Yinsen suddenly realized something: after traveling to Azeroth this time, he had encountered no language problems whatsoever. Everything had felt so natural and ordinary that he had overlooked it until now.

He recalled the dizziness he had felt during this journey. It seemed that had not been an aftereffect of spending too long aboard a ship.

During this period, he had not taken part in the fighting. Aside from recording everything, he had been checking his own condition and sorting through his knowledge. At last, he confirmed that he had been granted a portion of knowledge.

There was not much of it. It was only Azeroth’s Common Tongue, including fluent usage and writing. There were no accompanying "installation packages" for Elven or Orc languages.

Only after he had completely sorted everything out, and after they had thoroughly cleared Fargodeep Mine, did Yinsen reveal his discovery.

Everyone else had noticed this long ago. They had not thought much about it before because they assumed Yinsen had done something. They had not expected that he had not.

"We understand the language and writing here, and it isn’t because of you?"

"It should still be because of me."

Yinsen glanced at his left hand. He felt that his Magic Array had undergone some changes, but he had never been able to figure out exactly what they were. Now, he was certain: it had come with a Language Pack for the current world.

He truly did not know whether that was good or bad. Thinking about it carefully, if this had happened several years ago, suddenly receiving knowledge of a new language would never have caused something as simple as a brief bout of dizziness. He might have suffered headaches for days.

"Did this change happen because I’ve improved in handling Space-Time Energy, or magic in general? Or did it automatically activate because my teammates reached a certain standard?"

Yinsen quickly rejected the latter guess. Back when he had been alone, he had not received the benefit of a Language Pack. Clearly, this happened because his magical proficiency had improved and affected the Space-Time Magic Array.

After leaving the mine, they found that traveling from Goldshire to the mine had taken quite some time, but clearing it had been very quick. It had been noon when they entered, and it was not even dark when they emerged.

"What a pity this world doesn’t have experience points. Otherwise, we could find a few good places to grind levels for a while."

After roughly figuring out the matter of the "Language Pack," Yinsen led everyone back. Unlike when they had come, they no longer needed to worry about taking a wrong turn, and their return to Goldshire was even faster. By the time Yinsen and the others returned to town, the sun had only just dipped below the horizon, and Marshal Dughan was conducting his routine patrol before nightfall.

"I’m glad to see you returned safely."

Marshal Dughan saw Yinsen and the people beside him. Seeing such a "team," he trusted Yinsen a little more. Previously, he had not known Yinsen had so many companions.

"This is my reconnaissance report on Fargodeep Mine." Yinsen handed his "reconnaissance report" to Marshal Dughan, then watched the lawman’s expression turn extremely strange after only a quick glance.

"You call this… a reconnaissance report?"

It certainly was not suited to being called a reconnaissance report. A battle report would have been more accurate. Marshal Dughan had never expected that Yinsen and his group would not only scout Fargodeep Mine thoroughly, but also conveniently wipe out every kobold entrenched there. They had even gathered countless gold nuggets, along with a necklace someone had apparently lost.