<Chapter 02: Confusing Method, Dangerous Method>

A new language.

Quite daunting if you think about it, even more so when you are essentially learning it completely by scratch. 

No textbooks. 

No Tutorials. 

No teachers. 

And god forbid no search engine to make your life easier.

Nothing but your own head and power of observation to lead you by the nose and hope it doesn’t push you off a cliff. Though as a ghost fall damage is none existent, but that's besides the point.

「This has got to be what babies feel like. Great, I’ve reverted into an infant. And not just any infant.」

Since babies have parents to guide them, they already have a major advantage. Whereas she, unfortunately being the ghost that she is, has no one.

「I’ve become Tarzan without his jungle and gorillas!」

It truly is quite pathetic when put into perspective.

All joking aside, Dasha just bit the bullet and took that step forward. Afterall, she’s got nothing to lose. 

Or at least she thought as much.

“Why is learning a new language so hard!” Dasha ruffles her hair in frustration, feeling her sanity breaking at each failed attempt.

“It’s enriching, my elder brother once said. It’s character building, my third brother shoved down my throat. I’m self taught, it wasn’t too challenging, said my second sister who just happens to have a genius level IQ.”

A resounding pop exploded in her head and her arms flailed about, wishing so terribly to punch a wall and throw a book!

“You're all thieves! A bunch of lowly criminals who siphoned off my knowledge genes before I was born! You lying pieces of sh….!”

Oh Dasha was beyond enraged. Not only due to her genetic disadvantage, but due to these memories popping out of the woodwork like cockroaches when she did not need them too! 

Her fury was burning like the fires of hell. That was until she finally comprehended a single word and the burns were soothed.

The tears of joy and exhaustion that rushed down her face were beyond satisfying. The first word she learned was a curse word! She could finally curse in the native language!

“『Dammit』is dammit. Finally! Finally! 『Dammit!』『Dammit!』『Dammit!』Ahaha!” 

Yes, Dasha had succeeded. 

She’d taken a step through the daunting door of this foreign place, rightfully enjoying the results of her labor. Three months to learn a single word. It may be an excruciating amount of time, but still, a success is a success.

The only problem though, a tiny inconvenience one would say, is the way she learned this word. A method that is utter nonsense, mind boggling, and down right confusing just as it is...terrifying.

『Ah-Chew!』

Dasha jolts at the sudden sneeze. 

Her gaze looks up to see dust particles scattered in disarray, the dying rays of sunlight capturing their escape away from the man’s sudden exhale. 

There he was, her method, standing in the room’s center leaning over a desk. Just as his cold silver hair slid off his shoulders the whole area was then dyed in this cozy orange hue, that softens the chill of his countenance.

“Bless you, Sir Pomegranate sir.” She flashed him a zany smile.

It’s already been four months since Dasha accepted and moved on with her current situation. All this while, this sneeze was the first “human” reaction she’d seen of this man in quite some time. Though perhaps that’s due to this him being the real him. 

“It’s rare to be awake and about Sir Pomegranate, so how’s it feel to experience human problems again? Is your runny nose the next human issue to come? Haha, if that’s the case, I’d hand you a tissue if I could. Ah——It’s unfortunate how such a simple task can no longer be done. Isn’t it such a shame, Sir Pomegranate?”

She flicks her hand. A very slight breeze levitated a piece of paper half a centimeter off the desk. Just as brief as it happened, it fell back without a sound.

Quite pitiful, her face scrunched, but then fell apart with a sigh.

Click. Her eyes jump at the sound. The man had stopped tinkering with a translucent puzzle piece, setting it down against the table.

『Someone seems to be muttering behind my back. Ha~ how amusing.』

With a lopsided smirk paired with apathetic eyes, he looked like quite the contradiction. With no one but himself to see, was he acting out of habit or out of ignorance?

She squints, leaning forward in hopes to understand. Though no matter how close she got, it wouldn’t make a difference. It wasn’t like she could magically zoom in like on a camera. 

Would that even help? Most likely not.

『How curious.』

He pushed past the desk, running his fingers across the surface as he went. The sound his long nails made did not inspire any good feelings. Dasha felt goosebumps rise on her neck, pushing her to take a step back.

With each click of the clock his smile grew wider, his distance shorter. His lips pulled open to reveal his white teeth. His glittering canines trap her attention, pulling her into a whirlpool of gut wrenching emotions.

『Simply too amusing.』

Pak, pak, pak. Her shoulders jumped.

His feet stomped to a halt.

Right at the sound of someone knocking he stopped right in front of Dasha. That smirk turned into a gum revealing smile. The garishly red against straight white teeth stirred up her primal sense of survival.

That was all it did, she didn’t move, but was frozen stiff looking into eyes staring down at her.

In the illuminating shadows a look of utter madness colored the man’s face. The pure contrast between exhilaration and mindless apathy tittering on the edge of insanity made Dasha feel nauseous.

She breathed harshly, slowly falling into a state of panic, wishing to move but unable to. 

Wishing to breathe but a lump blocks her throat.

It felt like hours had passed, but only seconds had gone by. That ticking clock haunting her with the realization that this man’s very existence made time feel foolish for even trying to insert itself.

No, ‘she’ felt foolish for trying. Dasha felt like all forms of waste had been dumped on her head, waking her up to the reality of her stupidity.

Even as awake as she felt, she still couldn’t move, nor could she back out on this method, for it was the only one she had.

Her eyes snapped shut, feeling a warm breeze crawl up her spine and circle her neck.

「He’s not looking at me…it’s all…its all in my head…please let it all be in my head…………」

『Enter.』

As the door swung open he turned back towards the desk, releasing Dasha from her frozen state, allowing her wispy body to fall powerlessly to the floor…there she cowered into herself, gasping for air.

「Holy…! How am I not sure that he’s the real ghost here! Is this what it feels like to be the other side of Darth Vader?! How is it that he can make a ghost feel suffocation………?」

Down the stairs heels clicked, and up the stairs she went, passing by a head of green hair, sandwiching herself against the wall. Dasha ran from Sir Pomegranate’s general vicinity and decided to watch from afar.

『Eh! Eh! Do my words mean nothing? Are your ears just there to sit on display? Her, her, her! The Tower Lord best get his scrawny ass down here before my claws start thirsty for flesh.』

“Huh?” 

After calming down her heart, Dasha scooted her butt closer to the floor to ceiling window and looked down. Being on the third highest floor made this difficult, and so did the stain glass blurring so heavily, so she stuck her head out, but then quickly pulled it back in.

「Did it see me?! Why did it look up just as I looked down? My gosh, are beast senses that overly sensitive?」

Below the tower meandering at the entrance like a hoard of debt collectors, were a group of beasts surrounded by the female oriented tribe. From what she saw in that brief instant, it seemed most of them were fur-covered beasts, and the one who spotted her looked like a werewolf from the movie series Underworld.

「No, this werewolf may as well be on steroids in comparison to the movie version.」

Ah, the longer Dasha stayed here, the more she wished to return home. Life was hard back on earth, but at least in her neck of the woods, nothing like ‘that thing’ down there could be seen. The biggest animal she’d come across was her uncle’s Tibetan Mastiff! That ‘werewolf’ was surely no smaller than ten feet.

『What is all that noise?』

Dasha jolts out of her thoughts and swings her head back towards the center of the room. Standing next to Sir Pomegranate was Sir Papaya, which she dubbed him, since his hair was the same shade of green.

『Beasts. The wolves are howling. The tigers are barking. The bears are screeching. Scratching up the walls. Demanding more fervently than ever. Making a total mess of the outer yard. If it weren’t for the natural barrier, even the trees wouldn’t escape unscathed.』