While the Imp was currently playing around with the chunk of a bone in its mouth, the only leftover from the group of monsters that the three things killed just now, exactly those three things started to walk again, and the Imp simply followed like always.
The Imp actually felt rather weird at the moment, ever since that one monster died. Not only did he stop feeling complete hatred toward Avalin, but he also felt something else. Something deeper inside of his body that he couldn't really explain.
And it wasn't anything physical either, more of a feeling like something was wrong with him, or that there was something that he still needed to do, but in the end, he really couldn't figure out what that thing was, even if he tried really hard to.
Although he did notice one thing. Whenever he tried to concentrate on that weird feeling, a specific box appeared in front of him.
[Unused Stat Points: 9]
But even then, the Imp had no idea what was actually going on. He recognized the last squiggly line at the end of the box because it was one of the ever-changing squiggly lines in that one box that wouldn't disappear no matter how often the Imp hit it.
It was a feisty little bitch, to be exact. Either way, if the Imp couldn't find out what it was supposed to do with this weird feeling, he would probably go insane at some point, because that feeling of unease simply kept growing stronger and stronger the more the Imp tried to ignore it!
And so, the Imp tried to make that box appear as often as he could, to hopefully annoy it before it could annoy him too much, and soon enough, it seemed as if that ended up working at least to an extent because a new box appeared in its stead.
[Recommended Stat to enhance: Intelligence. Continue?]
Happily, the Imp began to smile brightly at his overwhelming victory against the box! His first one in a while, actually! And in response, the Imp wanted to just yell out one thing, the only word that the Imp knew to be at least somewhat appropriate in this situation.
"Yesh!" It exclaimed and raised its hands into the air, and the three things immediately turned toward the Imp, placing their hands on their weapons, ready to attack anything that might have shown up before James clicked his tongue and turned back around, being the first to continue moving.
"The hell was that about?" He asked, but Thomas just shrugged, while he and Avalin also began to walk again. "Just ignore it. Who knows what's going on in its head." Thomas pointed out, and there was one specific thing currently going on in there.
[9 Stat points assigned to Intelligence Stat]
[New Intelligence stat at 20]
An immense and horrid, stinging pain, as the Imp's head felt overwhelmingly hot. It didn't know what was going on all of a sudden, but it knew for sure that it wanted to know, and as such, gaining another new part about himself.
Greed for knowledge. The Imp's mind, which was usually just filled with the mere emotion of hatred toward the three things, although the hatred he had for Avalin had shrunk, was now filled with numerous, numerous questions.
'What's going on?'
'What are the boxes
'Where are the things taking me
'Why is Avalin teaching me to speak
'How can I stop this pain
All of these were just a handful of the thoughts that the Imp had gained together with the increase of its intelligence. And after a little while, at least the last one of them had been answered.
The pain simply stopped on its own, and the Imp could continue walking behind the three things, slowly managing to focus on the rest of his questions.
And in response to any of them, all that the Imp could think was 'I don't know'. And then, the 'I don't know' had was overwhelmed by the new feeling in its mind. The curiosity of 'I want to know'.
But it knew that it couldn't just go and ask the three things about his questions, mainly because he simply didn't have the ability to. The three things seemed to speak to each other in the language that the Imp was still learning, so it somehow had to try and get his thoughts across.
For hours and hours on end, while they were all walking, the Imp was trying to get an idea, but he simply never got one. He just tried to figure it out, although he seemed to still lack the intelligence for it. But at the very least, it managed to figure out the priority of the issues it needed to figure out.
The Imp somehow had to be able to speak to the three things. For one, to tell Thomas and James how much they sucked, and to then ask Avalin whatever questions he might have! And to his luck, the nice red thing seemed to have the same thing in mind.
While they were all taking a break when the sun was at the highest it would be, Avalin sat down together with the Imp and grabbed the empty book that Avalin drew into before, and then grabbed a pencil to make the squiggly lines inside of it. Although instead of being squiggly, the lines were straight!
And then, they changed into the shape of the box! The Imp barely could believe his eyes, but soon enough, Avalin even drew the squiggly lines inside. Excitedly at maybe finding a way to learn about them, the Imp jumped back up and raised his hand toward one of the boxes.
"Ergh... Ergh...!!" He tried to explain, although he just really didn't know the word for it, although Avalin seemed to.
"You see it? Is it a notification?" She asked with a broad smile, and the Imp just tried to repeat that word as well as he could.
"Noddiphikashion!" It exclaimed, considering that it only heard such a long word so quickly, the Imp felt rather proud at managing to replicate the sound so well!
[Beginner Common Language Comprehension Skill Leveled up!]
And immediately, the word that the Imp just said seemed to be nearly imprinted in his mind, like the words that caused a box to appear always were, and just then, the 'Box' turned into a 'Notification'. It was a bigger word, but for some reason, it seemed a lot less scary than 'Box'. The Imp didn't know why, but it was happy that it managed to figure out what it meant!
"Yes! Exactly! Well, at least it knows about them..." Avalin muttered to herself before starting to write something down in her book, before drawing a long line into the center of the page.
"Alright, I guess we should start like this. Try to take this into your hand, okay?" The red thing asked the Imp as she held forward the small stick she was holding toward him. Slowly, the Imp grabbed it from her, realizing that that was what Avalin wanted from him before Avalin slowly led the Imp's hand across the paper.
"This is how you write. I already showed these letters to you yesterday. Now you just need to write them." She explained, and the Imp slowly nodded his head, "Write." It grunted, and Avalin's smile grew a little bit.
"Exactly. This one here is 'A'. Do you remember it? Try to say it again?" Avalin asked of the Imp, and he just did as asked, slowly moving the stick in three straight lines while making that sound lengthily.
"Good job!" Avalin exclaimed with a bright smile and pushed her hand into her pocket, grabbing a small bag that gave off a completely delicious smell to the Imp before Avalin slowly grabbed a cube of meat out of it and presented it to the Imp.
Confused, he leaned in a little bit and just sniffed the cube, unsure what Avalin wanted him to do with it before the red thing just chuckled in response. "You're supposed to eat it. Eeeaaat." She explained and slowly held the small cube of meat in front of her lips, before holding it back toward the Imp.
"Gah!" The Imp exclaimed happily and immediately sucked the cube up with his mouth, or at least he wanted to. But before he could do that, Avalin pulled the cube away from him.
"No! Bad!" She exclaimed with a stern expression, but the Imp was confused. Wasn't he supposed to eat the cube?
"Say 'Thank you'." The red-thing told him, and the Imp tilted his head to the side, before a laugh from the super dumb black thing could be heard. "You trying to teach it manners? Come on, as if it can do that." James laughed with a smirk as he looked at the Imp, and for some reason, he felt incredibly annoyed at what he just said, even if it couldn't understand what James was saying. But the Imp figured out that Avalin wanted him to repeat the words she just said, so he swiftly try to do so.
"Sank you!" It exclaimed smugly while giving a stink-eye to James, who just shook his head with a smirk and turned back around before Avalin smiled at the Imp happily.
And then, Avalin slowly grabbed his hand and placed the cube on top of his palm, once more repeating the same motion as before, pretending as if she was grabbing a cube between two of her fingers before leading it to her mouth. "Like this, now." She said, so the Imp tried to mimic what she was doing, and grabbed the small meat of cube between his fingers before leading it to his mouth, while Avalin nodded her head.
"Good. And now you can eat it." She told the Imp, so he slowly opened his mouth up and placed the cube of meat on his tongue before swiftly moving it to his back-chompers to crush the puny little thing up.
"Good job! Now, keep writing the same letter some more, okay?" She asked of the Imp, and he simply tilted his head to the side and said, "Sank you?" In a questioning tone while extending his hand forward to get another meat-cube, but Avalin just replied with a deep sigh.
"Right, couldn't be that easy..." The red thing muttered to herself before just pointing at the paper again, slightly starting to lead the Imp's hand once more.
"Not yet, after you continue." She told him, so the Imp began to frown but looked down at his hand, following the motions that Avalin had given him a few more times, and then started writing another version of the same sound before another notification appeared in front of him.
[Beginner Common Language Comprehension Skill Leveled up!]
"Gruh?" The Imp muttered out before tilting his head to the side, leaning up toward the notification confused, which seemed to be coincidentally right in the direction of Avalin, who ended up leaning in toward him a little as well.
"Ah, a notification, huh? Hmm, I wish I could properly read the writing through the reflection in your eyes..." Avalin whispered, and even though the Imp didn't really understand what she said, it understood something else.
It recognized the smaller, rounder written version of the 'A' sound in the notification! Excitedly, it pointed at the place where it could see it and then looked at Avalin, repeatedly making the sound.
"A! A!" It exclaimed, so Avalin began to smile in response. "Oh, so you recognize the letter?" She asked happily and then grasped her hands together excitedly.
"How great!"
