Chapter 116: Sneak Attack

Jace didn’t get here too early, so he was basically the last few to take the test.

Entering when he arrived, he saw Dushan taking a sip of tea, his face already wearing a bit of fatigue.

“Jace Sesso.” He looked over and pointed to the seat across from him, “Have a seat.”

“Your topic is ……,” Dushan said as he flipped through his transcript, “the Confederate Internment Act, right? That’s a pretty complicated topic. Ready to get started, let me hear what you wrote.”

Jace nodded, pulled out his own manuscript and began to read.

He roughly combed through the end of the Orc War and the aftermath of the Alliance’s discussions on how to deal with the captives in Orcish, laying out the views of the various countries in the Alliance on the captives and the difficulties they faced, and, in short, recounting the whole thing objectively and without personal feelings.

If this was on Earth, taking an English or some other language exam, in Azeroth, the counterpart would be a Dwarven or Elvish exam, and this kind of essay would definitely just be at a very elementary level, almost like copying a boring narrative essay read out in a dry and straightforward manner.

But for the orc language test is not at all like this, Jace just use orc language runes to write this short essay to spend ten days of effort, to get the pronunciation of each word correctly took a great deal of effort. When it comes to Dushan, there are even a lot of runes whose readings and meanings even the teacher can’t remember, and he even needs to interrupt Jace several times to look up the words on the spot.

In short, learning orcish is not like learning a mature language for the human world at this time, but more like archaeology, or scouting or something, and should never be applied in the same way that other languages are learned.

To be able to complete the writing and reading of such an article is already very high specification exam content.

By the end of the reading, Jace was on the verge of breaking down, after all, he didn’t have any orcish pronunciation methods to look up, and the way these runes were pronounced was so completely different from any language he’d ever seen, even Chinese, that he was slowly coming to the point where he felt like he couldn’t figure out what he was writing meant.

Even after a month of blitzing, it still lacks a lot.

Eventually, though, he managed to read it without a hitch, and the teacher largely understood what he was writing about.

Dushan nodded, and after a moment of thought and dread, asked, “What do you think of the Alliance internment bill? Remember to answer in Orcish.”

Jace prepared the question by saying in Orcish, “A very courageous decision, but one that looks good but is not good for the long term.”

Dushan said in orcish, “Explain the long-term badness.”

Jace said, “This decision, means that all the kingdoms, all the time, are in a state of lack of coin, leaving all the kingdoms very vulnerable.”

He thought for a few moments, organizing his language, recalling what he had prepared, and identifying the words in Orcish, and then said in Orcish, “If there is another war or accident, and the Orcish laborers aren’t activated in a short period of time, and all the kingdoms don’t get enough revenue, they will face catastrophic consequences.”

“Disastrous consequences.” Dushan nodded slightly and said in generic, “Very good choice of words, Jace, very good.”

Then he asked in orcish, “List, possible wars or other accidents.”

In reality what Jace was trying to say in that paragraph just now was about a natural disaster invasion, of course it was impossible to guess now that there would be any undead legions attacking in force, but he had made brief preparations for that.

“Demons attacking, troll empires, lurking ogres, black and red dragons, orc legions in the Black Stone Tower.”

Dushan didn’t understand two of the words, and confirmed the pronunciation and meaning with Jace again, who was still guessing if he hadn’t pronounced them correctly, and now his mind was all jumbled up with tenses, accents, rune positions, and so on.

When it was all cleared up, Dushan nodded and asked in Common, “What did you have for lunch today?”

“Dry bread, eggs, the blue hermit got a glass of juice, Maestro, normally I can’t eat this well, I wanted a little extra sugar with finals coming up.” Jace replied smoothly in the common tongue.

He thought the exam was even over, so he relaxed all of a sudden.

“Repeat that in Orcish.” Dushan snapped.

What?

This was a dry spell for Jace, he had prepared a dozen possible questions and it turned out that the old boy Dushan was not martial?

Of course, it was impossible for him to express his dissatisfaction directly, and the teacher of course could test as much as he wanted to with this conversational form of language test.

Jace rubbed his forehead, and could only think of whatever orcish words he still remembered, spelling out sentences as best he could.

“In the morning, dried grain, bird eggs, fruit water.” When he finished, he looked at Dushan with expectant eyes, expecting him to spare himself.

“There’s two more sentences.” Dushan said.

Are you fucking with me?

Jace said stiffly in Orcish, “Normally, my food is not as good as it is today. But for the final trial, I must acquire more …… more …… sweet …… sweet things.”

Dushan nodded, writing something quickly in his logbook, his look, which had been quite relaxed a moment ago, now much more grave.

Jace felt like it was going to be the end of him, he was speaking at kindergarten level, kindergarten kids were much smoother than he was.

Since everyone was alone in the classroom for the test, Jess had no idea what the others had said.

Normally in class, everyone communicates in the common language in order to exchange knowledge and understanding faster, and the chances of hearing someone speak continuous orcish utterances are few and far between, and there’s no way to get a feel for everyone’s level.

But he always felt finished, nervous, plus only a month’s preparation time, Dushan is playing tricks here again, this time this boat ticket is definitely going to be out of his own pocket.

No chance of getting a few more laughs from Marin when we get out, let alone Grider.

From the time he entered Azeroth until now, he almost did not have a few things that were smooth …… The only thing that felt sort of favored by heaven was that no matter how unlucky he was, he did not lose his life, which was not bad.

I thought I was pretty talented in languages, but now? Instead, I flopped on the language test.

There’s just something about flipping out on something you think you’re good at and finally realizing the cold, hard reality – which is that you have no talent at all – that’s just so hard to swallow.

Thinking that way he felt less and less interesting until Dushan looked up and asked, “Hey? Why are you still here?”

“Uh, sorry, Master Duchamp.” He gathered his belongings and prepared to leave.

“By the way, Jace, you’re from Lordaeron aren’t you?” Dushan asked “Any plans to go home for Winterfest?”