The monk that the young man met at the riverside brought him to a cabin or to be more accurate he followed them there uninvited. The hope that the monk could help explain the predicament that the young man was going through got diminished when the young man found out they could not communicate in a mutual language. They knew enough of his native language to tell him that the monk could not speak in it. The monk was just as surprised to see the young man as the young man was when he discovered that they could not speak in his native language. The first thing they told the young man when they saw him was that they did not understand the language enough to speak in it but were able to comprehend him when he talked to them. The monk probably expected to be pestered by the young man for they had that look of guilt on their face. The young man was just disappointed and wondered whether he was even still in his own country? Had he drifted somewhere abroad? The young man remembered he had met a little girl at the meadows before he had left there. Was she also not able to speak his native language as well? She had disappeared before he got a chance to talk with her to confirm or deny that.

There were many other cabins besides the one that the monk had. She probably lived in one of the many others. If the young man ended up meeting her here, he would very much like to talk to her about where she had hidden. She must have been good at playing hide-and-seek, that was for sure. The cabin the monk lived in was filled with dusty old books as he had expected it would though he was anticipating a stone cathedral rather than a wooden hut. The monk probably spent more of his time with the scriptures here then by the riverside meditating. He thought that it was a good thing that the young man met them there when they did. None of the books on the bookshelf that the monk had were written in a script that the young man could understand like maybe Arabic or the more obvious Latin alphabet. It looked much more similar to the obscure writing system that some of the Austronesian languages still used like Khmer or Burmese.

The young man tried asking permission from the monk to read one of the books on the shelf even though he did not know the language they were written in. He used a mix of signals which included putting both of his palms together as if he was praying, then pointing to the bookshelf and to his eyes before tracing his fingers to his palm as if he was writing. The monk was initially puzzled but then gradually became amused at his best efforts to communicate to them that he wanted to read the books. In the end the monk thought they understood what the young man was trying to convey to them since they took out one book which was significantly thinner than the other more voluminous titles on the shelf and gave it to him. The book that the monk gave the young man was obviously written for children since there were more pictures than words in each page of it. They had probably considered that when they chose the book for the young man to flip over. He was not able to understand the words, but he was still able to appreciate the illustrations which really helped in telling him the story. 

From what the young man could deduce the tale through interpreting the series of images in the children’s book, it was the story of a hero who as a young boy was already capable of defending his people from barbaric intruders. He worked as a woodcutter with his father who from the wood they gathered also created and sold furniture while his mother was a tailor who had her own boutique that sold dresses, she made herself for cheap that all the peasants could afford. Every evening after work or for the entire day during the weekends, he practices the Silat martial art as how most Malay children would do to become the king’s champion with a guru on top of a hill alongside a few friends. Under the tutelage of his guru, the young boy and his compatriots were taught self-defense and meditation.

Later in the book after years of ferocious training, the young boy has grown to become a well-known mercenary. He is hired by some townsfolk to deal with a few dozen men who have run amok in the village. The royal advisor to the king with a party of guards coincidentally had also been visiting the area and may have been the reason for the entire ruckus. His entire team of guards fled when they felt like they could not take them on, leaving him alone during the scramble. In their defense, even though they had superior weapons and were wearing armor compared to the raging peasants who were only wearing filthy rags and held simple farming tools to strike their enemy, they were plenty outnumbered. The mercenary who had brought some backup for the encounter was at a nearby stall and immediately stepped up to rescue the royal advisor.

He was so amazed by the courage of the mercenary fighting of the men, he rewarded the entire mercenary company with a noble steed each. The royal advisor presented the mercenary to the king for acknowledgement of his heroics and was knighted as a result alongside with a few other notable warriors who he later befriended. As a knight to the king, he became commander to a massive army far larger than the band of mercenaries he had previously led. He would later spearhead the fight in a war for the kingdom’s independence from the tyrannical empire. The hero won and was able to enforce his king’s demand for the emperor to cede control of all the territory under the kingdom. After the war, the hero of the story is no longer noted for his achievements as a warrior but as an ambassador who maintains relations with rulers of other realms. 

The tragedy of the tale begins when the hero is wrongly accused of adultery with the king’s newly wedded wife. The king who did not do any prior investigation towards the offence banished the hero from the kingdom. This led his friend who was knighted with the hero to lead a rebellion in order to seek justice for him. There were rumors that spread regarding the king for deliberately accusing the hero of the crime knowing entirely well he was innocent, and the king’s wife had actually been very faithful. The reason behind this was that the king felt that the hero’s influence and power had grown too much too fast and wanted to remove him entirely from the royal court, but his plan backfired when the hero’s friend began wreaking havoc. The story supposedly continues on but since the young man could not understand the language and was simply guessing the plot from the pictures, he could not continue reading the book although there were many more words written after the last image in the book.

The young man was so absorbed with the children’s book that he did not realize the day had gone dark. It seems he had been reading the book for the entire day. Although to the young man, the sky was bright just a few moments ago. He noticed that there was a fire burning at the fireplace. It was not particularly for warming up the place since it was not really cold but rather for the illumination since there was no electricity here. The young man guessed using fire for lighting was useful in that regard. Though he imagines it has to be extinguished later when they go to sleep otherwise it will become a fire hazard. The young man wondered why the monk had not checked on him while he was reading. Where was the monk anyway? They were no longer in the cabin. 

The young man assumed the monk had been preparing some food for dinner and he was probably correct at that assumption because there were dishes on the dining table which was most likely left by them unless the cabin had another occupant that the young man did not know of. The food was still warm so the person who had done the cooking must have only recently finished making them. They had fried some catfish and made sambal. The fact that there were more than two catfish on the table might have been indication enough that there was going to be more than two people eating but it was when the young man took a look at the volume of the content in the rice pot which had more than enough rice for three people was, he sure that there was going to be another person eating with him and the monk.

The young man was still not sure if the monk had actually done the cooking but was certain that there was going to be more than just the two of them who were going to be having dinner there in the cabin with them. The neighing of a horse was heard just outside of the abode as the young man was still thinking about the food on the table but before he could go outside to take a look, the monk had entered only this time they were not wearing the robe they had worn earlier in the day. They were clad in armor and appeared to be hurt. They closed the door behind them as they got into the cabin and collapsed to the floor as they reached out for me. They held their throat while cupping their hands to their mouth which the young man assumed to mean they wanted some water.

The young man found a jug filled with water on the dining table. He poured it into a glass to give it to the monk, but he was too late. The monk was already dead in the short time the young man went to get the water though it was hardly his fault. Unsurprisingly, the first thing on his mind was not the person’s life right in front of him leaving their body but whether he could be liable for any punishments. The young man was worried about being accused of foul play, especially since the monk mysteriously dies on the exact same day he appears at this place. He was not a doctor so he could not tell for sure, but he checked anyway for the monk’s pulse and could not find one, so he came to the conclusion that they had passed away. What exactly was going on here? Who was this monk and why were they killed? How were they inflicted their fatal injuries? Had the young man missed a battle of some sort while he was reading the book just now? Had he been a craven who had hidden while another sacrificed himself?

The young man had so many questions but there was nobody around him to answer any of them. Wait just a moment. There were plenty of other cabins in the area. The young man could knock on every door until he got some answers but should he though? There must be some sort of war going on right now. The young man thinks that the monk may have not been the only casualty. He actually managed to escape the battlefield before dying here in the cabin. There must have been plenty who died then and there at the battlefield wherever that was. The young man looked at the deep cut, that fatal wound which killed the monk. The trail of blood could be seen as far as the eye could see. It was impressive that they were still able to hold on to their horse and walk in their last moments.