The next day?, I actually can’t tell since there is no window in this room, started quite calm. When I woke up and I was greeted with all the new and unfamiliar signal that my new body was sending me. After that little talk yesterday I was too occupied with my thoughts to do anything else. So I still hadn't gotten a look at the rest of my body, though I could already tell that I wasn’t going to like what I would find.
I braced myself and got up. I did so with closed eyes, didn’t want to get a glimpse of my body before I was prepared. Once standing, I opened my eyes and looked down. Since I kinda already knew what I was going to find I wasn’t as surprised as I would’ve been otherwise.
A resigned sigh was the only sound that I made before sitting back down onto the bed. My body was that of a woman or rather a teenage girl. I had moderately sized breasts, which strangely didn’t have any nipples and a slim waist. My Hips weren’t all that wide, but combined with my waist still resulted in a mild curve. I couldn’t see my butt so I have no idea what that looks like, but, judging by the rest of my body, it probably also looked rather nice.
Now, I still had completely black skin, black nails and black hair, black seems to be my new primary colour theme, but I didn’t look all that ugly? I guess. If someone were to tell me about a person with completely black skin and nails and everything, I wouldn’t have expected that person to look all that good. But I do, or at least I think that I do.
Oh, I am not only lacking nipples but also my butthole and vagina are lacking. If this entire situation weren’t so weird already I’d probably have a panic attack right now.
My feet aren’t small (in fact, they were just right), given that the rest of my body is also so small and slim and everything, but compared to what I’m used to, they are. While I am quite bad with guessing heights and distances, I’d say that I am about 1.50m tall.
Okay, so let’s summarise my situation. I was summoned to another world but not as a hero or something like that, but as a sacrifice for some ritual/summoning by a necromancer. The ritual/summoning, is interrupted by a group of knights? I never asked what they were. Anyway, somehow the ritual/summoning doesn’t have the effect that it should have and instead of using all the sacrifices that were given and then doing whatever it was supposed to do, it turned me into a pseudo elemental. I don’t know why that includes turning me into a girl with black skin but no nipples, butthole or vagina but apparently it does. The knights that had previously interrupted the necromancer during his ritual/summoning have taken me to their base and given me 3 options, none of which are, in my opinion, good ones.
The squeaking of the stopped me before I could start complaining about the whole unfairness of my situation. This time around, only the woman from yesterday entered my room. She wore the same clothes as yesterday. The fact that she, again, entered directly after I woke up means that I was probably being observed. Privacy doesn’t seem to mean much to these guys.
“How are you today? Anything that you want, food, water?”
I shook my head. I was feeling no thirst or hunger even though I had slept for several days and hadn’t eaten anything even before that. It was weird but not as weird as the rest of this situation.
“I feel fine, physically speaking. Mentally is …” I trailed off. I didn’t know how to describe my feelings, so I said nothing. She just nodded as if she expected an answer like that.
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“That’s only to be expected. I don’t think that yesterday was a real help and one night's sleep is hardly enough to deal with such a major life-changing event.” Her tone was somewhat soothing. It sounded like she had some experience with people like me. Well, probably only with people having a hard time, but it still helped. “Do you still have some questions? I don’t think that yesterday was enough to answer all of your questions.”
I thought for a moment. “What’s it like to live here, in this world I mean.” This was what had concerned me the most. I don't have any real attachment to my home so I don’t mind the fact that it’s quite unlikely that I could ever return. However, with my future so uncertain and me not having any information, my imagination painted me quite a bleak view of my situation and future.
“That isn’t that easy to answer, you know. It largely depends on where you live and what your job is. Here in Viridi Teram, our Kingdom, the common man can mostly live in peace. There is the occasional proditor who causes trouble or, as you experienced, a rogue mage who causes trouble with their thirst for knowledge and or power.” She looked at me with gentle eyes.
“So it’s peaceful for the most part?”
She tilted her head in thought and then shook her head. “Sadly, not really. Here in the east, it is rather calm but in the inland, the kingdoms are in an everlasting power struggle. They haven’t had a single year of peace in the last 200 years. Also, the proditors cause trouble wherever they appear so small villages are destroyed every once in a while. It is calm yes, but not peaceful.”
“You mentioned proditors, what are they?” The word was somehow familiar. I was pretty sure that I have never heard it before but I still knew it, somehow.
“Ah, sorry. I forgot. Proditors are… no one is sure what they are. They come in many forms. From something akin to a human to wild beasts. They appear everywhere, on mountains, in the oceans and seas or forests and fields. The only common trait that they all share is the general wrongness that they have. Most of the time their bodies are twisted in one way or another, and just their presence causes the land around them to die and become twisted. They attack every non-proditor that they encounter, but luckily they don’t appear in large numbers, though there have been some who are capable of reproducing.” She shook her head ruefully but recovered right afterwards.
It seems like these proditors are like typical monsters in fantasy. So, calm but not peaceful…
"And mages? If possible I’d like to be able to stay in towns so…” I already had a rough idea of the possibilities. They either treat magic as a science or as a tool, possibly both. Which meant that either mages research magic or use it to as a practical tool in several fields. Her earlier comment about the ‘their thirst for knowledge and or power’ was an obvious hint.
She smiled as if she wanted the conversation to go into this direction. “That depends on what the mage wants to do. A mage can try and discover more about magic as a researcher. Or they use it to help others as a healer or service provider. It is also possible to use it for fighting, mages who choose this either enlist in the army, become guards for some rich people or become mercenaries. There are many options as magic has unlimited possibilities.”
I nodded. So if I choose to enter a contract with a mage, I could end up doing almost anything, or rather help the mage do these things. “Does that mean that I could choose a mage as a partner from any possible career?”
This was the only choice that I had that didn't sound like complete garbage. The only other choices would be to live far away from people or to be sealed away, neither of which are appealing to me in any way.
“I’d like to say that you can but”, she sighed sadly, obviously not liking what she was about to say, “as you are a dark elemental, there are very few options for you to choose from. Dark magic is a magic that, outside of combat, has next to no other uses. It specializes in destruction, stealth, crowd control and death. Which makes it great for combat but not for anything else. The only other choice would be to try to enter a contract with someone who wants to become a researcher but those usually don’t contract elementals because they can’t really assist in their research. Elementals cast magic in a completely different way, a way that humans and demihumans can’t use. So having you as a partner would be of little use for them.”
Shit!