I was awoken from my nap by a slight nudge on my back as I felt my body slightly shaking. I opened my eyes slowly but since I felt the nudging continue, my body reflexively jolted up as I went alert as the surroundings were for a moment unfamiliar to me.
A surprised shriek that sounded like ‘Eeeep’ coming from a young girl. It took a second for it to dawn in my mind that I remembered I was in a village and that I startled poor Rosie for absolutely no reason. I quickly gathered my bearings and stood up from the bed as I apologised while clasping my hands together “I sincerely apologise for that, miss Rosie!”
“Grandfather wants to speak to you…” Rosie - who was ever more cautious of me after that - nodded while giving a curt bow before pointing towards the open door where I can see Alfred looking at me with a raised eyebrow whilst sipping on a cup “If you’ll excuse me now…”
Rosie exited immediately after as I gave my body a couple of stretches. I made my way to the main hall back to Alfred’s desk as I tried my best to hold in a yawn. As I approached I saw that Alfred was in the middle of writing on some book.
“You gave Rosie quite a jump there, Charlie boy.” Alfred laughed a little before gesturing for me to sit down on the chair at his desk. As I sat, I saw Alfred dip his quill back in the inkcase and close the book he was writing on which had an emblem of a red scale shield on it. Seeing people write with a quill brought me back. I was already used to modern ballpoints but there’s just something nostalgic about it.
“I’m very sorry about that, it was a reflex action.” I said as I scratched the back of my head. “I’m just not too used to the environment yet, is all.”
“Aye, indeed. Which is why I had Rosie wake you up…” As Alfred said that, he rolled his wheelchair a bit back while taking a large roll of parchment from under the desk before laying it out on top of it. “I feel bad for cutting your rest short but I think it’s best for us to start your lessons sooner rather than later.”
The unrolled parchment showed what looked to be a map of the known world.
[https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1339x657q90/924/SALgYK.png]
It was a comprehensive political map, no doubt about it. It gave a clear outline on where countries were in comparison to each other along with their sizes.
“Before we start, might I ask you something?” Alfred asked
“By all means, sir.” I nodded
“How are you able to speak Archioric? Is there an equivalent of it in your world?”
“Perhaps so. All I know is that when I came to, you all were just speaking the common tongue of my own world. Is Archioric the common tongue here?”
Alfred was perplexed at my question as he sat back with his hands folded on the table while looking at me. “Archioric is the common tongue in Feldonia, here where we’re at.” Alfred pointed to the part of the map which said ‘Kingdom of Feldonia’. And when I say common tongue it really is more with the common urban folk. The nobility still speak a form of Vertefleurian Altergen while some of the lower commoners would speak Old-Aldrothian.”
“Can you give me an example of one of those other languages, if you may? Perhaps the language of the nobility?” I asked. Might as well if I wanted to get in good with the upper class society of the Kingdom “If you can that is…”
“Évidemment, je parle Altregen. Tu ne devrais pas me mépriser, mon ami.” Alfred shot back in a most elegant accent where I couldn’t even hear a trace of his more common English accent. It shocked me even more than the fact that the prestige language of this Kingdom was actually French. Well, I’d have to respond in kind as Alfred was showing an obscenely smug face.
“Excusez-moi, Monseigneur, je ne l'ai pas dit dans ce sens.” I bowed a little as I apologised
“Bwahahahahah!!” Alfred laughed with an equally surprised look on his face like he hadn’t seen anything funnier “I deserved that, honestly… But you’re confusing me more and more. I’m starting to feel I’m being pranked on. You speak Altergen well, but you have a very slight accent that I would mistake you for being from the Lowereich Empire…”
“Perhaps the matter of linguistics should be put aside for now, Al. Even from my own world I could speak half a dozen languages. If all of them have an equivalent in this one, I’d like to assume I’d at least be able to get by in most of this world.” Another unexplained bonus from my first awakening in the modern world was instant knowledge in English and all the modern forms of the languages that I spoke.
“Really now? Impressive, even now I can only read and write in Archioric, Altergen, and Aldrothian. I can speak a little Sevaldian Germanic. Oh and in Latin too.”
“Latin?” There it goes again. I realised that I really shouldn’t harp on too much on every little bit of detail that might harken back to my old world
“Yes, the Ecclesiastical language of the Church of Sanctum and still is the formal language of many countries of the south… Why, you have that in your world too?”
I only nodded with an awkward smile.
“And you can speak that too?”
I nodded again. “Yes, sir.”
Alfred gave out an exasperated sigh before shaking his head and laughing in defeat. “You really are an odd one, Charlie boy.” Alfred rolled away from the desk towards a large bookshelf near it before he took out several books and laid them on the desk “Here, these books might be of use to you.”
I saw the books and the titles upon the leatherbound covers. Suffice to say, the printing press should most definitely be a thing in this world, especially from seeing this absurd amount of books all in the office of a village head. The book titles were interesting to behold as I saw them. ‘Orbis, a brief History of the Eras’, ‘Peoples of the World’, ‘Kings of Feldonia, From Albert I to Albert V’, among others.
“You have an awful lot of books here, Alfred. One would mistake you for a very wealthy man!” I said as I looked over the many other books Al sorted out
“And who’s to say I’m not, eh? Ahahahah… Decades of adventuring and seeing a good deal of the world would leave you with quite the collection! Anyways, these books are a great tool and since you know how to read, I can afford to conserve time and energy by just making you read these, though if I have to make a recommendation on what to read, start from a brief history of the eras and then towards ‘Peoples of the World’. The history books are a great read but they aren’t quite so vital to life. But regardless, I’d like to spend this day teaching you just the basics to get by and I’d be doing it in the questions and answers format we were doing just earlier. So today’s a free for all. So did you have anything in particular you wanted to ask again?”
I was in silent contemplation for a bit as to what might be an important piece of information. It took a good few seconds, but I managed to ask a question.
“This may sound odd, but is there a Dark and Evil Mad Tyrant or Demon King that is hell bent on taking over the world?” I asked
“Demon… King?” Alfred was a little perplexed by my question “Care to elaborate?”
“Like perhaps a fallen god or some kind of great evil sorcerer hell bent on conquering the known world that needs to be stopped?”
“Ah, I see… well then in that case, the answer is ‘no’, at the very least not anymore. I’ve vaguely heard of a similar concept to this but again, it was a story from the Age of the Heroes. Those ancient heroes that were summoned were said to be summoned by the Old Aurigenian Elven Empire some two to three thousand years ago.”
“Summoned for what purpose?”
“To do battle against and defeat the Great Sorcerer-King Atramagis. I think the main information is here…” Alfred pulled out one of the books he had stacked on the desk called ‘The Myth of Heroes: An Apotheosis’ and opened it, skimming through for a few seconds it to find the passage he was looking for. “Ah, here it is. ‘At the end of his second century on the Golden Throne of Aurigenia, Magnarex (lit. ‘Great King’) Amatus Gratis was killed by his heir, Luceris Mundis who then usurped the aurisedis.’ Mhm, yes now I remember. So basically, some old king from God knows how long ago got killed by his own son, a civil war ensued, and this son being up to that point the strongest magic user in the world began a century-long tyranny. In response to this, said evil-king’s own heir devised a plan to summon ‘great heroes’ from the arcane planes to help combat Luceris who they now called ‘Atramagis’.”
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“Ah, that makes sense, I guess. And the heroes defeated the Evil King and restored the rightful heir to the throne and everyone lived happily ever after?” I jested a little with the cliche-sounding story.
“You’d think that, but no. You see, the old Aurian Empire were a powerful lot, as Elves tend to be of course.” Alfred answered. He just casually mentioned that Elves exist and so I guess that’s a thing now “It’s rather unfortunate though that the Aurians believed in a concept - which is still somewhat prevalent to this day - of Elven supremacy. And they were a slave-owning Empire.”
I was beginning to see where this was going.
“The leader of the heroes asked the new king if he would abolish the state of slavery and give the humans of the realm or ‘the Inferii’ equal status as people.”
“I can imagine how that went.”
“Very poorly to say the least. You see, the heroes were not all powerful when they were summoned so they were all trained by the Elves in combat and the like. But the problem being that the summoned heroes were all effectively human or at the very least considered themselves as such despite the fact that they didn’t age and were superior to even the Elves in raw magical talent. Long story-short, a showdown happened and the rest is history.”
“Long story short for you maybe, but I want to know what happened next…” I said like an excited child hearing a fun story from his actual grandfather “Also please explain in just a bit more detail.”
“You do realise you can read the book yourself, right Charlie boy?” Alfred caught on to my mood and gave a good laugh “Pfft, fine. If you’re going to be like that, sit tight.. Now where was I?”
“The Heroes demanded the slaves to be freed.”
“Ah yes. You see, the Elves when they summoned the heroes put upon them a sort of magical crest usually put upon by slavers to their slaves. What they didn’t realise was that the heroes had learnt their tricks in secret and quietly undid their binding and were effectively loose cannons now that the threat of Atramagis subsided. The heroes declared the Elven Imperium illegitimate and denounced it, but they realised most of the people were tired from warfare so they abstained from declaring an all-out war. Instead, the heroes declared all non-criminal slaves to be effectively freed peoples and of equal majesty with any race. The freed Inferii who did not want to remain in Elven lands asked to be lead to a separate more fertile location. The heroes acquiesced to this demand and so began the ‘Exodus of the Latins’ towards the land we now call the Arterisian peninsula…”
“Did the Elves not do anything to try and stop them or take their slaves back?”
“They couldn’t at that point even if they wanted to. The loss of their main source of manpower had greatly destabilised their realms. The non-slave human client-states automatically declared their own independence from Elven rule and the Beastmen slaves, who had long been oppressed called it quits as well. Point is, everything went to shit for the Elves.”
“And what happened to the heroes after that?”
“After the fall of the Aurian Imperium, the heroes established a great state centered in the city of Sanctum and for the next 500 years, Orbis came to the Era of the Heroes. The Heroes established the Legendary city of Megasras on the Caethanian Islands.”
“Judging by how on this map of yours, there is no ‘Kingdom of the Heroes’ or what have you not, the ending didn’t go so well for them.. Did it?”
“Ever the perceptive one, Charlie. No it indeed did not. The Heroes quickly became conquerors themselves though records remaining today with us say that they preferred to call themselves ‘liberators’ or ‘unifiers’ and the many humans they lorded over brought over the Ancient Elven practice of Apotheosis and deified the strongest of the Heroes, giving them aspects of pre-existing pantheons or worshiping them as Gods outright. But for whatever reason, a conflict arose in the 5th century of their rule started by who we today would call the ‘Traitor Hero’, Vindex. He waged war against his fellow heroes and they tore each other apart. The Great city of Megasras was totally destroyed and a catastrophe occured on the islands of Caethanos. A huge portal or vortex of some kind appeared, blasting the area with an insane amount of mana-...”
“Mana?”
“The innate energy around us, the very fabric upon which magic is based bla bla, don’t interrupt me when we’re getting to the good part!”
“Oh, apologies, it’s my bad.”
“Alright, so the vortex appeared and a whole host of ungodly creatures, beasts, and monsters appeared out of it and wrought wanton destruction and death. The heroes, who were in the middle of fighting reunited just for that one moment, but the great battle took its toll on them and records say that most if not all the heroes perished along with the vortex they closed. Some of the minor heroes that managed to escape lost a great deal of their powers as well as immortality and were effectively made mortal. Thus with the destruction of Megasras, so too ended the age of the heroes.”
It was a surreal story. Back on Earth, a story like that would most probably belong in the category of myth. Or a terrible fiction written by a lout with no friends and too much time on their hands. But regardless, I asked Al again, “Are the ruins of Megasras still able to be visited?”
“No. While greater destruction from the vortex managed to be contained, the damage had already been done. Till this day, the mana in those isles remain turbulent and a wide array of beasts and monsters have laid claim to the place as their own. Perhaps some stowaway pirates or criminals might have some steadings there, but in regards to any proper civilisation, no state or country to this day lay claim to those Islands.”
“Why not? I’m sure there must be some powerful items or artifacts that might be found there.”
“Perhaps…” Alfred gave a nonchalant shake of his head “But from a geopolitical standpoint, those islands aren’t worth the effort. The unstable mana and the constant need to defend any sort of settlement there would be very costly, becoming a sinkhole for funds that could be better spent elsewhere, and the fact that the weather over there is far too unpredictable with random storms popping up now and then for unknown reasons. Many brave adventurers have tried throughout the years to find anything useful, but regardless of which, they would always pay a heavy price…”
I noticed Alfred beginning to rub his paralysed legs in a slightly nervous way but you’d be hard-pressed to notice it. He seemed to have more history with the Islands then I have any business to pry so I decided to let the matter go.
“Anyways, I think that’s enough story-time. We need to get to the real lessons…” Alfred said as he clasped his hands and smiled. For some reason I had a bad feeling about that and I was terrified as I remembered the fierce teachers I had back in the academy. “We’ll start with an introductory lesson to the world of Orbis, starting with the sentient peoples who inhabit it-...”
Just as Alfred was opening another book to start an actual history lesson, a knock could be heard coming from the door.
“Al, are ya busy?” The door opened and it was one the men Alfred called in earlier to prepare supplies for me. I remembered his name was Jasper.
“I was just having a discussion with the young hero here!” Alfred played it off cool as he gave my shoulder a solid smack of endearment which hurt more than I thought it would. “Is there a problem?”
“It’s a little important, the village Elders have asked to immediately reconvene in the council hall. They need you there to oversee it since you're the village head.”
I saw Alfred roll his eyes as he sighed heavily while leaning back on his wheelchair before looking back to me. “You got lucky, Charlie. I don’t think you’ll be seeing me for the rest of the day, so all I ask is you stay here for now and get to reading. If you need any help with food or beverage or whatnot, you can ask Rosie for help. But while we can never repay you enough, please be wary not to treat Rosie as a maidservant…”
I nodded my head earnestly. I think my mentality of being served was dealt with sufficiently enough in 3 years of the academy. “I won’t be a bother, sir.”
“Good man.” Alfred nodded as he motioned for Jasper to help push his wheelchair for him. As soon as the two left and closed the door, I grabbed the book about the heroes and immediately got to reading it. It was through and through a history book, but it was written in such a style that made it sound like an epic that I must not have noticed how much the time flew by on the clock without me noticing. I barely managed to nod my head and thank Rosie for pre-emptively supplying me with food and drink and periodically refilling my drinking glass. I really did start to feel bad for her. I quickly got up and gave her a slight bow and told her that she didn’t need to look after me so much as I was going to take a rest in my room. I said rest but I really just meant binge-reading the hero book that I found so interesting. I took an oil lamp from the desk and lit it up to continue my reading in my room. It’s times like these that I sometimes miss the comforts of modern technology. The ease of just flicking a switch and voila, let there be light.
One of the most interesting facts I got from the book is a comprehensive list of known heroes during the Heroic era. There were nearly a thousand names listed but only a several dozen had biographies and even less had defined facts. The leader of the Heroes, known to many as Soterios, later worshiped as the God-liberator of mankind, honored as the first incarnation of Caelum, God of the Skies. Yikes. Obviously these names were appended to them later as the book gave several names for each of the heroes. I actually stumbled upon a biography I was hoping to learn about. It was a page on the Hero who’s real name was said to be Ianna, but she later became known as Intea, worshiped as the Goddess of Wisdom.
I gave her biography special attention as she was the ‘Goddess’ that gave me my skill blessing. It was written on the book,
‘The Hero Ianna was part of the Great Liberator’s core party. As the main strategist of the heroes, she was the mastermind behind the fall of Atramagis. Ianna was said to be of the highest intelligence, rivaling the intellect of even the most ancient of the Elven Maguses and Magisters. Her intellect and wisdom were rivaled only by her beauty which was second only to her compatriot Sybilla, honoured as the Peerless Godess of Beauty. Ianna bore the name Intea as she was honored as the Goddess over Wisdom and all aspects of Intellect. Ianna taught the many human mages and magisters all the knowledge of magic she had learned from the elves and some aspects of the arcane that she had discovered on her own…’
While I was busy reading the book, the door to my room suddenly opened and I saw Al had returned. I could catch a glimpse of the clock behind him and it showed that it was nearly midnight. I was almost shocked that I had spent a good deal of four hours engrossed in my reading.
“My, I knew you must be clever but I never took you as the particularly bookish type, Charlie boy!” Alfred said with a satisfied grin “Seeing as how you’ve almost finished that awfully thick book.”
“Oh it was just a few hundred pages, give or take, nothing too bad.”
“My mother would’ve loved you, God rest her soul.” Alfred said “But, I’m planning to have a busy day for you tomorrow so it’s best if you catch some rest soon, Charlie.”
“Aye. That would indeed be best-...”
As soon as I said that and my eyelids were beginning to become heavy again, the doors to the office opened abruptly once more. It looked as if rest would once more be a scarce thing for me to have.