I wake up to the unfamiliar scenery. Plains, some sort of forest nearby, and smell of cooking meat over the smoke, and cracking of fire.

“He's still asleep?” a new, unfamiliar voice asks.

“Yes. It's surprising that he wasn't torn apart by the rampant energies during the ritual. I pity him.”

“At least he's still alive.”

“He is, but how many of us aren't?” I listen closely.

“I'm glad you survived, dad.”

“But for how long? Our kingdom fell, the rebels sided with empire and now they will hunt us down, unless we manage to find a shelter in one of the major countries, and I can't think of any that would accept any riches we might have given them while being targeted by Empire.”

“Isn't that summoning ritual worth a lot?”

“It would be, if we had some definitive results.”

“What about that person? He was summoned through the circle, surely he should be at least of some use.”

“According to the Queen, he saved my life, with this.” need to look to see what they are talking about, but I guess he's talking about stims.

“If you didn't sent me away-”

“You could have died. Silly child, why can't you understand that running isn't shameful.” I think I can hear a pout. Sigh. I think my armor is in inventory, but what should I ever do with it?

“He's awake?” uh... I can hear footsteps coming from behind my back. Shit. “Hey, human.”

“Being called human is rude, specieist. I consider myself a magical pony.”

“Did his soul got mashed up?” I sigh.

“It's a joke. What do you want, demon?”

“I am not demon!” I shrug as I turn to face the... well, classic demon, just without hooves.

“Succubus? Listen, I have no idea how you demons differentiate between yourselves, so-”

“I am Kijin, not a demon.”

“Well, I am Highlander, not a human.” she looks at me quizzically, and then the old man coughs.

“And how should we address you?” the old man asks. “I am called Archibald Hitzchlag. This is my daughter Amelia.” I nod.

“Well, you can call me Jack, I think. Jack Ravenholm.” love that level. So many zombies to kill. “I am more often than not called Crow instead of Raven though.”

“I should offer my thanks and apologize.”

“For?” the girl sighs.

“For summoning you, getting ritual sabotaged and exposing you to wild mana.”

“Nah, that I got already, what are the thanks for?”

“The item which you used to heal me.” he shows me an empty syringe.

“Stimpack. Don't worry, they just kickstart your healing process. You get quite hungry afterwards though. Unfortunately, that was my last one.” I point at my hand. “Stupid worm ate my arm.”

“Interesting. It can regrow limbs?” I nod.

“The stronger variety, but it has side effects so you kinda need one strong and about two weaker ones to counterract the side effects.” he seems to be lost in thoughts.

“Greater healing in a bottle. Curious.”

“In a syringe. Well, not that I know any healing spell myself, just a bit of telekinesis.” I grab the needle from the old man, fold it and put in my leg compartment. Will have to keep my inventory a secret for now. And armor. Hm... I wonder what should I tell him and what I shouldn't. “Say, can I ask a few questions?”

“Absolutely.” I nod.

“First of all, am I in another world?”

“Yes, I believe so. I never met anyone with such equipment. Also I did perform a summoning ritual, so I believe you are from another world, even if I wanted to summon a spirit.”

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“Or a demon.” his daughter intervenes.

“Alright, then what happened to the kid? The one constantly crying.”

“She's sleeping.” he points me at the other side of campfire. Didn't notice the girl before that.

“Do you know magic?”

“Yes, of course, I am a royal mage, one of the-”

“Most arrogant idiots who nearly got himself killed.” the old man coughs.

“Why are you asking?”

“Well... I don't know any magic. Aisde from accidentally discovering fireball.”

“Isn't your telekinesis would be considered magic?”

“Yeah, and what then? I can't lift a person in the air and slam them repeatedly at the hard surface, and clearly not in combat, too much attention is needed for this. Even simple items aren't that easy to use in combat with telekinesis, but I didn't have much practice in the first place.”

“If you want to learn magic, I can be your mentor, for now.” really?

“Really? That will be so cool! I get to shoot laser out of my eyes, cause earthquakes with just one stomp and deep fry fish without using any sorts of cooking utensils!” someone chuckled, probably both of them.

“How old are you?”

“About twenty. Also, if you know magic, do you have some sort of healing spells ready? I don't feel that well.” I mean, my skin became sickly pale and I am irradiated.

“It's not a disease that I know of. Your body seems to be fine, as far as I can tell.” I groan. “But I never knew you before you came to our world.”

“Well, screw it then. Will pass on it's own.” I sigh at this and yawn again. Damn, why am I so sleepy all the time? “The weakness inconveniences me though.”

“I understand... Dad, we might actually join Academy, they tend to avoid conflicts, and if anyone attacks them, surrounding nations would undoubtedly-”

“We have nothing to offer.” I sigh.

“Well, you actually have.” I point at myself. “Otherworlder.”

“They won't believe you.” I smile, sinisterly. But I guess with my helmet on... wait, I don't have my helmet on, just great.

“They will. Also if they can heal me, I don't mind giving them remains of my armor.”

“This won't-” I snap my fingers, and the power armor I was so used to appeared before me.

“This is my armor, unlike this suit. And it has a power core, which I can offer for the safety. Right?”

“You will use it? For us?”

“No, I will use it for myself, because I don't need shelter, while you do. On the other hand, you have valuable information on this world, including magic. And I want to play with magic, hell, since Central introduced me to the world of Anime, I... ahem. Basically a trade.” the old man nods.

“Seems fair.” the old man nods, but I can see no reaction from the girl. “We'll start our lessons tomorrow. But I can tell you about the our world, and if you would tell me about yours-”

“Sure. I am no historian or engineer, so I can't tell you much about it, so I'll talk about modern times, if you don't mind. I really don't know about all this Tudor nonsense, but...” my stomach growls.

“We'll talk after dinner then.” the old man smiles, while the girl laughed a bit. Honestly, they seem a bit too nice.

During the dinner there was nothing much to talk about, outside of the history exchange, briefly from my side. I omitted a few facts about myself, didn't lie yet, just didn't feel like sharing some stuff. Sure, they know I am a mercenary, stated that almost immediately, and that I was used to killing people for money, which doesn't seem all that different from, ahem, adventurers. Well, not adventurers, monster hunters, but for some reason they are also called mercenaries, adventurers, divers and whatnot. Just a bunch of mercs.

The kingdom of Askonia, aka, the fallen kingdom of theirs, was captured by Albion because of the crystal mines they had, rare deposit used in enchanting and item making. I dunno how to call that actually. Basically, imagine them being sitting atop, I dunno, oil, and Albion being US. Yeah, they had some tensions before, some bad blood, and having the strongest military force around they decided to just go and get themselves some oil, I mean, energy crystals. One thing comes out of another, then there the unruly nobles interested in becoming little kings, and you get a rebellion. Honestly, if I was a king of this country, I would just say fuck it, grab as much stuff as I can, leave the place and tell the cretins to do whatever the fuck they want, because now these cretins will become puppets of Albion. Oh, also all kingdoms, and empire, have some form of slavery or another. Neat.

Surprisingly, this Archibald fellow seems to really care about the little ex queen Ardrirosa, weird name, considering that Ardrirosa Askonia is weird to say the least. Then there is this Amelia, who, again, for some reason have her name starting on A, and it's getting kinda funny. Imagine if everyone in the kingdom had their names started with A, that would be hillarious.

And after the dinner and history lesson, which I wasn't that interested in, I got to practice magic. I must say, I really, really hate the meditation. So, I am starting to fall asleep, and I no longer care about anything. Worst case scenario, I'll just become a sellout once again. Yeah...

…

“Maybe we should start with simple spells first.”

“Would be much better than this, I'm basically sleeping already.”

“Let's start from the beginning. How can you conjure fireballs?”

“Uh... I just make a fireball and throw it at my enemies? I kinda thought it be useless, until I stopped using my armor, because I had to use quite a lot of mana for a simple spell.”

“Yes, that is mana conductivity of material. It takes more mana for any spell, as long as you're wearing certain types of clothing. That's why I'm using these robes.”

“Yeah, noticed.”

“Well, let's start then with how the spells are created.” I nod. “First of all, you need to learn what affinities you can use. Unfortunately, the affinity measurement tool was left in the castle, but from what I already learned, you can use fire spells, which isn't ideal for practicing, so we will train in the arcane.”

“Train in what now?”

“Raw mana, also known as arcane magic school.” Whatever. “It's more efficient if you have an affinity for certain element, but if you don't have any affinity, you still can use arcane.”

“So, why not use my fire affinity?”

“Because fire is the most dangerous affinity, aside from life.”

“Life? Why not death?”

“I never met a person that can use it.”

“You mean that living creatures can't use it or what?”

“Not like can't, but more like shouldn't even if they have it. Life is dangerous enough, you can both give and take away the life, but death... it can only bring death.”

“Hm... I bet you saw someone using it though.”

“You're not wrong. I saw what it can do to a living creature. Practicing it is forbidden just because of how it is dangerous to oneself as well as to the surroundings.”

“Cool.” he sighs.

“Now pay attention.” damn, I want to meditate instead of doing all this, getting sleepy again.