The walk along the long dirt road didn't seem to end. Whether forward or to the side, all that could be seen were endless clumps of live green, kept back from the main path by that strange fence of ordinary wood, though full of the bizarre properties of Magic.

Anyone who tried to pass in a place that wasn't in fact an opening would end up suffering a small shock the moment their hands touched the wood. It was an effective warning, though still probably unable to stop someone really stubborn from entering.

As the sun rose higher in the sky, the heavy feeling of humidity carried in the air gradually subsided, giving way to a drier and even somewhat more comfortable atmosphere, given that, even for approximately noon, it was not too hot.

“Maybe this place really is some kind of temperate zone.”

Jake remained observant the entire way, keeping an eye both on the landscape and the sensory information it brought. Through the trees, he even saw some animals and fruits he didn't know about — little things that would intrigue him even more if he still had internal contact with his emotions.

The creatures quickly scurried back into the depths of the woods however, not allowing much greater understanding than that afforded by mere seconds' observation.

The journey continued silently for an imprecise amount of time, but if he had to judge, the taller, dark-skinned boy would say it was about thirty minutes since they set feet away from that small river.

The path was mostly peaceful, as at no time had there been any exchange of words between the two lone travelers — a reality that would soon change in the next five steps.

“Hmm ...? That doesn't look like a mountain... "

Jake suddenly stopped his rhythmic walk. A comfortable breeze cut between him and the ground beyond, moving the grass and lifting some of the earth into a small cloud of dust.

He used his right hand to cover his dark eyes. Maybe he wasn't seeing so well, but... Was that a stone pillar?

“Enille.” He called out to her, without taking the focus off his observation.

“Ah...!” An exclamation took her voice, which brought her back to reality. “Oh… What is it, Jake? Why did you stop?”

The girl trapped in her thoughts was startled by the call. Judging by how she behaved before, — eyes glued to the ground, keeping an eye on her own shadow — would certainly have kept walking automatically if she hadn't been called.

She was still hugging the coat around her shoulders with a great deal of strength — so much so that she couldn't feel her fingertips. As she let go of his coat, the young lady finally noticed the pain in her right hand, brought on by muscle fatigue.

"Just up ahead." Jake pointed, signaling something she couldn't see. “Is that… Is it a tower of some kind?”

He didn't see much, and if he had to tell the truth, the thing still seemed too far away to get there so quickly. If he had to guess, the boy would say it would still take quite a bit more than two hours before they could finally get there.

“A tower? I don't see anything...” Enille strained to see, placing herself beside him.

"Yes. It appears to be just the tip of a tower. I recognize a triangle of sorts... It seems to be made of stone, too.”

It wasn't long before she came to a conclusion as to what he saw.

“Oooh! It's Calendas! It's one of the towers that surround the city walls...!”

Her mood, changed from water to wine, could have taken Jake by surprise. During the entire trip, the girl walked in a melancholy mood, constantly reflecting on what happened in the vicinity of the river.

Sometimes, he saw her eyes fill with tears again, tears that she hid as best she could, swallowing the turmoil of feelings that consumed her heart and gnawed at her insides.

So to see such a change in mood was almost a little too extreme — and such a judgment came from someone who no longer had the ability to empathize with any gradient of feelings whatsoever.

“Calendas is in a valley... That must be why you saw the top of the tower!” The blonde girl quoted, energetic. "If we keep walking, we'll arrive just past the start of the second quadrant of the solar axis!"

“And then we suddenly come back with the concepts that I still have to learn if I want to have the slightest success in this world.”

To say that he understood half of that sentence fluently would be a serious exaggeration. Apparently, that world didn't just have unique fauna and flora totally unrelated to anything he saw in his previous reality...

“... But it seems like they also created their own metrics and units for things.”

The concept of “hour” could already be generalized as utterly useless, the same being almost certainly valid for its derivatives. To say it would take “an extra minute” would mean nothing to the locals.

“As I see it, 'two periods' doesn't mean the same as 'two hours'... I should have realized that.”

Not that it mattered — he couldn't care any less in the first place.

“Inconvenient, but not necessarily bad.”

“Jake!” Enille ran up to him excitedly. "Let's go! You will like Calendas! It’s quite a big city, with its incredible 12 Wings of area!”

“Twelve… Wings…?”

He just had to ask. Even Jake had to admit that, even on a purely logical level, it was absurd.

"Yes! The wings of Ksarchznagush, a massive mythical dragon! His wings were said to be so big that each one could cover entire villages! Calendas is exactly the size of 12,047 Wings!”

The boy didn't know if he should just stop thinking about it for the moment or continue reflecting on all that new information.

Seeing it happen brought up a fact, though.

“She can be quite a nerd about some things, it seems.”

Realizing how committed Enille was to accumulating knowledge and relish the chance to share it with others reminded him of his own person in the past.

"All right. Let's keep walking, then.”

"Surely! I can't wait to get there and show you around and… Uh, Jake… ”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"Yeah? Anything you want to ask me?”

“Not exactly a question… More of a proposal.” She initiated. “You… Said you didn’t have anywhere to go, didn’t you…?”

The girl returned to her evasive state, unable to look Jake in the eyes, however with the right to a remarkable change, since sadness was no longer what painted her face.

“...So I've been thinking about talking to father and asking him if... Well, if you can stay at our place for a while..."

Enille timidly intertwined one of her blond locks with a finger and played with it.

"I can try to convince father... I mean, you saved me... It's the least I could do in return..."

That was a golden opportunity for him. Having Enille's support in that regard would be the first big step in his life and the boy knew it like no one else, however...

“We cannot cherry-pick our preferred factors in a multivariate analysis and call whatever comes out a ‘good result’.”

His analytical thinking led him to think about all the problems that would certainly come with accepting that proposal. First of all, he didn't know Enille's father, and the notion that he might be as prejudiced as his daughter was troubling.

“Enille tried to kill me, having mistaken me for a Dark Elf. Accordingly, I can only infer that the other humans from Enille's cultural background must not have the best of opinions about this either.”

There were too many risks to consider — all that without mentioning the obvious, as no barely sensible father would allow some random dude under the same roof as his daughter, especially in medieval times.

“No need to worry about that. I can take care of myself. Besides, you don't just allow strangers into your home."

Seeing his blatant rejection made her panic.

“But you can't be without a place to stay...! There are beasts out here... And criminals! It's dangerous, Jake! … And you are not a stranger… Not to me!”

There was no reason to continue that debate, as she wouldn’t budge.

“We can talk about that another time. We're now going to focus on getting you home safely, because that's going to take a lot of time from what I can see."

“Hunf… Alright…” Enille crossed her arms and pouted, in a gesture that was a bit too immature for someone her apparent age.

“Huh … It seems that, in the end, she is nothing more than a child.”

And the two continued walking for another couple of minutes, until Jake began to notice something — the strange feeling of being occasionally watched.

“Huh… I see. Wait a minute...”

He coldly calculated his gestures, and at just the right moment...

“Waaah...!” The blonde girl tried her best to avoid showing that she was spying on him from the side.

“I saw it.” He answered, sounding factual. "What's it? Got something to ask?”

The girl squirmed in on herself for a few seconds, and between a few “uhh…” and “uhm…” , she brought herself to say.

“I was just here thinking to myself and… You really are quite tall, Jake.” She looked him in the eyes.

“And what do you mean by that?”

Indeed. The very top of Enille's head rested against the base of Jake's sternum bone. The disparity in height was almost frightening.

"Now I understand father's reason for wanting to have a boy instead of me..." She stated in a low tone, however, Jake was able to hear everything.

“Did your father really say that?”

Accepting that he had heard it all, Enille took a large breath, and looking down a little, began to speak.

“Yes... Father always wanted a strong man… One that’s able to hold a sword and join the troop of royal warriors... But instead I was born... A weak little girl who can barely use a short sword...”

She slowed her pace for a moment, which made Jake match the change.

“I have the dream of joining the army, but I heard that the entrance exam and daily training are very difficult. Men and women have the same access to registrations, but most aspiring female warriors end up failing due to the physical level required... After all, physically speaking, men are much stronger..."

Instead of saying anything, he just listened intently.

"... And I'm just a short and skinny girl without any aptitude for it... I apologize for forcing you to listen to that."

Suddenly, all of her behavior so far made sense. She felt inadequate by her family's standards and demands.

“She feels like she failed her father by simply existing.”

At that point, it was more than clear to assume that the girl had absolutely no knowledge of her own strengths. Enille didn't have confidence in herself or even considered trying anything other than sword fighting. She was blind to her own talents.

“Probably that event in the forest was completely unconscious.”

The blast of magical wind was not treated by those hooded individuals as something regular or even normal. Whatever that was, it was obviously a big deal.

"Look at me, bothering other people with my problems yet again..." She tried to mask her pain in a smile. “Jake, there's another stretch of river nearby... Can we take a break?”

***

He, already kneeling, extended his cupped hands, filling them with pure water that ran crystal clear, and almost taking it to his mouth, decided to look to the side for a second.

Enille was partially submerged in the shallow river, only about a meter deep. She went in there with all her clothes except boots and the chainmail armor, in order to wash off the vomit that previously stained them. The flow of water existed in the Enille-Jake direction, not the other way around. Realizing that, he let the water drop from his hands on purpose.

“No way am I drinking this… At least not yet.”

His thirst could wait for her to leave. Better that than an otherworldly and potentially magical bacterial infection.

The sun barely made its way through the dense foliage and that chilled the water which, according to the girl, came down from the tops of the great mountains in the distance. As stated by Enille, it was a watercourse supported by the melting of snowy peaks, and therefore, the quality of its water was highly appreciated for its purity.

“Knowing the people in my world, someone would clearly want to capitalize on top of this.”

Even without feelings, Jake could still “feel” it to be quite an absurd that water from some random block of frost in Iceland to cost more than thirty bucks.

It was a calm and peaceful place, where time seemed to pass a little more slowly. Beside them, on the edge, some strange beings kept company.

Cats — though not the common felines he was used to.

"Looks like the Welvyens took a liking to you, Jake!" Enille said, re-emerging back to the ground.

The intense noises of her arrival attracted the attention of the small animals, no bigger than a head, endowed with bright yellow eyes and a body that appeared to be made of dark wood, with a leaf or two growing from their ears or tails.

The two small animals circled Jake curiously, studying the strange human.

“They are beasts just like the others, but since they are harmless, I’m yet to hear of any adventurer who is comfortable with having to kill them.”

Enille knelt, her hair and clothes dripping onto the dirt and leaves floor. She raised her wet right hand and caressed one of the little beings, who showed immense satisfaction with the gesture.

The little “plant cat” meowed, allowing itself to rest its head in the girl's cool hand.

... ... ...

Until that intense noise made them flee.

... ... ...

“Was that… A wolf…?” Jake asked.

Nearby, a violent howl echoed through the trees. Frightened, the two small animals quickly ran away, deep into the dark forest.

“Jake ... Get ready...!”

Enille leapt into a combat stance, pulling the sword she carried from its scabbard, keeping her gaze fixed on a specific spot among the various trunks.

Sounds of wood and leaves cracking and splitting thanks to powerful footsteps approached the two, and it didn't take much for its owner to reveal itself.

“GRRRRRRRRRR...”

The singular white beast saw them from afar and since that instant had not taken its gaze off the pair across the river, all too aware of what its next move would be.

"I can't believe this..." Enille murmured, almost inaudibly. "It can’t be..."

The huge, majestic white wolf opened its jaws. From it, a thin layer of icy smoke escaped. Its size was immense, being easily larger than Jake plus a half of him if it were on two legs.

“Hmm … Is that ice?” The boy new to that world noticed something peculiar.

Just below each of the beast's mighty paws the vegetation was forced to die as a thin layer of frost consumed leaves and twigs, spreading like disease.

“Jake ... We... We're going to have to fight... "

The girl's grip on her sword was terribly shaky, showing that she was not just scared, but absolutely terrified of the situation.

“GRRRRRRRRRRR...”

The creature, showing off all of its imposing existence, leaned forward, with no intention of letting those wonderful pieces of meat escape alive.