“What the hell are you two doing!” Professor Roxanne’s recognizable anger filled voice cut across the riverbank, sending chills down Valentine and Kaedric’s spines. The question made Valentine realize what this must have looked like to Roxanne who didn’t know it was just a friendly bout.
“It’s nothing Mrs. Roxanne. I was just having a friendly battle with these kids since they were so desperate to see my skills.” Dorred came to Valentine and Kaedric’s defense, making Valentine much more relieved that he would not have to explain himself.
“Uh huh, don’t bother him again Kaedric, Valentine stop him better next time.” Professor Roxanne’s anger calmed down, now only showing disappointment. Valentine was happy that there was no more misunderstandings that might lead to him getting in trouble.
“Professor you should have seen it, this old guy is so strong. He didn’t even break a sweat taking me down.” Kaedric’s unaware and happy voice only seemed to bring back Professor Roxanne’s anger more.
“Not many people would have trouble with you Kaedric, especially since were at a disadvantage from the people that live here.” Professor Roxanne sighed at Kaedric’s carefree attitude, but what she said confused Valentine.
“What do you mean by disadvantaged?” Valentine asked.
“Well, I learned that humans aren’t common around this territory, specifically this continent. Everyone here is an elf, and according to Quinzel they are more powerful naturally.” Roxanne spoke as Quinzel, who stood behind her, nodded along.
“Well, more accurately, it is easier for elves to become mages, because of our long lives and connection to the spirits of the forest we have much better aptitude for magic than the average human. Though, after seeing the spell you cast earlier, I would say you have a similar aptitude to a great mage for the elves.” Quinzel’s exposition, while confusing at certain points, was easy to understand.
“Wait so, you said continent right Professor Roxanne? So, does that mean we aren’t in United American Nations? If we're not there then we must be in either Asia or Northern Africa, right?” Kaedric brought up a good point that Valentine had almost forgotten.
While the South American continent had lost a lot of territory to the Magical Beast in the invasion, there was still plenty humans living there. Asia and North Africa, however, had not been so lucky. Most of Asia’s population that survived moved to the east coast of what was left of China, onto the Japanese island or Korean peninsula, or to the UMN. Africa faced a similar situation but to an even worse degree. The little amount of human survivors flooded into UMN or neighboring Europe. Africa was now almost completely taken over by Magical Beasts, in the 7 years since the invasion only a couple of successful expeditions had been made to the coast of Africa.
“I’m sorry, according to Mr. Quinzel here, we are not on Earth at all, or at least not entirely.” Professor Roxanne’s answer only raised more questions.
“What do you mean by that?” Valentine asked. “How are we not entirely on Earth, how can we be partially on Earth?”
“Well, I think its best if Mr. Quinzel explains.” Professor Roxanne gave a forlorn look as she directed the attention to Quinzel.
“The best way to explain this is to give an example. Imagine you were to take 2 papers and press them together. If someone were to push a stick through both papers, there would be a portion of the bottom paper now on the same layer as the top paper. Your planet is bleeding into our world.” Quinzel gave his explanation while looking seriously at Kaedric and Valentine.
“So, part of our world got pushed into yours and we got taken along with it?” Valentine asked, though judging by the explanation he seemed to be right.
“Yes, more accurately several parts of your world have been pushed into ours, and they vary in both size of crossover and life taken with. This is a relatively big crossover in terms of those brought with it, however small in size of land. The main issue is these crossovers are increasingly getting bigger.” Quinzel explained.
“So, how many cases have there been, and when did this start?” Valentine’s question caught Quinzel slightly off guard, though he recovered quickly
“Good question, I planned to explain that as well. For seven years our planets have been pushing into each other, the largest was the first crossover. Though, it was our land that pushed into yours, since then, there have been hundreds of confirmed cases of your land pushing into ours. Only this year have humans been brought over, and only recently have we been able to contact groups alive.” Quinzel explained the question, though Valentine’s thoughts trailed off almost immediately, thinking only of the 7-year timeline.
“If it was 7 years ago, that was the magical beast invasion, and the start of mages gaining power in the world. So, the reason for everything was because of these crossovers?” Valentine slowly put the pieces together in his head, while speaking aloud. “Wait, are there any other intelligent magical beasts like the goblins around here, ones that can speak?” Valentine asked another question, though for everyone else the question seemed out of place.
“Well yes, there are many races in this world. Most have some basic intelligence, but many can speak.” Quinzel answered
“Are any of these races tall, around 8 feet. Also wolf like, wear cloth clothes and use battle axes?” Valentine began reliving the night of the monster beast invasion, trying his best to describe the beast in his memories.
“Judging by your description the closes thing would be the Lycanthropes, they use a multitude of weapons, so the battle axe fits, and the cloth clothes are their traditional adornments. Why do you ask?” Quinzel asked his own question upon answering the question that slightly puzzled him.
“Give me a moment.” Valentine decided in that moment to trust Quinzel fully. While he did not know much about him, he did know that the only way to get the only thing he wanted in the world he would have to trust this stranger. “Open... Subspace” Valentine spoke the words of a spell as he reached his hand into seemingly empty air.
Suddenly what seemed like a crack in space formed at Valentine’s fingertips. The crack was pitch black and seemed only big enough to reach one hand into. Valentine reached his hand further into the crack and stopped upon reaching elbow deep. Retreating his arm from the crack he pulled out a long item wrapped in cloth.
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“How do you have that? Well, judging by the last question you asked I can guess.” Quinzel’s curiosity from before was replaced by a stern and slightly fearful look.
“So, you recognize it? What is it?” Valentine ignored the question and asked his own.
“That item will only bring you misfortune, it is a token from the Lycanthropes, and not the good kind. How did you get that?” Quinzel answered the question and repeated his previous one.
“What does it mean? To have a token from the Lycanthropes I mean?” Valentine ignored the question again and asked another.
“The warring tribe of Lycanthropes only give that token to those who best them in combat. It is an invitation to come fight them again, if any Lycanthrope sees you with one of those they will immediately attack you, taking you as a worthy opponent. How did you get it.” The answer gave Valentine all the information he needed.
“7 years ago when the magical beast invasion happened my entire family was murdered by a Lycanthrope. I was the only one to survive because I was the only one able to hit him. He stepped out of a portal, killed everyone, then disappeared, leaving me with this.” Valentine gave a grave look, his answer shocking everyone listening.
“I see, you are lucky to be alive. Never take that token out again if you want to live. If a Lycanthrope sees it, no matter the situation, they will attack you with the intent to kill.” Quinzel’s previous stern look was now replaced with a look of pity for Valentine.
Valentine gripped the token hard as he pushed his hand back through the still open subspace. Letting go of the token he retreated his arm from the subspace “Close... Subspace”. The crack disappeared, leaving Valentine holding nothing in his hands.
“While I said never show it, I will also say this, never give up on your revenge. Most will say it won’t get you anywhere, but if it doesn’t consume you, you will go far. Let the revenge motivate you, but don’t motivate yourself for revenge.” Quinzel placed his hand on Valentine’s shoulder and passed on a bit of advice to him.
“So, is there anyway we can get back home?” Kaedric spoke up awkwardly.
“Kaedric, can you not read the room?” Professor Roxanne gave Kaedric a look of disgust as she spoke up.
Valentine burst out into laughter at Professor Roxanne’s response. “It's ok Professor Roxanne. I’m not mad. I’m just one step closer to my goal” Valentine recovered from his laughter and gave a smile to Professor Roxanne and Kaedric. “Thank you, Mr. Quinzel, I will keep your advice in mind.”
“Good, and to answer your question Kaedric, I do not know. This phenomenon has only been happening recently and crossover survivors are even more recent of a discovery. I will say this though, I will try my best to get you home.” Quinzel smiled lightly at the group as he gave them his promise.
“Thank you, Mr. Quinzel.” Professor Roxanne was the first to respond to the promise, Kaedric and Valentine echoing the sentiment soon after. “So, why don’t we show Mr. Quinzel and his party our library and tell everyone else the news, then we can figure out all together what we want to do.”
“Agreed, that nerd Terran is going to be so stoked that Elves are real, and that were in another world.” Kaedric responded quickly with a dig at Terran, however Valentine could not find a fault with Kaedric’s prediction of Terran’s reaction.
“You guys live in a library?” Zylphia seemed intrigued at this. “What kind of books do you have there?”
“Well, uh, we kind of had to burn a lot of them.” Kaedric responded sheepishly, judging by Zylphia’s question Valentine suddenly felt bad for burning the books to keep warm on cold nights.
“No, why would you burn them?” Zylphia elongated her ‘no’ and gave a sad expression as she asked the question. It was obvious to both Kaedric and Valentine that her love of books was deep.
“We were cold, and no one had time to read them, trying to survive and all.” Kaedric gave a defeated look at what he knew would be a pointless argument.
“Well, I guess I will have to settle with the ones not burned yet.” Zylphia got up from her chair and walked towards the front of the group.
“So we are in agreement, please show us the way toward your library.” Quinzel spoke up and gestured towards the human group to lead the way.
Valentine took the lead and began walking back towards the library, followed by Professor Roxanne who started a conversation with Quinzel and Kaedric who began talking with Dorred. Gunther stayed in the rear, still on guard against any unseen foes, and Zylphia walked in line with Valentine.
“So, what kind of books do you have at this library of yours? You never answered my question.” Zylphia was the first to say something, repeating the question she asked before.
“Well, the Library is full of non-magical texts. The books there are written mainly for enjoyment rather than research.” Valentine answered the question, chuckling slightly at Zylphia’s quizzical look.
“Is your group of noble status? To have access to a library with books purely for enjoyment is usually reserved for upper-class.” Zylphia questioned the nobility of Valentine with her eyes, his battered clothes and appearance gave her the impression that he was a common man.
“No not particularly, I am sure some of us have higher status than others, but that sort of thing has no real importance where we are from. We are students first and foremost so outside of a few individuals we are all the same. The library was on our school’s campus but anyone, even non-students, were allowed to enter.” Valentine answered the question with his own confused expression. While he understood that Zylphia was a noble, he did not think it would as important for something like a library.
“Interesting, so do you keep your magical books in a library as well?” Zylphia seemed to move on from the topic of nobility, asking instead about the books themselves. “We keep our magical texts in a library of sorts, though strictly guarded.”
“Well yes, we keep our low-level magical texts inside public free access libraries. Though anything extremely dangerous is kept secure. In order for humans to survive after the invasion 7 years ago we had to progress our magic as fast as we could. The best way to do that is freely sharing our discoveries and knowledge so that everyone can work together. That idea stuck even after we recovered from the invasion.” Valentine spoke about the core concept that all mages on Earth agreed on, the pursuit of knowledge. Even he had benefitted from that concept, learning magic in the early days from traveling companions.
“Interesting, I suppose it is better to be free with knowledge when everyone’s lives depend on it. Though that cannot last long, secrets will form, and enemies will arise.” Zylphia spoke with a tone that felt personal to Valentine.
“So, I know that we have a spell that is translating between us automatically, does how does a spell like that work. We don’t have many non-physical spells, and those we do have aren’t nearly complex as this.” Valentine changed the subject so as not to make Zylphia upset with a topic such as enemies.
“Interesting, I thought that the development of magic would be changed when your focus is to survive but to not have any spells similar to this is surprising. Spells like this translation one are old, so I cannot speak to the development, but the concept is pretty simple. Record the intent of the words into the mana, and then the brain itself will work out the rest off instinct. It makes sense why you had such a strong reaction to the spell since your brain isn’t used to the mana effecting it directly.” Zylphia spoke slightly amused at the concept of the development of magic focused on combat.
“Thats so cool. I had no idea you could make spells like that.” Valentine, however, was more interested in the use of magic for practical purposes rather than fighting.
“It is quite the basic spell; I can show you more complex ones if you would like.” Zylphia smirked at Valentine’s fascination with spells simple to her. “But I want to learn about the circle you drew on the ground during the spar.” Zylphia proposed the exchange of information to Valentine, though what he was more interested in was the fact she didn’t know what magic circles were.
“Wait you don’t know what magic circles are? You are so advanced, but you don’t use them?” Valentine was taken aback at the thought that someone so versed in magic knowledge wouldn’t know what a magic circle was.
“Magic circle huh? What purpose does that serve? It seems like a waste of time to make that when you can obviously cast spells without it.” Zylphia was also taken aback, but instead by the seeming waste of time and resources.
"Well, the magic circle works like an equation, the circle itself has a specific layout that you read and process in a certain way, and the runes in the circle are the symbols in an equation. You use certain runes to denote the action the mana should take in the spell. One rune could form the mana like fire while another could split it into many different copies.” Valentine spoke about the magic circles in a way he supposed a teacher would, though his knowledge was from a combination of books and strangers.
“So you use the magic circles to form and flow mana into spells? But you’ve cast spells without magic circles before?” Zylphia asked, understanding the purpose of the magic circles but not their use case.
“Well, it's the same reason sometimes you use a pen and paper to write down an equation sometimes and other times you do it in your head. Sometimes the magic circle can be faster and more accurate. It can also be made permanent, and spells can be repeatedly used through a circle without extra mental work.” Valentine explained.
“Interesting, while we don’t have magic circles we have methods with similar effects. Rather than use magic circles we use mana stones. They can record a spell easily and be repeatedly used. Though they are too expensive for common folk to use.” Zylphia had a matter-of-fact expression when talking about the price of the stones.
“Interesting, I’ve never heard of a mana stone, maybe because mana originates from your world they cannot form in my world.” Valentine was slightly excited to learn more about the fantasy world he was now in.
“Well, it makes sense why they have not formed in your world, not because mana originated from our world but because it originates from the world tree.” Zylphia felt slightly perturbed at the thought of a world without a world tree.