From how the two looked at him once he said it made him realize they’d concluded the same thing.

“This is crazy,” Jack muttered. “Why couldn’t this just have been a nightmare?”

With a mature attitude towards their current situation, a groan left the man before they fell back onto the bed, their head hitting the pillow hard enough to go through the mattress and reach the wooden frame below.

The groan increased in volume.

“You’re not with the people from before,” the woman observed, ignoring the downward spiral of the man on the other bed.

“Indeed we’re not,” Elijah offered. “We actually don’t know who the people from before are, other than the corpse we saw you lying down beside. Could you describe how they looked?”

“Most wore purple robes with the hoods covering their faces,” the woman answered with a little pause before looking over at Aleksi. “There were three who didn’t. A young woman, an old one, and… somebody identical to that man.”

Elijah glanced at the giant who could only shrug in confusion.

“I’m not sure how Aleksi could’ve been able to be there, since I am relatively confident he was in this house during the night hours,” Elijah said, wondering who else it could’ve been. The giant wasn’t the only one that possessed such a large stature, but not many of the others lived nearby or had any reason to be out at night doing illegal work. Another mystery to solve later. “On that note, I don’t believe we’ve shared our names yet. My name is Elijah and the large man that helped me get you up the stairs is Aleksi. What’s your name?”

Here came the hesitation. Momentary, forgotten a second later, but he caught it.

“Sasha Petrova.”

“Oh, that’s Slavic isn’t it?” Jack commented, having seemingly stopped spiraling as he got back up in a sitting position. “Was your family originally from there before you moved to the US?”

“I have never set foot on American soil in my life,” Sasha replied coldly. “Why would you assume such a thing?”

“... Because you’re speaking English without the slightest accent? The one from my state even. If you told me you lived down the street from me, I’d believe you.”

“I don’t— No. You’re speaking Russian.”

“... Huh.”

A question seemed to appear for everybody in the room.

“To me, you’re speaking fluent Castillan, though I expect neither of you has ever heard of this language before,” Elijah said, getting affirmations sent his way as he rose to grab some random text from the shelf. Some badly written notes about the potency of Sunlily’s remedying effects on blisters. It didn’t matter. “Can you read this?”

“I… no, this doesn’t say anything to me,” Jack replied, eyes flying over the characters on the paper. “Is it meant to be written left-to-right and then down?”

“Yes?”

“Oh, great. Still doesn’t make sense,” the man summed up, handing it over to Sasha. “Same experience with you?”

“I can’t see any logic to it, so, yes,” Sasha said, giving it back to Elijah who put it on the shelf once again. “There’s a verbal translation happening.”

“Or we’re both just talking in the new language without realizing it,” Jack countered. “No way to know for sure, but that idea is already a little too crazy for me. It’s… magic, right?”

“Most likely, yes,” Elijah replied, as that fact was obvious from the beginning. To him, at least, the widened eyes from the man made it seem like that had been a guess at the back of their mind.

“So magic is real?”

“Yes?”

“Magic. Actual magic. Logic-defying acts of magical nature.”

“Since there are countless institutions dedicated to the study of magic, I don’t believe it’s without logic, but… yes.”

“The able-to-fly kind of magic?”

“That would usually be done by Wind Mages but still yes.”

“Actual—”

“Just shut up and think instead of talking,” Sasha ordered from her bed, a frown having grown on her due to Jack’s repeated questions.

“But are you not hearing this? Magic is real,” Jack countered. “It’s normal here. In another world. Where we are.”

“Do you take pleasure in repeating something you already figured out before?”

“No, but I feel like you’re not putting as much weight on this as you should be.”

“I am,” Sasha said in her defense, blonde hair falling from her shoulders as her head turned a little more towards the man. “I’m simply keeping it to myself.”

“Well, you don’t have to. I think we’re stuck here until…” Jack began until his voice slowly lowered on its own volition, another realization springing into reality. “How exactly would we get back?”

To this question, Sasha said nothing, silence falling over the room until Elijah addressed the concern.

“To be honest, I’m not sure you can,” he explained, the gray and blue eyes falling onto him. “The corpse we found you next to wore those same purple robes. The only group that wears them in this city are the Royal Mages. They’re powerful sorcerers, with many in their ranks who technically could perform something akin to summoning, but I’ve never heard of that happening in this city before.”

“And since that corpse was in two pieces, it’s probably best to avoid running into that group again if you can help it,” Aleksi said, finally bringing himself into the discussion. “I saw the poster downstairs, Elijah.”

Ah.

“That is another issue, yes,” he agreed. “Every guard is currently ordered to search for you because 'you' have committed murder. If you’re found, your chances are not positive.”

…

“That’s not great,” Jack concluded when the silence started to grow again. “I guess we’re stuck here.”

Though there was sadness, the man seemed to accept the fact rather quickly. Elijah hadn’t expected such.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“That’s not acceptable,” Sasha interrupted, providing a much more understandable reaction. “I need to get back.”

“Why?” Jack questioned. “Running late to your job or something?”

“No, I’m—” she hesitated. “I just need to get back. The… Royal Mages have to do it.”

“I’m sorry to say this, but I have no idea if that would even be possible to do by the people who summoned you,” Elijah confessed. Even with his limited understanding of summoning, he knew it was usually a one-way trip. Beasts being summoned to fight until their demise was not unheard of during the war, though he had only seen such displays from afar. “For better or worse, I believe it would be best if you were to stay here and recover. After that, we can try helping you search for a way back, but I can make no promises.”

The answer didn’t satisfy the woman, but no words of objection were made. Maybe they realized the futility of it. Or maybe they were just trying to figure out a solution on their own. Elijah didn’t know and neither would he press them for an answer.

“So… magic,” Jack said, bringing the conversation back to the previous topic. “Is that something everybody can learn to use or is it for some people only?”

“Few have a magical affinity, though even those who possess it have to spend decades honing their ability to use it effectively,” Elijah explained, bringing out a random seed from one of his pockets. From the shape, it was from one of the flowers he’d sorted earlier. Nothing dangerous. “When you have learned it, however, you can perform what many think of as miracles.”

To deepen his point, he allowed the green threads of Mana in his finger to latch onto the flower seed, sending out the order he’d become an expert at all those years ago.

Channeling of [Plant Bond] has been activated! Current cost: 8MP/sec

More MP was drained every second to accommodate for the lack of soil and nutrients, but it wasn’t as if Elijah required more than a few seconds to have some petals form above his fingers.

“I’m a Biomancer myself, which allows me to perform this act,” he said, handing the mess over to Jack at the man’s request. They seemed completely enamored by the thin plant, lightly touching the petals as if it would combust at even the smallest amount of pressure. “I know this both because I know what abilities a Biomancer has, but also because of the world telling me I am as much.”

The inspection halted, eyes flying to him once again.

“The… world told you that you’re a Biomancer?” Jack repeated, to which Elijah nodded. “Did it, like, form a mouth on the ground and say it or what?”

“What? No, but I suppose I can see why you’d think such a thing, when you don’t have experience with mages previously,” Elijah clarified, mentally sorting through the various connections within this magical core. It had been so many years since he’d last looked into his soul, but it was still easy to do as breathing. “When you have a magical core, the world allows you to mentally command a… floating paper of sorts before your eyes. On it, you can see various pieces of information about yourself, like your name, your affinity, how much Mana is left in your core, and the various spells that you’ve mastered along with their Tiers.”

“Oh, a status screen.”

Now it was Elijah’s turn to frown.

“I thought that your world didn’t possess mages,” he said.

“We don’t, but I’ve got friends that used to play so many tabletop games,” Jack explained, though his words made Elijah wonder more about the culture of the other world than anything. “Now… status screen, looking within yourself, and… no, there has to be something.”

Elijah was confident the man would find nothing, seeing as there was practically nothing in terms of magical energy radiating from them. The same observation could be made for Sasha, to the point where he nearly thought she had less magical energy than the air around them. How that was even possible, he didn’t know, but perhaps it was another quirk of living in a world without mages.

As for him… well, the world had finally decided to answer his request, his magical core sending along the floating list that represented his seat in the world.

Name: Elijah Caede

Affinity: Biomancy

Mana: 356

Spells:

[Accelerate Growth](Tier 1)

[Plant Bond](Tier 1)

In the grand scheme of magical mechanics, it wasn’t much information. Most of the more advanced tidbits of lore about his person could only be explored through manual inspections along with help from outside entities. The grandmasters of the Arcane could likely bring the world to put in more detail, or they could simply list it all themselves.

Regardless, this was enough for somebody like Elijah. It offered his affinity and the two spells that he had used in the old days.

And only the first Tier of depth as well… Maybe the time to explore the arts has finally come.

“There! I got it,” Jack exclaimed, bringing Elijah out of his thoughts. The wide grin on the man’s face seemed to nearly split his face until the eyes flickered and the glee turned to despair. “Error? What do you mean ‘error?’”

Curious.

“You were able to open the list yourself, I take it?” Elijah inquired.

“Yeah, but there’s nothing on it,” Jack said. “Has my name, says my Mana is zero, the spell section is empty, and the Affinity just says ‘error.’”

Error.

Elijah hadn’t heard of such an affinity before in his life. He doubted it was one either, as the standard naming standards across all the affinities usually ended with the -mancy suffix. While some exceptions did exist, they could be counted on one hand.

“I am being told the same thing,” Sasha supplied a few seconds into Jack’s complaining. “Except for the Mana, which says I am below zero.”

… The peculiarities continued to grow.

“A side-effect of coming from another world maybe?” Aleksi suggested from his seat. “The world might just not know what to call you or it could just be confused.”

There was a chance, though they once again had little way to investigate deeper. Texts about people reaching their world from another likely existed, but Elijah would have little chance of ever getting his hands on them. Nearly everything in terms of magic and the associated arts was located inside the academy’s library, something only accessible to the students enrolled.

“We will wait and see if it could be an issue, but, until that time, it means nothing,” Elijah concluded, looking out through the window, he noted the last rays of sun had disappeared. “Waiting is my suggestion overall as well. The sedatives might have lessened in their strength, but your bodies are still not entirely in your control yet. Waiting until tomorrow to move around would be for the best.”

There was little in the way of complaints about such, one happy to sleep away the last bits of drowsiness while the other understood there was no other choice.

“We’ll return in the morning then. Please don’t try to rise from your beds in the meantime, unless necessary,” Elijah informed, giving them directions to the adjacent bathroom before he and Aleksi ventured out of the room and closed the door behind them.

However, it was only when they were down the stairs and inside the laboratory that they spoke.

“That went better than I’d hoped,” Aleksi commented, while Elijah sorted through the pieces of equipment they would need on their nighttime excursion. Small amounts of food and drink, some emergency bandages along with pastes to deal with various injuries, and finally some liquid lights if they decided to venture into parts of the dungeon that didn’t possess the usual plants with bioluminescent properties. “Little to no fighting us, some idea of who we need to avoid, and a chance we’ll get through this without dying.”

“I distinctly remember somebody getting a bloody nose earlier today,” Elijah countered, getting a chuckle in response. A short glance at the formerly bleeding nostril revealed no sign of recent sustained damage of any kind. Even though it had been so long since the last treatment, the giant’s body was still operating high above normal levels. “But you’re right. We know a little more to add to this mystery. People from another world are kidnapped by Royal Mages before they are then thrown into an alley together with one of the kidnappers.”

“Doesn’t make much sense,” the giant said. “They’re clearly looking for them, but the fact that those two were allowed to walk around the city while being escorted isn’t holding up to how the royals usually do things.”

“Might be that the royals weren’t involved in this.”

“Maybe,” Aleksi supposed. “It’s just a mess for us, no matter what, though.”

“On that, we can agree,” Elijah said, putting on the last parts of his outdoor outfit along with the newly added liquid lights on his belt. “Are you ready to leave?”

“Just about,” Aleksi said, the large man tying the rolled-up bags to the satchel on his side. They’d all be filled to the brim in some hours, but until then it made little sense to carry them in his hands. “And I’m guessing that you bringing the lights with us means you want to go deeper than usual.”

“Just a floor or two more down.”

“Alright. I’ll bring the good axe this time then.”

Elijah had no qualms about such. If the giant hadn’t decided to bring it himself, he would’ve outright suggested it.

First time deeper than the third floor in 20 years.

It would be an interesting experience.