The grimoire I had made gave +1 to Wisdom, and so I ended up selling it like I had yesterday the moment I could.

I now had some free time before the next round that evening, and decided that while waiting I’d check out something I’d been curious about ever since Rose had told me about it.

Did this world really not have any dogs? It was hard to believe, but from all that I had seen up till now, it seemed to be the truth.

I had seen from a distance something that had looked like a zoo which was set up outside the walls of Arconia. I was sure that the circus would also have some exotic animals doing some kind of performance, but I couldn’t attend that event as it was set up later in the evening when I would be having one of my Duels.

I paid the admission fee to enter the zoo before walking in. It was set up like a lot of zoos back on Earth - only thing was that the animals were kept in tighter spaces and honestly it broke my heart seeing them.

Zoos on Earth I guess tried to at least make an attempt to make it seem as if the animals were well cared for. In the ones that I had visited, most of the larger animals were kept in places that were reasonably big and made to somewhat simulate the natural environments the animals were taken from.

Not so here - probably for practicality purposes, and also because it was cheaper, all the animals were stuffed into cages which were at most the size of my house back on Earth. The lions looked like they were completely dead inside as I passed by them; there were three of them stuffed in a cage and they looked at me lazily as I passed by. The overcrowding issue was made worse by the fact that they were almost twice as large as lions back on Earth.

That was to say nothing of the smell, which permeated through the air and all around the zoo - it was no wonder that they had to set up outside the city rather than within it.

Attendants were present near almost every exhibit and you could ask them questions about the animals, their habitats, etc. It was the only part of the entire experience which I found was somewhat pleasant.

“These lions live in the savanna north of the Western Desert,” the person near the lions explained. They went on to explain where they’d been captured from, their usual diet, hunting patterns, etc. “They don’t really have any special magical properties to them, but, given how strong and fast they are, they’re still quite dangerous.”

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

I had never been much of an animal rights activist back home - not to say that I condoned animal cruelty or anything like that but I had never felt the compulsion to join the ‘Meat Is Murder’ rallies or the like back on Earth. However, my heart really went out to these animals, and I couldn’t help but occasionally think of Cheddar while seeing their plight.

And it turns out that there really weren’t dogs in this world.

I did see a wolf with black fur the size of a horse, and was told that they had special skin that was resistant to lightning-based attacks. I guess that was somewhat useful information if I ever ran into one, though given that they came from even further up North, that was unlikely.

The wolf looked at me with fierce eyes. Unlike the lions it did not seem to have given up and resigned itself to its captivity, but it was heavily restricted and could do little but gnash its teeth at me.

The idea that something like Cheddar could eventually be bred from a creature like this seemed fantastical. I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t know it was already possible.

Other than this world’s versions of Earth animals which were usually bigger and occasionally had some magical properties, there were proper magical beasts in the zoo as well.

There was a unicorn, though it didn’t look nearly as magnificent as you’d see back in depictions on Earth. Its skin was a dull gray, and its horn was chipped off at the top. “It was hurt during capturing it, you see, though don’t worry - the horn will eventually grow back. They are quite violent so if you ever see one in the wild I’d advise staying away from it,” the attendant explained as I pointed the broken horn out to him. The unicorn gave me a tired look as I walked past.

There were animals I could only describe as looking like small Loch Ness monsters from back on Earth (or at least the drawings I’d seen made of Nessie), though they were about the size of a cow. “These live near the lakes in Hitutsa, they’re mostly peaceful creatures, though I wouldn’t get between one of these and its mother. The mothers can be quite overprotective of their young, a lot like bears.”

There was a winged elephant that I was told was called a Butterfly Elephant. The wings were large and colorful, though they were more like that of an eagle’s than that of an actual butterfly’s. A small chain was attached to its hind left leg, though it looked pitiful when compared to the creature’s size. If it wanted to fly- no, if it just used its natural strength that chain would break like a twig. I pointed this out, and the attendant said, “Oh, that thing’s been in captivity it’s whole life. When it was young, the chain was strong enough to keep it down, and now, as it’s older, it’s given up on ever trying to break free of it. Don’t worry about it escaping or nothing.”

It looked way too big for its wings to actually carry it up, so I could only assume that it used magic in some form to fly. It turned its head towards me - I had no idea what it was feeling but it didn’t seem to be in pain or agony, and it looked like its attendant really did care for it a lot. He told me how the winged elephant trusted him so much that he usually slept right under it without the slightest concern that he would be stomped.