“Take this, my child,” Serragnin said in a gentle voice. “It is my gift to you - my gift to humanity. The ability to read and write- and through it, you will gain a fraction of my power. No longer will you fear the beasts that lurk in the woods. No longer will simple disease take your life. No longer will you fear the elements. No longer will you have to cower in caves, fearing what lies outside. No longer will you be at the whim and mercy of more dangerous races- from now onward, you, humans, my favored children, will be masters of your own fate!”

“O Goddess, how can I possibly thank you for this gift?” the man asked.

The woman then turned from him to face the audience. “This is my gift to humanity - freely given, and I do not ask for anything in return. I only ask that you spread this teaching of mine to humanity at large, to all corners of the globe. Indeed, of my children, none would be more dear to me than those who would spread the importance of my words.”

There were cheers from the audience, who had been silent before then. “Glory to Serragnin!” “Hail the great Goddess!” “Honor to the Mother of Learning!”

With that, the short play was over and the actors exited, and then the narrator took the spotlight. He went into how thanks to Serragnin’s gift, humanity had not only survived, but thrived through the ages.

He also referenced a few names and places which I couldn’t understand, but had not been lost on the audience. They had likely seen the same thing many times over.

He then went into how important it was that they spread the word of not only Liberomancy, but of Serragnin to every human in the world.

They did not use an ambiguous term like ‘person’ which could possibly be interpreted to refer to demihumans as well, but the word ‘human’ in particular. It seemed that they didn’t quite see demihumans the same as humans. Then again, this could just be a quirk of the translation system of this world, so I wasn’t sure how much stock to put into this thought. Not all words had one-to-one translations in varying languages after all.

I realized then why watching this play was free - because it was a religious sermon. Back on Earth there was a saying ‘if something is free then more likely than not you’re the product.’ We - or at least, the chance to either ‘convert us’ or more likely to reinforce the people’s existing faith was the aim of this play.

Stolen story; please report.

Afterwards, a small basin was passed around which people would throw coins into. I tossed a denarius in, and the person who saw me was a bit taken aback when he noticed my features, but did not say anything else.

They then began distributing food to the poor, and while watching that it made me wonder why it was that no one had referred me to such a place back when I had been homeless.

During those dark days, I would have had no problem uttering empty words of praise in the service of a deity I did not believe in to fill my stomach. And yet, no one had prodded me towards an event like this. I had asked if there was something like a homeless shelter or charity home in this world back when I hadn’t discovered Liberomancy yet, but had basically been told ‘no dice’ at the time. Or were such events or programs just not for someone like me?

I could only add it to the huge list of questions I had about Libraria which had not been answered.

And crowning the pile was the ultimate question - why was I here in the first place?

Why had I been brought to Libraria?

Usually, in stories, this would happen because there was a great evil that needed to be thwarted in this world and a hero needed to rise to the occasion to deal with said evil. However, as far as I could tell, the world was not threatened by anything like that.

There was no Dark Lord amassing an army somewhere, and Libraria was in an era of relative peace. I hadn’t heard of any major wars, though given the sheer size of the world, there must’ve been someone at war with someone else, just not at a scale or severity that news had reached here.

Not to say that Libraria was perfect. I had experienced enough of its downsides during my initial days. Most people could not advance beyond the station they were born in - people like Hei Nan were the exception, not the rule. And being rich and having well-educated parents gave you a massive head start in life, one that most people could not beat even with all their effort.

Then again, how was that any different than Earth? Earth had the same problems - and I had only been in this world about a month. I did not delude myself into thinking I had any easy answers to these complex societal issues even if I wanted to solve them.

Indeed, there was no prophecy telling of a powerful Liberomancer arriving from another world. There was no tutorial section. No deity had appeared before me prior to me being transmigrated here to give me some sort of mission. I had just been plopped unceremoniously into this world without the slightest explanation for why I was here.

The other possibility was that I had died back on Earth, and this was some kind of purgatory. But even then, shouldn’t there have been some sort of explanation at some point?

And had I really done something so wicked as to be punished like this? A wave of despair gripped me once again as even after this time, I was no closer to solving this central mystery.

Despite myself, I couldn’t help but try to return to that same spot I had come to this world from once more, only to be disappointed for the thousandth time.

Dejected, I decided to try to do something to take my mind off things by buying some fish and seeing if I could make some use of the [Poissonnier] skill I had gained.