“Uhm, your majesty, your wine is ready…” I hear Evie say behind me, I turn to her holding up a silver plate in one hand, on which rests a bottle of wine and a glass.

As I understand, one of Eriu's daily rituals was to have wine in the late afternoon, to the point where her maid had grown so accustomed that she would bring the bottle unprompted.

Well, I’m not a prude or anything, drinking is fine. But Eriu was a bit much, wasn’t she? Her father should have talked to her about moderation at some point.

Evie must have been surprised when I stayed at the town hall until night today, and once I came back to the palace immediately passed her by to go to the study, which once belonged to her father.

“I am not in the mood for drinking. Also, from now on, if I want to have a drink I will ask you to bring alcohol, do not bring me any more if I don't ask for it.” I say while turning my head back to all the bookshelves in the study, Eriu hadn't read a single goddamn book here.

“Should I no longer replace the ale by your bedside?” Evie inquires, completely honest. That was Eriu's hangover cure, how she never died from cirrhosis, I do not know.

Actually, did she?

I don’t know what dying from alcohol poisoning is like, but if I died back on Earth, maybe Eriu died too, and that’s how I got into her body.

Does that mean she is going around in my body back on Earth?

I shudder at the thought and shake my head to clear things up, let’s not think about that. It’s pointless, yeah.

“It will not be necessary, no, thank you.” I finally reply to her, she stands for a couple seconds, perhaps perplexed at my sudden shift in tastes, but leaves to put the wine away – Oh! - I run after her and catch her in the corridor, “Please have someone clean this room thoroughly tomorrow, I will be using it from now on!”, she turns around and slightly bows, before resuming her exit.

Maids are true champions, their lord can have such a huge shift in attitude and they barely bat an eye, must be a hard life to live at the whims of some petulant idiot.

I turn my attention to the room once more; although dusty it has a good, sturdy desk filled with quills, ink, and parchment. Furthermore, the shelves have only a modest collection of books, but they are well balanced in lots of areas of knowledge: some fiction, geography, history, the sciences and so forth. It's a shame Eriu hadn't bothered to read much until now, but if I brush up on just this much I should have a good grasp of the culture and technological level of this society.

It’s fairly exciting too, a lot of sources we have on medieval society are actually second-hand. For example, our best depictions of life in 9th century Europe are from a book written in the 11th century, that refers to books written back then, none of which survived to modern times. Having access to so much contemporary writing of a medieval society is a completely new experience.

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I must acquire more books as soon as I can…

Though I should probably buy stuff to boost the economy first. Right, priorities and all that.

All the normal books can be saved for later, though. I finally find what I’m looking for and pull a book out of the shelves, titled “The Known Gods of Dominion.”

After what Evie had said about a God of Wine and the documents concerning Lull, I have grown very curious about what exactly religion is like here.

Flipping the pages, as I thought people here believe in many gods, although belief seems to be a bit of an understatement. Now I finally get why Lull having no resident gods is a big deal. They aren’t just some metaphysical concept, but real, immortal beings that walk among mortals.

It’s not a matter of believing in them or not, but rather of which god to favor. Most kingdoms have state religions centered around specific gods, they buy their favor with rituals and sacrifices, and in turn, these gods reside inside these countries and grant special benefits to the people of the country.

In most countries people are generally allowed to worship any gods they desire, as long as they are not allied to enemy states. But they must provide a yearly tribute which is then given to the State Gods to appease them and to make sure they remain in the country.

Men and women of honor are not only bestowed titles and land but power too. Based on the whims of the rulers they may ask the gods to grant special powers to certain subordinates.

The God of Wine Evie mentioned can skyrocket your resistance to alcohol. More usefully, the God of Fire can allow those who have his blessing to create and manipulate fire.

It is basically what we on Earth would think of as magic, but granted by divinity. Like paladins and clerics I guess, but instead of healing people you shoot fire at them.

It makes sense then that all the big kingdoms would go to great lengths to buy the favor of the most powerful gods, in this archaic age a wizard that can shoot fireballs or other crazy stuff would have tremendous battle power.

If a kingdom does not wish to pay tribute, even if they are strong and can field thousands of men they will quickly be destroyed lacking any divine favor of their own.

I’m sure there’s a lot of fighting over the gods favor too, their gifts being so useful, countries are probably constantly trying to steal each other's gods with promises of greater tributes.

“Your majesty, it is already very late. You should retire so that you can wake up in time for your survey tomorrow.” Evie warns me from behind, after storing the wine she must have come back and was standing next to the door patiently. Must be a hassle to stand around all day like that, waiting for your master.

I rub my eyes, I spent all day reading today so they are pretty watery and strained. Reading by unstable candlelight is a huge chore too, I should invent light-bulbs at some point, though I have no idea how they work.

Will I be able to make electric light in my lifetime here? I dunno, though if I can’t even do that then that means that I will never be able to watch anime again…

Yeah, I’m not gonna invent anime studios by the time I die here, shit, maybe there’s an Anime God out there I can curry the favor of.

Although, maybe I can invent modern pens and then draw a manga, and it will be so popular everyone else will copy the style and I will have tons of manga to read, at least…

God, I’m tired, I think this train of thought shows I should take Evie’s advice and go to sleep already.

I look outside, to the complete darkness of late night, I wish I had more time so I can figure out more about gods, but it doesn’t sound like they will be useful to me. I don’t like the idea of kowtowing to some deity either, anyway.

“Alright, I will go to sleep.” I get off my chair and turn to Evie at the entrance of the room, I have an urge to tell her to come to bed with me so I fade away while giving her ear scritches, but that would definitely be fucked up given our master-servant power dynamic.

Thankfully my morals speak louder than my corrupted mind. Only consensual, non-coercive scritches for me, yup.