Sorry...another info-dump but it needed to be dealt with sooner rather than later
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When I knelt down to drink from the stream I saw someone staring back at...no, I saw someone's reflection was staring back at me. I was surprised and spooked and quickly pulled back but ended up falling back on my butt, on a dry patch luckily. Wet and clingy pant and underwear don't sound like fun idea.
Who was that? Is it some sort of ghost that you can only see as reflection?
You sissy! It was our body. Bit young and different hair color sure but it was definitely our face.
No way...
Not believing my other half I slowly crept back to see the reflection and found it again. A 16-17 year. old guy with black hair and back eyes staring back at me.
The hell..!!! We look like some emo wanna be. I want to punch whoever did this, repeatedly. Atleast give me white hairs or something.
Really? That's why you want to punch them? You'd rather look like a Chuuni than an emo? And since we are on the topic, I prefer the brown hair, thank you very much.
.....Why?
It didn't make us stand out much and it helped in blending with background people. Anyway, now we atleast know why that kitty is acting like big sis character. That's one mystery solved.
Well good for you Sherlock.
Oh? Are you sulking cause you know that now you have no chance with that blue cat?
....
I am right, aren't I ? *Sigh* Why do I even bother? you never learn from your mistakes.
After coming to terms with my new and downgraded appearance and ignoring the taunts from my other half I made my way towards Smila and the women, who just gave me a nod and slight smile. Smila then resumed the leading position and after looking about for few moments she started walking in seemingly random direction and rest of us followed. She corrected our direction few more times and we came on a forest trail. Another thing added to the 'to learn' list. After all I don't want to resort to picking a random direction and miss the close-by settlement in opposite direction.
As we walked on the forest trail I got another tidbits on the status and world out of Sumila. Apparently it's like a game but not like a game. Confused? Let me explain, first there is no health bar or value. Everything about death works like back home. A level one person won't simply die if a level 1000 person pokes or cuts his finger. Vice versa, a level 1000 person will still die if a level one person somehow stabs him in heart or shoots through his brain. Increasing stats simply makes you stronger, faster,more accurate, more intelligent, tougher and heal faster. And, even though the vitality helps you to heal faster, it won't regenerate lost limbs or organs, for that you need either high level healing magic or a racial ability of regeneration.
There are numerous races but most prominent ones are humans, elves, demi-humans, fallen and dragons. There are various sub-races in these main races. For example. elves are further classified as wood elf, high elf, moon elf. Demi humans are usually divided on their matching animals like tiger, lion, fox, wolf, dog, cat to name a few. Fallen race is like demon race in this world, they are strong and on bad terms with almost all of the races. Dragons are strongest race, a strong rank 2 adventurer is needed to fight a single dragon. They usually stay in their mountain range or volcanic regions so besides some wild drake here and there the conflict between dragons and other races is non existent. Elves mostly keep to their own forests and settlements. Only demihumans and humans interact on a regular basis. Almost every race discriminates against the rest to some extent but nothing too extreme and besides some small skirmishes between fallen and humans there haven't been any massive war in past 100 cycles. Oh right, that's what they use for a year here, a cycle.
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The humanity is in possession of the largest portion of the continent out of all races. And it is divided between two kingdom and one empire, with the empire being almost the size as the other two kingdom combined. One of the kingdom shares the border with demi human in the east, another with elven forest in west while empire shares the border with fallen in north. Dragons stay in their mountain range between fallen and elves.
Currently we are in the human kingdom which shares border with demi humans, the Neagia Kingdom. Other one is Vathia Kingdom to the west of here. Wania Empire is to the north-west.
After walking for about 4 hours we came to a human settlement, a small village. I don't know what I was expecting but I was bit disappointed. There was not a single house made of stone. There was no high wall circling the village like you'd expect from a fantasy village. There was just a 5 or 6 feet high wall marking the village boundary, made of mud, stone and wood. Almost all the structures looked like thatched huts with walls made of mud and straw roof. Two or three such huts enclosed in a 2-3 feet high mud wall perimeter were the housing arrangement of a general household. There were about 30 or so similar 'houses'.
It was evening but the sun was still visible on the horizon when we reached the village. People were either moving towards the village from the surrounding farm land or finishing up last of their chores. We were greeted by a group of villagers consisting of few middle aged men and few hot blooded teens with sticks and bows. I wanted to let our cute kitten handle the greetings and explanations while I blended in the background but I still received stares and glares from guys. Ugh..I hate my emo hair.
After few minutes of explaining from Sumila everything was peachy. Turned out a few of women from the ragtag group were originally from here so after the tears and crying and all that reunion farce was taken care of, we were invited in and were offered some food, pure vegan diet. I haven't had meat since I've arrived here let's hope not everyone is vegan here. I'd rather go back to drinking that cave water than becoming pure vegan.
Should have thought about that before turning it in used bath water...
We can always hunt and eat that. The wild animals here are edible, right?
I hope so.
I barely touched the food and once it was done, Sumila and I were offered a hut and two blankets to sleep in, no beds though. Apparently, only inns in cities offer beds in rooms and only the high class inns have rooms with attached bathroom. Now I understand why most people want and try to go back to earth in those stories....I already miss earth. More importantly I miss my wardrobe, my bed and my bathroom.
You forgot the internet, you numb-skull.
Err...Internet isn't a necessity for survival ...?
Well neither is a bed or clothes or a bathroom.
Let's see what you will do in the morning then.
....