Devon and Elara started walking, heading in the direction the System indicated.
Devon walked first, the mage's staff serving as a decent walking stick, his body still sore from the previous night's activities. Elara followed, the heavy sword at her side.
As they walked, Devon was deep in thought. He had only been in this world for a few days, and the System told him it was his responsibility to fix it. Yet his first real encounter with people involved awful men dealing in slaves and worse. Had this kind of cruelty been going on since before the portals appeared? Would he even want to save such a place? The weight of his supposed purpose felt crushing, especially when paired with the heavy lie they were forced to adopt.
He cleared his throat. He needed information more than he needed to wallow in guilt.
"Elara," Devon asked "This is going to be a weird question, but would you be able to tell me what you know about, well, basically everything."
She gave him a strange look, her ears twitching. "What do you mean?"
"Well, let's just say I was pretty sheltered and didn't learn much about anything about the outside world" Devon lied. "I know that portals started appearing and spewing out monsters. I know about humans, but I'm kind of missing the regular things, like what country or kingdom are we in, what currency it uses, what sort of magic do people have? Stuff like that.."
Elara adjusted the sword at her side, considering him with a mix of suspicion and pity. He was, to her, clearly a strange, soft Human, capable of terrible power yet ignorant.
"I can tell you what I know, but I don't know much about the other countries." she started
"We are in the Kingdom of Talvera," Elara began "It is ruled by King Michael Talvera. It was once a great country, almost double the size, but when the previous King died and his son took over, things took a turn for the worse. The rumors say Michael is more interested in women than governing his country."
As Elara spoke, a small, faint holographic map shimmered to life in the upper corner of Devon's vision, provided by the System. It began to populate itself with the information Elara was giving him, sketching out rough borders and marked points.
"North and West of Talvera is Deria, which is ruled by five great families. I don't know their names, just that they each have an equal say in what happens to their country. East is the great desert. It has no ruler, but you will find nomadic people who call themselves the Sun Children. They never stay in one place for long and ride gigantic ships across the sand. South is the great forest, ruled by the Elves. Not much is known about them as almost no human who enters their woods ever returns."
"Talvera mainly deals in grains and animals, produced by our great fields. When the Portals came, most people abandoned their homes and flocked to the two great cities, Talvren and Alveran. We are heading to an outpost town which is a few days' ride from Alveran."
Devon nodded, absorbing the map of this new world. "Thank you. You mentioned money was in the pack. What kind of money are we dealing with? And what's the deal with traveling now? Besides the monster issue, are there a lot of bandits?"
Elara kept her eyes on the path ahead, the familiar fear of the road keeping her cautious.
"The coins are called Crowns, Marks, and Bits," Elara explained "Ten Bits make a Mark, and ten Marks make a Crown. The pack should have mostly Marks; that's what those men used. It's enough to buy food for a while, and a room at an inn for a month."
She paused, taking a deep breath. "As for travel, the monsters are the worst, but it's the bandits you have to worry about most on the roads. They like to hit the supply caravans leaving the cities. Sometimes they wear armor and look like soldiers, sometimes they're just thugs. The men who took me talked about working as mercenaries protecting caravans, and other times they just robbed them."
She gripped the sword tighter. "They're desperate since the Portals began. Trade routes are the only life left in the country, so everyone, good and bad, is drawn to them."
"Okay, so bandits and monsters" Devon summarized. "What about magic? What kind of magic do people usually learn here?"
Elara took a moment, looking back down the empty path, ensuring they weren't being followed.
"People don't learn magic here; they awaken it" she explained. "People over the age of thirteen are supposed to awaken a power, but it's kind of rare. Only a few of the people in my village had awakened, including myself."
She continued, "The powers are mostly based around the elements, Fire, Water, Wind and Earth, but there are others as well. I have limited power over nature. I can make things grow much quicker than usual, and I can help rid plants of issues like disease, but with the monsters devastating our fields, I wasn't much use to my village anymore."
She spoke of the powers she had witnessed "The mage who kept us captive could command water to his will. He could pull it from the earth as easily as we walk and make such a thin stream it could cut through tree and rock. I've heard of people wielding fire, able to bring down giant balls of fire on enemies. The walls surrounding the two great cities were built by earth mages who could bend earth to their will."
Devon was quiet for a moment, gripping the mage's staff and processing the sudden surge of information about this world's new magic. He looked back down the path, his mind replaying the horror of the previous night.
He was glad he had managed to kill the mage before he could fully fight back. Elara's description of the water mage's power, pulling a stream from the earth capable of cutting through rock, filled him with a cold dread. He seriously doubted he would have been able to beat him in a fair battle, let alone with the swordsman as well. His own power, the Void Field, was potent but slow and exhausting to deploy.
"We were lucky," Devon said, stating the obvious. "In a straight fight, that mage would have killed me before I knew what was happening if I hadn't waited until he was asleep."
After a few minutes of silence, Devon asked "Can you tell me about your village Elara, what was life like before the Portals? Before all this started?"
Elara's tense posture relaxed slightly at the question, her mind moving away from immediate danger and back to a safer memory.
"It was called Whispering Brook," she began, her voice soft. "It was a small village, mostly Cervid and Canid. We were far enough from the main cities to be left alone, but close enough to the King's Road to trade our goods."
She painted a picture of quiet rural existence "Everyone worked the fields. We didn't have magic then, so the work was hard, but it was honest. There was always plenty of food, and the streams were clean. We were generally left alone by Humans in that area. We were useful for trade and good at tending the land, so we were valuable. We had festivals, we had family. It was a good life. We were free. That changed when the Portals came. The monsters started attacking the farms, and the King's taxes got higher to pay for the new city walls and protection around the cities. When the soldiers stopped protecting the roads, the slavers and bandits started looking for easy targets. Eventually, they came for us."
Elara fell silent, the cheerful memory dissolving into the harsh reality.