Their first leg was a long one. The first week saw the merchants making minor trades in the villages they passed. None of them wanted to, but trading is a business of reputation, and they needed people to look favourably at them when they returned. To Ioha’s relief they avoided Werkalin Rinna, the Wergaist seat of power, not because of the danger but because of the economic rivalry between two centres of commerce too close to each other. A stiff hour before Schooltown the road turned in a south-easterly direction, and the crossroads should normally have been the natural place for a town. Trust outworlders not to do the normal and sane thing. After that, two weeks on good roads and bad roads. To save money, they slept in the ever present barns for almost no cost, apart from making villagers happy by buying the supplies they needed during camp hours.

  Ioha made himself a good reputation among the merchants, since he didn’t carry any really valuable items for trade along the road. Apart from one crate that stayed unopened on his wagon, he bought and sold as they moved further toward the federation capital. It was enough to pay for his supplies, but not much more. Given the long-term cost for horses and wagon, he’d be in the red, but his real money lay more in finding out what sold cheap where and vice versa. The merchants who weren’t part of Isjase had to make a profit from what lay on their wagons.

  When spring had taken a firm control of the year, the roads got paved and the villages large enough to merit being called small towns. Twice since leaving Isekai a major town connected to their road and both times when they already saw an end to the caravan. The first time, two merchants waved their farewells and turned their wagons in the direction of a nearby city wall. The second time, three of them did the same. The federation capital didn’t just happen to be picked as one. These were rich lands, and the last morning before they arrived, Ioha was truly curious about what to expect.

  As it turned out the capital hugged the coast facing a huge island or small continent two days' sailing to the north-east, and the smell of ocean he remembered both from Isekai and Gothenburg returned as the roads they picked returned coastward from an inland bow they had taken to accommodate the merchants who left. The last day they followed a river wide enough to allow passage for small barges that told Ioha that the caravans were impossible to sustain for trade with the capital. Isekai needed that trading port.

  By midday the river split in two, and a little later it split again. They followed the road along the westernmost water course, watching as bridged islands in the river delta showed less farmland and more buildings. Soon they reached the first of a string of bridges connecting the island world with the outside. They crossed it and arrived in a small merchant town that occupied most of the island. A hefty toll later they were let inside a large merchant area where Ioha rented a place for his wagon and horses. Apart from one crate, he also sold his remaining wares here rather than paying for the permit to trade inside the city proper. That crate he labelled private and had lugged to his room. This was also where the caravan disbanded, and the escort received their pay.

  Harvali gave his entire party leave for a month as well, and dragged Ioha inside the city. It had districts, with each island a small town of its own, with bridges everywhere. It looked old, if not ancient, and lived in. Where one bridge or building was several hundreds years old, the next shone in the way that just a few decades gave patina enough to dull. The central island, a white hill that once forced the river to split in two around it, guarded as it was on two sides by smaller hills, sported the old city. One large bridge, built just because it was possible, spanned one of those and the central one. Ioha looked across the water, and let his eyes rest on a row of brick buildings. Temples, just like the one at Spellsword Academy but larger and a lot of them.

  “Hurry up!”

  Harvali stood across the street, waving for Ioha to follow. He didn’t look entirely pleased. One spell and idiotically clean earlier, Ioha pretty much sabotaged their visit to one of the public bath houses. He did feel remorse. Being clean didn’t take away the joy of soaking in an onsen style bath, and he just took that pleasure away from his friend.

  Friend?

  Yes, by now Harvali had become a friend, despite objectively being three years older. They were at an age when subjective experience mattered more, and there Ioha was closer to thirty than twenty.

  “Coming.” He made certain none of the few carriages in this district thundered down the street before crossing. People drove like maniacs here. The capital, Gairin, which loosely translated into river land, in accordance with the functionally oriented naming sense here, was a proper city with well over half a million souls crowding its streets. For a preindustrial world, it was a giant. “Where to?” he asked when he caught up with Harvali.

  “Secret.”

  Ioha didn’t like secrets, or at least he didn’t like secrets when he was sure of being on the butt-end. “Right.” He shadowed Harvali among milling people and caught, first amused smiles, and later, glances filled with consternation from his senior. Try to play this game with me after you’ve been to Tokyo. People were people everywhere. Here they tended to keep to the right-hand side, but Ioha had seen his share of chaotic. When Harvali tried to move against the stream of people Ioha still had time to take in his surroundings while he kept pace with his friend.

  Two bridges later, they were in a very different district. He’d seen this kind of area in cities before, but it still took a while for Ioha to fit it into his memories. Diplomatic quarters and yet not. Sure, some residences belonged to envoys but most were town houses for the federation nobility. They were substantially larger than either of his two, with generous, well-kept gardens inviting guests inside. People on the streets all but vanished. If you didn’t have business with one of the houses, you didn’t belong here in the first place. Of the few walking around, most wore house uniforms, and almost everyone carried a sabre fastened to their belts, with a buckler clasped to the back. The exceptions were unarmed if they wore a uniform, or carried a smallsword if they didn’t. Harvali looked slightly out of place in his field uniform, but not exceptionally so. Ioha, on the other hand, stood out like a sore thumb.

  “OK, I’ll get to my rooms and change unless we’re very close,” Ioha complained. Just about everyone they met threw him suspicious stares, including quite a few working the gardens of the residences they passed.

  “Ten, ten of your… Ah, quarter of an hour,” Harvali said.

  Why the hell didn’t we come here by carriage then? Ioha remembered Harvali missing out on his bath. Fine, I owe him one. “Sure.”

  They met a group of armed men who showed signs of stopping them, but a quick glance at Harvali’s uniform made them change their plans, and both of them passed without as much as a sneer thrown their way. There were fewer residences here, not because of a lack of want, but because they changed character to small castles with the associated larger gardens. Four estates after Harvali’s estimate, they arrived at what was no longer a small castle.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Welcome to the Terendala capital estate.”

  It was surprisingly modern for this world. And huge. “Nice cottage.”

  “It is, isn’t it? Mother loves how quaint it is.”

  Ioha stared at Harvali. Bastard! The time in the border zone and on the roads had definitely rubbed off. This version of Harvali knew how to deliver a deadpan joke.

  “Sir!” a voice called from the other side of a large iron gate. Metals might be scarcer in this world, but they were far from absent. The residences had sported iron fences showcasing the gardens, rather than compact walls hiding them. Displaying your opulence must be important here.

  Ioha looked at the man. Uniformed rather than liveried.

  “Darete, good to see you.”

  “We weren’t expecting you until later.” He looked at Ioha from top to toe. You had to give him credit for keeping his face blank. “The young man?”

  “Sir Ioha Questingtank, a friend of mine and my guest.”

  “I see. Will the young sir stay?”

  “Ioha?”

  “Don’t want to be any trouble.”

  “You’re my guest, not trouble.”

  With a smile, Ioha caved in. “My pleasure.”

  “You heard him, Darete,” Harvali said and smiled.

  “Yes, Sir. We’ll have a room in order after dinner.”

  While they followed the butler, Ioha tugged at his armour. “Harvali, armoury or my room?”

  “I’ll have a stand set aside for you in the armoury. Should I send for your luggage?”

  “Yes please.”

  “Darete, unless otherwise specified, invitations to me will include Sir Questingtank as well.”

  “I’ll see to it, Sir.”

  Green lawns, flowerbeds and the occasional tree defined the visible part of the garden, but as soon as they reached the entrance Ioha noted a gravel courtyard through the inner entrance of the building. Just like the administrative building at Spellsword Academy, this one lacked a central staircase blocking the first floor view. The architecture might look similar to early industrial Europe, but it wasn’t the same. He smiled. A small mystery had just been solved. Wergaist, or more likely Lord Clevasti, lay behind the design of the administrative building, but people from Isekai drew the dorms.

  “Harvali?”

  “Follow me. We’ll have a drink and a light meal in the hall of lords.”

  Hall of lords? Ioha followed Harvali through a suite of salons, that were too large to be called rooms, until they reached the east wing. The entire wing was an enormous hall with a domed ceiling. The windows Ioha had seen from the garden could as well have been false. Two balconies rather than floors were the only way to reach them without the use of aura.

  Seated by a small table, not inside, but on what was best described as a glassed terrace, they had their small meal. Ioha had to set up the glass, or rather barriers, with instructions from Harvali. His father once bought four green poles for an exorbitant sum, loot from a subjugation mission in a border zone two weeks from the capital.

  “How long?” Ioha asked and pointed at his barriers extending between the poles. At Harvali’s behest, he included some discreet fireworks to prevent people from walking into them.

  “A year, maybe two. There aren’t many mages with your shields, and these,” Harvali nodded at one of the poles, “helps a defence mage.” He smirked. “Honestly, I don’t know how it works, but I was told you need less aura, and it’s stronger anyway.”

  Ioha could verify the aura part. Well, almost. The contraptions amplified the effects of his shields or barriers rather than reduce how much aura he burned. He wasn’t entirely certain, but it felt like he gained a substantial amount of added ability points as long as he cast his defences between two of them. You’d fail driving a truck through that barrier. “Brought me here just to fix your winter terrace?”

  “Yes. You’re useful that way.”

  Did he always have this kind of humour? Maybe just kept it under wraps. “Ow en I av on…”

  “You should listen to your girls.”

  Ioha swallowed. “Good food.”

  “Noticed.”

  “Only one girl, and she’s not mine any longer.”

  An expression of pity spread over Harvali’s face. “Sorry about that. You should visit.”

  “Expelled, remember?”

  A hand made its way through Harvali’s already unkept hair. Combing it didn’t help. “If I helped... in a year or so…”

  With a wave of his hand, Ioha killed that offer. “Too old, and I’m not really a cat.”

  “Knightage?”

  He could. Ioha knew that. “Already knighted. Still too old. Maybe a real academy, but I’m probably too old for that as well.”

  “Real?”

  “We have schools in my world for people over twenty.”

  “You must be rich.”

  Ioha nodded. “We are.” He took another bite of his meal. This time he swallowed before talking. “It’s different. A majority attend sixteen years of school. I did eighteen, and there’s another three for a select few.”

  “Why?”

  It was a question worth finding a proper answer to. Why did they study for so long? “I guess our world has become more complex.” That wasn’t really right. He just said life was easy here. “We don’t have magic, but we have technology beyond anything you could find here. You need a lot of education to run all of it.” A better answer, but still not enough. He grinned. “I guess a lot of us just want to learn because we can learn.”

  Harvali looked at the gardens. Some staff members tended to it, and he nodded slowly. “Machines. I’ve heard of them.”

  Ioha followed his gaze. Machines couldn’t replace the gardener, but it was still clear Harvali had understood one part of the difference between outworld and the reality he grew up in.

  “So, your next grand show?”

  “As soon as you can arrange for my wagon,” Ioha said.