Anomaly

„Yes, that"s exactly it. But i guess we haven"t progressed further in the big picture necessarily. From what i heard that should be Julias world."

„Well, i"m just wildly guessing right now, but i imagine that you should face a certain problem with the development of technology."

„What do you mean?", Aya asked curiously.

„If my guess is correct, the problem is the existence of magic."

„Why is magic a problem?"

„Then let me ask you a question. What sounds more interesting to you?

Studying magic, or finding a way to improve the cities plumbing system?"

„Urgh, i get it."

„Hahaha, thats exactly the problem we are facing with the development of our city. Almost all the capable and intelligent people prefer the study of magic, but sadly that isn"t anything that the common people can benefit from. Even the most simple spells or magic artifacts require you to possess a certain capability in terms of magic to make use of them. And that is definitely not something common. But may i ask, why does it sound as if you aren"t familiar with the problem?"

„Ah, the reason is simple, and also the same why i said that my world isn"t necessarily further developed. We didn"t have that exact problem, in fact, there was no one who could use magic, so there no need to study it."

„That kind of world must be a wonderful place for commoners to live!"

„Maybe, but it isn"t like we didn"t have our fair share of problems to deal with. And it seems you too, or else we wouldn"t be here right now."

„On that note, what is going to happen with us now?", Cale asked, stopping the discussion about the problems of society and plumbing at that point.

„We will take the carriages over there. You will be brought to the King of this country. Even though the church performed the summoning, it is the kingdom you shall safe, so it is also the king who will take command directly as long as the heroes are concerned."

After he guided them to the carriages, the cardinal as well as Cale Aya and Shade embarked on the first, leaving the second for Allan, Loras, Julia and Magus.

While they were moving towards the castle Julia suddenly asked:

„What do you think about this kingdom?"

„It seems like a very good place to live for the common people, but i can"t say much more until we find out what the problem is."

„Certainly, they do seem very developed. I don"t have much of an opinion as there are almost no elves that are incapable of using magic, but as i have seen other human cities before i can understand their problems to a certain extend. To be honest, i never expected to get to see a human city that is almost as clean as an elven one. But for now we won"t know if the rest of it is just as clean. In a physical and political sense."

-I can"t say much in this matter, our culture is very different from Humans and elves. You humans had a word for it, i think you called it communism.-

„That doesn"t seem unrealistic, considering your way of communication. But one thing is definitely clear, we were summoned to fight, the question is: who or what?"

„I do have to say that i"m quiet happy about the sanitary conditions here. As a doctor i have pretty high standard"s. And Loras is right, we have to consider the political situation as well, but i almost forgot, that you were a prince i mean. But it"s good that we have you, i doubt the rest of us is any good in these kinda situations... Especially Cale..."

„I"m still wondering why he of all became the leader, i don"t understand how that G.o.ddess came to the conclusion that that would be a good idea.", Loras said with a frown on his face.

„Didn"t you see him back at the church? I think if he stops cursing all the time he actually has that type of personality. That of a leader, i mean. Well, we still will have to support him. I"m actually getting a little worried right now."

Not listening to their conversation anymore, Allan looked out of the window of the carriage. At the moment they had reached the main road in the second district. He saw many people going around, in and out of shops.

Looking at their clothes Allan saw that they seemed to be of rather good quality, nothing like the machineproduced products of his old world but still of fairly high quality. The thing that calmed him down especially was that he couldn"t see any outrageous types of fashion, actually everyone seemed to be clothed pretty moderately, showing almost no skin.

The only exception to that were the occasional beast people that seemed to make up around 10% of the population. Still, even in those cases they mostly only left the parts of their body"s uncovered that were covered in fur instead. The most daring he could find was a woman that was wearing a dress that left her back uncovered, but even that hardly surprised him as she had rather large wings that would make it very difficult to wear anything else.

After a while Allan realized that there was a certain regularity, a black leather collar with a round metall plaque which had different symbols engraved on them. All of those who where wearing these seemed to be in some kind of servant position.

„Say, do you have an idea what those collars mean? I have a bad feeling."

After looking out of the window for a while Loras finally answered:

„Aren"t they slaves? I heard you humans liked to do that."