After about four hours of nonstop travel, we arrived at a city. It was relatively large—not huge, but certainly large enough not to be called a village. When we entered through the great main gate, we saw several soldiers armed with chainmail, spears, and swords, although one of them struck me as particularly unusual, because he carried some kind of heavy gauntlet instead of a weapon. It was strange; in my fragmented mind, I couldn't associate that with a weapon used by a soldier.
The guards looked at us with suspicion, but the man who had brought us said something about us being his nephews. It seemed the guards knew him, so they let us pass without further issue.
Upon reaching a more central part of the settlement, the old man told us to get down from the cart and handed us what appeared to be around twenty silver-colored coins. He told us to go into the inn directly in front of us and rent a room. After that, he said we should try to earn some money to survive for a few days until he came back to look for us. He had to leave the city to deliver some things or something along those lines; honestly, I didn't quite understand what he meant.
It seemed strange to me that the man would return. Perhaps he only said it to reassure us, because I couldn't see any reason why he would want to continue helping us when we had done nothing but appear like poor beggars.
And that was how I ended up sitting at a table in a room across from Rowan without either of us saying anything. It was rather uncomfortable for me, though he seemed to be staring at the table while thinking about something else.
"So... are we really brothers, not cousins, friends, or something else?" I asked after a long period of absolute silence.
"The truth is, I don't really know. After that wave of energy, a few fragments of memory came to my mind, but honestly, I don't know for sure. I was able to remember my name and yours, but not a surname or anything more specific." Just then, a loud thud came from the room next door and distracted us for a second, but he continued. "I can't explain why, but I'm certain we're family... and given how much we resemble each other, I'd bet that we're brothers."
"I understand," I responded heavily. "At least I'm glad I'm not alone in this situation."
Rowan nodded.
A minute later, he spoke again. "Well, we should go out and do something. Let's divide up the tasks and come back here later tonight."
A while later, I found myself walking down the street. It was fairly crowded, with several carts moving along the center of the main road and many people walking along the sides. It was easy to tell that this was the center of the city.
After talking for a while about what each of us would do, we agreed that he would look for work around the city to earn some money and find food. Meanwhile, I would also gather information, but about this world, of which we had absolutely no understanding. Many of the things we saw couldn't be associated with what seemed normal to us. For some reason, it felt extremely strange to see soldiers in armor guarding the streets—the clothing, the houses, the atmosphere—and not to mention the strange attack he had performed against the wild beast the old man had called a... "Panlagor?" Curiously, that seemed even stranger to me than everything else.
As I walked, absorbed in my thoughts, I realized that I had found what I had been looking for: a building with a slightly crooked wooden sign that read "Library."
Upon entering and approaching the front desk, I was greeted by an elderly man. He didn't say much, only that admission cost four centos for the day. Honestly, I had no idea whether that was expensive or cheap, but I took the risk and handed him four of the coins I had. I stood there for a few seconds waiting to see if he would give me change, but he simply continued doing what he had been doing, so I assumed that I had just paid four centos.
I wandered through the shelves for a while, picking up a few books that might help me, until I stopped at what appeared to be a large rolled-up sheet. When I unrolled it, I saw that it was a map.
On it, I could see what appeared to be three continental landmasses. They were fairly close together, separated only by a gigantic three-pronged river. They were filled with marked points, ranging from topographical features to cities, villages, and important locations.
I rolled the map back up, returned it to its place, and continued on my way. After gathering all the books I wanted, I sat down at a nearby table and began to read.
***
It seemed that the known world was divided into three main continents. There were several kingdoms and empires, but the one that caught my attention the most was the one on the central continent, which was ruled by a single authority: the "Corantian Empire." At first, it had only been a kingdom, but approximately thirty years ago, it had taken up arms and overwhelmed the three kingdoms that had ruled over the region.
The point of all this was that we were there, in a small city called "Aldefor," located in the southwest of the continent, near an enormous mountain range that I had seen on the map earlier.
The more I read about this world, the more astonished I became. I couldn't believe what I was reading, which felt extremely strange to me, since all of this appeared to be completely normal in this world. I had so many questions, but the most important one was why I felt such a strong sense of unfamiliarity toward the rules and norms of this place. Why, when thinking about it, did the phrase "this world" come to mind? Could it be that... I wasn't from here?
No, there was no point in dwelling on that. I should continue investigating for now.
For obvious reasons, what caught my attention the most was the fact that there seemed to be... supernatural powers or energies. Apparently, that was what Rowan had managed to use on the road. There was a great deal of information regarding it, but nothing explaining how it worked or how to use it—only that magic was primarily mastered by the important houses of the various kingdoms, especially the martial ones.
As I said, there was a lot of information on the subject: stories and great feats performed by the so-called "Shockers," who appeared to be the wielders of these abilities. The most...
"Hey, boy, I've been calling you," said the man from the reception desk.
"Oh, sorry, I didn't hear you," I replied, embarrassment evident in my voice.
The man shook his head. "No problem. I was just letting you know that I'm closing up. It's nighttime."
"Damn, yes, I'm really sorry. I'm leaving right away." I quickly got up from my seat, returned the books to where I had found them, left the library, and hurried toward the inn where I was staying with my brother. I didn't know the exact time, but I was sure it was very late, so I quickened my pace.
There weren't as many people walking through the streets anymore, but there were still enough to know that it wasn't excessively late. After fifteen minutes of walking, I arrived at the inn. I showed the card the receptionist had given us and was allowed into our room.
"You're finally here. I was starting to think something had happened to you," Rowan said as he sat at the table eating some bread.
"It's just that I found a library and ended up reading until just now. Everything in this world is so 'fantastical,' but it feels so..."
"Strange? Odd?" my brother interrupted. "Yeah, I feel the same way."
I nodded, sat down across from him, took a piece of bread from the table, and began to eat, satisfying the fierce hunger I had been feeling.
After eating in silence for a while, I began explaining everything I had discovered in the library that day, from the continents to some of the history I had learned about them. What I had gathered wasn't particularly extensive, but it was enough to give us a general idea of where we were.
"It's... interesting. The part about magic is somewhat curious, since I didn't see anyone using anything like that except for the old man who rescued us this morning," he replied while staring at his hand.
Before I could say anything, he spoke again.
"Alright, now for what I discovered."
He began telling me everything he had done since we had separated, mainly that he had earned a few coins by helping unload goods from carts into a nearby warehouse. It wasn't much, but it was enough for us to eat. He explained that the currency was divided into three units: Centos, Coroas, and Imperial Coroas.
Centos were the coins used in the daily lives of ordinary people. With a few dozen of them, four people could live comfortably for a week. Rowan had received six centos for helping at the warehouse for a few hours, and he had spent two of them on the bread we were eating at that very moment.
"...It also seems that we're on the thirty-fifth day of spring in the year 1070," he finished explaining.
Once we had finished talking and eating, we went to sleep. During this week, we would have to continue that routine of gathering information to figure out where the hell we were. We didn't want to appear strange while lacking any knowledge whatsoever. That would be incredibly suspicious.