The following afternoon, the cold, biting air of Border Town felt surprisingly more bearable under the pale, golden sun. Inside the castle, the transition to the local reality was finally complete—at least from a visual standpoint. After days of sticking out like sore thumbs in their synthetic hoodies and sneakers, Arthur and William had finally discarded their modern, flashy clothing.
Roland had been the one to insist. He knew that the presence of two "scholars" dressed in high-tech, industrial fabrics would eventually draw the wrong kind of attention. If spies from Longsong Stronghold or, worse, the Church's Inquisition were to catch wind of men wearing materials that shouldn't exist for another five hundred years, the questions would be impossible to answer.
To solve this, the Prince had provided them with high-quality attire typical of Graycastle's lower nobility or wealthy merchants. Arthur now wore a dark gray wool tunic, heavy and warm, with discreet silver embroidery along the cuffs that accentuated his calm, observant posture. William, on the other hand, looked like a rising young knight from a storybook. He sported a navy blue doublet over a crisp linen shirt, the cut highlighting his athletic build and broad shoulders.
— "Well, Art, I have to admit, the fabric isn't exactly Adidas or Nike," William commented, tugging at his stiff collar and adjusting a heavy leather belt around his waist as they walked toward the testing room. — "But at least it doesn't itch as much as I thought it would. Though I'd give a limb for a pair of denim jeans right about now."
Arthur smoothed out his tunic, feeling the weight of the history the garment represented. — "It's about blending in, Will. We can't build a revolution if we're burned at the stake for looking like aliens. Besides, you look like you're ready to audition for a fantasy epic."
They entered the testing room, a spacious chamber with stone walls and large windows that let in the afternoon light. In the center of the room, Karl van Bate stood beside a small, trembling figure. He introduced her to Roland with a protective hand on her shoulder: Nana Pine.
The girl was the local carpenter's daughter, and she looked as if she wanted to disappear into the floorboards. Her eyes were wide with a mix of terror and confusion, her small hands clutching the fabric of her simple dress. She had been told all her life that the "Devil's breath" within her was a curse, yet here she was, standing before a Prince who looked at her not with disgust, but with a gentle, encouraging gaze.
To test her abilities, Roland had prepared a small, injured bird that a guard had found in the castle garden. Its wing was bent at an unnatural angle, and its tiny chest heaved with the effort of staying alive. It was a pathetic, painful sight.
— "It's alright, Nana," Roland said softly. — "Just do what you feel is right. No one here will hurt you."
Nana stepped forward, her lower lip quivering. She extended her small hands toward the bird. Arthur and William watched with bated breath as the magic finally manifested. It wasn't like Anna's fire; it was a glowing, semi-liquid substance—a pale, emerald-green light that seemed to flow like warm honey from her fingertips. The substance enveloped the animal's broken wing, glowing with a soft, pulsing rhythm.
In a matter of seconds, the bone audibly clicked back into place, the skin mended without a scar, and the ruffled feathers aligned perfectly. The bird, which only moments ago had been in the throes of agony, suddenly chirped with a vigorous, life-filled sound. It hopped twice on the table and then took flight, soaring across the room and circling the rafters before landing on a high window ledge.
William let out a low, appreciative whistle, his eyes wide as he followed the bird's flight. To him, someone who understood combat and "game logic" firsthand, this wasn't just a miracle—it was the ultimate support skill.
— "Unbelievable," William muttered. — "A portable med-kit that never runs out of supplies. If we have her behind our lines, the casualty rate for our future army just dropped to near zero. That's a literal game-changer."
However, Arthur—while impressed—maintained his analytical distance. He had already read about Nana's "magical biology" in the original story; his curiosity regarding the mechanics of her power had already been sated by his knowledge of the "meta." He knew Nana would become the bedrock of the kingdom's regenerative medicine, the one who would allow Roland's soldiers to fight another day.
What truly drew Arthur at that moment wasn't the magical healing, but the tangible, visceral structure of the world waiting outside the castle gates.
— "I'll leave you two to the further field tests," Arthur told Roland and William, giving a brief, polite bow. — "I want to head down to the riverbank. I need to see how the wall foundations are reacting to the saturation of the terrain near the water. Theory only goes so far."
As he left the castle, Arthur felt a flash of genuine enthusiasm he rarely showed. As soon as his boots hit the muddy earth of the main road, the omnipresent smell of manure, woodsmoke, and damp soil hit him. To any modern person, it was a stench of misery and decay. But to Arthur—a student of art and design, and a lifelong fan of the "isekai" genre—it was something else entirely.
Border Town enchanted him in a way that words couldn't quite capture. It was like walking inside a living work of art, a masterpiece painted in shades of brown, grey, and autumn orange. He walked through the dirt streets, observing the rustic houses. They were built with "wattle and daub"—interwoven wooden strips covered with a mixture of wet soil, clay, and straw. To the residents, they were cramped hovels; to Arthur, they were a fascinating display of historical architecture.
He stopped before the town hall, admiring the heavy timber frames and the way the thatched roofs were layered to shed the rain. Every exposed beam, every hand-carved doorframe, and every uneven stone path seemed to have come straight out of the pages of the Light Novels and anime he had devoured back home.
"It's so... authentic," he whispered to himself, ignoring a stray pig that trotted past his boots.
He headed toward the Redwater River, watching how the rudimentary medieval engineering integrated with the natural landscape. The river was the lifeblood of the town, its grey waters rushing toward the horizon. Arthur looked at the site where the wall would soon stand. He knew this "charming," rustic scenery was about to change forever. Soon, the horizon would be filled with the black smoke of coal chimneys, the roar of steam engines, and the rhythmic clanging of factories.
While William remained at the castle, likely trying to use his "harem protagonist" charisma to interact with the witches and gain more "system points," Arthur lost himself in the contemplation of the urban structure. He took a mental snapshot of every detail: the way the light hit the mossy stones, the sound of the wind through the thatched roofs, and the simple, quiet life of a town on the edge of the world.
He wanted to etch every detail of this era into his memory before the industrial revolution—sparked by Roland and fueled by their knowledge—transformed it into a world of iron and steel. He was an architect of the future, but for today, he was content being a spectator of the past.