Cruelty and Kindness

"Mage?" He said the word slowly, almost like he tasted it before spitting it out. The look of confusion was apparent yet he still laced his voice with curiosity. "What's a mage might I ask?" The noble air around him had nearly completely faltered and died, replaced with curiosity, even his manners and speech had degraded since he came in.

"If a man can throw lightning from his hands, what would you call him?" Edward threw a question back, "Only a crazy person would claim such a thing, there is no such person capable of it." Edward quickly considered how to explain such a thing before placing his finger on the countertop.

"Just as a guard is a title for someone who guards, a mage is a title for someone who uses magic." As Edward spoke his finger started to glow a pale green light, it flowed like sap in the carving left by his finger before quickly evaporating.

"Magic is a skill, something you learn like a weapon or a craft, the goal of all magic is to make the impossible possible." As he finished the carving, he could say for certain if any doubt existed within Batyr's mind, it was long gone.

The carving was Batyr in English, he was still unaware of how it worked but any language inside the Gateway be it spoken or written was understandable by anyone inside. So while Batyr couldn't speak English, he could read that it was his own name now carved into the counter.

Feeling the need to show off diminishing, Edward swiped his hand across the carving and filled it in with food, causing the counter to return to normal.

"I'm unaware if you truly lack mages or if their existence is just a secret, I'm an outsider to your world so I can guess." The word world seemed to prick Batyr's ears but his mind was still processing what he had just seen.

Edward smiled as he moved his chair towards the counter with his roots, he felt like standing the whole time was going to quickly become tiring. It only took the lad a minute or so to come out of his daze, his mind now processing what he heard.

"I will have to ask my father about these mages and magic, but what is this world you speak of? How does it set us apart?" The boy seemed slightly scared from what he had seen but it was suppressed by the giddiness he felt.

"A trade must be fair Young Batyr, tell me about you being an heir, also do all humans in your world have the same features as you?"

Half an hour quickly passed, the information Edward learnt wasn't really useful but it was interesting to learn nevertheless, he only shared tidbits on what magic was and explained the rough concept of a world as "If you added all the land, sea and sky together, then that is a world, for something to be another world it could not be connected by any of them things."

He could tell the boy was sharp, even if he was still confused by the idea of the concept he at least understood what it signified.

It turned out that Batyr's world was ruled by one family, which was the Thorburn family, which at first seemed impossible but due how small it was, the Thorburn family actually managed it. Batyr's world had been fully explored for nearly a thousand years, with only one land mass completely surrounded by an ocean, unless you lived at sea you live in a settlement managed by the Thorburn family.

When you factored in that his world was roughly more than half the size of Edward's old planet and still in the medieval era, it became easier to imagine such a thing was possible. The other thing was the oddity which was the heart and brain of Six fingered humans, which Edward decided to call them, their heart was the same as a normal heart but for people under a certain height it was closer to the skin than it was to the lungs and their ribcage was brittle while their brain would be smaller the smaller their height.

Anyone who was smaller than Batyrs guards would basically have a reverse scale, a well-placed punch on someone's chest could break the already brittle ribcage which would then puncture the heart while their intelligence would be worse, in most cases the child of a guard might be smarter than most labours.

He would have thought it as engineered if it happened in his old world but now he just saw it as an odd evolution direction of a world.

Because of this reverse scale, only people over a certain height could become fighters leaving the rest as labours, and it seemed height was mainly reliant on your parents, as it was impossible for two people as small as the guards to have a child as tall as Batyr.

The ruling family of Thorburn were the tallest people in the world, all around Batyrs height or even higher, their right to inherit the throne of the world was based on their height as well. Everyone's past, present and future were decided by their height, anyone who tried to rebel could be easily killed if they were under a certain height and if they were over a certain height, they were conscripted at the age of 10 and raised in the military till they were 18 where they became apart of the army.

Unloyal soldiers were executed along with their families while loyal soldiers were allowed to live and marry each other, causing them to slowly become taller. Occasionally a soldier who was tall enough would be allowed to start a noble family, by either starting one or joining one.

Labours married labours, soldiers married soldiers, ruling class married the ruling class. Even if soldiers became the ruling class, they would never grow as tall as the Thorburn family as the ruling class had to marry someone their own height or shorter. Ones which could be tall enough to be tall as the Thorburn family? The same as the army, if a noble's child looked like they'd be tall enough to be a part of the Thorburn family by the age of 16, they'd be absorbed into the Thorburn family and bring in fresh blood.

There had been countless revolutions however Thorburn had always come out on top, Edward also suspected that there were a lot of methods used by them which young Batyr was unaware of.

To sum up Batyr's world, labours had limited intelligence and a biological fault which could kill them in one hit, soldiers were brainwashed from an early age and unloyal soldiers were executed along with their bloodline while loyal ones were allowed to breed, ruling class were smart as a normal human in Edward's world and kept a tight grasp on everything while the Thorburn family apparently had higher intelligence than most people in his old world.

Such a world left a sour taste in his mouth, just like how a domestic cat could never rule over tigers, there was no chance for the labours to ever rule over the Thorburn family. The difference between the three classes was enough to consider them lesser and superior species, yet even the labours weren't treated extremely badly, they lived like most peasants in the medieval era of his world but were happier due to their reduced intelligence.

It could be said while the Orangutans of his old world were smarter than most soldiers, they were locked up and treated worse than the labour class of Batyr's world, even though they shared 97% of DNA with humans, it was unknown what percentage of similar DNA a labour had to Thorburn due to the technology.

It was a conflicting feeling, such cruel controlling methods towards their own species were seen as normal and he looked down on it yet they treated the dumbest of their species better than his own treated Orangutans which were as smart as children, smarter than nearly two of the classes of Batyr's world.

On the bright side, Edward noticed something. He had never considered the thought before but he could encounter any world out there, what was he supposed to do? Would he treat his customers all the same?

While chatting with Batyr, he extended his senses towards the door, he wrapped a root around the handle and felt for the door on the other side. He could feel the door on the other side, plain with no carving, he could also feel a second door, a door with a carving which existed in Sinclaires world.

The plain door which took him to Gateway wasn't there, neither were any other doors. He could feel the state of Batyr's door, and if he willed it, it too could have a carving just as he could make Sinclarie's door plain.

Time passed as food and drink soon arrived, Edward asked Batyr for a favour for a few boxes of tea leaves along with some seeds and soil. Edward felt since the roots could provide him nutrition, maybe he could do so for plants too, allowing him to serve tea to his customers in future.

For food? If he ended up growing food, it would be for his own enjoyment and maybe to treat his friends. Thoughts of foods and drinks from different worlds filled his mind, just as he had met mutated humans, he could too find mutated plants.

As he learnt more about Batyr's world, he probed him with questions, better understanding the mentality of him and others in his world. Edward could see both faults and improvements in them, as well as his own faults.

Only by comparing himself to others could he see the differences, and only then could he understand what about himself was a fault in his eyes and was an improvement in others. He felt scared of the future, how much would his mind and personality change from a normal person from his old world?

He could already vaguely tell he had already changed, it was just he couldn't feel the changes himself due to the fusing with his root side, it was only when he looked back that could he see how he had slowly changed. He was thankful it was nothing drastic, all the changes related to his body, existence and future while his personality and morals had stayed the same.

The fact he had started to refer to his nonhuman side as his root side or the roots as his roots felt natural and worrying about it wouldn't change anything, it would just tire him endlessly.

He didn't expect today's visit would be such a heavy day, it opened his eyes to the reality that he was still a human of his old world mentally and morally, he'd eventually find conflict with customers and would have to decide on how to deal with them but it was only due to seeing the clashes that he could improve himself, it was a circle with no way of changing unless broken.

As Batyr approached the door to leave, Edward made up his mind, he was no judge nor was he a saint, punishing Batyr would be unjust due to him not knowing any better neither could Edward change Batyr's world due to both his own lack of power and his own faults, while he could see the flaws in Batyr as an outsider, he could only vaguely see his own faults.

He was the Peddler, an impartial outsider who would trade and allow trade in his Gateway, talking and meeting customers of countless worlds. He was human and wasn't perfect, he could only try his best.

However, at the moment, he was willful, as he ensured the connection between Batyr's door and the Gateway broke. Of course not before he got the tea leaves and seeds, as sitting in the warehouse were now a couple of crates of high-quality tea, along with enough seeds to start a farm, the problem of water would be easily solved after a few days of study of Word Water which with he could easily make a water tank to passively generate water.

He would have to consider the problem of boiling the water but with the changes to his mind after fusing along with his study and use of magic, Edward felt his creativity had improved.