XL

By the time the sun again peeks over the horizon, my flight abilities have infinitely increased. Of course, any increase would be infinite when compared to nonexistence, so to better describe it, flight has already begun to feel quite natural.

"Well, Anetor, we must call an end to your practice for tonight. From this point forward, I want you to fly to all of your destinations, for the duration of our remaining time here. Only through practice will your abilities increase, and why not utilize time that would otherwise be spent on walking? Now, let us race to the dining hall; I want to see what you can do."

Without giving me time to respond, he takes off. His speed is absolutely astounding; one moment he is standing beside me, the next he is a barely visible blur as he flies away at speeds that must be only barely subsonic. I quickly move to follow him, propelling my body forward with a blast of air only just weak enough to not cause my level-strengthened body any damage.

Despite my best efforts, flying at speeds well beyond what I have before, his lead still only increases during the rather short flight to the dining hall. While he lands gracefully, I quickly realize that I am going much too fast. As I barrel towards the ground, set for an impact that is likely to cause me serious damage, I am forced to resort to using an upward draft of wind to soften my blow. I miscalculate however, and I am sent flying back into the air. Still, with my reduced speed it is a trivial matter to lower myself to the ground.

After harrumphing for the tenth time in the last day, he chastises me saying "You need to demonstrate more care in your actions. Obviously you had no hope of beating me, so why put such force into the endeavor?"

"Well, I wanted to know how fast I could go as well," I respond.

"You can go fast without risking a devastating impact, you know."

As we enter the dining hall, I cannot help but think that Lector seems to like to initiate discord over the most petty things for indiscernible reasons.

We have returned to our old seating arrangements, with Lector at the commanders' table and I at an empty stretch of table that is fit for reading. I don't bother to even glance at the food; whatever it is, I know that I will be rather unimpressed.

I take out my current book, a text on the history of the wars of the second era of this world. While I had for a time spent an hour learning to read with Lector on a nightly basis, for the last month I have continued to learn through my own readings.

I had always loved to read, a joy to fill up the vast emptiness of one's time in a modern world. However, in this world, even now that I know how, finding time to read during all of my training is a struggle. Despite this, through my efforts at mealtimes I have conquered a small handful of texts. As I despise the wasting of time, each of these texts have been on subjects I deem important to understand.

One was on straight magic, for though it is an art of which I am incapable, I know that I must understand its methods to be able to conquer them in battle. From it I had learned of many, many spells that are commonly used within this world. As an exercise, I thought over each and how it may be neutralized through elemental manipulation as well as through other, non magical, means. In this effort, I often had to turn to Lector who was always quite willing to provide me aid.

On a side note, while reading that book I could not help but feel a deep envy towards those this world has blessed with the powers of straight magic. While elemental magic is much more flexible in its usage, there is something good to be found in the simple nature of straight magic: you will a result, and the pure mana around you bends to make it happen. While that is perhaps a bit of a simplification of the process, no one could ever argue that straight magic is more difficult than elemental manipulation.

Take the sword example. Though my problems with shaping a sword from the elements were greatly waylaid by my increased power from being named, even now the process is moderately difficult and critically time consuming. To summon a sword with straight magic, on the other hand, is a beginner method of great ease by comparison.

Though Lector is a great advocate of the powers of elemental manipulation, and is not wrong in this advocacy, for many uses one would be better off just using straight magic. The ideal scenario would be to mix the two branches together to pull off the desired results with minimal effort. However, I, of course, am incapable of utilizing straight magic. That this world would not only place me in bondage but would also not even provide me with access to the superior method of magic, such shows its evil.

Of course, I could have been given no magical abilities at all, in which case all hope would be fully lost; however, the possibility of things being worse does not waylay this world's wretched method of treating me. That some in this world would be loved by it, blessed with an easy method of changing existence at their wills… well, who could blame me for some envy.

Oh? [I] am blessed by this world with overpowered leveling bonuses? Hah. That hardly covers even a tenth the debt this world owes me for enslaving me, much less the whole of its offenses.

Speaking, or, I suppose, [thinking], of such offenses, many of them are recorded in detail in the remaining three, or four, counting my current efforts, books I have read. Even since the beginning of this world, it has been a wretched place. Wars, slavery, rebellion, corruption, death… every sort of filth, an endless variety of evil.

Something I find to be of some grim amusement is that the gods behind the creation of the humans, elves, and dwarves have all died already, meaning that this world could be truly called god-forsaken.

Mentioning the dwarves, they were entirely destroyed by monsters before humans ever even inhabited this world. The area they had lived in has been long since occupied by the dragon kingdom, amusingly formed by the child of the eldest and evilest of the dragons, he who killed the dwarf king in the first place.

As for the eleves, the friend of the most vilest of dragons, who coincidentally aided in the genocide of the dwarves, corrupted some of their numbers, creating the race of drow that initiated a civil war with the elves that lead to their decline to only a few thousand beings over a period of millenia.

Aenea, the supposed hero of this story, eventually gave the newly created humans three legendary items that were utilized to push the monsters to the ends of the Earth.

Still, this one goddess, who, as the queen of heaven, has essentially no relation to this planet, hardly dilutes its evil. This world, as I have already experienced, is characterized by evil. And never was it devoid of such evil; with the exception of the early elven history, this world has always been torn by war and demonstrative of the extent of wretchedness.

Perhaps Earth was once similar; actually, I know it was. However, nothing in any history textbook from Earth was so evil as this world.

And, it must be remembered, this evil is merely basic history to these people; what, then, do they deem evil? The answer lies within the demons. Wandering across the world, lone demons bring death and despair to any sentient being unfortunate enough to enter their grasp. They carry out the most inhumane of actions with boundless glee, taking pleasure exclusively in the suffering of others. They represent true chaotic evil, doing as they please to the detriment of those around them.

Yet, despite this, they are far from the evil demonstrated by this world's only nation of demons. There, humans are bred and raised like livestock, either to be used as slave labor or to be eaten. This is all under a powerful nation ruled by absolute force, a nation that has been expanding constantly into neighboring territories for centuries.

To be honest, the claims about the demons seem to me just a way to make this world's human inhabitants feel better about themselves. 'After all,' they will think to themselves 'at least we are not so bad as those demons. We enslave, torture, and kill our enemies, but at least we don't raise them as livestock! We are so enlightened.' Though that is only my thought on the matter; perhaps I am only too used to the literary twist that the demon lord is the good guy.

Though I have already learned a great deal about the world, I still dedicate every opportunity to reading further texts, to learn more. After all, who could know what information will eventually be of use to me? For example, the book that currently absorbs my attention goes far deeper into its descriptions of this world's geography than anything I have thus far read. Where geography in previous books describes things relative to one another, this book contains a map! Admittedly, the map isn't very filled in, especially in the east where all detail falls away and either the word 'monsters' or 'demons' is scribbled in, with monsters in the southeast and demons in the far east. Still, the map is quite detailed in the West.

Eroen, the kingdom of my current residence, lies below the Arenese empire. To much of the Arenese eastern border is the dragon nation. Monster-held territory is both to the North and Southeast of Aren, with the latter territory also bordering Eroen to the Northeast. Otherwise bordering Aren are four nations, one of which has been penned in by whom I can only assume to be my master himself. To Aren's northeast, the nation written in by Lector, is New Kliesvast. Stretching over the top of Kliesvast before wrapping around to secure a tiny land border with Aren is the Holy Kingdom. To Aren's northwest is the tiny Republic of Tymir, and to its east is the Sorcerous Dynasty of Shi'vat, which only shares a land border with Aren and is otherwise jutting out as a peninsula into the ocean.

Outside of the West, there are two forces labeled other than the demons and monsters. The Holy Empire, a truly massive nation, occupies much of the land. To its North is a poorly defined peninsula, leading me to believe that, like the monster and demon territories, it is unexplored, with 'beastmen' written across it.

I had learned from another book that the beastmen had lost a war against humanity some millenia ago, and had fled to the East. Actually, there is a similar story for both the goblins and orcs as well, each defeated in their wars against humanity. Though, unlike beastmen, goblins and orcs did not suffer the wretched fate of being enslaved on a near species-wide basis that had plagued the beastmen.

As for beastmen slavery, it is far more popular in the Holy Empire than in the Western human nations. The headquarters of the Church is in Eroen, and one of its tenants is the discouragement of slavery, causing slavery to be looked down upon in Eroen more than other nations. Not looked down upon for its moral bankruptcy, or in any manner that would make someone feel bad for a slave; rather, looked down upon as open flouting of religious doctrine that the entire noble class refuses to take seriously. [It seems that even when the people of this world take the moral side of things, they still are devoid of redeeming qualities, taking the moral side for the most petty of reasons].

Despite its name, the Holy Empire is barely connected to the Church. While officially their state religion, their constant warfare against the beastmen, goblins, orcs, ogres, demons, and all manner of foul beasts has led them to, in practice, reject Aenae and the Church's teachings of love and mercy for others, in favor of a de facto religious worship of strength and those who possess it. Of course, this apparently doesn't keep the eastern Holy Empire from partaking in its evil actions in the name of the three deities.

Honestly, it seems to me that the only worthwhile institution in this world is the Church of the Three Deities, which, other than worshiping the dead god of humanity, also puts mentally ill people to death. That that would be considered worthwhile really characterizes its opposition, eh?