Chapter 5 - Awaking in Another, Stranger Land

"Ugh..."

With a groan, Alan slowly wakes up. He tries to sit up, only to be met with sharp pains emanating from all over his body. Only then does he remember what had happened before, and that he isn't in his home. Resigned to lying still for the moment, he starts looking around. He soon realizes he's in what appears to be a primitive style of dwelling, roughly matching European architecture from somewhere between 500 and 1700; he only vaguely remembers something like this from school lessons about Old Earth, so a more exact time period evaded his memory.

The walls are made of some kind of black stone with portions made of white wood, all simple and somewhat roughly hewn, while the small portion of the floor he can see is likewise made of black stone, though much smoother and more even than what was used for the walls, while the roof is thatched and tarred. By the small size of the room and the slant of the roof, it's clear he's in a side room of a decently sized building. 

The primitive style of the furniture isn't much better than the building. The room is barely large enough to fit the simple bed he's lying on, which is uncomfortable and made of nothing more than wood, straw, and cloth. The only other things in here are a small wooden chest and what looks to be the remnants of his pack on a small wooden table, both barely visible from where he lie only because they're against the opposite wall to the bed. The window above the bed is made of paper, allowing light in but blocking insects and animals, along with his view.

Examining himself, Alan finds that he's bandaged up with surprisingly well made bandages, given the surroundings. While the cloth isn't bleached white, it maintains a very even light tan color, barring the few bright red spots where he apparently opened his wounds up a moment ago. No matter where he looks on his body, he finds bandages covering his skin. With a hesitant test, he tries to move again, but whether it's his upper body or his legs, they're already in pain the moment he shifts them. Instead, he waits quietly in bed, trying not to make things worse. It's nearly an hour before someone enters the room.

The door opens, and a girl who looks about eleven steps in. She has dark hair and dark eyes, with tanned skin, and she's wearing a simple black robe that covers everything but her head. She quietly turns around to shut the door, but in the process, her eyes meet Alan's.

"Er... Hi?" Alan says, eliciting a stifled scream from the girl. She hurriedly flees the room. It isn't until nearly ten minutes later that an older bald gentleman lets himself into the room. Despite his apparent age, this fellow hasn't hobbled at all, as he looks to be almost two meters tall as he towers over Alan. He's wearing a somewhat well decorated robe and carrying a brown wooden staff that resembles a tree branch with a a few small green gems inlaid.

"Good, Good, You've woken up," says the man genially, but with what sounds like a very thick accent. However, it's not one of the Imperial Three Languages, but instead the language that was instilled in Alan by that facility. "I'm Priest Kelfer. How are you feeling?"

"Everything hurts... And I can... barely move.... Where... Is this?" While simply breathing isn't too painful, drawing in enough air to talk smoothly is eliciting sharp pains from his chest. 

"Ha ha! Right, right. I'm not surprised, outlander," He says, also noticing Alan's accent is very different from his, "Your injuries were quite grave when we found you. I'd strongly recommend you not try to kill a demonbeast in this area without training yourself further first. By the way, we've taken the carcass of the demonbeast and processed the materials to pay for your treatment and stay. I hope you don't mind." The man smiles and bows slightly, as if in 'apology'.

"Demonbeast? Huh?" Alan asks, surprised, still distracted by pain.

"Yes... We found you near the cut up carcass of a Blade Demon. We assume you fought it, but we couldn't find your weapon nearby; we assume it was destroyed in the battle, since your body barely made it through. A shame, too, as a weapon capable of piercing a Blade Demon's skin must've been very expensive and hard to come by..."

"Blade Demon?" Alan begins to realize that he may no longer be in the sphere of 'normal' that the Galactic Empire governs; this paranormal stuff keeps stacking up and is beginning to remind him of some books he read as a teen. It may be best to not give away his history, then. There's no need to become someone's test subject. At least he had some acting experience from grade school...

"...Was I wrong? Were you not the one who killed that Blade Demon?"

"I... I really don't... remember," Alan's face twists in pain due a combination of trying to speak in longer bursts and trying to move some of his muscles, hopefully giving the appearance of feeling pain in response to trying to recall things. "I don't... remember how I even.... got to this place..."

"...Oh, I see. Amnesia, is it?" asks the priest, with a sigh. Alan nods with mock hesitation, satisfied with how easy it was to sell that idea, and the priest continues. "Unfortunately, I'm unable to recover memories. Only a few people in the world are skilled enough to do so. But, now that you're awake and I'm rested, it's time to continue your treatment."

"Treatment?"

"Yes, just lay there and I'll be done in a few minutes." The priest then places a small rose colored crystal on Alan's chest and begins to chant while holding his staff. After nearly a minute of nothing happening, Alan is feeling somewhat disappointed and begins to wonder if the 'healing' is just a prayer. No matter the outcome, he's too polite to interrupt the person who saved his life. It isn't until nearly ten minutes into the chant that the gems on the staff begin to glow faintly. Much to his shock, after another minute of chanting, a beam of light shoots out of each of the gems, all aimed for the crystal on his chest.

As the chanting continues, Alan can feel the crystal become warm, and the warmth begin to permeate his body. With each injury the wave of warmth meets, the damage and pain is slowly washed away, as a cooling sensation follows behind. This process continues for another five minutes before the priest ends it. Already, his body was feeling much better and could move, but he could feel a sluggishness and weakness in his body.

The bandages are quickly removed and Alan uses a damp towel to quickly clean himself up where some blood came out, before being helped into a light blue robe by Kelfer.

"Okay, with that you should be able to move around freely. But keep in mind, while I have healed you, there are limits to such divine powers at my skill level. The newly healed flesh is weak and will cause issues if you over exert yourself, so please take time to rest and recuperate here."

"Ah, thank you very much," Alan says, sitting up and feeling that, indeed, his body felt much better. Quite sore, but not pained."Also, my name is Alan Rhett."

"Greetings to you, Outlander Alan Rhett." Kelfer gives a quick, informal bow.

"May I ask a question?"

"Sure."

"How long have I been resting here?"

"Huh? Oh, forgive me, I thought I already said, but I must have missed it. The hunting expedition that found you occurred two weeks ago."

"Wait, two weeks? Was I injured that badly?"

"Haha, no, not at all. It's simply that healing is only 1/10th as effective when you're not awake. The unconscious mind automatically rejects foreign mana, so it gets in the way of the spell. As a result, I could only heal you enough to stabilize you, and had to wait for you to wake up to finish.

"Oh... Well, I thank you very much, Priest Kelfer."

"No, no, not at all. That blade demon carcass has covered your treatment and food. You've earned my best care. But it's time for me to continue my rounds. If you get bored in here, you're welcome to walk around. Areas you aren't allowed to go are the ones marked with a red circle on the door. And if you need any help, you can ask myself or my disciples." He moved towards the door and started to open it, before turning around to say one last thing. "Oh. Almost forgot. We didn't want to throw out your items in case something is still useful despite being damaged, so please sort through your things and set the items you want to get rid of on the grass mat. One of the disciples will dispose of it later."

And with that, Priest Kelfer left the room. Alan sat in the bed for a little while, organizing his thoughts, before he finally decides to stand up and hobble over to the pieces of his pack. The pile is laid on a grass mat on the table, too torn up to be able to contain its contents any more. One of the canteens and a package of rations barely survived by luck, as did one of the blue crystals which was wrapped up in a small black bag, but almost everything else was shredded with only scraps leftover.

Of the books, only a few pages of the compendium survived. By sheer luck, one of them is the page on the blue crystal. Unfortunately, only a few characters remained intact. From this, he's aware the crystal is called an essence crystal and that it's good for strengthening oneself, but not much else. Not even how to use it. 

With a sigh, he returns it to the small black bag and sets it aside with the other items to keep, and puts all the shredded items in a pile to discard. Moving to the door with some difficulty, Alan pushes out into a large hall. Doors line the side of the hall, apparently going to other similar rooms, and the center is occupied by a number of tables and shelves, centered around pillars that hold up the roof directly. While the entire place maintains a primitive look, everything is surprisingly clean and well maintained. It doesn't take long to find out why, either.

In one corner of the room where the floor is dirty, a dark haired boy who looks to be in his mid-teens and is dressed in black disciple's robes starts to chant a spell, as a faint light emits from his hand. The light expands out slowly as he continues chanting, while everywhere the glow engulfs quickly becomes completely spotless, free of any dust, dirt, or other sullying materials. The boy continues on cleaning, until he's entirely out of view from where Alan stands, marveling. He was in too much pain earlier to marvel at the healing magic, but this was something he was closely scrutinizing yet couldn't even begin to understand the principles of.

Walking slowly in the other direction, Alan sees another disciple who seems to be quite timid due to his young age, and who is avoiding his gaze. Eventually, he finds himself at a door leading outside and pushes out. What greets him is an idyllic garden, surrounded by fences at the other three sides. The garden itself maintains a tranquil feeling, with a rainbow of colorful flowers tastefully arranged and trees in just the right places to offer the best shade.

Beyond the fence and the small walking path that surrounds it are densely packed buildings. Most are of a similar style to the temple's architecture, with the full stone building mixed in. Above the surrounding buildings, way off in the distance, a massive wall can be seen. It's hard to estimate from so far away, but it seems like it might be taller than 50 meters, an impressive height only practical with advanced terraforming machinery in the Galactic Empire.

Finding a nice place in the shade to sit, Alan finds himself dozing off not too much later...

***

Nearly two weeks of recuperation later, Alan is fully healed and rested, cleared by the Priest. Better yet, in that time, he found a way to tactfully suggest getting a small portion of the remaining value of the blade demon, while 'donating' the rest to the church, giving him some coins to not be a total penniless pauper. Of course, it had to be broached in such a way due the impossible to hide gleam of greed in the priest's eyes; just how much was that carcass worth to cause such a greedy man to pretend to be generous towards him? Questions for another day, if ever. The Priest is ultimately still the one who healed him, so he would just settle for the small amount that he could convince the Priest to part with.

While the money is nice, there is one oddity that he finds even more pleasant. Despite being nearly 46 years old, something had happened at some point that resulted him in appearing much younger. There was more than one occasion when the priest, disciples, and other patients had made reference to his young age. While medical technology had slowed his aging like most other people, he was still starting to show some signs of aging, yet now he looked barely old enough to drink. It wasn't due to the healing, either, as Kelfer was confused when Alan asked him if healing spells made people look younger. Apparently, he looked even younger to them, possibly barely an adult at 18.

During his two weeks of hanging around the temple, he learned enough to get by for now without making himself look too much like a hopeless amnesiac. The temple is situated in the outer district of a small city called Red Hill city near the borders of the Renkish Kingdom. Beyond this point, only a few strongholds and outposts can be found before it turns into total wilderness. Demonbeasts rule the wilderness and can be frequently found anywhere outside the walls of the cities, even around the capital of the Kingdom, although they tend to be weaker the further from the true wilderness they are.

Barring a few types of demonbeasts which can be domesticated with varying levels of success, the rest are very dangerous and very hostile to humans. As a result, populations are very concentrated in massive, fortified cities. Of course, walls large enough to protect against demonbeasts and expansive enough to protect the farmlands are only possible thanks to pinnacle earth magic. Else, humans would have fallen long ago to such powerful creatures due to a lack of infrastructure.

To some, it may seem like the difficulty of reaching this pinnacle of earth magic is what prevents more cities from being constructed. However, while that's technically true, it's not quite completely accurate. The problem is that such a pinnacle simply can't be reached by a person's hard work alone, no matter how talented they are. Only by having the combination of incredible talent and being backed by a peak Alchemist could someone have a hope of reaching such a lofty goal which ensures their treatment as a valuable resource of the city. It's therefore the peak Alchemists who ultimately form the core of the cities in the Renkish Empire.

Of course, the Alchemists aren't conceited; they know they're only one part of the equation. If it wasn't for the contributions of the combat mages and martial artists via suppression of Demonbeasts, and the enchanted equipment made by the smiths and enchanters that protect both the walls and hunting parties, these cities would be nothing more than a paper tiger, looking scary but devoid of any strength. As a result, the various guilds share the power and responsibility to govern.

Alan is now heading out with a new set of clothes and a new bag, purchased on his behalf by a disciple who was otherwise running errands. He had already said his partings to everyone, and the plan was to acquire some work at one of several leads.

Of course, the leads given by the priest were mostly made under the assumption that Alan had some battle training and weapon experience. He, of course, doesn't. Unless you count some experience with firearms, but that doesn't translate well into swords and magic, and the handgun that was in his pack had disappeared somewhere along the way. Instead, Alan went to one of the 'lesser' leads that was given to him: the Smithing Guild. After all, he would love to learn magic; who wouldn't, if they could? Unfortunately, divine magic requires devotion, faith, and years of sacrifice for a deity, while arcane magic is very expensive to learn and requires innate talent. Though the former isn't appealing to him in the slightest, the latter is at least an option if he's lucky enough to have some talent. All he needs now is the money to afford it.

Of course, smithing isn't something he just arbitrarily chose. Alan was what some would consider a 'nerd' back on his home world of Parxia. One of the pursuits he would fulfill this description through was blacksmithing. While it was a completely useless skill in the Galactic Empire, he found it relaxing and had forged several hundred swords of different styles. So, if he has any skill that could be used to make money here, this would be it. After all, his experience as an electro-mechanical engineer probably wouldn't be useful anywhere else, based on his shallow learning of this world so far. Even if it could be, he'd probably have to be a smith to realize any design. 

The temple is situated not too far from the outer wall of the outer building district; situated between the farming district and the inner district, it's where most of the poor and middle class commoners live. Despite that, only the slums are particularly destitute; the rest of the middle district is a lively medieval city, still shockingly clean, with the occasional anachronistic seeming items, such as the magic powered street lamps that line the main road which remind Alan of electric street lamps. As could be seen from the garden of the temple, the city is mixed with semi-stone and full-stone buildings, a fact Alan has been told is due to fire bird flocks that used to routinely burned down portions of the city during their once per decade migration.

It's nearly an hour before Alan has arrived at the Smithing Guild. The building is massive; made mostly of stone and using metal in place of wood, the building maintains a surprisingly sleek look that seems to be a combination of a stone castle and a smokestack factory in design. Indeed, a steady stream of black smoke came from a chimney on the building. To his surprise, though, he can see that the smoke is moving in an unnatural flow straight up, despite the wind, before disappearing completely into a small ball of flame floating in the air above the smokestack.

Alan ascends the grand flight of black stone stairs and enters the open doors of the guild building.