The words immediately made sense to Zheus even if he recognized that the writing was anything like the languages he knew. The man remained in stunned silence for a long moment, almost not believing what he was seeing.
The characters were very similar to Chinese and Japanese Kanji, but they weren't the real deal! Then how was he able to read them?
- What on god's green earth is happening here?
He tried to think: didn't he already seen writing before the whole ordeal with the red-haired guy? He remembered some kind of symbols on the boxes, but it looked to insane gibberish to him back then so he didn't pay attention to it.
After a second of incertitude, he frowned and started walking around the cart, trying to find other writing. After a while, he did found more: some of it was readable Japanese looking writing, explaining with few words what was inside the box, but others were completely alien as the strange cuneiform symbols he observed on the sides of a container with large violet tubers inside.
- There are at least two different languages in this world... jesus, this is truly a different world. I can't believe that... and there is magic... or at least technology that looks like magic...
Zheus had read years ago something about how technology that was advanced enough would be indistinguishable from what the populace called magic. However, he couldn't really think of a single way that made sense for something to create a technology creating a giant horrific sea of suffering souls inside somebody.
- This is insane... I don't know anything about this world... wait...
Strangely, the moment he thought about how little he knew about the world, strange pieces of information started to poop out in his mind. He immediately knew that he was in a place called Pass of the Scorpion, in the southern region of the Wind Country.
He was in one of the ten great countries of the Central Continent, the Old World, also called Shinobi Continent. There were other Two big Continent, the East Zealots, and the Southern Devils.
He couldn't tell why he felt a great deal of disgust and arrogance towards these two places, but the moment he thought of them he was flooded by these sentiments.
- What is happening?
Zheus was at loss: his mind continued to be inundated by countless information about the local geopolitics. Most of it was about the Central Continent.
The Ten Great Countries, The Secret Villages that protected them.
It all sounded very similar to that manga he read when he was young, but mostly on the surface: Thunder Country, Wind Country, Water Country, Fire Kingdom, Earth Protectorate, Sound Principate, Great Tree Republic, Grass Federation, Rain Dominion.
Names of countless other countries kept appearing in his mind, but they came with less information about them, some with only the name. It was vague, almost as they weren't important at all in the great schema of things.
The information came with something attached, a lens of some sort. It came with a pompous belief that the Wind was the best, and a great contemptuous disregard for the little countries that didn't make in the top ten of the greatest.
It was like a distinct flair, an imprint of some sort that evoked a shadow of the memory's origin. Its beliefs and prejudices. It wasn't clear at the moment he received the data, but more he examined it Zheus felt that he was looking to a foreign world with the eyes of someone else, someone who wasn't that fair and balance.
- These are not my memories...
The idea that the Wind was the best continued to reverberate in each new detail, making it obvious that the origin of the information was from the Wind.
- Red hair... no... Tenuri Nashakata...
Zheus sit down on the wooden surface of the cart, repaired form the heavy touch of the desert's sun, trying to consider the situation he was in.
He could read information in languages that he never learned. When he thought of something that before he didn't know, now he received plenty of information about it. That information had a very clear bias that favorited the Wind Country. Plus he now somehow new the name of the strange red-haired man, even if he never presented himself before trying to kill his soul with a literally functioning spell. With magic.
- ... this... this...is...
A shining light appeared in his young calm face.
- ...fantastic.
[Not too much far from there, inside a deep cratere]
Four shadows rapidly appeared in the dark. The sand there had been literally transmuted into clear thick glass by some kind of power, making the whole place seem some sort of peculiar shiny and multicolored cave.
- Tenuri?!
Said a well-shaped man in grey, long disheveled red hair cascading on his shoulders, while an invisible pressure moved out from his body and expanded all around the glass cave. Next to him was a bald man with a gentle face, wearing a yellow monk's dress and making blessing signs with the prayer beads in his hand while talking.
- Amitabha, If they were around here when the explosion happened, they soul are already in the Great Cycle
The man in gray's face darkened: he knew that his companion was right. Not too far from the two, two silent women looked placidly towards the east. Their breathtaking facial features were very similar and they both had long grey hair with traces of white in them.
- Interesting.
Said one of the two kunoichis, her expression calm as ever.
- Your brother is dead Shinki.
Continued the other one, announcing the fact with no emotion in her voice, like if she was talking about the weather. The red-haired man's face darkened even more.
- This is not the time for your stupid acts. Try to play with the team, if not for the mission, do it for your Hisa!
The two women didn't seem bothered by the harsh tone he was using against them. After a couple seconds, one gave a slow nod and started disappearing, fading into the air itself. In a few moments, she was gone.
The red-haired man's eyes narrowed.
- Where did she g...
He was immediately interrupted by the remaining woman. She took out a little shiny white gem and slowly pushed it before her, letting it magically hower in the air.
- I'll take them out from the shield, she went to take care of the other situation.
- Take them out?
It was in that single moment that the gem emitted a large wave of white energy, enveloping the whole glass cave and revealing a strange construction in a corner of the crater. It was some kind of cube, that seemed the only thing that could block the advancement of the white energy.
Inside of it, there were three heavily wounded figures. A hearty laugh came out from the monk when he saw the three young people inside the cube.
- Amitabha, it seems that your Hoji clan has taken great precaution to ensure young Hisai survival. I will go ahead and thank you for helping out my clansman too.
His laugh was stopped by an enraged roar by the red-headed Shinuki.
- Where's Tenuri?
The woman looked back at her companion with cold, passionless eyes.
- I already told you.