The next day.
.
"Hello!" Kyle opened the door to the Literary Club. A bright smile plastered on his face. Inside the club, there were three people.
"Welcome, Kyle!" Marrick greeted him while doing his homework in the club right now.
"Hello!" Carla greeted. She was one of the new members alongside Kyle. There was another person but he wasn't there. Carla was reading something related to Suroff at present.
As for the last person in the room, she was currently sleeping. Her name was Kayla Norton from the second year. It was already well known that Kayla Norton was the daughter of Clay Norton, the Homeroom Teacher of Class Two.
Kyle took a seat next to Carla and looked at her book. "Suroff City? What are you looking for?" he inquired.
"Ah, we just have a study regarding Suroff," Carla replied with a nervous laugh. Kyle stared at her for a while before nodding.
{'Studying Suroff? That's weird,'} Kyle thought, he knew Suroff had its own historical value, but it should have been covered in the elementary lesson. {'She seems nervous too.'}
Kyle took out a book from his bag and began to read it. However, he suddenly stopped and looked up at Marrick.
"Senior, do we have a map of our continent?" Kyle asked.
"Map?" Marrick muttered. "I think we do ... wait," he stood up from his chair and went to the bookshelf.
"This is it, I think," Marrick returned and gave Kyle the rolled map. "It was made five years ago or so. Why do you need it?"
"I'm just curious," Kyle rolled open the map. It was still a rough map and there was not much detail, but Kyle got what he wanted which was the borders.
All of the countries on the map were new to him. But he was somewhat familiar with some of their names. {'Ugh, with my reincarnation's erratic behavior and holes in my memories, I can't be sure with all of them,'} Kyle thought. Living far too long would do that to memory. As he lived longer, there were many things he had forgotten.
{'Gollia is located on the west side of the Lavol Continent. While the Six Nations of the Six Stones are located in the north. The eastside is a mystery, there isn't much information about it. The Malga Kingdom, which is the source of technology is in the south. According to history. The rise of technology came from the south, and it was slowly spreading across the continent. It spreads to the west and east first, and lastly to the north. But … North became the fastest area to develop technology after south,'} Kyle remembered what he had read through the history.
{'Especially the Six Nations. This made everyone wonder what was the cause of such progress? The answer was the Six Stones. The Six Nations used their stone to empower their technological advancement,'} the example of this was the Fima Kingdom. It had the Stone of Fire and it used it as the fuel for almost everything through steam power. Wirna also used the Stone of Wind to create a field of turbines to empower their nation. With these stones, they had basically an infinite amount of energy to use. Their cost was lower and it made them not have any problems with energy. But of course, other factors influenced their speed of progress as well.
Then came Gollia while slowly developing their own technology. They sure did it fast but compared to the northern countries and the southern countries, Gollia wasn't that fast enough.
{'Hmm …. The difference in technology, can cause war, right? But strangely enough, nothing bad has happened so far. In the shadow, probably?'} Kyle was well aware of human jealousy, envy, greed, and other factors that could trigger war. If they couldn't properly control them, it would cause a disaster. The technology could bring out these bad behaviors, which might incite a war.
"What are you thinking so hard about, Kyle?" Marrick inquired after seeing Kyle's eyes never once left the map.
"Senior, do you have any news for the northern countries and the southern ones as well?" At the moment, information was still limited. He had heard about the project that southern and northern had done, which was a communication tool. It said the tool would allow people to communicate faster and in real-time. There was no need for letters anymore.
"Hm, I don't think so. But this club does have newspapers from our country and its neighbors."
"That will do," he hoped the newspapers contained information regarding the communication tool project.
Unfortunately, after looking through every newspaper, there was no information regarding the communication tool. With a heavy heart, Kyle went back to his original intention to take the map.
{'At the moment, Gollia is under ceasefire with the Ballan Kingdom, but nobody will know when the war will blow up. To go to the northern area, the fastest way is to go through Ballan, but with the current conditions, people from Gollia had to take a detour,'} in the future, he would visit the Six Nations, and if the war between Gollia and Ballan wasn't over, then he had to prepare for an alternative route. To the north, before reaching the northern area, there was another land he had to pass, the Tree's Rivers. It was a land with a gigantic dead tree, and several rivers were flowing toward it. It was a historical place if he remembered correctly, and it was one of the reminders of humanity's failure.
{'It's nostalgic,'} Kyle smiled bitterly. He reminded me of what happened in the past.
{'I have to visit the south and the east as well,'} He couldn't miss the southern area which was commonly known as the Motherland of Technology, and the eastern as the Mystery Land.
Southern was the first place where technology became advanced. It had many scholars in various fields to improve technology. Which was why it was called the Motherland of Technology. According to what he read, someone lacking knowledge about technology would be shocked when they visited the southern area because it had many unfamiliar things.
To go to the southern area, Kyle had to pass a land of mountains. There was a tunnel to pass through the mountain but it was tightly guarded. The mountains were also a reason why the southern area was hard to invade in the past. But he had heard of the flying ship which was able to pass through the mountains, probably in the future, terrain problems wouldn't be a problem at all.
Then why was the eastern area called Mystery Land? Because according to the book he had read eastern area had isolated itself for a long time and just recently opened up when they heard about the advancement of technology.
However, Kyle knew one thing for sure. In the past, the east side of Lavol was famous as the Land of Ki. This was because many ki practitioners came from there. In this era, however, he didn't know whether there were a lot of ki practitioners or not in eastern. But the book described eastern people using unique magic which was possibly mistaken ki.
{'I don't know about the north or south, but the western area doesn't know much of ki,'} Kyle thought. When he was a child, he had asked about ki to several people but none of them knew it. Even his father didn't know about it. Even his classmates were unaware of it except Ninia of course since she was a ki practitioner.
To visit the eastern area, he had to go through another neighboring country and then to the Free Plains. The so-called Free Plains was a land unclaimed by anyone. This is because the land itself had housed a massive number of monsters, it was even called Monster Land. It would be dangerous to pass this land but it was the fastest way to go to the eastern area.
Then what about the western area? Other areas seemed to have their own unique places to visit. Unfortunately, the western area didn't have such a thing. However, they did have better access to the islands to the west. He didn't know much about those islands in this era, but in the past, they became the last standing place for humanity.
{'All right, north first, then east, and lastly south,'} Kyle was determined after he graduated, he would explore this continent as long as he could. He knew he couldn't explore all of them since he had an obligation as a noble to become an heir.
Kyle rolled the map and put it back into the bookshelf, at the same time, the door was opened. He gave a glance and saw the person who opened the door was Mina.
"Excuse me, Carla come with me- huh? Kyle?" Mina eyed him in surprise.
"Mina, come to bring Carla home?" Kyle talked while giving Carla a teasing look. It made Carla flush.
"Huh? Yeah, but what are you doing here?" Mina's response was even better.
"I'm a Literary Club member," Kyle posed with his right hand on his waist, his face looked proud.
"That's ... unexpected. Anyway, Carla, let's go," Mina immediately lost interest in Kyle and urged Carla. Meanwhile, the other student of Class Seven closed her book and put it into her bag.
"Marrick, I'm borrowing the book," she said while walking toward Mina.
"It is fine, be sure to take care of it!" Marrick warned.
"Yes, see you later, and you too, Kyle," Carla bid her farewell and left with Mina.
"Who was that?" Marrick asked Kyle.
"That's Mina .... Wait, you don't know?" Kyle tilted his head. Most people should have known about Mina due to her fight last time.
"I don't? Should I?" Marrick looked at him innocently. It made Kyle squint his eyes in confusion.
"Mina is Carla's friend. She is also the winner of the fight between Class Two versus Class Seven."
"Oh …. That fight. I didn't watch it since I had a stomachache that day," Marrick laughed heartily. Kyle ignored him, thought about what Mina and Carla were doing. They appeared to be very busy.
{'Nah, not my problem.'}
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Author: Aida Hanabi
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