Chapter 5 - The People of Kelliora

Fane yawned deeply as he walked South down the mountain road. Last night had been a long ordeal and he hadn't gotten much rest.

The caravan of civilians trailed behind, but kept a good distance from him at all times. They packed tightly together like a herd of sheep. Though it seemed as if they couldn't decide whether Fane was a wolf or a shepherd.

No... that wasn't right. The people followed him, but only because there was no other choice. From their eyes, he would never be a shepherd. To them, he was merely a wolf who knew the way out of the bog they had fallen into. They weren't following the lead of a mighty protector, they were tailing the only living beast that could navigate this unfamiliar hellscape called war.

Fane stopped for a moment, turning to look back at the people.

Their clothes were practically rags, rags which hung from their bodies like tendrils of moss in the branches of a dying willow tree. Dirt had darkened their faces and their anxious eyes were occupied with an exhausted wariness. No one spoke. There was only the shuffling of feet and the rattling of wooden carts.

Fane always felt pity when seeing these people, but not quite because they were unfortunate enough to be caught up in war. He felt this way because of something else.

When he first arrived in this world, Fane quickly discovered the locals to be incredibly primitive in nearly every way. They had extremely basic tools, ones comparable to those from the dark ages on humanity's first planet, Earth. Besides their technology, these people were also extremely primitive in their thinking.

While researching this planet, he made a few peculiar discoveries. It turned out this world had a scattered history going back roughly 11,000 years. Yet somehow, these people had never achieved renaissance of any kind. Their science and art were both astoundingly bland, hardly making any use of even the most basic practices.

How could these people possibly remain stagnant for over 10 millennia, especially considering the mechanical nature of the very planet they spent their whole lives on?

Sure, some countries could contain information and isolate their citizens from technology to some degree, but they couldn't stop it entirely. Nations which didn't adopt new technologies fell very quickly and would be replaced with another which had grown more advanced.

The worst part was that Kelliora was a 700-year-old empire, yet somehow remained equivalent to the fabled dark ages of Old Earth. It was impossible for one country to contain advancement for that long.

And it wasn't just this country. The entire planet was stagnant. It was a whole world full of people who didn't question anything- a whole world of people who in over 10,000 years seemingly never asked "what if" or "how." It shouldn't be possible!

Fane shook his head to clear it of these depressing thoughts. He walked with a quiet mind for a while before he remembered the little girl who approached him the other night with her question.

He could still remember the intelligent glimmer in her eyes as she asked him about the voices.

If only these people could be more like that little girl. If only people could peer past the thin layer of fear in order to pursue the answers to their questions... assuming these people formed questions at all in the first place.

Fane sighed.

Looking back once more, he confirmed the little girl's position in the caravan. She seemed a bit gloomy like the rest, but Fane could still tell she was thinking more than those around her. At the very least, she seemed more observant.

If the future of this world were to ever change, it would need people like her.

* * *

"You failed?"

Several stern gazes turned towards the man standing anxiously before the table. The meal was immediately disrupted, the sound of forks and knives scraping plates abruptly falling to silence. It was as if the news of this man's failure was so deplorable that mere mention of it had ruined the whole table's appetite.

An uncomfortable silence enveloped the room. Waiters and waitresses stood carefully to the sides of the room with their heads bowed in hopes of avoiding any involvement.

The elderly man at the head of the table stared with indignance. He was vested with extravagant clothing only available to royalty, and he would have exuded an air of grandeur if not for the messy napkin stuffed partway down his collar.

The anxious standing before him was a rare resource for the Empire. Of the three types of otherworlders summoned, the were the least common. Or at least, that was the case for this country.

The king's informants reported that the neighboring countries were blessed with significantly more or while Kelliora got stuck with mostly just those damned . Was it just bad luck? Or... perhaps it was intentional. Maybe this was a message from the gods, claiming the glorious Empire of Kelliora to be worthy only of curses.

The king's anger radiated outwards as he sat there, clenching a steak knife in one hand and a fork in the other.

"How many were you able to kill?"

The turned his gaze downwards, not daring to meet the king's eyes.

"Well... none, your majesty. I wasn't able to get past him. I barely got away with my life."

The king slowly put down the utensils as he listened to the man's excuses, his palms coming to rest flat against the table.

"You killed... none of them? Not even one?"

The king's eyes turned darker, his hatred compounding by the second. It looked like he was preparing to punish the failed assassin, but a third party intervened just in time.

"Your majesty~"

A sweet voice chimed in. All eyes turned, hoping to find the beauty who spoke, but it seemed no one was there. Regardless, the voice went on.

"This young man seems rather wet behind the ears. He lacks experience~"

Those at the table continued to look around confusedly to find the source of the voice, but the servants and guards had a very different reaction. Upon hearing it, they tensed up in fright. This melodious voice belonged to an individual most dangerous.

The King did well to suppress any such tells, but he, too, recognized and feared that voice. His eyes didn't soften, nor did they search for the unseen woman. Instead, his gaze was fixed to an object the size of a dinner plate slowly moving along the floor in his direction. Its crystalline legs clicked lightly against the stone as it dragged itself past the young man and made its way towards the table.

"I wouldn't mind giving him a pointer or two~ After all, it's my fault the was on guard last night."

The King's face betrayed an increasing discomfort as the creature closed the distance. It resembled a beetle made of green quartz. Its translucent surface only somewhat hid the insides, hinting at the creature's complex anatomy. Besides the legs and antennae, the creature also had two tentacles protruding from the crevice between the head and body. It almost seemed as if something had hijacked the beetle, growing from inside and changing the corpse to its liking.

Opening its wings, the beast flew noisily and landed on the back of an empty chair positioned opposite the King. The people at the table jumped from their seats, trying to put distance between themselves and the creature. The King, however, didn't move. He didn't even flinch. He couldn't afford to. The King met the crystal beetle's clouded eyes, waiting cautiously for it to speak once more. A tense silence enveloped the room. The strange creature sat perfectly still, except for the strange tentacles which waved slowly like seaweed in the ocean.

Finally, the creatures mandibles twitched and the woman's voice resounded again. Now, however, her tone was much more direct.

"Fifty gold pieces."

It wasn't clear whether she wanted fifty gold as payment for the lesson, or if she was simply demanding money from the king, but it didn't matter.

This wasn't someone you could bargain with.