We had been stranded in the forest for a couple of days all while following the road that branched a few times, however, we never turned. Nila did not have a map of this region, as she discarded it in favour of extra space in her suitcase. I was not sure what kind of extra space she gained from it, but as a result of her blunder, we were not sure if we actually moved in the direction of the city of Wohr. I was quite surprised to see the lack of a big settlement near the barrier as it was in the Schöltum region, but as Nila explained, there were not any for the lack of reason. Most cities are built away from the barrier to the monster realm, as there would be constant raids from the beast side. Wiskoschia was an exception in this case, because it was heavily guarded as well as very well funded, as it also was akin to a buffer to enter the region free of money. In charge were a lot of financial manipulations which I did not really understand, but in short, because of the valuable resources in the Schöltum region that the rules sold to the Dlayla, only they profited from having a city neighbouring the barrier.
While on our way to the southernmost settlement in the Dlayla region, Nila taught me to read and also about local flora and fauna. I was not too keen on listening to her, as her blabbering was mostly of a deeper knowledge that was absolutely useless for me, like mosses that made a good tea, fish that were capable of living in the mud or predators that were afraid of humans. I mostly noted her words about poisonous and edible plants and wild game, as well as most dangerous predators or animals. There were not many who would pose a threat to the mage, aside from fanged eagles and giant soil worms from the monster realm, but those were rare here. She described soil worms as grotesque and hard to deal with due to their attacks coming from underground.
I also made my first steps in learning the way of a mage. Since I took the wand from the battle against Manuela, I was good to go to cast my very first spell, but… I never could ever since we began practising. Human magic is based on the stars where the wielder of a staff or a wand shall feel the mana flow from the star and act as a catalyst in order to cast the spell, but no matter how hard I meditated or observed the needed star, Polaris, its power never yielded to me. It was so uncharacteristic that Nila switched to teaching me the way of natural magic first, but its basis was even more so complicated. I had to feel the circulation of my own soul in order to direct its flow, which sounded like total bullshit for me. The concept of soul was a heavily debated topic back in my world. I was on the side of its deniers, but now I simply had to accept its existence without question! Alas, it was impossible to become a mage without believing in the ways of magic.
Other than that, our adventure continued as usual, with my nagging over Nila's laziness not going anywhere for the time being. She was really unproblematic for her own good! One day I decided to rest for a longer time and wait until she would wake up on her own. I waited until noon, but there was absolutely no sign of her being awake any time soon, thus I gave up on the idea of adjusting to her schedule. How had she ever been able to get things done while travelling alone?
Regardless of her inability to live a life as a functional part of society, we were lucky to stumble upon a wagon that had its wheel broken. The carrier was a simple merchant from a nearby village who delivered goods to the city of Wohr, just like Zanuff from that village. Nila's magic was not enough to simply fix that wheel, thus we spent plenty of time in search of ingredients for a glue that Nila was able to transmute using several spells that she looked up in her notes. It was an overcomplicated affair, but at least we did not need to nag an entirely new wheel and could mount the carriage as a token of gratitude from the carrier.
"In the end, we are still bound by fair trade, I really would not be able to forget the Schöltum region for a while." sighed Nila while leaning on the wagon's rest to have a closer look at the forest. The carrier hummed at her words and said, "Are you two from the Schöltum region?"
"That is correct, although you are better off not telling anyone that you met us."
The carrier laughed at her words and adjusted his hat, "If it's your wish then I will gladly comply, I am indebted to you after all. Returning home without the wagon would be a disaster."
While the two were chatting to kill some time, I was busy practising reading and writing in one of Nila's notebooks. She quickly sketched the language structure for me, and it did not look that complicated, there was a lot more geometry in comparison to the letters of the Latin alphabet that I saw back in my world. Since I could not read either of those, I had to learn this from scratch, which was truly a challenge, but a good time and dizziness killer, as I still felt a little off even after a couple of days had passed.
Before I knew it, we reached the walls of a sizable city which, I assumed, bore the name of Wohr. Vast wheat fields spun all around the walls, with rare farmhouses and windmills closer to the city itself. They span across the river that was flowing right through it. There were no guards at the entrance and the gates were wide open, a much more welcoming sight in comparison to Wülgenville and Wiskoschia. Once we drove right inside, Nila and I dispatched from the wagon, seeing the old man off while mentally preparing ourselves for a stay at the new location.