Chapter 46.
I smelled burning. It was the thing that yanked me out of my cozy blanket-wrapped sleep. Fire! That brief moment of panic sent me sitting up with a flail, elbowing Galine, who groaned. I blinked, trying to clear the sleep from my eyes.
No smoke. No fire.
But I still smelled burning. It made me nervous; there weren't any fire alarms to warn anyone that stoves had been left on. Burning meant fire, and I smelled smoke.
“You okay?” Galine mumbled, rubbing her eyes.
“Do you smell smoke?” I frowned, tentatively stretching the knot in my neck.
Galine frowned and then sat up. “It’s probably Mrs. Wenton. She likes to cook early. Trust me, if it were a fire, we would be hearing about it.”
“Okay,” I sighed, leaning back against her. “Sorry to wake you up.”
“It’s okay,” she mumbled, pressing a kiss to my cheek. “As comfortable as I was, I do need to be getting up,” she sighed.
“Yeah,” I agreed unhappily.
We got up slowly, both of us clearly stiff from a night of deep yet perhaps not the most ergonomic sleep. Galine offered me a chunk of rye bread and a mug of ale for breakfast. It wasn’t much, but it would fill my stomach. I made a mental note to grab some leftover cheese from the Tavern Crew’s room for us to split too. It hardly seemed like enough food for someone with the metabolism of at least 80% of a horse.
“If you still want that tour up to the Academy, I could show you after work today,” Galine offered around a sleepy yawn.
“Sure,” I smiled, somewhat thrilled at the prospect of continuing this hanging out. There was definitely a joke somewhere about lesbians and date length, but I wasn’t awake enough to formulate it.
Sleeping in my clothes had left me haggard and a little deranged-looking. Galine had a shiny piece of metal which she used as a mirror to do her hair. What I could make out in the murky reflection looked… chaotic.
“I don’t suppose there's somewhere to get like… a proper bath? Like a bathhouse, or a spa?” I asked, trying to tame my hair with my fingers. Galine offered me her brush.
Galine hummed, seeming to consider it. “Not really. There's a good spring far bathing near Appleby,” she offered. “Though I wouldn’t recommend going near the mines here, it’s dangerous and very deep. I know the capital is home to one of the few bath houses; apparently, it uses magic or something. It's decorated to look very… foreign,” she added thoughtfully.
“Lots of bamboo?” I asked.
“Yes, exactly,” she nodded. “How did you know?”
“It’s a thing,” I groaned. “Every isekai world has a Japanese bathhouse. Though maybe an outworlder just built one here,” I blinked.
“Okay?” She nodded, confused but accepting. “Anyway, if you want a bath, you’ll need a tub and a lot of hot water. Not exactly easy to get unless you’ve got wealth.”
“Yeah, I worried that was the case,” I sighed. “I’ll have to keep my eyes open. It’s such bullshit that there are toilets but no taps. How different can they possibly be?”
“I… don’t know,” Galine replied, giving me the look she always did when I started on about some outworlder stuff she didn’t understand.
“I just mean… there's magic.” I shook my head. “How difficult would it be to put a pump in your house and then magically heat up water?”
Galine shrugged. “Well, there's something for you to figure out at the Academy, I'm sure.”
I groaned at the thought. “There must be a bath spell, with some kind of essential oils, maybe Epsom salts. Ughhh, that would be so nice.”
Galine laughed at me as she finished her bread.
Stepping outside made one thing clear: the smell of smoke wasn’t from Galine’s neighbour. The air was hazy, the clouds dark and angry, and every breath tickled the back of my throat. Clearly I wasn’t the only one put off by this. Others were chatting in hushed, agitated voices, a whole community out and about, and worried.
“What's going on?” I frowned, not really expecting Galine to have an answer.
“I don’t know,” she replied, looking about. “Could be a forest fire and the wind’s changed direction. If it were Agocester, the bells would be ringing,” she reassured.
“Fuck,” I muttered. A forest fire would be devastating. It wasn’t an overly dry summer, but that only mattered to some extent. There was a lot of forest and a lot of grassland to burn. All the way from Agocester to Draycott could go up in flames with little resistance. Jesus.
How did the medieval era handle wildfires? They were pretty fucking detrimental on Earth.
They did have magic here. Surely there were water mages or something. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself.
“Don’t worry,” Galine told me. “I’m sure scouts have already been sent out.”
“Okay,” I muttered. “Hey, Candy? Is the dungeon okay? Any way to check if it's on fire or something?” I asked internally.
“The core is fine. I assume that if it were on fire it would not be fine,” she answered.
I let out a breath. At least the fire wasn’t approaching Agocester… yet. We continued into town, around corners and down streets lined with leaning buildings towards the outpost. Everywhere, people gathered and for good reason. This was a lot of smoke, too much smoke. The amount of smoke that would have constantly dinged my phone with air quality warnings.
A small procession of armoured men on horseback continued down the hill towards the southern gate. They wore chainmail and helmets. A handful of guards led by a man in a full suit of armour, some kind of knight, obviously. At the rear were a few with staves and robes, mostly unarmoured save for some thick leather. Spellcasters of some kind. Maybe the fantastical version of firemen? I couldn’t be sure.
“Who’s that?” I asked, pointing to the knight.
Galine shrugged. “One of Lord Grosswin’s men. Though… see the insignia on the robes,” she added, pointing to the three riders at the back.
“Yeah,” I nodded.
“Those are Academy robes,” she explained. “Given the stripes, senior students.”
“Oh,” I hummed. “Is that… strong?” I frowned.
“Yes,” Galine replied with a chuckle. “From what I’ve heard, the Agocester Academy of Arcane Art is exhaustingly competitive. Only the top bracket is eligible to move on to the next year.”
“That’s stupid,” I snorted.
Galine shrugged. “There’s a big festival every spring. Noble houses come from far and wide. It’s a bit of a…”
“A big dick measuring contest for the nobility?” I supplied.
“A what?” Galine laughed.
“Like a competition just to stroke egos and make themselves feel important,” I chuckled.
“Ah, yes, exactly,” she nodded. “A dick-measuring contest,” she giggled.
I rolled my eyes. Okay, fine, maybe Earth was just as bizarre in some capacities. Class divides were massive here, though… so were they on Earth. At least, given any individual's ability to gain stats, it was far harder to have an underlying narrative about one gender's superiority. And given that patriarchy bled into all sorts of other social phenomena, the whole system seemed pretty nice.
Not so much the fact that one person could literally be measurably superior to another. Though that would make utilitarianism much easier to implement, given that the value of a life could actually be measured in this place.
I smiled to myself. This place was so interesting.
The lack of systematically ingrained homophobia was definitely a bonus. Martrix had flirted with me unabashedly, and well… Galine.
Though racism definitely had the possibility to be a lot more tangible in a world like this. And the nuances added by polytheism only expanded that wildly.
Ugh, I needed more data. Maybe there was some kind of survey spell. Fuck, I really was looking forward to joining the Academy, at least the academia side of it.
Not so much the dick measuring side of it. I was at a pretty big disadvantage. For several reasons.
We arrived at the outpost without any real fuss. Galine excused herself to go deal with the handful of burly mercenaries clearly waiting for her.
“Sorry,” she winced.
“Go,” I chuckled. “I know you have to work. I can keep myself busy.”
Galine smiled, pressing a quick kiss to my cheek before heading to deal with the mercenaries. I sat at a table for a few moments, twiddling my thumbs to keep myself busy before I remembered the plan and headed upstairs to fetch the cheese. What was the point of anything if you didn’t regularly mouse out?
I was returning down the steps when the alarm bells began to ring.
Cries were going up through the streets, and amongst the shouts, it was easy enough to make out one word.
“Dragons!”
Oh fuck…