Control Comes from Within

I eventually got enough knowledge dumped on me that I needed a moment to parse through it all.

Khime didn’t tell me how I was brought to this world, but he did say there was a reason why. As for what that reason was? He refused to tell me. Prohibited, he said. And when I followed up by asking what his role in bringing me here was? I got the same answer again.

….Fine, future-me could deal with it later. Moving on, I asked the next question I had: how we were able to communicate.

“It is a magic spell. A…gift, you might say. You hear our language as you would your own. In turn, the denizens of this world will hear your speech as the language they know. It was done to prevent, or at least mitigate, any chaos resulting from miscommunication.”

Another answer that led to more questions. Yet, Khime had made it abundantly clear that I was on a time limit with regards to any questions I could pose. Whenever I asked about anything related to the time limit, he would shut me down with the expected responses: prohibited, irrelevant, are you being stupid on purpose, you know I can’t tell you now hurry up and ask something else boy.

Oh, but he did reveal that he ‘skimmed’ through my memories while I was healing, only for necessary purposes, of course. It was important that he have a grasp of my baseline knowledge, he stated, so he could provide context in addition to any answers to my questions.

The slight anger I felt at having my mind violated was only matched by the shock that magic could apparently let one read memories. It was just another bit of knowledge to be stored for later.

Which brought me to the basics of the world I had learned.

Every day here lasted about 24 hours long, give or take a few seconds. That part, at least, was familiar. The rest…not so much. The calendar in this world had 8 days per week, 5 weeks per month, and 16 months in a year. Doing the math told me that every year had a whopping 640 days. I guessed they didn’t have leap years or daylight savings here, and I wasn’t going to try to introduce it, since I barely understood the necessity of it, or the mechanics of how it all worked anyway.

The next thing I asked about was currency. In response, appearing out of thin air and landing in front of me, was a leather pouch with a string tying it closed.

Probably used magic to summon it, I thought.

The pouch autonomously untied itself and upended its contents onto the ground, revealing some coins and a shiny blue stone. The coins were all the same gray shade of iron, but in three different shapes: a square, triangle, and circle. Oddly familiar symbols to me, but I highly doubted that a certain company would follow me to this world and sue its people for copyright infringement.

The square was the lowest denomination, then the triangle, and finally the circle was the highest. 40 squares were worth one triangle, and 16 triangles were worth one circle. There was another coin above the circle called the orb that represented one hundred circles, but that was rarely used, and Khime didn’t think I needed to see one to understand its significance.

Finally, the blue stones, while not hard currency, were condensed essence, containing the natural energy of the world that made magic possible. In my mind, I was trying hard to not surrender to the temptation just to call essence ‘basically mana’.

The mana, I mean, essence stones could be used in a variety of ways, primarily for magical purposes, but mages, the people who used essence actively in their daily lives, traded them for magical resources at times, making them a sort of unofficial currency, at least among mages.

As for any political knowledge…Khime confessed he rarely kept up to date with that kind of information. Politics rarely accomplished anything, he said, even when entrusted to the competent and well-intentioned. Not to mention each race had a slightly different method of governance that became needlessly complex the more you looked into it. There were nobles and commoners, tribal chiefs and elders, council members and judges, kings and emperors. and taxes. That was the extent of what he told me regarding politics.

How utterly helpful.

Although I agreed with him that politics, or at the least bureaucracy, was low on the list of priorities for a functional civilization.

When I asked if there were any religions or religious figures relating to gods, he had an odd expression on his face as he said no, but that there was a certain…understanding…in place. Some cultures placed importance on revering their ancestors, but not to the point of deifying them. But for most of the people of this world, they had come up with a set of…sins, Khime called them, for lack of a better word. And I could already piece together the source of these sins.

Apparently, the voranders were attracted to evil and malice, in nearly any form, as it was acknowledged they themselves were evil incarnate. So if a peaceful settlement suddenly came under attack from a horde of voranders, odds were high that somebody did something evil that drew them there. And that specific evil would be added to the list of things not to do, hence, sin.

A man commits murder? Draws in voranders.

A woman cheats on her husband to spite him? Draws in voranders.

A boy avenges his father’s murder by killing the perpetrator? Doesn’t draw in voranders.

Slavery in nearly any form? Lots of voranders, such that all the areas with slaves, or at least slavers, were annihilated. To this day, the descendants of the original proponents and patrons of slavery were ostracized and scorned.

The lines were blurred at times, but basically, if you lived as morally as possible, you wouldn’t be the cause of a vorander attack. I noted that intent seemed to be a key factor in what moral lines could be crossed or not without incurring the ire of the monsters.

So yeah, there was no official religious system. Apparently the threat of being eaten alive or killed slowly while your city burned around you kept people on the straight and narrow. I was a bit skeptical, but to be fair, fear could be a damn good motivator.

The next relevant question I had was regarding how information like that was conveyed. How did people know who attracted voranders with their actions? Especially when society stretched across continents.

What I heard in response only further confirmed the possibilities of magic.

A magic formation, created and put into place ages ago when the majority of the voranders were sealed in the Northern continent, spanned across the entire world. It had multiple functions, the primary one being recording the first victim of any vorander attack as well as the action that drew them there in the first place. After recording the victim and their sin, the recordings would be displayed to every other settlement across the world. And just like that, another sin would be added to the list.

So this world had a global monitoring network that was always watching everyone. Fantastic.

Even if the sinner somehow survived the attack, they would probably kill themselves out of shame. Or someone would assist them if need be, Khime said nonchalantly.

As he continuously informed me, I had very little time left before I could no longer pose questions, but I just had a few more that I hadn’t asked yet.

“So, can I learn magic now?” If there was any silver lining to be gleaned from everything so far, it was that magic was real. GODDAMN MAGIC existed here! Martial arts were all well and good, but magic… I longed for it. I really, really, wanted it.

It represented something to me.

Power. Security. Safety. A deterrent against attackers. I had never needed a source of security so badly in my life. Lives? That whole ‘technically died but not really’ thing only reinforced my point further.

The sensation of being unjustly pummeled and then shot was one I would never forget, and one I looked forward to repaying. Once again, the foundation of my being, my indifference, crumbled a bit more, replaced with a smoldering desire for power.

While Khime admitted he was an accomplished mage, as evidenced by his healing of my battered body, his efforts were concentrated more on research than any practical combat application, which I wanted to focus on. As such, he would be a suboptimal teacher. At least, according to him.

Although he did offer an alternative.

“Just go to any decent city and you should be able to enter an academy. I believe they hold the most expansive collections of knowledge and information in the Human continents. Everything from the morality of taxes and the most common spells that backfire to notes on vorander dissection can be found in the academy libraries. You can learn magic there, safely and with proper guidance,” Khime replied.

“Ugghh, is there any way I could learn some magic right now? At this moment?” I groaned, amending my statement to be more specific. I had learned over my lengthy Q-and-A session that specifics yielded better answers.

“Yes, and yes.” Khime said smugly.

A flash of hope sparked within me, then fizzled out.

“You won’t tell me what it is, will you?” I asked in a deadpan tone.

“Oh good, you’re finally displaying some mental acuity.” Khime said in amusement.

I got angry enough to let him know. Screw the consequences.

“You said I was brought here for a reason. I’m guessing that reason involves me actively living life? Walking, talking, moving around? And for some reason, you can’t do it? Well, it would be a real shame if I just, I don’t know, didn’t do that.” I said calmly, fake yawning to highlight my point.

Right now, I didn’t care even if my suspicions were right and Khime did turn out to be a god.

I had leverage, and I knew it. And if there’s anything I’d learned about negotiating from my years of binging a glut of fictional media, it’s that whoever had the leverage could set the terms of a deal.

“Man, it would be rather unfortunate if I, through an unexpected and coincidental series of events, turned out to be rendered unable to do whatever it was I was brought here to do. What if I was crippled horribly or, even worse, died, because I couldn’t use magic to defend myself? That would be an utter travesty! Oh, the waste of resources it would be! Imagine committing time and energy to a project only to have it crash and burn due to a mistake that could have been easily rectified.” I shouted with a theatrically airy and unconcerned tone, implicitly threatening someone who was probably vastly more powerful than I was.

I unveiled the slightly insane side of me that was fine with mutually assured destruction, if it got me what I wanted. I was banking on the fact that Khime had a reason for saving me, and that reason was important enough that he couldn’t outright kill me. Even if I guessed wrong and he did kill me, at least I would die with a functional body, which was more than I could say for the last time.

A few moments of silence followed my monologue, the old-sounding man likely weighing his options, after which…

“Sigh, I swear you youngsters are too spoiled nowadays. Fine, brat, you win. Come here and get your free magic spell.” Khime’s voice was bitter.

But I didn’t care. I would be able to actually do magic!

A black circular portal with a white rim surrounding it appeared in front of me. It was the size of my hand, but it radiated power. I looked forward to the day I could do something like that. I walked up to it, not sure of what to expect.

I saw the silhouette of a hand and a flash of white before I went blind, not dissimilar from the glare of sunlight that led to me being here. As I recoiled, trying to regain my vision, I felt a finger push on my forehead, and all of a sudden, I was…somewhere else.

The best way to describe the experience was like re-watching an hour-long video I saw years ago, except it only took a second. The knowledge was already there, I just had to jog my memory a bit to access it. Only it wasn’t my memory.

I felt an influx of information rushing through me. And just like that, I had a magic spell. Not a bad start for only being in this world for a few hours.

I came to my senses, blinking my eyes to readjust after that magical flashbang thing, and I reviewed the magic spell I was shown.

“So, taming. Not exactly what I had in mind, but not bad. Would I be correct in assuming that you used this spell to tame those animals, then, Khime?” I asked, pointing to the various creatures that were occasionally circling the undersea dome I found myself in.

Khime replied, “Yes. And now you have the knowledge of how to do so as well.”

For the first time since I’d ‘met’ him, Khime’s voice turned excited, and gleeful.

It didn’t suit him.

“It appears our time is up! Now, boy, I’m sure you still have mountains of questions for me, but I did warn you that time was limited! You should have asked the necessary questions instead of moaning and whining about your empty belly! So, off you go! Onwards, to a new chapter of your life! Or is it technically a chapter of your new life? Either way, you’re not my problem anymore, boy. Go on!”

Then, as the being that I tentatively assumed was a god finished berating me, one of the animals, an orca, that was swimming outside of the dome…swam inside. In the air. Without suffocating. It floated there for a moment, then looked at me and rushed towards me as it grabbed me in its mouth, making any resistance I could offer futile.

What happened next, some might describe as a beast majestically swimming to the surface with grace and poise, despite the unwieldy burden it was carrying. I would describe it as being crushed to near-death, both by the pressure of the water rushing all around my head and feet, and the force from the animal’s weirdly toothless mouth pressing against my torso. That experience lasted about ten seconds before I was ejected from the water, none too gently, onto a sandy beach.

My coughing fit was rather short as I reacclimated myself to the surface pressure, tasting the salty air of the ocean spray. Aren't the bends supposed to kill you if you ascend too quickly or something? I didn’t feel like I was dying, but maybe it was a gradual process. If it was, it’d be too late for me to deal with, and if not, then it was a non sequitur.

The orca looked at me, its mouth still open, when all of a sudden, Khime’s voice blared out of it. Like a megaphone on the highest possible setting.

“It was…interesting, meeting you, boy. Unfortunately, it is probable that our paths will cross again sooner or later. One last gift, so you don’t die before completing your task. And no, I can’t tell you what it is.”

Out of the orca’s mouth flew a rucksack half my size. As it landed next to me, the orca let out a low rumbling wail, no pun intended, then dove beneath the waters again.

As I laid on the beach, the rucksack lying next to me, I thought to myself. What the hell is the task I’m supposed to complete? How do you expect me to do something without telling me what it is!

Now that there was no distraction, my emotional tempest resumed its churning, various feelings making themselves known in my mind. So now I had a bare minimum of knowledge of this new world, an admittedly kickass magic spell, and a rucksack full of, what, basic supplies? But no food.

And I was still hungry. Borderline starving.

Which was the last straw in making me do something I hadn’t done in a long time, probably years.

I emoted.

I cursed everything and everyone I could think of: the petty manipulative woman who was the impetus to my death, her simple-minded boyfriend who had no compunctions about basically killing me, that old man who had no respect for privacy as he perused my memories like a children’s book, and any gods that were out there that let events play out as they did. I raged, screaming at the sky, shouting my frustrations and curses into the wind.

And sometime during my emotional outburst, I remembered that despite my opportunity to ask questions to the person who could have been the one who brought me here, I had somehow not asked how to get home, or even if it was possible.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Khime recalled his pets back to his side, their task completed. That boy was the most irritating thing he had seen in some time. But he had an inkling of what lay in store for him. Well, he would either rise to the challenge, or be struck down. At the end of the day, all the boy would be was another data point.

Unless, of course, he miraculously managed to complete the task he was given.

But what were the odds of that?