The carriage ride from Alcacia to Forterra was proving to be both uncomfortable and boring. It had been 8 hours since Reid and Anna had left their home. The only other people present were the carriage driver and a mage sitting at the front of the carriage, manning the reigns. They were separated from the teens by an enormous pile of goods and luggage. It was impossible to see or talk to them from their position in the back of the carriage, making them feel truly alone on their journey.
The duo had been quiet for the last 4 hours, having run out of topics to talk about long ago. They sat in silence watching the trees pass around them.
The trip was estimated to take 3 days, which would be broken up into 12 hours segments of travel per day. The duration and pace of their journey would be unthinkable for any horse from Amadeus' world; it was only possible thanks to the creature summoned by the mage accompanying them.
The creature at the front of the carriage, known as a Caris, was like an oversized moose. Its body was tall and thick, with large crystalline antlers, whose tips reached the same height as the carriage. Thick plates of bone reinforced their thin shins.
Since the creature was a summon, it had no need to eat, sleep, or rest. It was simply a construct of mana.
"Question." Amadeus says to the duo.
"What's up?" Reid answers.
"Is it normal to use a summoned beast to travel? I saw the price when we visited the mages guild the other day. It seemed expensive."
That trip to the mages guild had been a huge letdown for Amadeus. What he had assumed to be a place for scholars to share their knowledge and improve their craft, turned out to be a simple business. People would request jobs that needed certain spells to be done, and the guild would find mages who could fulfill the request. It was a purely transactional organization.
"Yeah, how else are you gonna pull a carriage?" Anna replies in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Wouldn't it be cheaper for a merchant to raise their own draft animals?"
"Draft animals?" She asks with confusion in her voice.
"Domesticated animals raised to pull things like carriages, or farm equipment."
Anna gives him a concerned look.
"Amadeus," Reid cuts in. "what do you mean by domesticated?"
"You know, raising, feeding, and protecting animals to use them for a certain purpose. What else could I mean?"
Anna's concern deepens.
"Amadeus, what you're saying is impossible. Maybe you could keep a small animal as a pet, but even that's risky. Doing what you're suggesting is just…" He trails off, thinking how to phrase his response.
"Insane!" Anna finishes.
"Oh? That's interesting. Care to explain why?" Despite how his comment sounded, he was genuinely interested.
"Because if you leave animals in one area for too long, they would attract monsters. And even if you could keep them safe, the energy they naturally give off would pool and stagnate. Eventually, the animals would mutate into monsters." Reid answered.
"Interesting. I found it odd that there was so much land dedicated to farmland, yet I never saw any livestock. If you don't have livestock, how do you get enough meat to feed people?"
"Hunters obviously." Anna says with a giggle.
The thought of the ever serious, super-genius Amadeus not knowing why hunters were important, despite being one himself, was hilarious to her.
"Meat's pretty expensive. Normal people only eat meat about once a week if their lucky. Nobles or wealthy people can eat it for almost every meal though." Reid explains, deciding to go back to the basics.
"Is that not what it's like where you come from Amadeus?" The girl asks.
"Not at all. To start with, we don't have monsters or the energy accumulation problem you described. Without those problems we can easily raise animals for many different needs or purposes. For us, having meat available for every single meal was normal for most households."
"Seriously? You're telling me normal people like us could eat like nobility? That's amazing!" Anna's eyes shine at the thought of being able to eat delicious meat so freely.
"I guess that makes sense. From my perspective, that's just the norm. Wait..."
Amadeus begins to piece clues together in his mind.
'Without farms, there would be no cows. Without cows there would be no milk. Without milk, they would never think to pasteurize it. Which means...'
"Tell me. Do you know what cheese is?" He asks with deep concern.
"Cheese? Never heard of it." Reid answered.
"What's cheese? A type of meat?" Anna asks.
"I figured as much. Cheese is a dairy product. It's considered one of the most delicious things ever made in my world. Now that I have access to a body that can consume food once again, I was hoping to enjoy a nice cheesy dish at some point." His tone was thick with nostalgia.
"But, it looks like that won't be happening. I guess the old saying is true, you don't know what you got 'til it's gone."
"Yeah. I guess you don't…" The young girl replied with an unexpected amount of weight in her voice.
In her mind she was drawing a parallel between Amadeus' statement and her leaving the orphanage. To keep her mind from circling back to the sadness from earlier, she kept talking.
"So, Amadeus, what was your previous world like?"
"Yeah, I wanna know too. You've told me bits and pieces, but nothing deeper than that." Reid agrees while nodding his head.
"I'm not sure it's that interesting, but I don't mind sharing. As I've already said, my world was one without mana, spirit energy, or even monsters. Because of that, our society didn't develop through magic, it developed through science and technology.
The time period I was born was considered the golden age of technology. Our understanding of the rules that governed the universe grew every single day, and that was reflected in the incredible inventions and machines we created.
We had ships that could fly through the sky and go from one end of the world to the next in a single day. We had massive communications relays that allowed information to flow freely to anyone, anywhere in the world. You could communicate with anyone, anywhere in the world. It was truly an amazing time to be alive."
""Wow."" The young hunters said in unison.
"That's incredible! Are you sure that you weren't using magic? Because it sure sounds like it." Anna joked.
"Definitely. We were just taking advantage of underlying physical principles of the world learned through thousands of years of incremental progression."
"Wait, if that technology is about taking advantage of physical principles or whatever, doesn't that mean you could recreate them here too?" Reid asks.
"Probably. But that's not my priority right now. I don't want to waste my time recreating something I already understand, I want to work toward understanding this incredible new phenomenon I found in this world. Plus, I have the feeling that mana and spirit energy are closely tied to the fundamental workings and rules of this world, so researching them will be far more important in the long run."
"Still sounds like a waste to me." Reid complains as he imagines himself riding in an enormous ship as it flies through the sky.
"Perhaps, but would you prefer I spend my time recreating those things from my old world while you struggle alone in combat, or would you prefer I keep expanding my magical capabilities?"
"Yeah, I guess you're right." The boy reluctantly admits.
"Besides," He continued. "It would take decades to reach that level, even with the appropriate knowledge. Not only that, but the finances you would need to build such an entirely new industry from scrap would be exorbitant. I don't know if even the richest of nobles could afford such an endeavor."
"Aww man. So much for the awesome flying ship." Reid complained.
Anna giggled at the boys depressed expression.
"So, what did you do in your old world? Like, what was your job?" Anna asked, hoping to learn more about the enigma in front of her.
"I was a scientist. After graduating college at the age of 10, I began mentoring under various scientific teams and worked with a wide variety of research projects. At 18, I created my own company dedicated exclusively to research. I called it 'Altichem'. We brought in promising scientists and researchers from every field you could think of. Slowly but surely, we became wildly successful in all aspects of industry.
At 20, I invested in a massive project to terraform a remote island, building it up to be a technological wonderland. I began living there, surrounded by likeminded individuals in pursuit of scientific innovation. Somewhere along the line, our island developed enough to be recognized as its own country. Against my own objections, I was named as the leader. My fellow scientists kept saying things like, 'of course it must be you!', or 'who else would we elect?'. Those fools, academic prowess alone does not equate to leadership potential.
Thankfully I had a close assistant that I had worked with for many years who was able to assist me in those leadership duties. She was incredibly talented, both as a scientist and a politician. One day she suggested that if I was going to keep pushing those leadership duties onto her that I should just marry her and officially make her queen. So I did. I don't know why she was so shocked when I agreed, it was her idea after all."
Amadeus had absolutely no idea that her comment was meant to be a flirty joke said between drinks. Anna felt sorry for the wife, who had such an unromantic proposal, if it could even be called that. Reid's only thought was, 'yeah, that sounds like something Amadeus would do'.
"Anyway, we got married shortly after and had five kids over the following years. Unfortunately, I had to fulfill the leadership role a lot more during that time while she was pregnant and raising our children. Between family life and politics, I lost a lot of potential research time. I don't regret my prioritizing my family, but it was an unfortunate loss nonetheless.
By the time I was 30 the rest of the nations of the world began making absurd demands of us. Asking for aid, technology, or financial assistance. When we rejected their demands they began to threaten us, promising to destroy us if we didn't comply. Obviously I refused. Those ignorant fools had gravely miscalculated the pace of our scientific advancement.
War eventually broke out, but it was complete and utter dominance on our part. The technology we had kept exclusively to ourselves dismantled their armies before they had a chance to resist. By the time I was 35 I realized it would be easier to conquer the other nations and bring them under our banner, than to continue fending off their invasions year after year. By the time I was 40 the world was conquered.
With that headache taken care of my first son volunteered to take over as leader of this new empire. I happily relinquished the position and returned to my research. Shortly after, when the rest of my family was on a diplomatic visit, a rebel cell attacked. They were quickly subdued, but my wife had lost her life… We all handled the loss differently. My son focused on social reform. My daughters began spending more time together. And me… I became obsessed with my research."
It wasn't much, but Reid and Anna noted a hint of pain in his otherwise flat and monotone voice. Just enough to remind them that he was in fact human.
"As my list of research projects grew larger and larger, I realized that my limited lifespan wouldn't be enough to discover everything that I wanted to learn. Most would accept this as just the natural order of things, however I refused to surrender and yield to that fate.
I made huge strides in bioengineering, increasing my lifespan exponentially. I offered the technology to my children, but they all refused. I don't understand why they declined, but at the end of the day it was their choice to make, so I respected their decision. In the end we decided together to keep the technology a secret.
More time passed and my children began to pass away as well. Not from any tragic event, but in peace from old age, surrounded by loved ones. In truth, they were the only thing keeping me attached to normal society. With them gone and my technology continuing to expand at a rate far beyond the rest of the world, I decided it would be easier to live in isolation. That way none of my research could be leaked or misused with malicious intent.
I set off for space, using advanced terraforming technology to create a new base of operation on a distant planet. By the age of 400, the world I had originally called home was suddenly destroyed. I don't know what had caused it, but there was no trace of the advanced civilization I had helped create left on that planet.
It was sad to see, but there was nothing I could do. Not that I would change my purpose at that point. I had left humanity behind long ago, it felt insulting to mourn them after I had abandoned them.
By the time I was 1000, my body was somewhere between human and machine, not being either in truth. At that point I realized I needed much larger machines. Larger constructs to power and facilitate my experiments. With that in mind I began to enter long periods of suspended animation while my machines handled construction.
By the time I was 3000 I began terraforming planets.
By 5000 I had terraformed entire solar systems into machines with one purpose.
By 6000 I had created my own plane of existence. My own dimension where I could build and expand. It was meant to be the pinnacle of everything I had built over millenia. The final step in my plan.
But shortly after that he appeared.
A god in the truest sense. He came and destroyed everything I had built. Everything! And right as I was on the cusp of finishing my grand quest. On the cusp of understanding the universal truths and fulfilling my purpose. And then I ended up here."
Reid and Anna could say nothing. Everything he had just said, the whole insane story, was more fantastic than any fantasy story they had heard in their lives.
"Any more questions?" He asked plainly.
"No… that… that's all, thanks." Anna replied nervously.
In truth, the girl had no idea what to think of Amadeus now. It would be much easier for her to just write him off as crazy, or as a liar, but something in her gut told her it was all true. So what should she think of him?
Should she fear him? Respect him? Or be grateful he decided to work with them?
She had no idea.
Reid's mind was even more unsettled by the revelation. He could no longer see himself as being bound to another person, it was more like he was bound to a force of nature, like a raging typhoon. Could he manage to stay manage to stay afloat among they chaos that would inevitably come, or would he be pulled under and drown in it's wake.
He didn't know.
With both teens deep in thought, quiet returned to the carriage until they finally stopped for the day.