The following afternoon, the cold, biting air of Border Town seemed surprisingly more bearable under the pale, golden sun. Inside the castle, the transition to local reality was finally complete—at least from a visual standpoint. After days of completely standing out with their synthetic hoodies and sneakers, Arthur and William had finally gotten rid of their flashy, modern clothes.
Roland had insisted. He knew that the presence of two "academics" dressed in high-tech industrial fabrics would eventually attract the wrong kind of attention. If spies from Longsong Stronghold or, worse, the Church discovered men wearing materials that shouldn't exist for another five hundred years, the questions would be impossible to answer.
To solve this, the Prince had provided them with high-quality garments, typical of the lower nobility or wealthy merchants of Graycastle. Arthur now wore a dark gray wool tunic, heavy and warm, with discreet silver embroidery on the cuffs that accentuated his calm and observant posture. William, on the other hand, looked like an up-and-coming young knight straight out of a fairy tale. He wore a navy-blue doublet over an impeccable linen shirt, the cut of which highlighted his athletic build and broad shoulders.
— "Well, Art, I have to admit, the fabric isn't exactly Adidas or Nike," commented William, tugging at the stiff collar of his shirt and adjusting a heavy leather belt at his waist as they walked toward the testing room. — "But at least it doesn't itch as much as I imagined. Although I'd give an arm for a pair of jeans right about now."
Arthur smoothed his tunic, feeling the weight of history that the garment represented. — "It's about blending in, Will. We can't build a revolution if we're burned at the stake for looking like aliens. Besides, you look ready to audition for a fantasy epic."
They entered the testing room, a spacious chamber with stone walls and large windows that let in the afternoon light. In the center of the room, Karl van Bate stood beside a small, trembling figure. He introduced her to Roland with a protective hand on her shoulder: Nana Pine.
The girl was the local carpenter's daughter and looked as though she wanted to disappear into the floorboards. Her eyes were wide in a mixture of terror and confusion, and her small hands clutched the fabric of her simple dress. She had heard her whole life that the "devil's breath" inside her was a curse, yet here she was, standing before a prince who looked at her not with disgust, but with a gentle and encouraging gaze.
To test her abilities, Roland had prepared a small, injured bird that a guard had found in the castle gardens. Its wing was bent at an unnatural angle, and its tiny chest heaved with the struggle to survive. It was a pathetic and painful sight.
— "It's alright, Nana," Roland said softly. — "Do what you think is right. No one here is going to hurt you."
Nana took a step forward, her lower lip trembling. She extended her small hands toward the bird. Arthur and William watched with bated breath as the magic finally manifested. It wasn't like Anna's fire; it was a glowing, semi-liquid substance—a pale, emerald-green light that seemed to flow like warm honey from her fingertips. The substance enveloped the animal's broken wing, glowing with a soft, pulsing rhythm.
In a matter of seconds, the bone snapped back into place with an audible pop, the skin healed without leaving a mark, and the ruffled feathers aligned perfectly. The bird, which moments before had been in agony, suddenly chirped with a vigorous, life-filled sound. It gave two little hops on the table and then took flight, gliding across the room and circling the roof beams before landing on the sill of a high window.
William let out a low, appreciative whistle, his eyes wide as he followed the bird's flight. To him, someone who understood combat and "game logic" firsthand, that wasn't just a miracle—it was the ultimate support ability.
— "Unbelievable," murmured William to Arthur. — "A portable medical kit that never runs out of supplies. If we have her behind our lines, the casualty rate of our future army drops to near zero. That completely changes the game."
However, Arthur—though impressed—maintained his analytical detachment. He had already read about Nana's "magical biology" in the original story; his curiosity regarding the mechanisms of her power had already been sated by his knowledge. He knew Nana would become the foundation of the kingdom's regenerative medicine, the one who would allow Roland's soldiers to fight another day.
What truly drew Arthur in that moment was not the magical healing, but the tangible, visceral structure of the world waiting for him beyond the castle gates.
— "I'll leave you two with the additional field tests," Arthur said to Roland and William, giving a brief, polite bow. — "I want to head down to the riverbank. I need to see how the wall foundations are reacting to the soil saturation near the water. Theory only goes so far."
Leaving the castle, Arthur felt a flash of genuine enthusiasm he rarely showed. As soon as his boots touched the muddy ground of the main road, the omnipresent smell of manure, woodsmoke, and damp earth hit him full force. To any modern person, it was a stench of misery and decay. But to Arthur—an art and design student, and a long-time fan of the "isekai" genre—it was something entirely different.
The border town enchanted him in a way words couldn't describe. It was like walking inside a living work of art, a masterpiece painted in hues of brown, gray, and autumnal orange. He walked down the dirt streets, observing the rustic houses. They were built with "wattle and daub"—interwoven wooden slats covered with a mixture of wet earth, clay, and straw. To the residents, they were cramped hovels; to Arthur, they were a fascinating display of historical architecture.
He stopped in front of the town hall, admiring the heavy wooden structures and the way the thatched roofs were layered to shed the rain. Every exposed beam, every hand-carved doorframe, and every uneven cobblestone path looked as though it had stepped straight out of the pages of the Light Novels and anime he had devoured in his homeland.
— "It's so... authentic," he whispered to himself, ignoring a stray pig that trotted past his boots.
He walked toward the Redwater River, noting how the rudimentary medieval engineering integrated with the natural landscape. The river was the town's lifeblood, its gray waters rushing toward the horizon. Arthur looked at the site where the wall would soon rise. He knew that this rustic, "charming" landscape was about to change forever. Soon, the horizon would be filled with the black smoke of coal chimneys, the roar of steam engines, and the rhythmic clangor of factories.
While William remained at the castle, probably trying to use his "harem protagonist" charisma to interact with the witches and gain more "system points," Arthur lost himself in the contemplation of the urban structure. He mentally captured every detail: the way the light fell on the moss-covered stones, the sound of the wind through the thatched roofs, and the simple, quiet life of a town at the edge of the world.
He wanted to etch every detail of this era into his memory before the industrial revolution—initiated by Roland and fueled by their knowledge—transformed it into a world of iron and steel. He was an architect of the future, but for today, he was content to be a spectator of the past.