When Alice stepped through the gates and into the city, her first impression was architectural chaos. At least in the outer region of the city, the buildings were strewn about like a giant had casually tossed markers in random directions and people had then built exactly where those markers landed, regardless of how much sense it made. Much of the town was still under construction, with people transporting building materials and workers … everywhere.

There were huge plots of vacant land right next to filled in areas, with a few skeletons of buildings still being filled in here and there. From much farther away, she could see the construction of a large landing area for ships underway. She could even faintly see someone dressed in a white dress that seemed absurdly out of place ordering around groups of workers while giant blocks of construction material floated in midair around her. At the very least, it put to rest any lingering fears Alice had of witch hunts, or any similarly nonsensical problems of that vein. The woman was openly and obviously using her magic while throwing orders at people, and they obeyed without a hint of hesitation.

Despite the seemingly random building placement and general chaos, however, Alice was also surprised to see some seemingly modern aspects of city-planning. Unlike what she had expected to find once she learned of the technology level of this world, there were still clearly marked streets and sidewalks, although currently the streets were still under construction. Furthermore, she could even see an occasional ladder down into what she assumed was a sewer system, covered with some sort of reinforced wooden cover to prevent random entry or accidentally falling in.

In a daze, Alice stepped forward, trying to take in her first steps inside of a city in nearly three months. Things she had tried to avoid thinking about in months flickered through her thoughts. People. Friends. Family. She could at least find one of the three here.

And the other two were still missing from her life, possibly gone forever.

Alice shook away the dark thoughts inside of her head, and instead focused on scanning her surroundings. The guard outside of the gates had said to find the guardhouse, where she could at least get acquainted with the town a little bit. That was a good place to start, before she did anything else.

The guardhouse wasn’t too hard to find, since it was one of the few buildings made out of stone in a sea of wooden buildings and areas still under construction. It also had a giant block of stone with the words ‘guardhouse’ written on it, probably leveraging the fact that 100% of the population could read as long as they had functioning eyes and were old enough to talk.

She proceeded into the building, briefly surprised when she saw another eleven guards sitting inside and eating lunch, their combat gear still partially on. Perhaps to quickly get to work if stronger monsters attacked the farms outside? It seemed like a plausible guess, at least.

The person at the desk, by contrast, gave off a feeling similar to one she might expect back on Earth – that of a person working a boring desk job and waiting for their shift to end.

When he noticed her, he looked up. “What do you need, citizen?”

“The guard outside the gates said you could help me? Something about getting acquainted with the town, or at least recent news?”

The expression of boredom on the man’s face didn’t quite leave, but at the very least, Alice could tell that he was paying a bit more attention now.

“What kind of information are you looking for? What’s the reason for the request?”

“I haven’t been in civilization for a few months – I need an update on what’s going on in the area.” The bored expression on the guard’s face finally disappeared, replaced with a scowl. Alice nearly left, uncertain why he was so angry, before she realized he wasn’t mad at her.

“The damn Sigmusi have been everywhere lately. There’s all sorts of nonsense going on in the background these days. One of their spies took out the mayor of Riverbranch and five of the city’s best mages in the middle of the night. How the hell they managed to deal with five damn mages in the middle of town is beyond me. One of them was even rumored to have two post-50 perks, or a combined perk, for System’s sake! I hear the whole town is up in arms.” He snorted. “Besides that, those bastards upped the bounty on both mage cores and live mages again, trying to stir up troublemakers. Fucking bastards don’t even have the decency to just declare war and be done with it, so they stick to this quiet war shit and kill off our best and brightest in the background instead.”

Alice frowned. Despite how random some of the statement seemed, they contained a wealth of information she needed to parse over. The guard outside of the gates had also mentioned something about the Sigmusi Empire as part of her entry statement. And… bounty on mage cores?

She was, as far as she knew, a mage. If she wasn’t mistaken, there had been a feeling of warmth behind her heart when she had formed her magic seeds.

Come to think of it, the corpse she had found was missing a heart, as well as the area around it. And was carrying a magic book for some reason.

Alice was suddenly very, very nervous.

Suddenly, she was very happy she hadn’t outed herself as a mage yet. She tried her best to put on a completely normal expression, before she realized that hearing about the murder of six (probably) reputable people should probably elicit some response from her - appearing too neutral would be weird. Therefore, she let a flicker of fear show in her expression.

“They managed to kill five mages and a mayor in the middle of town?”

“Crazy shit, ainnit? For an [Organic Mage] to die like that means they musta sent some real tough bastards to kill him. Damn shame is what it is.” The guard suddenly seemed startled, before he cleared his throat. “Not that it’s a concern for our fair town of Cyra, of course. We’re safe as houses.” The guard himself looked unconvinced when he said this, and Alice took it to mean that he was required to say it for his job rather than actually believe it. Not to mention, his accent had gotten rougher and rougher when he was speaking, only to suddenly switch back towards a more… dignified accent when he seemed to remember he needed to pretend safety was assured.

“That’s crazy indeed,” said Alice, feeling a flash of real fear. If mages were being hunted down by some sort of enemy country, she was probably liable to get killed in the crossfire if anyone figured out that she was a mage. The fact that she wasn’t actually from Cyra or whatever country this was probably wouldn’t make a difference, especially if the bounty was for ‘mage cores’ rather than directly paying for assassins.

“Apart from that, watch yourself in town. New decree from the Crown is that minor criminals can have their crimes forgiven if they work in a labor gang for a few years. With the recolonization of the South, plenty of industries need more working hands, and plenty of petty criminals are taking up the offer. Even if people like murderers, rapists, and such aren’t getting out, plenty of thieves and minor offenders. First batch just got their official releases, so plenty of former criminals coming down South to turn over a new leaf and start a new life. Watch your pockets and anything valuable you own – even if most have good intentions, plenty are also going to fail and get desperate again. And there’s no surer way to have petty crimes increase than poverty and desperation.”

The receptionist seemed to think it over, and then shrugged. “I can’t think of anything else too important right now to keep an eye out for. Just stay in town – with the Sigmusi stirring up troublemakers, even mages aren’t safe outside the walls right now, much less ordinary folks. The wilds are dangerous right now, especially since we’re a newly settled area. Even if Spring is just starting and the scarier stuff is still hibernating, that won’t be the case for long. Anything else you need?”

“Ah… no, I’m fine for now,” said Alice, not thinking completely clearly. Right now, she needed some time to process.

She stepped out into the streets again, trying to figure out what her situation was like right now.

She had no money, and she doubted anyone would be interested in purchasing the crappy stone tools she had used to get by in the wilderness. The farmers outside had been using either iron or steel – she couldn’t tell the difference, but either way they certainly had no use for stone axes and spears. She needed to find a way to survive in this city. That meant finding a job or finding a place in the city where she could carve out a niche. From there, she would have to find a way continue researching magic and the system, and ultimately find a way home, which probably meant she needed access to information and books.

Her knowledge on magic right now was incredibly lacking – she could at least move stuff around near-instinctually at this point, but frankly, her control was lacking, and on any deeper level she had no idea what she was doing. Even trying to control objects smaller than her fingernail was difficult for her, and what was worse was that she had no idea whether this was a limitation of magic itself or she just fucked up somehow.

In an ideal world, her job would involve magic in some way so that she had better reasons to keep asking for more information on magic. However, that also carried a huge risk – whatever the “Sigmusi Empire” was, they seemed to be in conflict with whatever nation she was currently residing in. Even if things hadn’t escalated to the point of open war, they had effectively offered a bounty on mages, and in this area laws were already hard to maintain because this was apparently a newly settled region. In other words, she was unlikely to be safe if she was a known mage.

Right now, the risk of taking a magic related job is too high – I think. I need to know more. Dispirited and confused, she wandered around town a bit, hoping to find something to clear her head. She had finally reached civilization, but what now? She felt… lost and afraid. Now that she had achieved her first short-term goal, she didn’t know what came next. She was in civilization. How in the world was she supposed to find a way home, or learn more about magic and the System? Especially if people were gunning for her on the basis of magic?

Her first instinct was to try to find a library – she loved books, and the thought of seeing shelves of books was both comforting and useful. If she could read some books about the local history and geography of the region, she would have a much better idea what she was getting into. If books on magic weren’t too uncommon, it might even net her some better understanding of what she was doing, although she was a bit less hopeful on that prospect.

She started heading towards the docks – the area had seemed more … finished than the outskirts of the city, so she could start her search there.

Once she arrived, it was even easier to see the difference. In the outskirts of the city, there had only been dirt roads with marked sidewalks, whereas inside there were clearly distinguished… wooden sidewalks? A bit odd, but she could get used to it. In the docks area, there weren’t many buildings that were still under construction besides the docks themselves – most of the stores and houses were already set up.

The other thing she noticed was that people didn’t just use the System in their everyday life – if anything, they actively flaunted their levels. One of the stores she passed even had a wooden sign that said “level 62 tailor – the highest level Tailor in Cyra! Moderate System Enchantments available!” And another store that said “Level 45 tailor – excellent perk combination for dresses for all ages.” There was even one that seemed straight out of a more traditional fantasy novel, but was even more confusing, that read “Level 39 Enchanter/Level 52 Blacksmith. Light System Enchanting, All Traditional Enchanting, and some Consumable Enchanting available. The best stop for adventurers!” Although the sign seemed a bit run-down compared to the other more vibrant signs, it was fascinating to see a mention of Enchanting, as well as a mention of adventurers. She would look into it more later.

Alice thought some more. Right now, she wanted to find a library. However, even if she found one, right now she might get tossed out solely on the basis of her clothing – she had literally just folded a bolt of fabric around herself and called it a toga. It got the job done, but she stood out, and not in a good way. The people around her didn’t seem to mind too much, but she could feel the occasional weird look. For that, she needed money, which she currently had none of. In other words, the first priority was to see about selling the book.

She searched around town, but couldn’t find a bookseller in the ‘dock’ part of town. She wandered around town a bit more, before realizing that closer to the center of town there was a ‘wealthier’ district where buildings were made out of stone and mortar instead of wood, and houses tended to have three stories instead of one or two. She managed to find a shop that dealt in books. However, before she walked in, she realized that there were more problems. First and foremost, she had no idea what the value of books in this town were. If the shop owner decided to rip her off, she would have no idea until it was too late. This was her best opportunity to get herself back into presentable shape, and if she missed it, finding another opportunity would be time consuming and painful, at the very least.

Second, she had no idea what currency was even used in this country or kingdom. She had seen the merchant in front of her use a silver coin, but that was all she knew.

Besides, as she currently looked, if she tried to sell the book and books were actually as valuable as she hoped they might be, the shop owner would probably think she’d stolen it. In order to sell a book, she needed to first look presentable, which she couldn’t do without selling the book. This was… a problem.

Quietly, she moved back to the docks section, searching for an area where she could sit back and observe for a while. After some searching, she found what appeared to be an open-air market and settled down to watch.

It only took a few minutes for her camouflage skill to activate, although the guard who briefly strolled through the market about an hour in seemed to know someone was lurking around and spent a minute or two looking for her. He could clearly sense her, and knew she was doing something, even if he couldn’t quite pinpoint her location. She quietly retreated from the market, then deactivated her perk. She waited for several minutes, hoping for the guard to go away, before she moved back towards the market. She didn’t want to miss her best opportunity to sell the book, after all. This time, however, she avoided activating her {Camouflaged} perk - it seemed like it would be far more trouble to be caught using a stealthy perk in public than it was to look like a person wearing a weird toga thing.

Over the next few hours, she found out that the kingdom used a coin system for currency, based around ‘small’ and ‘big’ coins of various metals. Small copper coins were the smallest denomination of currency, followed by big copper coins, each of which were worth five small coppers. one big copper could purchase one skewer of meat and vegetables from one of the stalls in the area. Four big coppers made up one small silver, and five small silvers made up one big silver. Ten big silvers made one small gold coin. The coins likely had actual names to them – however, as it currently stood she mostly noticed the difference in coin size and the value of the metal.

Luckily, she also saw a few people selling books at stalls that sold ‘odd things.’ Each book was sold for a handful of large silvers, although the price seemed to vary some from book to book. Those stalls also sold a variety of other strange objects, an esoteric collection of nick-nacks, odd-colored crystals, old rings, and other things that she couldn’t identify.

After observing one of the stalls for a while, Alice decided to try her luck selling her book to them instead. There was no real reason to sell to a bookstore if there was a place to sell here, after all. Furthermore, she had seen a boy in even more ragged clothes than hers sell a few things to this stall already, so it seemed relatively likely she could get away with doing the same. Trying to seem like she belonged, Alice walked up to the stall.

The stall keeper gave her a glance, and his eyes contained a gentle sparkle as he looked at her. “What can I do for you, miss?” His voice was calm and relaxed.

“I am looking to sell this book.” Alice pulled the book out of her makeshift basket and showed it to the stall owner.

The man frowned, looking over the book for a moment, before turning back towards her. He looked much more closely than before, taking in her dirty appearance and her clothes, before his gaze relaxed. “You aren’t used to this, are you?”

“Huh?”

“Poverty. You look pretty enough that your charisma is well above 100, right? Not to mention you were sitting at the edge of the market for a few hours, watching everyone to see how everyone was acting and how to copy them. You also move too slowly for your dexterity to be above one hundred, although I would wager it’s pretty close. Slum girls don’t get that kind of stat build from living in poverty, and even if they come to the frontier afterwards to make a new life for themselves, their stats take quite a while to fit into whatever new life they’re making for themselves. Now, you could end up with a stat build like yours if you were a fallen noble,” he said, giving her a thoughtful glance. “However, you don’t have the demeanor of one of those brats. ” Alice flushed and shook her head. The man let out a good-natured chuckle.

“So here’s what I’ll tell you. Your book there is worth a bit more than the usual ones, since my {Appraisal} says it’s a book about magic seeds. Most places, there are always a few newly baptized mages that would probably value a book like this quite highly. That being said, newly baptized are also usually poor and desperate, unless they found a master or joined an academy. And right now, this town doesn’t even have 20 mages between its walls, and every one of them is experienced or already under the wing of a teacher. The people that come this far south, mostly, are the desperate and those looking to start a new life for themselves. Other than the mages who owe a favor to the city lord, most mages are still up north, closer to the capital where they can keep living in comfort and luxury, and the new ones tend to stick to their academies, an enchanter, or the army. This book is quite valuable in the North, but down here it’s dead weight, I’m sorry to say.”

Alice felt incredibly disheartened. The stall owner’s demeanor had been open and honest the whole time, and she didn’t think he was lying to her. However, if her book didn’t have much of a market in this region, then it was truly dead weight. Gold was worthless if there was nowhere to spend it, and, similarly, the book wasn’t useful anymore if she couldn’t sell it. Worse, if someone knew she had the book and tried to rob her, it would place her in a dangerous situation, which meant that the book was almost a liability rather than something useful.

“However,” the man continued, with a kind smile, “I’m a travelling merchant. Since I move from town to town, I might actually have a chance of selling that book. It probably won’t sell for months, but you seem like you could use a little help right now. How about I buy it for a golden sun?”

Alice felt her eyes grow a little hot. She knew he was overpaying - some of the other books she had seen were also on magic, and had still only gone for 7 or 8 big silvers. “Thank you very much.” She said. She gave the merchant the book, and he handed her a small golden coin in exchange.

“I hope that whatever is happening in your life, you manage to recover from it and move forward, young lady. Ah, or perhaps you prefer to be referred to as an adult now? You do look about the right age…” he gave her a good natured grin. “Either way, I hope things turn out well.”

Alice’s hands shook a bit, and she turned back to the merchant. “Thank you very much.” She repeated, her voice dropping a bit.

She turned around and left. She walked to the side of the road for a moment, clutching the golden coin tightly in her fist as if her life depended on it. She took a few deep breaths in and out, calming her nerves. Today, she had spoken to another human being for the first time in months, three times in fact, and she had been terrified. She had prepared and watched before talking to the merchant, preparing and running over possible scenarios, and it turned out… fine. He had been nice.

After a few more minutes, she straightened up. She needed to find a tailor, maybe take a bath, get something to eat, and then she wanted to find a library, if there was one in the town. If there wasn’t, she would figure it out later. For now, she had things to do.

And as she walked, unnoticed by her, her footsteps were firmer. She moved with purpose that had been lacking for the past few months. She had something resembling a plan, which she had been missing since she had been dumped into this foreign dimension.