It was just a simple dirt road, but it was a sign of civilization. Leaving the forest wilderness behind, Zoey began following the road, expecting at some point to find a town or village.

She followed the road for several days, before she found anything. It was farmland that was plowed and seeded with what looked like wheat. Across the field she could see a brown farmhouse next to some trees. This fairly normal sight made Zoey realize one important point. how would she communicate with the people of this world? How would she even understand the language?

The moment she thought this, her terminal brought up another piece of information for her. Sethrii it seems had given her some sort of auto translate function that would convert anything she heard into something she could make sense of and when she spoke in turn it would translate what she said.

Put somewhat at ease knowing that she would be fine with the language, Zoey continued on. It was not very long before she encountered the first people that lived on this world. Coming down the road towards her were 2 people. The first was surprisingly, a completely normal looking human. He was dressed in a rugged farmer's outfit with a straw had on his head. His skin was tanned heavily from many hours spent in the fields.

Following him, however, was definitely not a human. It looked almost human, but smaller. Its entire body was covered in a carapace like exoskeleton, making it look like a bug person, for lack of better comparisons. The face had human features, but was also covered in smooth carapace and had 2 antenna sprouting from the forehead. The hands looked human but only had 3 digits, 2 fingers and a thumb.

The feet also looked a little strange, ending in sharp points that dug into the ground as it walked. Lastly, it had a second pair of arms, which it was using to carry a fairly large pack on its back. The arms sprouted from below the first 2 and looked like they had the same range of motion forwards and backwards.

Behind the two of them, there was a long flatbed cart that they were towing. What made Zoey take notice was that it was hovering about a half meter off the ground, and they were pulling it with almost no effort despite it being fully loaded.

Faced with all this, Zoey did her best not to stare as they passed each other on the road. The farmer tipped his hat and greeted Zoey with a jovial hello, and she nodded back in greeting. Although she was able to understand him with no issues, she was not ready to try and speak yet as she was not sure how the translator would work. The bug person did not acknowledge her and simply walked past.

It seemed like these people were not too wary of strangers. Zoey continued on her way as she wondered about the bug person she had seen. Curious she brought up her interface and sent a query, getting back some basic information. The bug people were natives of Darren like the humans that lived here, and were called The Vekt. They were on par with humans intelligence wise, and generally the same strength physically. The database did not have very much info on the Vekt other than they were also able to use magic and had innate talents like humans. Other than that there was not much else she could learn.

As Zoey moved on, the road became better maintained and she started to see more farms and houses. It seemed like she was nearing some sort of city. Sure enough she started to see more and more people traveling the road to and from her destination. There seemed to be a generally even mix of humans and Vekt and there didn't seem like there was any animosity between the two races.

It wasn't until later in the day that Zoey finally saw the city. It was huge. Walking towards the gate she could see fifty meter high walls that went left and right, stretching out of sight. The gate was similarly huge, and through it she could see a huge amount of people moving around on the streets.

Somewhat nervous, Zoey covered her head with her hood, not wanting to draw attention. She did happen to blend in to the crowd pretty well as her outer clothing was not too different from the people around her, but she was getting odd glances here and there from some of the people that passed her.

She got closer and joined the queue to enter the city, trying not to let her awe show too much on her face. This many people in one place was not something she had seen in a long time and she was having difficulty as the multitude of sounds and sights were a lot to take in.

Regardless, she had finally made it to a city, and was excited to see what she would find inside.