Kyle was now 3 years old, and after the blatant refusal to allow Fred to teach Kyle swordsmanship, Elena took Kyle into town. The section of town that the Mercers lived in was technically in the 2nd district, the sections for homes of people who had jobs or enough money to own one, but it was the oldest and least developed section of it.

The house that the Mercers lived in used to be part of a village that was absorbed into the town when the land around the lord's manor had houses built onto it for elites. The only upgrade the house got those was access to a sewer system and a road to the 3rd district, the shopping district.

The Mercers home was located on the south side of the town, so going left down the road and then taking a right lead to a street that went all the way to the 3rd district. The street became a little wider when it became inside the real town, probably for carriages and wagons to stop on the side and still allow passing carriages or wagons. The street was made from dirt and was probably packed tighter by earth mages on a regular basis. The sidewalks were paved, and level with the street.

Lining the street into the 3rd district were houses and inns. Even though businesses belonged in the 3rd district, the street was still in the 2nd district and could only have businesses that provided temporary living places. This included inns, hotels, and any other place one could stay the night.

When Kyle and Elena went to the 3rd district, they only needed to take the single street to get there. At the end of the street was a crescent shaped road that curved in the west, with the two ends on the east side were the 4th district was. The sides of this street were lined with shops. On the inside of the crescent were the shops that needed to manufacture things, and they used the center of the crescent to do it in. On the outside of the crescent were the shops that had things already made for them or sold materials to make things from.

In the very west part of the street, there was an empty spot where carts and stalls could be placed for the day. It required a 1,000 coins fee to be paid to the town lord in order to use the clearing for the day, and that was the only thing it took. There were no set places to put a cart at, so wherever the merchant wanted to place it would be fine. The order to the clearing was simple: Chaos.

As Kyle walked down the street while holding Elena's hand so that he would not be lost, he saw many of the shops. Tailors, blacksmiths, furniture stores, butcher shops. The 3rd district had anywhere someone needed to buy something from on one street.

"Mom, I want to look around." Kyle said to Elena as they approached the crowd of people gathering to try and buy something from the stalls in the clearing.

'Elena doesn't really know much about what is and what is not safe to do with a child, so she will probably let me go.' Kyle thought. It was true that Elena was inexperienced with caring for children before having Kyle, and maybe him having enough consciousness to not almost kill himself while Elena was out of the house made her think it was okay for children less than 5 years old to walk around a town they have only been in the one time, alone. Kyle hoped at least, that this lapse in judgement would be present in Elena.

"Well..." Elena had to think about it for a few seconds, but finally agreed. "Sure you can look around. Just come into this store when you are done." Elena pointed to a sign a little behind Kyle and he had to turn around to see it.

'Valheart dress and other wear' the sign said, and the two windows of the store had large dresses for women, something that Elena could not even hope to be able to afford.

"Okay mom." Kyle said and started running down the street. He was going to explore to see what kinds of shops the 3rd district had. As Kyle moved further from the clearing, the shops became less product oriented and more centered to providing a service. Most were standard things to find in a town, but three things stood out very much.

First, the town had a library. The only library Kyle had ever seen in his past life was the one in the King's palace. It was huge and probably had over 2,000 books. Kyle did not go into the library, he just read the sign and looked inside; 'Thornberry Public Library'. That was the second most strange part about the library, that it was public to the whole town. The king's library did not even let him in. The few books his mountain village had were used to teach the children how to read, and they were always kept safe by the village elder.

'What kind of fantasy world have I been reborn into?' Kyle asked himself. He knew it was the same world, probably 4 or 5 years after his death, but so much had changed. Small houses had bathrooms inside of them, simple towns had libraries, what was next?

'Did defeating the demon king really do so much for humanity?' Kyle asked himself another thing as he tried to think of how the demon race held the human race back. Before the genocide of 70% of the human population, the demons had little contact with humans because of humans not being able to use the language. They didn't attack too frequently, and just defeating an enemy in a war should not have changed the rules of society.

'We sure did a lot for our kingdom.' Kyle thought as he moved to the next strange building. In his past life, most people including himself learned how to read and write from a village elder, and history had no real importance so it was never learned. Only stories and tales with meaning behind them were passed down. Kyle saw a school in the town though.

'A school in a town this size?' Kyle had seen 4 schools total in his past life, and they were in the biggest cities of the human kingdom, one of them already destroyed by the demonic army. Those cities had populations over 100,000 however, this town might only have half that if not less.

'So this is what's next, schools in towns.' Kyle did not go to school but he could still read and write before he was 10 years old. His ability with numbers came a little after that, but he gained it before it could seriously harm him. Kyle wondered what kind of people lived in the town that they could not get private teachers but could get a school built in the center of town.

The third strange thing was how the town had no place for teaching mages. Mages were normally taught in groups of 4 to 6 by a mage that had time to do it, always in the same building. There was really no benefit to teaching other people how to use magic, other than to ensure a bright future for the village, so if the chance that the building may be burnt down by a wild flame existed, the teaching was always done in a dedicated building.

'How do these people learn magic?' Kyle was from a village with a total population in the hundreds, so it was not too strange that he would not know how these people learned to do certain things.

'There isn't even a place to learn swords.' Kyle remembered what his mother said at his birthday party, about him having to wait until he turns 8.

'What happens kids turn 8?' Kyle wondered as the continued to walk. Kyle walked in a big circle and made his way back to the Valheart clothing store.

'So they have a building to teach children things their parents should teach them, and no building for something other people should teach children. Good job town planner.' Kyle made it to the store his mother said to meet her in and he went inside.

The store had a wooden floor and all along the walls were clothes. The walls were hardly visible from the different shirts and pants on them, and in the center of the floor were several women's dresses. The dresses all looked very expensive, and probably somewhere in the 5,000 coins range.

Elena was looking at a dress that she picked from a rack of other dresses as she held it in front of herself. There was a large mirror on one section of the wall that allowed customers to see themselves in. Elena oohed and aahed as she made mini poses with the dress, and when she saw Kyle approach her she suddenly stopped.

"Kyle, you're back. Did you find anything interesting?" Elena asked as she bent down at the knees to be the same height as Kyle.

"What is in a library?" Kyle asked his mother. Though he knew about libraries, he had never actually been in one.

"A library? I don't know because you have to get a membership to be allowed to use the library, and that cost a whole 100 coins." Elena acted a little disappointed, but Kyle for some reason doubted whether or not she could even read. He had certainly not seen her read before, and the house did not have a single book. Not even the Drought household had a single book inside it.

100 coins was a lot of money for something that might not even be able to be used. If used on the cheapest ingredients, 100 coins could last a for few meals for the entire house. The status from having a book was not worth being unable to eat for a day or more.

"So, we can't go inside?" Kyle wanted to go inside the Library, but if he needed coins to get inside, he would be out of luck. He had not seen how much money his family had, but he guessed it was not much.

"How about this Kyle, I will start saving money now and in two years when you start going to school we will get you a library membership if you still want it. Now let's go home." Elena put the dress back and picked up a bundle of food ingredients she got from the clearing.

'What's that about going to school?' Kyle had not gone to school in his past life, he was taught everything he needed to know about the world and how to operate in it from his parents and from other people in the village. Secondly, if Elena did not have a job and stayed home all day, why did Kyle have to be sent to school? Elena could teach him at home herself.

Kyle, Dave, and Elena frequently visited Kathy and Claire. Besides the minor incident when she was born, Claire was an otherwise healthy child. Dave was doing very well too, but just to be safe Kyle was casting [Cure] on him to remove any diseases he might have picked up. While Kyle could probably make sure Dave was healthy for a long time, he might not be able to do the same for Claire who was in a different family.

"Kyle." Claire said as she played with a stick that Kyle had taken to Kathy's house. It was an ordinary stick with thin bark and no leaves. Kyle had seen it on the ground and thought he might swing it around like a sword so that Elena might pick up the hint. Fred had not brought up teaching Kyle how to use swords since the birthday party.

"What is it Claire?" Kyle asked her, even though these things normally turned out the same way.

"Kyle." Claire said again, still playing with the stick and not even looking at Kyle.

'Do I look scary? Amusing?' Kyle wondered for what reason Claire was always saying his name when he came to Kathy's home. It was even a running joke that 'Kyle' was her first word before even mama and papa.

"Is there something wrong with the way I look Dave?" Kyle turned to the right and looked at Dave who was also playing with a stick. This second stick was picked up when Kyle realized that Dave would not want to be left out if Claire was playing a special game provided by his own brother.

"---" Dave said some syllables but did not make a complete sentence. Claire had not made much progress on words other than 'Kyle' and Dave was similar. They could make several words half-right, but 'Kyle' was one Claire got consistently correct.

"Kyle, you shouldn't think something is wrong with you just because Claire says your name a couple times." Kathy spoke because she and Elena were also in the room. The Drought home was very small just like the Mercer's, and it was better to have the small children playing in the same room as the adult.

"Kathy, have you ever been in the library?" Kyle asked her. It was only the next day from having going into the 3rd district and he was still interested in the library.

"I wasn't too good at reading when I was in school, so I never even thought about reading for fun." Kathy said to Kyle, mixed in with something a little strange to him.

'You went to school Kathy? I didn't know you came from a big city.' Kyle thought about the town having a school and it must have been to help speed the recovery of the kingdom. If Kathy went to school it must have been in one of the remaining 3 large cities, but it was strange that Kathy never said anything about the demon invasion. Kyle had always explained the lack of talking about it as this town being isolated and removed from the war, but anyone and everyone in the three cities should have known about it.

Kathy had a grin on her face and looked at Kyle and then spoke to him as if offering him a tasty treat.

"How about I tell you a story Kyle, about the four heroes that defeated the demon king and saved humanity?"

"What?"