With the aprumbears more or less taken care of, they stopped for the night. Of course they drove a little bit further into the darkness to gain some distance from their would-be predators, but doing too much nighttime riding when they weren’t even on the road was a recipe for disaster.

Ah, but why was it so dark out there? Lucas could see the moon, and it was larger than Earth’s so surely the amount of light it reflected would be greater, too? So why was it so damn dark? And why was he only thinking of this now? The only thing he could think of was that this world worked with different, mysterious laws that didn’t make sense with his Earthly brain. Things that should be just weren’t, like magic. And the Moon.

Etc.

The so-called A rank adventurer offered to take the nighttime watch while the driver and Lucas slept, and Lucas was all too ready to take him up on that. At least the guy was self-aware enough to do something like that. He’d been all too useless in that fight earlier. Seriously, he was A-rank, why was he so bad at his job? Bah. At least he could serve as an alarm clock, though.

Thus the night ended.

Thankfully the aprumbears never showed up again – apparently a little bit of magic was enough to scare them off. The driver grumbled about losing some of his best cargo at the rest site, but if it had really been important, why did he unload it instead of the “less important” stuff? Oh well, the guy’s complaints didn’t mean a thing since they were all muttered under his breath.

And thus the time passed by, and Lucas was bored as hell.

“When are we even getting to the capital?” Lucas complained. They’d been on the road for three days now, and it was getting on his nerves. There was almost nothing to do besides sit and watch the ground roll underneath his feet. Or watch the scenery, but that hardly changed at all. It’d all been grass, knolls, groves, and a scant few villages. That’s it. Sure, they were all magical and had that neat cyan-grass and those colorful flowers, but he’d been looking at them all for three days now. He could only stare at this all for so long before it became mundane and boring.

“Oh, you won’t be there for another few weeks,” the driver said.

“What?” Lucas asked. He was going to be staring at all this garbage for weeks?

“I’m dropping you off at Balsk tomorrow.”

“What?” Lucas repeated his question. What kind of name is Bal-- nevermind. He’d never get an answer as to why these idiots named their stupid towns the way they did. He’ll also never get an answer as to why his translation software decided to give him these stupid names, but when he asked for the planet’s name, it was “Earth.” Go to a stupid world, get stupid names. That’s the game here, supposedly.

“Oh? Did Lord Barolt not tell you?” The driver asked.

“No,” Lucas said with more than a hint of frustration. The man practically threw him out as soon as he proved his magical talent.

“You’ll take an airship from Balsk. It’ll get you to the capital in a couple of days.”

“Let me guess – the airship only flies once a month,” Lucas said.

“Ayyup. And it went out not too long ago,” the driver said.

“Fantastic,” Lucas said rolling his eyes so hard he felt like they would fall out of his skull. Well, not really. It’s a metaphor, goddammit, he didn’t actually have the eye-strength required to pop his eyes out of his head like one of those terrible western cartoons.

“It really is!” The driver said with such enthusiasm Lucas could only furrow his brows and blink in response. The guy eventually let out an elongated breath and scratched the back of his head.

“Forget I said anything, m’lord,” he eventually mumbled, all signs of joy and happiness gone from his demeanor. Right, this guy was a peasant, and he was a noble. Lucas kind of forgot about that for a while. He wasn’t exactly used to being treated as better than everyone else. Insults and complaints were a normal part of the day for him back on Earth, but now it seemed like some people would just kiss up to him because of his heritage.

A heritage that he knew nothing about, now that he thought about it. Seldra was a knight, and that was about all he knew. Mr. Barolt himself may or may not be a knight, he didn’t exactly show off any powers besides his capability to work in a disorganized mess. And then there was the other guy, Uncle what’s-his-face. Tyra. That guy. He was holding the Northern Line, whatever that meant. Probably some demon-human war that all these fantasy worlds have. Or maybe an Elf-Human war. Something like that. The guy also mentioned he was a duke, too, so does that mean Lucas was related to the royal family? Dukes were usually related to royalty, after all. If he was distant royalty though, they probably would’ve killed him for threatening other royalty instead of just exiling him.

This world didn’t give him enough clues, dammit, they only gave him small pieces here and there. And every time he sat down to talk with someone who could give him answers, they always controlled the conversation. Freakn’ hell, once he got to the capital, the first thing he was going to do was find some shady information broker and wring him for all the knowledge they had. He was sick and tired and tired and sick of not knowing what was going on.

“Name and license,” a lethargic guard asked. Although Balsk’s “walls” were only about 6 feet tall, they still had a guard at the gate all the same. Lucas didn’t quite understand what the point of having such measly defenses was, but maybe it deterred dumb bandits. Or something. Ugh.

No, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t hide his disappointment. What’s with these walls? This was supposed to be a fantasy world with magic and all that! Couldn’t they have got like an earth mage to make some magnificent works of art to defend the town? But no, instead it’s a dinky stone-brick wall that Lucas could knock down with a single [Ice Spear]; he wouldn’t even have to use an [Ice Lance].

Well, probably. He wasn’t about to commit a terrorist act just to see if he could. That would be dumb.

“Gilgo, Xandrious, and uhh, Ominous Wind,” the driver handed the guard three small cards as he said three names. One of the cards was a dull, paper yellow color, while another was a bright white-silver, and the last one was a dark green. Not that he really cared about the colors of the cards, or that for whatever reason, Gilgo (ha, another dumb name, he never would’ve guessed) had all their IDs. No, what he cared about the most right now was that adventurer’s stupid name. Sure, Gilgo was certainly not a great name, but come on. Ominous Wind? That sounded like something that would come out of a 7th grader’s imagination.

The guard looked over the licenses, grunted, and handed them back to the driver. “Everything’s in order. Behave yourselves in Balsk.”

The guard waved the wagon through, and they entered the town proper. It didn’t impress, to say the least, but it was the first time Lucas had been in a town like this. Back on Earth, his hometown’s buildings were all spread apart and had huge, sprawling parking lots everywhere. Sure, there were a couple of strip malls where multiple business were conjoined into one long building, but they also had their big ol’ parking lots. Basically, when he was home, he could see everywhere, because everywhere had lots of space.

Here, all the buildings were squished into each other. A few of them had some tiny alleyways between them, which no doubt had seen their fair share of shady crimes, but for the most part they were all packed together. Not nicely, either – they were packed together like a bunch of chips in a chip bag were “packed” together. It was a mess, like no one had actually overseen the design of the town. People just built where they could. About the only thing he could compliment was that the main road. It was big enough to safely drive the wagon to the inn they were going to, and it was nicely paved with bricks. But even then, the road was just barely large enough – and it had several strange twists and turns that no road should ever have.

Because of this road’s peculiarities, there were a couple of times Lucas thought they were going to hit a pedestrian. Of which, there were many – mostly human, but there were some beast-human hybrids too. Mostly wolf-humans, but there were a couple of lizard and cat hybrids, too. Lucas made a mental note to try and figure out who exactly lived here, and what he should call them – he didn’t want to accidentally say something stupid and land himself in hot water after all.

But that was a different tangent altogether, right now he was airing his grievances against the crappy roadwork this town had. Again, the road was just barely large enough for the wagon, so people had to squish themselves on the sides to avoid them. And a few times, it looked like one of them wasn’t paying attention, and would get hit by the horse, but then at the last second they’d just press themselves against the buildings on the street. Then, once the wagon had passed, they would walk away without even looking twice at them.

It was a strange experience that he never thought he’d go through, to say the least.

It wasn’t much longer before they arrived at the Inn – and just like the town, once again it didn’t impress. A sign on the front of the building called it the Dainty Lil’ Cat, and it was just that. It was made of plain wood and stone, and had no windows on the first floor. If the front of the Inn was anything to go by, it wasn’t large, either, as it was sandwiched by two other buildings that were both taller, and wider.

“Lord Dry, here,” Gilgo the driver said as he handed Lucas the white-silver card he’d shown the guard earlier. “Your ID.”

“Why did you have this?” Lucas asked as he took it and examined it. It was much like a standard driver’s license, but with a lot less information. Instead of a photo, it had a portrait of him. Now, Lucas wasn’t lacking self-esteem or anything like that, but Xandrious sure as hell seemed to have a confidence problem. The portrait on this ID looked a lot more, well, handsome, than the real deal. A sharp jawline, a pearly white smile, bright eyes, symmetrical facial features – it had it all. Now, Xandrious’ body wasn’t really unattractive. Lucas had seen that for himself when he looked in a mirror. But this “portrait” of his made him look like a god in human flesh, which he just wasn’t.

Besides the tasteless portrait, the ID listed his name, “Xandrious Barolt,” and his address. Sal, Silver Street, #740. If he wasn’t mistaken, the capital’s name was Sal – or at least, it probably was. The magical university was Sal’s magical wonder funland or whatever, so presumably that mean it was located in Sal. So, likely, this address was the Barolt manor in the capital, since every noble had to have one of those, because what else were they supposed to spend their money on? Improving people’s lives? Ha, let the people starve, the gentry needed their golden toilets and their 7 course feasts.

“Lord Barolt gave it to me, I forgot to hand it to you until now,” Gilgo said as he scratched the back of his head.

“I was also told to give you this,” he said as he handed him a small pouch. When Lucas opened it, it revealed a nice variety of coinage. Not a lot of coins though, mind you. Mr. Barolt wouldn’t be generous enough to let his son do whatever he wanted.

Of course, there was also the possibility that Gilgo had pocketed some of the coins for himself. A shabby looking coinpurse like this illsuited a noble, and Lucas wouldn’t put it past Mr. Barolt to give his son a full coin purse just for the sake of appearances. But even if Gilgo here stole from him, he didn’t really care. He’d risked his life to monsters after all, he probably needed all the money he could get. That is, if he wasn’t afraid of incurring the Barolt House’s wrath should they ever find out he stole from them. Which, to be fair, Lucas had no proof of. So he didn’t push it.

“Anyway, we’ve arrived at your Inn m’lord. It was great working with you,” the man said as bowed as much as a man could bow while still sitting.

“Right. Thanks, I guess,” Lucas said as he hopped off the wagon. As soon as he did, Gilgo snapped his fingers, and his horses carried him away to who knows (and who cares) where.

With nothing else to do, he opened the door to the Inn. Hopefully the place wouldn't be too awful.