We enter the academy into a reception area and the young girl (probably a student) behind the desk warmly greets Liz when she sees her. Does Liz know everyone in the city?

“Sergeant Lizette, I didn’t know you were going to be here again today! You’re not on the schedule until next Monday.” The girl says excitedly.

“Hey Jasmine, I’m actually here on more of a personal errand today. Do you know if Professor Valtria has any free time in his schedule today?”

Jasmine ruffles through some papers behind the desk before responding. “Ah, unfortunately Professor has lectures for the next two hours, but is free for most of the afternoon until a faculty meeting after classes. Would you like me to send word of your visit while you wait?”

“No, we’ll wait. I’m afraid it would interrupt his classes if you did so. For the time being, we’ll just tour the academy a little bit if you don’t mind.”

Jasmine nods and sits back down at the reception desk, while Liz leads me through the halls of the academy.

“Hey Liz, how do you know that girl? So far it seems like you know almost everyone no matter where we go.” I ask out of curiosity.

“Ah well, I grew up here so I know a lot of people throughout the city. Professor Valtria – or Vex, as I know him – and I went through school together. Also Annette, who you met yesterday and a few others. As for Jasmine, the young lady you just met, she knows me from my visits here. About once a week, I come here as a guest teacher as part of a military exchange program. I also act as an advisor to those who are interested in a military career.”

“So you teach combat courses here or something?”

“Among other courses, yes. I also teach group tactics, military history, and some courses on politics. I usually spend my Mondays teaching here. Although now that you say something, I should really talk to the headmaster about taking a break or asking the guard for a replacement.”

“Why do you need a replacement?”

“Well, I can’t just leave you alone every Monday to come here and teach now that I’ve been assigned to you for special duty.”

“Personally, I don’t see a problem with that. I came here to learn the language, so why not just ask the headmaster if I can sit in on some classes when you’re here? I need to learn more about this world, would a school not be the best place to learn? Also, even if it’s just one day a week, it would be nice to have some sort of routine.”

“Well, let’s talk to Vex first and then we can do that afterwards. As it sits, it’s kind of a gamble whether or not he’ll help us.” Lizette says with a nervous look that I’ve yet to see on her face previously.

“Care to explain why that is?” I ask, teasing a little bit.

“It’s rather personal, but I suppose it would be better for you to know than be in an awkward situation AND in the dark. Long story short, we were supposed to have an arranged marriage but I broke off the engagement when I joined the military. It gets more complicated, but I’d rather not explain all of that. But overall, the relationship between us is a little strained and awkward now.”

I’m sure I have quite a shocked expression on my face as I reply. “There are arranged marriages here? That’s pretty messed up. Everything I’ve seen so far seems like women have pretty equal rights, but that’s garbage. How is a world where a woman can achieve significant military accomplishments going to still have such an archaic tradition?”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds and like I said, it’s also more complicated than that.” Liz says defensively. “I guess I should elaborate even though I didn’t really want to. Even if it was an arranged marriage, part of it was because we were really good friends growing up. Our parents even thought at one point that we would probably progress like that without any prompting. And it turned out that Vex really did have some romantic feelings toward me. It was also a good match for strengthening the alliance between our two minor noble houses…”

“But let me guess, you didn’t feel the same and didn’t want to marry him? So you joined the military to get out of the arranged marriage?”

“…yeah. Do they not have arranged marriages where you’re from?”

“Hmmm… I suppose in some parts of the world, they still do. But those a lot of those places are driven by religion or otherwise are very different cultures than where I’m from. Not that my country didn’t have issues, but arranged marriages were definitely not the normal approach where I’m from. Well, at least I know what the situation is now, I guess.”

“Well, how about I show you around while we wait then? Or we can peek in on a class if you want? I pretty much have free roam of this place as a guest instructor.”

“Hmm… I wonder if they have any good magic classes going on right now? I’d be interested to look in on something like that.”

“We can check the training grounds. There’s pretty much always a practical magic class going on out there. Let’s go.”

Liz leads me towards the back of the academy and out a set of doors to a large training ground. Half of the ground is reserved for weapons training, while the other half is currently set up like an archery range for magic. Both instructors for each class take notice of us and come to greet us. Liz takes the initiative to introduce me to both of them.

“This is one of the magic teachers, Malia, and one of the combat instructors, Rylo. Malia, Rylo, this is Mia. Due to some circumstances, she’ll be staying with me for the foreseeable future. I’m showing her around the school while we wait to talk with Vex.”

“Hi Mia, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Malia.”

“Likewise. Rylo.”

“Still a man of few words, I see.” Liz teases him.

Both of them look like characters straight out of a videogame. Malia is a beautiful woman wearing a cliché witch hat, while Rylo is looks like a well-built warrior covered in scars who retired due to injury. The two of them seem nice enough though.

“I actually brought Mia out here because she said she was interested in seeing your magic lessons out here, Malia.”

“Oh are you a magician, Mia? What element do you use?” Malia asks with a curious look on her face. Liz pulls her aside and whispers something to her that I can’t hear.

“I apologize if what I said was insensitive. Liz just informed that you’re rather new to magic. But if you’d like to observe my class, you’re more than welcome to do so. It is an intermediate class though, so if you see anything that you don’t understand, feel free to ask. If you’ll excuse me, I should get back to supervising.”

“Same here.” Rylo says gruffly, as both of them walk back to their respective classes.

Liz and I walk over to the magic range and I watch them practicing. The students are all using wands and seem to be chanting different spells depending on the elements they have affinity with. Malia is giving them advice or reminders in between spell casting, such as imagining the flow of mana through their bodies and wands, and her advice seems to be different depending on the element.

The students seem to be getting tired and after a few more spells, she calls all of them into a half circle around her. “Students, we’re going to be focusing on area spells during our next class. I’m going to give you a demonstration and then release you early for lunch. Pay attention now. [Fire Circle] [Ice Circle] [Earth Circle] [Air Circle]”

Four circles of different elements appear in front of the students. “Now can anyone explain the difference between these spells and the projectile spells we’ve been working on?” The class is silent in front of her.

“Well, the major difference is your mana usage. A projectile like a fireball only uses mana when you cast it. A circle spell like these use an initial amount of mana when you cast it, but also use a smaller amount of continuous mana to keep the spell going. Now does anyone know why I used Ice Circle instead of Water Circle for the four elements?” The class is silent again.

Malia shows them by casting [Water Circle], and a circle of water appears similar to the others, but then quickly falls to the ground making a puddle. “Read up on elemental circles before our next class. Dismissed.”

The class leaves, and she walks over to us while trying to hide a look of disappointment on her face. “Is something wrong, Miss Malia?” I ask her.

“Oh just this specific class doesn’t have much interest in magic so it always takes a bit of a toll on me when I teach them. That aside, how’d you like it? Did you learn anything?”

“It was definitely interesting. That was my first time really seeing elemental magic being used. I learned a lot though, mostly that elemental magic seems to be formulaic, the chant is just guiding what shape you want the element to take, right? Like directing the fire to be in the form of a ball or a circle.”

A look of excitement replaces the disappointment on her face as she replies. “That’s absolutely correct. I’m surprised you understood that concept just from watching. Most of the students still struggle with that concept and think of them in terms of individual spells that they think will automatically be cast when they chant it.”

“Miss Malia, would you mind if I tried something while there’s no one out here?”

“Go ahead. There’s something about you and your quick wit that makes me curious to see what you’ll do.” Malia tells me as I notice an anxious look on Liz’s face. I ignore her expression and place myself in line with one of the targets. I close my eyes for a minute as I visualize and breathe.

I can feel the mana flowing through me as I prepare to cast a spell. I open my eyes and release the mana. A condensed beam of fire launches from the air near me and into the center of the target, effectively firing a laser for a few seconds. After the spell is finished, the target has a hole through the middle of it.

“I think I’m starting to get the hang of this magic thing.” I say as I turn around. Both Liz and Malia, as well as Rylo and his class that have stopped their combat training are looking at me with their mouths wide open.

“What? Did I do something wrong? …it was too much, wasn’t it?” Liz regains her senses and nods as I walk back over to them.

“How did you do that?” Malia asks me. “Liz told me you were new to magic. But there’s no way a beginner can do something like that? And how are you not tired? That should have used a ton of mana, especially without a wand. And you didn’t even use an incantation. I just don’t get it.”

“Wait, are those things necessary? I’ve never used a wand so I wouldn’t know. And the chants just seemed like guidance to help you visualize the spell. Good for learning, but completely unnecessary. Especially if you were going to use a spell in combat, why would you want to tell your enemy what spell you’re using? I’m assuming you’ve been in combat as a mage, didn’t you just ever find it completely illogical to shout out to your enemy so that they could defend or avoid the attack? That seems like a waste of mana and combat capabilities. Oh I should stop talking now, shouldn’t I?” I say as I see Malia’s jaw dropped again.

Liz steps in, “Sorry about that, Malia. Mia isn’t from around here, so her approach to magic, and well, pretty much everything here, is quite unconventional. We’ll get out of your way now. Come on Mia, time for our original reason for coming here.”

We leave behind the flabbergasted Malia and head inside the building. Liz guides me to a lecture hall and knocks on the door before entering. We walk into the lecture hall to see the back of a man erasing a giant chalkboard. All I can see of him from here is a mass of purple hair with purple dog-like ears sticking out of the top of his head.

I quickly grab Liz and pull her back out into the hallway before he notices us. “Hold on, you need to explain this before we go in there.”

“Explain what?” I hear a gruff voice ask from behind me and I quickly duck behind Liz.

From behind her, I look up at the man, mostly human aside from the ears, a black nose, purple hair, and whiskers.

“Liz, who’s this girl behind you? And what’s wrong with her?” The beastman asks.

“Hi Vex. It’s nice to see you again. This is Mia, she’s staying with me for a while. She’s not from around here, so I guess this is her first time seeing a beastman like you. I guess it slipped my mind to tell her about it beforehand.” Liz says, completely calm.

“B-b-beastman?” I stutter out. Oh right, I guess that’s possible in another world. After everything I’ve seen, I don’t know why I didn’t expect it. But it’s still scary.

“I don’t know what this visit is about, but come on in before you cause a scene in the hallway.” Vex says as he walks back into the lecture hall. He places two chairs in front of his desk and then sits down in his seat. I nervously sit next in one of the chairs next to Liz, who explains that I’m not from here.

Vex laughs. “I haven’t seen a reaction like that in years! It’s almost like you’re from another world.” He says as the color drains from our faces. “Wait, really? What the hell is going on?”

“I guess there’s no point in hiding it now, but this also isn’t something you can tell anyone else, it has to be kept a secret. Mia is from another world. She just showed up at the gate yesterday.”

“So why did you bring her to see me?” He asks as he looks at me, his eyes suddenly locking onto the necklace I’m wearing. “Oh, I think I get it now. You brought her to me in hopes that I could teach her the language here, since she’s only been able to communicate using a Speech Transference necklace so far.”

I nod as I take another deep breath to calm myself down. “Yes, that’s correct. Also, I’m sorry for my behavior earlier. I told Liz that I wanted to learn the language here, and she suggested we come see you.”

“Well, it’s nice to see that you still think of me from time to time, Liz. And Miss Mia, no harm done. I imagine you’ve been through a lot trying to suddenly adjust to a strange world in the past couple of days. Could you tell me anything about where you come from or about the language you speak?”

Now that I’ve managed to calm myself down, I notice that Liz looks more uncomfortable than I am. Vex’s offhand remark and his demeanor also imply that he’s uncomfortable. I sigh and say,“Hey Liz, why don’t you go talk to the headmaster now? I think I’ll be alright here now that I’ve calmed down and I don’t think you want to sit around for some nerdy language talk.”

“I think I’ll do that.” She says as she practically runs out of the room.

“Sorry about that awkwardness. I guess Liz told you a few things beforehand.”

“Yes, although she definitely neglected the most important thing she could have told me. Although I also can’t blame her, since she had no way of knowing that we don’t have beastmen in my world.”

“I’m sure you’re curious about a lot of things, so if there’s anything you’d like to ask me, feel free.”

“Well, I’d like to know more about beastmen as well, but I think learning the language here is more of a necessity for me at the moment. You asked about the world I came from. Well, I’m from a country called the United States of America, and we speak a language called English there.”

“English? Hmm… I’ve done a lot of work in the linguistic field, but I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered anything like that. I’ve been called on to try and identify strange writing before, so it’s possible that I’ve encountered it but I couldn’t identify the writing at that time either.”

“Really? What was the writing like?”

“Well, most of my work was secret, so I can’t really tell you much more than the public version of it. But a few years ago, there was a body found in an ice dungeon and –”

“Oh! I heard about that from Liz. She said some adventurers found a basketball player who had froze to death in an ice dungeon.”

“Basketball?” Vex asks looking very confused.

“Oh! I guess that wouldn’t make much sense to you. Well, basketball is a team sport, and the clothing that you found the player in is the uniform that the team wears. They have the team name on the front and large numbers on the back of the shirt they wear, which is called a jersey.”

“I suppose that explains the strange attire, it did seem like it was made for mobility. Well, the man also had a journal on him. Although some of the front of the journal was written in another language that we could read, the rest of it was written in another language.”

“Well, considering he was a basketball player, it’s likely that the part that he wrote is in English. Which means you’ve at least seen the written form of my language.”

“Well, it’s not like I could make any sense of it, so that aside, you said you came here to learn Altrian, right? I’d love to help you, but I’m also entirely unsure how to teach the language to you. Would it be alright if I took a few days to think about it?”

“That’s fine with me. Liz is talking to the headmaster about me sitting in on classes here while she’s doing her guest teaching on Mondays, so if it’s possible for you to teach me on those days, that would be easiest, I think.”

“I don’t have any classes on Monday mornings, so that would be easy for me to arrange as well. I’ll see you here then.”

We continue to talk for a little longer while I wait for Liz to return. He tells me about beastmen in this world. Apparently, there are many different variants, and his family is comprised mostly of purple and silver wolf beastmen. There also seems to be compatibility issues among beastmen, which makes lineage very important to them. Humans and beastmen are compatible, but beastmen of a different animal variant are not. Also a human who has diluted beastmen lineage of a different animal variant can cause issues or strange results.

Vex also tells me that the majority of beastmen prefer to live with their own or similar kinds, which is one of the reasons why Altria is not as developed as other countries. When the country was founded (apparently by oppressed or exiled pilgrims from other nations), an agreement was made with representatives of various beastmen tribes to keep peace between them and the settling humans. As such, a council now exists with leaders of the beastmen and humans for matters regarding the nation.

I ask him how a royal family exists if the nation was made by settlers, and he tells me that the royal family here fled during a coup and brought a large amount of their loyal followers. The royal family also only has significant power inside the human settlements and a few other designated areas. Everywhere else is governed either by the agreement made by the council, or the laws of individual tribes. Although, certain things do overlap or take precedence over another. A human is subject to the laws of a tribe while in their territory, but the locals there are also subject to the laws of the agreement while dealing with the human.

Regarding languages, Vex tells me that he teaches Altrian, Terrian, as well as a few other prominent human languages. He also teaches an introduction to beastmen languages class that intrigues me.

Liz returns after a while and I thank Vex for his time and knowledge. After talking to him, I’ve realized just how much I don’t even know that I need to ask about or learn. In order to avoid another awkward situation between the two, Liz and I leave rather quickly.

“I talked to the headmaster, and he has to figure out some further details, but it should be okay for you to sit in on some classes while I’m here teaching. Was Vex able to help you?” Liz says, updating me on the situation.

“Yes, it was very helpful. He said he had Monday mornings free, so our schedules align very well.”

“Is there anything else you want to do today? We’ve accomplished everything you wanted to do today by midday.” Liz asks me as we leave the academy.

“There’s nothing specific. I’d still like to learn more about magic, but I don’t even know what questions to start asking at this point. It seems like I have a large amount of firepower, but I’m sorely lacking in fundamentals and practical application. For now, just some lunch would be good.”

Liz says she knows a good café nearby and she leads me there. While we eat, she takes the opportunity to explain some of the food of this world, which is interesting. She asks if I have any questions about anything.

“I definitely have questions still, but nothing at the moment. I’ve learned a lot of things over the past few days, so I guess I’m just still trying to process all of it. Do you have any questions for me?”

“I definitely do. What’s your world like? What did you do over there? Do you have any family there?”

“Hmm… I don’t know how to explain my world, but I was a student in college over there. I have a father, a step-mother, and a much younger brother.”

“You went to college?! That’s amazing!”

“Hold on. Your reaction to that makes me think that college is a much different thing over here. The education system in my world is much different. Education is basically mandatory for all children in my country, and college is just higher education for a specific field once you become an adult. It’s pretty common for people to go to college in my world.”

“That does sound a lot different. Colleges here are very prestigious. Mostly military commanders, advisors, royal mages, and other people in high positions are usually graduates of the college here. What were you studying?”

“This one is a little harder to explain, but I was studying biology. It’s a form of science. Basically the study of living things and how they work. However, it seems like magic tends to replace science and technology in most cases in this world.”

“I don’t quite get it, but I guess that probably explains your interest in magic then, if it’s basically this world’s form of your ‘science’.”

“Well, that’s not exactly it. It’s more like magic is a form of science. Either way, I need to learn more if I want to figure out how to get home, if I even can. Not that I’m in any rush, I’m probably already presumed dead back in my world anyways.”

“So apart from that, what did you do for fun back in your world?”

“Well, for the most part I played video games, watched TV, read comics and books. Typical nerd stuff.”

“The only part of that I understood was books.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s hard to explain that kind of media in this world. Comics are basically like novels, but the story is told through pictures. I don’t really know how to explain the rest of it, honestly.”

We finish our lunch and head out to the market district so Liz can turn in her report to Captain Devin. She brings me to a fountain area with stores and stalls circled around it.

“I have to report to the captain and have a meeting about some other things, so I’ll probably be there for a couple hours. You may as well use the time to look around here, and the Adventurer’s Guild is the big building over there.” Liz says as she points at it. “You shouldn’t run into any problems here, but if you do, just go to the guild or find a guard. I’ll be back for you later.”

Liz leaves, and I start looking around the market area by myself.