The days quickly passed by as I continued my usual daily routine of hunting and exploring through the wilderness.

Going through this cycle for a whole month made me think if I’m the only person in this world. That idea remained in my head as I wandered about inside the forest.

I kept on walking with no destination in mind and soon walked past the boundaries of the forest. The enormous mountain range came into vision and the dense vegetation was soon replaced with a scenery befitting of a barren wasteland.

Proceeding with great caution, I eventually stumbled upon hundreds of igloo shaped buildings seemingly made out of clay. With various sizes, every one of them protruded from the side of the mountain.

Not a single living thing can be seen as dead silence dominated throughout the whole place.

Then I started in searching through all the buildings, hoping to find something that might help me with my current predicament.

*Cough* *Cough*

Thick layers of dust and cobwebs welcomed me as I began inspecting each and every room within the city. After entering the 10th building, I then realized. No signs of destruction can be seen as all furniture and decorations in each house were neatly arranged in their respective places.

It looked like the inhabitants of this place just vanished without a trace, leaving no evidences of struggle or violence.

“Ughh… This place gives me the creeps”

A shiver ran down my spine and cold sweat dripped from my forehead after imagining the consequences that led to the sudden disappearance of all the townsfolk living here.

After rummaging throughout the city for at least an hour, the only things that I’ve found so far were different kinds of books, all written in an unknown language.

*Sigh*

I sighed dejectedly, thinking that all the effort that I’ve put into this was all for nothing.

Despite accomplishing nothing, I sluggishly walked through the stone paved roads and the tallest building in the premises of the city soon came to my sight.

With an architecture similar to modern day museums, the building seemed out of place from all the primitive looking houses that I’ve previously entered.

“Whoa!”

I leaked out an amazed voice as an unimaginable scene was right in front of me.

Ten’s or even hundreds of thousands of books filled the whole building, neatly arranged in bookshelves that somewhat reached as high as the ceiling. A paradise for a typical bookworm like me.

But then I remembered.

Even if they amount in millions, they’re still useless to me if I can’t even understand a single word in it.

Weird symbols were written in all of the pages, as I flipped through some of the books within my reach.

Even so, these mountains of books still hold tons of information that may very well help me in my current situation.

I can’t waste such an opportunity since going through this journey without even having a bit of knowledge of this world is pretty much the same as suicide.

With that, I decided to try in grasping the essence of the language by means of trial and error with a little bit of logic.

Although translating written text isn’t really my thing, I slowly but surely understood the meaning of each symbols written in the books.

Starting from the ones that looked like books made for children, my fluency in this language increased bit by bit.

That I’ve started on translating thicker books, similar to encyclopedias in my world, after studying for a whole week.

And here’s what I’ve uncovered so far:

Aegoris, the name of the world that I was thrown into, was divided into five opposing nations that continuously waged war with each other for the past 500 years.

Roeania Empire – Holds the largest territory among the five. A land dominated by humans that held an everlasting hatred against all other races. Currently in possession of the largest military force in the world that wreaked havoc to the nations that opposed the ideals of the current emperor.

Alteria Kingdom – Holds the second largest territory among the five. Humans, elves, dwarves, beast men and all kinds of races inhabited the lands of Alteria. Racial discrimination was banned by King Alfred I, the founder of Alteria Kingdom.

Demonic Nation of Eoluth – A massive island separated from the main continent serves as the territory for the Demonic Nation of Eoluth. Beings of demonic origin resides in the premises of the said island. The current status of its government is still unknown.

United Kingdom of Aiusthia – After successive defeats against the empire, several individual kingdoms decided to unite as a single nation in order to escape certain annihilation from the world’s strongest nation. Wood elves, High Elves, Dark elves and many other variants of elves builds up the majority of its population.

Beast man Federation of Zestan – Once scattered throughout the lands of Aegoris, the beast men federation was formed after the Tribal King Zestan defeated all other tribal leaders in a martial arts tournament. He then managed to unite all of the individual beast men tribes in order to oppose the increasing threats of the empire.

Despite the fact that war became a common thing in this world, various small countries still chose to keep a neutral stance against the big five.

And one of those neutral countries was the academic nation of Sjogren. A small independent country that focused on

gathering knowledge throughout Aegoris. Not giving a single thought of joining the war as they viewed it similar to quarrels among immature individuals.

“So that explains the number of books all over the city”

But after that…. Multiple questions surfaced from my mind.

How did the Orcs ended in this part of Aegoris? Aren’t they from the far Island of Eoluth which was isolated from the whole continent?

What caused the disappearance of all the townsfolk in Sjogren?

I was becoming more and more confused of the present situation that I subconsciously wrinkled my eyebrows.

In order to take my mind off those things, I continued in searching for relevant information and soon stumbled upon a book with a picture drawn on its cover. A design similar to the engravings on the void stone.

This is it! The first clue on how and why did I end up in this world.

I nervously flipped through the book and carefully read the context in each pages.

Forged using the rarest and the highest grade materials, through the hands of an ancient craftsman with god-like skills.

The stone of Qasnir (God of Magic), an artifact that was used for summoning heroes from another world. Seven of these stones are currently in possession of the Kingdom Alteria.

Monopolizing these so called heroes, the kingdom managed to catch up with the empire in terms of military prowess. Heroes with high aptitude in martial arts, magic, archery and swordsmanship were summoned from another world by performing a special ritual. Using the stones as a medium, the bodies and souls of the heroes could be transported into this world.

And that’s the gist of it. Only mere speculations about the mechanism of the ritual can be seen from the remaining pages and the exact truth is still a mystery.

The only choice that I’ve right now was to collect more information about the said ritual from the current owner of these artifacts, the Kingdom of Alteria.

“Alteria kingdom huh”

The picture of a medieval kingdom came into my mind as my first destination was set into stone.

Afterwards, I started in finding a map that will be essential in reaching my next destination. And to my surprise, I can’t find a single one even after searching nonstop for the past hour.

I pushed in deeper through the library and eventually found myself standing in front of a suspicious looking door.

As I stepped inside the room on the other side of the door, a separated collection of books came into my vision and a single lamp illuminated the surroundings.

Books about warfare strategies, warfare technologies and magic were neatly arranged in different individual shelves.

All the things related to war were kept inside this room, never to be touched again by the people of the Sjogren nation.

Then I realized:

Wait Wait Wait a minute! Magic! Of course a fantasy world can’t be completed without magic!

An overwhelming feeling of excitement can be felt as new possibilities can be attained with the knowledge of magic.

Following that discovery, I immediately delayed my journey and started on learning magic from the complete set of magical books.