The next several days blurred together into something that felt less like traveling...
...and more like accidentally signing up for the greatest sightseeing tour in history.
The north slowly gave way to rolling grasslands.
Then rivers.
Then forests so old the trees looked as though they had been growing since before history itself.
I rode merchant caravans when they were willing.
Walked whenever they weren't.
Occasionally hitched a ride with adventurers heading in the same direction.
Every city felt like another page in a book I'd never gotten to read.
The mining city of Ironcrest.
The streets echoed with the constant ringing of hammers.
Even the children somehow smelled faintly of iron.
Dwarven craftsmen argued passionately over metallurgy in taverns as though discussing national politics.
I understood absolutely none of it.
Apparently adding one percent more carbon to steel was enough to start a three-hour shouting match.
I quietly ate my meat pie and stayed out of it.
The lakeside city of Azuremere.
Boats covered nearly every canal.
Merchants sold fish I'd never seen before, some glowed, one politely waved at me before someone grilled it.
I wasn't sure whether that made me feel better or worse.
It tasted incredible.
The forest settlement of Eldergrove.
Treehouses connected by living bridges stretched high above the ground.
Wood elves walked through the branches as naturally as breathing.
The buildings themselves were alive.
Actual living trees shaped into homes without a single cut of an axe.
I spent nearly an hour staring at one particularly judgmental squirrel.
[Loss.]
"I wasn't competing."
[The squirrel was.]
Not every place was human.
Far from it.
Horned beastkin sold leather goods beside humans.
Fox-eared merchants somehow convinced customers to buy things they clearly didn't need.
Giants...
Well.
Giants mostly kept to themselves.
Mostly.
I also learned something important.
Fantasy races weren't nearly as mysterious as books made them sound.
They still argued over prices.
Still complained about taxes.
The only real difference was that occasionally someone's ears were pointier.
Or they had horns.
Or a fur.
Or a tail.
One wolf beastkin spent ten straight minutes trying to catch it after someone tied a ribbon around it while he slept.
Then there was the food.
Oh...
The food.
Every region had something different.
Spiced river fish wrapped in leaves.
Honey-roasted nuts.
Sweet cream pastries.
Fire-grilled wyvern skewers.
Fried mushrooms stuffed with melted cheese.
Fruit I'd never seen before.
One was somehow simultaneously spicy...
...and cold.
"How?"
[Skill issue.]
"What does that even mean?"
Even the drinks were ridiculous.
Golden cider that sparkled without bubbles.
Blue herbal tea that somehow tasted warm despite being served cold.
Milk from...
Actually.
I chose not to ask what animal produced purple milk.
[It was-.]
"Shush."
Some mysteries deserved to remain mysteries.
Magic was everywhere.
Not just in battles.
Daily life.
Streetlights ignited themselves as evening approached.
Laundry floated through the air before neatly folding itself.
Water wheels spun without rivers, Calling them water wheels was probably inaccurate.
There wasn't any water
Children chased tiny floating lights that giggled whenever someone almost caught them.
The world breathed magic.
Not as something extraordinary...
But ordinary.
Like electricity.
Sometimes...
Nature itself forgot how to behave.
A waterfall flowed upward.
A meadow remained permanently covered in glowing blue flowers despite snow falling around it.
Rain occasionally fell in perfect cubes.
One forest only existed during sunrise.
Miss the timing...
And the trees simply weren't there anymore.
Magic phenomena.
Beautiful.
Completely lethal if you touched the wrong thing.
Speaking of lethal.
Not every detour was voluntary.
"...Run."
"HUH?"
The caravan exploded into panic as a colossal blue hand erupted from beneath the earth.
Not attached to a body.
Just...
A hand, a blue giant.
It grabbed an entire wagon before sinking back underground.
"..."
"..."
"...I'm not asking."
Nobody else did either.
Apparently this happened often enough that everyone simply took another road.
Another time...
I almost stepped onto what looked like an ordinary patch of moss.
An old woman grabbed the back of my coat just in time.
"Young man."
"Yeah?"
"That's a Mimic Meadow."
"...A what?"
"It eats people."
"..."
"It pretends to be grass."
I stared at the innocent-looking field.
"Of course it does."
A week later...
I nearly wandered into what I thought was a cave.
Turns out...
It was sleeping.
The mountain-sized turtle didn't appreciate visitors.
I apologized.
Very quickly.
From several kilometers away.
Then there was the bridge.
Halfway across...
The bridge asked me a riddle.
"I'm being extorted by infrastructure."
Anyway I answered correctly, answering correctly waived the toll.
I still wasn't convinced that was legal.
[It isn't.]
"...Seriously?"
[Yeah you could report it to a local law enforcement.]
I did, I was feeling petty.
One afternoon...
A massive blue giant wandered through the valley.
Nearly fifteen meters tall.
Carrying what looked suspiciously like an uprooted castle tower.
Every traveler immediately threw themselves into nearby bushes.
I copied them.
The giant looked around.
Scratched his head.
Then...
Carefully reset a fallen tree before continuing on his way.
"...That wasn't nearly as terrifying as it could've been."
Nighttime became my favorite part of traveling.
Campfires.
Stories.
Merchants exaggerating monster encounters by at least three hundred percent.
Adventurers insisting they'd "totally had it under control."
Nobody believed them.
Not even themselves.
The stars looked different here.
Brighter.
Closer somehow.
Sometimes I'd lie awake listening to unfamiliar insects while wondering if Clary had eaten dinner yet.
Whether Grandma was asleep.
...
"This wasn't in the game."
It couldn't have been.
The game showed cities.
NPCs.
Shops.
Quests.
But...
You couldn't smell fresh bread drifting through crowded streets.
You couldn't hear musicians performing on enchanted instruments.
You couldn't watch children chase glowing butterflies through the marketplace.
You couldn't accidentally spend forty minutes discussing soup with an elderly dwarf because he refused to believe I'd never tasted cinnamon before.
The game had shown me the skeleton.
Living here...
Showed me the soul.
Damn I'm dropping some bars.
Eventually, I stopped comparing everything to the game.
It wasn't that the game had lied.
It simply...
Couldn't fit an entire world inside a screen.
The quests were there.
The kingdoms were there.
The wars.
The politics.
The heroes.
But all the tiny moments in between...
The conversations.
The festivals.
The smells.
The cultures.
The food.
Those belonged to the people living here.
Not the players.
One evening, while watching the sun sink behind distant mountains, I realized something.
I wasn't sightseeing anymore.
I was making memories.
Not Barry's, mine, it.. was genuinely fun seeing all that stuff, despite all the near death experience.
A week passed far faster than I'd expected.
One morning, after crossing the last great bridge spanning the Empire's central valley...
I finally saw it.
Far beyond the rolling hills...
Beyond the clouds themselves...
A mountain floated in the sky.
Nine colossal chains stretched from the earth, anchoring it as though the world itself refused to let it drift away.
The Heroes' Academy.
Even from this distance...
A grin slowly spread across my face.
"So this is the beginning."
Nine colossal chains stretched toward the heavens, each ending at a different gate built into the academy's outer walls.
Nine entrances.
One for every cardinal and intercardinal direction.
North.
South.
East.
West.
Northeast.
Northwest.
Southeast.
Southwest.
And the central gate, reserved for official business.
THUMP.
"Ow."
I'd been so busy looking at the gates that I'd walked straight into someone.
"Sorry."
The person I'd bumped into took exactly one step back.
"No worries."
I blinked.
Then blinked again.
Blond hair.
Red eye.
Sun-bronzed skin.
Small horns curved backward from the sides of his head, polished smooth like carved amber. Behind him swayed a thick leonine tail ending in a tuft of golden fur.
He was... short.
No, Barry was just absurdly tall.
Yet somehow...
He still felt enormous.
His shoulders looked like they could bench-press a horse.
Muscles stretched beneath a sleeveless travel vest, while a massive greataxe rested casually across one shoulder as though it weighed less than a walking stick.
His blue eyes carried none of the bloodlust I'd expected.
Instead...
They were warm.
Almost embarrassingly gentle.
HOLY SHIT.
ALDREN.
THAT'S ALDREN.
THE Aldren.
THE Berserker.
The only character that can reach a 100% CRIT chance.
[Calm your horses.]
"First time coming to the academy?" he asked.
"Mhm."
"Me too!"
He looked up at the floating mountain with childlike excitement.
"It's amazing, isn't it?"
"It is."
For a few moments we simply stared upward.
Then...
Something occurred to me.
...
Wait.
I glanced behind him.
Then behind myself.
Then at the enormous sign beside the road.
Northern Entrance
...
Hold on.
I looked back at the blond boy.
"...Aren't you from the south?"
"Hm?"
"The southern kingdoms."
"Yeah."
"...Then why are you here?"
He tilted his head.
"This isn't the south?"
"What do you mean this isn't the south, I'm clearly from the north, look at me."
Aldren eyes fell to the enormous sign that says, Northern entrance, laughing Aldren smiled sheepishly before extending a hand.
"I'm Aldren."
I shook it.
Immediately regretted it.
Good lord.
Was he shaking my hand...
Or crushing coal into diamonds?.
"I'm Barry."
"Oh!"
His face brightened.
"You're Barry from House Wunderlich Right?"
"I am, how did you know?"
"Your crest and your name was so ordinary that I remembered it, ah- sorry."
"It's fine"
"I've heard your family's knights are very honorable."
"My father isn't exactly what you called honorable, but I guess so."
Wait.
Hold on.
Where was the arrogant warrior?
The loud battle maniac?
The guy who solved every problem by introducing someone's face to an axe?
The game never showed personality.
It only give you choices, determining them, so... I guess this is his true personality?.
That made me wonder what kind of personality the other playable character has.
Still I didn't expect Aldren to be this nice.,
"You know," Aldren said with a smile, "I'm glad I bumped into someone. I would've wandered around until sunset, would you mind pointing me toward the correct entrance?"
"Sure."
I pointed.
"South is that way."
He nodded seriously.
"I'll remember that."
"Will you?"
"No."
"I appreciate the honesty."
He laughed.
I couldn't stop smiling.
Meeting NPCs had been fun.
Meeting merchants had been fun.
Learning my Rimecrow behavior was fun, I named him missy.
But this...
This was different.
For years, these characters had only existed behind a screen.
Sprites.
Voice lines.
Choices.
Combat animations.
Wiki pages.
Build guides.
Now one of them was standing right in front of me, asking for directions because he had somehow gotten lost on the way to school.
We exchanged a few more word, before parting ways, I waved him goodbye.
This is fun.
I'm starting to actually look forward to meeting them.