The Quantum Wanderer

I woke next day with the pile of girls around me as usual. I stayed in bed, thinking about everything that happened. I was really happy with the results. The girls and I have some fun, and we get down for breakfast as usual.

After breakfast, Muninn relays some of the news that interest me. The hero ‘training’ is proceeding. He had his fun in his harem. There are announcements being thrown around about possible issues with the war.

As expected, the notifications in the Holy Kingdom is about evil spreading through the land, with the face of demons. They try to rally people to sign up voluntarily for the army, promising Nergal’s blessings in this life and the next. Muninn informs me that the population is unquiet.

In Arthuria there is a similar event, this time trying to capture the public’s imagination with tales of the hero, conquests and glory.

The small countries to the east and north all have similar movements.

Of course, this is more of a feeling. The information on the dragon is being kept under wraps. Some selected few know, the majority of the population is not aware of it. The country where Skylar landed, Romuela, has started it’s efforts on this as well. The girls go with Huginn to their school, and I decide to go ask around about Romuela.

I get over to Edward’s home, and I am informed that he went to the schools. I may be mistaken, but I am under the impression that he has been going to the schools a lot more than he used to. I think about asking some help from Anthon, but it feels weird. I always had more rapport with Edward. I decide to take a stroll, and Muninn and I go to the schools on foot.

As I am walking around the schools, I decide to take a look at how the lessons are for the girls. I am walking around the campus, looking at the buildings. There are small groups of students, with their standard armors, walking around. There are more boys than girls, but the amount of girls around is not small.

There are all kinds of people. I can tell their different styles by their bodies. From very strong barbarian oriented to the ones carrying a rapier on their waist. I start hearing some metal clanking. It is coming from this low but very wide building. The complex I am going to is formed of two higher buildings, with a large lower one in the middle.

The clanking, accompanied by a loud, grave sound is really loud. Some of the hits are simultaneously, it looks like there is a whole army fighting. But besides the amount of hits, there is the loudness.

I follow the sound. Now I am curious. Some groups of students are also moving with me, and they give me a side eye. Probably because I don’t have the uniform.

I follow the crowd. They follow a couple of corridors, until they end up in a structure that looks like a colosseum. In the sand, the two pairs of dragonesses are fighting each other. They are smiling. I can only see their movements when I reinforce my brain and eyes. And I have to force it until time almost comes to a stop.

Now they possess a way more liquid form. And still the sheer power behind the slashes is amazing. At the speed their swords are, they are cutting through the air, above the speed of sound. I can see some sonic booms forming. They are using their own swords. I wonder how enchanted adamantite would fare against their neutrons crystal skin. I hope they are keeping safe. I didn’t look if their weapons are covered in neutrons crystal.

The noise stops. They look at me in amongst the spectators, and wave. I wave back. They turn back to the instructor. I can see he is having a hard time giving out any pointers, he probably wasn’t able to actually see the fight.

The students around me are staring at me as well. I can see that some of them remember me from before. They start to abandon the place slowly.

The teacher tells the girls something, and they leave the group of students around the teacher. They come in my reaction, and jump up the 10 feet wall, to land near me. I greet each of them with a peck on the lips.

“Nice fight! Your movements are a lot more fluid than before. Congratulations.”

“My lord, how would we fare against you?”

“I don’t know… Cheats or no cheats?”

“I would like to see each if we can, my lord.” Ruby says. She has this malicious look on her.

“We would have to get somewhere. It’s not like your teacher would allow us, right?”

“Hold on!”

Before I can object, Ruby is already talking to her teacher. The teacher nods. The teacher tells the students to get behind some protections in the arena. Apparently Ruby has some infamy around here.

I get the girls near me and I take my katana from the safe, using a hand sized portal. I hide the portal itself, it looks like I pulled it from a bag or holding.

Ruby and I go to the center of the arena. I pull the katana from the scabbard. The teacher throws a copper coin to the air. I reinforce my whole body with mana. That still leave a lot of mana that I can use to proceed with a trick I learned.

I spread out my possibilities of place. I make so I am composed of possibilities, and I have possibilities of being anywhere around Ruby. When she strikes, I am behind her, with my katana on her neck.

The temporary spread of conscience makes for a really weird experience, but a nice one. Something a lot deeper, beyond any of the languages I know. My conscience remains, but it is in a pure state, as if everything else is turned off. I understand all, but none of this understanding can be carried over when I make the probabilities collapse into a single body.

Ruby and the girls are flabbergasted. After a few moments, she gives a squeak.

“More!”

We do that dance a couple of times, always with that result.

“Was that with cheating, my lord?”

“I guess… There are other things I can try as well.”

“Go ahead. Ready?”

I cast a really strong gravity magic on top of Ruby. The ground around her gets flattened. Her feet sink deep. The sword starts to come down. She starts to breath raggedly, I stop the magic. She ends up jumping when she tries to breath in.

“And this?”

“You have to remember, wifey, I am also a magician.”

Ruby smiles and breaths some fire on me. I absorb the mana, remove the oxygen and then deflect the weakened flames up.

She sticks her sword in the ground, until half the blade is in. She takes some steps towards me and jumps me. She kisses me frenetically. Until Opal makes a noise of clearing her throat, with a heavy dose of war cry in it. Opal talks from the stands.

“It is almost time for lunch, my lord. Will you partake with us?”

“Of course, wifey.”

Opal, the always regal demeanor, blushes and looks like a teenager. Ruby gets her blade back. We walk back to the stands. I look at Ruby.

“Aren’t you going to talk to your teacher? Is the lesson over?”

“Why? Is it something we should do, my lord? I didn’t know about that, but if you want me to…”

“Humm… It’s ok. If they don’t mind, I am not going to be the one telling you what to do.”

We both jump up the stands and go to the cafeteria. We are there a little early, it is mostly empty. We sit on a table. Ruby is holding herself.

“What was that? What did you do?”

I tilt my head to the side.

“I fight with the knowledge I got from the other world. It is hard to explain without a lot of math. And I mean 10 years of it.”

She looks sad. I give a peck on her lips. We keep drinking some juice, waiting for Cecilia. She also comes a little early. She has Huginn on her shoulder, but they look like they have been fighting. Cecilia sits down. She is pouting. Huginn lands on the table, Muninn lands by her side.

“What happened?”

“Oh, nothing much. It just happened that Huginn here called the professor ‘bitch’.”

I give out 3 giggles.

“Excuse me? What happened?”

“There is a professor that has been on my case for some days. Ever since I started coming with Huginn. She asked a couple of times already if I had used any dark rituals. Then, later on, pretending it was nothing, she asked me what I thought of Wrax. Fuck.”

“And what happened today?”

“She said that crows can’t be familiars because of their dark magic heritage, and their link with Wrax. That’s when Huginn called her bitch.”

“What did the professor do?”

“Nothing, really, because at that point, the class went dead silent. The professor was almost attacking Huginn, and then Huginn just pretended to be a crow. A normal crow. Making other sounds, and arranging my hair with her beak.”

I laugh. This is messed up, but it is funny. I am going to tell Edward to solve this. A professor should not be harassing a student because of a weird religion dogma.

We eat something in the cafeteria. Cecilia turns to the dragonesses.

“How was your morning?”

“We spent a big part of it sparring against each other. It was fun.” Ruby commented.

“I think I heard it.” Cecilia says and giggles. “How did it go? Who won?”

“We stopped once our lord arrived. We don’t know.” Ruby answered.

Shandon sneers.

“Come on! How many wins and losses did you get already from Opal?”

Ruby looks down.

“I don’t remember.”

The other girls laugh. Shandon is the one to answer.

“Last count was 10 victories and 52 losses.” And the dragonesses laugh even harder.

Aquamarine joins the frail.

“And today she decided to challenge our lord!” Aquamarine was laughing so hard that she slapped the table.

Cecilia was curious. “How did it go?”

Ruby tilted her head. Opal was the one to answer.

“It wasn’t a fight. When the fight started, he was in front of her. Then he wasn’t. Then he was, but now behind her.”

“What do you mean? Then he wasn’t in front of her?”

“Nooo. He simply wasn’t. Then he was. My lord, how do I explain this?”

I shrug. It is hard to explain the collapse of an electron equation. Talking about Schrodinger’s cat would not make it any easy.

“Weirdly enough, that explanation is pretty good.”

Cecilia just gives up. She drinks some juice. Cecilia talks about her lessons on the day, some magic theory and magic history. In the afternoon she is going to have practical attack and practical defense magic.

“Do you want to do an exhibition for the magic school as well?”

I laugh.

“I hadn’t planned the one I did in the knight school. It just happened. Perhaps some other day.”

I laugh. I wouldn’t even know what I would be able to do to make something impressive. Of course, I could always think of something on the fireworks side. But I had better keep my head down, the girls were already being noisy enough. Nail that sticks the head too high gets hammered first.

The girls talk some more, I just listen to their chat. I am still the nerd, I prefer it this way. When the girls split to go to their own school, I go over to Edward’s office.

The secretary sees me and sighs. Instead of trying to fight it, she kind of surrenders.

“Please, sir, don’t take much of his time… He has been doing so well lately…”

She stands up and goes inside his room, to announce my visit. She gestures me into his office.

“Hello, friend! How are you?”

I step inside, the secretary closes the door behind me. I cast the silence spell in the room.

“Hi, how are you?”

“I am fine. Very fine indeed.”

He gestures me to sit on the couch. He grabs a couple of glasses, and then notices Muninn on my shoulder. He grabs 3 glasses and a bottle. He pours the liquor for all three of us.

“So, how can I help you?”

“Well, first things first. Did you know there is a professor harassing Cecilia? Because of Huginn?”

Edward tries to hide, but I can notice that this strikes a chord with him. He takes some time to calm down.

“I am sorry about that. I had already reprimanded the professor in question. I am going to have this solved.”

“Thank you.” I take a sip from the liquor. I continue.

“The rest is not really important, I just wanted to understand about the history around Romuela. What kind of country it is.”

He tilts his head.

“I thought that you already knew everything you wanted to know.”

“I can have some information on present things, but information about history of a place is a little more complicated. Do you have any history books on the area that you could let me borrow?”

Edward is scratching his chin.

“I have just the thing. Or the person.”

He smiles. He goes out the door, and tells the something to the secretary. She goes out of the office. He comes back.

“We have a history professor. He is the one that wrote a lot of the books we have nowadays. You can just ask him whatever you want on the subject. If he doesn’t know, nobody does.”

“That is going to be great! Shouldn’t I feel a little guilty of taking his time, though?”

“Don’t worry about that. You could take him with you and we would still be indebted.”

He laughs. I nod and accept it. This is going to help me understand.

“I appreciate. How are things overall? This thing with Romuela must be increasing the tensions.”

Edward shrugs.

“Even without the dragon we would eventually have something. With the hero coming about, there might be a push for some conscription to help on the war with the demons. There might also be some smaller countries that would use this to try to get some terrain from some of our nobles. And then there are the issues that already exist. Arthuria’s corruption, the Holy Kingdom’s vision of other races… There is always something breeding trouble.”

“Still, this is a little more than normal, right?”

Edward shrugs.

“I can’t solve other nations problems. I learned to let go of what I can’t control.”

I don’t have an answer for that. I decide to talk about other things.

“And what about Sophia? How is she? Did she recover from the whole thing?”

“She is. I can only thank you and lady Huginn. I assume that our deal regarding is still in place?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Good. The little shit and his bitch mother have left towards the Holy Kingdom this morning, actually. I thought you were going to bring this up.”

“I wasn’t really counting the days or keeping an eye on it. Huginn is the one watching. I have no question that she is not going to be miss the window of opportunity. Apparently, she has one vice and one quality.”

“What are they?”

“Her vice is that she is vindicative. Her quality is her excellent memory.”

We all laugh. Muninn included. I continue.

“But anyway, how is Sophia?”

“She is fine. She incorporated the scar in their plays. She says that is the mark of Wrax, it is the mark of the ones that fight the cruel god.”

Edward describes the way the kids play. We have some laughs. After some time, the secretary opens the door, and enters the silence area.

“Dean, I have brought professor Tacitus as you asked.”

She gestures to the man behind her, and he enters the room. He looks around and recognizes the silence spell in place. He steps forward and bows to Edward.

“Dean Edward, good afternoon. How can I be of service?”

He straightens up before Edward can answer and stares at me.

“Good afternoon, professor. This is sir Marcelo. Sir Marcelo, this is professor Tacitus, the lead of our history department.”

I stand up and offer my hand to shake. The professor looks at Edward.

“Oh? Ambrose’s Marcelo? Really?”

Edward nods. Tacitus looks at me, I nod as well.

“Oh hohoho… This is going to be fun… Say, professor Marcelo, how can I help you?”

I notice the way he says professor, with some sarcasm. Edward stiffens. He is about to rip the professor a new one, but I hold my hand. I giggle.

“You do realize that I have never asked the title, right? Even the dean here calls me sir, as a symbol of respect. That being said, I would love to hear about history. I have so many questions.”

“Fine, fine… I can already see that you are not what I expected. I apologize. The way Ambrose has been talking, I had another picture. But I am nothing if not flexible in front of facts. How can I help?”

“Well, I don’t think we have to take more of the dean’s time than I already have. What say you we have our talk somewhere else?”

“Sure, let’s go to my office.”

He turns around, and I follow him. The secretary seems happy. I wonder if it is because I am leaving reasonably quickly, and Edward seems to be in a calm state. Once I leave the room, I see Edward gesturing the secretary to come closer. He talks something to her, she leaves right away, squeezing herself by the door, between me and Tacitus.

I take down the silence spell. Tacitus gets out of the office, and I follow him. He walks the corridors towards a different area than the one I knew. I had only seen Ambrose’s office so far. He takes me to another section.

His section feels a lot richer than Ambrose’s. The office doors are better maintained, and wood work more elaborate. There is some concern with aesthetics that is not present around Ambrose’s office.

“I am sorry for inquiring about this, but… Why does it look like you have a lot more funding than Ambrose?”

He pulls his left lip in a half smile. It is almost like someone is impressed a dog is talking.

“Oh? You noticed? Yes, it is because we do. Ambrose is fixated on crazy ideas about trying to find the truth of the universe, he calls it. Our job here is to study the past, understand how we came to this point, learn strategies, evolve from others’ experiences so that we don’t make the same mistakes. We are the ones that pay attention to battles won and lost, and why.”

“And that is a lot more important to commanders than Ambrose’s ideas.”

He points to his own nose. I wonder what level of stupidity he expected. That can help, though. With this low expectation, it is really easy to be above them.

He opens the door to a big office. Smaller than Edward’s, of course, but still big. He sits on one of the couchs around a coffee table.

“So tell me, where are you from?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh? Do you really think the gossip would not spread like wild fire? Your fight with the strongest knights ever to enter the school?”

“Oh, my wives? I am glad to know. What can I say? I am an adventurer that got lucky.”

He laughs.

“You are definitely not what I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“Some kind of muscle brain, with connections.”

I laugh.

“This is actually refreshing. You say things just as you see them. I hope we can keep having these conversations.”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

I shrug.

“I have already left places that I thought I would stay in forever. I try to avoid having illusion of control.”

“What do you mean, illusion of control?”

“I see my life as a boat going down a river. I can control where the boat goes, but within the river. And because I am going down river, I can’t turn around and go up. Sometimes the river splits, and I have to choose a path. Not always knowing what is going to happen after.”

“That is an interesting way to put it. Let’s get back to your questions. What do you want to know?”

“A lot, actually. How were the nations formed?”

“The information I have is that the other races used to dominate Andrea. Humans were only granted some land close to the sea. The central area of Andrea was mainly occupied by demons that did not tolerate humans.

“The demons had joined hands with minotaurs, centaurs, werewolves and some additional half sentient species. These species were almost monstrous, and had no regard for life. They kept offering the heart of humans to their deity, Wrax.

“Five human court mages pleaded to Nergal, and offered their lives for a chance to fight back. Nergal felt pity on the humans, specially considering that they were the prophecy destiny. Humans were supposed to be the rulers of Andrea.”

“Wait a second. Who wrote the prophecy? Where did it come from?”

“Huh? What do you mean? Everyone knows about it…”

I smile, a little maliciously.

“So, just saying, if this was a lie someone in the past invented, you would be repeating it, because, and I quote, everyone knows? It’s funny that you can test me, a person in front of you, but you trust the rumor, just because it is repeated by a lot of people.”

“Fine. Let’s hear what the professor has to say… How would you go about it?”

“How much digging do you guys do? How long ago were those events?”

“Digging? I don’t understand that. These events happened 10 thousand years ago.”

I giggle.

“Haven’t you ever had friends that were told something, and then the story got changed?”

“I guess…”

“Do you know where this happened? Surely this would be a sacred place nowadays.”

“The place was lost in time.”

“And that’s why you should dig. Lost in time only means that you have some stuff on top, covering it up. You dig, you recover the stuff being used, and then you reconstruct it. You examine the house, and then postulate what person lives there. If the house has a feminine air to it, if the closet only has women’s clothing, then it would have been a woman. Given the clothes, you can estimate the person’s height. Given the clothing style, you can estimate how attractive she thought herself to be.

“The deeper you dig, the further back you go. The natural tendency is for dust, land, to accumulate on top. But please, go ahead, continue.”

He looks at me, with a lot of distrust.

“Anyway, then the first hero was summoned. He got the humans together, and started to fight back the other forces. It was a very long war, it spread throughout centuries. The humans area started to spread, and they accepted some of the other races living with them.

“The wars were brutal. It lasted several centuries. Through these centuries, the human population rose, in number and power. The era of human peace was born.

“The promised land was thus given to the humans, that occupied up to the land of Arthuria. The First Empire was born.

“Even heroes don’t live forever. His descendants fought hard for his inheritance, and the amount of nations was born. The Holy Kingdom and Arthuria were born.”

“How long did the hero live?”

“Most accounts put it at 1000 years.”

“Do humans live longer if they have higher levels?”

“I don’t know. Some people believe that.”

I look at him. I wonder if he is just pretending not to realize some issues with his story.

“Just out of curiosity… Didn’t you ever question a couple of things?”

“Like what?”

“If the humans are the tolerating species you mention, why wasn’t there already an all out war amongst the several different races? No humans – peace. Throw humans in – war. How are humans the peaceful people in the tale?”

He looks at me, as if the question doesn’t make sense. I try to explain.

“I am an adventurer, and so I have met several different people. That being said, good people are good all the time, it is part of their nature. Assholes, pardon my language, are like that always. It is also part of their nature.

“That being said, the most common trait is judging the world by the way you act. Good people don’t have the malice to expect fraud, to expect being lied to. They see the world from the eyes of purity. Malice doesn’t even enter their thoughts.

“Now, let’s assume a god appeared among the people. He could say that he is going to end war. But he can’t really tell who is to blame, so he does the right thing – he kills both sides. He ended war. His followers are going to write down about his clemency. Just saying.”

“And how do you propose to solve this?”

“Get other points of view. Do you think the elves’ history is going to be the same as yours? Or the centaurs? Or the demons?

“You should also dig. Where are the fields of dead humans? Do you have that information in your books about how each race evolved? When did humans start working with steel? Copper? When did the humanoids start talking common? What did they speak before that?”

He is now scratching his chin. He sits back on his couch. He stares at me.

“Where are you from?”

I open a non confrontational smile.

“I am from a small village in Arthuria. It doesn’t even have a name.”

He giggles.

“If that is what you are sticking with. I now owe Ambrose a week’s pay.”

He starts laughing. He stands up, and goes to some shelves against the walls, and retrieves three big tomes. They seem to be related to the same matter. He puts them on top of the coffee table. The books look heavy to him.

I take a look at the cover of the first one. ‘From Endangered to Domineering: the history of humanity – First Volume, preservation wars’. I take a look at the other two books. The second one is the ‘expansion wars’ and the third is ‘human peace’. He stares at me.

“Take these. They are the current knowledge.”

“Thank you. When do you need these back?”

He shrugs.

“You can keep them. It is long past due they are rewritten.”

I giggle a little. I put the books inside my bag of holding. I just might read the demons’ history books as well at some point. We say our good byes and I leave towards home. It is already late, the girls are also going to be going home in a little while.

I walk through some corridors, and I find an empty room. I open a portal and jump home.

The girls arrive shortly after. During dinner, I mention to them that I told on the professor to Edward. He promised me that he was going see the issue solved.