The three were walking in silence until they reached a four-way intersection. Arga turned to the right without even pausing, and Charble followed suit. Dexter absent-mindedly followed the two, still busy grumbling inwardly.

 

Truly a fantasy world. Malicious building mazing people without any prompting... and there wasn’t any outward sign be it strange sound or any movement...

 

The answer must be magic, huh

 

Was it a building spirit or automated action through a preset parameter?

 

Another turn without any hesitation...

 

After deliberating for a moment, Dexter asked, “How are you doing that?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“You said the building moved its hallways around, but I didn’t see you ever stopping or take a moment to find where to go.”

 

“I’ve been here for three years,” Arga rolled his eyes “If I couldn’t find out where to go, it would be too embarrassing...”

 

 “...Is there any landmark or reference point you could point out to me?”

 

“Why? It’s kind of useless right now to you.”

 

“Well, it would be useful later?” Dexter answered, uncertainly.

 

Arga considered it for a moment, before rejecting it with a wave of a hand and expression that said ‘it’s too bothersome’.

 

Dexter was unconvinced and still pondering inwardly on how to reason with him, but he gave up when he realized that it was too bothersome for him too. He couldn’t find any motivation to find a winning argument when it was just about an idle attempt at conversation instead of actually wanting to know.

 

So the three individuals went back to walking in silence.

 

 

...

 

 

Arga led them through various hallway and corridor, stopping occasionally without any discernable pattern on when or how far they need to walk in between each stop. At each stop, Arga would open and operate the gem-encrusted engine filled with various magic circles, levers, and devices of diverse shape and configuration, while Charble stood at rest and would only step up to help whenever necessary.

 

It looked like something difficult to do, but every stop to operate those engines made Arga’s face look increasingly bored and distracted. Finally, at the tenth stop, he turned to address Dexter.

 

“What’s with that look?” Arga glanced briefly at Dexter before busying himself with the machine, “If you’re curious about something, just ask away.”

 

Dexter wanted to roll his eyes at him, but settled with stating,” You didn’t want to answer my question before.”

 

“Well, this and that are different...” Arga smirked before continuing “Besides, It’s tradition to find your own path. Well, ask your question, but not about the path... and not about these engines either, since I don’t want to do it.”

 

You’re feeling bored huh? Wasn’t it dangerous operating it distractedly?

 

“What, this? Ask away, this was just a rote task anyway.” Arga shrugged, continuing with a mumble, “Repeatable, and boring if you’re already somewhat an expert at it...”

Dexter considered for a while, picking and discarding which topic he should ask first. After a moment, he asked, “So, is this a place for learning or something?”

 

“Yeah, couldn’t you tell? I remember Old Luga gave a loud announcement to the first years back there.”

 

“He could have been talking about people who’ve only joined the organization in the last year or so.”

 

“When you put it that way... well this is a place of learning and also the one of the closest authority in anything regarding the place beyond the gate. If you didn’t have any permit issued by the academy, you wouldn’t even be allowed to step closer to the Abyss of Eternity here.”

 

“So, mathematics and writings?”

 

“Mathematics?”

 

“You know, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and then learning to read and write...”

 

“You mean the lesson taught here?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Arga snorted, answering,” As if.” And then he paused his task, contemplating something before the snicker he suppressed turned into a full-blown laugh. He continued laughingly” This is Adventurer Academy, you know. People were expected to have gone through that kind of basic education elsewhere before going here...”

 

“No exception?”

 

“No”

 

“Even the most talented one?”

 

“What kind of talented individual couldn’t even do basic arithmetic...”Arga said mockingly, before going back to inspecting the device and continued absently “There were tests to be taken when people wanted to enroll here. If they couldn’t even read, then they wouldn’t pass it.”

 

“There are standardized academies for basic education, huh.”

 

“There aren’t.”

 

“Huh? And where do people learn the basic?”

 

“Their parents, their tutor, from an apprenticeship, or the school opened by the various organizations...” Arga rolled his eyes,“ they aren’t standardized, one school could teach one way to do something, and its neighboring school could teach the other way to do that thing... also a church-affiliated school would be different than the one near a temple.” Arga closed the engine’s box and stood up,” The one which can be called standardized would be the empire’s academy and the guild’s institute, they both have a similar curriculum. And of course the adventurer academies.”

 

“And, what was taught here?”

 

“Adventurer stuff” Arga Sirked meaningfully, and laugh out loud as he walked away, followed by Charble.

 

It looks like the topic had ended. He would have just rejected or ignored my question if I forced it.

 

Dexter grumbled inwardly for a minute before asking, “You said former fortress before, and then this gate thing. Are those two words actually going to mean what they usually mean?”

 

“I wouldn’t know what you think about the usual meaning of gate and fortress, but...” Arga slowed down and rubbed his chin, ”...hmm. Let’s put it this way. In the long distant past, the ancient sages  and wise man built this super amazing artifact to cut off dimensional incursion, and they put the fortress here to support, maintain, and defend the mechanism.”

 

“Incursion? There were reoccurring invasions?”

 

“Yeah, it was said that the earlier years of the era of Wiseman was a time of trouble, People living in constant terror because of the invasion from things from the off-world. And no one knows when and where they would attack from.”

 

“So it’s an ‘Alien invasion from the outer space’ situation, huh?”

 

“Space?

 

“You know, when you fly  upward without stopping, you will reach the moon, er... the place where celestial bodies hang out together... that kind of outer space, you know?”

 

“Ah, you mean, invasion from off the planet, huh.”

 

“Wait a minute, is it a dimensional incursion or off-planet incursion?”

 

“Why would it matter to distinguish between one and the other?”

 

“Well, one would mean the artifact close off the place like closing the door and locking it while the other would mean that the artifact put a barrier over the planet...”

 

“Locking the door? Heh, amusing metaphor. Its actually dimensional incursion according to what was written in the book and what was taught in history.”Arga paused briefly,” I remember reading some obscure book before, it was mentioned inside that one group of the invader flew off the planet and made a home in deep space.”

 

“Anyone ever found where they holed up in?”

 

“Who knows?”

 

Dexter wanted to inquire more about the topic before he remembered that he was not in a modern world. He disappointedly stopped talking about the topic, but he still muttered“...No outer space exploration, so no one knows whether the book you’ve read was correct or not.”

 

“Well, anyone who could fly off the planet never went too far. They like to make their bases nearby.”

 

“Fly off the planet... you mean they fly by themselves?”

 

“Of course, even if they could bring other people, there’s no guarantee that the people they brought could survive out there.”

 

Instead of launching rockets, these people just launch themselves... truly fantasy world.

 

Is there going to be a castle orbiting the planet a la some RPG’s final level?

 

Wait, since they can only do it by themselves, even if there was a castle, it would be modest in size...

 

A continent-sized castle full of extinct animals and intelligent races would be awesome.

 

Maybe vampires?

 

Ah, there would be no protection from sun rays, so the vampire wouldn’t be able to live long...

 

Elves?

 

Then it wouldn’t be a floating castle, but World Tree, hehe.

 

 

...

 

 

They walked toward another stop, Dexter in silent pondering while Arga and Charble seemed to have a silent telepathic conversation.

 

When Arga started to inspect the mechanism in the room, Dexter made an attempt to continue the conversation that had been cut off by stating his conclusion.

 

“...And after the door was locked, the only way to pass would be through the gate.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“The gate was here, in this academy?”

 

“Correct”

 

“And people can only get a permit to pass from here, and they can’t complain no matter how difficult because there was only one gate in the whole world.”

 

Arga paused, turning toward Dexter with an expression of disbelief, before rolling his eye and saying” Where do you even get that conclusion? There were seven gates you know?”

 

“Seven. All here?”

 

“There’s only one, here.”

 

“So the other gate was in the hand of other academies?”

 

“Not all of them were academy owned. Two belong to the empire, and one belongs to the tower.”

 

"Why wasn’t the ancient locking the door as thoroughly as possible instead of leaving seven gates open?

 

“Some say that they can’t actually close it, and these seven gates were the stopgap measure, and some say that the gates were legacy for the future generation...”

 

“Wait, so these academies were made to prepare the adventurer who will adventure beyond the gate? Was it because it was too dangerous? ”

 

“Yeah. That’s why there was a summoning ceremony in its curriculum.”

 

“I thought the summoning was just a prestige thing.”

 

“Why so?”

 

“The guy that summoned me, he looked like... like he lost a gamble and only got a consolation prize.”

 

”Haha, true.”

 

“Which one did you say true to? The prestige thing or consolation prize?”

 

“The consolation prize. Or to be more accurate a booby trap.” When Dexter about to protest, Arga stopped him by asking” You keep saying prestige, what kind of prestige could one actually get from familiar summoning?”

 

“Well, I thought it was something along the line of ‘To affirm my status as a mage, I must have a familiar!’ and then the one summoned was just paraded as a decoration and status symbol, where the rarer the familiar, the better your status,” Dexter paused to make a pose, and he continued.” Something like, ‘I, the scion of house smug-face-burg, has succeeded in summoning – and contracting with a dragon!’, like that.”

 

“While that was amusing, this was not the Empire’s noble academy. The only noble who would enroll in Adventurer’s Academy would be second sons, the fallen, and declining nobles. There wouldn’t be anyone with that much leisure time to compare and do one-upmanship with other people over here. Not that it would be easier for those Empire academy students to do that kind of overt posturing in the style of what you said though...“

 

 “Why were you saying that I was more of a booby trap? Was there something to be noted about human summoning?’

 

“The purpose of summoning was to get a helper, someone who would make any exploration to Abyss of Eternity become easier.” Arga elaborated, “whatever people contracted would become another source of strength for them.”

 

“Contracting a human wouldn’t give any advantage?”

 

“Sure, Human was intelligent, had creativity, had thumbs, but there were familiar who was more intelligent than a human, more wise and experienced, had greater control over their appendage...” Arga paused,“ most humans had a middling growth rate too, so people would rather make a contract with something that has a specialized talent and guaranteed greater growth rate rather than trying to be lucky with a generalized being like a human.”

 

“It doesn’t seem that bad to me. What else?”

 

“Human was not a creature native of the Abyss, so contracting with another human when you were going to explore beyond the gate was ludicrous. And even if someone insisted wanting to contract with another human, using a summoning circle was taboo.”

 

“The one overseeing the summoning didn’t do anything when I was summoned.”

 

“I’m guessing there were some circumstances that made them consider letting that irresponsible guy who summoned you to make a contract with you... even if it was ultimately futile”

 

“Why was summoning human taboo?”

 

“I’m already done here.” Arga closed the engine’s box and walked away. And without looking back toward Dexter, he continued,  ”Let’s get you to The Blue Tower, and then you can ask the teachers around for explanation on things you don’t understand and things you are still curious about.”