“What happened?” Elwen murmured, holding her forehead. She had a massive headache and felt exhausted for some reason. Her arm was really heavy too.

She saw Varian’s face above her, backed by the blue sky.

She looked around, seeing that she was still on the wagon, although she was now on the floor, rather than on her crate. Varian was kneeling next to her, holding a water skin in his hand. The wagon appeared to be stationary, and she couldn’t see the two merchants anywhere.

“You passed out.” He said, holding out the waterskin to her. “The caravan was making a stop when I noticed that you were on the floor.”

“Mmm... my head hurts…”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked, somewhat amused but still concerned for her.

“… I was reading my book…”

“… Anything else?” Just reading shouldn’t have put her in this state. Did she somehow get sick? Was it something to do with them recently arriving in this world? Or maybe she got something while they were in the city? Maybe something she ate?

“Oh… and I was putting mana into the book…” she muttered.

‘What? Why?’ he thought.

“Wait, how much mana do you have left?” he asked. He didn’t know what she was doing, but it didn’t matter now.

She opened up her status, checking her mana. “It’s … almost empty…”

Varian sighed. ‘Well, at least that mystery is solved.’

“You’re suffering from mana depletion. Didn’t you read the notes I sent you?” he told her, a little bit annoyed that she was so careless. ‘At least it happened while we were in a safe spot. It could have been disastrous if she collapsed in the middle of a battle.’

“…No,” she softly said, a little embarrassed. “How long is this… going to last?”

“It should go away as you regenerate mana. As long as you wait to recover, you should be fine.”

“Mmmm” she moaned, turning onto her side to get the light out of her eyes.

“The symptoms should be worse the less mana you have. As long as you never let it get too low, you won’t feel them too much.”

“Guess I’ll just try not to run out…”

“That would be for the best.” He laughed, “You look pretty pathetic right now.” She didn’t even have the energy to be mad at him, only narrow her eyes slightly, angrily. Or was she just sleepy? If she had a pillow, she would throw it at him… That’s what she needed, a pillow…

Varian watched Elwynn fall back asleep, before pulling out a few blankets from his magic bag. He propped her head up with one, and used another to cover her.

“Night night, Elle,” he said, kissing her on the forehead.

When she woke up, it was already evening. She could smell the scent of wood burning nearby.

Sitting up, she saw that the caravan had set up camp for the night. The two merchants were by a campfire, preparing dinner, while Varian was setting up their tents. The merchants had already set up their tents on the other side of the campfire.

She pulled the blankets off of her and folded them up. She didn’t remember asking for them, so Varian must have given them to her after she fell asleep.

Getting up, she made her way over to Varian with the blankets. She figured that she would put them in her tent for now.

Dinner was a sort of pasta noodles, much like spaghetti, although the noodles were flat and a little thicker. There was melted cheese on top, with little bits of sausage mixed in. It was quite good, and she thanked the merchants for making it.

After finishing, she checked her status again, to see how much mana she recovered. She had regained a decent chunk, but she wasn’t completely recovered yet. She didn’t know how much time had passed, but it must have been a couple of hours. Maybe if she had a clock, she could figure out how much she recovered per hour, but it didn’t appear to be much, at least compared to her capacity. In fact, it looked like it would take an entire day to recover all of it.

She wondered if there was any way to speed it up. Mana was a sort of energy, right? So, if she ate well, would that speed it up? And she recovered stamina from sleeping, so maybe it was the same with mana? If that was true, does that mean that it was normally even slower?

That would be bad, it would mean that she wouldn’t be able to learn a bunch of magic! If she could only learn a spell a day, and it took a day or more for her mana to recover enough for her to try again, then it could take months learn all of the spells in the book! She had no reason to believe that all spells were contained in this book, so how long would it take to master all magic? It could take years!

She decided it was best to turn in for the night and deal with this problem in the morning…

At least then, she could see if it was even possible to learn new spells from this method. So far, she hadn’t learned anything.

Returning to her tent, she laid down inside, making sure to seal the flap behind her.

She pulled up the blankets around her, placing her head on the one Varian had folded for her. It was not long before soft breathing could be heard from her tent.

The next morning came quickly, and although Elwen still felt tired, she woke up only shortly after everyone else. The had a short breakfast, consisting of hard bread and dried meat, before packing everything up and getting ready for the road.

Elwen had some time to wash up in a nearby stream, but it didn’t compare to taking a bath in a modern bathtub. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable, although she was happy enough with how clean she managed to get herself. It was somewhat difficult, as the stream only went up to her knees, so she had to crouch down and splash the water up in order to rinse herself off. If she were really dirty, it might not have worked as well, but thankfully she only had a little bit of dirt on her from their journey yesterday. She would have preferred to wash it off last night, but she was too tired. She also used the new soap that they had bought in town. It was a plain soap, with almost no scent, but it was cheap, and it did its job well enough. She could wait to get nicer soap for when they had more disposable income.

After she was done bathing, she returned to the camp. She helped pack some things back onto the wagon, but most everything was done by the time she returned. The merchants had to check their cargo and ensure it was secured to the wagon, but other than that they were ready to go.

And so, after a short break, the group continued on their journey. The road wandered and meandered, and Elwen noted that the view was beautiful. She had never seen anything like it back on Earth, except through old movies and pictures.

Still, she wanted to see if she could learn new magic using her book, so she tried pouring her magic into one of the circles, albeit more carefully this time. She didn’t want to pass out again.

The next few days passed in a similar fashion. They woke up, ate a short breakfast before getting right back on the road, and camped in the evenings. Elwen learned a few new spells on the journey, and Varian sharpened his hunting skills when he had the chance. He did complain, however, that it was difficult to catch his prey with just his sword. He decided that he would have to get a bow, or something else he could use to hunt from afar.

At the end of the week, they finally saw the city of Krinsburg, a little dot in the distance. Elwen wouldn’t have known it was the city without the merchant pointing it out to her. They already knew that they had crossed over into the Empire, as they were stopped at a fort that was placed along the border, but this was their first glimpse at civilization in the Empire.

As they got closer, she could make out more of the details. The city was surrounded by massive stone walls, made of large, dark grey stones, although from where they were they just looked like one massive blob of grey. They were high enough relative to the city so that she could see over the walls a little, so she could see little bits of red and brown roofs, but not much else.

The condition of the road improved as they approached the city, going from a wide, but overgrown, dirt road to stone paved road. The trip was a lot smoother once they got onto the stone road, although there was still the occasional bump that would surprise them.

They should reach the city by nightfall, but they wouldn’t have time to do anything but find an inn once they get inside. Most of the businesses close at night. They didn’t have 24/7 service, like the businesses back home. Really, she wasn’t sure who needed to go shopping at midnight, but it became popular for stores to always be open a few decades ago. She wasn’t really sure of the reason, but almost every large corporation moved to that model. A few stayed with a limited hours model, but they were mostly smaller stores.

Almost all of the stores in this world are small stores, run by locals. Still, there are several large corporations, like the Red Dragon Trading Company, that operate at national or international scales. Most overland trade, however, is done by smaller merchants and peddlers. The sea trade is dominated by the corporations, due to the cost associated with operate ships. Some of the large corporations are more influential than others, blurring the line between economic and political agents. Some corporations even control their own countries, acting as their own government.

Somehow, she got off track. The point was, they wouldn’t be able to do anything until morning. They would have to rely on the inn having food, which they were lucky with so far. It seemed to be common for inns to have some food available, but she was worried that it was only common in the Lionheart Kingdom, and it would be different in the Empire.

A few hours later, they finally reached the gate. The sun was still up, although it was getting low. Sunset would likely be in an hour or so, so they should have plenty of time to find an inn, provided the guards let them in quickly.

There were three guards at the gate, one on either side of the door and one standing in the middle.

“Halt!” The guard in the center shouts, holding his hand up. He was eyeing the two of them, judging them.

“What have we got here, an elf girl?” The guard on the left says.

“You idiot, there ain’t no elves out here.” The one on the right responds.

“Are you blind? The girl’s clearly an elf! Got pointy ears an’ everything.” The guard on the left starts pointing at her.

“She is! Come here, girlie, I’ll show you a good time!” The one on the right called, licking his lips.

She had her hair braided to the side, exposing her left ear, but leaving the right covered. Apparently, the guards hadn’t noticed that Varian was also an elf, or maybe they didn’t care.

She shuddered to herself and hid behind Varian. She didn’t like the lustful gazes she was receiving from the men.

“Are you three done staring at my companion? Can we enter the city?” Varian says, stepping forward to draw the men’s attention to him. He had already taken out a few silver coins, to pay the entry tax or bribe the guards, whichever was necessary.

“Kck! Fine, ruin our fun.” The guard on the left said, appearing to just now notice Varian.

“Damn foreigners…” The guard on the right mumbles.

The guard in the center sighs, before speaking up. “It’s three silver each for entry. Obey the Emperor’s laws, and you can enter the city.”

He holds out his hand, and Varian pays him. After counting the coins, the guard waves the two through.

“We’ll be watching you, foreigners.” The man on the right says, once they had passed through.

Clearly, while they were legally allowed to enter, they weren’t exactly welcome. It seemed like, if they could, the guards would have tried to turn them away.

Elwynn didn’t want to think of what those two on the sides wanted to do to her. They didn’t even notice Varian until he spoke, they were too busy undressing her with their eyes. It seemed like the two got even more excited when they found out she was an elf, like she was some prized conquest to be had.

Outside of their kingdoms, elves were relatively rare, at least among the NPC population. They preferred to stay amongst their own people and not mingle with outsiders. They were more common in places that had friendly relations with an elven nation, but they usually only settled down with other elves. Elves were not unpopular among the players, but because the population of the world was mostly NPCs, elves were still uncommon.

It seemed like, because of this, elven women had developed a reputation of being extremely desirable. Although this reputation would probably have developed anyway, as elven women were rumored to be incredibly beautiful. She was no exception.

She would have to be careful. She wouldn’t want to be attacked and kidnapped or anything. Based on the reactions of those guards, no one would care if something happened to her, so she couldn’t rely on them to help her.

Luckily, there was an inn not far from the gate. They could actually see it from the gate; they didn’t have to wander around the city too much and expose themselves to too much attention.

Elwynn noted that there was almost no one on the street as they were walking to the inn. They were a few lying out on the street dressed in raggedy clothes, likely beggars, and some larger people walking around wearing dark clothes. They didn’t look very friendly and kept staring at the two of them with contemptuous eyes.

Elwynn was worried that the innkeeper would be the same, but he was actually a relatively friendly man. Sure, she wouldn’t want to put him in charge of customer service if she opened her own shop, but he at least didn’t make her want to run away.

Once they were in the room, Elwynn quickly locked the door. They had asked to bring their dinner to their room, so they didn’t need to leave the room, except to go to the bathroom.

“Oh” Varian said, smiling at her, “Blocking off the escape. What could you possibly have planned?”

Elwynn angrily stared at him. Here she was, trembling in her boots, and he was just having fun.

“I’d rather not have any of those men getting any ideas.” She said, trying to explain herself and get him to stop.

“Typically, if girls want to avoid misunderstandings, they don’t lock themselves in a room with a man.”

She huffed and turned away. She wasn’t going to be able to stop him, so she might as well just ignore him.

After they were finished eating, she realized that she had a problem.

See, she didn’t want to leave the room and invite trouble, but she also couldn’t change with Varian standing there.

“C-c-could y-you c-cover your e-eyes and l-look the other w-way?”