“Sit,” John told Velka, and the Magryph plopped her hindquarters down on the grass in front of the I.D. Gate. Making the final preparations, John made sure the golden egg was firmly hooked into the belt-sleeves of his pants. “I’ll make sure the other side is safe and then I’ll come and get you,” he explained to Velka. With a little warble, she signalled understanding.

Giving her one more insistent stare, not quite trusting she wouldn’t walk away the second he went out of sight, the Gamer opened the leftmost door of the I.D. Gate and went inside. Raising his hand, he let his intent to open an Adventure barrier shape the magic that flowed outwards. The empty potential of the dark space was filled with a new world.

Trees appeared around John. Just a couple of them, spaced out among rolling hills. Every available surface was covered in farmland. He was on top of one of the higher situated hills, able to look down on a large city in the distance. The large fortress at the centre was the only thing he could definitely make out at the distance. It had a high-medieval flair to it and was covered in banners that depicted a black winged angel. The sun basked everything in soft light. It was hot, but not as hot as the Guild Hall.

Just like John was able to oversee the landscape, so too were the people on the fields able to see him. A couple looked towards him, raising their faces from their tasks. Men and women were bald, pale and hunchbacked, pieces of crystal protruding from their backs like withered tree branches. The only thing that differentiated those malnourished people in gender was the presence of miniscule breasts and the broader shoulders common for males.

They didn’t stop working, hastily returning to their work. John found the reason in the collars they wore. An enchanted piece of metal, made to heat up if one of the overseers desired it so. Said overseers were all over the fields, standing tall and wearing only baggy pants from which curved swords hung. This left their upper bodies free, showing the athletic shapes of their torsos and the generally shapely breasts of the women. While John’s gaze did temporarily get stuck there, he couldn’t help but also notice the shimmering wings. They were much too small to actually allow flight for a humanoid or even support the magic fuelled variety they likely enabled. Crystalline and of black colour, they were pretty, however.

‘First try and I get a genuine Kingdom,’ the Gamer thought, positively surprised by this. ‘And the way I will go about things will influence what next Quest I get, huh? Makes enough sense.’ While the serfs continued their work and John pondered over the Quest text, several of the overseers began to approach. The Gamer Observed them and then simply left the dungeon.

Velka looked at him when he opened the door, having picked at the floor. Tilting her head, she waited for him to say something. “Come with me,” he said, and the Magryph got up. John held the door open for her, let her get inside, closed the door and went back into the Adventure.

The overseers had encroached further on his position, likely wanting to see if the suddenly appearing figure had left anything behind. When he popped up again, that caused many of them to stop dead in their position. Their levels were pretty average, 12 to 20, but their discipline was pretty good. None jumped back or drew their sword in a hurried panic.

Velka slightly opened her wings in anticipation of an attack, making herself look bigger. A warning hiss and pounce ready posture made it clear that she was ready to retaliate. Kneeling down, John scratched the back of her neck. “Nothing to fear,” he assured her.

“Who are you?” one of the overseers asked and stepped closer. John noticed they had feet similar to that of a bird, three front claws and one extending backwards. They were quite a bit thicker than the average bird, closer to an emu than a secretary bird.

‘Harpies, not angels,’ John thought. ‘Also, how convenient that they’re speaking English. If they are. Could be another instant translation situation. All worlds are connected as parts of Gaia’s dream, though, so maybe language just gets recycled through the worlds? Could also be that Gaia picked a Kingdom that conveniently spoke English.’ “John Newman,” the Gamer answered truthfully.

“Where did you come from?” the same overseer asked.

“Earth,” he kept with the truth.

The answer caused an interesting reaction. “The anchor world,” he heard several whisper. Alongside things like, “place of a thousand innovations,” and, “from where the goddess comes.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to cause harm,” the Gamer continued, using the word ‘harm’ rather than ‘trouble’ deliberately. “As a matter of fact, I just ended here by chance. I don’t even know where this is. I would be interested in looking at your great city.” His charismatic smile caused even the overseers to drop their guard a little bit. “I hope I won’t stand out too much, with my lack of wings,” he joked.

The overseers went from awestruck to light snickers, the Gamer’s overwhelming Charisma doing its job in disarming their hostility. “Will you bring the world new innovations, John Newman?”

“Perhaps,” he answered. ‘There seems to be some otherworld traffic. Or perhaps they just have local legends about people getting stranded here bringing new technology with them?’

“If you’re going to go to the city, you should cover your arms,” a different overseer, one that looked a lot less impressed with everything that was going on, threw in.

“Why is that?” John wanted to know.

“Revealing the upper body is a privilege of us Kyr,” the response came swiftly. “Do not forget. Our sacred traditions will be kept. Your ignorance isn’t going to serve you as a shield for long.”

“As you say, then,” John answered and, with the ease of a thought, made the sleeves of the Suit of the Chosen grow to the length of his wrists. “Will this do?” The overseers were silent for several seconds. ‘So, enchantments aren’t widely spread in this world,’ John theorized. ‘Could be an innovation they are looking for.’

“…Yes,” the answer finally came. “On your way then.”

“Just one question, if I may,” the Gamer interjected before they could leave. “What did they do?” He pointed to the mistreated slaves, still farming away.

The overseer turned around with disdain in his eyes. “They betrayed the world.”

‘I don’t think attempting a coup qualifies as betraying the world,’ John thought. Observe had already told him enough to know that the way the farmers were criminals of some descriptions. It hadn’t been clear on whether or not their attempt to overthrow the ruler had been justified, however. John had asked because he wanted additional information. With what little he got there, he was unwilling to take any drastic measures at the moment. “Thank you, have a nice day.”

“Walk peacefully, earthbound newcomer,” the overseer said their goodbye and walked back onto the fields.

Velka had long since relaxed and was simply purring now. Once she had registered how calm her owner was about the situation, she must have decided that she was truly safe. John took his hand away and the Magryph protested by trying to grab it and pull it back. “We have things to do,” the Gamer reprimanded laughingly. ‘Stirwin, if you would transform back, please?’

‘Okay,’ the single-worded answer came in the squeaky tone of Stirwin’s hatchling form. The golden egg on the Gamer’s belt transformed into a band of light, which flowed towards the ground and manifested in the shape of a tiny crocodile.

John reached into his inventory and pulled out a flask, filled with a glowing liquid. “Open wide,” he said, after pulling the cork out of the top. He had to keep Velka’s thieving beak away, while he poured the content of the vial into Stirwin’s open mouth.

It was a newly developed alchemical tincture. By boiling the essence of the Light Island and mixing it with several herbs, shaved crystals and shredded wood, it could be concentrated into potion. On normal elementals, it served as a moderate power boost. For elementals above level 100, it provided a negligible power boost. For Stirwin, it allowed him to achieve Stage 2 of his transformation.

Stirwin grew from being less than half as long as Velka to being more than twice her length. More so than the length difference, the height difference changed. Because hatchling Stirwin had the short legs of a regular crocodile, but growing Stirwin got the long limbs of what essentially was a water dragon, he went from being incredibly close to the ground to being the shoulder height of John’s knees.

“Ah, stretching my scales,” Stirwin sighed, while extending his front claws and tail like a dog that had just woken up. “This will make things a lot more enjoyable.”

“Provided I don’t run out,” the Gamer stated. The potion lasted him three hours for Stage 2 and five for Stage 1. Higher stages could not be reached by the potion alone and John couldn’t pump additional mana into him while he was Unleashed. In other words, the potion was pretty useless for any truly important combat situation, but it served him well enough when going on Adventures. “Why don’t we start walking?” he suggested and led the way. The overseers looked his way again, but weren’t interested enough in the suddenly present crocodile to approach a second time.

They saw more and more of the slaves. Some looked better than others, indicating how long they had been assigned to their lot. All had their wings shaved down to branching stumps. John cast Observe on all of them, informing himself of the crimes committed. Theft, murder, treason, conspiracy, they were all guilty of something. Only a few of the crimes were awful enough that John agreed with the way they were treated now, however.

Stirwin kept his distaste inaudible, only speaking to John’s mind, ‘This place reeks of injustice.’

‘Yeah, things definitely aren’t clean,’ the Gamer responded. ‘I’m not sure if it is a malevolent ruler or simply the hostile traditionalism of a medieval culture yet.’ He grinned down at Stirwin. ‘What do you say, first Adventure, we become legendary figures that cause the reform of an entire society in a day?’

Blowing gold-coloured mist out of his nose, the crocodile responded in an amused tone, ‘You could work that miracle. I’ll oversee that you do so properly.’

‘Not going to protest that I embed myself in their history?’

‘If you do it for the right reasons and without misusing your power, I don’t see why I would,’ the shiny lizard let his opinion be known. ‘In any case, we should do our research first. Aside from the question of justice, we also need to be concerned with our safety.’

‘Indeed,’ John answered. If the overseers were the elite of the military, then he was like a demi-god among men and could do whatever he wanted in this environment. If they were the standard strength forces, like they would have been on Earth, then there were more powerful people and perhaps even a Primarch-level individual waiting for him. Only the latter would put him in any true danger. “At least you’re well-behaved.”

Hearing his comment, Velka looked up. The Magryph was trotting along so closely to his leg, her wing periodically brushed against it. Smart as she was, she knew that she should keep her more daring character traits in check in this unknown environment. That was, until she felt safe. Warbling, she rubbed her head against his leg.

“What are you being all adorable for, hm?” the Gamer chuckled. “Buttering me up in case you want something in the future?” Velka gave him the biggest kitten eyes she could muster. “I figured.”

He was trying not to let the environment dampen his mood too much. The slavery, for whatever reason it was being enacted, went against his core values. For now, he kept those emotions under control. When the right time came to let his anger loose, he would. He wanted to bring justice to a world, he wanted to be a hero and he wanted to level. This Adventure had the chance of being an universally pleasing experience.

They finally left behind the fields and entered the outskirts of the city. The architecture was rather interesting. Even the smallest houses had two stories, the ground floor always being several times larger than the second floor. The rooftops were flat and, as evident by several of the crystal winged harpies running around, completely walkable. A couple of the larger buildings had one or two additional floors. Between the roofs, wooden bridges stretched, creating a less populated and sunnier layer of the city.

John was momentarily enticed by the view of the harpies. The male ones were muscular and looked alright, but the female ones were real lookers. Well, actually, they weren’t a lot more attractive than regular human women. John realized after a bit that he simply filtered out the below average ones and was too easily drawn in by the fact that all of their athletic torsos were exposed, including their chests.

Many of the Kyr, their species’ name, were looking down back at him. Suits, with or without jackets, weren’t seen around here. Instead, the people on the ground level of the city were wearing robes with long sleeves, bound around the wrists and necks so no excess skin of their upper bodies showed. Hair was generally worn long, with the women letting theirs fall freely and the men having bound theirs up into a bob. Even if John had followed the local fashion, he was pretty certain he would have stood out, courtesy of the two animals at his side.

The kinds of people were quite interesting. There was a hodgepodge of different races. Dog girls, cat girls, goblins, gnomes, humans and lizardfolk, most commonly kobolds, all walked through the streets. The further in John went, the more teeming it got. At all times, he noticed the glances of the Kyr from the rooftops. Their silhouettes and their bridges cast shadows on the common masses.

‘Some kind of caste system, it seems,’ the Gamer thought, moving effortlessly through the crowd. Everyone avoided getting in his way, for Charisma and simple appearance related reasons. ‘The Kyr are warriors and rulers and everyone else seems to be common folk. I need to investigate this further. Do I use the Mandala Sphere?’ Currently, his Extension was sitting in his inventory. Taking it out on the street seemed like a bad move. His earlier theory about enchantments being uncommon seemed pretty accurate as he didn’t see a single convenience solved through item-affiliated magic. He saw someone draw water from a well through gestures and someone else waved his hand to spread the scent of the spices he sold over the street. Mages were definitely around. Enchanters just weren’t common.

Taking the Mandala Sphere out in bridge-covered daylight wouldn’t have been a smart idea under these circumstances. He couldn’t lay low, but he didn’t need to expose himself any more than he already had.