Future

As I exited the room, I found myself at the end of a hallway that led in a single direction towards a set of stairs that went downwards. Being down the only possible direction, I made my way downstairs and arrived at the second story of the building. It was a beautiful interior covered in many decorations and photos. It really surprised me that things like photos were a thing in this world, but knowing that the existence of gods was very real, my mind seemed to accept the fact quite fast.

I noticed what would ressemble a kitchen in one of the corners of the room. It was partially hidden behind bookshelves upon bookshelves of all kinds of books. From history, to language, to mathematics....There were even a few about magic and magical artifacts, I could also notice a few ones that unconsciously attracted my attention, "Tactics and Logic" huh? I smiled a little before finally reaching the kitchen.

It was a weird contraption. It was almost an all-in-one structure, with shelves of fairly simple spices and ingredients like salt and some powders that smelled quite strongly, and there were a few that had much weaker and sweet touches. On the side there was located a bigger and singular shelf that actually had some sort of...Cold feeling to it.

I oppened it and found out that it very much worked exactly like a fridge would, which was incredibly functional and very interesting since there was no electricity in here whatsoever as far as I could see. Putting that concern aside for a moment, I identified some raw meat, a very little amount of vegetables and an incredible amount of berries.

I took out some meat and a good amount of berries since I was thinking of making a sweet sauce to go along with the meat. The cut itself was a fairly soft and fatty one, and I felt that it would go well with a much sweeter flavour rather than salty. I obviously tried one of the berries and it tasted as good as it looked, which was pretty nice since the last time I had the luxury to eat one of these was so long ago I must've forgotten already.

For now, I looked at the contraption again. Luckily, it seemed to work on regular fire to cook without any kind of magic, so it relieved me quite a bit knowing I would be able to cook without Anna's help. I grabbed a few utensils from the shelves near the contraption and started the fire.

What proceeded was the preparation of a thick sauce using mashed berries, mushrooms and what I could confirm, by taste, probably was sugar. While it started to heat up and mix on itself, I proceeded to make a few cuts into the meat before putting it on a pan along some of the liquid that was slowly becoming sauce since I had no idea wether there was any kind of oil here.

The cooking was quite calming for me since it was one of the few hobbies I was allowed to keep in the past. When it was ready, I took the sauce and the meat off the heat and served it into two plates. The dish looked very simple and plain, but the blue color on top of the brown made for a very tasty sight.

Anna came around short after it was ready, apparently the smell had gotten to her, and she was a little surprised to see me in the kitchen already.

"Well, some things don't change do they?"

"Hum? Do I used to cook too?"

"Yup. You were quite good at it if I say so myself."

"That's nice to know."

We sat down in the middle of the room, where two chairs were placed on opposite sides of a square table. Surrounded by bookshelves in a room nicely lit by sunlight while eating a nice and sweet cut of meat really gave calm to my mind, and I used it to start thinking on what should I do about the decision I needed to make.

"Anna, what kind of things was I interested before I forgot everything?"

"Well, it's kind of complicated to explain really....You were aiming to join the Militia Corps here at Aard, but there was also the opportunity to become an Adventurer."

"Hummm....I see. If I had to guess, the Militia don't really go around right? If so, I would preffer being an Adventurer....What about you, Anna?"

"Well, I was aiming for the Arcane Academy on the neighboring town at the edge of the forest. The town is called Breitenfield and it also has an Adventurer's Guild so you could go there with me if you want to. I could be there to help you if you need information on anything and you could learn quite a lot there."

"Sounds like a plan. By the way, thanks for the picture books. I think I will check out the real ones later though."

"Ehe~"

I rolled my eyes and chuckled a little. The rest of the day went by just as calmly. I finished my meal, cleaned around for a bit and finally sat down to read the few books that I got interested in before. "Tactics and Logic", "The Adventurer's Guide" and "Novice Swordsmanship".

The first one was more or less a conpendium about logical thinking during combat and general knowledge of basic battle formations. The second one simply gave as much information as a magazine about celebrities, none that is. It basically went over how one could become an adventurer and what simple rules to follow, but it had as many contradictions as you would expect. The final one went over basic theories and training about swordsmanship, general knowledge of different techniques and so on.

I kept "Tactics and Logic" along with "Novice Swordsmanship" with me as I went back to my room, leaving them on my desk. I took a good moment to sit down on my bed and think about my current situation...Certainly this gave me a sense of security so far, but I was still a little uncomfortable on how good this all seemed to be.

I closed my eyes and gave a long and silent thanks to Siegfried once more. He really had given me what I wanted so far, and I had to thank him for saving me from that void I was in before. After that, I proceeded to move onwards to my desk and sat down once more to continue reading and going over the content of the two books I had picked up before.

[ 2 New skills have been learned. ]

[Swordsmanship Lvl 1]

[Tactics Lvl 1]

The notification window surprised me a little when it appeared out of nowhere, but I very much liked the fact that I was able to learn skills through this kind of activity since I really liked to read. Once I had finished the books and closed the notification window, I decided to put it aside for now and go to sleep before dawn came. I had a birthday the next day after all.

I was really looking forward to it.