Okay…where in the actual hell

In their place was a vast earth that stretched as far as the eye could see with not a single living creature in sight. From what Rumius had imagined, Limia was not as he expected, should this even be it. 

" Master, have we arrived?" He asked. Then he remembered what she had said the night before. That their teleportation magic didn't have enough range to make the jump. If that was the case then….where were they?

Master Isadora stepped outside alongside him and looked around. 

" Looks like we're spot on." She muttered before turning back around and entering the hut. Rumius, left confused and with his question unanswered, reluctantly followed suit. The clatter of objects could be heard inside. 

Master was in the middle of collecting a number of gadgets and stuffing them into a hand carried case that didn't look like it could fit. His master shot him an annoyed look.

" You're just going to stand there?"

" Um...."

" Help me!"

" Y-yes!"

Rumius hurried over and crouched down next to his master. He took a look at the assembled items and his mind returned a blank.

He thought in despair. ' This isn't ending well…'

Rumius reached out and uncertainly brought out a circular charm that was attached to a chain. Master Isadora screeched in his ear.

" What do you think you're doing? That is an artifact with a scalar mana flow!! SCALAR!! What are you doing putting that in a case of vector flow artifacts?"

Rumisu put the pendant down like he was burned. His hand reached out to touch another magical artifact and was attacked by another screech and a swat. Rumius recoiled, clutching his hand.

" NO! What are you doing? What makes you think I would want to bring that along? You need to understand there's a hierarchy to this! This case has a limited space!"

Before long, Rumius was sent away.

" Don't touch ANYTHING! Good primachs, why are you so inept? Get lost! Begone! Go and wait for me over there!" 

Rumius left the hut after that and decided to have a look around to get his bearings about this new area. He kicked pebbles as he strolled, taking his anger out on them. ' Freaking Master. Oh, I'm the master so you must read my mind to make me happy boo hoo~. Tch, damn her." He kicked another pebble on the ground and it rolled off onto the side, off the little dirt road. 

 Rumius had realised as he walked that the area wasn't as absolutely barren as he had initially thought. From the position they had teleported into, their windows had inadvertently faced off into the direction of a vast desert. Their hut was sitting on a sharp hill that overlooked the barren wasteland. Far into the distance, the ground steadily grew more and more stripped of its fauna. There wasn't anything left past the first 5 dozen metres, only an endless yellowish surface that faced the white dotted blue sky. 

Behind them however, was a whole different landscape. There were trees, not nearly enough to be called a forest but enough to create ample shade from the sun. Rumius found a clear dirt road running through the fauna and leading down the hill, likely into the desert. It also led up the hill and into the distance but Rumius didn't make the trip to see where it led. He had wandered onto this dirt path by chance and wanted to keep the general direction to the hut fresh in his mind. Getting lost here would be a terrible idea. 

Grass brushed at his ankles as he walked off the dirt path and decided to go back to the hut after wandering for half an hour and finding nothing particularly of note. The fauna had been beautiful but there were little signs of animals or living creatures for that matter. But even then, there was no knowing what, or who he could encounter on these roads so Rumius had been conservative in his actions. And he didn't want to know what would happen if he ended up keeping Master waiting on him. The thought sent a chill up his spine as Rumius turned and began walking back. As he emerged from the trees, the familiar shack came into sight along with something far off in the distance in the desert. Rumius froze.

" ….What the hell is that?" He laughed disbelievingly as his eyes showed him, the silhouette of a lumbering giant, with four legs as large and wide as entire castles and a head that was as high up as a skyscraper. And behind it was a herd of more than five other giants, walking slowly. Rumius could almost feel the overwhelming force of their presence. He unconsciously laughed again in disbelief.

Luckily, it was indeed so far away that Rumius could only see its silhouette. He did not want to get within a hundred metres one of those things.

Turns out, there was still much about the world that he didn't know about after-all. 

Rumius returned just as his Master finished packing up. It looked like a small tornado had gone through their shack while he was away. Most importantly however, was that Master Isadora was finished with whatever she wanted to bring. For all the talk, she seemed determined to bring only a single briefcase. 

" Are you sure that that is all we'll need? Shouldn't I bring something along as well?" He asked.

Master shook her head. " No need." She said." We have our spells for that reason." 

Stepping past him, Master poked her head out the door and seemed to analyse the late morning sky. She growled in dissatisfaction.

" Let's hurry and go, we've wasted too much daylight already. "Rumius was tempted to say that she in fact was the reason why they had wasted so much sunlight in the first place. But wisely, he kept his mouth shut. It didn't matter too much that he had barely returned. In fact, he was raring to go.

Master Isadora stepped out of the hut and made a beeline for the dirt road, road, the same one which he had found, puzzling Rumius. They were heading uphill. He had basically asssumed that they were going to head for the deserts. Were they not?

" Master, where are we go-?" He paused, reconsidering his choice of question. If he knew her right, he would get only answers to the first three. And that was on a good day. 

" Where are we right now?" He inquired as they scaled hill. It was a surprisingly steep climb that made Rumius wonder why a road wasn't paved to go around it. 

" The far side of demon territory, Agravoss. We're not in Limia yet if that was what you were thinking." Master replied without turning around. " It's the closest city to Limia." 

The name didn't mean much to Rumius, but hearing that they were on demon territory invoked a sense of fear in him. They were far, far, far away from home. And one didn't have to be a genius to know of the thousand year conflict between their races. He had read how for centuries, daily skirmishes which occurring on the Bloody front claimed hundreds of lives from both sides. 

One wrong move, one wrong word and they could be skewered and hunted. Was what Rumius thought.

" T-then, where is Limia?" 

Again without stopping, Master Isadora pointed a single finger towards the desert. " Right over there." 

Rumius's heart plummeted to his stomach in terror as he remembered the giants which he'd saw. Not to mention the inescapable heat and rough sand and god knows what else could be lurking out there.

" T-then, why are we going inland? " 

This time, Master didn't respond but simply continued walking. They were crossing over the hill by this point and slowly, the gradient of the slope became more and more gentle. 

Rumius got his answer the moment they rounded the bend in the road that curved around the hill's summit. His eyes drank in the sight of a bustling city below, fenced in my formidable grey walls and intimidating garrisons. The city itself sprawled at least as large as his home domain in south of the empire, wherever that was now. A line had formed in front of the gates and people tricked through the portcullis one by one to disappear into the crowds. The sounds of bustle, music and market chatter rode the winds and reached his ears. 

" Oh." Rumius realised.