Wen charged at Theo and the paper he held in his hands. Theo stood no chance against the freakishly strong woman and had to release the deed from his hand in favour of keeping the limb intact. The hostess opened the paper wide and stared blankly at it.

  “You jokin’?” she asked.

  Theo could see she was probably holding it the wrong way as a few glowing symbols, not quite like the sigils he used, but also not like the glyphs of Chaste’s spellcasting could be seen on the back of the paper. Wen flipped it around, revealing more symbols on the other side, yet still she seemed to find nothing of note on it.

  “I don’t see nothin’.”

  “Oh! I can see through the veil,” Theo admitted, remembering that was a thing he was able to do. It hadn’t come up in the past while, so he’d forgotten about it.

  “The frick’s the veil?”

  “Don’t know. But it allows me to see sigils, some form of magical glyphs that aren’t glyphs,” Theo tried explaining. He was met with blank stares all around. “It’s a thing, I promise! It’s a trait, I guess?”

  “Did a priest tell you that? A cleric maybe? A noble?” Willam asked in a more down-to-earth manner.

  “N-no? Why would they?”

  “They’re the only ones with any Inspection magic. How else would you know your traits?”

  “Oh!” Theo oh’d loudly, the pieces slowly falling into place. This was it. He had to tell them the truth now. It had been weighing him down, so he was mostly glad, but more than anything else, he knew he could trust these two. They had been nothing but good friends and good teachers.

  “What?” Wen asked. Her arms were crossed as she stood kicking the dirt with the paper billowing in the slight wind.

  “So, let me tell you a little about myself… Hello. My name is Theo, and I’m from another world. It all started when I died and suddenly found myself in Arcana’s… lair?”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Willam said, waving his arms for Theo to stop. “You’ve been isekai’d?”

  “Is that a thing I should know what is?” asked the world-hopper.

  “It’s a legendary tale told as many times as can be counted! The stories are mostly exactly the same in their entirety with exceptionally little deviance and imagination put into them, with the exception of what kind of god you meet and how the isekai’d person originally died. Usually it’s a carriage with a heavy load that people refer to as Wagon-kun that kills the character.” Willam explained.

  “Interesting concept,” Theo mused. It sounded a bit boring though. Then again, it also sounded exactly like Theo’s life, and that wasn’t too boring, was it? Actually, it was just getting good. “It sounds very much like that, I guess. No wagon, though. Just a deadly, non-infectious disease.”

  “Oh. That’s an option, I guess,” Willam sighed.

  “Get on with it!” Wen ordered.

  “Right! So, Arcana was bored and thought this place had grown a bit dull, so she sent me here. Whether by her setting things in motion or by complete accident I got a boon from a decrepit temple that has accidentally and indirectly given me the trait I mentioned. Oh, and she gave me a system that allows me to quantify stuff like what skills and stats I have.”

  “I feel like you're skipping a lot of stuff,” Wen complained.

  “Well, we don’t have much time to reach all those villagers to get them to return, do we?” he asked while raising his right eyebrow skillfully.

  Both of his friends turned towards the crowd in the distance. They then faced each other and exchanged a look that was difficult for Theo to comprehend.

  “No,” Willam said as he turned back to face Theo. “The people are tired. They should settle down in an already established town, get a job that pays so they can be free again. Two years in this slowly dying hole would break the best of people, and it already has. We have to let them go.”

  Wen nodded. “But we’re better,” she argued, paradoxically claiming to be better than the best somehow. “The three of us can found a new town! With this!” she said, shoving the paper back into Theo’s face. He took it from her and eyed the glow emanating from it as she continued: “If what you’re saying is true, then you’re blessed by Arcana herself, Theo! That’s a sign!”

  “I didn’t expect you to be the religious kind,” Theo commented. “Also, is this just fine with you? You don’t want any proof or ask any questions?”

  “Nah, I’m good,” Wen said.

  “It’s fine,” Willam agreed, helpfully adding: “Magic can do a bunch of stuff us commoners likely will never understand.”

  Theo whistled. “It must be nice to come from a place with magic. Something like this would’ve probably never been believed where I’m from.”

  “Wait. You don’t have magic?” Willam then asked disbelievingly.

  Surprisingly, this was what started a line of questions for Theo to answer. It was nearly impossible for Willam and Wen to believe there was a place with absolutely no magic at all. While magic itself wasn’t too noticeable in their everyday lives as they toiled away with manual labour, the fact that magic existed and was pretty common in the more settled towns and cities of the world was, well, a fact. The stories they heard from they were small children and even the news that managed to spread all the way out here in no man’s land was sprawled with magical trickery or inventions. It was impossible to completely escape from mentions of magic. It was as basic to this world as wheels were where Theo came from.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “So that’s why your plants grew so well despite this… plague or something?” Willam asked when Theo had managed to get the conversation back from his world and to his arrival and rather unique abilities in this one.

  “I didn’t use the dirt from the ground, I created new dirt,” Theo beamed.

  “Now I want to see this magic of yours,” Wen interjected.

  “All in due time, I swear,” Theo agreed. “For now, if you guys are really serious about founding a town together, we need a good place to do it.

  “What about here? Brook Town was placed here, after all,” Willam offered.

  “That never did make sense to me,” Wen commented, likely seeing what Theo was saying.

  “Exactly. There’s no forest here for lumber, no real water except that small brook that can barely be counted as such, and it’s all dirty. There’s no stone or iron here. Did you have to import all of that?” Theo asked

  “The ground seemed fertile, at least…” Willam defended with a small, indoor voice. He then kicked the ground. “Fine, I get it. This place sucks!”

  “There’s a forest down south-”

  “No!” Theo shouted, stopping Willam and what he was about to say from being said. “Not there.”

  “What’s wrong with-”

  “Not. There.” Theo said angrily, though the emotion wasn’t directed at any of his friends. Death awaited there.

  “O-kay… There’s another forest a bit further north, I guess. Oh, and there’s a lake not too far from there, I think! My father went there sometimes,” Willam offered as an alternative.

  “What’s the catch?” asked Theo with anticipation. There was always a catch.

  “No stone or iron that I know of,” he shrugged. “This part of the continent is pretty flat, so most of the stone around here come from quarries in the ground rather than mines inside of mountains.”

  “Is it far? There’s stone right here if we can use this place as a quarry down the line,” Theo offered in kind.

  “I’ve been there once. With a light load and quick feet, half an hour, tops,” Wen added.

  “So let’s go see it!” Theo exclaimed. “Though, what do we do about more people?”

  “I don’t know how I didn’t notice you being an out-of-worlder before!” added Wen without much context. Then, to add context to Theo after seeing his confused expression, she added: “You still have no idea how things work and you had literally no skills before! Don’t worry about villagers for now, let’s get our town, nay, city founded!”

  The walk to the forest was pretty short, though Theo did notice that he wasn’t just walking faster than he had when he first stumbled upon Brook Town, but his legs ached less after the repetitive walking and he wasn’t growing as tired despite the higher velocity. Stats were helpful!

  Rather than entering the forest, the group of three walked around it, soon stumbling upon a lake not too far off. Three minutes later, they were by the lake’s edge, touching the nice, clear water. A fish burst out of the water and arched back down into it, causing the only two sets of ripples for quite a while before they eventually died down. Soon after another fish did the same, then another.

  “How about it?” Willam asked. “I’m thinking a farm could go over there on the eastern side of the lake where it's almost entirely flat. It’s got great options for expanding as well.”

  “Aye, looks good. Better make sure the soil ‘ere is good, though. How about a tavern right there, actin’ as the very centre of the town, a bit like a hub of sorts for traders, villagers and travellers alike!” She pointed towards the middle plot between the lake and the nearby forest.

  “Getting a bit ahead of ourselves, are we?” Theo teased. Wen delivered a friendly, playful punch to his upper arm with a grin and a tut of her tongue.

  “How about you?” she asked. “What do you envision?”

  Theo considered this. He wasn’t too sure. He didn’t think he’d like tending his plants as much as he did, but it was certainly not something that would be as much a time sink as a tavern or a farm. He had enjoyed helping out in the Barge, all things considered, but didn’t think it was a life he wanted. He had been excited about getting more work done under Willam’s tutelage as well to gain some more skills.

  What if what he wanted was a little bit of everything? He would surely try some more planting, if nothing else than to just have something to care for. But what if what he wanted to do was to help everyone else? He had his sigil-weaving, right? He could probably help in plenty of ways. Was that it? Just ‘associate’? He found it lacking, as if there was a key piece missing, but he couldn’t think of what that was. For now, it was enough.

  “I think I want to help you guys. Help everyone make our town the best town it can be. I’ve got magic the countryside is missing. I don’t quite know the difference between my sigils and ordinary magic glyphs, but it’s still fine, right?”

  “Works fine by me! Though this water seems much cleaner than the brook of Brook Town, so I don’t know how much of your magic water I’ll need!”

  “If the land is as fertile, it may even compare to the soil you make,” Willam agreed.

  “Okay, you guys aren’t helping! I was hoping I had kind of a thing going, you know?”

  “Sure, sure,” Wen accepted with a grin. “So, are we doin’ it?”

  “Anyone know how?” asked Theo, eyeing the deed. His two friends fell silent, their expressions thoughtful and distant.

  Item: Town Deed (Arcana’s signature).

  Do you want to use this item?

  Note: This will found a Town. The Town limits will be a circular shape around the position this Deed was used with a radius of 1km. Town limits can be expanded later. The Town’s influence and buffs on its buildings and work sites are limited by this border, though buildings can still be built outside of it. These buildings will not be affected by Town influence and buffs.

  “Let’s use this over there where you wanted that hub of yours,” Theo said after reading through the message his system helpfully provided. Using the deed so close to the lake’s edge would severely reduce the real estate with solid ground within their town borders, and without knowing how the Town’s supposed influence could impact the water in any way, it was safer to have most of the Town’s borders on land.

  There wasn’t two kilometres between the forest and the lake, however, so from the middle distance, both would have parts of them within the Town’s circumference. The flatland Willam had eyed for himself would barely be within the borders, though he could start within it and they could slowly expand in that direction if they managed to grow enough to do so. All-in-all, a great location considering they had no idea what managing a town actually did.

  Item: Town Deed (Arcana’s signature).

  Do you want to use this item?

  ‘Yes.’