Arthur stared for a long time at the snake woman, not understanding what she meant by 'Seika la Vega.' He knew it meant Those Loved by Stars through the intent she shared with him.
'She wants my blood?' Arthur was weirded out. 'And does that mean there are others with the powers of creation in this world?'
"I bought you because of this, a trait that others will fail to see unless proven. You have seen how the world treats humans. You will be the same unless you prove your worth to me."
Arthur was silent for a long time before he nodded. Pleased, the woman took his forearm and bit on his veins. Her eyes flashed in delight as she drank Arthur's blood.
As she promised, she didn't overdo it. She pulled out her fangs from Arthur's wrist and used a napkin to clean her mouth. As if she just had a delicious meal, the snake woman smiled in content.
"My name is Lerza." Her name came out as a hiss. "I am the master of this house, a marchioness of the Alva kingdom." She stood up from her crouching position. "If you want to avoid being a Verniz, there are a lot of things you need to learn." She looked down on Arthur with a smile.
Arthur could do nothing but nod. At that moment, his stomach growled. Lerza smiled and took him toward the kitchen. It had a side room where the servants ate their meals.
A fox-man gave him a bowl of soup and a fresh loaf of bread. Arthur didn't miss the contempt and reluctance he showed while giving him the food. He wanted to use his meals, but those were the final savings he had from Earth.
"You've chosen well," Lerza said with a pat on his back before she left him in the kitchen.
'As if I could've chosen anything else. A single slap from you would have sent me to oblivion.' Arthur munched on his bread. 'But I'm lucky that I ended up here rather than a place that would treat humans badly.'
It would take a while for him to get used to this world. He needed to gather every piece of information he had about it. Whatever he knew from the media wasn't correct, or at least wasn't the full truth.
There might be dangers in this world, but there were also civilizations. For Arthur to survive and find a way back home, he would need to learn about this world.
***
[Recovery percentage: 15%.]
As soon as he woke up in the cottage, Arthur checked his recovery. It was going too slow and that meant a lot of time without his runes.
His body's functions were getting better. He no longer needed to pause while walking, but he was still finding it difficult to move.
His stamina should have healed his body by now, but that wasn't the case. It seems that even if his body was in a top-notch condition, he would still find it hard to move since the damage was within his soul.
It has been a week since he arrived at the mansion. He was given a rest for the first night by the butler, which he used to try to rest as much as possible. As for the rest of the week, he tended to the garden, helped in the chores, and then went toward Lerza's study at night.
"Heran," She said with a smile the first time that he went there.
Arthur learned that this word meant 'welcome,' so he was beginning to pick up some things. Lerza's butler, called Bao, helped him learn a few things that would help him around the house.
"Is this better?" She asked as her finger touched Arthur's head, the spell working its charm. Arthur nodded and Lerza continued. "Let's begin learning then."
From there, she began teaching him words and their meaning. Simply hearing them was enough for Arthur to pick up their meaning, since the intent was directly transmitted, but Lerza made sure to teach him how it's written too.
That was all yesterday. Today, he was supposed to help clean the barracks as instructed by Bao. He went toward the kitchen and had his breakfast under the hostile eyes of the demi-humans.
It wasn't this hostile before he went to Lerza's study. He didn't know if it was loyalty, doubt, or jealousy that made them hate him. Maybe it was because he was human, that's all.
After he finished his breakfast, Arthur was back to the cottage where he took out his watering can and started tending to the plants. He knew that different plants required different amounts of water, but he was clueless as to how to figure that out.
The garden itself was big, but he realized there weren't a lot of unique plants. Most of them were commonly found. The interesting thing was that some of these plants were ones he saw on Earth with slight variations.
He experimented with what Lerza had shown him the other day. This hasn't happened before on Earth. As soon as he touched a plant, it seems as if it used his creation powers.
This was either because he was in Alka instead of Earth and there was a difference in his powers or it was because his power was leaking because of his damaged soul.
Either way, Arthur didn't like this. He didn't want to attract trouble by being a Seika la Vega or whatever. Larza might see him as an infinite source of 'power' but what was it infinite for him? Did this conflict with his recovery and caused its delay?
'I need an escape plan if that was true.' Arthur glanced at his forearm with the gem embedded in it while he walked toward the barracks. He knew that it wouldn't be easy to take it out and be done with it.
He found the barracks to be empty. He went inside with his mop and started to clean it off the dirt while planning. As he was working, he heard a groan leak from one of the rooms.
He peeked inside and found a figure sitting on the bed. Rather easily, Arthur could see that he wasn't a demi-human. It was the man he came here with, riddled with injuries.
'What happened to this guy?' Arthur wondered to himself, but he felt stupid a moment after. He had seen how humans were treated in this world and this guy ended in the barracks.
He must have been used as a practice dummy or for dangerous tasks. The man looked like he had come out of a fight against a bear. Arthur couldn't see a place in his body that didn't have some sort of wound.
"Ver... niz..." The man saw him standing by the door and called out.
"Ne Verniz isva," Arthur said as he walked over toward the man. He told him that he wasn't that lost anymore and the man smiled thinly.
"I will die tonight." The man said in Alvan Language and Arthur understood it. His high perception made his mind memorize things easily and he could now understand a lot of things after Larza's lessons.
"What happened?" Arthur asked. The man mumbled something but all Arthur could pick up was the words 'cursed fate.' He inched closer and asked. "What do you mean by that?"
"If I had been blessed by a bloodline or evolved, I wouldn't have remained a human and lived this way." The man said slowly, resentment leaking from his voice. Arthur remembered the day his contract was terminated.
He didn't resent the Lime Time Agency at that time; he resented the world for being as difficult as it was. This man in front of him was hateful toward the world for making him a human.
"What's your name?" Arthur asked as he sat next to him. The wounds were infected. He would go into a sepsis shock and die at any moment.
"I'm the Knight of Loyalty, a vessel for his Majesty." The man said and Arthur racked his brain until he figured out what it meant. "Even in the afterlife, I shall serve his Majesty," The words that came out after that were a whisper. "King... Solomon..."
As the familiar name fell on Arthur's ears, his mind went into turmoil. He hadn't thought about it since he arrived in this world but the question was never where was he, but when.
The knight died without Arthur being able to do anything. As he was about to stand up, a medal left the knight's body. It held an emblem and the word Loyalty that Larza taught him.
Arthur stashed the medal in his subspace, fearing other's arrival, before going to Bao and telling him about the knight. He got to witness Bao's indifference as he nodded without even looking at Arthur upon hearing the news.
Arthur returned to his cottage for one last time before he met Larza for the knight. The medal appeared in his hand as he tried to understand what was going on.
Was Solomon in this world? Is he the same person that Arthur met in the first trial of the Holy Crown? If both cases were true, then Arthur's purpose in this world would be more than leaving it.