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Chapter 302: Gunpowder Barrel - Markets and Multiverses
🕑 Added 2024-10-03 23:48:52 +0000 UTC“So the Zelyrian continent faces near total extinction,” said Felix. As he scanned the morning newspaper, he looked contemplative. “I suppose it didn’t completely fall, but enough people died that it's a near thing. Ennalia is the only country from the continent that is still functioning. With these kinds of losses, the colonial era is over.” He shook his head, and then sighed. “Well done for getting us out of there so fast, Mir. If we were still there I suspect we would have joined Sallia during the chaos.”
Anise shuddered. “I’m glad we got out in time. But I feel bad for the people who were still on the continent. It’s a shame that the Zelyrian continent is so disconnected from the rest of the world. Every direction is an ocean, and the distance to even the nearest colony is quite long. A lot people might have lived if boat space wasn’t so limited.” Then, she moved closer to me, and gave me a hug. “At least we got everyone we care about out of there. We even managed to rescue a lot of other people. It might not have been perfect, but we did everything we could have done.”
I also sighed. “It is what it is. I wish we could have done more, but… we’re too weak right now.”
It felt strange for me to say that we were weak. At least by this world’s standards, we were strong. If the three of us worked together, we could fight a few dozen soldiers on our own without threat to our lives. My healing abilities were even more abnormal, allowing me to cure most ‘normal’ injuries with minimal difficulty. I could heal dozens of life-threatening injuries per day and still have my absorption essence left over. In every sense, we ignored this world’s upper limit on how strong people ‘should’ be.
And yet, in the face of natural disasters, history, and armies, we were still tiny and insignificant. We could keep ourselves safe, but we couldn’t do a thing to change the outcome of big events. I could heal several dozen people a day, but I couldn’t influence the front lines of the war. I saved the people I cared about, but couldn't stop the catastrophe from destroying the continent. I could do so much more than a normal person, but felt powerless in the face of large events.
It was a sobering realization. For all that we had accomplished so far, we had so much further to go.
I remembered that earlier in this life, we had come across that old soul fragment from the Market. It had talked about how some transmigrators from the Market destroyed weaker worlds they encountered. Their actions disgusted me... but their level of power spoke for itself.
The four of us had come a long way from who we had been in our first lives. In a tier 2 world like this, we could stand out and do remarkable things. We utilized external magic systems, and that gave us massive advantages over the locals. But we were a very long way away from being able to destroy or save a world by ourselves.
Was that the level of an ‘average’ wanderer in the multiverse? And how much longer would it be before the four of us reached that level? One where we could make a difference when things like this happened? The level we needed to reach felt far away when I looked at the newspaper.
Finally, I shook my head.
“Someday, we’ll be strong enough to prevent tragedies like this,” I said. "It'll be a long time before we reach that point... but I want to reach it someday. So that tragedies like this don't have to happen."
Anise smiled at me and gave me a comforting hug.
"Don't worry. We'll keep working towards it. It'll take a lot of worlds... but I also want to be able to solve catastrophes like this. Being able to save continents with a single spell is the essence of a super witch!"
I laughed, and felt some of the tension in my mind fade away. "You're right," I said. "That does sound like a pretty super version of a witch."
Felix rolled his eyes, but I saw the corners of his lips curl up. The tension in the room was gone.
“Did you notice anything different this morning in town?” I asked Felix, once my thoughts settled. While not all of the townsfolk read the morning paper, there should still be enough for word to spread. Within the next few days, we would have a clear idea of how the townsfolk would treat us after this news spread.
Felix shook his head. “I saw a couple of townsfolk giving me odd looks, but I don’t think they were hostile. It seemed more like they were… pitying.”
"It’s better than hostility, at least. I’m glad that, at least so far, the villagers still seem to accept us,” I said. “We’ll have to keep an eye on things. But for now, things are stable. If things go well, we can avoid the aftermath of this catastrophe.”
After breakfast, I went to Trish's new clinic, as usual. Before we opened, I pulled Trish aside to talk about what I had seen in the newspaper.
“Has so much of the Zelyrian continent fallen?” asked Trish, shuddering. “I didn’t realize it would be this bad. I was expecting that several cities might get swallowed up, at most.” She sighed. “I guess I'll have to start reading the morning paper again. I've been trying to pick up Zannan, but the language is too different." She gave me a curious look. "I'm surprised you kids can read it so fast."
I blushed. I had a very unfair advantage, with my Grade 8 [Intelligence] stat. Even so, I definitely hadn't mastered reading in Zannan yet.
"Umm... there are two versions of the newspaper. You can order it in either language," I said.
Trish paused.
"Oh. Could you, umm... could you help me set that up later?"
"No problem."
Trish cleared her throat, and looked distinctly embarrassed. "Was there a reason you were bringing the topic up?"
“I wanted you to keep an eye out,” I said. “If the townsfolk start to give you nasty looks, tell me. I want to make sure we keep an eye on the danger level in town. If things get scary, we should leave before they get violent."
“I’ll keep an eye out. But I don’t think it’ll come to that. The people in this town are a lot wealthier than the average town in Zanna,” said Trish. “Since their lives are better, they’ll be less resentful of Damilius. I didn't realize it at first, but this town has a rather good climate for some specific herbs and crops.”
"Is that so?" I hadn't found that information in the travelogue either, but it would explain the elder's son knowing Damilian. Come to think of it, the houses and people here did seem better off than those in the city we had landed in. "Well, keep an eye on things anyway. Just in case."
“Will do,” she said. With that, we opened the clinic for business.
At least on the surface, nothing changed for the next few days. Nothing exciting happened in town.
Of course, that was only in our town.
In the daily newspaper, as well as by word of mouth, the three of us started to hear of various incidents that would have been improbable before. Refugees from the Zelyrian continent started to arrive at various colonies. I assumed that most of the refugees still made their way to Ennalia, because that was the easiest to reach. However, a surprising number of people arrived in Zanna's ports as well.
The natives did not respond well to the influx of refugees. For decades, they had been held in check by the guns of Damilius, but Damilius hadn’t fostered any sense of goodwill with the natives. People here were resentful of their unfair laws, discrimination, and bad management from Damilius. Now, most of Damilius was gone.
So the natives started to push back.
At first, it was minor. A few Zelyrian people were robbed and beaten in back alleys after arriving on the archipelago. They cried out for justice… but the way they did it was rather high handed. A story that the papers focused on claimed that all Zannans were thieves. The interviewee said that the natives were nothing like the ‘noble and kind Zelyrians.’ Then they went into a long rant about the superiority of the people of Damilius.
Of course, the newspaper focusing on this specific incident was… interesting.
The intervieweee's words were stupid, but I doubted that they were representative of the average refugee from Damilius. Furthermore, the way the story was framed made the entire story inflammatory. I wasn’t sure if that was to sell more copies of the paper, or because it the newspaper had some sort of anti-Damilius bias. Probably the former, but in any case, it was problematic.
Over the next month, things started to heat up. We heard of more and more ‘street justice' happening, as Zannans started to transition towards open rebellion. The local government had been backed by Damilius, but it was very unpopular with the people. Meanwhile, some Zannans started calling for people to replace the corrupt government. At first, these voices weren’t very loud. As the weeks passed by, they became louder and louder. People started to realize that replacing the govnerment wouldn't be impossible. The current government had survived because it was backed by Damilius - but Damilius didn't exist anymore.
After a few more months, our group was still settling into the town well, but outside of the town, I could feel tension building up. It was like a gunpowder barrel, set to erupt with a single spark.
But fortunately, Trish and I felt none of that in the town of Daldyr. While a few people started giving us nasty looks, most people still gave us polite nods and warm smiles on the streets. Markus didn’t face any overt discrimination at his job with the lumberjacks, and Felix, Iselde, and Vance’s alchemy shop still had regular traffic. They received fewer customers than before… but we didn’t face any real violence or overt backlash. I got the sense that our town was still pretty calm, rather than being a gunpowder barrel on the verge of exploding.
Finally, after about six months, the situation in Zanna erupted. Many Zannans revolted against the government, while people from Damilius and the government tried to resist. I didn't think the situation was optimistic for the current government, but I had no way of knowing who would win yet.
It didn't matter to us, though. While chaos erupted elsewhere, in town, nobody did anything to us. A few of the townsfolk left town, to go join the rebellion, but none of them tried to hurt our group. They just disappeared one day. People kept visiting Trish’s clinic and Felix’s alchemy shop. The elder whose daughter I regularly healed praised my medical expertise to her friends. Our patients had nothing but praise for Trish and I. Most of the town still treated our group with respect and dignity. Everyone seemed content to stay out of current events. That was perfect for me.
After a few more months of observation, I smiled. Right now, I wanted to stay tucked away in my little corner of the world, with the people I cared about. Luckily, the rest of town seemed to feel the same way. Our town was well away from any strategic points or areas of importance, so the Zannan rebellion and the government ignored us. They had better places to send their troops. Because of how hard it was to get to our town, and the low population, they didn't even come to raise taxes or conscript people. They had bigger fish to fry. We had avoided the whole mess.
Author’s Note:
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Comments
Rosy Bramble
I'm wondering if Miria will head to the death zone at the end of her life to study the spacial effects and try to learn something before returning to the Market.
bcdp
Honestly, I think Miria is undererstimating the impact she can have. Yes, she can't heal everyone on the front. But she can heal the multipliers. Imagine how much more productive Steven Hawkings being healed by magic could have been. Or heal any (old) medic to top condition so they can help the war effort for a year or a month (similar to how she kept Old Moe up and going). Rinse, repeat. I am sure there are other opportunities where healing key figures can act as a multiplier. Same with influence. Look at what she did with her mom. She let a doctor make an impossible operation. Sure, they said, that's only possible with Miria there. But that's not true. Imagine a learning hospital where they try the new heart implant or similar. They can try out and learn the best procedure without risking their patients with Miria. In other words, use magic to help develop the mundane means. That will boost medical practices a lot. And what about sharing knowledge (think Medical Manuscripts from BTDEM). Effectively what she did for the prostetics team, only for medicine at large.
