Homesteading in a fantasy world

It took time, a lot of time, but eventually, the meeting was over, and our plan of action was completed. What I disliked the most was how little I was going to be involved, at least at the start. It was necessary, otherwise, we would be revealing our strategy too early, and that would be disastrous. Everyone was preparing for a long war, but I had some other ideas, which I had to keep secret from many.

A lot of people were leaving the compound, so it was quite easy to slip into the mass. Most likely, Arabella would’ve liked some alone time, but my mind was too fractured. It seemed to want to slip back into my old world and the war I fought there.

If there was any way to keep that from happening here, I must. Even if it means our defeat, I’m not sure I would want to be alive if that happened, as I’m pretty sure that, that dictator of theirs is hiding more than anyone suspects.

I’ve only seen him once, about a year ago, in a World Council meeting. I could certainly see why so many called him the strongest; he seemed to radiate power—too much, in my opinion—but that wasn’t the thing that caught my eye. It was the way his eyes looked.

I am pretty sure he was trying to hide it, but nowadays, there’s little my eyes can’t pierce. Looking his way, I could just see him wanting to kill all who opposed him, but he wasn’t worried about that. No, he was more worried about his image than anything else.

In that meeting, there were some of the most powerful people on this earth, yet he didn’t seem to fear fighting any of them, even if they were to challenge him together. That was not what I was hoping to see, and while normally that wouldn’t matter in a worldwide war, in this world things were different because if you were strong enough, you were even more powerful than a nuclear weapon in the battlefields of my old world.

When I entered the forest, which was a decent way away from the town, I called for Goose. It would take him a bit to get here, but it would also take me a while to get further into the forest. It was not my favorite way to get on him, as it meant exerting a lot of effort. But nowadays, he really didn't like landing, spending most of his time in the air as it was so easy for him. I would need to use the trees to get as high as possible and then jump so Goose could pick me up.

"Where are you off to?" I heard a voice coming from my right.

"Hi there, Arabella. I thought you were leaving with the others."

"I am leaving with the others, but that isn't for another eight hours. It seems to me that you’ve been avoiding me for a few months now. I know you like to be direct, so I will be as well. Are you distant because of the war, or because you are tired of us?"

"Arabella, I’m not tired of us, and yes, it's about the war. We will most likely not meet for quite a while, but I guess I’ve been in my mind too much. Goose is coming, so I don’t have much time."

I used one of my movement skills to get close to her and give her a proper kiss because it might have been the last. She was a little surprised, and even more so that it was so short. I think she understood now, she looked so defeated.

"Goodbye," was the last thing I said before I jumped a few times to reach the top of the tree.

"You'll pay for that," I heard her say before I jumped even higher and was picked up by Goose's air manipulation and pulled toward the harness I used to ride him. I silently wished that I would actually pay for that. Goose communicated with me, wanting to know where we were going.

"Everywhere, my friend. Everywhere."

His excitement was palpable. We then climbed higher and started our journey over all the continents. We skipped most of the Green Continent, as we already knew it incredibly well. Toward the south, after the high-ranked zones, and at the southern tip of this continent was a huge mountain range that separated a decently large portion of land from the rest of the continent. That piece of land once belonged to the empire.

At one point, they were the richest country in the world solely through the amount of trade they did. Now, there were only remnants left. Aster, once the great capital city, stood in ruins because they were the ones that the second plague started—the one that killed my family.

They were the ones to create it, and they paid a terrible price for it. We spent some time flying over the mountain range, and I could see how this country could start and be mainly focused on trade, as there were only two entrances to this land area, and even now, both had huge forts protecting the passes.

We headed farther south, but it had already been a few days since our flight started. That meant that right now, the representatives of our company were announcing to almost everyone our allegiance, and it wouldn’t take long for the war to escalate.

I needed to stay away because I wasn’t sure I could keep myself from trying to stop all of this. But it should be too late now, and it would definitely be too late in a couple of weeks, which would be the perfect time as we should be done with our sightseeing.

We were now over the central area of the Shallow Sea. It was a massive sea between every continent, but this central area was the connection point to all the continents. The ship traffic down there was massive, and the many islands inside the Shallow Sea were mainly supply or trade ports for all the ships. It would have been amazing to see this about 50 years ago, as the number of ships should have been ten times the amount currently sailing.

Towards the west in between the Alberany and Veridisia continents, there was a world wonder, and it was truly magical to see from high above. But it was even more magical when we flew closer.

This particular wish was made by quite a powerful wizard, and I have to say, I feel like his sacrifice at the end of his life must have been worth it. There were about ten larger floating islands with many smaller ones, and honestly, I never thought I would be able to witness something so amazing.

To the south is the human continent of Veridisia—it’s where their species evolved- or at least that’s what everyone believes. Perhaps every species started out as travelers, but I didn’t want to start thinking about that.

The upper portion was a jungle, not really suitable for life, but the bottom half of the continent was basically a paradise. There were so many rivers and lakes and, thanks to that, so much fertile land. There was a reason why some called it the golden sea, but it wasn’t as fertile anymore, and quite often, there was famine, especially nowadays.

We then headed east towards the continent that was the birthplace of the dwarves. The northern portion of the continent was once again a jungle, quite unsuitable for civilized life, although a lot of it has been tamed nowadays.

The southern portion is also not that habitable, mostly made of rolling hills covered in rocks. It is good enough for a lot of domesticated animals, and a huge portion of dwarves started out as tribes herding those animals.

As a civilization, they truly started to advance when they began to delve deeper into the earth to get the riches that were there. Further east is the endless ocean that no one has been able to cross, and I wasn’t going to try, as there were monsters too powerful out there. Somewhere in that ocean was a place where dragons lived, and I did not want to get close to that place.

We headed north after we finished flying over that continent. This place was the birthplace of many Beastkin, many of whom start their own civilizations. The mountains at the southern and most eastern tip of this continent were amazing. It was also filled with towns for many of the Beastkin who could fly. We didn’t stay here for long, as we would certainly be spotted.

The huge feature of this continent was the large lake. There were some underwater beastkin who lived in the lake, and we were fighting here since a large portion of this continent’s high-rank zones were inside the lake. Fighting underwater always sounded quite awful to me, but fortunately, there are many adventurers strong enough and willing to challenge the waters and find themselves victorious.

We didn’t fly over the green continent to get to the Elven one. Instead, we flew over the ice sheet even further north. The funny thing was, there was actually life here and some civilization, although it consisted of only a few towns and one fort.

My company had even spread here, but I wasn’t going to fly down and introduce myself. Eventually we reached the elven continent and headed down south. Near the center of the Elven continent was another wonder that could be seen: a collection of seven trees that were a couple of kilometers tall, housing a capital city. The largest and strongest Elven city.

The trees looked amazing, but we never went too close to them; it was simply too dangerous. It had been a couple of weeks since we started our journey, and it was time to return. I had been receiving information about the situation constantly during our flight, and I now knew that, no matter how much I tried, the war was going to happen. In fact, it had already started. Now I just had to hope that I wasn’t delusional and could actually make my plan work.