Villainous - 47 The Truth

“There’s something wrong with this world,” Li Mei muttered as she lay on her back, staring at what she could only assume was a virtual sky between countless open windows on her Interface. Lina sat beside her. Their breaks were rare and short since Lina had the ability to heal and refresh them both, yet Li Mei always took the opportunity to study – reading through pages of information stolen from the hidden research facility as well as the various books left behind by Faust.

“How do you mean?” Lina asked with a slight smile.

“They have computers and long-distance communication devices, yet their research labs only had basic chemicals and rudimentary equipment alongside piles of monster materials and… magic plants? I guess? And these lab reports… They were taking their studies very seriously and write like pretentious undergrads who barely understood the professor’s lecture.”

Li Mei touched her chin, thinking deeply. Sorting through 44’s memories brought more questions than answers.

The mansion was large and ornate, but antique in design. According to Vigen’s bragging, it was built by hand in one month by master craftsmen. Magitech tools available even to the higher ranking servants were simple in design and nature. Farmers had access to storage artifacts, but the actual farming itself was done with hand tools. They didn’t even have automated irrigation!

Books left behind by Faust contained plenty of information, but most of it involved survival in the wilderness. Observations on plants, animals, the use of monster materials and the difference between monster and beast. Explanations of different peoples and cultures, mostly etiquette and long paragraphs denoting war campaigns and conquest.

One book contained theories behind magic, pointing out how Cores allowed for ‘active’ magic that manifested in the world around them, like Li Mei’s barriers, while most known arrays and Circuits used passive magic, like transmitting voice or creating heat in a localized area. By the end the author concluded he had no idea what the difference was and why it was like that, much to Li Mei’s disappointment.

The research lab had the most high tech equipment around but even that was limited in scope. Beakers and vials and boilers and chemical showers and maybe a centrifuge in some of the bigger rooms. A basic internal network hooked the computers together, monitoring basic text records and security cameras with terrible resolution and no timestamps on any of the videos saved.

And the entire world’s abject fascination with, if not outright worship of, the Progenitors. A fascination that bled through every book she read, from author’s forewords to casual mentions in every other page. More than ancestor reverence, chasing after the Progenitor’s legacy was almost a way of life for these people. It was often their entire purpose.

Almost a religion.

Li Mei frowned. She tugged on her shirt to examine the seams.

Even stitching, but not mechanically uniform. The cloth was smooth and comfortable – all the clothes Faust gave her were sturdy, with fine material compared to the burlap sack 44 was used to, but certainly nothing like polyester or other fabric blends from Earth. From the material to the stitching, Li Mei’s clothes were made by hand.

In fact, everyone who lived on the estate wore clothes made by hand. One of the servants was a skilled seamstress who spent every day mending or making clothing, curtains, and bedding. 44 and the other slaves were forced to make their own outfits from spare scraps the seamstress tossed their way.

“Food and comfort,” Li Mei muttered. “The advancement of civilization can be measured by the food and comfort levels of the most basic citizens. Faust is a great cook, but the way he made food… No compressed vegetable or seed oils, at most four different kinds of seasoning herbs, salt but no peppers or other seasonings. And that was high quality stuff compared to what even Vigen ate back in the mansion!

“Their bread is coarse and dense. Water wheels at the farms mill grain into flour, but it’s not the refined stuff I’m used to. It always has seeds in it even after baking. No one ever makes pastries that either I or 44 have seen, that cake Faust made was the first dessert

“Long term storage of ingredients consists of jarring, drying, and salting. There’s no canning or instant meals.

“Games and festivals consist of contests of skill and strength using martial weapons or one’s own body. Entertainment comes from reading, storytelling, singing, dancing, and watching plays.

“Those rifles I got from the Oriole soldiers were by far the most advanced magitech, and they weren’t even much. Otto showed me how to take them apart and reassemble them, their power and ammunition is provided via arrays and monster cores rather than through gunpowder or the design of the gun itself. He could take each gun apart but he couldn’t tell me what any of the parts did.

“Parts themselves were made by techsmiths at Oriole, crafted by hand and engraved with the relevant Circuit patterns. The magitech tools I’ve seen were hand-crafted too, they lacked the uniformity in form of mass production.

“Now that I think about it, most tools I’ve seen were made with iron. If any tools around the house broke, it was disposed of while the servant was punished because no one… could… fix… it.”

A lightbulb flickered somewhere in the back of Li Mei’s mind. The obscured truth of the world, the missing puzzle piece that made things feel just a bit out of place for reasons she previously couldn’t put her finger on. Li Mei turned to look at Lina, who was grinning so wide her face almost split in half.

“The civilization itself hasn’t advanced, but they either found or inherited tools beyond their comprehension?” Li Mei muttered. If she thought of it that way, everything she’d seen so far started to make a lot more sense! “Even if they can produce the tech and components, they’re just copying stuff that already exists. They don’t actually know how to use it so they can’t fix it if it breaks, they just replace it with more copies since they know that works!”

“Being able to copy the products is pretty impressive,” Lina said with a smirk. “But it’s not the same as inventing the stuff yourself. Forgery is a skill too, but it’s not in the same tier as creation.”

“A pre-industrial civilization got hold of high-tier technology and magic, huh? What an odd world this is…”

“Your world was odder,” Lina sighed. “Humans went from spinning wheels and piston pumps to computers and space exploration in just 200 years without any mana, that’s really terrifying you know! Railroads to rocket ships. Your memories of Earth are scarier to me than anything I know of on this planet! The raw potential of Earth’s humans, I wonder where they’d be in another hundred years? A thousand?”

“Not that I’d ever know either way,” Li Mei shrugged, closing her Interface windows. She stretched her small body, reaching her hands to the artificial sky. “Humans don’t live that long.”

“Mana is an efficient energy source.” Lina smiled, propping her chin in her hands. “If you wanted to live for a thousand years, you could. Just have to absorb enough mana.”

“A thousand years, huh… Let me guess. You wanna live that long?”

“A thousand, a hundred thousand. Longer. As long as possible! Don’t you want to see what the universe has to offer? Sailing through the sea of stars like the explorers of Earth charging forward on their wooden ships, dreams of treasure and glory and their hearts. See everything, try everything! Doesn’t that sound interesting?”

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“What would we do by the end of it?”

Lina grinned wide. The sparkle in her eyes matched the curiosity and interest twinkling in Li Mei’s. “We’d do it all again, of course. Why not?”