The Liberomancer [Isekai Progression LitRPG]

When I realized that the strange bird was sent by Rose, my red fox stopped glaring out the window and backed off as I opened it to let it in. The bird very obediently offered its leg and for me to untie the packet attached to its leg, after which it flew off.

Within the packet was a letter - I had to take it to someone to read what it said, but it was basically a written 'thank you' for everything, and a wish for good luck on my journey ahead.

That message on top was written by Rose - I recognized her handwriting, but there were signatures from everyone in the shop with small messages like 'Good luck!' and 'Nice to work with you!' beneath that.

The red fox's tail was wagging with excitement. "You're pretty happy to see this too, aren't you?" I asked, before folding up the letter and keeping it somewhere safe.

After the party with my coworkers was done though, I made it a point to decline most invitations as I had to work hard to get things to head out; and to plan out what the actual route of my journey was going to be in the first place.

Regarding money - the Liberomancer's Guild did offer banking facilities as well as a way to sell my grimoires even if I wasn't here physically - I don't know if they offered such services to non-Liberomancers or not, but they were willing to keep the Rank Three grimoires I had made, sell them on my behalf, and then credit me with the cash which could be used in other cities where they had ties.

It was a lot safer than carrying actual money with me on the way to other places, though I was more concerned that something might happen to the grimoires I had made after what had already happened during the fighting of the siege. I did not want another grimoire to be ruined because of my carelessness.

As for where I was planning to go after going to the capital, I got a few ideas from Zeke.

I had dropped by his office one time when he was free, mainly because we were going over his earlier offer to help arrange a grimoire for me that would help me fly.

"Here," he said, handing me a letter. "If you give this to a Professor Hebei at the University of Hitutsa, he should be able to help. If you can't find the professor, just hand it to the librarian who runs the special library for Rank Three Liberomancers there - he will also be able to help you out." He then paused. "I know many people must've asked you this, but are you really set on going? Is there nothing I could offer you to stay? I am sure that if you asked for it, the king would be happy to grant you a title and lands for your work - and if not, I would petition my father on your behalf. You could work your way up the ranks even if you never made a Rank Four grimoire."

I gave him a tired smile. Drake had also tried to convince me to stay - but when I told him why I had to leave, he understood and dropped the matter entirely. Zeke was a bit more persistent, but my answer was the same. "The only thing that you can offer me which is truly valuable - well, if I got that… I'm looking for a way back home above all, and if I were to get that, I would go back home - not stay here."

"Can you tell me more about how you came here?"

I narrated things for his benefit once again.

"So, that was it? You had no message or indication of where you were going?" Zeke asked.

"No," I said.

"And does something like this happen often in your world?"

"People getting pulled into different realities? No, I've heard of people going missing without explanation though. I've heard stories of things like this - but there usually is a purpose to why people are pulled. As for me? I can't think of a purpose to have been brought to this world for."

Zeke chuckled. "You helped save our city - and I owe my brother's life to your bravery. Surely that would be good enough of a reason?"

"If that were true, you'd think I'd be able to go home now then," I answered.

Zeke tried a different tactic. "What do you think you'll find in the rest of the world? You did come to this… place through a passageway, correct? Wouldn't the gateway back, if it exists, naturally open somewhere here rather than in some other corner of the world?"

"It hasn't till now," I said.

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"Another place would be quite dangerous - you at the very least have a support base here," he countered.

"Yes, but there are things I need to check out in other places," I told him.

"Like what?"

"I want to try to see if I can go to Hansini after I go to Hitutsa," I told him. That had been my original plan.

"Hansini? Why?"

"Maybe this might sound crazy… but I think that the Ruler of the Astral Winds was also someone from my world," I said. It had been something I had been pondering for a while, and it made more sense the more I thought about it.

"...why would you think so?" Zeke asked, rather baffled. He hadn't expected that kind of answer.

"...he rose to power rather suddenly," I said, finding it hard to put it in a way that Zeke would understand. "Which would be extremely hard - and all the stories say that he did all these things that no one before him had done - I find it hard to believe that he accomplished that on his own. It might be more likely that … he was from my world. And he had somehow managed to arrive here with more resources."

I had been in a library before I was brought here - and if I had the library's full collection with me right now, Rank Five would not be a pipe dream.

There was another reason, though I didn't mention this as it was even harder to convey to someone like Zeke. The Ruler of the Astral Winds, had, to put it mildly, behaved like a complete psychopath at many instances throughout his life. His behavior deviated extremely from what was considered to be acceptable for a Liberomancer. He stole, lied, and did anything needed to crawl his way to the top. Once he was invincible, he did whatever he pleased - his motto in life seemed to be 'might makes right' rather than 'treat others the way you wish to be treated.'

But what if there was a reasonable explanation for this behavior? If you had come from Earth, and thought that this world wasn't real, or was some kind of video game - you might not hesitate to do whatever was needed in order to 'level up.' You might even see the people of this world as nothing more than NPCs or conclude that they weren't 'real.'

From that point of view, his actions could make sense, even if I did not see things that way.

"The people of this world are not idiots, Stefan," Zeke responded, sounding slightly offended.

"No, I don't mean it like that- it's just that," I began. "It would be so much easier for someone to do it if they had the resources of my world with them. Didn't you suspect me because you thought it was odd that I could make two new Rank Three grimoires? How much less believable is it that he not only made several of his Rank Four grimoires himself, but a good number of Rank Five ones as well?"

Zeke had little to offer as a retort. "Are the libraries of your world that valuable?"

I took out my smartphone. "I had actually wanted to see if you could help me with something else." I explained what my phone did and that I wanted to find a way to charge it.

I hadn't been able to make a grimoire that could do that. As for trying to do it some other way - I could try to make something like a battery with some chemicals and if I had some metal to use as a wire, the only issue was how to connect it to my phone in a way that would charge it instead of blowing it to bits and pieces.

I didn't even have a charger, so I'd have to try to make a port myself.

How could I possibly do that? Even something as simple as a charger was made with the efforts of people all over the globe back on Earth - what hope did I have to accomplish it on my own in this kind of world?

"You're telling me there is an entire library in this thing?" he asked, picking it up.

I nodded. "I've been looking for a way to charge its battery, but I can't." I realized he probably didn't understand what I meant, so I elaborated. "It's like trying to make a fire, you wouldn't cast [Grand Fireball] to do that, right, you'd use [Create Flame]? This device also works on energy, a form of electricity, but it has to be the right amount or else it will break."

Zeke stared at it for a while before saying, "I haven't the slightest clue how you would do such a thing; I'm sorry. Maybe if you found a lightning elementalist they could - but… I don't think even one of them could do what you're describing."

I didn't have much hope on that front either - but maybe I'd find someone in the University of Hitutsa who could help me out?

"The Ruler of the Astral Winds huh…" Zeke said, a sudden shift in energy in his voice. "I don't know if this would help you but…" He took out a key from a different cabinet to open up a drawer on his desk. "I might as well hand this over to you then."

"...sorry, what is this?" I asked. It was a piece of old paper with letters I could not recognize, and some other pieces of paper that had the writing of the lizardmen on it.

"Back when I was a student in Hitutsa," Zeke began. "I was with a group of friends and we would often spend our time looking for historical artifacts that might have been forgotten or lost - you know, sometimes you'd find a peasant using a priceless historical vase as a flower pot, for example. We found an antique box like that gathering dust somewhere, and it had this map within it - at least, that is what we figured it showed. It shows directions to someplace near Hansini. The box was dated back to the times when the Ruler of the Astral Winds governed that region…" There was an excitement in his voice I'd never heard from him before. Unlike Drake, he was rather good at maintaining a poker face, but that had cracked considerably right now. He was clearly quite passionate about this piece of paper. "What could it lead to? The box was valuable, clearly, and I hoped beyond hope that it might've lead to a library that he owned."

"A library - like a stash of grimoires?"

"Exactly!" Zeke said. "Think about it - he had died quite suddenly, and had not even set up a designated inheritor for his empire if he passed away, because he probably thought that he would live forever. He must've kept a stash of some of his grimoires- definitely the Rank Four ones, and possibly some Rank Five ones! But no one found anything like that. What if… this leads to a location that might have some treasure of his!?"