POV Rio
It had been two weeks since I proposed to Gardevoir, and the army was finally ready.
"Everything is ready, my lord. But I am a little worried about taking the Warriors of Griffonstone with me. They are your house guard and should remain in Griffonstone to protect you," Kratos expressed his worries.
"You don't have to worry, Griffonstone will be safe while they are gone. The Garrisons can handle defense for the time being. And you have a messenger mage with you. If an attack or invasion occurs while you are away, I will let you know immediately. Moreover, you will need the assistance of Captain Dakath. He has experience with sieges. And that is something very few have experience with."
Dakath was an elf that has been the captain of the Warriors of Griffonstone for over 3 centuries and had even fought in one of the very few offensive wars that Concordia had ever fought in. Concordia was always a defensive nation, and its most aggressive actions typically involved destroying raiding parties.
"Sigh. Very well. But I will return as soon as I have taken the lands promised to us," Kratos relented.
"Glad to hear it. Now I know this is likely meaningless, but I will say it anyway. Come back alive. Concordia is fine without that land, and the lives of our army are far more important than some land. If it is a trap, retreat at once. Don't linger, as with the crusaders nearby, it is far too risky. And lastly, Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favor."
"I will, my lord. I promise I will return from this war a victor, and I will keep our people safe," Kratos says while kneeling.
"Then go forth and conquer."
Kratos takes his leave, and I am suddenly surprised by a digital-sounding voice.
[Ding]
[ Detected the user has begun their first war. Initializing system. Welcome, new user, to The Crusader King System. This system is here to help you make your nation prosper.]
I look around myself and cast a few healing spells to make sure I wasn't under an illusion or having a psychotic break. Once I was certain it was real, I asked the logical questions.
'What can you do?'
[ This system can give information to the user on other rulers and allows for a fully accurate map of the Known World to be displayed. In order for the map to show what countries exist, the user's nation must first be made aware of the possible existence of said nations. This can be accomplished by simple rumors or vague information. The knowledge from the user's past life will not affect what is shown on the map. Any info the user has can be highly inaccurate. If the user gives info on other countries to their nation's citizens, it will not update the map unless info is gathered from other sources.]
'What kind of information will be revealed about other rulers?'
[ Information will include the 4 most accurate character traits, the monthly income of the nation, the size of their army, what titles they hold, their sexual orientation, their religion, culture, their level of piety and prestige, their opinion of the user, population size, and what alliances, truces, or wars they are in. ]
'Hmm, those are all great features, but are there no other features, like army creation, stats, or anything else?'
[ There are additional map modes available to the user. These map modes are as follows: Realms, Faiths, Culture, Houses, Governments, Development, Plagues, and Diplomacy. These map modes will be 100% accurate as long as the user's nation knows about the nation. ]
'Okay, not the greatest, but information can be insanely valuable in a world where information can take weeks or even months to arrive. It might also allow me to know about any cultures or religions that are being oppressed, which can be used to our advantage.'
The abilities of the system weren't the greatest, but any advantage I could get would be worth it. I decided to look at the map and see what I could see with it.
[Image Here]
'Hmm, so I know about nations as far as India and the top half of Africa. But I can't see further into Asia, nor can I see the New World.'
The largest part of the map was taken up by what is called the Cursed Lands. From what I was told, it is a cursed land that kills anyone who ventures into it. So much so that it had been abandoned for several centuries. I was deeply fascinated by it and read every bit of info I could get my hands on, and what I learned was odd.
'It only kills sentient beings.'
I would have thought it was human only, but apparently even non-humans were affected as well. And from studies using slaves, they learned that if you stayed in the Cursed Lands for more than 24 hours, you would die near instantly. But anytime lower than that would see you die within a week or two. As for the cause, no one had any idea. The best idea was that it was a curse from the gods. There weren't even clear records of when the Cursed Lands appeared, nor how much territory it encompasses.
'But it doesn't matter for now, I can think about that when I eventually take the Middle East.'
I had plans to seize the extremely valuable resources before anyone realized that they existed. But I decided to go to the royal library to do some research on some strange borders the map shows. It didn't take long to get to the library.
"Oh, my lord, is there something I can help you with?" asked the librarian.
'Uh, shoot, I don't remember her name.'
"Um, yes, I want to review the maps. Do you know where I can find them?"
"Of course, they are in the restricted section, 3rd shelf on your left once you pass the gate," She says with a smile.
"Thank you."
I headed to where she indicated and opened the gate and locked it behind me. Once that was done and I was certain it was closed, I went to the shelf she told me about.
'No, no, no, no, ah, there they are.'
I take a couple of maps and move them to a table. Once I did that, I opened them and started to compare them. The first thing I noticed was the sheer difference between the three versions. One was from the ERE, the second was Concordia's version of the map, and the last was the system map. The ERE map was atrocious.
'This thing is nearly useless. At best, it's confusing; at worst, it's completely useless. This map is supposed to be only a decade old, and yet it's missing several nations, and the borders make almost no sense at all. If I had to use this, I would just have to guess what it led to. I would do better with just guessing where I am via the position of the sun.'
Comparatively, the Concordian version of the map was far more useful, and it was, dare I say, almost like a modern map. Now it still had some serious mistakes here and there, but overall, if I were using it to travel, I could feel fairly confident that it is accurate and wouldn't get me hopelessly lost. But I knew that Xena gathered her information and a group of magic users to update the map once a year if something massive happened, or every 4 years otherwise.
'I guess I shouldn't be surprised if anything, the maps of Concordia can be seen as a vast outlier for what humanity could be expected to accomplish when it comes to mapping at this time. Magic has allowed maps to be far more accurate than they otherwise could ever be.'
The system map, on the other hand, was very accurate in what I remember of Earth's continents in my past life. But it had a few glaring points of oddity.
'The Cursed Lands are one thing, and I can understand it is some kind of magic-related butterfly effect, but China makes no sense. The Chinese Empire, from my memory, was never this far west at this time. Not to mention, the population numbers are vastly off from what they should be historically. Then there is the fact that the system says that it shows the accurate borders of any nation that my nation has at least heard rumors about. But yet there is nothing beyond India and Tibet.'
I couldn't believe that there had been exactly no information about Indonesia or the wider Chinese Empire. And all the info I had from both the system and the maps indicated that the Song Dynasty was in Tibet and Tibet alone.
'I have to be missing something. Anything that can clear this up.'
I spent the next several hours poring over maps and old reports, but I ended up coming to an alarming and worrying conclusion.
'Something massive happened. Something that has wiped out a massive amount of the Earth's population. India only has around 5 million people. That is nearly a 10th of what it should have at this time. China, or rather the Chinese Empire, has been in Tibet for as far as the records show, 400 years. The Middle East has around a 4th of what it would have at this time. Even Europe has around 10 or so million fewer than it should.'
I was a bit of a history buff, so I had researched populations of humanity throughout history, and I knew that this was beyond abnormal. The main issue that worried me was one simple fact.
'There are no records as to why it is like this. No great war. No plague. No Ice Age. No natural disaster. Just massive swaths of land that are not touched or settled. They are said to be cursed in one way or another.'
There was nearly no information on any land south of Carthage or Egypt. It was like the whole world just universally accepted that this was how things are and left it alone. I was going to keep researching, but Gardevoir came and stopped.
"Rio, do you know what time it is?" Gardevoir asks with worry.
"Huh, oh, uh, I am not sure I must have lost track of time."
"It's just after midnight. I was told to fetch you. You need to sleep. Tomorrow is the funeral, and you need to be rested for that," Gardevoir says with care.
"Sigh. Yes, yes. I suppose I will have to leave this for another time."
"What were you researching so heavily?" Gardevoir asks.
"Maps. Something caught my eye, and I was researching to see if I could figure out why it was like that. But I got nowhere. It will remain a mystery for now. But we should go to bed. Let me clean this up, and we can go."
I cleaned up the mess I made and made my way to bed. The entire way to my chambers, I was pondering what I had found or the lack of findings.
'What is out there? What caused such a massive change? It can't just be magic. If anything, magic should have lessened the damage.'
I am snapped out of my thoughts when Gardevoir kisses me. I respond in kind.
"Go to bed. I love it when you think, but you are practically screaming your thoughts. Rest and maybe you will figure it out with a fresh mind in the morning," Gardevoir says while embracing me.
"Sigh. Thank you, and you are right. Have a good night, and I love you."
I give her one last kiss and go to bed. I slept like a corpse that night.
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Authors Note:
Ooooh, a mystery~ Wonder what happened. In case it wasn't obvious already, this story will be quite a drastic change compared to our world. I have lots of plans, but that is for another time. Until next time, Ciao.