Life was unpredictable. Bolwen Saven had once thought he was doomed, never imagining he would make it off the battlefield alive.
When a priest of the Earth Mother Goddess Church intercepted Bolwen on the Stone Bridge, he knew he would not be leaving the fortress.
For on this Greek Continent, those who served the gods, whether they worshipped the earth, the sun, or made their living serving the sea, were all hostile to magic users without exception.
To be honest, Bolwen was hardly an ignorant man. Elsewhere, he had dealt with professionals who served the gods and had even had the chance to fight alongside them. They had never started baying for his blood the moment they met him.
Bolwen knew things were different on the Greek Continent, but aside from the scarcity of magic elements making normal spellcasting impossible, he had only truly understood how different it was after experiencing it himself.
When Bolwen woke to find himself in a room inside the fortress, with soldiers outside wearing unfamiliar green uniforms, he told himself:
It's over. Now I'll never get back to the Magic Tower.
Bolwen had mentally prepared himself for brutal interrogation, and he had no intention of keeping his employer's secrets.
Yet he lay in bed for two or three days, and nobody paid him any attention except those who brought three meals a day, buckets of hot water, and clean clothes.
The two soldiers posted outside his door were terribly lax about their duties. They often stood outside yawning incessantly, and at night, the soldiers taking over the watch even wrapped themselves in sleeping bags and slept soundly.
Their lack of diligence also meant that people often gathered outside his room, either sneaking over or coming quite openly, to stare at him through the little barred