Unlike most people, who remembered nothing of what happened while they were unconscious, Allen woke with vivid memories of his experience. He remembered not only what he had been wearing, but even what he had thought at the time and every scene those images had shown him.
Although memories resembling recorded images would not change the person Allen was now, he still felt wistful watching an enthusiastic young man with a powerful cheat get battered beyond recognition by the brutally dark realities of the Calradia Continent over the course of two years.
To give a simple example, on the real Calradia Continent, the kings who ruled its six nations would not generously grant you a fief just because your renown reached a certain level. As an outsider, Allen found it difficult even to become a king's courtier. Those deeply entrenched noble factions would not readily accept an unfamiliar foreign noble within a year or two, even if he placed high enough in tournaments.
The nobles who had lost their fiefs in war were all eagerly waiting for their kings to turn things around. Who would give a stranger a chance? So what if you could fight? Without a patron, connections, or years of loyal service, it all amounted to nothing.
For another example, villages were noble fiefs, the sacred and inviolable wealth of their lords. Recruiting soldiers was not simply a matter of running into a village, finding the local elder, and asking whether any young men wanted to carve out a future with their swords. Do that, and the villagers would drive you out with clubs.
Without a noble's permission, what right did you have? Yet obtaining that permission was anything but easy.
Of course, there were many more examples. Robbers, forest bandits, and Sea Raiders were not an