Thanks to Casath and Hanung delivering items around for the merchants in the district, I had a lot more free time in the evening. Since I didn't need to tire myself with carrying supplies all day long, I was able to put in more effort in learning the Demon language alphabet under Amber's guidance, and I didn't fall asleep like on the first day.

Speaking of the deliverers, the two seemed to enjoy their new jobs. It wasn't physically taxing for either of them, so they were happy about getting paid a decent salary for work that wasn't too demanding. They were especially glad that the merchants eventually forgave the two for causing trouble the previous month, and even got small tips for helping out with deliveries. The two used to shiver whenever I ran into them and jokingly said "debts," but they didn't react to the word by the fifth day. Seems like the services was a bit… too popular.

A side effect of the delivery service was that bulk purchases became more common in the town, so several shopkeepers recorded the highest profits since they opened. Since I was the one responsible for the two couriers, the shopkeepers often came by my shop in the early evening to invite me for a drink as thanks. Unfortunately, because multiple shopkeepers invited me like that, one drink became two, then three, and so on. I think I was averaging around seven beer mugs per night.

In any case, a week went by without incident, and I was now able to read and write using characters of the Demon language without much trouble. I only studied the alphabet, though, so I still have no idea what texts written in the language meant, but I suppose studying vocabulary and grammar can be set aside for a while. After all, I'm only interested in being able to read the chants and incantations for spells used by demons, and Amber can help me read and translate the descriptions of what the spells do and how to invoke them.

During the week of learning, Amber gave me various texts to practice reading with. They weren't written in the Demon language; they were instead written in the common language but transcribed with the Demon alphabet. I'm used to listening to various dialects and accents of the common language, but to see a different way of writing it is a bit strange. I'd have to admit that it does look nicer and much easier to read when fewer brushes of the pen are used. Amazingly, all the characters and accent marks in the Demon alphabet were sufficient for transcribing almost all variants of the common language.

Anyhow, the texts Amber gave me were varied in topics, but it gave me a lot of insight on world knowledge, and the systems put in place in the Demon King territory.

To start off, with the exception of time, measurements were taken using other objects as reference or estimates, such as distance by horse, or weight in stones, and so on. It's quite amazing how nobody ever found the inability to take precise measurements annoying. In any case, the Demon King had put into practice a standardized system of measurement units.

The continent we were in was a giant land mass whose shape resembled a giant rhombus that spanned 5500 kilometers wide and 5000 kilometers long at its largest parts. There were various small uninhabited islands in the ocean that surrounded the large landmass, and strangely nobody has ever come back alive to report on what existed beyond 150 kilometers from the ocean shore. Whether or not another continent existed was thus a mystery, so people collectively referred to the continent we were in as "this world" or "this earth".

The Demon King's territory was at the northern part of the continent, taking up an area that was about 1300 kilometers wide and 800 kilometers long. The east and west sides of the Demon King's territory were the ocean due to the continent's rhombus shape, so the war took place at the southern border because mysterious disappearances in the ocean meant that neither side had funded a navy. Since the two ends of the border were extremely rough mountainous terrain, the fighting actually only commenced along about 60 kilometers of the border, while the remaining 1240 was completely neglected by both sides.

People have considered crossing the neglected area before, but there were rumors of the region being nesting grounds for dragons. Such creatures were said to be large, powerful, and impossible to tame, so the act of traveling through the neglected area was essentially a suicidal act. On a side note, this neglected area was supposedly where rogue monsters that escaped from farms crossed over to the other side of the border. The monsters just somehow knew how to avoid getting discovered by the dragons, apparently.

Sachiru town was only 100 kilometers north of the border, while the capital of the Demon King territory was another 180 kilometers further north. Conveniently, the Demon King's name, his capital city, and his territory were all referred to as Badoth. The opposing side's capital and its territory, which were both referred to as Kitrod, was 1700 kilometers south of the border at the center of the rhombus. It's quite remarkable that the Demon King managed to hold off the Kitrod army for so long despite being relatively close to the border and controlling a significantly smaller amount of land.

The reading materials Amber gave me didn't talk much about the Demon King, other than the fact that he founded Badoth about 70 years ago and had been at war with Kitrod since then. Up until now, I had assumed that "for generations" meant the war had been going on for far longer than that, but it turns out only three or four generations have passed since then…

The political systems on both sides were quite similar, with the king or emperor being the head of state. The king was assisted by a direct adviser and administrator, which in both kingdoms was the prime minister. Because of the size of the land, Kitrod was comprised of several small states that pledged allegiance to it due to that state having the largest territory and military sizes. While the king of Kitrod was the commander in chief of the army, Badoth had a chief of war to manage the army for the king, which in this case was commander Mavuto. This was in part due to the size of the kingdom: the king of Kitrod needed to have an army of his own in order to lower the risk of a violent coup, while the size of Badoth was sufficiently small that the king did not need an iron fist to suppress dissent.

Badoth, on the other hand, was one single state divided into the central area that housed the capital and eight smaller provinces, each managed by a governor appointed by the king that had to report to and receive instructions from the king regularly. Each governor was also designated to be a general of their province's army, with the exception of the southern province's governor. The appointees that the king selects are chosen from a list, which was compiled based on local votes.

I felt like commander Mavuto was always under a lot of pressure, though: he lived in the south province because of the constant state of war, so he was given some extra responsibilities, whereby he had to manage two different armies (the royal army and the southern province's army), maintain regular contact with the Demon King and his eight governors, and cooperate with the southern governor in keeping the province under control due to the fact that his presence there meant that there was a large number of nonresidents. How does he even have the mental capacity for this job? I feel like one would be going insane with all the stress and work piled up like that. Was it perhaps because domestic issues are foregone or set on low priority during wartime?

The law of the land was mostly similar on both sides of the border, however Badoth law allows parties to settle disputes through combat. To prevent the abuse of power, the method of battle and rewards for the victor must be agreed upon by both parties before the fight. While this generally prevented a significantly stronger party from exploiting others, it wasn't uncommon for "accidents" to occur to those who constantly declined battle challenges in inconspicuous places when the law was first introduced. As a result, it became public acceptance that that strong individuals should receive more benefits and hold high political positions, and the list of potential governors sent to the king would often only name the strongest individuals in a province.

Luckily, because of the regular reports to the king, and also due to occasional surprise inspections at the provinces, the local authorities would often do their best to serve the interests of the people instead of their own (or rather, to serve what the king thinks are the interests of his subjects).

Since people in high positions often had a large number of followers, extreme cases of power abuse or corruption would almost always lead to banishment, since execution would often result in backlash or possible rebellion from said person's followers. I have no idea what methods they use for exiling people, but the exiled are usually never able to find their way back to Badoth. In any case, the expulsion of high profile (and thus high powered) individuals and their entourage often resulted in the occasional appearance of "boss monsters" in high bounty adventurer quests in Kitrod.

As a consequence of the combat rule, seven of the eight governors were greater demons, the strongest class of demons. The only governor who wasn't a greater demon was the southern province's governor, since commander Mavuto was already present. Due to their strength and prowess in battle, each of the governors was also the general of their province's army and had the additional task of reinforcing the royal army at the south border, in rotation.

Since local troops from each province were only called to battle once every sixteen days and had to stay on the battlefield for at most four days, army fatigue was relatively low and morale was quite high as a result. This was why the Demon King army had not fallen or lost territorial control despite being at a severe disadvantage in numbers over the past 70 years.

Territorial matters aside, there were dozens of different races in this world. Unfortunately, the people of the Kitrod empire mostly discriminated against races that didn't look similar to humans, so Kitrod's population was almost entirely human, while Badoth's population consisted of primarily non-human races and a large number of undead creatures. Based on what the writings state, it seems that I might be the only non-undead human in the state of Badoth… While not all citizens were in favor of the constant state of war or the fact that their race's physical and magical limits would prevent them from obtaining positions of power, they were seemingly content with living in Badoth since it was the only place where they were not discriminated against.

There was no census conducted on either side of the border, but scholarly estimates based on tax revenue and testimonies of traveling merchants indicate that Kitrod had a population of 50 to 55 million, 99 percent of which were human, and Badoth had a population of 10 to 12 million, five percent of which were undead creatures. While I did mention racial discrimination did not exist in Badoth, the undead were an exception. Their souls were bound to something in the living realm, so they almost all served as slaves of whoever raised them from the dead. That said, it didn't seem like commander Mavuto treated his supply officer like a slave, so kudos to that giant zombie ogre.

"Why are all these texts so detailed? I've learned a lot more about this world over the past week than from twenty years of living in Kitrod."

"They were compiled from intelligence reports."

"Wait, wouldn't that mean this stuff is classified? I'm not going to get silenced for reading all of these, am I?"

"Nope! They're part of basic education textbooks now."

Speaking of which, basic education on worldly matters and higher education in Kitrod was only available to the elites that could afford private tutoring. For everyone else, basic education was achieved through oral tradition and apprenticeships under a mentor. There was thus a large gap between what the elites knew and what the general population of Kitrod knew, and so positions of power were reserved for the wealthy as the general population was considered "too dumb" to rule.

In Badoth, basic education was mandatory for two a year or two using textbooks similar to what I read over the past week, so the general population of Badoth was more knowledgeable in basic affairs. A major problem, however, was that higher education was usually not available since one's merits in battle were more valued than merit in research. Small institutions still existed nonetheless, to teach those aiming for positions of power about advanced things necessary for their jobs.

In my case, I learned how to read and write, as well as basic magic from a novice mage in return for helping him with housework and other daily chores. He was only a novice, so he couldn't teach me anything beyond the basic level, but the fact that I could read was already good enough. Since nobody took fire magic seriously, I was able to obtain books on intermediate and advanced fire magic for free and self study that, thus becoming who I am today…