“These tombs are protected, Miss Cara. Yes, they exist in every province. But the magic of the dead feeds the earth. Without it, the fields would fall fallow. Noelictus trades on their sacred dead. Of course—it is not germane to talk about such things in polite company. To most, we are simply afflicted by a lack of sunlight and more undead than usual. I hope you will keep the secret?”

“Sure. Why not?”

He looked hurt. Cara sighed.

“I’ll keep it silent, Dalius.”

“Excellent. Now, as I was saying, aside from our monarchy, we have a history of strong nobility who protect each province. If it is anything like my death, we have a system of [Lords] who of course have their own retainers, but whose authority is second only to the crown. They meet yearly at the capital to lay petitions at the crown, and in times of war, send their armies to join Noelictus’ and the kingdoms of Terandria to fight each other…”

The rest of it was rather similar to medieval Europe in Cara’s opinion. Just with magic and references to monsters popping up. You thought it was bad being a serf? Try living in a land where your class was

[Serf], you could be attacked by a Dragon, undead, and you still had limited access to toilet paper.

“Now, what about your world?”

The [Knight] was still unconvinced that Cara really was from another world. He just thought she didn’t know how things were. To prove she was—she showed him her iPhone. Cara flicked on the screen, and as he floated over her shoulder, played one of her saved videos.

“Do you have anything like this?”

The [Knight] stared at the animated figures, and then recoiled in horror. He drew his sword and aimed it at the iPhone.

“Put it away! Put it away!”

“Watch the sword! Hey! It’s just a picture! It’s an emoji!”

Ser Dalius relaxed only after Cara flicked the screen off the text chat.

“But it was yellow! It had no neck—no nose! It was some kind of horrific…”

He shuddered. Scholars from Earth had debated whether an ancestor of the modern man would be able to process an animation or modern picture like a smiley face. The answer was that they could—but they found it deeply disturbing.

To calm Dalius down and reassure him that she didn’t keep the distorted faces of people in her phone, Cara showed Dalius a music video. She liked to download them; it was a pain to stream on wireless networks and she didn’t buy phone data.

Dalius, who had loved her singing before, recoiled at the noisy music video. He covered his eyes, blushing furiously.

“What scandalous clothing! They’re all but naked! I’ve seen brothels with more clothing! And I’ve never heard music like that! It’s so—raucous!”