Nateaser: Reborn As My Love Interest

Nati - Chapter Twenty Nine

"So this is what it looks like..."

Even though it was my first time looking at the map of this continent, it felt strangely familiar. I needed to think for a while, but I realized why.

"Oh, it's Spain," I stated. The proportions were skewed, but the rectangle shape was similar, only the topography was different.

"Should I call for Lambert to ease your pain, lady Nati?" Fenna asked anxiously. The word was unknown to the people here.

"No, no." I protested. "It just reminds me of the Iberian peninsula from my world. I wonder if that place exists in the same universe?"

"You're right, now I can see it too, but this continent is about two thousand miles across." Alexandra seemed familiar with my world's geography. "I would go as far as to say it's the same planet, just a different plane of existence. The rotation speed and orbit match so it can't be coincidental. Bur the Cranta calendar has thirteen months with twenty-eight days each, which makes lot more sense than what your world had."

"It even has that little protrusion where Gibraltar would be." I was fascinated by the similarities, but my brain couldn't take in everything.

"That place is often referred to as Hell." Charlotte volunteered to fill me in. It was a relatively primitive map without detailed topography, just token symbols of mountain peaks drawn all over. Rivers and some old borders were also marked out, the names of notable places written over. The letters looked strange, but I understood their meaning.

"Sounds ominous," I noted, looking at the beastfolk's gift. Their volunteers brought it from Fenna's village but were busy building.

"It is a literal arctic hellscape." Omerta butted in. "Beyond the Gates of Hell, it's all just impassable mountains and snow."

"Arctic? But it's down south..." I was confused. The Spain I knew was a nice and warm place. She couldn't answer me though, getting dragged out by Hana to help with cooking. Fenna left moments later to prepare food, even though the village had plenty of chefs now but more mouths to feed too. Lunchtime was close, and my stomach growled.

"The equator runs through the middle of this map," Alexandra explained, tracing it with her finger. "And it is surrounded by the Sea of Storms. The northern and southern ends are temperate, but the currents make the south colder. The north is relatively livable but the middle is mostly desert or otherwise too hot for humans to live in."

"And where are we then?" I looked around curiously.

"We are right here." Charlotte pointed to where Leon would have been in my world. It was high up north and slightly to the west. "North from us is the Kingdom of Nordhaben. It hugs most of the coast from here to there. It is home to tall, blonde humans with blue eyes, and their capital is now called Sanctuary, most of humanity retreated there."

It was as far from us as Oviedo would be from Leon on the map but I had to remind myself that the actual distances were four times that.

"It's one of the smaller kingdoms, dwarfed next to the Great Kingdom of Saipole." Alex pointed to the east, roughly from where France would have met the Spanish border, way below the equator. "Their people had dark hair and narrow eyes, seeing themselves as superior to all other races... Raiding them and enslaving the people of Nordhaben and Shibalan until the last Pantheon War, when the tables have turned."

"The Sea of Storms shallowed their massive armada," Charlotte explained. "It became impossible to sail, and their economy crumbled. They were the first to be conquered by the emerging Crantans."

"So many of them were sold into slavery that nowadays you can barely see their kind." The Goddess said. "A slave contract would make you sterile, so they nearly died out. When the orcs and goblins became widespread, they took their place, and Cranta banned human slavery."