>>499057797Barbarians are not cave people. They had their own societies and cultures, often even written languages. The idea that barbarians were just completely illiterate savages is a more modern/Hollywood thing.
The Germanic people had a runic writing system about 2000 years ago, for example.
And in Gwen's specific case, she's based on the Scottish people (with some general "Celtic" things thrown in as well.) They had writing for quite a long time, too, but I don't think there are many surviving records of such until like the 14th century.
On that note, the situation here is more like a "Mad Max" sort of thing, where in the past, her country of Alba was actually pretty advanced and civilized, but after a localized cataclysm ravaged the land, they went back to barbarous ways. Or I guess if you want a fighting game example, it's similar to what happens in Daraku Tenshi/The Fallen Angels, except instead of Los Angeles falling into the ocean and the people going nuts, it's like Scotland is a peninsula that got flooded and they had nowhere else to easily go.
In her previous life, she went to school, learned to read and write, studied magic, and had a talent for it. Hoping to have a good career in the future. But after her world was basically destroyed, she had to become a bandit and start pillaging to keep her family alive.