Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha (LN) - Volume 6 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Tragedy and Origins 

“Uh, where did I leave off?” 

“You stopped at when Jinlin said her dream was to become an adventurer.” 

“Oh, right.” 

Discussing events from far in the past made my mind feel kind of hazy, and I seemed to speak without thinking. It was like I lost consciousness and blacked out for a while. These were fun memories, but they were connected to painful ones, so maybe I deliberately spaced out. But this story was so ingrained in me that I could tell it without thinking. 

This tale was on its way to devastation. I didn’t want to remember it. 

The next morning, we had to get ready to leave, so we didn’t have any time to go sightseeing before we departed for home. I woke up at the inn, had breakfast with Jinlin and Pravda, and headed to the loading dock. My parents were there already. They had gone to bed before us because they needed to be there early to get some work done. They assessed the sales value of the goods they unloaded yesterday, and they also packed the necessities we were taking back to Hathara. We were the last bit of luggage to be stuffed inside, after which the horse would be whipped and the carriage would leave. 

“Rentt, Jinlin, we’re about to go. Get on,” Pravda said. 

We nodded and boarded the carriage. We acted like knights given orders by their superior, in large part due to Pravda’s lecture the day prior. Neither of us wanted her to snap at us like that again. We were so quick that the carriage was ready to leave quite early. 

“Let’s go, then,” my father said from the coachman’s seat. “Ready?” 

We were all already on board, as was the luggage. “Yes, no problems here,” my mother said. “Go.” 

My father whipped the horse, and the carriage slowly began to roll. It was a short visit, but it turned out to be a big adventure for me and Jinlin. We did almost get badly hurt, but we got to meet a fairy, which was more than enough adventure for a child. Now that I’m an adventurer, I know just how rare fairies are. On the road back, Pravda told me fairies were rare, but I only thought they were rare in the way saria flowers were. Saria flowers, by the way, are seasonal flowers in Hathara that only bloom under a full moon. They’re fairly uncommon, but if you want to harvest them, you can collect plenty. Fairies, on the other hand, are hard to come by. 

Jinlin wanted to brag about our trip to Jal and Dol the minute we got back to the village. I did too, to some degree. As hesitant as I had been, when I thought back to our little excursion, I had to admit it was fun. I wouldn’t have bragged, but I did want to tell them about what happened in town and about Jinlin’s big adventure and her big failure. That’s all to say that the journey back home was fun and I had a lot to look forward to. Up to a point, at least. 

“You helped a fairy? That’s why you put yourself in such danger?” Pravda asked. 

The carriage rocked back and forth as we explained the events in the village. She was surprised, of course. I was trembling in fear, afraid she would get angry again, but Jinlin acted like there was nothing to worry about. Maybe she was just used to making Pravda angry, or maybe she was naturally brave. It was probably both. 

“Yeah, I mean, it kept asking for help,” Jinlin argued. 

“Fairies are an extremely rare sight. Seeing one during your first time away from the village is quite an experience,” Pravda said with awe. “Maybe you’re loved by one of the stars. Well, nevermind that. If either of you happen to find a fairy again, you must stay away.” 

“You mean because it’s dangerous?” I asked, surprised by her command. 

Pravda shook her head. “No, not that. Well, there’s that too, but more importantly, you shouldn’t simply approach a fairy. Their way of thinking is fundamentally different from ours. You never know what they might do. Of course, not all fairies are like this and I don’t speak for all of them, but did nothing seem strange to you about this fairy?” 

Jinlin and I looked at each other. Then I remembered that maybe something was a little odd. It didn’t seem interested in speaking with us, and it expressed no concern for our safety. Maybe that was because it thought differently from humans. 

“Anything come to mind?” Pravda asked again. 

Jinlin seemed to come to the same conclusion I did. We silently acknowledged that we had thought of something. 

“Falling from a tree wasn’t the only danger you placed yourselves in, is what I’m saying. You don’t want to be swapped with changelings, do you?” 

We recalled when our parents and cousins warned us that if we did anything bad, we would be replaced by changelings. They never said who would do that, though. 

“Is that something fairies do?” Jinlin asked. 

“Yes,” Pravda said. “When nobody is watching, fairies switch places with human children. It’s a habit they have. To us, swapping your own children with someone else’s, one from another species at that, would be unthinkable. But this is what I mean when I say they don’t think like us. They have trouble understanding humans.” 

As the carriage moved onward, Jinlin and I got far more used to the rocking than we were yesterday. Jinlin seemed prone to motion sickness, so she would never fully get accustomed to it, but Pravda bought medicine for that in town and gave it to her before we left. She gave me some too, but I was fine anyway, so maybe I didn’t need to take it. The medicine was extremely bitter and painful to consume, but the motion sickness was even worse than that for Jinlin, so she didn’t think twice about gulping it down. But some time after we talked about fairies, the medicine made us sleepy. We were told it might make us a bit tired, and I remember realizing that the medicine must have caused it. I could make myself stay awake, but there was no reason not to sleep. My mother and Pravda were still awake anyway. I gave in and let myself fall into the world of dreams. 

I woke to the sound of a loud crash, clueless as to how long it had been. I felt like I had been tossed into the air, and then everything flipped upside down around me. I was unable to look around, but I found the whole incident fascinating. I vividly remember the fruit floating in the air. I remember the way the grass looked. I could almost paint a picture of it. 

Time moved dreadfully slow, but the real dread soon began to set in. I had no idea what had happened. By the time I realized that the carriage had probably toppled over, all the luggage had scattered in a chaotic mess. I had been slammed against the wooden boxes and the sides of the carriage, and severe pains rushed through me when I tried to move. 

Desperate to see what had happened to the others, I observed my surroundings. I looked for Jinlin first. My parents and Pravda seemed invincible at the time, but not her. She always came off like I could have lost her at any time, so I worried excessively about her. Luckily, I found her easily enough. She was underneath some boxes, but she was still breathing. 

“Uhn, Rentt,” she groaned. 

Thankfully, there was nothing too heavy in the boxes, so even a child like me could move them aside with some effort. She wasn’t unharmed, but she managed to stand up by herself. 

“Jinlin! Are you all right?! Can you walk?” I immediately asked. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said. Cold sweat was pouring down her face. “Where are the adults?” 

That was the first time I asked that question myself. Not that I forgot about them, but it was strange they hadn’t come to look for us. We were children, and the adults were constantly concerned for our well-being. If there was a huge accident, like say a carriage turning over, the first thing they would have done was find us. We couldn’t have ended up that far apart either. They’d only need to search around the carriage. 

When I realized they hadn’t come, I felt uneasy. Severely uneasy. Jinlin seemed to feel the same way. 

Just when I could hardly sit still anymore, a loud boom came from past the carriage. Shocked, I turned in that direction and saw a pillar of flame. I had no idea what it was at the time, but Jinlin did. 

“Magic?!” she gasped and ran toward it. I followed behind her. 

What we saw stunned us both. It’s hard to describe, but it looked sinister, to say the least. It looked like a big, silver wolf, but its eyes were bloodshot and its massive body was surrounded by a wavering wicked black aura. It appeared to have a thirst for carnage. It was like destruction incarnate, or an apostle of Hell. 

We also saw Pravda holding a staff. She was the one who had cast the magic. I didn’t know she could use magic, but Jinlin did. Maybe Pravda had taught her some to use in case of emergencies. 

Pravda noticed us and turned around. “You two?! You’re alive?! Run away! I’ll keep this monster from?” 

Those were her last words. Before I even knew what had happened, the wolf’s claws were sticking out of her back. Pravda coughed up blood, and the light disappeared from her eyes. And then she was dead. 

I had seen corpses before, but this was the first time I witnessed the moment of death. I was unable to think for a moment. But then I remembered that I had to run. I grabbed Jinlin’s hand and tried to get as far from the wolf as I could. 

“Rentt?! Rentt, what about Grandmother?!” Jinlin screamed, her voice lacking emotion. 

I knew what she wanted to say, of course, but Pravda was already gone. We had to survive, so we had to run. There was nothing more to be done. 

“What about your parents?!” Jinlin continued, figuring they had to be somewhere around here. 

Jinlin was likely much more confused than I was. She must not have seen the other two corpses by the wolf, but I did. We were the only survivors. 

Maybe I was somewhat heartless. It would have been normal to freeze up in that situation, just as Jinlin was doing. But I refused to let her die. 

I ran. I ran to survive. I ran to make it back home. I ran to protect my childhood friend. 

I don’t know how long we ran for. “This has to be far enough,” I murmured between heavy breaths, far from the overturned carriage. But then Jinlin stammered my name, her voice shaky, and she pointed straight ahead. 

It’s so obvious what was there that I don’t feel I need to explain, but it was that vile wolf. Its bloodshot eyes callously looked at us. In hindsight, it was strange that a child could run so far from that monster. The wolf had to be playing with us. It could have killed us in an instant, but it wanted to see how far we would flee. Now playtime was over. I hadn’t caught a single glimpse of it while we were running, so if it was showing itself now, it must have gotten bored. 

I didn’t understand that at the time and thought I had to keep running. Unfortunately, my legs wouldn’t listen to me. Jinlin didn’t seem like she could walk one more step either. We were cornered. 

I don’t know what came over me, but I trudged toward the wolf and stood before it. It wasn’t the smartest decision, and it was probably pointless, but it was all I could do to protect Jinlin. It was all I could do to save her life. I thought she could run away while the wolf killed me. 

But the wolf was watching us. It knew there was no way we could escape. It didn’t matter if I sacrificed myself, but I didn’t know that. 

I spread my arms and stared at the wolf. “Jinlin, run.” I urged. “Leave the monster to me.” 

Jinlin shook her head. “No, Rentt! I, I?” 

“Just run! I’ll hold it back!” 

We argued for a while until the wolf finally got fed up. It sighed and raised its front leg. Slowly, it extended its sharp claws, the blood of Pravda and my parents still coating them. They had been stabbed and torn apart by these claws. In a few seconds, the same would happen to me. But if I could buy enough time for Jinlin to escape, that was enough. With that in mind, I felt self-assured as I stood there. 

I closed my eyes and felt a gust of wind as the wolf swung its front leg down. But then something pushed me over. The claws never hit me. Wondering what happened, I opened my eyes. What I found was the worst conclusion I could have imagined and the last thing I wanted to see. 

Jinlin whispered my name, blood dripping from her mouth. I looked further down and saw a sharp claw jutting from her chest. It was supposed to impale me, but Jinlin took my place. The wolf slowly pulled its claw out, and blood fountained from Jinlin’s body. She fell to the ground in a crimson puddle. 

“Jinlin! Jinlin! Hey! Jinlin!” I shouted as I ran up to her. I didn’t care about the wolf anymore. I didn’t care if it killed me. Jinlin was more important. I had to save her somehow. But the blood kept pouring out, and she was turning paler by the second. I tried to think of some way to keep her alive, but it was futile. 

She could still talk, but her voice was faint and slow. “Rentt, I’m sorry, I’m?” 

“Jinlin, don’t talk! You’ll die, you’re going to die!” 

“Tell my parents that I’m sorry. Live on, Rentt. Before I die, I want you to know that I wanted to, um, marry you one day.” 

“We can do that, Jinlin. You just have to survive.” 

“Oh, Rentt,” she said, laughing, “you can live happily with someone else.” 

Death happens all too fast. Jinlin’s body rapidly went limp, and soon enough, she no longer responded to my words. 

“Jinlin, Jinlin! Why?!” I cried. I didn’t care about anything anymore. I couldn’t even deliver her message because that wolf monster was still there. Something in me snapped and I picked up a stick to face off against the wolf. It was foolish. There was no way I could win, and my chance of survival was even lower than if I tried to run. But if I was going to die, I wanted to die fighting. 

The wolf stared at me with amusement and then straightened out and faced me like a beast hunting prey. That was when I realized that it had been playing games before. I still don’t know why it felt the need to take a fighting stance, but maybe the wolf felt it was the proper thing to do. Now that I think about it, the wolf was on guard against Pravda as well. I’d have to ask the monster itself to know for sure, though. 

I brandished my stick. My form was dreadful, and I could only run at a plodding pace. This was no way to combat a monster. But it didn’t matter. I wasn’t trying to fight so much as trying to die. I don’t know if the wolf knew that or not, but it looked entertained as it opened its mouth wide and approached me. It looked like it was going to chomp me in half, but I wasn’t afraid. 

Its mouth came closer. If I attacked its gaping maw, I thought I might be able to do some damage, even with a stick. I stabbed at it and, surprisingly, I managed to scrape its gums a bit. I don’t know if it was a fluke, or the wolf wasn’t paying attention, or it let it happen on purpose, but I was satisfied. At least I got back at it somehow. 

Accepting my fate, I waited to be crushed in its jaws. But just then, I heard a loud clang. Something defended me from the wolf’s teeth. 

I looked up and saw an adult man. He held a broadsword far larger than my entire body, and he was using it to keep the wolf at bay. 

“Stand back,” he said, restraining his anger, “I’ll do something about this.” 

I was too distraught to think, so I did as told. The wolf tried to claw at me, but the man swung his broadsword and forced it to back away. Even now, I still think he was an outstanding fighter. At the time, I knew nothing of combat, but I could tell at a glance that he was a master thanks to his beautiful motions. 

This led into a battle between man and wolf. The wolf leaped at the man, and the man flailed his sword at the wolf. Both moved too fast for me to follow. I could see how much the wolf had been holding back against me, and I came to understand how talented the man was. It was like the battle took place in its own world. Both were evenly matched. The wolf avoided the sword by a hair’s breadth or blocked it with its fangs. The man deflected the wolf’s claws and fangs with his broadsword or dodged faster than the eye could see. 

When they both finally reached the limits of their stamina, the man achieved victory. The wolf let its guard down for only an instant, and the man got right up next to it and delivered a blow that left a gash in the wolf’s chest. The wolf howled in pain. It swung a front leg at the man and knocked him away, but the man blocked the desperate attack with his sword and made it out unscathed. 

Dark blood dripped from the wolf’s chest, forming a lake of red. Its breath grew ragged, and its eyes, filled with nothing but the desire to kill, searched around frantically. I was far from the scene, but I still recoiled. The man, however, was unfazed. 

The wolf and the man glowered at each other for a while longer until the tension broke and the wolf backed off. Then, to my surprise, the wolf ran far away. I watched it all play out from nearby, and I was dumbfounded. The wolf never seemed like the type to flee, but it did just that in the face of the man. 

The man remained on guard for a while, but when its sinister presence could no longer be felt, he ran up to me. “Are you all right?!” he asked. 

I had been saved at the last second from a monster attack. His question was only natural, but I wasn’t in the right state of mind. 

“Why?” I asked back. 

“Hm?” 

“Why didn’t you come sooner?!” 

It was the worst way I could have responded. If I were to save someone and they said the same to me now, it would be like a nightmare. I should have thanked him. I knew that. But when I looked at Jinlin’s corpse lying at my feet, I couldn’t say anything else. 

Still, the man was kind. He looked at my dead friend. “Sorry. If only I ran a bit faster. I’m so sorry. It’s my fault.” 

I couldn’t blame him. The truth was that they just got unlucky. Jinlin did, my parents did, and Pravda did. Only I was lucky enough to escape that powerful monster with my life. And it was thanks to this man, so I had no right to complain. 

But the man still apologized. He wiped the tears from my eyes and then gave me a hug. It only made me cry and scream louder. 

“Are you done?” The man asked after I bawled my eyes out. 

“Yeah, sorry about that,” I said. I still didn’t feel better, but I had cooled off a bit. I was depressed and didn’t know what to do, and my mind was still muddled, but I had come to realize that I couldn’t blame the man for anything. 

“No, you did well,” the man said. “Not because you apologized but because you were able to stand up to that beast despite your young age. Anyway, uh, about your deceased companions...” 

“I’d like to carry them back to the village, but I don’t think I can,” I said. 

The dead needed to be mourned, but at times like these, it was standard to leave the bodies in the wild for monsters or animals to eat. It was hard to transport bodies, and they could also attract monsters, making matters worse. I didn’t know these details back then, but I knew there was no getting them back to the village without a vehicle. 

“No, it’s not impossible,” the man said. “Where should they be taken? Is it a village around here? Hathara, Alga, or Mul?” Those were all nearby villages, so the man must have been familiar with the territory. 

“Yes, Hathara. I was on my way back there,” I replied. 

“I see. How tragic.” 

“Nevermind that, what do you mean it’s not impossible?” 

“Oh, I came here by carriage, you see. I sensed that monster’s mana and came running all this way, but if you wait another half a day, the carriage should get here. It can take the bodies back. Thankfully I reserved the carriage so there’d be no passengers besides the coachman and myself.” 

I didn’t entirely understand what the man was talking about at the time, but thinking about it now, he must have run half a day’s distance by carriage entirely on foot. He somehow sensed the monster’s presence from that far away. Plus, he went out of his way to reserve a carriage that was traveling through an unpopulated rural area. Thinking about it rationally, he was highly suspicious and bizarre, but he did save me, so he had my full trust. 

“So they wouldn’t mind taking all the bodies?” I asked. 

“Sure. I know the coachman personally, actually. I can ask for a little extra service. We’ll have to wait here until the carriage arrives, so I think I’ll use this time to get all the bodies together in one place. If they had any precious items to keep as heirlooms, you’ll need to gather those up yourself. I wouldn’t know what they valued. There’s an important job for you to do.” 

Most likely, the man gave me that job out of kindness. He wanted to distract me with something. I don’t know how much it helped. Maybe a little bit. 

“Oh, hey, here we go. He’s here, Rentt,” the man said as he put a hand to his forehead and looked beyond the bonfire. The sun had long since set and he had just said that the carriage might not arrive until tomorrow, so he was delighted to see it coming. 

As for me, I was in the mood to go wander around the forest until I was killed by monsters, but talking to the man was starting to make me feel better. He was a good storyteller, and he picked out stories that children would like. He spoke of a distant land of earth and trees, of a ship that flew in the sky, of a fool who tried to take the sun’s place, and of the origin and final destination of the human soul. 

I asked the man who he was and why he knew so much. 

He thought about it for a bit before he answered. “I’m an adventurer,” he said. “A Mithril-class adventurer. The name’s Wilfried Rucker.” 

At the time, I wasn’t especially surprised to hear that. I knew of adventurers but not their specific ranks. I noted that this man was what Jinlin hoped to become one day and that she would’ve been happy to meet him, but that was all. Now that I really think about it, though, maybe that was the moment something took root in my subconscious. Jinlin could never become an adventurer now, but I survived, so I felt I had to achieve her dream in her place. 

“Wilfried, I spent this whole time wondering why you suddenly jumped out of the carriage and ran off. What happened here?” the coachman asked after he got off the carriage. He was a pleasant young man with long hair and an odd air about him. He was strangely pretty for a man, and he seemed out of place for a coachman in the countryside. Thinking about it now, he would have been a better fit as a noble or a priest. 

“Well, I’ll tell you about it later,” Wilfried said. “Anyway, I want to take these bodies back to their village. You mind?” 

Most coachmen would have objected, but the man nodded. “I suppose I don’t. I don’t have any coffins, but there’s enough cloth to wrap them up. Might as well.” 

He went back to the carriage and then returned with tons of cloth. It looked expensive, worth a fortune if sold as fabric, but the man thought nothing of it and used it to wrap up the corpses. He did so gently, too. It was undoubtedly good luck that I met these two. 

Once they were all wrapped in cloth and brought to the carriage, Wilfried introduced me to the coachman. 

“This is Azel. Azel Goth. He’s a traveling merchant but without any route to follow. He’s sort of a gadabout. Sometimes I hire him when he’s got the time. He also does some adventuring on the side, so he’s good for forming an adventuring party.” 

“I’m Azel, nice to meet you. And you are?” 

“Rentt,” I said tersely. 

“I see, got it,” Azel replied. “The sun has set for the day, so I think we should head to your village tomorrow. Does that sound good to you?” 

It wasn’t like I could complain. I could have tried to go home alone, but not with all the bodies, so I had to do what they said. 

“That would be fine. Thank you,” I said. 

“It’s nothing,” Azel answered with a smile. “You should get some rest for the day. Wilfried and I will keep watch.” He stroked my head. 

His voice was so kind and compassionate that just hearing it made me sleepy. Some time later, my eyelids grew heavy and I fell asleep. 

The next morning we immediately set off for the village. We reached Hathara that night. The villagers were surprised to see the unfamiliar carriage, but they were even more startled when I got off it. They wondered what had happened to the carriage we left on, but I suspect most of the adults had a good guess. 

Wilfried and Azel explained the situation to the mayor and his wife right away. The village children asked me some questions, but I couldn’t work up the will to answer them. I knew I should have said something, but I couldn’t even accept the facts, let alone relay them. 

What happened after that felt like it went by in a flash. The deaths of my parents, Pravda, and Jinlin were announced and a funeral was held. I was adopted into the mayor’s family. This happened over the course of three days, and to my surprise, Wilfried and Azel stayed in the village that whole time. When I asked Ingo about it later, he said it was because they were worried about me. They wanted someone to look after me because it looked like I might hurt myself, but the villagers were busy with the funeral. If nobody had been around, I likely would have had the urge to die, so they were probably correct. It was a terrible way to feel after they’d saved my life, but that was just how much the tragedy impacted me. 

Part of their reason for staying was also because they wanted more people around to help with the burial. The adventurers turned out to be a great help. Offerings had to be gathered from the forest for the funeral, but they were quick to collect enough. They were great people. 

Once the funeral and the administrative proceedings were over with, I finally faced reality. It was nothing but pain. I didn’t know what to do next. I was the mayor’s son now, so maybe I should have aimed to become the mayor. But Jinlin had said she wanted to be an adventurer and see the world. Her dream could never come true, but I could still achieve it in her stead. From a more rational perspective, maybe that wasn’t the best way to think about it. But that was my idea, so I asked the nearest adventurer for help. 

“An adventurer? Why?” Wilfried said when I asked him how to become an adventurer. It was the obvious response. 

“Because Jinlin, my friend, said she wanted to become an adventurer one day,” I answered. 

Wilfried seemed to have assumed as much already. “She was the one who passed away?” he asked, just to be sure. 

“Yeah.” 

“I see.” 

Wilfried closed his eyes to think for a bit. He was silent for a painfully long time. I thought he might tell me I was wrong to feel this way. At the very least, telling the other villagers that I wanted to be an adventurer wouldn’t have been well-received. There were more than a few children who said they would be adventurers, and I could always tell that the adults thought they’d be better off if they weren’t. Adventurers were mostly ruffians, so they looked down on the profession. But more importantly, the citizens of Hathara knew that adventuring was a dangerous job with a great risk of death. When I first told the adults in the village that I wanted to be an adventurer, most of them told me not to. 

Wilfried finished thinking and opened his eyes. “I won’t tell you not to try, but first, you’ll have to train,” he said matter-of-factly. “To begin with, you can’t register with a guild until you’re fifteen. You’ve got a decade left to wait, and you need to learn how to fight monsters by then.” 

It was a more practical response than I was expecting. When a five-year-old tells you they want to be an adventurer, you usually wouldn’t respond that way. No matter how favorably you viewed adventurers, you’d normally tell them to try their best and leave it at that. But Wilfried was different. 

“Also, you need knowledge,” Wilfried continued. “Learning to read and write is the bare minimum. Otherwise you’ll be deceived for sure. Learn math too, for the same reason. Knowledge of medicinal herbs and other plants, of monster types and their attributes, and of wilderness survival skills are also crucial. Hathara is a small village, but I’ve met the old medicine woman, and the mayor owns some books. There’s plenty of knowledge to be found here. If you insist on becoming an adventurer, I’d start by convincing them to teach you.” 

This detailed advice was actually extremely helpful. “If I do all that, can I become a great adventurer?” I asked. 

“Can’t say for sure. That’d just put you at the starting line. Whatever happens next depends on how much effort you put in. If you want to try, though, do what I said. You should at least be able to walk on your own two feet. Just don’t die till your dreams are realized,” he said sincerely. 

He must have known that if I kept living without any goals, I’d one day wander off into the forest to die. Even a reckless goal would keep me alive as long as I kept pushing toward it. I assume that was why he took me seriously. I didn’t know that back then, but I did know he was speaking to me in earnest. 

I nodded. “All right, I’ll try.” 

The funeral was over and I was officially adopted by the mayor. Now that the village had settled down, it was time for Wilfried and Azel to leave. 

“Rentt, if you become a powerful adventurer, come see me sometime,” Wilfried told me before we parted. “I honestly can’t tell you where I’ll be in ten years, but if I’m still alive, I’ll still be adventuring somewhere. I can treat you to a beer or something.” He rubbed my head. 

“Ideally, I’ll have my own shop by then,” Azel said. “If you ever hear about my company, come give it a visit. I’ll probably name it the Goth Company. Assuming I ever have one.” His tone made it hard to tell if he was serious or kidding. 

The goal of most traveling merchants was to set up their own store, so it wasn’t that strange, but Wilfried looked appalled. “That’ll never happen if you keep screwing around,” he said. “Rentt, he’s not going to get there in ten years. It’ll be a lot quicker to come find me.” 

That was the last thing they told me before they left. After that, my new life began. Before this, I spent all my free time playing in the house. Sometimes Jinlin would invite me over to climb trees or play with toy swords, but that was all I ever did outside. Now, however, I had a specific objective: become an adventurer because Jinlin couldn’t. That wasn’t all, of course. On some level, I must have wanted to slay that monster that ran away. The wicked wolf that killed Jinlin and my parents. I wouldn’t say it was about revenge, but that wolf symbolized the tragedy. It was something I wanted to overcome. Wilfried could match the wolf, and he said he was Mithril-class, so that was when I began my journey to become a Mithril-class adventurer. No matter what it took, I swore I would get there one day. 

I started my training, but first I had to ask someone to teach me some skills. I asked my foster parents to teach me math, reading, and writing, and I asked the hunters to teach me to use hunting knives and bows. I also asked the craftsmen to teach me some things, and I asked the medicine woman for lessons on how to tell plants apart, how to make medicine, and what the different types of monsters were. At first they were all confounded by my requests, but after asking a few dozen times, they gave in. By the end, they were all happy to teach me. I was so desperate to succeed that I never skipped a lesson, and I practiced thoroughly, so maybe my teachers enjoyed it too. 

“I spent the next decade like that, making myself into the Rentt Faina you know today. And that’s pretty much it,” I said, concluding my story. 

“You’ve been trying to reach Mithril-class all this time because of that?” Lorraine asked. 

I never hesitated to tell anyone that my goal was to become a Mithril-class adventurer, but I never told anyone the reasons either, so this was naturally the first time Lorraine had heard about it. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk about it, but it was a difficult topic to discuss. It took a long time too. 

I seldom talked about the misfortune in my life. All adventurers had some tragic stories, but rather than tell them, we preferred to pass the time enjoying food and drinks. It wasn’t that we forgot our own tragedies or found them meaningless. They were important to us and helped shape who we were. But they were hard to bring up among others, and we didn’t want to dampen the mood. We were trying to forget our troubles by drinking with friends, so nobody wanted to dredge up their past suffering. 

Regardless, I told Lorraine all about it today because I felt like it. 

I looked up at the sky and saw the stars twinkle. The sky was darker in Maalt, and there were fewer stars. They used fire and magic lamps to light up the city at night, which obscured the lights in the sky. Hathara was hardly lit by anything. They had a bonfire going in the center of the village tonight, but the stars were still visible. 

“But even with all that effort, I’ve never been anything more than Bronze-class. You can’t always get what you want,” I said. 

“That’s been true so far,” Lorraine replied, “but you don’t know what the future will bring.” 

She was right. Maybe this was hubris, but I felt I could really make it to Mithril-class now. It was still quite possible, however, that I’d come to a standstill again. More than likely, in fact. I just didn’t know where the ceiling would be yet. I felt the same way when I was young, so I knew better than to get my hopes up too high. I just planned to do everything I could. 

“By the way, you say that monster could fight on equal footing with a Mithril-class adventurer? Are there a lot of monsters that powerful around here?” Lorraine asked. It was a good question, considering that if there were, we wouldn’t be able to casually have this banquet. 

“No, not that I know. That was the only time I ever saw one. I’ve never seen a monster like that anywhere else, actually. I’ve read monster guides but couldn’t find it listed. I’m pretty sure I asked you if you’d heard of this monster before too. A wolf far larger than a human, shrouded in darkness.” 

“Yes, I believe you did, quite a while ago. Though, I didn’t know what prompted that question. I said it might be a gadol ze’ev, a garm, or mawiang, I think?” 

“Right. I’m surprised you remember. None of those suggestions were right, though.” 

I looked up all of the monsters Lorraine mentioned, but none of them were the wolf I saw. They were different sizes or shapes, and they didn’t have the dark aura. Not all monsters had been identified, so it was to be expected, but failing to find a single clue was a bit disappointing. 

“Maybe it was some new breed, or a unique monster,” Lorraine speculated. “That would make it hard to find, I suppose. Maybe nobody else has ever seen it, or maybe everyone who did has been permanently silenced. Maybe that Mithril-class adventurer knows something about it.” 

“Wilfried? I wonder where he is now.” 

“Did you never go pay him a visit?” 

“No, I haven’t seen him since then. I tried to find him a few times, but he doesn’t seem to be anywhere in the country. He must have gone to another nation. I thought it’d be lame to go find him until I climbed the ranks a little more.” 

“And then you were stuck at the same rank for ten years.” 

“Yeah, well, yes.” 

Lorraine was correct, as pitiful as that was. It wasn’t just about my pride, though. If I wasn’t at least Silver- or Gold-class, traveling would be brutal. It would be different if I had a party, but I’d be going solo. Hardly anyone would even hire a solo Bronze-class adventurer as a bodyguard for international travel. But that changed when you were Silver-class. 

“Then what about that company?” Lorraine asked. “The one Azel said he would start. The Goth Company?” 

“There’s no company with that name in this country; as far as I know, anyway. Either he’s still a traveling merchant, he went to a different country, or he started a company under a different name.” 

Judging by his personality, he was most likely still a traveling merchant, but there was no way to know for sure. He could very well have been working in another country. The Kingdom of Yaaran was a small and insignificant nation, so it wasn’t the best place to make money. Their reason for coming to this area wasn’t to sell wares but presumably something else. They came from the western nations, but Mithril-class adventurers operated all around the world. That information didn’t help much, but maybe it was worth going there at some point. There was at least a slight chance they would know something. 

“Considering they suggested you come see them again, they certainly made it hard to find them,” Lorraine muttered. 

But that was the way adventurers were. Azel was also a traveling merchant, which meant he wouldn’t stay in any one place anyway. It was to be expected. 

“Well, he’s Mithril-class, so he could be surprisingly easy to find if I try. Maybe.” 

“Isn’t it the opposite? Information about Mithril-class adventurers is sometimes restricted by governments.” 

In that case, we were both right. Mithril-class adventurers came in all sorts. Some stood out and drew attention, while others were thoroughly secretive. 

“Well, I’ll work on finding them at some point. I wanted to become human again first, but that may never happen, so I think I’ll seek them out while I figure out how to change back.” 

Lorraine sighed. “I feel like you just keep giving yourself more to do. Will you be all right?” 

“I hardly need to sleep, so I’ve got plenty of time. I don’t think I’m overworking myself just yet. Anyway, it’s not like I have to solve either of these things right away. I’ll take my time,” I replied with a wry smile. 

“I could argue with you, but I don’t think you’ll listen. Do what you will for now, but pay attention to me when times get tough. Everyone has limits,” Lorraine concluded. 

We stood up to go back to the bonfire. “Oh, there you are,” someone said from behind us before we could leave. “Rentt and, hm, I believe your name was Lorraine?” 

We turned around and saw an impish old lady with a malicious smile. I knew who it was, of course. It was Gharb, the village’s medicine woman. She was my foster grandmother’s younger sister, so my great aunt, I suppose. She also taught me all about medicine. 

“Teacher, why are you here?” I asked. 

“You haven’t called me that in ages. Well, in any case, why do you think I’m here? We’re holding a banquet for you, and it’s not terribly exciting if the guest of honor’s not present. I was planning to stay at home because parties aren’t good for these old bones, but Ingo dragged me out, and now he’s making me run these errands for him. Good grief,” Gharb complained. She looked perfectly healthy, though, and I was certain she was lying. 

Now that I had enhanced mana and was this close to her, it was easy to tell she was a magician. That she hid it so well throughout our lessons was shocking. Not that she ever needed to use magic in the village, so I guess it wasn’t that difficult to hide. You’d need your own equivalent mana to detect the mana of another, after all. But she did teach me plenty of general knowledge about magic, so I should have suspected as much. 

“Oh, you noticed?” Gharb asked in response to my gaze. “You had but a drop of mana when you left the village, but you seem to have quite a bit now. Is that thanks to this Lorraine girl, perhaps?” 

If I could see her mana, then it stood to reason that she could see mine. That she could estimate how much mana I had at a glance, however, demonstrated that she was a highly capable magician. Lorraine seemed to come to the same conclusion, judging by the mild shock in her expression. 

“I guess I should introduce myself. I’m Lorraine Vivie, and yes, I have been teaching Rentt a bit of magic.” 

Gharb cackled in response. “I’m Gharb Faina, Rentt’s great aunt. I taught him about medicine. And I don’t go around publicizing this, but I’m a magician as well. None of the villagers know that aside from Ingo.” 

“Doesn’t Fahri know too? She said she was your disciple,” Lorraine said. 

Gharb looked shocked. “How many times have I told her to keep that a secret? Well, I knew she had loose lips. I also told her that she didn’t have to go out of her way to hide it, so perhaps that has something to do with it. You’re a magician too, so maybe she thought it was hopeless to try. Riri knows too then, I take it?” 

“Yes, but if you really want to keep it a secret, it doesn’t seem like you’re trying very hard.” 

“Oh, it hardly matters in this day and age. Back in my day, this village was far more savage. I had no choice but to hide it. But times have changed. When I decided to teach Fahri, I knew I’d be exposed eventually.” 

I didn’t know there was ever a time the village was the way she claimed. If it was when Gharb was young, though, it would have to have been at least fifty years ago. I wanted to ask why it had been so savage, but Gharb continued speaking before I had the chance. 

“Well, enough about that. Head back to the banquet soon. You too, Lorraine. They want to see that illusion magic again. I didn’t get to watch it myself, so I’d love to get the opportunity.” 

“I don’t mind, but it seems to me that you could use it too,” Lorraine pointed out based on an estimation of Gharb’s magic power. 

Gharb shook her head. “No, certainly not. I sensed the mana from when you used it, and I’m too old for anything so complex and demanding of energy,” she said. Then she headed back the way she came. 

“Wait, Teacher,” I called out when something occurred to me. “I want to ask about something.” 

Gharb stopped and turned around. “What?” 

“Wasn’t there a shrine in this village? Is it still around?” 

That was the point of this journey in the first place. I was planning to give it a look tomorrow, after today’s greetings were done, but I thought it might be worth asking this village’s living encyclopedia about the shrine’s history. 

“You mean the one near Ingo’s house?” she asked. 

“No, not that one. You know the run-down house out west? The one behind that.” 

As soon as I said it, Gharb’s face clouded. But it was only for a moment, and I wouldn’t have noticed were I not paying attention. 

“There’s a shrine there?” she quickly replied. 

She probably knew about it, so maybe she was playing dumb. I didn’t see why she would, though. It was a small, abandoned shrine. I had repaired it, but it was still nothing that stood out. Its location in particular kept it from notice. If I hadn’t found it, it might have been completely destroyed at some point. I had no idea what secrets it may have held. 

“There is one, yeah,” I responded. “I fixed it up a long time ago.” 

“Is that the source of your divinity? I see,” Gharb said, picking up on that immediately. There was little time between my obtaining divinity and my leaving the village, so I never even told Gharb about it. But if she didn’t have divinity, she wouldn’t have been able to see it. I assumed that meant Gharb possessed divinity herself. 

She seemed to understand what I was thinking. “I don’t have any divinity of my own, but sometimes, when you would come back to visit, I happened to see you do something to our food reserves. I figured you were using divinity.” 

I knew what she was talking about, but I was surprised she was so sharp as to notice it. 

“Rentt, what were you doing to the food reserves?” Lorraine wondered. 

“Oh, well, some of it was always close to rotting, but purifying food with divinity helps it last longer. It also stops stuff from fermenting though, so you can’t do it with some food.” 

For example, purifying leafy vegetables could keep them fresh in even warm temperatures for up to a month. Normally, they would only last one or two weeks no matter how they were preserved. But foods that had to ferment, such as pickled vegetables or alcohol, would not ferment if they were purified. It would work if you wanted to end the fermentation process at whichever state you preferred, but if the intent was preservation, there was no sense in using purification. As such, I made a distinction between what I purified and what I didn’t. I could do this even when I had little divinity, so it was an ability I treasured. I couldn’t use it at all in battle, however, and I couldn’t even purge undead monsters. I only used it on water or food. 

“I feel like that’s a horrific waste of divinity,” Lorraine grumbled. 

“It’s not like I was going to run out, so why not?” I responded. “Besides, shouldn’t holy power be used for peaceful applications?” I did actually run low on divinity, but it recovered after I slept, so it wasn’t a big deal. 

“You can use your divinity however you choose, so I don’t particularly mind, but is there anyone else who uses it that way? When did you realize you could do that in the first place?” 

“When I first found out I could use divinity, I tested a few things out. I tried it on food, water, plants, humans, all kinds of stuff, but not much was visibly affected. I think that was mostly because I had little divinity at the time, but for simple effects like delaying the expiration of food, there was plenty more I could do with it. So much that naming it all would be a pain.” 

I tried just about anything I could when it came to the degradation of objects, and I learned that I could delay it for most of them, including food. That was why it would take ages to list everything. 

“I feel like if you tried it now, you might get some interesting results,” Lorraine said, excited to experiment. 

I knew how she felt, considering that I could now purify ash and make grass grow from it. I wondered if I could cause plants to sprout from food now too. It would be unnecessary, so ideally not. But I’d never know until I tried. I decided to give it a go later. 

“Well now, when I heard Rentt finally brought a young lass to the village, I was wondering what she was like,” Gharb said, looking stunned. “You’re unbelievably similar, right down to the way you think and the things you do, from the sound of it.” 

“Are we?” I asked. “I guess we do get along pretty well.” 

Lorraine added, “Rentt is never surprised by anything I do. Rather, he’s willing to cooperate, so it’s nice to have him around. Maybe we are similar after all. In that we’re both meticulous about our research, especially.” 

It wasn’t wrong to call me meticulous, but Lorraine bordered on obsessive. As far as cooperating, even now I was assisting her with research into monsters and their Existential Evolution. Lorraine was never shocked and focused on facts first, so I found it nice to have her around as well. 

“Hm, is that right?” Gharb asked. “Rentt was always curious about the strangest things. Like that shrine. You repaired it at some point, didn’t you?” 

“You told me to go find some herbs, so I went walking around the village and the forest and stumbled upon it. Somehow I memorized where it was. Then later on, shortly before I left for Maalt, I wanted to do something to pay back the village.” 

“So you fixed up that shrine? You could have done the one by Ingo’s house instead.” 

There was a shrine near the mayor’s house as well, but unlike the one I repaired, it was fairly large and already well-maintained. The village craftsmen took care of it, and they were far more skilled than me. There was no need for me to get involved there. 

“How could I do that? The one I repaired was small enough that it seemed manageable, is all. Besides, well, I didn’t think anyone would get mad if I messed up with that one,” I admitted. 

To be honest, the latter of those two points might have been more important. There was the slight possibility that I could have been cursed. But the other shrine had been ignored for ages and hadn’t cursed the village, so I decided that one would be fine. In the end I did successfully repair the shrine, and I was even granted divinity for it, so it all worked out swimmingly. 

“I don’t know if I should call you thoughtful or cowardly. Well, now I get it. So, you want to know if that shrine is still there?” 

“Yeah, what happened to it?” 

I was a bit concerned that it had been destroyed. I didn’t think the villagers would have done that, but the shrine was behind an abandoned house deep in the trees on the edge of the village, so I feared that animals or monsters might have encountered it. If so, I was planning to repair it again as thanks for receiving the gift of divinity, but it would be highly preferable if it were still intact. 

“Nobody goes there, including myself, so I honestly couldn’t tell you,” Gharb answered. “How about you go give it a look tomorrow, while the sun is still out?” 

Gharb seemed like she knew something, so I was disappointed to hear that. But I had decided to go see it for myself anyway, so I didn’t mind. 

“All right, I’ll do that,” I replied. 

“Oh, and after you do that, come over to my house. Maybe we’ll have something to talk about,” Gharb said. Then she finally turned around and walked away. 

“Do you think she’s going to tell us something?” Lorraine asked. 

“I don’t know about that, but she’s always been tough to figure out.” 

We talked until we remembered that they wanted us back at the banquet, so we headed toward the bonfire. 

We returned to the banquet after that, but it ended before long. Lorraine’s illusion magic was incredible, and the barrage of questions I got from the villagers afterward was exhausting. It was like that illusion made them think I was inhuman. Which I was, but still. After the second viewing, I could say with certainty that her depiction of my battle with the tarasque was a work of art, but it was hard to get past how exaggerated it was. Riri said she wanted to get that strong so she’d be my equal, but if she ever actually succeeded at matching that illusion, she’d be far beyond me. I hoped she wouldn’t try to go too far. 

“I guess not a lot of work’s been done here,” Lorraine said as we walked around the western edge of the village the next day. 

The area was almost like a forest. There was no path to tread, as the one that had once been there was covered in weeds. It was highly likely that animals or monsters would approach, so the houses in the area had been abandoned long ago and left to rot. It was technically outside of the village, but sometimes children would come here to prove their courage, so it was often considered part of Hathara. It was a fairly open area, though, so if the weeds were picked, it would be livable enough. 

“It’s been like this since I was a kid. I heard that a long time ago, a monster came out of these woods and attacked some villagers. That’s when they completely abandoned the area.” 

That was long before I was born, supposedly around when Gharb was young. She and the village elders were the only ones left with knowledge of that era. 

“So you could stray just a little from the center and run into monsters? This is some terrifying territory.” 

“It’s a small village. That’s how it is.” 

Lorraine could only ask that because she came from the city. Monsters almost never appeared there. Hathara was especially rural, but most villages were constantly under threat. Cities had great walls and trained guards at their gates, but this was a different environment. 

You might suggest that we all just move to the city, but that would be impossible for a number of reasons. For one, we would need homes, and the cost of rent in cities was nothing to scoff at. Anyone who sincerely planned to live in a city would need a job that paid a decent wage, but few local jobs would hire someone with a villager’s education. That was the main issue keeping villagers from moving there. If they were willing to do anything, then they typically became adventurers, but this was a tough decision that quickly killed anyone without combat experience. Not everyone had mana or spirit either, so most villagers had next to no opportunities to move to a city. Others preferred not to leave their homeland, or they created products with materials only available in the area, or they had to stay because they worked at a nearby labor site, or any number of other reasons. Villages were dangerous, but living elsewhere wasn’t always an option. 

“I think it was behind this house,” I said as I stopped in front of one of the dilapidated buildings. It looked familiar. 

Lorraine looked up at it. “Looks just like all the others.” 

“Well, sure. What, did you think there’d be something special about it?” 

“It has a shrine dedicated to some divine entity behind it, so I thought the house might serve a special purpose. It seems I thought wrong.” 

“I see what you’re saying, but if that were true, it would’ve stuck in my memory more. Wait, it’s probably that one.” 

There was a period of time when I would frequent this place, but years had passed since then. I seldom came to see it during my visits to the village either. As such, there was no path, so we had to push through the abundant plants to proceed. 

“Here we are. It’s surprisingly beautiful,” I said when I found it. 

“If this is beautiful to you, Rentt, then I don’t know what’s going on in your head,” Lorraine said, eyeing me dubiously. 

I could see why she would say that. The shrine hadn’t fallen apart, but it had been damaged by storms, soiled by bird droppings, and overtaken by thick vines. Calling it beautiful was a stretch. Still, that didn’t stop me. 

“It’s far more beautiful than when I first found it, if only because it’s all put together.” 

“Was it in that bad of shape?” 

“Yeah. The roof had completely rotted. Even the foundation was so eroded that some parts of it were as thin as a string. Just touching the shrine the wrong way could have made it collapse.” 

“And you went out of your way to fix it up anyway? You’re so peculiar sometimes.” 

Lorraine looked baffled that I would put up with all that work. Thinking back on it, I was impressed with myself too. 

“Anyway, I couldn’t repair the building without knowing what it was supposed to look like in the first place, so I started by carefully taking the whole thing apart. I replaced the pieces that seemed like they wouldn’t work anymore, which was most of them, so it’s more or less a whole new building now. But there were at least a few parts in good shape, and the pillars looked like they would last a little longer. Somehow it came together decently in the end.” 

“So you spent all that time on this shrine, then left it untouched for a decade, and this is the result. Well, compared to the average building that hasn’t been maintained in years, I suppose it is beautiful.” 

“Pretty much. Now, Lorraine, let’s clean the place up.” Lorraine cocked her head at me as I took a bucket, rags, and other cleaning supplies out of my magic bag. “Use magic to fill this bucket with water. I’ll go cut the vines. We just need to finish this up by nightfall.” 

I’d very forcefully dragged her into it, but after Lorraine took another look at the shrine, she seemed to understand. “Well, you’re only alive right now thanks to power granted to you by whatever lives here. As your friend, maybe I should express my thanks to them too,” she said with a sigh as she picked up the bucket. 

“Now that I see it fixed up, it’s rather stunning,” Lorraine said with satisfaction. Her face was messy with soot, but her expression looked bright under the setting sun. I knew how she felt. It took a long time, but if we managed to make this building more beautiful, then it was all worth it. 

I was in a similar state, but my mask and robes blocked the filth, so I was surprisingly not that dirty. The mysterious robes I got in that dungeon were of unbelievably high quality. Not only did they resist fire and poison, but they also seemed to resist dirt. 

After that, Lorraine used magic to clean herself up. Moments later, she looked just as she did before we started. 

“If you had just cast Linpio on the shrine too, this would have been a breeze,” I said bluntly. 

“What would have been the point?” she replied. “You wanted to clean it to show your gratitude. That means getting your own hands dirty, as with shrines of any religion. Besides, Linpio isn’t as useful as it might seem. It won’t help with grime that’s stuck on too hard.” 

Lorraine demonstrated by casting Linpio on a random stick. The darkened parts remained the same, so it looked no more clean than if it had been washed with water. It was like how dust, blood, and ink would come off of skin, but blemishes wouldn’t, much to the chagrin of maidens everywhere. It couldn’t remove scabs either, actually. Ink also only came off if it hadn’t fully dried yet. 

Magic seemed convenient, but it wasn’t. We still could have used it to eliminate surface-level filth, but the biggest reason not to do that was what Lorraine had pointed out. If we wanted to express our thanks, it was better to clean with our own hands. Even followers of the Church of the Eastern Sky, though some were magicians, cleaned their altars by hand at the end of each season. Linpio happened to be a life spell that even I could use, and it would have been faster and easier to use magic. But as a general rule, offering your appreciation required some toil on your part. 

“Still, it was worth the effort. You can hardly tell this is the same shrine,” I said as I looked at it again. All the filth was scrubbed off and all the vines cut away. 

All this cleaning and repairing would go to waste if it just built up again while I was away, so we picked the weeds in the surrounding area too. All we left were the saplings because they seemed to grow away from the shrine. I didn’t know what this shrine worshiped, but considering the nature of my divinity, it was presumably a plant-type divine spirit. If so, I didn’t want to remove too many of the plants. But as far as the ones all over the shrine, I had to do away with them for the sake of human convenience. I felt a bit bad about it, but there was no better choice. 

“Now that I see the full shrine, it looks like you did a fine job. You really are talented, Rentt,” Lorraine said. 

To say I agreed would be a bit prideful of me, but it was clearly better maintenance work than the average hobbyist could provide. I did train under a professional, so of course that should go without saying. I wouldn’t say I was top rate, but my craftsmanship would match an apprentice. 

“I learned a lot in the village, so thank them. You never know what skills might come in handy. Now, shall we pray?” 

That was the main reason we came here in the first place—to express our gratitude to whatever had blessed me. As for figuring out what that was, maybe asking the village elders or searching through old texts would shed some light on it. I didn’t expect much, but it would be a nice thing to try. 

First, I kneeled before the shrine and clasped my hands together. Lorraine followed suit. She didn’t have to, but I guess she was playing along. Perhaps today convinced her to convert to whatever religion this shrine would fall under. A divine spirit with no followers probably didn’t qualify for its own religion, but maybe that was rude to say. 

Not long after we began to pray, I thought I heard a voice. “Lorraine, did you hear something?” I asked, confused. 

Lorraine looked up and cocked her head. “No, nothing.” 

Assuming I’d imagined it, I began to pray again. “Thank you so much for granting me power all this time. Honestly, I don’t have a lot of faith, but you’re still watching over me for some reason. Without this power, I wouldn’t be here right now. If you don’t mind me asking, please continue to bless me going forward.” That was the gist of my prayer. 

In some corner of my mind, I also hoped I would find out what this divine spirit was. But such a demand would be uncouth, so I decided to keep it to myself. If I ever were to ask that, it would be better left for after I researched it in the village. Besides, divine spirits were supposed to be fickle in general, so even if I did ask, there was no telling if I would get an answer. That it blessed me at all was an unpredictable outcome. 

“Unpredictable? You repaired my shrine. Blessing you is what any divine spirit would do, I’d think,” said a dismayed voice. 

This time it definitely wasn’t my imagination. I looked around, but nobody else was here besides Lorraine. 

“Rentt, I heard it too,” Lorraine said. “Does somebody live around here?” 

I shook my head. “No, the only houses here are the abandoned ones you saw. Sometimes kids explore the area, but it’s otherwise deserted. If this village were closer to Maalt, I might think that thieves used these houses as hiding places, but there’d be no value in doing that in Hathara.” 

The village was far too removed from civilization. There was no use hiding from humans if it meant being attacked by monsters instead. Also, the people of Hathara were perceptive; any thieves who tried to hide here would be quickly found out. 

“Then just who could have said that?” Lorraine muttered. 

I looked at her stomach with shock. “Hey, Lorraine...” 

“What?” 

“Something’s crawling under your clothes. What the heck is it?” 

“My clothes?” 

Only now did Lorraine look down and notice the squirming. 

“What is it?” I wondered. “Are you doing some experiment where you carry a weird creature under your clothes?” 

Lorraine thought for a bit. “No, not at the moment,” she replied. That seemed to imply there were moments when she did let strange organisms live on her. As much as I wanted to ask about that, it wasn’t the most pertinent subject. 

“Anyway, can you take it out?” 

“Oh, yes, let’s see here,” she said and jammed a hand under her clothes. She grabbed at something and then pulled it out. 

“Didn’t you take that thing from me before?” I asked. 

“I believe so. What in the world is happening, though? It’s moving by itself.” 

It was the figure of Lorraine that I’d carved from shrub ent wood. It was somehow moving on its own. Honestly, it was frightening. 

“Could it be cursed?” I asked. 

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t sense any of the evil presence that cursed objects exude. Although, I don’t sense anything from your mask either,” Lorraine said, the figure wriggling all the while. The way it moved seemed a bit lacking. I gave it limbs, so it could have at least tried to act more human. As its creator, I was disappointed. 

“Are you the one who talked?” I asked the doll. 

If I were to take a step back, this would look like a highly dangerous situation. Not in the sense that I was interacting with an unknown being without taking any precautions, mind you, but because I was seriously talking to a doll. There were dolls that could move on their own to some extent after being provided mana. They were used by puppet masters for shows or for adventuring. A talking doll wasn’t that inconceivable, but society didn’t look kindly upon puppet masters. They were believed to be a strange bunch, and that belief was correct. Becoming a puppet master required both a comprehension of advanced magic technology and an unparalleled passion for dolls, so they were often a little deranged. Some of them were normal, of course, but the oddballs were the ones who stood out. I’d never even thought to dabble in puppet mastery, but if I wanted to, it would take some courage. 

The figure turned to face me. “Yes, yes I did. Hello,” it said, but its voice didn’t match the movements of its mouth. What it said wasn’t especially strange, but that made me uneasy. Lorraine and I exchanged a look before we continued the conversation. 

“So, what are you, exactly?” I asked. “Based on where we are, I’m guessing you’re the thing this shrine is dedicated to. Am I right?” 

The doll abruptly got up. “That’s mostly right,” it said. “I’m only a fraction of my true self, though. My main shrine is elsewhere, and that’s where you would find my main body, so I don’t have much power here. I did bless you, but sorry it’s such a lousy blessing. I only have two followers, so you can’t expect too much.” 

There was so much to ask that I didn’t know where to begin. 

Lorraine pondered for a moment before asking, “First of all, are we right to assume you’re a divine spirit?” That was a good place to start. 

“I guess that’s not technically wrong, but like I said, I’m a fraction of the divine spirit. I’m closer to just any old spirit. I’ve been away from my true self for so long that I’m on my own at this point.” 

“Who is your ‘true self’?” 

“Viroget, the God of Plants.” 

Viroget was a god with dominion over plants and fertility as well as war and harvests. He was a relatively dangerous god who would wage war for the sake of prosperity. He was said to be ruthless. The spirit in this figure, however, seemed pretty docile. 

“Why did you inhabit this figure?” Lorraine asked. 

“Well, without an object to dwell in, it’s hard to materialize vividly enough for ordinary humans to see. That might be different with a proper temple, but this little shrine in the mountains isn’t cutting it. I wanted to talk to you two and needed to find a way, and this figure happened to be perfect.” 

“What makes it perfect?” 

“This was made from materials containing mana, right? By one of my followers, no less. We can’t inhabit objects made from normal materials, so I happened to get lucky.” 

Lorraine happened to be carrying this figure around, so this spirit got to meet us. It was certainly lucky, but I had to question why Lorraine still kept this on her in the first place. I decided to ask her about it later. 

“Oh right, you said you have two followers. Who are they?” I asked. 

The figure pointed to us. “Followers,” it said. 

Now, it wasn’t as if I placed much faith in any gods. I did pray, but no more than a few times in the last decade. To call me a follower of this spirit seemed questionable. 

The figure seemed to know what I was thinking. “Nobody else comes to this shrine, so it’s you or nobody. I know the place has been abandoned. Wait, more importantly, I need to bless my new follower!” it suddenly shouted and then floated in the air. It shined and hovered in a circle around Lorraine, chanting some words I couldn’t hear. Lorraine began to glow with a light I recognized. 

“It’s divinity.” 

“Divinity? This is?” Lorraine asked. She stared with shock at the light she gave off. She didn’t look like a follower shaking with joy over being blessed by their god. Rather, she came across like a mad scientist delighted to find something new to study. There was no faith to be found in her, so I had to wonder if this spirit made the right choice. It did seem satisfied, however. 

“Oh boy, a new follower. This calls for a celebration. Bring out the alcohol!” it said. 

I wanted to ask if it was mistaking its shrine for a bar, but we did happen to have alcohol. Lorraine wanted some of Hathara’s strongest drinks for home, so she took the leftovers from last night. She had about twenty big bottles, so surely she could live with giving up one of them. She received a number of bottles after showing her illusion magic at the banquet, but she used my likeness for it. After embarrassing me like that, I deserved at least one. 

When I took out one of the bottles, Lorraine looked at it somewhat wantingly, but she didn’t complain. I took that to mean she accepted, so I presented it to the figure. 

“Oh, I was kidding. You actually have some on you! You’re the best follower I could ask for,” the figure said and turned its wooden body toward me. I wondered how it would be able to drink anything, but my question was answered when the bottle began to float toward the figure. The cap remained on, but the liquid within vanished before my eyes. 

“Wow, that’s the stuff!” the figure said when it finished, acting no different than it had a minute ago. Maybe divine spirits didn’t get drunk. If so, alcohol didn’t seem like it would be much fun for them, unless they enjoyed it in ways that humans couldn’t comprehend. I had no idea, but at least it was happy. 

Meanwhile, Lorraine was trying out her newfound divinity. “This feels pretty different from magic. Rentt, I’m amazed you can switch between them so fluidly.” 

Mana and divinity were certainly different, as was spirit. Using more than one of them one after another was surprisingly difficult, but it was possible once you got used to it. I didn’t have much power to work with, but I had a decade to test that power out, and I needed to make the best of what I had just to survive at all. When it came to control over energy, Lorraine wasn’t going to outmatch me easily. As far as the strength and handling of spells, though, I couldn’t beat her. I might have had an easier time switching, but that said nothing of the strength of her divinity itself. 

“I’ve used all my powers to death already. I’m used to it. So how much divinity do you have?” I asked. “If it’s more than me, I think I might cry.” 

“I only just obtained this power, so it’s hard to say. I think it’s a very small amount. I’ve only used a tiny bit, but it feels like I’ve already run dry,” she answered. 

I looked at Lorraine, and her divinity did seem to mostly be gone. She must have already used it up. If releasing a small amount was enough to run out, then she might have had a similar quantity to what I used to have. 

“I told you it was a lousy blessing. This is the best a spirit like me can do. It was the same for Rentt. Wait, actually, I just noticed Rentt has a crazy amount of divinity. Why’s that? It’s around a hundred times more than what I gave you.” 

My divinity was a good deal greater than it used to be, but I thought that was thanks to something this spirit did. Apparently that wasn’t the case. Now I was curious. 

“So you didn’t give me more divinity?” I asked. “I thought the strength and quantity of one’s divinity was determined by its origins. I figured you were helping me through all the challenges I’ve had lately by strengthening your blessing or something.” A god would try to protect their followers, so that made sense to me. 

But the figure shook its head. “I’m not that nice. Or so I’d say, but with only two followers, I’d love to help you stay out of danger. But I’m extremely weak, you see. I can’t even check on Rentt that often. Even talking to you like this right now requires a lot of effort.” 

“Then why did my divinity increase?” I asked. 

The figure cocked its head and stared at me. “Well, it can be gradually increased if you work hard enough, but what happened to you isn’t normal. It’s probably got something to do with that weird mask. I sense a god, but I don’t know which one.” 

“This?” It was the cursed mask Rina bought me at the market. Aside from being irremovable, I never thought it had any effects. If what the spirit said was true, then this mask wasn’t even cursed in the first place. It mentioned a god, but I didn’t sense anything. Neither did Lorraine. 

“It could be a holy item,” the figure said. “That would explain why it’s enhancing my blessing. Maybe you got a bit of an additional blessing from the mask’s creator.” 

For the most part, humans had no way of knowing which gods blessed them. Your only hope was to infer, as I did when I gained divinity after repairing the shrine. This meant that my unthinkable increase in divinity came from another blessing I wasn’t aware of, and it originated from this mask. 

“Which god is it, exactly?” 

“Who knows? Like I said, I don’t know. If you really want to find out, why not go to the God of Appraisal’s main temple? If you bring a holy item, the god himself might look at it for you.” 

Just then, the figure suddenly began to panic. Lorraine and I gave it strange looks. 

“Looks like my time is up,” it said, now speaking rapidly. “Next time you create something for me to inhabit, use better materials. Humanoid objects are the easiest to possess. I should be able to possess it no matter where you are, as long as you call for me.” 

“Wait! At least tell me your name,” I shouted. 

“My name? Nobody’s given me a name. I’m part of Viroget, so call me Viro or Get or something. See you later!” it said lightly and then spewed what appeared to be steam. 

For a brief moment, I thought I saw the silhouette of someone in the steam, but then it disappeared into the air. The wooden figure blackened and crumbled into sand within seconds. 

“What? Can you do something about this, Rentt?!” Lorraine cried. She was distraught for some reason, but there was nothing I could do. 

“It’s just a figure. What’s the big deal?” I asked. It wasn’t as if Viro or Get or whichever name I wanted to settle on had died. It was just something I’d made. 

“It’s a huge deal! Oh no, it’s completely fallen apart.” 

By the time the silky sand fell to the ground, Lorraine gave up and slumped over. 

“Did you like it?” I asked. “I could make a million of those for you. That divine spirit asked us to make it another vessel anyway.” 

Lorraine’s face brightened a bit. “Right, I suppose that’s fine. So the figure acted as a vessel for it, then?” she asked seriously. 

“That’s what it seemed like. But it said it can only possess something that contains mana, so we’ll have to consider which materials to use. After it’s made, we can supposedly ask the spirit to come possess it at any time.” 

I didn’t know whether it would actually work, but it was worth a try. There was more I wanted to ask the spirit. It said the location didn’t matter, so it didn’t even have to be in Hathara. It was said that the gods dwelled everywhere and nowhere. By that, they meant that as long as you had faith, it didn’t matter where you were. But shrines and temples were like doors that connected our world to theirs, making it easy for them to interact with us, from what I had heard. But this was a subject best left to religious folk. I could ask one of them for more details. I didn’t know whether to consider myself lucky, but I did happen to know a few clergy members. Lillian and Myullias and even Nive might have counted. Albeit, she wasn’t part of the church, and it seemed more like she was using them than anything. She might know about gods and spirits, though, so maybe she would be just as good to ask. I didn’t especially want to rely on her, however. 

“It’s odd how the spirit is letting us name it. If it’s supposed to be part of Viroget, I wouldn’t have expected it to be so casual,” Lorraine said. 

Viroget was the God of Plants, but if this spirit was a piece of him, then it didn’t seem unreasonable to go ask him for a name. But maybe this was just how gods were. This was my first contact with such a being and I couldn’t judge all of them by this experience alone, but I wouldn’t describe this entity as especially holy. It did say it was more of a normal spirit than a divine one, so maybe I only thought this because it didn’t turn out to be an important god. Or maybe all gods were this carefree. I hoped not. 

“I thought it was awfully casual too. Do you think all gods are like this?” I asked. 

She pondered the question for a moment. “It’s said that gods are so imposing that they’re hard to defy, that they carry themselves with an air of divine majesty, and that they’re far outside our reach. But that spirit was nothing like that. Not to be rude or anything.” 

Lorraine had no faith in any particular religion, but she seemed to have some reverence toward gods. She chose her words carefully, but it amounted to her saying that this spirit was not at all godlike. I felt the same way. 

“I’d bet the spirit would say the same thing. Anyway, I’ll make another figure some time. It’ll be best to carve it from something with more mana. It sounded like possessing a vessel and staying in it demands some degree of effort.” I wouldn’t want to use the same materials again just so it could leave after a few minutes. I would either have to find higher quality materials in a dungeon or buy them somewhere. 

“We can save that for when we return to Maalt, I suppose. At least this trip wasn’t a waste of time. We learned more about your mask, and we learned that we could ask the God of Appraisal to look at it.” 

“I find that a bit sketchy. Hopefully we don’t just go to that temple, get no information from their appraisers, and leave empty-handed.” 

The God of Appraisal had dominion over the worth and evaluation of items, and he was primarily worshiped by merchants and nobles. All priests for the God of Appraisal were capable appraisers, so they always had visitors coming to determine the value of their possessions. I had never been there myself, but it sounded like the ideal place to learn about my mask. 

There was a problem, however. The priests had a strict attitude about cursed items. You could bring one to be appraised, but if they found out it was cursed, they would insist on purifying it. If you had the misfortune of being interested in owning cursed items, you never wanted to take them there. That included myself, so I thought I could never go. But if the spirit was correct, then my mask was actually holy. In that case, I could go get it appraised without any issues. The worst that could happen is they purified it and it fell off, which wouldn’t be so bad. 

If there was any problem, it was that my true nature might be discovered, but the appraisers at the temple simply used immense knowledge and experience to do their job. They had no special ability to determine the nature of something on sight, so they wouldn’t be able to see that I was a vampire. It would be no more dangerous than when I went out to town. 

We decided to leave this for after we returned to Maalt. The goal would be to go to the God of Appraisal’s temple. The problem was that we were told to go to the main temple. There was a branch temple in Yaaran, but that supposedly wasn’t good enough. I had some idea as to why. Temples and shrines were close to the world of gods and spirits, with the main temples being the easiest places for them to enter our world. But historically there were virtually no instances of gods coming to our world, Viro aside. Viro did show himself to us pretty casually, so maybe the rules around that were surprisingly loose. He said it took some effort, so maybe it was just his tone that was casual and he actually arrived under very strict circumstances. I imagined it was something like that and the God of Appraisal could only come to his main temple. Viro was closer to a normal spirit, or something of a minor god, but the God of Appraisal was quite significant and had been worshiped since ancient times. Humans of high status were similarly impossible to meet with before overcoming some barriers. You needed the right place, the right time, the right number of people, and more. If it was the same for gods, then I could understand why I’d have to go to their main temple. 

However, that temple was in another country. We would be forced to leave on a journey. As long as I still had to teach Alize and collect Dragon Blood Blossoms for Laura, that would pose a problem. But that was something to discuss when we got back. 

“Well, anyway, that takes care of business here,” Lorraine said. “All that remains is to go visit your teacher. The sun has set, though. Should we?” 

She must have meant Gharb. I had forgotten that she invited us. I didn’t know if she had something in particular to tell us or if she just wanted to chat after all these years apart. She was the most mysterious of the villagers, so I couldn’t begin to guess what she was thinking. She might have had reasons that I wasn’t even considering. That was somewhat of a scary thought, but ignoring her invitation wasn’t an option. She was one of the people who formed the foundation of my adventuring skills, after all. Disciples had to be loyal to their teachers. 

The time of day was a problem, though. The sun had gone down. She might have expected us to show up in the afternoon. There were no magic lamps like we had in Maalt, so it was very much nighttime. Everyone returned home to have dinner and then went straight to bed so they could wake up as the sun rose the next morning. Their way of life was nothing like in the city. In Maalt terms, visiting someone now would be like visiting them after midnight, a little bit insensible. 

I was hesitant, but that didn’t stop me. “We should go. If she tells us to come back tomorrow, we can do that instead.” 

So we decided to head to Gharb’s house.