Chapter 1: A Cup of Honey Wine
“So, you’re saying that I really only need sage, garlic, and potatoes to make the kind of potato pancakes you made before?”
A gentle breeze swept through Green River Village at dusk, and the lingering heat of summer still hung in the air.
Mrs. Pan, her cheeks rosy and her figure slightly round, stood beside the garden, looking a little uncertain as she asked Alan for confirmation.
“And butter,” Alan added, half-squatting in Mrs. Pan’s garden. “Potatoes, sage, fresh garlic, and butter—that’s all you need. Potato pancakes have never been complicated to make.”
As he spoke, he pressed his hand against the loose, fertile soil of the garden.
A thin layer of magical light emerged from his palm and seeped into the soil where tomatoes, eggplants, small pumpkins, and sorrel were planted.
Moments later, the previously drooping plants visibly stretched their leaves and stems, returning to full vitality.
Not long ago, a group of white-winged goblins had taken up residence in Mrs. Pan’s garden. She had discovered them and bought a runic charm to drive the troublesome little creatures away, but the plants still seemed somewhat listless. Worried that this might affect the autumn harvest, she anxiously sought Alan’s help.
It was undoubtedly the right decision. Compared to proper magicians, Alan’s magic was weak to the point of insignificance, yet this small amount of magic was more than enough to soothe the frightened plants in the garden.
“Let me repeat it to make sure I don’t miss anything,” Mrs. Pan said. “I just need to prepare the potatoes and then grate them finely?”
“The finer, the better,” Alan reminded her.
Mrs. Pan nodded and continued, “Yes, the finer, the better. Then two cloves of fresh garlic, a sprig of sage… put a big chunk of butter into a scorching pan, then add these ingredients and press them into thin pancakes…”
“Thinner makes it easier to get that crispy texture,” Alan couldn’t help but add.
“Oh, of course—no one could dislike a fragrant, crispy potato pancake base,” Mrs. Pan laughed. “Then all we have to do is wait until the pancakes turn golden and crunchy, right?”
“That’s right. Sprinkle a little flaky salt on top after they’re out of the pan.”
“It’s really hard to believe that something so delicious can be made in such a simple way. Ever since you let those two little troublemakers from my family stay for dinner, they haven’t stopped talking about your potato pancakes!”
Mrs. Pan scratched her cheek, her face slightly flushed, clearly still a bit unaccustomed to discussing recipes with someone like Alan.
After all, regardless of how weak his magical power might be, Alan was still a bona fide mage—even if the greatest use of his magic was merely restoring vitality to gentle, harmless plants.
“I’m glad they enjoyed my cooking,” Alan said.
He lowered his gaze, awkwardly avoiding Mrs. Pan’s enthusiastic stare.
Seven years after transmigrating to this otherworldly continent filled with magic, monsters, dragons, and mages, he still wasn’t quite used to being scrutinized so directly by the local inhabitants.
Of course, compared to many people on the central continent, the villagers of Green River Village—situated on the fringes of the Empire—were already kind enough.
The village lay in a remote area, surrounded by dense forests and river valleys with barely any magical fluctuations. The residents’ greatest troubles were no more than minor creatures such as goblins or marsh-dwellers. Most locals lived by farming, and the favorable climate made the land bountiful—though everything it produced was ordinary food without any magical enhancement. The small village had only a single main street and a bar so tiny it was almost laughable. There was no general store, but a traveling merchant came by every half month, bringing the villagers whatever supplies they needed.
It was precisely this isolation and remoteness, combined with a sufficient degree of abundance, that gave the people of Green River Village their almost childlike gentleness and open-hearted optimism.
Green River Village rarely saw outsiders, yet the villagers accepted Alan’s arrival and, over the course of a few months, gradually grew accustomed to his decidedly “unusual” appearance—his slight build, black hair and eyes, features much softer than those of ordinary people, and his pale, ivory-toned skin.
As a transmigrator, Alan possessed neither a protagonist’s halo nor any kind of overpowered cheat. Of course, when he had first arrived, he’d fallen under the same illusion: that on this otherworldly continent filled with dragons, magic, beastfolk, dragons, and mages, he would shine brilliantly—fighting ten thousand enemies alone, repelling invasions from the demon realm, and ascending to become a supreme archmage.
…After stumbling by sheer chance into some third-rate adventurer party and barely surviving, those fantasies quickly went up in smoke.
Being alive at all already counted as good luck for Alan.
Once he came to terms with that fact, he spent some time settling down. For now, everything about Green River Village made him feel at ease and comfortable. Certain side effects of transmigration had left his otherwise ordinary human body with a faint sensitivity to magic. Out in the wider world, this level of magic was hardly worth mentioning—but in Green River Village, a single simple “job” was enough to earn him ample compensation.
Two large slabs of homemade butter.
A whole loaf of baked bread, stuffed with honey and crushed almonds.
A big bag of small apples. (“They may be tiny, but trust me—these apples are sweeter than a maiden’s kiss!” Mrs. Pan enthusiastically pitched them.)
A small sack of potatoes, with a few beets mixed in.
A large chunk of honeycomb, thick honey oozing and dripping from it.
…
If it weren’t for the fact that Alan’s visibly frail body clearly couldn’t carry much more, Mrs. Pan would have liked to send him off with an entire cured pork leg as well—one marinated with black pepper and sea salt.
In truth, even the “payment” he was already carrying was more than Alan could comfortably manage.
“You’re far too skinny,” Mrs. Pan said. “You really ought to eat more pork legs!”
Mrs. Pan finished tying the straps on Alan’s back and looked at him with deep concern as he swayed unsteadily. Alan could only give a wry smile. If he hadn’t transmigrated, in a normal world he would probably have been nothing more than an ordinary young man—not particularly strong, but hardly frail either. Yet compared with the natives of this magical continent, many of whom stood well over two meters tall, he did indeed appear especially… delicate.
And that kind of difference in physique was not something that could be made up for by eating pork legs.
Mrs. Pan suggested that Alan stay in the village for the night and wait until the next day, when her two children, Chris and John, returned and could help carry his things back for him.
That way, Alan could even take the pork leg with him—Mrs. Pan was quite proud of her skill at curing pork legs.
But Alan politely declined her kindness. As an outsider, he did not live within Green River Village itself, but had built a small wooden cabin on a patch of wasteland near the village.
It had originally been farmland used by the villagers to grow medicinal herbs—close to the village, yet not too close—perfectly suited to Alan’s discomfort with crowds.
“It’s only a short walk,” Alan said, glancing at the sky as he bade Mrs. Pan farewell. “I’ll be home before the sun sets. Thank you for your concern.”
“Very well,”
Mrs. Pan sighed, seeing him off with some disappointment.
However, when she returned home that evening, John and Chris—who weren’t supposed to be back until the next day—were already sitting at the dining table. Their hands were empty, and they looked rather bedraggled.
Mrs. Pan was greatly surprised. Though still young, John and Chris were already the finest hunters in Green River Village, and this was the first time they had ever returned empty-handed.
Faced with their mother’s questioning, John and Chris frowned deeply. “…No, we don’t know what happened. The animals in the deep forest are gone.”
“Gone?” Mrs. Pan asked. “What do you mean by that?”
“It’s not just that they’re gone—they fled. Even the most vicious snake-wolves and scale deer have run off. Their nests were still warm. Heaven knows what’s come into the deep forest—they’ve all fled.”
John rubbed the bridge of his nose and spoke with a headache.
“That’s terrifying. May the Goddess of Nature swiftly drive away those creations that disrupt the balance.”
Mrs. Pan clasped her hands to her chest in prayer. Even so, neither she nor her children showed much real worry. As mentioned before, the river valley through which the Green River flowed was poor in magical elements; whatever it was, nothing could remain for long in such a magical wasteland.
It was only while cooking the buttered potato pancakes she had just learned to make that a faint trace of unease crossed Mrs. Pan’s mind—
The road Alan took home did pass along a short stretch of the riverbank, and on the other side of the Green River lay the deep forest.
If there truly was something in the forest, then perhaps…
But the possibility was far too remote. Having never encountered anything more troublesome than white-winged goblins in her life, Mrs. Pan soon cast the worry aside and immersed herself in the delicious aroma of the crisp, sizzling potato pancakes.
—
As for Alan—
Alan did not, in fact, make it back to his cozy little cabin before sunset, as he had said he would.
First, because the things Mrs. Pan had given him were simply too heavy, forcing him to rest after walking only a short distance each time.
Second, because while passing along the narrow path by the riverbank, he was violently tripped by something.
Alan was left dizzy and seeing stars from the fall.
It took him quite a while to realize that the thing he had tripped over seemed to be… a person.
Heart pounding, Alan staggered a short distance away, enduring the dizziness and the pain in his body as he stared in panic at the man on the ground.
The man lay motionless, sprawled face-down, as though already dead.
Half of his face was submerged in the damp river mud, and the blood seeping from his body had stained the entire patch of ground beneath him a dark, nearly black red.
Judging by his clothing, he might have been a ranger? No—considering the shattered, battered armor on his body, perhaps a warrior instead. Yet Alan couldn’t recognize the strange emblem on the man’s armor as belonging to any known clan.
Not long after leaving the adventurer party, Alan had already forgotten most of the adventuring knowledge he’d once learned.
The only thing he could be certain of was that the man had suffered a truly horrific attack before dying—Alan could even glimpse the man’s body through the torn armor, where beneath the charred flesh, pale bone seemed to protrude.
‘Damn—surely the things spilling out of those wounds weren’t the man’s organs?’ Alan thought, trembling.
After living in the calm safety of Green River Village for so long, being confronted with such a terrifying sight again left Alan realizing that he could no longer endure it. According to the adventurer training he’d once received, there were two “correct” ways to deal with a corpse like this.
The first was to immediately step forward, sever the man’s neck to ensure there was no lingering life, then quickly strip the body of anything valuable or usable, and finally push the corpse into the river to destroy the evidence.
The second was to erase all traces of himself, avoid the man entirely, pretend he had discovered nothing, and leave the area as quietly as possible, minimizing any potential trouble.
Unfortunately, Alan had never been a qualified adventurer—neither then, nor now.
Pale-faced, he approached the man and placed his hand against the man’s neck.
When he detected an extremely faint trace of life still remaining, Alan reflexively cast a healing spell on him—the same kind of spell he had used in Mrs. Pan’s garden on tomatoes, eggplants, and pumpkins.
At this distance, Alan was finally able—by the dim light of the moon—to make out the man’s face beneath the layers of mud.
The man was handsome, but not in a way that brought comfort. The skin not smeared with filth was pale like fog, and his tightly closed lashes resembled jagged ice spikes from a land of extreme cold.
A dense chill clung to him, the cold stillness of death.
He was absolutely no ordinary soldier—one could tell that much simply by looking at his face.
And then Alan realized just what a stupid thing he had done. He had encountered a strange corpse and cast a feeble garden spell in an attempt to save it. It was so foolish it was enough to drive one mad.
Fortunately, there was no one here but him and the “corpse” beside him. No one would witness his idiotic mistake.
Alan shuddered and pulled his hand back from the man’s neck.
But in that very instant, his wrist was clamped in place by an icy iron grip. The man—who should have been dead—had opened his eyes. Silver pupils fixed on Alan with a cold, merciless stare in the night.
Alan noticed then that the man’s eyes were not shaped like a human’s at all, but long and narrow, with slit pupils like those of a reptile.
The unlucky country mage let out a cry of terror and instinctively tried to jump away, but even compared to a man who looked half-dead, his strength was pitifully weak.
He failed to break free of the silver-eyed man’s hold, and something suddenly coiled around his waist, forcing him to fall a second time—straight onto the man’s body.
The man’s body was hard beyond belief, scarcely human at all, more like a frost golem forged from silver and ice.
“Crack—”
Alan heard a sharp snap, and then his chest felt wet. The bottle he had kept against his chest had shattered, and honey wine soaked through his clothes.
“Let go of me!” Alan shouted in terror.
With great effort, he managed to form a wind blade and flung it at the man. A small cut appeared on the man’s body, blood spilling out—but that was all.
Those reptilian eyes suddenly constricted, locking directly onto Alan.
Alan froze.
He felt certain that in the very next second, he would be killed by this strange man.
“Get lost—or I’ll kill you—”
Then he heard a hoarse whisper seep from the man’s mouth, which was gushing blood.
The silver-eyed man seemed to finally register his current situation. He did not kill Alan. Instead, he released his grip on the frail, pitiful black-haired youth, and his body fell heavily back into the mud.
His breathing was even weaker than before; perhaps in the very next moment, he would truly die.
Shaken to the core, Alan stood up and backed away from the man. He should leave—leave immediately.
That was what Alan told himself.
And, in fact, he did just that.
After walking a short distance, Alan felt the damp fabric against his chest.
He pulled out the shattered flask, furious and shaken.
As a mage with only meager magical power, Alan always carried a bottle of honey wine on him.
This thick, golden liquid—naturally blessed—had the ability to restore mental energy and provide a faint healing effect.
There was still about a flask’s bottom left inside, exuding a tempting sweetness.
“I must be an idiot,” Alan muttered to himself.
His mind replayed the man’s actions. The initial attack had clearly been an instinctive act of self-defense, but once he realized that the person beside him was an innocent bystander, he had released him without hesitation.
By the standards of an adventurer party, the silver-eyed man’s response was undeniably improper. On this damned continent, even an unarmed commoner could turn into a greedy vulture upon discovering a dying adventurer. Yet the man had let Alan go. Perhaps that meant he was not a bad person.
Alan knew perfectly well that he was merely looking for excuses for what he was about to do. After all, he was deliberately ignoring the beastlike silver eyes—and certain things that should not have existed at all (such as the bony tail that had suddenly wrapped around him).
But no matter what, in the end Alan still inched his way back, step by reluctant step, to the place where the man had fallen.
He took a deep breath, trembling, and helped the man up.
This time, the man no longer even had the strength to lash out at him on instinct.
His head drooped lifelessly in the crook of Alan’s arm, and he looked unexpectedly fragile.
“Y-you… don’t bite me,” Alan prayed shakily as he pried open the man’s thin lips.
Unsurprisingly, he saw in the man’s mouth a set of fine, triangular teeth utterly unlike those of a human, along with a short, forked, crimson tongue.
He trembled even harder.
Alan poured the tiny remaining bit of honey wine from the broken flask into the man’s mouth.
Thank the gods, the man didn’t bite off Alan’s fingers.
Of course, there were still surprises. The moment the first drop of sweet liquid touched his tongue, the man’s throat worked, and he immediately began greedily sucking down the rest of the honey wine.
When Alan tried to pull his hand back, the man suddenly flicked out his tongue and tightly wrapped it around Alan’s fingers—after all, in handling the shattered flask, Alan’s fingers had inevitably been stained with the honey wine’s sweetness.
“Hey—!”
Alan’s mind went completely blank in fright. It took him a long while to react, struggling to wrench his fingers free from the man’s mouth.
Then, a bit roughly, he dropped the man back onto the ground and staggered away from the riverbank as fast as he could.
He had given the man a cup of honey wine. From here on out, everything would depend on the Goddess of Life’s favor.
Whether the man lived or died had nothing more to do with him.
