Chapter 3: Ripe Berries
At first, Alan didn’t notice that something was amiss in the dense forest.
Forgive him for that—after all, he was only a low-magic country mage, and for the past several hundred years the forest had always been this way: silent, calm, and safe.
Like a generous mother, it provided Green River Village and the nearby villagers with game, berries, firewood, and herbs. Even though these things couldn’t fetch much of a price because they couldn’t be imbued with magic, they were more than enough to allow the residents here to live without worry for food or clothing.
The dense forest was like the villagers’ backyard, and by now Alan could more or less be considered half a member of Green River Village himself.
He tread carefully through the thick grass, moving along the riverbank, weaving between bushes and low trees.
Compared to the native inhabitants, his much slighter build proved to be a great advantage at moments like this. He moved with agility and lightness, like a little deer in the woods.
But before long, Alan slowed his pace.
He had found a vast patch of ripe wild berries. Every bush was heavy with fruit, each berry plump and hidden beneath deep green leaves. When he picked them, it took only the slightest pressure for purple-red juice to stain his fingertips.
Alan filled his basket to the brim. Finding such a large patch of wild berries should have filled him with joy, yet the more he picked, the more uneasy he felt.
He straightened up from among the berry bushes, frowning as he carefully searched for the source of his unease. He pressed a hand to his chest; the protective charm he had brought back from his days with the adventuring party hung quietly there, giving no warning at all. Wrapped in vegetation, the forest air was damp, the light dimmer, and all around him lay utter stillness.
Wait—stillness…
Alan’s expression froze.
He finally realized that ever since he had entered the forest, he hadn’t heard a single birdcall. Come to think of it, even the berry patch at his side was suspicious. The small animals of the forest were always the smartest diners; they seemed to know innately exactly when wild berries ripened, and before humans ever had the chance to find them, they would have already eaten every last sweet, juicy, fully ripe berry the woods had to offer.
Yet the patch of wild berries before his eyes showed no sign of having been visited by any animal at all.
The berries had ripened, but the diners had failed to arrive on schedule.
Something had appeared.
All the clever animals had sensed the danger and fled the forest ahead of time—
All except Alan.
Alan had even foolishly, of his own accord, walked straight into the forest.
“This is bad.”
Alan drew in a deep breath and swallowed, carefully backing out of the berry patch before quickening his steps toward the edge of the forest.
He desperately hoped that there was still time. Replaying his path in his mind, he prayed in mounting dread that he hadn’t made too much noise and drawn the attention of the uninvited presence lurking in the woods.
Alan had never been particularly favored by the Lord of Fate; countless experiences back when he was with the adventuring party had already proven that. He always seemed to get dragged into inexplicable trouble, and the more cautious he tried to be, the worse it became.
But this time, he was at last granted a rare stroke of favor.
The entire journey out of the forest was remarkably calm.
Though on several occasions Alan faintly sensed something ominous and malignant, and the protective charm on his chest flared with a warning heat more than once—
From beginning to end, he encountered no danger at all.
Carrying a full basket of wild berries, he left the forest smoothly and without incident.
The only mishap was that the small cloth pouch at his waist was lost somewhere in the woods.
It was the little cloth pouch that held the baked apple slices. Sensing danger, Alan hadn’t had the leisure to eat his apples in the forest at all.
Perhaps because he’d been so tense, he hadn’t noticed in the slightest when the pouch went missing.
Had it been snagged by a branch?
After realizing the pouch was gone, Alan thought about it in confusion for a moment, but since it contained nothing but baked apples and no valuables, he didn’t dwell on it for long.
…
In the dense forest.
The silver-eyed man coldly wiped the thick, poisonous blood from his dagger with his tattered cloak.
He sat upright high in the trees, watching the figure of Alan leaving the forest with a basket slung over his arm.
At this distance, an ordinary person would likely have been able to see only the young man’s vague outline, but to the silver-eyed man, everything was in perfect clarity.
When crossing the river, the slender youth had rolled up his trousers, his thin calves stepping into the clear current. Unlike any human he had seen before, this human’s skin was unbelievably fine—so delicate that even many human nobles rarely possessed such texture.
The kind of delicacy that made one want to lightly nibble at it with one’s teeth.
Only after a long time—until Alan’s figure had completely vanished on the far side of the river—did the silver-eyed man slowly withdraw his gaze. His expression turned grave as he looked down at the small cloth pouch in his palm.
From within it, the baked apples gave off an unusually sweet fragrance.
He picked out a thin slice of baked apple and, on guard, cast several different schools of detection magic on it. Then a faint, very faint trace of confusion surfaced on his otherwise cold face.
“No curse.”
“No magical residue.”
He murmured softly in a secret tongue utterly incomprehensible to humans, showing a hint of uncertainty at the results returned by the magic.
For perhaps the first time in a long while, he felt truly perplexed—if there was no curse and no magic, then why did this shriveled little food make him feel a strange, unfamiliar hunger?
To confirm this, the man put a slice of apple into his mouth.
As the curious flavor blossomed across his tongue, the image of that frail human unbiddenly surfaced in his mind.
Perhaps it was some kind of secret art?
He chewed through the sweet-and-tart apple slices one bite after another, calmly analyzing the abnormalities in his own body.
The true core of whatever secret art this was should be that human himself, not the product he had made.
Thus, all of his symptoms—the craving for food, the inexplicable agitation, the restless unease—had intensified only after that human appeared within the bounds of his territory.
The silver-eyed man’s tail swayed, and without even realizing it, he finished every last piece of baked apple in the pouch.
…Very tasty.
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Author’s Note:
Stealing your wife’s baked apples—can that really be called stealing?
