Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha (LN) - Volume 6 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: My Hometown of Hathara 

In the middle of a wooden fence stood a crude gate. We approached it and met two young men standing guard. They both looked at me as soon as they saw us. 

“Halt. What business do you have in Hathara?” one of them asked. 

“I’m coming back home. Jal, Dol, don’t you recognize me?” I asked and smiled. But the smile was hidden under my mask, so all they saw were my narrowed eyes. 

The two youths, a skinny one named Jal and a short one named Dol, stared at me curiously. A few moments later, they opened their eyes wide. 

“Wait, Rentt?! Is that you?!” they shouted. 

“Yeah, can’t you tell?” 

“No, you looked more like an ordinary adventurer last time you came,” Jal said. “Like a swordsman or something. What’s with the sketchy robe and mask?” His brow furrowed as he asked. 

“I’ve been through a lot. Anyway, let me in,” I answered, dodging the question. Explaining would be a hassle, and I had no intention of telling them everything. 

“Well, I guess that’s fine. Wait, who’s that?” Dol asked when he noticed Lorraine. 

“I’m a fellow adventurer,” Lorraine proclaimed. “My name is Lorraine Vivie. I also work as a scholar in Maalt. Nice to meet you.” She shook their hands. 

They both looked bewildered as they shook back, but a second later they dragged me off to the side and spoke into my ear with a shouting whisper. 

“Hey! Who’s the hot chick?! Don’t tell me you’re married! Are you married?!” Jal questioned. 

Dol quickly added, “Here to report you got married? Is that why you’re back?! This is a big deal. We have to tell the mayor!” he said and ran off into the village. 

“Hey, wait! You’ve got it all wrong!” I frantically yelled, but it was too late. Typical of villagers from deep in the mountains, he had strong legs and ran fast. It only took a moment before he was out of sight. 

“Who would’ve thought that one of the least sociable people in the village would come back with a wife. Riri and Fahri aren’t gonna be happy about this. At least this gives us a chance with them, though,” Jal muttered. 

Riri and Fahri were considered to be among the most beautiful women in the village. They were also childhood friends of mine, but they were around seven years my junior, so I thought of them like younger sisters. Though it was different in the city, by the village’s standards they were getting a bit old for single women. It was a bit worrisome. Still, they were gorgeous enough to get married right away if they ever felt like it, so maybe it wasn’t worth being concerned about. 

In any case, I didn’t know why Jal brought them up. “What do you mean, this gives you a chance with them?” I asked. 

“I can’t believe you,” Jal said, appalled. “They were always into you. Didn’t they come on to you a few times? And you turned them down.” 

“Pretty sure it wasn’t serious. They did that all the time.” 

“They gave you honey sweets every year on Saint Alto’s Day, didn’t they? And they always invited you to the lake during the Nameless Festival,” he retorted. 

Both of those events were famously meant for couples. The former was celebrated around the world, while the latter was specific to our village. They were embedded enough in our public consciousness that I knew all about them. On Saint Alto’s Day, you gave honey sweets to someone you liked. It was also one of the only times of year where it was considered appropriate for a woman to confess her love to a man. As for the Nameless Festival, it had been held in Hathara for so long that even its original name was forgotten. There was a story that went along with it, and the festival was based around that. The story was about a couple that went to a lake, where their love was finally fully realized. 

I did receive sweets and get invited to the lake on those holidays, but I left the village a bit before I turned fifteen. At the time, I didn’t know how I was supposed to take these approaches from seven- or eight-year-old girls. That hardly seemed like a reason to treat me as unreceptive to their love, though. 

On the occasions that I did come back to the village, I was surprised to see how beautiful they had become. And they did similar things during those visits. Regardless, I had known them ever since they were young, so they still felt like precious little sisters to me. And if they looked up to me like a big brother, that wouldn’t be especially strange. 

“They said they had nobody else and picked me so they could at least experience the holiday,” I explained. That must have been where Jal got the wrong idea. They were clearly too young. I didn’t have anything against an age gap in relationships between adults, but when you’ve known someone since they were an infant, it’s hard to view them as a member of the opposite sex. I assumed they saw me the same way. 

“And you just took that at face value?” Jal spat. “Well, whatever. You brought your wife here, so that’s the end of that. Now the village guys can go after Riri and Fahri.” 

That must have been what he meant by getting a chance. Well, whether they were kidding or not, I didn’t have romantic feelings for them. Not that I was married to Lorraine either, but it didn’t look like Jal or Dol would listen even if I told them that. Considering Riri and Fahri, maybe this was a convenient misunderstanding, so I didn’t want to go out of my way to correct them. 

“What are you chatting about? Anything interesting?” Lorraine asked. 

She had popped in from behind us, startling Jal. However, I realized she was there from the moment she approached. It would have been different had she used magic to conceal herself, but I could otherwise detect her without any issues. That wasn’t the case for Jal. 

“Not really,” he said. “Well, anyway, no reason to stand around out here. How about we go inside the village? There are some people who’d like to say hi.” 

“Oh, right,” Lorraine replied. “Jal, was it?” 

“Yeah, what’s up?” 

“I know Rentt is allowed in, but am I?” she asked. It should have been fine as long as she was attending me, but it was typical of her to ask and make sure. 

“Yeah, no problem. You’re Rentt’s, well, y’know.” 

“I’m not sure I know, but I’m glad to hear it’s fine. Let’s go, Rentt,” Lorraine said and walked on ahead. 

“All right, Jal, we’ll be going. See you later,” I told him and then waved and followed after Lorraine. We entered the village together. 

“Getting dragged around by the wife already, eh? City girls are rough,” I heard Jal whisper from behind us. Maybe I was imagining it. 

Hathara seldom saw visitors, so I didn’t know how they would react to Lorraine, but the villagers we encountered tended to be positive. Just about everyone responded like Jal and Dol. They kept asking if Lorraine was my wife, but at least they did so pleasantly enough. Unlike Jal and Dol, the other villagers had a bit more discretion and listened when I told them she wasn’t. They were all smiling a strange amount, but I wanted to believe there was no special reason for that. 

“What does this village produce? Is it all farmers and hunters?” Lorraine asked as she observed her surroundings. 

“Yeah, for the most part,” I answered. “But they grow more than just wheat and vegetables. There’s a medicinal herb garden as well, so maybe that’s a bit unique.” 

“A medicinal herb garden? Do they sell the herbs to a bigger town or some merchant or what?” 

“I think I’ve told you about the medicine woman we have here. She uses the herbs to produce medicine, and then she sells that to traveling merchants. It’s highly effective and goes for a high price, apparently. Thanks to that, it’s not so bad living in this town in the middle of nowhere. They hunt monsters on occasion too, so they also sell magic crystals.” 

“I always wondered why you were so accustomed to adventurer work from the start. You were already working like an adventurer in this village, from the sound of it.” 

“Well, pretty much. I helped out with dissecting the monsters a lot, and I naturally picked up on how to walk through forests. Oh hey, that’s the mayor’s house.” 

I looked ahead and saw a house one size larger than all the ones around it. We headed toward it. When visiting villages like this, it was customary to greet the mayor first. 

That wasn’t the only reason I was going there, but it was a good excuse. 

I knocked on the door, and it slowly opened. A middle-aged woman peeked out from the other side. It had been a while since I’d seen her face; she had visibly aged, but she was still slender and beautiful. When she saw me, she opened her eyes wide. A few tears slipped out. 

“Rentt, good to see you’re back. I was worried about you. When the guild told me you’d gone missing, I was sure you’d never return. Thank goodness I was wrong,” she cried. 

The guild wasn’t so kind as to go out of its way to report when an adventurer went missing to the adventurer’s hometown, but Guildmaster Wolf probably arranged for that. He knew now I was alive, but he must not have contacted them about that yet. Even though there were methods of contact using flying creatures, they didn’t use those for backwater towns like this. Carriages were the only option. Maybe the carriage we came in on was carrying a letter like that. But I didn’t know if reporting I was alive would technically be accurate, and maybe Wolf wasn’t sure either, so who knows if he thought to send anything yet. 

“It’s complicated, but as you can see, I’m in pretty good health. By the way, where’s Dad?” 

“Oh, he’s here. Come in and?oh? Who’s this?” 

“Lorraine, a friend from Maalt. She’s a scholar,” I said. 

Lorraine looked like she had a lot to say about that but decided it was best to hold it back. “I’m Lorraine Vivie. I’m a scholar, like Rentt said, as well as an adventurer, and I also dabble in alchemy. Pleased to meet you. And you are?” 

“A scholar? Interesting. I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself sooner. I’m Gilda Faina, the wife of the mayor, Ingo Faina. It’s nice to meet you too.” 

“Faina?” Lorraine repeated with shock. “Don’t tell me you’re Rentt’s?” 

“Yeah, she’s my mom. The mayor’s my dad. And that medicine woman I talked about would be my grandmother’s younger sister, if I’m remembering that right.” 

“I wasn’t expecting you to bring a woman home to the village. Not that I’m complaining. I’m glad to see it, actually,” Ingo said. 

He was sitting at the table, so we all decided to take a seat as well. Once everyone introduced themselves, we started to chat. It was mostly one-sided, with Lorraine and I telling them what I had been up to in Maalt. In return, Ingo and Gilda had a bit to say about the goings-on in the village. 

One topic of discussion was all the villagers who were starting to get married. They said that most of the youths I looked after back in the day had significant others now. A fair number of them even had children. When I came to visit over a year ago, there did seem to be a lot of people getting friendly with each other. That must have been the season of love. 

Now that I thought about it, there were a fair number of people around my age who got married two or three years after I left the village. Sometimes I saw their children running around like I used to do. It made me feel like I took an unusual course in life. I did feel a bit lonely, but more than that, I was happy to see the village doing well. 

Around the time we began to discuss marriage, Ingo and Gilda started to look at Lorraine a bit differently. 

“Yes, you always stuck to your training no matter who asked you out. I was afraid you’d never get married. At least it’s nice to see you found such a pretty girl outside the village,” Gilda said. 

I wasn’t always the most perceptive person, but even I saw what she was getting at. She assumed Lorraine was my wife. But the women of this village were masters of conversation and knew how to dance around the subject. She just wanted me to confirm or deny it without asking directly. Maybe she was being considerate, in a sense, but it also felt like I had to walk on a bed of nails. 

Unlike me, Lorraine wasn’t nervous at all. In fact, she was calm and collected. “Rentt has quite a number of female acquaintances in Maalt,” she said. “There’s Rina, Sheila, me, Lillian, Alize... I could go on...” 

The way she listed them off sounded malicious. Simply stating their names made it easy to imagine they were all beautiful women of marriageable age, but Rina was even more like a little sister to me than Riri or Fahri were, and Lillian was far older than me. And then there was Alize, a child by any metric. Sheila was, I suppose, a woman of an appropriate age, but I only knew her through work. We were connected by circumstance, but that was all. That’s how I saw it, at least. 

As for Lorraine, though, the fact that I lived with her made it hard to argue with how the villagers saw our relationship. But in Maalt, plenty of adventurers of opposite genders lived together in the same house. It wasn’t that big of a deal. Probably. Maybe it was just me. Either way, Lorraine, Ingo, and Gilda didn’t give me the opportunity to say any of this. 

“Oh my, he knows all these women? Then I suppose I was worried for nothing. I wasn’t kidding when I said I thought he might never get married.” 

“Really? I know he can be socially inept, but certainly women approach him a fair bit. I don’t see him as the type to stubbornly reject them all, either.” 

“Sounds like you know Rentt well. That’s true, but nobody in this village was ever able to go this far with him.” 

“What?” Lorraine asked and cocked her head, but her question was brushed aside. 

“Oh, right, now that Rentt’s back, I think the village should hold a welcoming banquet. Could you make the preparations, Gilda?” 

“Yes, of course, dear. Enjoy yourselves, you two. I’ll go tell the villagers,” Gilda said as she stood and exited the house. 

“I’ll be going too,” Ingo informed us just as she left. “It’s a small village, but we have a decent number of citizens. Gilda might find it hard to tell everyone by herself.” He followed Gilda out the door. 

Lorraine watched them go. “Hey, Rentt,” she whispered. 

“What?” 

“Did I say something I shouldn’t have?” 

“No, not at all. I’m the problem here. They worry about me so much that it’s kind of unbearable.” 

“Why do you feel that way?” 

“Well, they’re not my birth parents, but they adopted me.” 

“You were adopted? What happened to your birth parents?” Lorraine asked. 

Lorraine didn’t beat around the bush, even with a difficult question. I knew she wasn’t trying to be insensitive; Lorraine just had a tendency to be direct. If I said I didn’t want to talk about it, she would likely drop the subject and move on. In other words, while she had asked about it, it was only to give me the option of whether to discuss it or not. 

It wasn’t something I was that adamant about avoiding, so I went ahead and told her. “They died a long time ago. I was five when it happened,” I explained. 

It was the simple truth, and talking about it didn’t hurt too much anymore. Regardless, it would always be sad. I never forgot their faces, and I would always remember our life together. They were good people. I wished they could still be alive, but it wasn’t to be. 

“I see. Were they ill?” 

“Attacked by monsters. It happens all the time,” I said, trying not to sound too serious, but I noticed I sounded shaky. 

Ever since I turned undead, I started to think my body couldn’t produce tears anymore. As it turned out, that wasn’t the case. When I checked my eyes in the mirror, they were as moist as any human eyes. I supposed there was no reason I wouldn’t be able to cry. Now I felt like I could tear up at any moment. 

“Is that why you wanted to be an adventurer?” 

“Well, for the most part. That wasn’t the only reason, though. Anyway, when I told my adoptive parents what I wanted to do, they were pretty supportive. Actually, sorry, Lorraine, but I’m going out for a bit too. Do you mind waiting in this house for a little while? I’m sure it won’t be too comfy sitting around in someone else’s house.” 

“Hm? Oh, I don’t mind if you don’t. You want me to watch your family’s house?” 

“I’d trust you to do it more than anyone. See you later,” I said and left the house. 

I knew it wasn’t the best thing to do, but if I stayed any longer, I might have started sobbing. That would only bother Lorraine. In the decade I’d known her, I never once cried in front of her. Actually, maybe I did, now that I thought about it, but it didn’t need to happen again. It was an issue of my meager male pride. I’d take a little walk around the village and give my eyes a chance to dry, then I’d go back. I didn’t want to keep her waiting too long. 

Sinking into a chair at the mayor’s house, Lorraine felt as if she had stomped on a landmine. She had gone too far with what she said to his parents. However, while some frivolous conversation might have been preferable if this were a simple visit to Rentt’s hometown, she wanted it to be more than that. 

Some part of Lorraine was curious to learn about Rentt’s past, and maybe that part of her controlled her actions more than she cared to realize. She wanted to believe it was a desire driven by her researcher’s spirit; she suspected it had more to do with her personal feelings. 

They had been friends for a decade, but they always kept a certain amount of distance. It was pleasant in a way that her life in Lelmudan never was. She did have friends in her home country, of course, but Lorraine held a special position there. She was never able to develop a relationship as naturally as she could with Rentt. That was why her feelings for Rentt were so strong...and even dependent in some respects. She had no intention of relying on him to excess, but without him, she would feel hopeless. 

Lorraine was keenly aware of what Rentt meant to her. If she had to name the feeling, she knew what she would call it. But she had to put that aside for now. She knew thinking about it too much wouldn’t lead anywhere good. 

Regardless, she thought back to everything she had just heard. The fact that Rentt’s parents were the mayor and his wife was surprising enough, but she hadn’t expected him to be adopted too. When there were orphans in villages this small, it was common for the mayor to take them in. That part wasn’t unusual, but Lorraine never imagined it had happened to Rentt. In some ways it made sense, and in others it was unbelievable. 

Considering Rentt’s personality, this came as a shock to her. He was always happy-go-lucky, for better or worse, and never seemed to mind much. That was a trait only someone who had the chance to grow up comfortably from the day they became self-aware could develop. When children lost their parents and got taken in by another family, they tended to develop more timid personalities. Since Rentt managed to grow up the way he did, the mayor and his wife must have been good parents. 

This discovery did explain, however, why Rentt was oddly multi-talented for someone from a small village. He could write and make medicine; he had formal training in combat; and he was strangely dexterous. As the mayor’s son, he would have received a fair bit of education, explaining his skills to an extent. Even so, his abilities seemed better than they should have been. Maybe that was thanks to all the hard work he put in to become an adventurer. 

If his desire to become an adventurer stemmed from monsters killing his parents, maybe he was out for revenge... But that didn’t sound quite right to Lorraine. He said he had other reasons too. Knowing Rentt, he wouldn’t be driven by revenge so much as a desire to prevent the sort of sorrow he’d had to experience. The conversation had ended before she could ask about it, but judging by Rentt’s actions in Maalt, she believed she was right. His efforts to reduce the death rate of new adventurers reflected that. 

She could ask more about it once Rentt returned, but she wasn’t sure how she should ask. If she wasn’t cautious, she might step on another landmine. At least if it made him openly angry, she wouldn’t mind, but he always tried to pretend that he didn’t mind at all. It hurt her to see him like that. “What to do?” Lorraine muttered to herself. 

There was a knock at the door. It was likely a visitor, but Lorraine didn’t live in this house and wasn’t sure if answering the door was the best idea. She considered pretending nobody was home, but she had just walked through the village, so enough people knew about her. She didn’t need to be so cautious, though, and she didn’t want to pretend she wasn’t around. If anything, that would make her look more suspicious. 

That being the case, there was only one thing to do. Lorraine stood up and headed to the door. 

“Oh, Rentt, are you here? Wait, no?” 

“Ren? Or, um, who are you?” 

Two girls were at the door. One had a firm, clear voice, while the other had a gentle, sweet tone. Lorraine figured these voices could only belong to young girls. 

When they saw Lorraine’s face, they fell silent. This was, of course, because neither Rentt nor his family were at home, but someone unknown had answered the door. Lorraine had no idea who these girls were either, so she didn’t know what to say. The tension stretched into awkwardness. 

Lorraine was the adult in this situation, so she was able to pull herself together quicker. “Sorry, but Rentt and his parents are away at the moment,” she offered. “They asked me to look after the house. I’m Lorraine Vivie, Rentt’s, uh, friend.” She wasn’t sure how to treat the girls, but they had spoken frankly to her, so she didn’t see the need to be overly polite. 

“Rentt’s friend?” one of the girls repeated. She had brown pigtails and bold eyes. “Oh, right, I heard he had a scholar friend in the city. But you’re a woman?!” 

“Now that you mention it, he never said whether they were a man or a woman,” the other girl said. She had bluish-black hair that only went down to her ears and soft eyes. “But still, wow, Riri, she’s pretty hot. And kind of cool, too. I bet cities have lots of people like this.” 

“Fahri! How can you be so calm?! From what I heard from Auntie, Rentt’s been living with this person! Even Rentt couldn’t resist a girl like this!” 

“It does seem like it’d be hard. I’d like to touch her in a few places myself. I wonder if she’d go for it,” Fahri said. She reached a hand toward Lorraine, seemingly toward her chest. 

Lorraine didn’t know what to make of these two. “Should I assume you’re friends of Rentt?” 

“Yep, you got it,” one of them answered, a sharp look in her eyes. “I’m Riri. This sleepy-looking girl is?” 

“Fahri. Nice to meet you.” 

“All right, then,” Lorraine said. “Nice to meet you, too. Anyway, I’d invite you to come in, but this isn’t my house. They trusted me to watch the place, so I can’t just let anyone inside. If you have business with Rentt’s family, I’m sure they’ll be back soon enough, so maybe you could come back later.” Of course, if they knew Rentt, then it would probably be fine to allow them inside, but Lorraine didn’t want to make assumptions. 

“Hm, I guess that makes sense,” Riri replied. “We pretty much welcome any visitors around here, but maybe that’s different in the city.” 

“Well, yes,” Lorraine answered. “We get a fair number of thieves. If you walk around town a bit, you’re bound to run into at least one pickpocket.” 

Riri laughed and looked at Fahri. “Wow, sounds dangerous. Fahri wouldn’t make it through a day without going broke.” 

Fahri pouted. “I’d just have to be careful, then I’d be fine. Maybe.” She didn’t seem like she’d be fine at all. 

“The city, huh? I’ve never been outside the village, personally,” Riri admitted. “I’ve always wondered what it’s like. What about you, Fahri?” 

“I’m curious too. I’ve gotten souvenirs from people who left the village, but that’s about it.” 

Riri nodded and looked back at Lorraine. “Yeah, so, Lorraine?” 

“What?” Lorraine asked and cocked her head. 

“We get that Rentt’s out. I mean, we knew his parents were away before we came. We just ran into Auntie, and she said that Rentt’s here. That’s all fine, but we’d like to speak with you for a bit. We’ve barely seen anything outside the village, so it’d be nice to hear about the big city.” 

By the big city, presumably they meant Maalt. The Lelmudan Empire was even more urban, so Lorraine didn’t think of Maalt that way, but it was certainly a bigger city than this village. She’d heard plenty from Rentt about how small his village was, but she never imagined just how small. Similarly, these girls undoubtedly didn’t have much of an understanding of what big cities were like. 

“I can tell you, but I’m still not going to let you in the house. You may think that’s stubborn of me, but it’s how I am,” Lorraine said. She could often be negligent, but she was persistent when she wanted to be. When it came to academics, for example, she was meticulous. She always tried to do what seemed sensible to her, as in this occasion. But she did also recognize that she could be inflexible to other perspectives...particularly when it came to this village, where nobody locked their doors or minded any visitors. 

“I understand,” Riri said. “We can talk right here. Look, here’s a perfectly nice place to sit.” She pointed to some chairs made out of logs sitting in front of the house. There were around ten of them, most likely there for when work had to be done outside. 

While Lorraine had her reservations about letting them inside, Riri was right; chatting outside should be fine. It just came down to whether Lorraine was interested or not. 

“Well, I suppose that’ll be all right. I’m curious to hear what it’s like living in this village as well. Rentt hardly ever talks about his life here.” 

“Really? Whenever Ren comes to visit, he hardly talks about life in the city,” Fahri said, wide-eyed. 

Lorraine could immediately guess why Rentt never said anything about Maalt. Even a decade later, Rentt still hadn’t risen above Bronze-class. Lorraine didn’t think there was anything wrong with that. The fact he’d made it that long without dying or suffering any serious injuries was impressive for an adventurer. But Rentt probably found it hard to return to his hometown with pride. Lorraine knew how that felt. If she was going to talk to Riri and Fahri, she would have to keep that in mind. 

Taking that into consideration, she sat in a log chair and faced the two girls. 

“So, Ren’s been adventuring around Maalt, right? What’s that like?” the sleepy girl asked. She was brimming with anticipation, eager to hear about Rentt’s glorious accomplishments. Next to her, Riri looked just as curious. 

They obviously had great expectations, but Lorraine wasn’t sure what to tell them. She would never say that Rentt had accomplished nothing over the last decade, but much of what he had done was rather plain. His main achievements amounted to looking after new adventurers and lowering the adventurer death rate. That was exciting in its own way, but it probably wasn’t what a couple of village girls who longed to see the city must have imagined when they thought of adventurers. Lorraine figured it would be best to focus on recent events. As for his rank, she could avoid that subject. 

“Well, I think Rentt’s a pretty famous adventurer in Maalt. He takes good care of his fellow adventurers, and all the newbies look up to him.” 

“Huh, so not much has changed for him in the city, from what it sounds like,” Riri commented. 

“What do you mean?” Lorraine cocked her head. 

“Well, when he lived in Hathara, he always looked after the younger kids. It sounds like he’s doing the same thing in the city.” 

“Hm, I see.” 

Rentt’s oddly caring personality must have taken shape in this village. Riri and Fahri were most likely under Rentt’s care at some point as well. 

“So what about monsters? Beating monsters is an adventurer’s main job, right? We have hunters that go after monsters here, but there’s supposed to be dungeons around Maalt, and I bet those are full of strong ones,” Riri said. 

Lorraine thought for a bit. Rentt primarily hunted slimes, goblins, and skeletons, all of which were famously weak monsters. These villagers likely knew as much. Of course, for an ordinary villager, they were still fearsome enough, but in fairy tales and picture books they were always slain as easily as ants. Few people would be intrigued by stories about slaying these monsters. None of them drew much interest aside from slimes, which had some appeal to merchants because they could be made into lotions or potions. Adventurers who could capture tons of slimes were treasured, but these villagers wouldn’t know about that. 

Lorraine assumed they would be more impressed by tales of slaying giant monsters. Such stories were always entertaining, to the point that when Lorraine once went to a bar in a distant village and she was asked to tell a story, that was the subject matter she picked. Adventurers themselves didn’t care much for these stories because they understood the real strength of monsters and recognized that large monsters weren’t necessarily powerful, but for common villagers, the bigger the better. 

One of Lorraine’s go-to stories was when she defeated a grand fum wyvern that was ten meters in length. The giant creature lived near the peak of a mountain, where Lorraine pierced it with dozens of ice spears and severed its head with a wind blade when it fell to the ground. She embellished that story as much as possible, and if she was in a large enough space, she would use projection magic to create an image and display just how large the wyvern was. A three-dimensional projection of a giant wyvern was enough to make villagers tremble, and the idea that Lorraine defeated it by herself made them look at her with awe and respect. They welcomed her after that, bringing her food and drinks at huge discounts, if not offering them for free. That wasn’t her goal when she told this story, but it was a nice bonus. 

In reality, however, grand fum wyverns were just a flying species of demidragon and the weakest of the zeva wyverns. It had low magic resistance, so for a magician of Lorraine’s talent, it was little more than a target to be shot down. Not only that, its size made it easier to hit, and if its dwelling was discovered, magic circles could be set up around it and charged with mana in advance to be triggered when the wyvern took flight. If she were honest, it was a simple monster to defeat. She often felt bad when she boasted about this story, but when she spoke about truly daunting battles with monsters, she often got confused looks. As such, she still felt that tales about hunting large monsters were the best choice. 

“Yes, Maalt has dungeons. The Water Moon Dungeon and the New Moon Dungeon, specifically. They have monsters of all sorts. Rentt goes to both dungeons nowadays, though there was a time when he mostly went to the Water Moon Dungeon. There he encountered a monster called a giant skeleton,” Lorraine said. She used magic to construct an image of the monster to accompany the story. 

“Eep!” 

“Wh-What?” 

Riri and Fahri gasped when they saw it. It was massive enough to smash a house, so their shock was to be expected. Of course, this was merely an image and couldn’t do anything, but Lorraine feared that its sudden appearance might startle other villagers, so she limited who could see it. It was only visible to Riri, Fahri, and herself. 

“No need to worry, this is just an illusion,” Lorraine explained. 

“B-B-But I see it right there!” 

“Y-Yeah.” 

They didn’t seem to believe it, but Lorraine knew how they felt. This was like nothing that mountain villagers would have ever seen before. Not many people could use this projection spell. Lorraine was able to use it freely, but it was actually a difficult spell to control. Casting it in Maalt would receive a similar reaction, so Lorraine did her part to show it was safe by making the illusion move and touch her. 

“See? It’s fine,” she said and touched the giant skeleton. Her hand went right through it. She pulled her hand back out to show it was still there. When Riri and Fahri saw this, they seemed relieved. 

“You’re right, nothing happens when I touch it.” 

“It’s so weird, huh, Riri? Is this magic?” Fahri wondered. 

“Yes, it is. Do you not have any sorcerers in this village?” Lorraine asked. The reality was there were few sorcerers in general. Even simple life magic spells were inaccessible to the majority of the population. But even in this small village, statistically speaking, there had to be at least one person with mana. They would still have to know how to use their mana to cast spells, however. 

“There’s a medicine woman named Gharb who can use alchemy, so I guess she can use magic,” Fahri answered. “But she never uses it in public. I’ve never seen magic like this before.” 

That must have been the medicine woman Rentt talked about. He said that her medicine was unusually good for an average villager, but if she could use alchemy, then that explained it. Rentt never mentioned that, though, so Lorraine was still left with questions. 

“Wait, Fahri, I never knew that,” Riri said. “Gharb’s a sorcerer?” 

Fahri looked like she regretted bringing it up, but she saw no use hiding it now. “Yeah, she is. That was supposed to be a secret, though.” 

“A secret? Why?” Riri asked. 

“When you live in a small village, it’s not good to tell people you can use magic.” 

“You sure didn’t have any problems saying it, Fahri.” 

“Well, only because Lorraine uses magic. Gharb said magicians can identify magicians, so there’s no use trying to hide it from them,” Fahri said. 

Lorraine could confirm that she was correct. Normal people had no easy way to tell, but if a sorcerer paid attention, they could tell whether someone had mana. Only special people like Lorraine could tell by sight, but most sorcerers knew how to sense magic energy. Regardless, it took some practice to get it right all the time, so it wasn’t something everyone could do, but it was safest to assume that sorcerers had this ability. 

“Fahri, you seem to have some mana as well,” Lorraine noted. “Does that have something to do with how you knew she was a magician?” 

“Yes. Gharb was teaching me to make medicine, and apparently I have a bit of mana, so she said she’d teach me alchemy too at some point.” 

“I see.” 

That meant she still hadn’t been taught yet. Unlike Lorraine’s attempts to almost force Alize to become aware of her mana, Gharb must have been taking her time with Fahri. Lorraine did things her way, but her methods could be fairly dangerous with a less skilled teacher, potentially leading to the student’s death. The standard method was to do nothing more than let a little mana flow each day, and do this every day for weeks on end. That was presumably Gharb’s approach, and it signaled that she took good care of her students. 

“No fair, Fahri. I want to learn magic so I can do stuff like this!” Riri pouted and pointed to the image of the giant skeleton. 

Fahri wasn’t particularly intimidated. “Riri, you’re learning something from Hadeed the hunter, aren’t you?” Fahri asked calmly. “Just the other day, I saw you cutting logs in the forest with a dagger. You can also shoot arrows insanely far.” 

“You saw that?” Riri asked, her eyes wide with shock. 

Lorraine had an idea as to what Fahri was talking about. “So you have spirit, I take it. I’m no expert on the subject, but I believe it lets you do some interesting things,” Lorraine said. 

Rentt had some related skills as well, but she didn’t know where he learned them. It seemed they were commonplace in his village, but these weren’t such simple abilities that the average mountain village would have them, so she naturally had questions. The idea that a talented fighter retired to live in a small village and passed down their techniques wasn’t inconceivable, but a lot about this village seemed extraordinary. Maybe that explained how they were able to live normal lives so high in the mountains. 

“How do you know that?” Riri asked, stunned. 

As had occurred to Lorraine many times throughout their conversation, this girl did a poor job of hiding her feelings. In contrast, Fahri always had a soft smile on her face, but it could be hard to get a read on her. Lorraine suspected that she wasn’t to be underestimated. 

“I’m not an adventurer for nothing,” Lorraine said. “I know a number of spirit users. Actually, I never mentioned that, did I?” When she’d introduced herself, she only mentioned being a friend of Rentt, and Riri said she’d heard Lorraine was a scholar, but that was all. 

“No, I thought you were just a scholar.” 

“I’m a scholar, a magician, and an alchemist. Maybe it would be best to focus on one thing, but I have many interests. You only live once, so I intend to do everything I want to do.” 

For most people, dabbling in so many fields would leave their skills half-baked in at least one of them, but Lorraine was top-rate at all of them. That couldn’t simply be explained by her many-faceted interests, but these girls didn’t know the circumstances around that. They were simply impressed. 

“So that’s how you could tell I had spirit?” 

“Well, more or less. Unfortunately, I can’t use spirit, though.” 

Rentt was a spirit user, so she did know plenty about it. She had seen him use it numerous times, and she understood the nature of it to some extent. She had considered practicing with spirit in the past, but as far as she heard from Rentt about his practicing methods, it was hard on the body and wouldn’t be suitable for her. 

“But you girls are pretty remarkable. A magician and a hunter with the power of spirit? Once you get a little experience, you could probably be adventurers,” Lorraine said. They had the talent for it, at least. Experience could come from simply slaying monsters in the area. 

Adventurers seldom came from small villages, but this one had Rentt, and these two girls had potential too. Lorraine couldn’t stop thinking about how strange this village was. 

“Really? I hear it’s tough being an adventurer, though,” Riri said, leaning forward in her chair. She seemed not only interested in Rentt but in adventurers as a whole. 

As the one with the knowledge, Lorraine didn’t want to mislead them, so she provided a serious answer. “Yes, it does have its challenging aspects, and I don’t just mean monsters. Adventuring as a profession demands a wide array of knowledge and experience, not to mention strong mental fortitude,” she explained, looking at Riri and Fahri’s faces. 

Lorraine feared she may have been a bit abstract, judging by their confusion, so she went on. “For example, say you take a job to collect herbs for the purpose of making medicine. There are quite a few jobs of this nature. I take them, and Rentt often does as well, but they do require proper preparation. Young and inexperienced adventurers tend to think these jobs are extremely simple, but they’re not.” 

“Why’s that? If you know where the herbs grow, I’d think you could just go pick them without fighting any monsters,” Fahri said. 

“That’s true,” Lorraine acknowledged, though she also shook her head. “But in reality, there’s a reason it’s difficult. First of all, you have to actually know the properties of these plants to have any success locating them. If not, you could easily wander the forest for a whole day and find nothing. That tends to happen to newbies. They can even take the wrong jobs at times. The guild’s laziness is partially to blame for that, though. Of course, the plants you can find will change depending on the season. Sometimes, requests to collect plants that don’t grow in the current season will be left up on the request board. If you take one of those jobs without realizing this, you may end up having to pay a penalty later.” 

As to why these jobs remained on the board, there were a number of reasons. It was partially malicious, serving as a way to collect penalty payments from new and ignorant adventurers. Maalt’s guild was generous enough that it usually did remove these postings when the time came, but most guilds left the selection of jobs to the adventurers, so discretion was required. Even in Maalt, there were occasions where off-season jobs remained posted. If someone wanted certain plants that weren’t available that season for whatever reason, they might post a job with a considerably higher-than-average reward. Under these circumstances, Maalt would leave the job up, and the nature of the request would be clear after talking to guild staff. However, newbies just assumed they were simple jobs with strangely high rewards and thought they got lucky to find them. The end result was they had to pay a penalty fee. To avoid this, adventurers needed knowledge and experience. 

“And even if you do happen to get lucky and find the plants, that’s not enough,” Lorraine continued. 

“Can’t you just pull them up or dig them out or whatever and take them back to town?” Riri asked. 

“Not necessarily,” Lorraine said and shook her head. “Plants are living things and must be delivered safely if you want the guild to accept them. You could end up toiling all day only to make not a single coin in the end.” 

“Oh, and depending on what the plants are meant to be used for, you have to pick them differently. I know about that,” Fahri declared. While Riri didn’t seem to understand, Fahri had learned about herbs from the medicine woman. 

“That’s right,” Lorraine said. “For example, if the request demands the roots be intact, you have to uproot the entire plant. That means you need to dig up the dirt around it and wrap it in cloth to keep it safe. Whereas if they only request the leaves but demand they be delivered fresh, then they may wither on the way back if you try to take the entire plant. The proper approach for that job would be to only take the leaves. Other matters to consider are the way in which you cut the branches and pick the fruit, the time frame at which the flowers bloom, and more. Even when it comes to picking plants, there’s a lot to remember.” 

Lorraine first learned all of this from Rentt. She’d studied books and possessed a lot of knowledge as a result, but she’d put little of it into practice, so as she walked through the forest with Rentt, she gained some experience. Much of what the world had to offer needed to be tried to be understood. Her experiences from those moments remained with her to this day and proved helpful to her scholarly work. Rentt also likely learned from the same medicine woman as Fahri, meaning that in some sense, Lorraine and Fahri’s knowledge stemmed from the same source. Lorraine decided that she would have to introduce herself to the medicine woman at some point. 

“Well, that’s the general idea. Monsters aren’t the only trouble an adventurer has to go through. Even so, I won’t deny that creatures like these are the greatest danger,” Lorraine said and pointed to the figure of the giant skeleton behind her. Its eye sockets paid no attention to them, but its mere presence was terrifying. If a real giant skeleton were to go on a rampage through the village, they could only imagine how dangerous it would be. To Riri and Fahri, even this illusion brought horrors to mind. 

“Rentt fights monsters like these every day?” Riri whispered with shock and awe. 

Lorraine could have said these types of monsters were extremely rare and only encountered if one was unlucky, but that wouldn’t be the best response for Rentt’s reputation. 

“Yes, yes he does. And he always wins. He’s incredible,” Lorraine claimed. 

If Rentt were here, he would no doubt deny it and point out that this obviously wasn’t an everyday occurrence. If he counted the times he fled from such monsters, there would be too many instances to list, but thankfully, Rentt wasn’t present. Lorraine was free to stretch the truth a little. Either way, Rentt was now probably strong enough to fight giant skeletons every day and live to tell the tale. He was powerful enough to hunt tarasques, after all. 

With that in mind, Lorraine projected an illusion of another monster. 

“Rentt also fights monsters like these,” she said. She dropped the image of the giant skeleton, replacing it with the massive figure of a tarasque. 

Riri and Fahri looked at the monster Lorraine had conjured and whispered to each other. 

“What’s this?” 

“It’s kind of like a turtle, but with a long neck and scales. Is it a dragon?” 

“No, this is a variety of demidragon,” Lorraine responded. “But you have to be at least a Gold-class adventurer to take one on. They have hard shells, six legs, and thick scales that can deflect arrows. But their most dangerous trait is that they spit poison, not to mention their poisonous flesh and blood. Their presence alone can turn their surroundings into a lethal swamp, creating a haven for creatures who dwell in toxicity.” 

That was how the Swamp of Tarasque came to be. The creatures that lived there had all developed a resistance to tarasque poison in some way or another. It was hard to see how anything could survive there, but life-forms could often be mysterious, and some would inevitably acclimate to such environments over time. 

Adventurers, however, preferred to avoid the place. Tarasque poison was powerful enough to kill an ordinary human within minutes. Unfortunately, it was the only place to collect a special flower known as the Dragon Blood Blossom. Adventurers sometimes had no choice but to visit the swamp; it was just one of the many challenges of the job. Since poison now had no effect on him, Rentt had it easy in that regard. Lorraine would love to have that same ability, but it wasn’t so easily attained. It wasn’t as if she could find the same dragon and let it eat her too. 

“Ren slayed one of these, right?” Fahri asked. 

“Yes, he hunts these periodically. Their scales and shells are used for weapons and armor, so they sell for a fine price.” 

“What?! But aren’t they poisonous? How does he hunt them?” Riri immediately questioned. 

It occurred to Lorraine that she couldn’t answer honestly, so instead she told them how adventurers usually handled it. “They are poisonous, yes, but there are various ways to get around that. Otherwise they would be impossible to hunt. You can douse yourself in powerful holy water, or you can equip magic items that resist or nullify poison. There are other methods as well. Rentt hasn’t told me precisely what he does, but he always makes it back unharmed, so I assume he takes the proper countermeasures.” 

The truth was that poison simply had no effect on him as an undead. But no human was entirely immune to poison. Specially trained assassins were an exception, but Rentt was no assassin. His mask and robe might make him look like one, though. 

“That’s good to hear,” Riri said with relief. “Rentt does some crazy things sometimes.” 

“Does he? He does at times appear to act without thinking, but I think he actually takes a lot into consideration,” Lorraine replied. 

He did seem to space out quite a bit, but when he came to a decision, he could be frightfully crafty. Rentt was only Bronze-class, but he still gave lectures and advice to newcomers, even the ones who looked down on him for his rank. If they ever went at him, he would begin by reacting peacefully. If they forced his hand, however, he could ruin their life. He wouldn’t kill them or break their limbs or anything, but he could make sure they never got work as an adventurer. Or he could make it hard for them to live in Maalt. If Rentt ever decided to make a living on dastardly plots, he would likely accomplish some unbelievable feats. But he wouldn’t do that. 

“Well, that’s true,” Riri said. “But a long time ago, when a kid went into the forest without an adult’s permission, Rentt went after them by himself and fought off monsters to bring them back. Even though he was just a kid too.” 

“Oh, I remember that,” Fahri added. “All the adults who could hunt were out exterminating a goblin dwelling at the time, I think.” 

“Yeah, that was it. So, Rentt said he’d go find them all on his own. Then he came back covered in blood. I thought I might die of shock.” 

Lorraine furrowed her brow. “He’s always been that ridiculous?” 

Rentt generally made plans in advance and acted with efficiency, but when a life was in danger and he believed sacrificing himself could help, he was willing to put his own life on the line. Typically, when village children got lost, either an adult would go find them or, if there was no sign of the child, they would give up and abandon them. It was easy to imagine that Rentt refused to let that happen. Still, it was an absurd action to take. 

“Well, he doesn’t do anything that crazy anymore. Maybe. Not when it comes to monsters, at least,” Lorraine said, thinking about the situation with Nive Maris. At the very least, Rentt could now compete with any monsters on the lower levels of a dungeon. Monsters like earth dragons were still out of the question, but that was true for any average adventurer. In any event, they were seldom encountered. 

“Is Rentt that strong?” Riri asked, not noticing the implicit meaning of Lorraine’s words. 

Rather than answering, Lorraine conjured an image of Rentt in front of the tarasque illusion. 

Riri and Fahri both shouted in surprise. 

“Rentt?!” 

“Ren?!” 

“He’s just an illusion,” Lorraine explained. “I figured I would recreate the battle between Rentt and the tarasque, if you’d like to see it.” Lorraine didn’t see it happen herself, but she heard the story from Rentt. She’d also fought tarasques herself, so she could imagine what it was like. 

Riri and Fahri both nodded. 

“I’d love to see it!” 

“If you can show us, please do.” 

A small, robed man ran toward a monster more massive than most people would ever see in their lifetime. An eerie, skull-shaped mask covered the lower half of his face and hid his expression, but there was a sharp look in his eyes. Though it was deadly, he confronted the poison-spitting tarasque without a sliver of fear. 

He approached and drew his sword as if this were a daily occurrence. The tarasque let out an ear-piercing scream, but the man was unaffected. His courage and determination were awe-inspiring. After all, if he hadn’t believed he could defeat this unparalleled monstrosity, he would have reacted to the devastating roar in some way. 

The man’s confidence wasn’t the product of inexperience. It was the result of accurate judgment honed through endless training. 

As soon as the man reached the tarasque, he leaped and targeted its neck with his sword. The sword itself wasn’t particularly remarkable; it lacked luster. But while it wasn’t anything special, it was a solid piece of work. All the man wanted was a weapon he could trust with his life, and this blade carried that desire. 

As he swung, he applied spirit energy to the blade, giving it a faint glow. Thoroughly condensed spirit energy was said to be strong enough to destroy armaments, and this energy could snap any average sword in half. However, no such damage occurred to this weapon because it was created by a master craftsman. As he watched the blade descend, he felt renewed appreciation for its artistry. 

He swung the shimmering blade down upon the tarasque’s neck, but it bounced off the beast’s scales. Some scales peeled off, but the flesh underneath remained undamaged. The tarasque lived up to its reputation. It was clearly a force to be reckoned with from the start. 

The reality of the perilous situation struck him. Even so, he refused to let fear engulf him. He would not give up on the challenge. In fact, he was delighted to discover that this monster was tougher than expected. 

He gave the tarasque a sharp look, analyzing where to attack next. It seemed best to strike the neck again; it was only a split-second decision but likely the correct one. Some of the scales were detached by his last attack, so if he targeted the same spot again, he wouldn’t have to contend with its natural armor. This time, the man’s spirit strike would connect. 

However, the tarasque understood the man’s objective. It turned back toward him, glaring. It had no intention of letting another attack land. Then, without warning, it opened its mouth. The man paused, wondering what was happening, and the tarasque blew purple breath at him. It was poison, the tarasque’s specialty, and it was strong enough to melt a man down to the bone within seconds. The man, like any other human, was not immune to poison. If he hadn’t already thought this through before he came to fight the tarasque, this would have meant death. 

At some point, the man began to emit a blue glow. It was the sacred light of holy water, which he had doused himself with in advance. Even the tarasque’s mighty poison was powerless before the protection of God. He ran through the purple breath as if it were merely rain. The tarasque began backing away, as if intimidated, but it couldn’t accept that this puny human was a threat. It stopped its retreat and then continued to exhale poison as it marched forward. 

The tarasque’s sheer size was destructive enough, but the man was unfazed. In fact, he was so casual about it that he looked like he could start whistling at any moment. Its poison had no effect, and its size didn’t scare him. Rather, the bigger it was, the more marks he could hit. 

The man boldly waited for the tarasque to close in and then jumped onto its shell. The tarasque lost sight of him and panicked, giving the man a chance to run from the shell onto its long neck. He targeted the same spot his sword struck before. His aim was steady, his eyes locked onto the broken scales. Only then did the tarasque realize what was happening, but it was too late. Before it could shake him off, he jumped and raised his sword over his head. 

The tarasque cried out, perhaps to beg for mercy. This was the first time it had been not the hunter but the hunted. This tiny man should have been the prey, but the tarasque was forced to acknowledge it had been overpowered. 

The monster’s pleading meant nothing to the man, for he was an adventurer. Hunting monsters was how he made his living. Listening to the forlorn cries of monsters would be bad for business. But just before his blade connected with flesh, it sounded like the man apologized. He even seemed to empathize with the monster. Even so, he didn’t hesitate to cut off the tarasque’s head. Seconds later, the tarasque collapsed to the ground with a loud boom. He didn’t turn to watch, but the sound conveyed the weight of this severed life. 

Lorraine felt her presentation may have been a bit flashy. She had left out Edel too, even though she knew he had participated, but explaining him would have been a nuisance. Besides, she thought it was cooler this way. She’d also left out Rentt’s use of divinity and fusion arts, but those were something of a secret weapon for him, so she replaced them with spirit for her story. As for the bittersweet conclusion, that was her own dramatic flair. 

Lorraine looked at Riri and Fahri to gauge their reaction. They were still staring bright-eyed at the figure of the robed man before the fallen tarasque. It appeared she’d done an excellent job at maintaining Rentt’s reputation with them. Lorraine was satisfied. 

After wandering around the village for a while to help myself calm down, I returned home. There I encountered my two childhood friends. They were looking at me with immense respect, but I had no idea what I’d done to deserve that, especially considering this was the first time I’d seen them since I’d returned to the village. 

“Rentt, you’re so strong! I had no idea!” Riri said animatedly. 

Fahri calmly added, “Ren, you took down that crazy thing like it was nothing. Adventurers are awesome.” 

They stared at me with big smiles. Their slightly red faces told me they were excited about something, but I couldn’t figure out what. From the way they looked at me, I had my guesses as to what they were feeling, but I didn’t know what caused it. 

That was when I saw Lorraine sitting on a log behind them. She looked proud, but maybe that was my imagination. Although, I had gotten used to how Lorraine expressed herself over the last decade, and if I thought she felt a certain way, I was almost always right. But again I didn’t know why. 

From the look of things, Riri and Fahri must have visited the house while Lorraine was there, and they ended up talking. Their respect probably came from something Lorraine said about my work in Maalt. I could imagine she exaggerated to some extent. The “crazy thing” Fahri referred to was most likely a tarasque, a giant skeleton, or something of that nature. That said, it would have been hard to describe the power of those monsters to these girls who’d lived in a mountain village all their life. Plus, Lorraine tended to sound more explanatory than anything. She was easily understood, but she lacked emotion. It was like sitting through a lecture. It wouldn’t have made my childhood friends act this way. That’s when it hit me. Lorraine knew illusion magic. 

Illusion magic was primarily used to project images of maps or structures in the air. These spells were known for being immensely challenging to construct, and they cost a lot of mana to sustain. Those who used this magic worked at theaters throughout the world and supplemented the mana cost with large amounts of magic crystals. Illusions were far more effective than simple painted backdrops, so they were often used in classy theaters. In Lorraine’s case, though, she could project and sustain huge images on her own. By researching magic circles and their construction, she even figured out how to substantially reduce the mana cost. At least, that’s what I assumed. When I asked her before how she did it, she gave me an incomprehensible answer. This knowledge would be worth a fortune, but I was utterly unable to use the magic at the time, and it all seemed too complicated for me. Maybe now I could understand it if I tried, but I would have to start from the basics. 

In any case, if Lorraine used illusion magic to project an image of me fighting a monster, it would explain her satisfaction and their awe. That left the question of exactly how much she spiced it up. To be honest, my battles with the giant skeleton and the tarasque were pretty lame. The giant skeleton was the first giant monster I ever fought on my own. I happened to beat it by hitting its weak point, but one incorrect move could have ended me. And I only beat the tarasque with Edel’s help. Demidragon or not, nothing related to dragons was easy to defeat. If she depicted these fights accurately, I would have barely managed to win, but the sparkling eyes of my childhood friends told me that she stretched the truth. 

“Riri, Fahri, long time no see. Did Lorraine show you her illusion magic or something?” 

“Yeah,” Riri answered. “City people are pretty amazing. Those illusions looked so real. I never knew magic could do stuff like that! You looked so cool when you fought that monster, and the monster looked terrifying!” 

“I guess this is what you can do when you master magic,” Fahri added. “Looks like you’ve gotten really strong since moving to the city, Ren. Made me think I should go train in the city at some point myself.” 

My assumption seemed to be spot on. Still, I felt that their excitement was overblown. I hadn’t gotten that much stronger, and the power I now possessed was a matter of luck. Whether that luck was good or bad, it was hard to say. Lorraine’s illusion magic was also beyond the bounds of normalcy. Whether Riri and Fahri went to the city or not, they had virtually zero chance of becoming a magician on her level. The only reason Lorraine stopped at Silver-class was because she didn’t take many jobs, but she could easily reach Gold-class. Besides that, she excelled more with non-combat-oriented magic. She was an adventurer and knew how to fight, but more than that, she was a researcher and scholar. Her talent for constructing theories was beyond what the average magician could hope to achieve. If Riri and Fahri thought this was normal in the city, they had another thing coming. 

“Lorraine is pretty unique even among city folk,” I said. “I wouldn’t go to the city expecting everyone to be like her.” 

“Are you unique too, Rentt?” Riri asked. “That poison didn’t even work on you.” 

“Well, uh, that’s nothing special...” I wasn’t expecting to hear that and didn’t know how to respond. 

“So there are a bunch of people that aren’t affected by poison? They’re that strong? I knew the city was something special,” Fahri remarked. 

At the very least, poison was perfectly effective against humans regardless of where they came from. My own circumstances were just a bit different. I wanted to shout this at them, but it would be hard to explain. This was a dreadful misunderstanding, and I would have to take my time clearing it up for the duration of our stay in the village. I didn’t know how to convince my childhood friends that Maalt wasn’t a city full of freakish superhumans, but I decided that would be one of my goals while we were here. 

“By the way, Riri, didn’t you want to ask Lorraine something?” Fahri said as if suddenly remembering something. 

Riri stared at me and Lorraine. “I was just so distracted by our chat about Rentt and the city. Now I have to go prepare for tonight. Lorraine, can we talk again later?” Riri asked. 

Lorraine cocked her head, but she saw no reason to object. “Sure, that should be fine. But tonight is that banquet the mayor and his wife mentioned, isn’t it?” 

“Yeah, there’s that. Fahri and I are gonna help cook and stuff, so we actually don’t have much time.” 

“I see. Sorry for keeping you.” 

“No, it was us who were keeping you. It was nice hearing your stories. See you later. You too, Rentt,” Riri said and waved goodbye. 

Fahri waved as well. “I’d love to see more illusions like that tonight. I think everyone would. Bye now, you two.” 

“What were they here for in the first place?” I asked. 

“Who knows? They wanted to talk to you, I think,” Lorraine answered, but she looked unsure. 

“So, you used illusion magic to show them some things.” 

Lorraine gulped, but a moment later she proudly puffed out her chest. “Yes, indeed I did. I didn’t want to reveal your secret, nor did I want to damage your reputation within the village, so I tweaked the story somewhat. It wasn’t easy, but you saw how they were. I would consider that quite the success.” 

Now I understood what compelled Lorraine to use illusion magic to tell a story. If Riri and Fahri asked what I was like in Maalt, it was probably hard for Lorraine to turn them down, and it was easier to show than to tell. Lorraine could be surprisingly willing to accommodate, and she had no reservations about using magic, unlike the majority of magicians. They withheld their magic in an effort to raise its value. Most magicians also didn’t have much mana to spare, so they couldn’t cast magic freely, but Lorraine had so much mana it was barely an issue. 

“Well, it was nice of you to go through the effort, but Riri and Fahri were looking at me like I was some great hero. Maybe you overdid it a little.” 

“You think so?” Lorraine asked, a bit perturbed. “I do actually think you’ve done incredible things, so it wouldn’t have been much different if I simply told the story verbally. Few adventurers even come across giant skeletons or tarasques, and defeating them solo is a feat worthy of praise.” 

She could be right about that, but any Gold-class adventurer could slay a tarasque. Giant skeletons were even weaker, simple enough for Silver-class adventurers to vanquish handily, if not even lower classes. It was nothing to boast about, so I told her as much. 

Lorraine sighed. “You think too little of yourself. Consider how powerful you’ve become already. You left this village when you were young and came to Maalt with aspirations of becoming an adventurer. How much of what you can do now were you able to do back then? Your accomplishments could very well make you a hero in the eyes of this village.” 

When she put it that way, maybe she was right. It wasn’t too long ago I was the sort of Bronze-class adventurer you could find anywhere. For adventurers who came from villages of this size, that was the limit, at which point they would retire from adventuring and return to the village to become a hunter or guard of some sort. There was a good chance that would have happened to me at some point. It didn’t, but only thanks to my good luck, which may have also been bad luck. Now I could even fight tarasques, so from the perspective of all those downtrodden adventurers, I had achieved plenty. 

After everything that had happened lately, I was starting to lose my confidence. I kept encountering enigmatic people like Laura and Nive, and it made me feel like I was nobody special. It was as if they were born with this aura of individuality, something that made them special, and I didn’t know how to get that for myself. 

Although, notwithstanding Laura, I didn’t want to be like Nive. She was unique, to be sure, but to an inhuman extreme. The way she thought and behaved had no place in society. Despite that, she had plenty of connections, and she had influence within a religious organization, so she navigated society strangely well. Regardless, she was a special case, and I didn’t intend to follow her lead. 

“I’ll try to be a bit more confident. Anyway, Lorraine, show me the same illusion you showed them. I want to know exactly what it was in case they ask about it later.” 

“Good idea,” Lorraine agreed. “I could explain by mouth, but it’ll probably be quicker and easier to watch for yourself. Come with me.” 

Lorraine started to use her magic. It always looked complicated to me, but she found it so simple that she could hum while she did it. Once the spell was complete, Lorraine began to control it. 

All I could do was ask who this man was supposed to be. She embellished the story to a ludicrous degree, and Edel wasn’t even there. I also made it out virtually unharmed in her version. It was true I didn’t suffer any serious injuries, but I went through a lot to reach the tarasque and got fairly beaten up in the process. This made it look like I dispatched the tarasque effortlessly. Now Riri and Fahri’s stares made perfect sense. 

“I’m sure you realize this, but this is pretty excessive,” I complained. 

“I could have presented you like a legendary king, so I’d say I restrained myself. Don’t worry about it,” she said, disregarding my concerns. 

Every country had legends about the king or queen who founded the nation, and they were always highly exaggerated. Presenting a Bronze-class adventurer in the same light would be absurd, but when I looked at Lorraine’s face, I could tell she was half-serious. 

“Lorraine.” 

“What?” 

“Are you planning to show this again at the banquet tonight?” 

“Of course. They asked me to,” Lorraine said with amusement. 

I was already weary, but now I had to spend the rest of the day thinking about how to show the villagers tonight at the banquet what I was actually like. I never came up with an answer.