In the village of Rodelus in the western region of the Erwin Empire, there was a pharmacy quite famous among the residents.
“Naro! Are you inside?!”
“Ah, Garnet ahjussi.”
Hearing the voice calling him, Naro emerged from inside the not-so-large workshop. His snow-white face contrasting with his bronze-colored hair gave off a rather youthful impression, too baby-faced to be called an adult.
“You came for medicinal herbs, right? Please wait a moment.”
Garnet, who served as the village chief, watched Naro’s back as he bustled about alone with a pleased smile. Naro, who had gone back into the shop, came out holding something wrapped in paper.
“When you catch a cold, nothing beats Naro’s medicinal herbs. They really restore your energy properly. You’re truly amazing.”
“You don’t need to flatter me like that.”
As Naro scratched his head with an awkward laugh, Garnet nodded as if he’d expected that response.
“Naro, instead of being cooped up in a small village like this in the west, why don’t you try going to Central? It’s a shame to see a young guy like you holed up here as if you’ve already lived your whole life.”
Central. That word meant, in other words, Lupel, the capital of the Erwin Empire. Every now and then when Garnet saw Naro, he would often add that a guy with talent who knows how to work hard shouldn’t be stuck in the countryside like this. And each time, Naro would say,
“It’s okay. I like living here. Where else can you find a place with air as good as Rodelus?”
That’s how he would answer.
“You know, when I really look at you, you’re not like young people these days. Just when I think you look young, from another angle you seem like someone who’s lived life twice, you know?”
At Garnet’s words, tossed out playfully with a hearty laugh, Naro’s shoulders flinched.
“Oh right, isn’t it auntie’s birthday in a few days? Tell her I said congratulations in advance.”
“Sure, I’ll come by again later.”
After patting Naro’s head once, Garnet slowly walked away. Once he completely disappeared from view, Naro let out a deep sigh as if he’d been waiting for it. His small shoulders drooped down.
“I still get startled every time I hear those kinds of words.”
Of course he knew that Garnet had said it as a joke. That made sense, since Garnet certainly couldn’t even imagine that he was truly living life for the second time, a stranger on his second round of life.
Hearing those words, he suddenly remembered when he first dropped into this place, this world.
Naro’s name was originally Kang Naro. Born in a place called the Republic of Korea, completely different from this current world, Naro had lived a life with limited time. He had a congenital chronic illness, and because of that, the times he could remember attending school were few and far between.
Eventually, in his early twenties, his illness worsened and he had to spend the rest of his life almost entirely on a hospital bed.
He had no family by his side to firmly support him. Naro had spent his time in an orphanage from childhood without ever knowing what his parents looked like. At least the facility where Naro stayed was a fairly large and good place, so he could receive support for the hospital expenses needed for treatment from a foundation connected to the orphanage.
While his peers were in their prime attending university or pursuing their dreams, the only thing that Naro, who was stuck with IV lines and passing critical moments every night, could find joy in was creative works like webtoons, manga, and web novels.
He experienced places he couldn’t go to himself and things he couldn’t experience through fictional worlds, and each time, Naro could forget that he was a patient with an appointed day of death.
Then one day, he had just been recommended a fantasy novel that was heating up the internet, and as he skimmed through the plot, he thought it seemed interesting. Although it was a story that felt thick with the typical royal road formula and common clichés, nothing was quite as fun as that.
Having only read the beginning and thinking it was so good he should savor it, Naro’s symptoms suddenly worsened and he never opened his eyes again.
And when he opened his eyes, he was inside the novel he’d been reading just before dying.
“I never thought something like that would happen to me.”
Naro shook his head from side to side, suddenly recalling the past. Of all the countless creative works he’d read, he never imagined he’d end up inside a novel where he’d only read the general plot and the beginning, one he’d foolishly saved for later.
But for Naro, this life was a second chance. After making a kind of dimensional transfer to this place, his illness had completely disappeared.
Before the fear and despair of being dropped into an unknown world, what Naro felt was liberation and freedom from his illness. So he struggled to settle down in a place with good air and good water, living out his own leisurely life.
Just being alive was great fortune for Naro, so even without doing anything grand, this level of living was enough.
“I should go gather medicinal herbs now.”
Naro was currently making a living by running a small pharmacy in Rodelus village. Thanks to running it diligently, orders were now coming in even from other nearby villages, so he was establishing himself reasonably well.
Naro went inside the house to prepare for climbing the mountain. He changed his clothes and put on gloves firmly, then came outside.
Behind Rodelus village was a small mountain. Compared to the famous mountains within the Empire, it was shabby and nothing special, but at least Naro valued it highly. The soil was very clean and of good quality, so he could directly obtain medicinal herbs good for the human body.
Entering the mountain’s entrance, Naro walked familiarly toward a certain spot. Had he reached about halfway up? Arriving at an area where rare plants gathered, Naro crouched down and took out the tools he’d brought.
Then he carefully dug up the plants without damaging the medicinal herbs and neatly placed them in a bag made by weaving tree branches.
“This should be enough, right?”
Looking proudly at the harvested medicinal herbs and preparing to descend the mountain, Naro stopped his movements at a gaze he felt from somewhere.
“Hm?”
When he turned his head, there was a creature that appeared to be a fox staring intently at Naro. But to call it a fox, how should he put it? The color of its fur was strange. Usually foxes have brown or white or gray fur, but the fox before his eyes had pitch-black fur that seemed like it would absorb any kind of light.
“Are you hungry?”
When Naro rummaged through his bag and held out a chunk of bread he’d brought just in case, the fox slowly approached. Even so, it didn’t take its eyes off Naro.
“Don’t worry. You can eat it.”
Naro slightly shook the hand holding the bread. Then suddenly the fox stuck its head into Naro’s bag, grabbed a small pouch in its mouth, and started running away.
“Huh?! Th-that won’t do!”
That was the pouch with money in it. It was living expenses he’d brought to stop by the plaza and do some shopping before going home after descending the mountain.
“Fox! Give that back!”
Naro immediately chased after the fox.
“Huff…”
Naro ran to catch the fox that was running away swiftly, even while panting. In his previous life, having spent a lifetime lying in a hospital, it was safe to say he had almost no stamina, but not now. Thanks to climbing the mountain every day with a healthy body, he’d built up stamina to some degree. But still, chasing a four-legged animal was too much.
“Fox…!”
Just then, the fox suddenly turned sharply and disappeared down a side path to the right. Had there been a path like that there? The question flashed through his mind for a moment, but now wasn’t the time to worry about such minor details.
Just as he thought he was barely chasing the fox’s tail and closing the distance, that black fox suddenly slipped right into a cave.
“Huff… haah…”
Naro gasped for breath that had built up in front of the cave. Wiping the drops of sweat rolling down his chin with his sleeve, he looked at the cave entrance he’d arrived at.
“Was there originally a cave here…?”
Naro frequently came and went to gather medicinal herbs, but this was also the first time he learned there was a cave on this mountain. However, the area where Naro mainly operated was near the mountain’s entrance, so it wasn’t so strange that he didn’t know since this was his first time coming in this deep.
Getting close to the cave, he could feel the surrounding air flow gradually changing. It was as if cold wind was being sucked from outside to inside.
“…”
Naro gulped. The cave entrance somehow gave off an eerie aura. He had a strong premonition that it would probably be better not to go in, but the amount of money in the pouch the fox had taken was too significant to ignore.
The money he’d just received from selling medicinal herbs to Garnet was all in there too.
“Maybe I’ll just go in a little bit…”
If he couldn’t find the fox, he’d just give up and come out. Having reached that conclusion, Naro nodded his head firmly and slowly stepped into the cave. The interior was cooler than he’d thought. The sound made by the wind gathering and circulating together was like the wailing of ghosts, making goosebumps naturally rise on the back of his neck.
“F-fox.”
Naro timidly opened his mouth.
Since it was a cave, it wasn’t very bright, so he had to wait for his vision to adapt to the darkness. Also, with stones scattered here and there, he almost tripped countless times.
“Fox, be good… where are you?”
But the fox wasn’t visible anywhere.
