“G-give my mushrooms back.”
“What?”
“Y-you…”
He was too scared for words to come out properly. Hiding his trembling hands inside his sleeves from fear, Elijah put on the most resolute face he could muster.
“Give back my mushrooms that you took for an absurd low price.”
“I showed some charity feeling sorry for a beggar-like bastard, and now you’re spouting nonsense?”
“You’re the one who spouted nonsense! I’ll return the money, so give back my mushrooms that you scammed from me!”
“Ha, really… If I already bought it, it’s mine, so why is it yours?”
“It wasn’t a fair price in the first place!”
“You said with your own mouth you’d sell it for 4 krone, didn’t you?”
“Th-that’s…”
Elijah was afraid his heart was beating so fast he might vomit. After exchanging only a few words, he was already out of breath.
Stay calm… stay calm. Elijah barely calmed his trembling chest and slowly spat out his words.
“This problem… happened because you weren’t honest in the first place! Don’t you have any conscience as a merchant?”
The voice leaking out of his mouth was trembling terribly even to his own perception, but he still had to pretend to be as composed as possible.
Though the man’s fists were equivalent to his own head, and just one swing of the man’s hand would probably make him flee in utter panic…
“Conscience?”
The man’s face turned fiercely menacing.
“Don’t piss me off and get lost. There’s a limit to causing a ruckus in someone else’s business even if you’re unlucky.”
“Where are you going? Take this money and give back my mushrooms…!”
Elijah, who grabbed the clothes of the man turning away ignoring him, was instantly pushed away with a swoosh. The medicinal materials displayed on the stall tumbled down, pushed by his body.
At that commotion, the gazes of the surrounding crowd focused all at once. Between the murmuring people’s stares and the shock of being pushed by the man, Elijah was trembling all over.
“This beggar bastard dares to lay hands where!”
The man’s roar rang out loudly. Because of his words, to unknowing eyes, Elijah looked like a thief caught stealing.
“You bastard, you’re caught good today.”
The man rolled up his sleeves and grabbed Elijah’s collar. Elijah, pulled up by him in one go, faced the man’s terrifyingly distorted face. Hands as big and thick as stones rose high into the air.
“Hic…!”
Elijah, pushed against the wall by the man’s strength, squeezed his eyes shut. Along with a heavy thud, the sound of something clattering down rang out. People’s screams burst out here and there.
For a moment, Elijah thought his head had cracked. Elijah, whose legs gave out and collapsed, slowly opened his eyes. The head he hurriedly checked was still well attached, and the man had disappeared without a trace.
Dusty air reeking of all kinds of medicinal materials filled the narrow shop. Half the stall was broken, and the neatly displayed medicinal material boxes that had been lined up were scattered about. It was a scene of complete chaos.
This vicious man must have gone on a rampage in that short time. As Elijah was thinking such thoughts, a croaking sound came from beneath his feet.
It was a sound he often heard in the forest on summer nights. Confusion spread among the people who had gathered even more than before.
What is that? What’s that? A frog? Is that person a mage? I saw it! That person cast magic on Adam! Isn’t he crazy? He must be crazy, must be a crazy mage…!
Gazes filled with fear and amazement clung to Elijah’s entire body.
“…”
The tension was so extreme he could barely breathe. Next to the frog inflating its throat with a croak, a rather heavy-looking money pouch had fallen.
Elijah hastily picked up what appeared to be the man’s money pouch in the confusion and stood up.
Shouldn’t we catch that crazy bastard so he can’t escape? Someone said among the crowd blocking the front of the shop. Elijah reflexively pushed through them and ran.
Green light silently wrapped around the tips of his feet striking the ground, floating up into the air and falling repeatedly.
He didn’t know if people were really chasing him, but Elijah ran without stopping even once until he reached a place where no more crowds could be seen.
**Chapter 2**
“Sir Kalian, can we really find anything in such a backwater place?”
Bailey, Kalian’s subordinate, complained as he looked around the village alley. It had been a journey that took over two weeks from the capital to this eastern border village.
The reason was to collect research paper materials for his great direct superior, Kalian Artes. Kalian, the royal palace’s chief mage, was currently researching ‘vampires,’ and in Bailey’s opinion, he had chosen the wrong thesis topic—very wrong.
Research on dragons had been so actively conducted until now that there was plenty of various material, but almost no one believed vampires actually existed.
Compared to the research difficulty, the possibility of receiving good evaluation was very low, and there would be almost no one reading his paper in the future.
“You heard too. From that man.”
Kalian said as he took off his gloves. Bailey couldn’t help but sigh.
“That’s just a crazy bastard…”
Not long ago, Kalian received a letter from someone. Kalian, who had fame with the title of ‘youngest chief mage,’ always received all sorts of miscellaneous requests from all over the country, so Bailey hoped he would ignore the letter this time too.
But unfortunately, Kalian came all the way here, taking over two weeks, because of one absurd line in the letter: ‘I think my younger sibling gave birth to a vampire.’
The man they actually met was truly a madman if there ever was one. Bailey almost vomited several times during the entire interview because of the stench of blood vibrating from his house.
According to the man’s claim, he originally lived with his younger sibling.
One day, the sibling’s belly suddenly began to swell. Since the child usually liked eating so much, at first he thought they’d overeaten. But the sibling’s belly swelled more and more like a balloon, and in just a few hours became like a full-term pregnant woman.
At that point, the man realized the seriousness of the situation and went to fetch a physician. Since it normally took several hours of traveling to summon a physician in such a rural area, the man left the sibling, who had difficulty moving due to the swollen belly, at home.
And when he arrived home with the physician, the sibling wasn’t there.
“Ugh… it’s horrifying. That crazy bastard definitely had a crazy dream.”
The man said that ‘the thing’ inside his sibling’s belly had devoured the sibling. Leaving only incompletely damaged skin and bones.
That incident that struck like lightning upon the peaceful daily life of the two happened last summer. The physician who accompanied him at the time fled in utter panic, terrified, and he said he hadn’t seen him since.
When the man said he’d show evidence, Bailey adamantly declined. In the end, Kalian had to confirm alone the sibling’s corpse that was damaged and decomposed to the point where its form was hard to recognize.
“I saw it briefly too. It’s definitely an animal carcass. How many madmen are there in the world? He’s definitely thoroughly insane, I tell you?”
“It was a person. Hands, feet, face, I confirmed everything. The decomposition is severe, but the skeleton remains, so…”
“Ahhh…! Please keep such things to yourself!”
A horrific scene unfolded before his eyes on its own. Those who are timid have excessively abundant imagination. Bailey only resented his unnecessarily detailed imagination.
“So, he said he abandoned the baby around here, right? Right, Bailey?”
“I don’t know…”
Bailey grumbled and glanced around.
“The entrance to the third alley from the angel statue at the village entrance. This should be right.”
The man said he abandoned the baby here.
“But why isn’t it here?”
Of course! It all happened in that bastard’s delusions! Bailey only screamed inwardly.
“O-of course… Three seasons have passed. If the baby were still there just as it was, that would be stranger, wouldn’t it?”
“No, no matter how much I ask around this area, there’s not a single person who saw an abandoned baby. No one knows about that incident either.”
“That’s strange… The baby couldn’t have disappeared on its own…”
Of course, the very claim that the baby ate a person was absurd in the first place.
“Then the next step is the physician. Let’s go find the physician and confirm whether the man’s words are true first. Right now, that person is the only witness.”
Shouldn’t we have met the physician first before coming here to confirm whether that crazy bastard’s words were true… Bailey thought. Surely if they found the physician, they would know. That the man was a mental patient.
“Yes, well… we have to find the physician…”
Letting out an answer with half his soul gone as he moved his steps, Bailey suddenly tore off a newsletter attached to the wall. On the newsletters attached at regular intervals along the half-collapsed wall, quite an interesting story was written.
“Sir Kalian, look at this.”
He handed the paper to Kalian.
Passing traveler!
If you who see this are a mage, please come to Mr. Adam’s shop! Please help Mr. Adam who became a frog due to a crazy mage’s trick not long ago!
We will give you a generous reward.
Kalian furrowed his brow.
“What’s this?”
“I know, right. There’s really all kinds of things happening in this backwater.”
“No. It’s not all kinds of things, it’s a really strange thing. Is magic that transforms targets into animals common?”
