“This young one—this Vandal—saved my husband! Ah, it was over before she showed up!”
Missus, I have to say—I can’t hold your honesty against you.
“I did have some kind of dream,” Iwan said. “It was like a terrible reaper had my head in his hands . . . but then I was being cradled by a goddess. I see. It was this girl.”
A goddess? Oh boy. With that, Vandal saved the life of Iwan and, in the process, really stood out from the crowd.
Vandal was given a hero’s welcome back at the General Store, the only commercial facility in the village.
“Kid, you saved my life,” Iwan declared. “I was about to go out like a chump and never be around for my second kid to even see my face. Come on, eat up! My treat!”
“Don’t make it sound like you’re doing him a favor! This isn’t much of much!”
“Not at all. Thank you,” Vandal said, replying to Iwan and his wife even though his mouth was full. “I was feeling hungry.” He was eating some simple rice porridge. It was made with long grain rice, like indica rice from back on Earth, mixed with some edible wild grasses to hide the powerful smell, plus beans to add some bulk, finished with a little salt. It wasn’t anything special. The flavors of the ingredients were all richly represented—but those exact ingredients made up 110% of the flavor.
However, it was summer and also rice harvest time. This was probably what they had at hand. The fact the Seventh Pioneer Village had rice at all for porridge was an indicator of how good they had it—relatively speaking.
Throw in some dried meat or fish from my pack, crank up the salt, and this could be pretty good. However, Vandal chose not to act on his idea. This world didn’t have the concept of smoking, and Vandal was hoping to turn dried, smoked meat and fish into one of the specialties of Talosheim in the future. He therefore wanted to keep it a secret.
The bar space of the General Store didn’t even have a menu. They served grain-based unrefined booze with sides of fried beans, boiled beans, and some veggies. Those meals were also the exact same thing the family that ran the restaurant ate—in fact, they were just cooking extra to serve in the restaurant.
Vandal had been wondering how they hoped to run a business like that, but the truth was, this was the only way to run any business at all in the village.
The other villagers could easily brew their own alcohol of a similar (low) quality and cooked meals of similar (low) complexity. The only customers willing to pay for such offerings were, therefore, merchants who headed bi-monthly to the slave mine, the guards who protected them, passing soldiers, and the three from Kasim’s party. If the operators of the General Store decided to offer multiple dishes, it would do nothing but increase their overhead. Hence, the rice porridge.
“It isn’t that great, is it?” The owner sounded resigned.
“Don’t say that,” Vandal replied, still chewing.
“No need to be polite. Iwan and I would both love to give you a proper treat, after all you’ve done, but we grow rice here and not much else.”
“Dad, you promised not to say things like that. Although I guess the rice in the Saulon Domain was better than the stuff here. It smelled nicer, too.”
As it turned out, the refugees had formerly been farmers of a rice known as Saulon rice. This variety was closer to the white rice Vandal knew from Earth. This, of course, had been back when they lived in the Saulon Domain, to the north of Duke Heartner’s. After they were forced to flee, they had quickly learned that the weather and soil here in the Heartner Domain did not favor Saulon rice at all. So they had to grow the strain commonly farmed here, called southern rice in the Electorate Kingdom.
“Sounds like the Empire is at fault again,” Vandal said. He could’ve been chowing down on familiar Japanese rice today, if not for the Empire.
“That’s right! That muck-mired Empire can suck a donkey’s—”
“Yes, yes, the Imperials are the bad guys!”
The pioneer village was comprised of refugees from an Amidd Empire attack. Everyone agreed with Vandal’s comment.
“I’m impressed you can use magic, though,” Kasim ventured. He was eating the same porridge as Vandal.
“As I am,” the priest agreed. “I thought you were a Warrior or Fighter.” He placed a hand on his chest with a smile. “The fact you appeared today, to save not only Kasim but also Iwan, is surely by the guiding grace of our lord. We may pray to different gods, Alda and Vida; two who in the time of myth are said to have taken divergent paths. Allow us, however, to join hands toward a common good.” Vandal thought his smile still seemed fake, but what he was saying had the ring of conviction. This was definitely a holier man than High Priest Goldan had been. In fact, he might actually be a decent fellow.
“I am not a member of the clergy myself, but thank you for saying that,” Vandal replied. He wondered for a moment what the deal was with shrines to Vida in the Heartner Domain. He might see one when he finally reached a city.
“May I ask one thing?” the priest asked. “How are you able to speak so clearly with your mouth full?”
“. . . A little trick of mine.” He was actually using Astral Projection to make a spirit body face below his clothing and talked using that. “Could I trouble you for some more?”
“More?! Ah, of course, you can—but that’s your third bowl.”
“I really am hungry. My apologies.” Vandal was smaller and more delicate than children his own age, but he ate a lot more than his appearance suggested. He needed more energy than the average grown man, after all.
“You’ve got strength, magic, and the appetite of an adventurer to boot!” Kasim was not as surprised by this as the owner. Adventurers took combat-related Jobs, which increased physical abilities more than the kind of production-based jobs regular folk took. That meant many of them were thin as rakes, yet packed food away come mealtimes. Kasim and his party would have met such people in their adventures.
“Mayor! Kain from the neighboring Fifth Pioneer Village is here to see the father—urmpf!” The first man to come in was suddenly pushed aside.
“Father! Please, we need you in our village! Our people are falling sick—the pest, Father, it’s felling us one by one! We need you!” The second man, doing the pushing, looked battered and worn. He must have collapsed countless times on his way here.
“The pest?!” the mayor exclaimed.
“This is terrible!” said the priest. “But I fear the sun has already set. Venturing to the Fifth at this hour would not end well.”
The path between the two villages was little better than a track scraped out by beasts. It took about four hours to traverse, through a region that saw frequent attacks by wolves or monsters at night. It was possible to return to the main road first and then head to the Fifth Pioneer Village, but that route would take an entire day.
“Kain, we will leave first thing in the morning. You should rest until then.”
“I can’t wait! Everyone at home—my wife and daughter—!”
“Please, you must understand, Kain. It’s too dangerous to travel at night. Goblin numbers have been increasing recently as well. Any attempt to provide aid will be pointless if we’re dead before we get there.”
Kain wailed. “No! There must be . . . something to be done . . .” His shoulders slumped down, shaking with his sobs.
A number of the villagers were already raising their hands in despair. The plight of this regular man who had already risked the crossing once for the sake of his people, wife, and daughter, resounded in the room.
Kasim stood up. “Then we will provide an escort—”
“I can fly him on my back, if you like,” Vandal offered.
This proposal kind of shut down the idea of anyone else tagging along.
“Aren’t the stars lovely.”
“Yeeeeeeees!”
“Look at the moon! Lovely!”
“Nooooooo!”
On Ramda, few had the power of flight. There were certain Magicians, rich folk with expensive magic items, those like Dragoons who tamed flying monsters, and members of Vida’s new races who had wings. That was about it. For most regular folk, the idea of flying through the sky was a dream or a hallucination.
Kain was currently having this rare and precious experience.
The man was bound tightly to Vandal’s back with rope. Meanwhile, Vandal was carrying his belongings and using Flight magic to proceed toward the Fifth Pioneer Village. Kain was clinging desperately to Vandal and screaming most of the time. He didn’t have much time to enjoy the flight.
“Should I be going straight?” Vandal asked.