"Ugh! Uhh, my body aches like hell," I say while slowly opening my eyes, seeing a wooden roof over my head as a lady cooks something on her stove in the background. "We were worried you wouldn't wake up." A little boy says while he touches my hair with his little fingers freaking me out since I hadn't seen him until I looked up.
"Where am I?" I ask as I try to sit up but struggle until the little boy helps me sit while his mother brings some hot liquid my way. "You're in Mapple town in the Romaritime Kingdom." Did the lady just say what I thought she did? I didn't hear Empire; I heard Kingdom!
"This isn't a territory inside the Empire?" I ask a little too excitedly, which probably made me seem suspicious, but the lady simply responds with a short "No." Thank you, reincarnation goddess! You rock, my dear beloved reincarnation goddess! You finally gave me a break for once; I knew you didn't have a heart of stone.
"Why were you out there in the snow? It's not exactly hunting season," The lady, who I assumed was the leader of the household, presses me about a matter I had some time to think about on my way here, which would give me a good cover as to why I would be here a believable story indeed.
"I was learning all about ice fishing with my dad until a Magi Bear attacked us. My father sacrificed his life to save me, and I drifted all the way here because I didn't know the way home." The lady seemed skeptical for a minute, but then she just sighed and handed me some green tea, which I proceeded to drink.
"These hills forgive nobody, not even the little ones like you, uh? Mother nature is relentless indeed." The lady says as she slowly sits in a chair not too far away. I had to say, for an old lady, she didn't look so bad, maybe around age sixty or a little older, who knew.
"Thank you for not letting me freeze to death out there." I respond to the old lady's kindness by bowing to her to show her my gratitude for her gesture, to which she responds with, "Oh, don't even mention it. The truth is that my son felt bad for the bear trap around your leg, so he offered to keep you here until you recovered."
"So it was Daddy's fault! I knew it!" The little boy beside me intervenes in my conversation with the old lady, which I find a bit annoying, but I get over it as I am still just a stranger to them, yet I have become their guest without them even knowing me.
"Chimaru! What did I say about interrupting!? Go to your room and stop bothering the girl!" The old woman finally scolded the boy and snuffed him away after noticing my annoyed look from the kid playing around with my hair like it was some sort of toy.
"I just realized I still don't know your name, mam, so would you care to enlighten me?" I ask Grandma, and she swiftly responds with her peculiar name, "I'm Nefricoral! The town's healer witch!" Nefri what? The boy's name was also quite weird, but the grandma's name wasn't far away on the bizarre scale.
"Nefri-co-ral?" I try my best to pronounce her name, which immediately makes her happy as she congratulates me for my efforts. "You got it! Although I couldn't even heal you, it's like my magic doesn't want to activate near you, which worried me for a while."
Oh, that's right. It doesn't matter if it's healing or attack magic. It would not activate near me, so it made sense that even this expert healer couldn't heal me. How had she closed my wounds and fixed me up so well without magic then? "What did you do to make me feel much better then?"
"Hmmph! It would've looked bad if I! The great Nefricoral wasn't able to heal someone! So I just used healing rubbing compounds made with medicinal plants and prayed for the best, and luckily, you healed a little." So medicinal plants weren't magic? That was interesting to learn. It would explain why I can feel the caffeine from all those teas.
"Oh! Right! I almost forgot! You must be starving! Here here! Eat! Eat so your hair shines bright like the sun!" The old lady soon showed me her grandma side when it came to feeding me, as she just kept stuffing my face with food.
I sincerely found most of her food repulsing since my vampire taste buds and stomach hated human food. Still, I also didn't want to seem like an asshole, so I bit down every last bit of food she eventually brought me until I couldn't eat anymore.
One of the downsides of being a vampire was definitely not being able to taste anything else besides blood and hot drinks since everything else tasted awful and disgusting to me, while blood had a good, tasty flavor. Nevertheless, being a vampire also allows me to survive things I otherwise wouldn't, so it's not all too bad.
"Thank you for the food," I say as I struggle to contain all the things inside my stomach, just barely being able not to vomit it all out as it starts making me a little nauseous. "Hope you made room for dessert!" Nefri looked so happy, bringing me something that resembled cake, as my eyes widened at the sight of even more disgusting human food! AHHHH!!!
I'll go back to the forest! I'd rather go back out there! This is torture!