Have you ever felt completely disconnected from the world? As if the things that are happening around you are far away from you. You feel strange, everything seems like a dream, a distant vision, and suddenly you feel nothing more, becoming an external spectator.

So I felt in that moment, as I followed the run of that woman in the apron, while she was panicking and whispering something, perhaps a prayer.

As soon as we left the inn, the woman turned right and then left.

"It's there," I told her, pointing to the wooden cart on our left.

The woman walked over, lifted the sheet, and shivered at the scene.

"Marie ..." she said in a trembling voice, some tears ran down her face.

The injured woman was motionless, unconscious, but still alive.

"Can you save her?" I asked her.

"I don't ... but, I know someone who might ..." She didn't seem very convinced as she said it.

*Waah

The child began to cry, the innkeeper approached him, and the vision of that baby brought a little smile to her face.

"Oh ... this must be Leo ..."

The woman in the apron realized there was no time to waste. For now, she decided to leave the baby there.

She turned and ran to a clearing in front of the inn, on the opposite side of the dirt road.

'Mmh? Where… ' I followed her, unsure of her actions.

The woman started screaming "Rivorio! RIVORIO! " She screamed where there was nothing.

'Did she go crazy seeing her friend hurt!?' I wondered.

However, I was wrong, she was not screaming where there was nothing, in fact, in front of the woman appeared as if by magic, or rather, just by magic, a door made of maple wood, very simple without frills.

This door opened, showing a room behind it, and showing a man in his seventies.

He was bald and beardless, with a huge nose. At first glance his face reminded me of a muzzle of an elephant seal, don't ask me why.

He was dressed in a brown tunic, he was thin, and he helped himself to stand up with a walking stick he held in his right hand. This was thin and black, it ended at the top with a spherical metal knob which had some decoration in bas-relief.

"EHH ?!" He said gruffly and with a frown.

"Rivorio… I need your help! Marie ... Marie is hurt! " The woman in the apron pointed to the wooden cart where Marie lay.

"MMMhh ... take her in," he said, showing no real interest in the girl's situation.

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"Thank you!" The woman in the apron turned and ran to Marie. She seemed surprised he accepted so quickly.

"MMMMMh, and who are you ?!" He asked me, his voice was indeed very hoarse and sour.

"Oh? Um, Eizo, sir… " I replied as respectfully as I could at that moment.

"What are you doing here?! Give her a hand, you fool" for the way he said it I wanted to argue, but he was right.

As the old man told us, the woman whose name I did not yet know, and I carried the helpless body of the girl inside and placed her on a dark wood bench, slightly decorated on the sides.

The room I had entered was lit by the same warm light that illuminated the inn's interior. There were various chandeliers, perhaps too many, and some even not working.

One that came down from the ceiling, one very old wall-mounted chandelier of twisted iron ending in a kind of flower in front of me.

To my right, there were two similar ones, one with broken bulbs and the other working. Then, there were three others to my left, of which only one was working.

The room was full of shiny dark wood shelves, with numerous books and small objects that I didn't understand their usefulness.

Then there were books, wandering pages, small objects of any material thrown on the floor all over the room; a huge table in front of me and even an olive tree to the left of the table. It was a room where order seemed non-existent and full of things that at first glance were completely useless.

The old man checked the girl's condition, his face frowned the whole time.

"MMMh ..."

"Can she live?" The woman in the apron asked impatiently.

"EHH ... that's a really good question ..." he muttered.

"You, slacker hero" it was addressed to me, "take me that ampoule with the red liquid inside, there on the shelf ..." He added, pointing to the shelf on my left with his finger.

I opened my eyes, "how-" "Quick!" He blurted out before I could say anything.

"Lilya! Take some olive branches." Now, turning to the woman in the apron.

Lilya and I followed his orders.

Having given him what he had asked us, the old man with a gesture tore almost all the leaves from the olive branches that Lilya had given him and dipped them in the cruet I had given him.

The liquid inside the ampoule began to boil, thicken and turn pink.

"W-what is it" I couldn't restrain my curiosity.

"MMh ?! EHH, it's a healing ointment, "red heart" powder, distilled water, and olive leaves… " The old man then asked us to leave his work area.

She removed all of Marie's robes, even the cloth around the wound in her leg that I had put on, which made me look away from embarrassment.

Then, the old man raised his walking stick and brought the metal knob towards the woman's body.

Then he muttered something and the woman's body, previously dirty with mud, dust, and blood, was thoroughly cleansed.

'MAGIC!?' He too, like the old woman who had welcomed me into this world, was a magician. Well, maybe I shouldn't have reacted so surprised, after all, just before, he had opened a door out of nowhere.

'I still can't get used to the idea that magic exists in this world ...'

Now that the woman was completely clean, I noticed how beautiful she was.

The old man took out of the ampoule some of the healing ointment he had created and spread it over all the wounds, abounding in that on the woman's leg.

"Good!" The old man said, "Now we have to let her rest for at least one night..."

"Will she be cured?!" Asked the agitated innkeeper.

"EHHH ... I can't say for sure, but it seems to react well to the ointment ..." he replied.

I looked at the woman lying down, I didn't understand how he could tell.

Lilya, at the old man's words, gave a forced smile, then lowered her head and thanked him warmly.

The old man grunted something, turned, and placed the cruet on a shelf behind him.

Subsequently, the old man took us to the door and let Lilya out, I was about to follow her when the old man blocked my way with his walking stick.

"You stay here ..." He said.

"..." I greeted Lilya, who thanked me warmly too and then left in the direction of the inn.

The old man directed me to sit on a chair, next to the massive dark wooden table. Then, he covered with a thin cloth, which did not show underneath, almost the entire body of the unfortunate.

Rivorio then walked towards a wall without doors, between the shelf where I had previously taken the cruet and the olive tree, created a door out of nowhere on the wall, and opened it.

He went into another little room, which, from where I was, I could only glimpse it. It looked like a kitchen.

While the old man was away, I looked around.

'it's really all messed up in here ... who knows how he finds what he's looking for here ...' This waiting time also brought me back to thinking about what had happened that day.

'It all seems too real to be a dream ... will I really have to live here from now on? ...' I was gradually becoming more and more convinced that what was happening to me was real.

The thing that surprised me the most was that I didn't miss my old world at all and, for now, I didn't miss my parents that much either.

'After all ... my life has never been "special" ...' 'Maybe here ...' I immediately shook off these thoughts, after all, where I was now there were bloodthirsty monsters in every corner and death was common.

Finally, the old man returned from the kitchen with a cast-iron teapot decorated with floral bas-reliefs and two white porcelain cups, placed them on the table, and then sat down opposite me.

He snapped his fingers and the teapot flew up and then filled both cups with what looked like tea.

He snapped his fingers again and one of the cups levitated, settling in front of me.

"MMhh, are you hungry?" He asked me.

In fact, I was hungry. I nodded.

He created a saucer in front of me with homemade biscuits placed on top, they looked like almond paste.

We were silent for a while, I ate some cookies and sipped some of the contents of my cup. It was a red fruit-flavored tea.

Hunger made that unusual dinner seem like the best dinner of my life.

"Good!" He started to speak after a while, "Finally you have arrived new alleged hero ... you too will prove useless like the others ?!" He said bluntly.

{TO BE CONTINUED ...}