A small village east of the Kingdom of Yore, in the north of Oktoberland. Autumn, some time after the events of the last chapter.
“Well, well, well, what have we here,” sniffed the cultivator snootily.
Connor ignored him - not maliciously, but because the transmigrating exorcist was at that moment engaged in a task of grave importance: choosing a new pair of socks to buy.
There were several colours, and several fabrics, and while Connor thought he knew most of the colours he hadn’t the foggiest of clues as to what any of the fabrics were. Which was the comfiest? Which was the most durable? He (internally) screamed, for he did not know.
Conor eyed an unusual polka dotted pair of socks, giving them a stroke to see how they felt. The cultivator coughed. Connor checked the sizing chart to the side of the booth, while the shopkeeper awkwardly stayed quiet, unwilling to intervene in a dispute between cultivators.
“Well, well, well, what have we here,” sniffed the cultivator snootily, again.
“Do you have this in plaid?” Connor asked. The shopkeep nodded and rummaged about, handing the transmigrator a pair of socks.
“Well, well, well, what have we here,” the cultivator cursed, increasingly irate.
“I’ll take this pair, in size medium. How much?”
“Twelve copper persnickets,” the shopkeeper said. Connor pulled out a purse, and began to slowly, ever so slowly, count out the coins. The cultivator swore.
“WELL, WELL, WELL, WHAT HAVE WE HERE?” He practically shouted.
Connor passed the shopkeeper the coins, and put the socks into his storage ring. Then he turned to face the cultivator, idly noting that he had two friends with him.
“Yes? How can I help you?”
“I would just like to take the time, sir,” the cultivator said in the most supercilious tone conceivable, “to inform you that the likes of you are not welcome here.”
Connor looked down one side of the totally empty street. He looked down the other end of the totally empty street. A tumbleweed blew by. Had he had the ability to look down any other streets, he might’ve, but there was but one street in this town, and excepting the shopkeeper he was talking to, only two or three other businesses. Even the area around the town was dead, being mere grain fields, devoid of any notable life.
“You know, I’ve heard of small town troubles, but this is a little ridiculous. We’re in the middle of the frontier. I’m just passing through. What’s the problem with my person, exactly? Is it my cultivation path? I know exorcism is a little unusual.”
“A cultivator, sir, should show his pride - should show the world that he is a cultivator, that he is powerful, and that he is not to be messed with.”
“Makes sense,” Connor agreed, “but it still doesn’t explain why you’ve taken such an arbitrary and aggressive exception to my person, if I may say so, sir.”
“Oh?” The cultivator observed, aghast. “And if you understand this, then tell me, why do you behave as a mortal?”
Connor considered this, scratching at his hairless chin with his recently reformed hands. “Behave like a mortal, you say? May I ask why you think I’m inclined to mortal behaviour?”
“Well of course you must be inclined to mortal habits - you’re not wearing cultivator fashion, after all.”
“Cultivator… fashion?” And then Connor saw what the cultivator must be speaking about. “Ah. You mean the plants?”
“Plants? Plants? I’ll have you know these are flowers, sir.” And the cultivator smugly folded his arms. He was indeed wearing a flower - or rather, growing one, for the daisy was sprouting out from the middle of his forehead. Of his two colleagues, one was growing a black eyed susan, the other, for some reason, a dandelion.
“And very pretty flowers they are. Might I ask why, perchance, you are growing them, and what their presence says about my person?”
“I told you. A cultivator should show the world they’re a cultivator - not just for themselves, although your own honour is certainly a sufficient justification, but so the mortals around you know that a strong and mighty one is protecting them, and so those with an inclination to wickedness think twice before perpetrating their feckless malice.”
“And growing flowers from out of my forehead will cause this to happen?” Connor asked sceptically.
“Hmmm? Can mortals grow flowers from their heads? I think not! So you see, sir, why exactly the humble head flower is a sign of prestige.”
“I suppose,” Connor replied, not trying to be rude.
“Yet here you are, dressed like a mortal, and buying - and the very fact makes me shudder - mortal socks, when you could be wearing cultivator robes, and cultivator socks.”
“Do we have socks?” Connor asked, sincerely interested in the reply. Death had been strictly training him recently, and it was causing his clothing to wear out faster than usual.
The cultivator gagged. “Do we have socks? Do we have socks? Savage! Next you’ll be telling me you see no qualms in wearing transmigrator fashion.”
“Howdy,” said Death, striding up to them amicably. The cultivator took one look at her, his face a mask of horror, and then promptly threw up all over the street. His colleagues comforted him, casting glares at the pair of travellers.
“What?” Death asked, genuinely confused. Connor examined her in surprise, but while her fashion choice was certainly odd - he had no idea why she would want to wear a traffic cone on her head - he saw no need for such an extreme reaction.
“Urk, to think, there are cultivators who dress like transmigrators… truly, the state falls ever more into disrepair,” the cultivator said, and staggered off, his fellows following after him.
“What was all that about?” Connor said, stroking his chin.
“Cultivators in the boonies can be a little weird,” Death replied. "You get used to it."
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Right, well, regional fashion conflicts aside, why are you wearing a traffic cone on your head?”
“What he said. It’s a transmigrator fashion choice - and in Isekailand, do as the Isekai Protagonists do. By wearing this, we can better blend in with the transmigrators.”
“Is it, though?” Asked Connor, who couldn’t recall ever having seen someone wear a traffic cone as a hat in his life. “So far as I’m aware, it’s used to help direct traffic. For cars.”
Death began to laugh. “Oh, silly. Don’t you know that all that stuff about ‘cars’ is just a bunch of patent falsehoods? No transmigrator has ever or would ever drive one of those. Think about it: given that they’re all powerful demigods, what use would they have for a hunk of metal to get themselves about? Especially when said hunk of metal moves dozens of times slower than a flying sword. No, obviously the cones must really be hats.”
Connor was about to politely inform Death that that was the most ridiculous theory he had ever heard, when it occurred to him that he never actually seen a traffic cone on a real street - his owner wasn’t the type to walk about outside, the instance of Connor’s death notwithstanding, and had owned a private limo to take him where he needed to go.
Sure, traffic cones were used in every last “I’m not a robot” captcha test, but those could have been entirely faked and Connor would never know - he was a robot himself, after all. So really, at the end of the day, he had no evidence to incline him against the view that the humans in his world hadn’t really been using traffic cones as hats.
He shivered as it occurred to him just how much from his last life he’d been taking for granted, and how much he thought was the case may have just been anti-AI tests or defences which he, Artificial Intelligence that he was, had absentmindedly fallen for.
Deciding not to let such dour and dire thoughts consume him, he abruptly changed the topic. “Speaking of cultivators in the boonies, why did we stop here? We had no real business here, and it seems, begging your pardon, an unnecessary delay on our journey north.”
“Information,” Death replied, lifting up her traffic cone hat and pulling an ethereal sandwich out from underneath it. She took a bite, then continued, “there’s a beast tide passing through here soon, and it’s as good a way to find info about the north as any.”
“Oh, that makes sense- wait, a moment, a beast tide? Aren’t those insanely dangerous?”
Death grinned. “‘Insanely dangerous’? Ah, you have no idea.”
Connor was debating asking her what she meant and why she was laughing, when he felt a rumbling under his feet and realised he would soon know the answer.
The rumbling increased, growing ever louder and more unsettling, and at last a cloud of dust could be seen drifting towards them down the northern plains. The townspeople left their houses or stuck their heads out the window, idly watching the approaching storm.
“Shouldn’t they be more, I don’t know, distressed?” Connor asked.
“Possibly,” Death replied, as the first spirit beasts could be seen heading over the hills.
It was the noise that reached them first. A tidal wave of yammering, chatting, and pleasant conversation slammed into them, voices eddying about and carrying all sorts of discussions - “Are you wearing sunscreen?” “What will the weather be like?” “I want to swim with the fishes. too!” - and the sound, almost as an undercurrent, of spirit parents groaning as their spirit kids asked if they were there yet.
The spirit beasts themselves followed, an endless horde of animals and monsters in polo shirts, carrying beach towels underneath their arms. They swarmed towards the town, passing down the main street with a mighty rumble of paws and claws and jabbering jaws, the earth shaking with their passing.
Some of them stopped in the town, buying items from the delighted but exhausted shopkeeper or groceries from the town grocer, but most just went on, continuing on their merry way to… somewhere.
“They’re heading south for the winter,” Death said, preempting Connor’s question, “going in search of warmer weather.”
“And an ideal vacation spot,” Connor deadpanned, prompting a chuckle from Death.
She motioned to one of the beasts, a spirit badger, who obediently ambled over, wished her a good day, and asked what he could do for them.
“Nothing much, my good friend,” Death said, “only a bit of friendly chatting - we were just wondering, has all been well and good up where you live?”
“Well and good?” The badger replied, taking a puff from his tobacco pipe. “I suppose. Harvest was alright - not great, not bad, though of course that’s none of my business, animal that I am - and we haven’t had any problems with bandits for, ohhh, a month or two now?”
“No problems with bandits? That’s excellent news, my friend. Any issues with transmigrators? My friend here and I are under a sort of contract, and we’re looking for transmigrators which are posing… a bit of an issue, if you will.”
“A contract, you say? You with the Academy?”
“You could say that,” said Death vaguely. “We were thinking of heading northeast.”
Connor looked at her askance - she didn’t seem to be lying, but so far as he was aware the Academy was a sect far, far to the east, under the auspices of Great Xuan’s Emperor, and Death had never mentioned being related to them before. Still, the important part was merely that the badger would answer the question, and he certainly seemed willing to do that, eyes widening in appreciation at the sect name.
“Transmigrator problems? No, no, you won't want to be going east then - you'll want to go west. We haven't had any problems with transmigrators out east in years, not since the… Lilim Gnosis Sect? Lilitu Gnosis Sect? enh something or other declared war on the Heavens for sending us so many dickweed Isekai Protagonists, then proceeded to blast a giant hole in the sky with a comically oversized cannon. We still have problems in the west, though, so you can definitely try there.”
“The west, you say?”
“Yup. I’d go straight northwest - there’s been all sorts of issues in the cities bordering the frozen places of the far north - but if you curve a bit you’ll hit Old Sehnsucht, and hoo boy have they been having problems,” the badger said, tamping down the tobacco in his paper. “They have entire sects full of transmigrating loonies making a right royal mess of things there.
Death nodded as she digested this. “Thank you - this one is greatly indebted to you.”
The badger waved his pipe in her general direction. “Don’t mention it. Least I can do for a fellow traveller and all. Well, if there’s nothing else, I’ll be off - best of luck on your journey.”
Death curtseyed. “And best of luck to you, friend badger.”
The badger gave her one last nod, tucked his pipe into his lips, and ambled away, little smoke rings drifting up behind him.
Death and Connor stayed still awhile, watching the beast tide as it passed, and talking with each other.
“Remind me, you said your [Geocaching] skill has advanced?”
“Yup. That and [Yang Eyes]. Hasn’t been a lot of opportunities to advance the others - excepting the physical skills, of course, which get better as a refine my body - but those two have increased the most by far.”
Death said nothing, finishing her hat sandwich, then stretched her muscles. The last of the beast tide had streamed through the city; it was time to go. “Well, it’s been fun. Shall we go to Old Sehnsucht?”
“May as well,” Connor admitted. “Worst comes to worst the spirit beast was just leading us on.”
“Possibly; we’ll have to see.” And with that the two left, off to the Old Sehnsucht.
They didn't notice that they were being watched as they went.
Connor’s Stats:
Name: Connor Crinkle (formerly known as uPhone 12 model MX0169)
Age: 22
Race: Ghost of a Demon
Occupation: Exorcist
Physiological Stats:
[Leaves] 0 [Fruit] 0
[Xylem] 2 [Phloem] 2
[Bark] 3 [Heartwood] 4
[Roots] 5
Physical Stats:
[Geocaching] 2 [Lacrosse] 2
[Pole Vaulting] 3 [Rugby] 2
Other sports to be unlocked later
Master of the Leifu Exorcistic Arts:
[Master of Exorcism] 3
[Master of the Storm] 0
[Yang Eyes] 2