I woke up feeling a nice smell.

Unfortunately, I already knew this smell.

Yeah… he again. But this time his is holding me like I’m some kind of plushy toy.

I wanted to say that I dealt with this situation clear headed and maturely.

Leaving a frost Demon (alive, of course) on my bed, I changed clothes, cleaned my face (Warm Wave is best spell) and brushed my teeth.

Looking outside the window I observed some dark clouds coming. It will rain in the next days, maybe even today.

I went downstairs in a happy stride. I liked raining weather.

And I remembered something that we will do today. Village visiting! No until death battles (really, I went to two classes and died two times…)! No head splitting magic training! No waking up to awkward situations!

In the Dining Hall, I grabbed some fruits, bread and egg, and sat with the usual group.

Piper smiled. “Someone is happy today, huh?”

“We’ll be visssiting the village today!” I said, lifting a glass I found. “It’sss like an adventure!”

While she was grinning I saw Luna nodding. She was hyped to go too.

We resume eating.

And then, the moment I was waiting has come.

Most of the pilgrims went to the carriage. Some were staying, to train a little more or simple because they didn’t want to go.

The monks were going to buy some food to the monastery (they grew the vegetables and fruits). Brother Oliver and another one were selected to go today. They also did the whole missionary job. You know, healing wounds, curing diseases, giving sermons and punching any bandits to submission.

One thing I forgot to mention. These monks were the fantasy monks. Training everyday to strengthen their bodies and minds. They used a hardening technique that made their skins as hard as metal. And some Elemental Clad spells, too.

So, everyone prepared, we started to go down to the village!

…

…

It was boring!

Nothing happening. Only the horses moving and some people talking. And the monks were taking turns to ride the carriage and meditating. Since they would pass at least two days healing at the village. So they would need lots of energy.

Since I had nothing to do, I trained dual casting. It would be more useful if I could cast two spells at the same time. And I wanted to train my delaying spells.

So I was surrounded by water and mist bolts when something interesting happened.

A bear decided to attack us.

Not really, but saying that it was simply protecting his territory didn’t give the oomph.

It was the first time I saw a monk in action. Brother Oliver was meditating, so the other monk had to deal with it.

I was standing up to help him when he suddenly vanished.

When I looked around, I saw him punching the bear. And saw when he sent it flying. More than ten meters away.

…

Really, why did they even need us to save this world? We had to be stronger than this?

But then again, the Human boy defeated three Demons in one strike, so some of us were getting there.

After this, nothing more happened. But I did learn a new spell.

Mist Mimicry – Amateur SpellControlling the mist, you can make it take form on any shape you want

Although I could only make it form some objects, it was one more step towards an Illusion Mist spell. (Chuuni mode on).

At least, the long hours of boredom made me reflect about what the goddess told me. About myself.

The human, Matthew. I didn’t know how to feel about it. I felt like I knew him.

And that’s the weird part. Him, not me. I didn’t felt like we were the same person. Maybe it was the protective mode we went in, to help us adjust to the changes. But still, it was odd.

Although knowing that I left my father and my sister did get to me. Losing my mother and then me must have been hard to both of them.

And so, we arrived at the village when it was getting dark.

We would stay in a house the monks built, so they could rest without having to abuse of someone hospitality.

It was a medium village, they told me. They had a library and a manor nearby, house of some low royalty. Only in the center of the village had the shops we so wanted to visit. There was a small church too, but there were only a handful of priests. Not enough to take care of the whole village.

The monk’s house was on the outskirts.

I say house, but it wouldn’t be bad to call it an Inn. The lower floor was for the faithful to pray, to house some patients and the kitchens. The upper floor had the bedrooms.

And there we took our bath (cold version, not even a hot pool) and went early to sleep. We didn’t want to lose anything that would happen the next day.

----------------------------------------

When I woke up, I went to the kitchen. Morning hunger was worse hunger.

There were some priests preparing our food. The agreement between the monks and the priests seemed to include food preparation for them, since they would spent the whole time healing the wounded.

I saw Aphrodite helping the priests to prepare the food. I was stunned for a few seconds.

The view made me promise to myself that I wouldn’t judge a book for its cover.

There were some of the pilgrims eating too. Surprisingly, Piper wasn’t awake. Nor Luna. So I sat down with Broox and the Orcs. They were having an interesting conversation about the usage of armors, and what materials they would want. Surprisingly, Broox wanted leather armor, instead of full plate armor. I always thought he was a tank.

“Have to swing a big hammer, after all!” he said, after I questioned him.

Luna and Piper only arrived later. Piper was paler than usual, so I tried my best to avoid eye contact with them both.

After that, we all went out to visit the village shops!

We decided that it was time to buy some everyday clothing.

The jocks seemed saddened for not being able to wear armor all the time we spent here, though…

So, I, Piper, Luna, Broox, Uriel (he appeared out of nowhere) and the jocks went out, looking for a tailor.

It was a pretty village. Unfortunately, being so close to the river made it have a faint smell of fish. Though the bakery made a really good job at suppressing such smell.

We went straight to the tailor shop. Thank God the others had already visited the village (and the tailor), or I would spend some time here looking for it.

But there was something odd with the villagers. I noticed especially after I heard Luna sighing

It was in the small details. How a mother quickly carried her son out of our way. How a guy stared daggers when Broox unknowingly touched him. How a group of people suddenly went silent when we passed near them.

With these reactions I could induct some things.

First, they had something against pilgrims. or at least against non-humans, the latter being more probable, as our group didn’t had a single human, and it would be hard for them to recognize pilgrims (the overhead crosses were something only pilgrims could see).

Second, they knew that we were together with the monks, as none of them made any move against us. They surely depended a lot of the monks.

And finally, the third. They probably didn’t know about our mission on this world. This would make even more sense if their hate was against non-humans. Since they didn’t know we were here to save them, they only had the bad stories about non-humans to judge us. So we were something akin to monsters and nightmares to them.

The others, or didn’t noticed it, or they already knew about it, and decided to keep quiet. Luna seemed to have already noticed it. It was a regular theme in books, after all.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

I didn’t know if Ur already knew, as we had spent little time together, and he seemed like your everyday serious guy.

But these things made me think that the title of Pilgrim wouldn’t protect us in this world. Thank God we were able to reborn (maybe they predicted this, and quickly accepted with our rebirth agreement)

When we did arrive at the tailor shop, near the river, we found a beautiful lady taking some tea.

She was red headed, and had green eyes. For some reason she used that clothing that would scream belly dance in my old world. Her waist was out for us to admire. Her cloth was see through in some parts, and covered only the important bits. She was sweating, as if she had just finished exercising

She looked like a foreigner, even to me. Maybe that’s why she was so far from the center of the village.

She was the tailor. And a dancer at the local inn at night. She told that she trying out her outfit for tonight’s show, and called us to give a visit at night.

Then she asked us to wait a moment while she changed her clothes. When she came back, she was sporting a more conservative dress. And took our measures.

She decided to left me, Broox, Ur and Piper for last. Since our bodies was so different from humans.

She seemed to have more contact with the non-humans, different from the other villagers. Or she had a really good vendor face.

From the four, she started with me. The smaller.

“So, how would you want your clothes?” she asked, a smile on her face. And too close.

“Sssome long sssleeve ssshirt, with a hood.” I was flushing, I know it. “and trouser”

She smiled and finishing my measures, went to the others.

After this we surprisingly had nothing more to do. So we went to the library and spend out time.

The librarian was a young boy. Blond, blue eyes. Tall. Very noble look, and yet he looked like a cool guy. He took us for a kick tour around the library.

It was quite big. The first floor had books about cooking and alchemy. Potions, foods, oils, bombs, salves and others were all in this place.

The second had book about fighting techniques, war strategies and some documentations about some wars. Also, geopolitical and history books.

The third floor had books about magic, healing, summoning and, for Luna happiness, some fictional books. When I asked the librarian about it, he simply answered that, since magic depends a lot on the mage imagination, books that improved creativity usually was placed together with magic ones.

He left us, and went back to his desk. We all separated, and looked for books we would like.

In one of the aisle, I was walking while reading and, distracted, bumped into a girl. She fell, knocking down a lot of books with her.

I went to help her but stopped when I saw her face. She was beautiful.

Blond wavy hair. Fair skin. Blue eyes. Red lips. Lips that were curved in an apologetic smile. Her glasses were a crooked from the bump.

I gathered her books and ran from there. I didn’t know what else to do. I was flustered from only looking at her.

And letting one of the Orcs know that I was going, I left the library.

It had already passed the time for lunch. I went to the bakery to grab some food.

It was a bad idea.

It seems I was right about the villagers. They really didn’t like us.

It took me lots of time to be served. At first, I thought it was because I was small, and the baker wasn’t able to see me. Until I noticed he was purposefully ignoring me. I could only sigh.

Not wanting any problem, I went back to the monk’s house. There was food there. I didn’t eat much though, the situation with the villagers left a bad taste in my mouth.

I went to the forest and climbed one of the trees. I had already decided that I would lay down a little, to calm down. And also to pass time, as there was nothing else left for me to do.

Resting on the branches, it didn’t took me long to sleep.

When I woke up, it was already dusk. I had spent the whole day sleeping. The sunset looked wonderful, and the twin moons collaborated a lot for such an otherworldly scenario.

Some of the kids were playing near the forest. Playing tag it seemed.

It was a calming scene. The kids playing, the sun setting. The smell of bread being baked nearby (this reminded me that I haven’t ate nothing since lunch). There was also a gentle breeze.

She was there too. The girl of the library. Her hair and dress waving in the air. It looked like she was taking care of the children.

It was in this calm scene that everything went hectic.

I saw her running to the children. Horror marked on her face. The children were looking to the forest, screaming and pointing at something. I got up, and searched the culprit of the screaming, dagger already on my hands.

A wolf, bigger than any dog I have ever seen, was running toward one of the children, who went too close to the forest. The girl reached first, and protected the kid with her body. I was too far. I wouldn’t reach them.

I extended a hand, and remembering what I have done yesterday on the training I sent my mana.

Closing my eyes, I prayed that I could get it right.

And expulsed all the Fire Mana on that area.

I waited for a minute, eyes closed.

No scream. So I slowly opened my eyes.

There was a spiked block of ice in front of the girl, the wolf trapped inside. Only two meters away. Any closer and I would have frozen her. Any later, and the wolf would have reached her.

Congratulations!You learned the spell: Zero Zone

Zero Zone – Journeyman SpellBy manipulating the heat in an area, you can create a frozen space

Sighing in relief, I felt tired from manipulating so far from me. Almost went back to sleeping.

But I felt something looking at me. It was the girl.

Correction, she was looking in my direction, searching from where the spell had come.

I hurriedly went to another branch. From this one I wasn’t able to see the village.

I heard when some adults arrived. They were shouting. There were some loud questions about what happened. Someone trying to calm down the others. And a sudden silence when all the mess stopped.

And I heard some footsteps. Coming on my direction.

“Thanks for saving me” I think it was the girl. Did she see me?

“I don’t know who you are. But thanks anyway.” I could feel her smile. And then she left.

I looked at the side of the tree and saw her running to the village.

Tired from the over usage of mana, I stumbled back to the monk’s house and, once again, went back to sleep.

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Author Note:

Aaaaaand new chapter!

This one took longer than I thought. Holidays (I was forced to spend time with my family) and some lack of creativity really slow people down.

So, for now, sorry for staying such a long time without posting.

The sad thing is that I already know to where I want to go, but writing the progress is being more difficult than I thought.

Well, personal matters aside, NEW magics! New characters! Yay!

And I reached 46 followers!!! Know what this means? Yup you got it! Side Story, Secondary Character Edition! (If you want someone who is not on the poll, please, comment!)

Thanks for all the people who decided to follow! Hope to keep you interested on this story.

And, after a quite long note, Thanks For Reading!