An Old Acquaintance
Cavelon.
A long line of people stretched outside the city gates, waiting their turn to enter. As the commercial heart of the central kingdom, traffic through Cavelon was heavy enough that this was simply daily life there — and so Sian, along with Tiana and Dreck, joined the queue.
"Still the same as ever," Sian murmured, eyeing the impressively long line.
Then Dreck's voice floated back from ahead of him. "You've been here before, Hyung-nim?"
Sian made a face at the title. He still wasn't used to being called 'Hyung-nim.' Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined the day an A-rank adventurer would be calling him that. Back in his adventuring days, forget A-ranks — even C-ranks had just barked 'Hey,' 'Oi,' or 'You there' at him.
"...I did spend a few years working out of this city, back in the day."
The casual speech came out naturally now. He had initially tried to use polite language with Dreck, but the man had insisted so vehemently that it was truly fine that Sian had eventually given in and started speaking down to him. By now he'd accepted it as simply the way things were.
As for worrying about what would happen when the truth came out — he'd worried about that so many times already that he'd simply given up. I'll be screwed later anyway. So what.
Sian had realized, bit by bit, that he had no choice but to go with the flow.
"I made this my base of operations for quite a while myself... but I don't believe I ever heard a word about you, Hyung-nim."
"Your teacher isn't one for worldly affairs."
No, I am aggressively worldly, actually.
Sian grumbled internally, but kept his mouth shut. Knowing Tiana's personality, she'd take it completely seriously, and that would cause problems in all sorts of ways.
With that thought, he stole a glance at her, sitting up front. First things first — I need to shake this one loose in this city somehow.
The only reason they'd stopped in Cavelon was to meet an acquaintance. Afterward they'd be moving on to some other quiet village, so having her tag along was out of the question.
Then, apparently sensing his gaze, Tiana looked back at Sian, her expression suggesting she'd understood his meaning perfectly. "Of course — I'll go inform the guards right away."
She sprang to her feet and made to leave, and Sian hastily stopped her. "No, it's fine..."
The exact same thing had happened when they first arrived at the city. Once an adventurer reached S-rank, cities themselves offered accommodations, so she could speak to the guards and be inspected ahead of everyone else. The moment Tiana had laid eyes on that long line at Cavelon's gates, she'd clearly intended to do just that — which was why Sian had cut her off.
I don't want any more attention than necessary.
Word would spread quietly enough just from him arriving with an S-rank. But if she barged them through ahead of the line, everyone waiting here would see it — and then the rumor wouldn't spread quietly at all; it would tear through the city like a plague.
As long as his goal was to shake her off in this city, the last thing he needed was anyone recognizing him.
And so, when the wait was finally over and their turn came, the guard's eyes went wide as saucers — but they made it into the city without any major commotion.
Passing beneath the massive gate, they found a world entirely unlike anything outside the walls. An energy and clamor greeted the party that the quiet rural village where Sian lived — or even Lodis, where he'd briefly stayed — couldn't hold a candle to.
"Whoa..."
A short gasp of admiration escaped Sian before he could stop it.
The broad, paved central road was packed with so many people it was hard to find a place to step. Stone buildings of three and four stories or more lined both sides of the street, dense and unbroken.
Is this for real?
The city was far more bustling than it had been back when he worked as an adventurer.
"Fresh apples! Get your fresh apples!"
"Carriage repairs! Wheel replacement, done on the spot!"
"Fresh meat, butchered this morning!"
Merchants' booming cries, the haggling of customers, the grind of carriage wheels on the cobblestones, laughter and chatter erupting here and there — it all swirled together into a great wave of sound. The crush of the big city, which he hadn't felt in so long, was enough to bring on a faint dizziness.
Dreck, by contrast, looked perfectly at home in the scene. "I'll go return the carriage, then. What will you be doing, Hyung-nim?"
"...?"
Why is he talking like he's naturally coming along with us?
Hadn't his job just been to guide them to Cavelon? Or had he genuinely meant it when he said he'd see the whole journey through?
Questions aside, Sian recognized a golden opportunity to be alone for a while. "Then Dreck, you return the carriage, and Tiana — could you find us an inn? I have some business to take care of."
"Yes, understood."
"Thanks."
"Leave it to me!"
She nodded without a trace of suspicion, then slipped away from the group in one fluid motion, as if determined to carry out her teacher's request to perfection.
Only after he'd shed the both of them did Sian breathe a sigh of relief and start walking through the city.
"It's changed a lot."
As far as he remembered, the area near the gates had never been this crowded. Now it was a full-blown market square. It wasn't really surprising — the city had been growing steadily even back when he was here.
"I think it was around here..."
Trusting his memory, Sian gradually turned off the busy main thoroughfare and into the back alleys. The further in he went, the thinner the lively atmosphere grew, and the thicker the air turned stale and musty.
"But this place hasn't changed a bit."
The alley looked almost exactly as he remembered it, and he let out a small chuckle before pressing on. His destination: a potion shop.
The door and the signboard were so old and weathered that they'd faded outright. With a feeling of it's been a while, he pushed the door open.
Creeeak.
The old wooden door shrieked in protest as it swung open, and a musty smell climbed up his nose and poured into his lungs, greeting him like an old friend. The shop's interior, dim and gloomy with no sunlight getting in, was exactly as he remembered — a wry smile crept onto his face unbidden.
"Seriously, nothing in here has changed at all."
It matched his memory so perfectly that he was actually a little astonished.
He was still murmuring to himself when he caught signs of movement from the back of the shop. An old woman of indeterminate age shuffled out from the rear, spotted Sian, and rounded her eyes in surprise before speaking.
"Well, if it isn't the herb thief. What are you doing here?"
"Come on, that was ages ago, you old bat. And like I always say — I dug those up fairly and first, fair and square."
"Hah, answering that quick and sharp — must really be you."
The alchemist Berka cackled at Sian's shameless tongue.
"So you retired to live a nice quiet life, and now you come crawling back here? What for?"
Her tone was bristling as ever, but Sian had been reasonably close with her back in the day, and he knew this was simply how Berka expressed that she was glad to see him. He smiled wryly.
"I had some questions to ask, actually."
"Questions?"
Her puzzlement was only natural. What kind of question could possibly bring him all the way out here?
Worried that someone might be listening in, Sian glanced carefully around the shop, then leaned toward Berka and spoke in a low, near-whisper.
"Hey, granny... do you think there might be... something about me? Something special, I mean?"
"......?"
She tilted her head naturally at the question, then delivered her scathing verdict. "It's been a while and your brain's finally rotted through, huh? What kind of nonsense is that?"
It was the reaction he'd expected. If he'd asked any of the acquaintances around him the same thing, they'd have given more or less the same answer — just with less cursing.
"It's just... some strange things have been happening around me lately. I figured maybe there's something to me after all."
"...Strange things?"
Sian began to agonize over how to explain. 'I was living peacefully in a village, then a bunch of S-ranks showed up begging me to take them on as disciples, so I threw some absurd training tasks at them to drive them off — and they actually pulled them all off, and now they won't leave'... is that how I say it?
Once he laid it all out like that, it sounded like complete garbage. If anyone else had said it to him, he'd have waved them off and told them to stop spouting nonsense.
Besides, part of it could be waved away with 'isn't that just because those kids are absurdly talented?' — so he'd need to explain about the awakened abilities on top of everything else.
"Hmm. Look, can you run a test on me first?"
"I'm not a mage, and I've got nothing on hand to do it with. Not unless I draw some blood."
"Blood's fine."
"...Sit down, then."
At Berka's prompting, Sian settled onto a worn round chair. If it was just for a test, he had no real objection.
She disappeared into the back and returned carrying a strangely shaped contraption.
"...What is that?"
"You're looking right at it and you don't know? It's a magic tool for drawing blood."
"It looks way more sinister than I expected..."
It honestly looked like some kind of torture device. Was this fantasy world still medieval enough that things like hypodermic needles simply didn't exist? It gave him the creeps, but granny guaranteed it was safe, so he decided to give it a try.
He held out his palm, and a sharp sting of pain shot through it. Then a tickling sensation seemed to spread across his entire hand.
Ah, so this is how they do it.
He was thinking that, preparing to explain everything that had happened to him while she drew his blood, when—
"Say, punk — that village you've been settling down in. Where is it?"
The old woman beat him to it, asking first. Sian tilted his head at the sudden question but answered anyway.
"A village so small it barely even has a name."
When he'd first asked what the village was called, he'd been dumbfounded to learn it had no name at all and was simply referred to as 'the village nearest Lodis' for convenience. The village chief had said they'd finally be giving it an official name soon, apparently. Not that it mattered to him, since he was moving out anyway.
"And its location?"
"Near Lodis. It's in the gap between the southern and central regions."
"......Have you heard anything lately from the western territories?"
She was probing for something. He couldn't tell what was going on, but her voice had gone noticeably serious. Sian, sharp-eyed and puzzled, opened his mouth. "...? Not really?"
He had no clue what she was getting at, and just tilted his head again. At the sight of him, Berka let out a deflated breath — relief or resignation, it was hard to say — and muttered, "Hmph. So it really wasn't you after all."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"...You told me once about someone who spoke to you about the Philosopher's Stone, didn't you? The name was... Paracelsus? Or was it Hohenheim? No — that was probably just a name he used for a time, so he'd be going by something else by now."
"......Uh?"
A dumbfounded sound leaked out of Sian's mouth. Where is this coming from all of a sudden—
"Oh."
Only then did it come back to him, and a grunt of recognition escaped him. He did have a faint, hazy memory of hearing a story like that from the old woman once, long ago.
"......But why bring that up now, out of nowhere?"
"Because I believe the leader of the heretic cult running rampant in the West right now is the very man you spoke of."
"......?"
What on earth is she talking about now?