The Ghost Story on the Road
It had already been several hours since they left De Meca, yet Bagan still felt as though his mind hadn't truly departed. Clack! Clack! Prrr! The steady rumble of carriage wheels and the snorting of horses reminded him that they were indeed moving farther away.
The distance from De Meca to De Marinda was considerable. While the Zairan Forest also bordered the sea geographically, De Marinda lay even farther east. Its location was easy to pinpoint, but between the Zairan Forest and the sea near De Marinda stretched a massive coastal cliff. Most travelers chose to go around it rather than attempt the crossing.
Just then, the coachman called out loudly from the front.
“Lord Bagan, the sun is setting! We’ll make camp around here!”
Though muffled inside the carriage’s cargo hold, Bagan could still make out the words. Without replying, he pushed aside the purple canvas flap and leapt out. Behind him stretched the long line of carriages and the mercenaries and adventurers escorting them.
“I-It’s Bagan.”
“He hasn’t shown up at the Adventurers’ Guild in nearly three months.”
“There were rumors he was dead. Guess they were wrong.”
These were adventurers who had accepted an escort request for the Akray Trading Company’s carriages a few days earlier, so they hadn’t seen Bagan when he visited the guild that morning. No wonder they were surprised—they hadn’t laid eyes on him since winter, when he’d stayed holed up in the inn the entire season.
‘Feels like it’s been ages since I last breathed fresh air.’
Bagan stretched his stiff limbs and began walking. The carriages soon came to a halt after finding a suitable campsite. The lead wagon stopped first, and the others lined up nearby. Camping while maintaining a long formation would spread their defensive perimeter too thin, so they clustered together.
“Looks like Akray came prepared.”
The Akray Trading Company had outgrown De Meca and was now expanding its influence to other cities. De Marinda was their first target. As a port city blessed with the sea, it thrived on fishing and rare treasures from the ocean. Akray had decided to dip its toes into that market. While established trading houses from De Seiran already had a foothold, Akray judged that it possessed enough competitiveness to challenge them.
Bagan agreed with that assessment.
‘They just lacked experience. Their ability was never in question.’
That was precisely why he hadn’t taken any action when Akray used his name without permission. He intended to use them as a convenient tool to crush arrogant merchants and their families who had grown too complacent. A solution that would handle everything on its own without him lifting a finger.
For that to work, the Akray Trading Company needed to make a name for itself quickly. Imagining the faces of those who might one day pick a fight with him only to back down at the mere mention of Akray’s name, Bagan smiled faintly. He leaned against a nearby tree, folded his arms behind his head, and gazed at the sky.
‘The sunset’s beautiful.’
The sun was just about to slip behind the ridge. He watched without blinking, grateful to the sun for painting the world red as it departed.
(You seem free. Is this the kind of adventure you wanted?)
‘Hmm. For an even freer adventure, I’d have to travel alone without any carriages.’
(Then why didn’t you leave alone?)
‘Because I don’t know exactly where De Marinda is?’
(There was something you didn’t know?)
Sally had come to regard Bagan as a walking encyclopedia. After all, he had always acted as though he knew everything. In her mind, he remained a pitiful soul who had repeated an eternity of time, a contractor and friend burdened with a great destiny. How could he possibly refute that? Sally simply followed him without ever fully grasping his intentions.
‘You wanted this too. Let’s just enjoy it for now.’
(If you say so.)
Sally didn’t refuse. Such scenes were rare in Harmonia, after all.
One of the benefits of adventuring with Bagan was learning about the world. As the Spirit King of Condemnation, she had sought out sins, yet what truly intrigued her now was the world itself. Traces of the past left her with questions about the present and made her imagine the future even more vividly. Sally wanted to stay by Bagan’s side so she could witness that future with her own eyes. Keeping her vow to always remain with him close to her heart, she sat down politely beside him.
The sun slowly sank as they watched, until the last traces of twilight vanished. Only twinkling stars remained in the sky. Following their light downward, Bagan saw that the campsite had been properly set up and was now brightly lit.
It was a night without any other light to illuminate the world. Humans were weak against both cold and darkness, so they had to light fires. Still leaning against the tree, Bagan flicked his fingers and gathered stones and branches into a campfire.
Whoosh!
Watching the flames roar to life without any tools, he thought once again how convenient magic was.
“I’m hungry.”
The thought he had been keeping to himself slipped out. His stomach was indeed empty. It was normal for adventurers on a job to go without proper meals—there was neither the time nor the skill to cook. Occasionally, an adventurer with decent cooking skills might prepare something presentable, but it was edible at best. Enjoying a truly satisfying meal was out of the question.
Bagan, however, was different.
“This, that, and this… There we go.”
He set up a simple stove over the campfire, pulled out an iron plate and utensils from his extradimensional space, and retrieved some well-prepared meat—simple pork. There were plenty of other delicious meats, but this wasn’t the occasion for extravagance.
(Won’t this draw attention?)
‘If I cared about that, I wouldn’t have brought it out.’
Sizzle!
He tossed the meat onto the iron plate and waited. Smoke and aroma spread through the air. It would certainly attract attention, but he had no intention of sharing. He planned to cook and eat only what he needed, then be done with it. Besides, he had neither the meat nor the inclination to feed the drooling onlookers.
Soon the pork turned golden brown. With a satisfied grin, he flipped it. The meat was cooked just right, juices burst forth when he pressed it, and the pure aroma of meat bloomed in the air.
“This is what romance is.”
He transferred the finished meat to a bowl. Nothing accompanied it, but that meant he could taste the meat in its purest form. He was grateful for that alone.
As expected, many eyes were watching. The fragrant smell—unlike anything they had encountered even in De Meca’s restaurants—had captured everyone’s attention. Paying them no mind, Bagan returned to his spot and sliced the cooked pork into easy-to-eat pieces.
Finally, he popped a piece into his mouth.
Gulp!
That wasn’t Bagan’s sound. It was clearly someone else swallowing saliva. The meat, still unchewed, danced on his tongue.
Crunch!
He had definitely bitten into meat, yet it was strangely crisp. Because he had used fire-attribute magic instead of an ordinary flame, the fire had direction. By controlling that direction and adding direct heat, he had created the perfect pork roast—crispy on the outside, tender on the inside. With every chew, juices trapped within the meat flowed out, stirring his mouth with pure ecstasy.
(Why is everyone so focused on the meat?)
“Well, adventurers usually just chew on dried jerky that barely qualifies as meat. It’s only natural their mouths would water at this.”
Grateful that he could now use extradimensional magic, Bagan finished his meal. He dismantled the stove, savored the campfire’s warmth, and looked up at the sky.
(What are you staring at?)
“Huh? Just wondering if those stars are the same ones I know.”
Even though he was in a completely different world, the constellations were clearly visible. In his previous life, they had rarely been this clear, but the countless twinkling stars now filled him with emotion.
“Feels like there are more than before… or maybe not? I didn’t look at the stars often back then.”
(Is this a story from your past? I’m not sure if it’ll help, but if I borrow the words of humans… even if everything else turns away and leaves, the stars in the sky remain.)
It was a simple sentiment, yet one he could understand. When things became too difficult, humans tended to entrust themselves to something transcendent—that was their weakness. Bagan, who despised and loathed such weakness, had no connection to it, but the idea that the stars always stayed in their place resonated with him.
‘They wouldn’t have left me even when I was struggling.’
(Hm?)
“Never mind. I was getting too sentimental.”
A full day had passed. There was no more time left for today—tomorrow would have to come. That meant fatigue was catching up to him. Bagan lay down to rest for the next day.
“Hey, do you know about that?”
Even though he didn’t want to listen, in the quiet of night, important conversations somehow reached his ears clearly no matter how far away they were spoken. It was just some mercenary or adventurer talking out of boredom.
“This road from De Meca to De Marinda is well maintained, but lately there’ve been some nasty rumors going around.”
“What is it? You’re making it sound scary.”
“I heard it from a drinking buddy. This area doesn’t usually see many monster sightings, but someone claimed they saw something strange. The adventurer who saw it went mad and couldn’t continue adventuring anymore.”
The story was growing more intriguing, so Bagan closed his eyes and focused. It was late at night, his stomach was full, and a good tale was exactly what he needed.
“What exactly did they see?”
“It was a night just like this. The adventurer had to relieve himself and figured it’d be fine since monsters rarely appear here. So he stepped off the road for a moment. And then—far away, he heard a voice saying ‘Help me…’”
“Help? So there was someone in danger?”
That was one way to look at it, but this was a well-traveled road where carriages passed regularly and monsters seldom appeared. In other words, people in danger were rare.
“But the voice definitely sounded right next to his ear. The problem was, he couldn’t tell where it was coming from.”
“Where it was coming from?”
“Yeah. He could hear the voice, but he had no idea where it originated. So he thought it must be someone’s prank and headed back to camp. That’s when he saw it!”
“It? Was there a monster?”
“No. It was this slimy, sticky thing clinging to a tree and crawling up it. It didn’t even have eyes, but suddenly it stretched out toward the adventurer and shouted ‘Help me!’ He ran all the way back to De Meca, gasping for breath, and ended up losing his mind.”
Bagan dismissed it as a common ghost story and tuned it out. Not everyone was enjoying the tale, however.
“Ah, for crying out loud! Keep it down! We’re already short on sleep as it is!”
Adventuring was an exhausting profession, and sleep was always in short supply. Disturbing that sleep was asking for trouble. The adventurer had voiced what everyone else was thinking. The atmosphere suggested a fight might break out at any moment, but surprisingly, nothing happened. The night simply continued on its way.