Silver Wind Campsite
Ian finished his breakfast at the inn and immediately broke into a slow jog toward the Errand Boy Guild. At first, his side burned with a sharp ache, but as he kept his feet moving, his body gradually loosened up and his mind grew clearer.
‘Perfect! From now on, I won’t just stroll around. Whenever I get the chance, I’m running!’
In reality, running was the only exercise he could squeeze in between tasks. He had briefly considered joining a swordsmanship dojo at first, but the conversation he’d shared with the others on the way back from the Ephel Mountains to Gellion made him abandon the idea.
Back then, Ian had been feeling relatively relaxed and had casually glanced at the twin blades hanging from Zenon’s belt. Zenon caught the look and asked bluntly,
“Ah, yes.”
“Well… I thought it might be good for building stamina or as a hobby.”
At that moment, Zenon’s eyes turned icy cold. A heavy silence fell, as if the very flow of air had stopped, and his voice dropped low.
Ian looked up at him, startled. Zenon’s gaze held the sharp, deadly seriousness that only those who had crossed battlefields and danced with death could possess.
“Ah……”
The atmosphere had grown so rigid that Ian could barely breathe. Sensing this, Celin jumped in with an unusually playful tone, trying to lighten the mood.
“……So this isn’t a place where people learn swordsmanship as a hobby, I take it.”
The words slipped out unconsciously, and the party’s expressions twisted strangely. This time, Vartin’s heavy voice dropped from above.
Ian snapped to attention. He shook his head vigorously and offered several excuses about how shortsighted he had been. Only then did the chilling aura around the group slowly ease.
Recalling that day’s memory, Ian picked up his running pace a little more.
‘Both the teachers and the students stake their lives on it. There’s no such thing as a hobby dojo. The only real answer is to run, no matter what!’
He ran energetically for quite a while until he finally arrived in front of the Errand Boy Guild. The receptionist gave him a puzzled look as he stood there panting, chest heaving from such a short distance.
“Haa… haa… Hello! It’s been… haa, a while!”
“Yes. Is there something you need?”
“Ah, no… I just ran here to build up my stamina from now on.”
A faint glimmer of admiration passed through the receptionist’s deep blue eyes.
“That’s a wise decision. No matter what work you do, stamina never betrays you.”
“Ehehe, right!”
Ian felt an odd surge of pride, as if he had been praised by a strict older sister. The sense of accomplishment swelled in his chest as much as his labored breathing. Eyes sparkling, he walked up to the request bulletin board.
A few other errand boys were already there, seriously scanning the postings. Once he successfully completed this lower-grade request, he would finally earn his official errand boy qualification. He needed to choose something he could carry out with care and perfection.
Various requests flickered across Ian’s vision.
‘One-month childcare… Temporary laborer wanted for two weeks at a count’s mansion, one-week fisherman needed…’
For some reason, there were no requests that could be finished in a single day today. Frowning slightly, Ian examined the lower postings when one rather interesting notice caught his eye.
‘Laborer wanted for three days at Silver Wind Campsite.’
A campsite! And the location was easy to reach. If he headed straight east from the guild, he would arrive at the ‘Silver Wind Campsite’ adjacent to Osmond territory. The hired errand boy could even stay in the workers’ tent at the campsite for the three days. Spending three full days running around the wide-open campsite would surely raise his stamina stat higher than it was now.
‘I’m curious what a campsite in another world is like, and above all, three days’ pay is a whopping 45 gold!’
Ian grinned and pulled the request off the board without hesitation. After receiving the [Execution Approved] stamp from the receptionist, he started jogging toward the Silver Wind Campsite once more.
Of course, once he had been running for over thirty minutes, his legs gave out and he had to slow to a walk. His stamina was still only 330, far from enough to sprint through every moment of his day.
‘Whew. I can’t burn through all my stamina before I even start working…’
He wore a slightly regretful expression for only a moment before his face brightened with anticipation. After passing a residential area lined with three-story buildings, he finally saw an entrance decorated with waist-high living hedges.
This was the Silver Wind Campsite.
The campsite owner was a woman whose lively expression looked ready to burst with energy at any moment. The instant she saw Ian holding out the request form, she grabbed both his hands as if she had met her savior.
“You came at just the right time, Ian! I’m Maren. Just call me Aunt Maren, dear!”
“Ah, yes, yes…!”
Before the flustered Ian could even finish his awkward self-introduction, Maren nodded vigorously and continued.
“The campsite has been so busy lately. All the workers said it was too hard and ran off! The new full-time laborers won’t arrive for another three days, so it was almost a disaster. It’ll be tough, but I’m counting on you to look after our campsite for a few days!”
“Yes! Don’t worry. Leave it to me!”
Ian answered energetically. Maren beamed, her freckled face breaking into a wide smile. But that was as far as Ian’s peaceful moment lasted. He should have immediately read between the lines of her comment that the “previous workers all ran away” and taken a step back! The fatal mistake was that Ian, still lacking in real-world experience, hadn’t caught the true meaning.
And so Ian ended up running around the vast campsite all day long.
The Silver Wind Campsite was a so-called ‘full-package’ campground that provided all camping gear and ingredients. In other words, every time a camper fired a red aurora signal into the sky to call for staff, Ian had to come running.
The beautiful pure-white birch forest with its shimmering silver leaves and the sparkling artificial stream were nothing more than obstacles Ian had to dodge and leap over.
“Excuse me! We’re out of firewood here!”
“Aurora launch over here! Bring more blankets, please!”
At the aurora signals exploding from every direction, Ian dashed this way and that like a puppy with its tail on fire. While one side enjoyed the romantic atmosphere of grilling meat skewers amid the forest’s charm and sipping wine, Ian sprinted past them drenched in sweat, carrying a massive pile of firewood and boxes of ingredients on his back.
The scenery was a picture-perfect paradise, but to Ian running through it, it was nothing short of an endless field training exercise. Even when the moon hung high in the sky, there was no sign of his running slowing down.
Eventually the clock struck one in the morning. Only when Ian’s stamina had hit rock bottom did a peaceful silence finally settle over the campsite. The faint sound of snoring in the distance and the chirping of insects were the only things filling the night air.
Staggering on unsteady legs, Ian reached the workers’ tent near the border with Osmond territory. Inside was a generous late-night snack basket that Aunt Maren had left, but right now the only thing that looked like salvation to Ian was the fluffy sleeping bag. He gulped down the cool water from the wooden bucket like a madman, then collapsed onto the sleeping bag as if he had been thrown there.
‘Ughhh… someone save me…’
This was truly a different kind of hardship from the life-or-death struggle in the Ephel Mountains. There was no threat to his life, yet every muscle in his body felt like it was being wrung out and screaming. The thought of washing his sweat-soaked body or the determination to use Perfect Bubble became utterly useless in the face of the overwhelming drowsiness. Ian sank into a deep sleep almost as if he had fainted.
He thought he would sleep like a log from the quiet owl-calling dawn until morning. That is, if not for the faint whimpering coming from right outside the tent.
“Whine… whimper…”
“……It’s cold… It hurts……”
His consciousness faintly rose to the surface. Still half-asleep and unable to tell if it was a dream or reality, Ian tried to sink back into the swamp of sleep. But the clear sound of a child crying right beside his ear finally made his eyes snap open.
“…!!… What is that?”
Wondering if one of the campers’ children had been hurt, Ian’s senses sharpened to crystal clarity. With eyes that showed no trace of sleepiness, he got up, grabbed a magic lantern, and hurried out of the tent.
As he scanned the area around the tent with the lantern, the crying sounded again.
“Sob… sob…!”
“Is it coming from the forest? That side should be Osmond territory……”
Though puzzled, Ian quickened his steps. The deeper he pushed through the dense maple and chestnut trees, the clearer the crying became. Finally, when the lantern’s soft light illuminated a corner of the forest’s shadow, a small figure appeared.
It looked to be only three or four years old. A silver-haired child wearing rags was crouched beneath a large tree trunk. But the child’s appearance was different from a normal human. Cute feline ears sprouted from above the brilliant silver hair that seemed to hold the moonlight. Those ears were trembling delicately in time with the child’s sobs.
‘A… beastkin? A real baby beastkin?!’
Ian had no idea why such a young child was trembling alone in the middle of the night, but calming the child came first. He lowered his posture as much as possible so as not to frighten them and slowly approached in a waddling crouch. Of course, he didn’t forget to quietly mutter the activation of his Positive Aurora skill.
“Hey there, little one. Are you okay? Can you look at big brother?”
The moment he spoke in the gentlest, kindest voice possible, the child jerked their head up and met Ian’s eyes.
Ian caught his breath. Beautifully sparkling silver-metallic eyes and a mysterious blue gem embedded in the center of their forehead. Though their clothes were wretched, the child’s features were as noble and radiant as the youngest prince of some unknown kingdom.
In a voice that trembled without his realizing it, Ian asked again.
“Did you lose your parents? What’s your name?”
“……”
At that instant, an indescribable, enormous terror flooded the child’s eyes. Before Ian could speak again, the child transformed into a small silver-furred wolf pup and shot like lightning into the darkness.
It was the first time. The first time Ian had encountered a target on whom his Positive Aurora had no effect at all. Watching the tiny figure vanish beyond the forest in the blink of an eye, Ian simply stood there holding the lantern, stunned, for a long while.