To the Swamp of the Dead
“Thank you so much for saving me.”
In the sunlit entrance of the cathedral, I bowed deeply to the head priest of Kil Madun.
“So you’re leaving.”
The priest looked strangely reluctant. I stared at him with an expression of mild surprise.
“Do I seem like someone you’ll miss? I truly will. If Lady Kaira stayed here, I thought the Saint might visit our town more often.”
The priest let out a small chuckle, then continued.
“Yes, well. I suppose it would be difficult to remain here with the Empire watching, and you’d feel guilty toward the Saint. You’re a good person, after all, Lady Kaira.”
…That wasn’t exactly true.
In my memory, the skin-crawling darkness from beyond the world still lurked, waiting for the chance to tear through reality and swallow me whole.
If something like the inn incident happened again, it would bring terrible harm to the city that had taken me in, and it would tarnish the honor of the Saint who had so passionately defended my character.
If Azalea and Pirel heard that I had fully corrupted and turned into a monster, they would both be devastated.
So… even if I had to face that hideous fate, I at least didn’t want it to happen on the Church’s lands.
“Where will you go, then?”
“…West. And then south… I plan to cross one of the great river’s tributaries.”
The priest’s face hardened completely.
“That place…”
It was the reaction I had expected. As someone who served the bright daylight of justice and righteous fury, he could hardly think well of the territory shrouded in bleak darkness like a blanket—the land that worshipped rest and death.
“I understand. Please be careful. That is a place that insults life itself. A corrupt swamp yawns open to swallow travelers, and the people who live there…”
The priest trailed off and shook his head.
“Well, that’s why someone like me is stationed here to watch for any atrocities they might commit. I understand, Lady Kaira. May you stay in good health.”
When the priest turned to go back inside, I tried to hand him twenty silver coins, but he refused in horror and would not accept them no matter what.
Thus, with the several maps of the surrounding area the priest had given me for reference, along with the wanted poster for Kaira the Witch of Sand that circulated throughout the Empire crumpled into my backpack, I pulled on the leather coat I had left on top of it and set out on the road once more.
Every now and then, I lightly touched the brooch that had become a necklace.
And all the while, I struggled to cool the heat rising between my legs—the way my core had grown slick and feverish just from secretly stealing glances at the priest’s lower body.
‘Ugh… It’s so wet…’
I had barely taken a few steps down the quiet streets of Kil Madun before discomfort rose from between my thighs. The sticky fluid that had secretly flowed while I looked at the priest—at a man—had seeped all the way into my boots.
‘Maybe I should buy a few pairs of underwear…’
I had never received proper hygiene education in this world, but from my memories of Earth, I knew a girl’s most delicate parts could easily become diseased.
Especially now that I had lost the cheat ability to heal any injury in an instant, it was an even more critical concern.
Since I didn’t have time to commission a tailor, I stopped by the commercial district that had formed below the cathedral. I bought several bundles of soft linen cloth that could also be used as bandages, along with some hard-baked bread and dried fish.
My body could no longer heal wounds properly, and when a woman’s… that time of the month came, I would need to be able to manage emergency care. Underwear could wait; this was more important.
I had the maps. I had supplies. It was time to leave the lands ruled by the Light Denomination. Someone like me had no right to pollute such a sacred place.
The weather in Kil Madun, a remote village without even proper ramparts, was overcast and, throughout my stay, unusually humid for winter.
It was completely different from the winters I remembered in the Imperial Capital. The capital, located in the middle of the continent, had winters much like those on Earth—cold enough to freeze you solid, with clear skies and snow falling only on rare occasions.
I walked through the damp, gloomy village, which consisted mostly of moss-covered wooden buildings aside from the grand stone cathedral. Southwest, then further southwest. I didn’t even need to walk for hours before I reached the riverbank.
The upper reaches of the Drankiz Great River had dozens of tributaries. The map I bought in Drankafen didn’t list their names, but the one the priest had given me labeled this tributary the Madun River. Even so, it was a massive waterway over two hundred meters wide.
In this weather where sunlight was nowhere to be seen, the thought of crossing such a river by boat was a little frightening, so I asked at a house near the bank. They told me there was no bridge. Building a long bridge would be difficult enough, and since boats needed to travel the river, it couldn’t be done even if someone had the money.
By the time I reached the dock after just a few steps, my boots were already caked in mud. I asked a few fishermen resting at the pier, and one middle-aged man readily stepped forward. Five small silver coins would do, he said. I had no interest in haggling, so I handed them over immediately.
And so, from the small, damp dock in Kil Madun—where it was hard to tell if it was riverbank or swamp—I reluctantly boarded a single small boat and crossed the river.
Contrary to my anxiety, the boat crossed the water without issue despite the gloomy weather that seemed as if the sun would never shine again. As if such conditions were nothing at all.
About halfway across, alone with the middle-aged boatman, I soaked my thighs with fantasies of being raped by him.
‘Why am I having thoughts like this even now… How broken has my mind become…?’
I immediately realized how absurd the fantasy was and felt my face burn, but the man rowing the boat hadn’t spared me a single glance. He wasn’t thinking anything at all.
By the time I finally pulled myself out of the daydream, the boat had already reached the other side.
“Off you go. This is Inis Madun, the place you wanted to reach, miss.”
To the gruff boatman who announced our arrival so curtly, I bowed and thanked him, but he simply grumbled about what business a young lady could possibly have in a place like this and rowed away from the pier with the same brusque attitude.
The priest in Kil Madun had said that Inis Madun on the opposite bank was like a twin village. Indeed, with its rain-soaked wooden houses and roads paved with stones thickly covered in moss, it seemed true enough.
The atmosphere, however… was quite different.
‘I thought the land of death would be incredibly gloomy and ominous…’
It was the complete opposite. The damp, bone-chilling cold couldn’t change simply by crossing one river, yet something… warmed the body. A kind of lively energy.
There was the sound of a wandering minstrel plucking a stringed instrument, and people gathered around to watch the performance. Several men and women danced together in high spirits while elderly people clapped along. Children gazed up at the musician from right under his nose.
‘It doesn’t look like a festival day or anything…’
This was probably a village of fishermen and farmers too, so I wondered if it was all right for them to be playing like this in the middle of the day. As I tried to pass by, one of the older men called out to me.
“Oh! A young lady I’ve never seen before? Hey everyone, we have a visitor!”
“Eh…? Y-yes…?”
I hadn’t wanted to draw attention, so I answered in a daze. Before I could refuse, people swarmed around me like a cloud.
“Wow, not a merchant or fisherman—a real traveler? From across the river?”
“Did those fanatics of the God of Vengeance give you any trouble? Where are you from? Are you an Imperial citizen?”
“Big sister, are you a mage? What kind of magic can you use? Show us! Show us!!”
Unused to dealing with people, I floundered in panic. The world seemed to spin around me. Worried they might be pickpockets, I checked the clock and books inside my robe. That was when I noticed it. These people…
“Um… Have all of you been… drinking…?”
They nodded in unison.
‘In broad daylight? Instead of working? Until their faces are bright red?’
“Can anyone live without drinking? You can go without water or bread, but not without alcohol.”
“Ah, right, right. This young lady is an outsider. We need to explain.”
They were all drunk with slurred speech, and whenever one tried to explain, another would interrupt, so it was hard to get a clear story. But from what I gathered, this was the situation.
The place the Empire called the Land of Death, the Swamp of Rest, or the Great Wetlands—names that weren’t unified—this southwestern corner where countless tributaries of the Drankiz Great River sprang from the mountains, a land full of forests and swamps, was called Riaska in the local tongue.
Digging into the ground brought up muddy water instead of groundwater, and because it was all wetlands, even digging was difficult. Despite the abundance of water, it was hard to obtain clean water, so people always collected rainwater or grew and ate cool wetland fruits on this barren soil.
And because of that, it was common to brew those fruits in various ways to make alcohol. Even children drank liquor instead of water, they said. After distillation techniques came from the Empire, they produced enormous amounts of strong spirits and exported them back.
They proudly claimed that since they could dig peat from the endless peatlands to use as fuel, this was the best land for distillation. Every village had at least one distillery for fruit or grain mash, they boasted.
Two thoughts came to mind as I listened to their stories.
One was that, contrary to the sinister name “Land of Death” and the bone-chilling damp climate, this was a place where surprisingly lively and cheerful people lived.
The other was… that this would be a very bad place for me to stay.
No matter how tempting the flavor of that distilled spirit made from burning peat might be, if I started drinking again, it might truly be the end.
“So since we told you our story, now it’s your turn, young lady. Where did you come from? What do you do? What’s the Empire like these days? Got any interesting tales to share?”
With that, one auntie, one grandfather, two boys, and a young man who looked about my age all grabbed me and started dragging me toward a noisy building that was clearly an inn.
Dealing with people had always been difficult for me, and I couldn’t easily shake them off. Before I knew it, I had been pulled into the hall of an inn that doubled as a tavern and restaurant.
My head filled with strange fantasies and expectations.
What exactly had I been hoping for?
Kneeling on the damp wooden floor of the inn room in nothing but my chemise, I buried my bright red, feverish face into the neatly arranged bedsheets—damp from the humid air and carrying a faint moldy smell—and reproached myself.
Really, what had I been expecting…?
Nothing had happened in the dining hall.
The people offered me drinks, but I refused, terrified of alcohol. …Even as, inside, I harbored filthy fantasies that the angry crowd might grab me and force it down my throat.
But the simple-hearted people of the Land of Death did no such thing. With an awkward expression, I had to sit there and become the conversation partner for the entire village while eating the mountain of freshwater shellfish dishes, fish, and fruit that the tavern cook had piled up for me.
The fruit was watery compared to its sweetness, and the dishes from the muddy freshwater carried an earthy taste. They weren’t bad, but to someone from the inland like me, the flavors were somewhat rough and unfamiliar. Still, I couldn’t refuse, so I ate until I could barely move.
All the while, I barely suppressed the throbbing expectation that these people, unaccustomed to dealing with a rude and etiquette-lacking foreigner, might gang-rape me.
‘Am I… really going crazy…?’
To think I could have such vile thoughts while receiving such generous hospitality from these good people. Just how broken had my heart become? Could I really endure much longer with a mind this shattered?
I stretched out my knees and lay down on the bed. The villagers had given me a reception that bordered on a feast and taught me the way deeper into Riaska. Since the wetlands ahead looked difficult to traverse while soaked, I needed to sleep so I could set out the next day.
But something still felt off. I was certain I had learned it at the academy. The reason the Light Denomination’s direct territory was here, and what lay in the great wetlands that appeared the moment you crossed the river at the edge of the Church’s lands.
I was sure I had heard that those who ruled Riaska—this damp land steeped in death and decay—were “those things”…
Well, it wasn’t the Age of Enlightenment yet. Even the general education taught at the academy might be mixed with legends and folklore. From what the villagers said, travelers from the Empire seemed extremely rare.
So I decided to set that thought aside.
I was sleepy…