Li swiped the jars of seeds from Vincentio’s cart and placed them in his pocket. That triggered his inventory to activate, and the jars disappeared, absorbing into a dimensional void where it joined a plethora of items. He forgot that he had to consciously think about not using his inventory to appear like a normal person, but he couldn’t deny that it was convenient either.

Plus, he figured with contraband like this, it was better to have it somewhere the ordinary person couldn’t see.

Old Thane stood by Vincentio’s horse, putting a hand on the animal’s skinny flank and calming it. The horse looked down demurely, afraid to look at its master’s corpse. The old man ran his hand across the horse’s hide and shook his head.

“You’ve taken a mighty many lashes, poor thing,” said Old Thane. He unstrapped the horse from the wagon and put a hand on its rump. “I would set you free, but you’re no wild animal. You’d waste away out in those wilds.”

“Then let’s keep him,” said Li. “Let him pull your wagon instead. Would make life a lot easier for you.”

“Aye, that’s true, but my riding days have wasted away, Li. Unless my feet are planted on the earth, I cannot see.”

“That’s no issue. I’ll guide the horse.”

“My muscles will waste away if I don’t keep them active.”

Li came up to Old Thane and slapped his back casually. “Stop being so stubborn, old man. I know you want to do things yourself, but you’ve earned at least this.”

“I suppose so,” grumbled Old Thane. He felt around the horse, getting a good mental image of the animal’s dimensions. When he was satisfied, he jumped atop the saddle with surprising dexterity. It was obvious it was a well-practiced movement.

“And you say your riding days are over?” remarked Li. “You know, sometimes I can’t even tell your blind.

Old Thane laughed and flexed his arms atop the horse. The peaks of his biceps strained against his shirt. “It’s all conditioning, my boy. Make sure to keep yourself healthy so that you’ll end up like me!”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Li as he rolled his eyes. Although Old Thane had kept his body in excellent health, he was still an old man, talking to Li with that familiar didactic tone that most old people adopted with younger generations. It was pretty endearing, honestly.

Li grabbed the horse’s curb rein and tugged. It obeyed, adopting a gentle pace back towards Old Thane’s wagon.

“Is the ride smooth?” asked Li as he strapped the horse’s harness to the berry cart. He had never handled a horse before, but the beast was remarkably tame, and the harness was very intuitive. It didn’t take many tries before he figured out what went where.

“Smooth as a babe’s bottom,” commented Old Thane. “Vincentio, scoundrel he was, always had a way of training his steeds well.”

“Great, now I won’t have to constantly worry about you blowing your knees out,” said Li with a smile. He took a sidelong glance to Vincentio’s mangled corpse. “About the body…”

Old Thane sniffed the heavy stench of iron in the air and scowled. “There are no witnesses in this village and knights will think little of a criminal mauled by what seems to be a beast. I say we let the fool rot.”

“We think alike,” said Li as he tugged the horse’s reigns and led it out of the village.

The way back to Riviera was uneventful. The moon, still full and bright, guided their way. They had fully expected the knights to be upholding the blockade again, but the encampment was eerily empty. A thankful blessing, too, as Li was tired of dealing with unnecessary obstacles anymore.

All he wanted to do was get back to his daily farming routine.

When they arrived at their cottage, Li tied the horse to a fencepost – a temporary arrangement until he could build a stable. Old Thane, tired from the tumultuous night, went straight to sleep, dropping on his bed of hay and animal skins and going into a heavy snore.

As the old man slept, Li took a cursory glance of his room, making sure everything was in order. It was a small room. He figured more than two people would feel extremely cramped in it. There was an old bookcase – recently dusted now that Li was there – and this was what he checked up on, making sure the books were all there.

Obviously, Old Thane had no use for books anymore, but he valued these for they were his wife’s. The books covered a vast breadth of topics. There were a few obvious books such as [The Herbs of the Wilds] and [Elementary Elixir Brewing], but nestled among there were tomes such as [The Codified Laws of Soleil, 1020], and [The Collected Histories of Man].

Old Thane had spoken many praises about his wife’s abilities, but he had spoken precious little about her origins. From her readings, Li could theorize she had been a foreigner of some kind, unaccustomed to the ways of this land.

Explained why the old man was so fierce about defending Li from discrimination.

Li, having taken full account of the books, silently left the room, closing the wooden door behind him. He settled into his own quarters. It was far larger than Old Thane’s with a proper woolen bed elevated off the ground with stubby wooden legs. Despite being a larger room, however, there was nothing in it aside from the bed.

Li knew the story. Old Thane had built this entire cottage from the ground up and had fashioned this room for his and Aine’s child. From how large the room was, it was evident that Old Thane was willing to give any child of his considerable love. But unfortunately, Aine had proved infertile, but that had not prevented Old Thane from loving her any less until her passing.

Li sat on the bed. He did not need to sleep for he was not truly human, but he could mimic such a state as part of his shapeshifting abilities. Tonight confirmed something he had been theorizing for the month: his thinking was changing the longer he stayed in this world in his inhuman body.

He felt absolutely nothing when slaughtering the bandits or seeing Vincentio dead. He had killed before in his past life as a soldier, but regardless of how many people he killed, he still felt something, some numbness, maybe, but now, there was truly nothing. He merely saw meaning in their deaths. Their bodies went back to the earth, nourishing the soil.

There were times he felt the life around him strongly. Sometimes when he weeded, he felt he could hear the very earth’s heartbeat. There were times when he could hear the march of death.

Once, he had wandered upon an old stray and could hear the life leaking out of the mutt, how with each of its heartbeats, it drew upon an ever-wilting store of life. He could vividly see how the dog would die, collapsed on the road within a week.

However he was changing, he did not mind so much as long as it did not affect his day to day routine. In fact, he enjoyed being able to listen to the life around him as he tended to the berry bushes and fields.

Perhaps most of all, he thought as he smiled, readying to sleep, he could still appreciate Old Thane.

Li knew, even if Old Thane didn’t ever say it out loud, that he thought of Li as the son he never had. That the old man was willing to give up anything and everything for Li. That was a type of devotion that Li was familiar with from his own father who had given up so much to see him succeed. It was a devotion that Li could always appreciate no matter whether he was man or god or demon.

________________

A week passed with Li hard at the work he loved.

Li had cleared out the dilapidated herb garden, uprooting all the invasive vines and weeds, and began planting the herbs. From reading Aine’s books, he knew that the herbs required soils that drained well, but the land had clumped up and become dry and hard from a drought that had struck a year ago. Pouring water on it resulted in puddles as the hardened dirt refused to let the liquid through.

Li had taken some peat he dredged up from the forests and mixed it with the horse’s manure to create a nourishing and soft mixture. He then used a plow to upturn the herb garden’s soil, discarding the dried topsoil entirely.

The soil beneath wasn’t much better, but it could be combined with the peat and manure mixture to form a richly black, mushy dirt that hungrily drank water, letting it seep through without forming any puddles.

Here, Li had planted most of the seeds. The magical seeds, however, he had decided to grow inside, taking some of the soil he had created and potting it. Old Thane had cautioned against letting them grow outside as until Li could gain the appropriate certifications as a herbalist, he could not have illegal substances just sitting out in the open.

Now, getting the certifications was a pesky task that Li felt little enthusiasm doing. It consisted of studying and then taking a test. Many of the occupations under Soleil were based off of meritocracy supported by bureaucracy, and so standardized tests became the norm for testing an individual’s capacity to be a professional at anything. Even blacksmiths had to take tests, although those were more live demonstration than ink and paper tests.

Thankfully, Li retained a sharp mind. He had always had a knack for studying in his old life, and his memory was even better here. The test was also mostly rote memorization, so he figured he just needed another week before he could pass the test.

One particularly sunny day, however, when Li was holed up in his room poring through Aine’s books, he heard a massive commotion outside. Things had been strangely loud over the week with a lot more foot traffic than usual, but this was on a whole different level. He figured there were dozens of people outside moving in a single procession. The groaning of some ungodly large contraption also followed them.

“By the gods, what’s that ruckus!?” exclaimed Thane from his quarters through a cough. He had gotten a minor fever, so he was staying inside for the day.

“I’ll check on it,” said Li as he put on his hood and stepped outside.

There were three gangs of adventurers, bronze and silver medallions hanging at their necks. They were a balanced group of warriors, mages, rangers, assassins, and templars. He nodded in recognition as he saw the basic party mechanics he had once dealt with in Elden World: tanky warriors up front with templars to heal and rangers and mages at the back for damage while assassins scouted the battlefield.

Behind them followed a company of knights. Knights of Lys, judging by their sky-blue cloaks. While the adventurers took up a leisurely stroll, the knights marched in drilled order. They escorted a massive ballista carried by four horses – the source of the groaning wood.

“Can I ask what’s going on?” called out Li.

One of the marching knights broke rank briefly and handed Li a paper before heading back to his company. Li observed that he held a whole stack of the papers under his arm.

Shrugging, Li looked at the paper. Flowery cursive writing dotted the paper and a fanciful seal shaped in the image of a dove marked the bottom. An official decree from Dulance Lys, lord of Riviera.

“Greetings, good citizen,

Do not be alarmed. This force travels not from unwanted invasion or demons or other such urgent ills. There is merely a monster in the Winterwoods, but do not fear. It does not move for it merely guards a lake that has emerged deep within the forest. In addition, our Astrologers predict that it will not be any threat to human settlements nor to this great city.

However, until the beast is subdued, the main paths running through Winterwoods are closed for public travel. I understand that some livelihoods depend on the bounty of the forest but ensure you do not interfere with the hunt and understand that you enter the woods on your own peril.

Below, you will find a depiction of the beast. It is advised you flee immediately upon seeing it and inform any knights or adventurers of its whereabouts.

Stay safe and be well, good citizen.

Glory to the Duchess and may the light of Soleil be unending,

Lord Dulance Lys.”

Li took a glimpse at the beast’s appearance. It was sketched on the paper with enough detail that it was unmistakable what it was. Li groaned internally. He had been focusing far too much on the farm this week and not paying attention at all to the outside world around him. Another consequence of his changing mind – he’d started to think current events and politics as meaningless and tuned them out.

He looked at a drawing of a giant ant: it was the Myrmeke he had summoned. Immediate worry swarmed Li, not because he feared for the ant, but because he knew that it was sufficiently strong enough to easily cleave through this group of adventurers and knights, and if they all died, who knew what kind of ruckus that would cause.

The good thing was, over the week, Li had been thinking of ways to put the ant to work on the farm without making its presence obvious, and now he had pretty strong incentive to put his plans to work.