2 Outside the Village

I was outside the village now. I took out the map from my bag and scanned to find Lorenz city.

Lorenz city was the third most developed city in the empire. It was the capital city of the Kingdom of Raime and was closest city from my village. It would approximately be a two week walk from hearing from my friend who went there five years ago for her family vacation.

However, there was no way I would be able to walk there in two weeks without a break! So I decided to go to a nearby village to sell my clothes.

One of the biggest reasons why my village was declining was that there were no alchemists nor people with mana inside our village. But the village next to us was full of rebellious alchemists who were inventing strange things almost everyday.

It would be a one day worth of walking to get there. So I tried to follow the map as best as possible with my aching legs.

However, an hour later, I was exhausted and couldn't walk anymore. That was when I saw a person inside a strange machine. The strange machine had tires made out of rubber and precious metals. It was covered in expensive metals from the top to bottom painted in luxurious silver. Maybe this was an existence called a "car" developed just a year ago.

I have heard that a car was very expensive and only nobles would be able to ride in one. However, since it was fueled with the existence of magik, only people with magik would be able to control the car.

The person inside the car has noticed my face as he decided the stop the car. When he got out of the car, I saw his silky pink hair and amused blood red eyes. He was wearing very luxurious navy blue cape with a clean white shirt and maroon shorts that matched his beige boots.

He looked young, maybe about thirteen or fourteen years old. He started to walk over to me while trying to look concerned and asked, "Are you lost?"

"No, I'm planning to walk to Lorenz city while stopping along Numera village." I replied.

"If you want, I'd be willing to take you to Lorenz city in my car because I'm heading there anyways." The boy answered back with an awkward smile.

Well, I had no reason to decline, so I was escorted into the car. This would be a much better choice than walking anyways.

When I got into the car, the boy came inside behind me while I had glittering eyes in fascination.

The car had expensive black leather seats with very high-quality glass windows and winterbine fur used as a rug on the car floor.

Winterbine was a species of a mutated wolf that has caught the disease from the pandemic but has somehow survived. Similar to how the human beings got mana from the disease, the wolf also had mana infused within its body, making this animal highly dangerous.

We called these animals with mana infused within them: demons. The more mana the animal had, the more dangerous the animal was classified.

Recently the classifications were split into: SSS, S, A, B, C, D, E, and F. SSS was the most dangerous while F were relatively harmless demons. The winterbine was classified as a C-level demon.

How did I know this information when I was an ordinary village girl?

My first uncle from my mother's side became the village chief three years ago and got access to all these classified information.

My uncle doted on me ever since I was born, since he had only sons. My uncle was the one who also taught me how to read and write like a noble since my grandparents spent all their money on their first child to send to the capital so that my uncle could receive a decent amount of education to inherit the position of the village chief.

The position of the village chief was getting more competitive lately after the soaring discovery of magik and alchemists making all these new inventions.

However, since only my first uncle and his sons knew how to read and write. They would be the only eligible candidates to handle the work of becoming the village chief.

When I noticed a piercing stare directed towards me, I stared back to the boy that soon redirected his gaze to the driver.

"It's just strange that a young child was found in the middle of nowhere. Maybe she's a herene." The boy mumbled to the driver.

A herene? What was that?