Xia Nan was a farmer.
His proper job was dealing with the golden wheat in the fields.
The so-called “adventures” that usually existed only in the songs of Bards or the stories told by old men at the village entrance should, by all rights, have had nothing to do with him.
Yet here he was, sitting in a crude campsite as a member of the Small Fry party.
Naturally, there was a reason for that.
According to the memories left behind by his predecessor, everything had begun five years earlier, when he was thirteen.
Back then, a down-on-his-luck Bard had stayed with Xia Nan’s family for a time.
The Bard had performed several cantrips for the children in the village, opening the young Xia Nan’s eyes to an entirely different world.
That should have been the end of it.
Unfortunately for the Bard, Xia Nan’s mother was famous for her stinginess. Her ability to squeeze value out of anything that passed through her hands was notorious for miles around.
So when the Bard finally left the village, he had no choice but to leave the family a page from a skill book.
Calling it a “book” was generous.
It was really just half a sheet of paper with some kind of training method written on it.
Still, it had once been part of a genuine class skill book.
To Xia Nan’s family, that made it a treasure.
Everyone tried practicing from it.
Even Beatrice, the youngest daughter in the family, who had been only seven at the time, joined in for a while.
Unfortunately, more than half a year passed without anyone making the slightest noticeable progress.
Perhaps the Bard had simply scribbled down a page of nonsense to escape Xia Nan’s mother.
Or perhaps nobody in the family had any talent for the technique.
Either way, once the king raised taxes and farm work grew busier, the matter gradually faded away.
Everyone gave up.
Everyone except Xia Nan’s predecessor.
He had always been stubborn, and the cantrips the Bard had shown him had left far too deep an impression.
Even during the busiest days of the autumn harvest, after spending the entire day bent over in the fields until his body was nearly ready to collapse, he would still drag himself onto the ridge between the fields.
There, he would swing a crude wooden sword at a bundle of straw.
He had spent three full days carving that first sword himself.
Day after day.
Year after year.
He broke more wooden swords than anyone could count.
No one knew where a farm boy found that kind of persistence.
He never took a day off.
At some point, swinging a sword had simply become part of his life.
Then, three months ago, everything changed.
That afternoon, Xia Nan had been standing on a ridge near his home, hacking away at a straw dummy he had woven himself, just as he had done thousands upon thousands of times before.
And then he felt it.
A sensation unlike anything he had ever experienced.
A mysterious force erupted from his legs, which were planted firmly in the muddy ground, and surged upward.
Through his waist.
His chest and abdomen.
His shoulders.
His arms.
Finally, it flowed through his fingertips and into the wooden sword in his hands.
For one brief instant, all the strength in his body and every shred of his concentration seemed to twist together into a single cord.
Then it exploded outward.
Hummm!
The wooden sword snapped.
Its broken half spun through the air and fell to the ground as tiny fragments of straw scattered everywhere.
The straw dummy slowly toppled.
It had been cut cleanly in two.
The severed surface was smooth and even.
[Spinning Slash]
In that instant, Xia Nan somehow knew its name.
…
Xia Nan had mastered a technique that only Knight Lords were supposed to be capable of using.
After that, everything unfolded naturally.
His family was an ordinary farming household whose total property consisted of a mill and a few meager plots of land.
There were three sons and one young daughter to support.
Worse, the eldest and second sons had both reached the age when they needed to establish families of their own.
With so little property and so many mouths, the struggle over inheritance began almost inevitably.
Some arguments happened openly.
Others simmered under the surface.
They fought over how the mill’s profits should be divided.
They fought over who could use the kitchen stove and when.
They fought over every petty scrap of advantage available.
Soon, nearly every corner of that little wooden house seemed saturated with quarrels.
For Xia Nan’s predecessor, the moment that truly shook him came when he saw his two respected elder brothers arguing bitterly over a single candle.
He had only just reached adulthood.
If things were already this bad, what would happen in another two years, when he reached marriageable age too?
Would the same struggle simply repeat itself, this time with him dragged into it?
That was when the thought of leaving first took root.
And by sheer coincidence, he had just learned the class skill [Spinning Slash].
Driven by the recklessness and pride unique to youth, his predecessor went to the Adventurers’ Association in a nearby town, registered his name, and joined the Small Fry party.
“Sigh…”
Remembering that rash decision, Xia Nan could only sigh again.
By the time he had transmigrated into this body, his predecessor was already part of the party.
And by the time Xia Nan had finished muddling through the flood of inherited memories and realized exactly what situation he was in, the group had already entered Misty Forest.
Turning back was no longer an option.
At this point, complaining would only waste energy.
Xia Nan lowered his head and ran the cotton cloth over the blade resting across his knees.
Come to think of it, although this body’s two elder brothers were deeply caught up in the struggle over the family property, they had always treated their younger brother well.
This one-handed sword was proof.
The two of them had pooled their savings to buy it for him.
His predecessor had cherished it and maintained it carefully.
As a result, even though the weapon had long since reached the age when it should have been discarded, its edge remained surprisingly sharp.
[Maybe it can hold out through a few more hard fights.]
“Hey, kid?”
Xia Nan had been quiet for so long that Captain Maji apparently mistook his silence for nerves.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of. They’re only a few Goblins.”
He gave a casual shrug.
“Two or three of those things couldn’t even beat the stray dogs in town.”
Xia Nan did not answer.
He simply grinned at the hunter to show that he was fine.
Was he nervous?
Obviously.
This was his first time venturing into the wilds as an adventurer.
The “glorious record” shown on the one-handed sword’s Attribute Panel belonged to its previous owners. Xia Nan had nothing to do with any of those kills.
In fact, the very fact that such a battle-worn longsword had eventually ended up in his hands suggested something rather unpleasant about what had happened to those previous owners.
Whoosh.
A cold draft brushed the back of Xia Nan’s neck.
He shivered.
Misty Forest truly lived up to its name.
Even at noon, under blazing sunlight, a faint veil of mist lingered between the trees.
Now the sun had long since set.
Pale moonlight dissolved into the fog, leaving the forest dim and indistinct.
Even sitting beside the campfire, Xia Nan could barely make out the blurry outlines of weeds and bushes beyond the campsite.
“Farm boy, first time in Misty Forest?”
A teasing voice drifted over.
Xia Nan looked across the camp.
Five or six meters away, Elki was grinning at him.
Xia Nan nodded. “You’ve been here many times?”
“Of course!”
It was as though Elki had been waiting all night for someone to ask.
He immediately brightened.
“You don’t know this, but I have a distant cousin who once served an Arcanist as an attendant for two years. Tsk, now that was a real big shot. He graduated from Hawthorne Royal Academy and was officially registered with the Spellcasters’ Association!”
Elki leaned forward eagerly.
“Hey, don’t tell me you’ve never even heard of Hawthorne Royal Academy. Let me tell you…”
His voice stopped.
Abruptly.
Even if there was some boasting mixed into Elki’s story, Xia Nan had genuinely been interested.
He had only just arrived in this world.
Anything involving supernatural power held an irresistible appeal.
Unfortunately, at least for tonight, he would not be hearing anything more about Hawthorne Royal Academy.
Because one second earlier, Xia Nan had watched a crooked wooden club studded with iron nails emerge from the darkness behind Elki.
It pushed through the thin mist without a sound.
Then it came crashing down.
Straight into the Gnome’s animated, smiling face.
The rust-red spikes punched through the fragile flesh at the side of his skull.
Blood burst outward.
Mixed into it was a nauseating whitish, viscous fluid.
For one horrifying instant, Elki looked like a watermelon dropped onto stone.
“AMBUSH!!!”