Waking up somewhere completely unfamiliar, Minjae could only scratch his head and his itchy skin from having laid on a pile of hay.
So many things were off.
Like the adorable girl who had been crying against his chest when he came to.
The house around him looked run-down and barely livable, and the view outside stretched wide and open in a way that felt nothing like anywhere he knew.
As far as the eye could see, there were only fields and a handful of houses that looked just like the one he’d woken up in.
The most likely explanation was that he’d transmigrated, though he had no idea where.
Going by every webtoon and novel he’d read, people who transmigrated usually ended up inside the body of a protagonist or a villain from a story or game world.
So if he really had transmigrated, where exactly had he ended up?
Over the next few days, Minjae managed to piece together a few things about himself and where he was.
The body he’d entered belonged to someone named Elias Veyron, who lived together with his younger sister, a girl named Mira Veyron.
Their parents had apparently left them both in a basket floating down a river, where the village chief eventually found them.
“I remember the village chief saying our names were already written inside the basket.”
Even the village chief didn’t know why, or who their parents were.
As for the place itself, this was Valebrook Village, a small village that fell under the territory of Marquis Arhan Nocturne.
Rolling fields and gentle hills surrounded it, and beyond the simple houses, the farmland the villagers worked, and the river flowing nearby, there wasn’t much else to speak of.
“This is the river they found us in…”
Elias sat there with a stick serving as a fishing rod, a blade of grass between his lips, staring out at the water without really seeing it, so lost in thought he didn’t even notice the bait had long since been picked clean.
Fishing had become something he did regularly these days.
It didn’t require much movement, and it had a way of quieting the noise in his head.
The thought that he’d actually died was still a little hard to sit with.
“At least I’m alive again. The first time I really processed it, I genuinely almost cried. Couldn’t believe I’d died and ended up transmigrating. But then a blue screen just appeared out of nowhere… kind of hard to stay in denial after that.”
A blue screen floated beside his face.
Whatever way he looked at it, it was clearly a system.
Different from the ones he’d read about in webtoons and novels, this one was pretty simple and unimpressive.
“When I fish, I get exp points and some small rewards. Better than nothing, I guess. If this were a game, it’d feel like a side quest.”
While he was tapping through the system screen, footsteps came from behind him, and then a soft voice called out.
“Big bro. What are you doing?”
‘Damn, she startled me.’
“Fishing. Dinner for tonight.”
Elias stood up and handed over a bucket of fresh, still-wriggling fish to Mira, who took it with her eyes already lighting up.
“Did you finish collecting the herbs?”
“Yep! I found a lot of good ones for you, big brother.”
Looking at his little sister’s face, the way she was watching him with that much warmth, Elias couldn’t help but feel something and reached out to pat her head.
Even if he wasn’t the real Elias, there was a connection he felt with Mira that was hard to explain.
Maybe because this body was his now.
“But remember. Stay close to the uncles, okay? The mountain is dangerous, there are monsters and wild animals up there.”
“I know! I didn’t go far from them at all!”
Elias let out a quiet breath through his nose, then raised his right hand and held out his pinky finger toward her.
“Promise me then. Don’t go too far from the uncles.”
Mira looked at the outstretched pinky for a moment before a small smile crossed her face.
She raised her hand and hooked her pinky around his.
“Promise.”
There was something quietly happy about that moment.
Thinking back on it, this was actually the first time he’d ever had a blood relative to call family.
Sixteen years old, beautiful, with a gentle and friendly nature that had made her well-loved by everyone in the village.
The one thing she and Elias shared was their black hair, though Mira’s eyes were a deep, blood-red.
A little unsettling, to be honest, seeing eyes like that in a girl that soft-natured.
Elias’s were sky blue.
Whether their eyes came from their parents was anyone’s guess, but what mattered was that they were siblings who genuinely cared about each other.
“Big brother, I think it’s time you cut your hair.”
Elias walked with the fishing rod balanced on his shoulder, Mira following behind him with the bucket of fish.
“Maybe later. I think it looks pretty good like this.”
“You look really rough when it’s down like that.”
“That was a little painful to hear…”
“Fufufu…”
Watching his sister laugh got a laugh out of Elias too.
Wherever he’d ended up, whatever world this was, his goal now was just to make her happy.
That was how he’d been thinking, right up until he found himself in the position he was in now.
Sitting in the village chief’s home, an old man who’d clearly lived many years, faced with a choice that offered him absolutely nothing good no matter which way he picked.
“Village chief, is there any way I can turn this down?”
“I genuinely understand how you feel, Elias. I’ve come to think of you like my own grandchild.”
“Then let me turn it down.”
The village chief shook his head with a voice and expression that was heavier than usual.
“That will be difficult, Elias. Surely you already know what happens if you refuse?”
“But…”
What had actually happened?
Why was Elias sitting there looking like the world was ending over something he and the village chief were discussing?
* * *
It had all started while he was training with one of the village uncles.
Apparently the man was a former imperial knight who’d retired.
And rather than spend his retirement enjoying the fruits of his career, he’d chosen to live as a villager, farming, fishing, and hunting wild animals on the mountain.
Far from looking worn out or like the routine was dragging him down, Uncle Randolf laughed constantly and clearly loved every second of it.
‘Well, more accurately, he really loves every second of making me suffer during training.’
“Hahaha! Get up, kid! No time to lie around!”
With aches all through his body, using a piece of wood as a crutch, Elias pulled himself to his feet with a look of pure irritation.
“Even with how much I’ve improved, I still can’t land a single hit on you, uncle.”
“Improved? You still look like a little kid to me! Hahaha!”
‘This old man is exactly the same as always.
You’d think getting older would slow him down, but nope, somehow he keeps getting more fired up.’
For someone from the modern world, all of this was genuinely new to Elias.
But that was also part of what kept confirming that this was very much a fantasy world.
The system screen appeared beside his face.
[Ding! You gained 139 EXP!]
[Side Quest complete! You received Grade D Mana Stone! ×10]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Elias Veyron]
Level: 10
EXP: 14 / 500
Strength: 15
Agility: 9
Vitality: 10
Mana: 12
Intelligence: 15
Perception: 11
Skills:
• Fishing Lv.
3
• Cooking Lv.
5
• Swordsmanship Lv.
3
• Mana Manipulation Lv.
2
━━━━━━━━━━━━
‘At least I’m getting exp.
Swordsmanship went up a level too, that’s good.’
Seeing Elias smile to himself made Randolf wonder if he’d been pushing the kid too hard and sent him into a quiet breakdown.
“That’s probably enough for today. Rest up, the village chief wants to see you.”
Elias raised an eyebrow.
A sudden summons from the village chief meant something was up.
After thanking Randolf, Elias went home first to clean up, then headed to the village chief’s house with Mira tagging along.
When they arrived, they found the village chief already waiting, sitting with both hands folded in front of his face.
“Village chief, we’re here.”
“Come in, sit down. Good that Mira came along too, she can hear this directly.”
The furrowed brow and the slight unsteadiness in his voice made it pretty clear the village chief had something important on his mind.
“So, what’s going on?”
The village chief sighed, long and slow, before answering.
“Earlier today, people from Marquis Nocturne’s household came to the village. They said they were looking for a strong young man to bring back to the estate.”
“And what does that have to do with us?”
“With you, more precisely, Elias.”
Elias raised an eyebrow and pointed at himself.
“Me?”
The village chief nodded and continued.
“We had already submitted a list of strong young men from the village a few months ago, but none of them met their standards. And then someone from the Nocturne family apparently saw you training with Randolf and… wanted you.”
“Wanted me? For what? Setting aside that this is their territory to begin with, the fact that they’re out here recruiting from a small village like ours is already suspicious.”
“Ah, don’t worry about that part. Your only job would be to serve as Caretaker to the Marquis’s twin daughters.”
Was it even logical to recruit someone from a village to be a noble’s Caretaker?
And on top of that, Elias had no actual experience as a Caretaker.
He’d looked after kids before and spent two years as a lecturer, but that was it.
He rested his chin on his right hand and asked in a completely flat tone.
“And who exactly are the Marquis’s twin daughters?”
“Evelyn Nocturne and Elysia Nocturne.”
In an instant, Elias’s expression flipped completely.
The bored, slightly skeptical face was gone, replaced by something that was equal parts shock and genuine fear.
Watching her brother’s face shift like that, the sudden cold sweat, Mira leaned toward him with worry on her face.
“Big brother…”
“V-village chief. Could you say that again?”
“Aigoo, you’re young but your ears are already giving out? The Marquis’s twin daughters are Evelyn Nocturne, the elder, and Elysia Nocturne, the younger. They’re about the same age as Mira, give or take.”
After hearing it a second time, Elias could only manage a smile before he passed out.
“Huh? Big brother!”
“Elias?!”
The village chief and Mira scrambled to rouse him as he went down, that smile still on his face.
Just before the last of his consciousness faded, a single thought floated through his head.
‘Of all things…
why Eternal Arcana.
And why do I have to be their Caretaker.’