The crescent moon hung like a hook, its cool, clear radiance scattering down across the burbling little river, plating the water with a layer of broken silver.
The cries of insects wove a net across the summer night, and the reeds whispered softly in the breeze.
Wendelan Town wasn’t large.
Rather than a town, it would be more accurate to call it a slightly oversized village.
The streets were packed dirt; scattered along either side stood houses of wood-and-stone construction with sloping roofs, and from a few chimneys faint white tendrils of cooking smoke were curling up into the air.
Following the river that wound past the edge of town and walking upstream, away from the last few points of lamplight, the reeds along the bank grew denser and denser.
Under the moonlight, a figure passed soundlessly through this natural screen and came to a stop at the edge of a pebble-strewn shallow.
The heavy metal pieces were carefully unfastened and set aside, leaving only a slender yet upright silhouette behind.
Splash—— The sound of water broke the riverside’s stillness.
Lara stepped into the cold river water, deep enough to come up to her waist.
The bright, pure moonlight traced out her silhouette — already beginning to show the marks of training, yet still slender and graceful.
A flash of white light shot through the air, and the ability panel surfaced clearly in front of Lara.
Name: Lara Age: 18 Race: Human Physical Condition: Fatigued (abilities ↓10%) Grip Strength: 437 kg Mana: 58 Special Abilities: Metamorphosis, Holy Light Blessing “Fatigued…” Lara murmured the status line under her breath, tugging out a wry smile.
It was unexpected — and yet, on reflection, perfectly reasonable.
Months on end of long-distance travel, day and night, and this body of hers had finally lodged its protest.
The soreness of her muscles and the occasional twitches now actually carried a strange kind of satisfaction with them — proof that her strength was growing at a furious pace under this monk-like, ascetic regimen.
…Just a few hours earlier, when she had first stepped into this northern village called Wendelan, she had still been completely encased in heavy armor.
While finding the blacksmith to have her gear maintained, she had also asked around for news on the side — and she had finally been able to pin down where she was in time.
In her memory, the old smith had set down his hammer, wiped his face with a sweat-rag, and let his clouded but sharp eyes flick over Lara’s get-up before turning his gaze northward.
“The Demon King was struck down three months back!
The heroes — word is, they’re already on the road home.” He paused, and across his weather-beaten face a rare flash of ease showed through.
“From here on out, the days oughta keep getting better.” Standing in the river, Lara cupped up some water and splashed it over her face, savoring the rare, hard-won coolness of it.
Droplets rolled off the soaked ends of her hair — it was hard to tell whether they were river water or the sweat that all that heavy iron had been steaming out of her.
Drip.
A bead of sweat fell onto a tabletop, where a plump, rosy-cheeked landlady was struggling to drag a great cask of ale over into the corner.
Jingle, jingle~ The brass bell over the door tinkled softly, and the wooden door creaked open.
The landlady, whose view of the doorway was blocked, simply felt the weight in her hands suddenly lighten.
“Landlady — a room, please.” With that muffled voice, the wooden cask had already been lifted away and set firmly into the corner.
That dark-silver-tinged suit of armor now lay silently on the pebbles by the river.
Lara’s fingertip absently brushed across the water’s surface, sending a single ripple spreading outward.
She looked down at her reflection in the water — that delicate young girl’s face, its brows now slightly furrowed.
She actually rarely looked at her own body this carefully.
Every time she did, it was like being forced to face an inescapable fact.
Months had passed; rationally, she had long since accepted it.
But deep inside, that powerful sense of wrongness, like an undercurrent beneath the water, had never truly settled.
“Sigh… back in the modern era, I always used to make this joke — how nice it would be if I could turn into a girl.” Lara’s words were laced with self-pity.
“And now you no longer think so?” 0083 had appeared in front of her — she didn’t know when.
“Of course not.
After all, that was just a joke — there isn’t a single shut-in guy on earth who’d be happy about having his life flipped over like this.” Lara said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Really?” 0083 drifted there in the air.
“…Really.” Even though it was a flat, emotionless mechanical voice — somehow, falling on Lara’s ears, it carried what felt like a note of skepticism.
She slowly raised her arm, palm facing up, then lightly clenched her fist and let it relax again.
That simple motion pulled at the muscles in her arm and across her shoulder and back, and a clear, distinct soreness came through.
This body — in terms of using it, there really didn’t seem to be any major obstacle, and its strength even far exceeded her old one.
The high-intensity itinerary and the heavy armor weren’t just training; they were also a way to numb herself, using her body’s exhaustion at its limits to dilute the discomfort in her mind.
Maybe she really did need to rest, properly, for once.
Overturning her original plans, she decided to stay in town and rest for a few days.
After washing herself clean and changing into the coarse hempen long dress Nina had given her — washed so many times by now that it had begun to fade — Lara felt considerably refreshed, even though the fatigue still clung to her like a shadow.
She tied her damp hair up loosely, gathered up her things, and walked back through the moonlight to the “Traveler’s Home.” The wooden door was left ajar, and warm lamplight together with the tempting aroma of food was spilling out through the crack.
Lara pushed the door open, and the brass bell above the lintel gave a clear “ding-dong.” “You’re back?
Bet you’re starving — come on in—” The landlady’s loud, hearty greeting came from the front parlor; an apron of checkered cloth tied around her waist, a rag still in her hand, she had just poked her head out from the direction of the kitchen.
But once she got a clear look at who was standing in the doorway — not that “young man” in full armor, but a delicate-featured girl in a coarse-cloth long dress with slightly damp black hair — her voice cut off mid-sentence.
The landlady’s eyes instantly went round as saucers, her mouth fell slightly open, the rag in her hand nearly slipping to the floor — as if she had had a binding spell cast on her on the spot.
“You… you…” The landlady pointed at Lara, then looked over at the conspicuous heap of armor and backpack she’d left propped against the wall, stunned into incoherence.
“Th-that armor… that was you?!
You’re a girl?!” Lara, made a bit uncomfortable by the woman’s exaggerated reaction, nodded.
“Mm, that was me.
Traveling in armor during the day… is safer.” On the long wooden table, an earthen bowl sent up rich, dense white steam.
Pork stewed with onion churned in a thick broth; the roasted bread had split open into a caramel-colored crisp crust, and butter was melting and trickling down along its grain.
Under the landlady’s rapid-fire concern and that brand of warmth that brooked no refusal, Lara at last finished off that hearty bowl of stew.
Politely declining any further fussing, she all but fled back upstairs to her little room on the second floor.
The instant her body sank into the soft bedding, the fatigue accumulated over so much long-distance travel came rolling over her like a tide.
She let out a contented little sigh — yet in this rare quiet, her thoughts drifted, unbidden, toward the future.
“A few months ago the Demon King died, and at roughly the same window of time, I arrived in this world.
Factoring in distance and travel time…” Lara strained to reconstruct the map in her head.
The route from the Demon King’s Castle back to the hero’s hometown overlapped with her own itinerary for a stretch.
“Which is to say — if the heroes get back fast, then before I even make it to the headquarters of the Magic Association, I’m going to run into Frieren first, aren’t I?” The great mage Frieren — a mage who had lived for over a thousand years — should at this point still be in the period when her temperament was on the rather aloof, detached side.
So was there any chance she could skip the Association’s headquarters for now, and turn to Frieren instead to deal with this problem of not being able to see mana?
But Frieren had only changed noticeably after the hero’s death.
Right now she would still be on the colder side; going to her for help would probably mean having to pay her for it.
Sinking into the soft blankets, Lara’s consciousness gradually blurred.
…Wait a second!
An abrupt thought, one that had been overlooked for far too long, knifed through her drowsiness like the icy river water under the crescent moon.
Under the cool, pale moonlight, Lara bolted upright in bed, her eyes flying open and filling with disbelief.
“Wait — no!
It’s been months since I transmigrated… how have I… never once had a period this whole time?” ps: Thinking about it carefully, the protagonist’s image is probably closer to Shana, while her build is more like the taller, flatter Li Youba.
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