After being rocked by a carriage all night, I am now on a boat, a 30-seater with a toilet. After everything, I ended up choosing the river course.
The first time I rode in a carriage, it was rocking, and I couldn’t sleep much due to the excitement of running away from home, so I was a little out of it.
There was a morning market at the end of the carriage ride, and I bought cheap porridge at the market and had breakfast.
You can choose from a variety of ingredients to put on top. I chose the red fish.
The steaming porridge in the rustic wooden bowl was warm and delicious, and the salty red fish did the job just right with the wooden spoon to scoop up the porridge.
I borrowed my brother’s canteen, so I asked to fill the empty canteen with pear water that had been sold at the sweet water shop. I couldn’t get enough of the sweet fragrance, and soon I gulped down about half of it.
“Are you going to look for work, young man?”
“Oh, Auntie, yes, I am. Where’s the best place to go around here to get a job?”
“Well, Lindh is probably the best place to go, it’s got a fish market and a vegetable market, so if you’re looking for work, there’s a lot of opportunities there.
I asked the woman who runs the breakfast porridge shop when she approached me asking about the characteristics of the town on the way down the river.
The end point of the fishing town, called Lindh, is lively and good, apparently. From there you can take a boat out to sea and go around in a circle to the right, and then if you go along the coast for two hours, you can also go to the port near the royal capital. However, the boarding fees will jump up.
Anyway, I got on the boat to go to Lindh for a look, but I couldn’t help myself…
What’s wrong with this smell? It’s stinky, too stinky. I want to plug my nose. I can smell the guy in the black robe.
But I can’t do that. The guys who rolls his nose is a total jerk.
Anyway, it smells so bad. Ahhhh, I can’t stand it, I’m going to get off.
And yet, people don’t care about it at all? The two people sitting next to me, the balding merchant-like man in front of me, the old lady behind me…?
I wondered if they could not smell the rotten, sour smell.
Does everyone have a bad nose?
Or is it just me who stinks? No, that’s ridiculous.
I looked around, but no one was paying attention to me.
Swearing in my mind, I couldn’t stand it any longer and decided to get off at the next town immediately.
However! Why would he get out too!?
To my surprise, the man in the black robe got off too. He was following right after me.
What!? I can’t take it! Mainly, the smell!
Grunting, I hurriedly ran through the pier in a hurry to get through.
But somehow, the man in the black robe was standing ahead of me as I ran past.
What, why!? You’re kidding, right? Why? Ah! Guahh! I pinch my nose.
“Who are you? I had a strange feeling earlier…”
I retreated from the approaching man and panicked, so I turned around and ran like a rabbit to get away.
“Wait, I don’t mean you any harm!”
He was saying something, but I ran around using my normally well-developed legs.
It was still early, so we entered an alleyway without a soul in sight.
“What a quick…”
Just when I thought it was enough, I heard a dumbfounded voice right beside me.
The moment the man grabbed my arm, something like black smoke rose from the man’s body, as if water had been dropped into a burning iron pot and was evaporating with a loud sound.
“Tsu!”
The hood of the man’s robe flew off his back and a look of astonishment could be seen on his face…Wow! What a beautiful man! He’s a rare beauty.
He’s so beautiful that the word “beautiful” seems to be an understatement.
“You! You’re a Tizar purification specialist!”
“Oh, it doesn’t smell so bad anymore…”
“Hmm? Tizar?… purification specialist?”
Does the sound of the word “Tizar” sound familiar?
I think about it in silence for a while and remember. Ah, that’s what the family name of my mother’s family was…
By the time I thought that far, and thought that it was getting awfully dark, I had blacked out.
I was left with a panicked “hey!” and feeling the warmth of someone’s supporting body. I couldn’t make out anything.
***
The next time I woke up, it was in an inn’s bedroom.
And there was the man in the robe sitting in a chair by my bed.
Now he had taken off his robe and was dressed in a garment that had a floor-length hem and was trimmed with luxurious-looking embroidery.
Before I collapsed, I saw the man’s face, which was, unfortunately, wonderfully beautiful, and even for a 13-year-old like me, I thought he was uncommonly beautiful.
His hair is a shining silvery white, and his eyes are a pale violet color, like a jewel. The color of his hair is like the god who created this country, as told in Elementia.
“Do you still feel sick? If you’re thirsty, I’ve got some water.”
The man spoke softly to me as I woke up. And I didn’t smell the same scent like I did then either.
I’m not sure what it is, but he smells good, like roses. Yes, I thought selfishly, it fits the look.
I sat up from the bed and drank the glass of water he offered me.
The man’s fingers grasping the glass were long, white, and elegant.
“You, what’s your name?”
At that point I forgot that I was dressed as a man and answered my name normally.
“Fiara.”
“Well, Fiara. I’m Zakash. Call me Zak.”
He laughed, in a good mood, and stroked my head carelessly with his big hand. It hurt a bit.
He was slender, quite tall and beautiful with a delicate face, but I vaguely thought that he was a man after all.
“By the way, Fii, why do have short hair and look like a man? I mean, that’s pretty bold look for a girl, don’t you think?”
That’s probably true, women in this country, noble or not, grow their hair up to their backs. It’s usually quoted for commoner men to have short hair.
Even men of noble birth sometimes grow their hair long, but what a shame it is for me to have a head like a slaughtered chicken.
Even I have a sense of shame. And what the hell is it with calling me Fii? That sounds a little too friendly, it’s embarrassing too. I felt my cheeks heat up.
This person called Zakash already knows that I am a woman, and I think about what is going on. Besides, this person must be a wizard, the fact that he was wearing a black robe. It’s not like he’s a kidnapper, and from the way he dresses, he seems to have a pretty high status.
And, strangely enough, I had an odd, if vaguely unfounded, sense that I would not be harmed.
“I left home because I was dissatisfied with my home. I wanted to get away from there and live on my own two feet. I thought it would be more likely for me to meet kidnappers as a woman, so I disguised myself as a boy as quickly as possible. More importantly, why did you follow me?”
I was a thirteen year old kid, and my responses were down to earth. If I’m not mistaken, I’ve been like this ever since I can remember.
It’s funny, but I used to feel like an adult inside the body of a child. I’m sure that I always looked at my mother and sister with cold eyes for their selfishness.
I’m sure my mother could tell that I was always looking at her and sister with cold eyes. That’s what must have been transmitted to her…
I told Zak honestly about my current situation, because I felt that it would be okay to talk to him.
As I recall, I was also concerned about my mother’s family’s name, ‘Tizar’, at that time.
“Oh yes, Fii, you have very powerful purification magic. It is this power that attracted me to you. I was looking for a powerful purifier from the main Tizar family, the Marquis family, and its subsidiary families. In the end, isn’t your mother the fourth daughter who claims to have come from a collateral Viscount family?”
It is said that the Marquis family, the main Tizar family, is a family that specializes in purification magic. However, unlike the inheritance of other magical powers, strong purification magical power is not always inherited in the direct lineage, and it is said that occasionally someone with the power is born in a side lineage.
Those with strong purification magic have special eyes called the ‘purification eyes.’ It is said to be a very rare eye.
When a person with that eye appears in a side family, they are said to be taken in as a child of the main family, according to an old tradition.
And it seems that Zakash was personally looking for a purifier, and all that remained was confirmation of my mother’s lineage. However, he hadn’t been expecting much because the bloodline was so thin, so he was thinking of returning to the royal capital.
“But I don’t have any ‘purification eyes…’”
I tilted my head. My eyes were light brown with a slight greenish tinge to them.
“In your case, the magic pores that had been closed for some reason must have been acquired and opened up. It seems that the moment you touched me, your purification magic exploded and opened your eyes.”
“Opened my eyes?”
What does it mean to open my eyes?
“The ‘purification eyes’ are deep emerald green eyes with golden irises. And your eyes are exactly those eyes.”
Zak told me to go to the vanity mirror and I saw that my eyes had been transformed into deep green, rare eyes with a beautiful gold glow.
After that, I got back on the boat with Zak and we went to Lindh, a fishing town. From Lindh, we would take a boat around the sea and head directly to the royal capital.
And the reason why I am working with Zak? It seems that Zak needs the strong purification magic I have. I was told that he would hire me for a high salary.
Moreover, I was told that I would receive food, clothing, and shelter, as well as a proper vacation twice a week. I made a pretty prompt decision.
I was told that he would give me ten large gold coins a month…By the way, my father’s salary is three large gold coins a month.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T/N: Damn, barely a day out and Fiara’s already got herself some new eyes, new powers, and piles of gold~
Also, I just gotta say that the chapter titles of this novel are pure gold ^_^
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