I walked down the street of the town.
It was a busy street. Despite being only a town, it was highly populated.
Stalls lined both sides of the road, and merchants called out their prices over the noise.
The air smelled of grilled meat and warm bread. My stomach noticed.
"Hmm..."
I wanted to buy something. Anything.
But for some reason, I was being avoided. People were quite literally walking away from me.
Some gave me wary looks. Some looked scared, and some looked ready to fight.
A merchant quietly pulled his cart aside as I passed. A mother turned her child's face into her coat.
Low voices followed me down the road.
"That's the one from the guild."
"They say nothing was left of the training dummy."
Wherever I walked, the crowd opened. Once I had passed, it closed again behind me.
It made me think of Moses, parting the sea.
I should've felt cool about it. Honestly, I did, a little.
But I was also still hungry.
I checked the pouch inside my robe. There was still plenty of money left from Johnole.
I could buy a skewer. If anyone would sell me one.
The stall owner kept his eyes lowered and his hands still, the way people do when they are trying not to be noticed.
Apparently, shopping was not an option today.
"Hey! You villain!"
I stopped as someone shouted from behind me.
I slowly looked back, and saw a young lady.
She was dressed in an aristocrat's red dress, with a skirt long enough to touch the floor and a grand design.
Red hair. Red eyes, staring at me fiercely.
Is she calling me? I looked around, trying to check if it was really me.
"Stop looking around, I'm calling you!"
She continued.
It was really me. What was her business?
Villain? I had been called many things in the game, but never that.
Well, a dragon was the villain in most stories. Still, it was rude.
I made my voice a little deeper and colder, and stared at her.
"Villain? Who gave you the right to call me that."
[Mana Aura output increasing...]
The air shook as my mana spread.
She trembled. But her eyes remained fierce.
Wait. I only changed my voice.
Were the voice changer and the aura linked? Nobody had told me that.
***
[A few minutes earlier.]
I'm Maria, and I hated this dress.
It was heavy, the skirt was far too long, and I dragged it across the street with every step.
I wanted to train. Instead, I was walking through town like a decoration.
Father had told me to gather friends. To meet people, and to be seen by them.
I did not understand why he was asking this of me now.
"Father is always thinking of useless things."
I sighed. A sword would have been lighter than this fabric.
I wanted comfortable clothes, not a dress that took three maids to put on.
I had spent every morning of my life with a blade in my hands. Today, I had spent it being measured for fabric.
But Father had asked. He rarely asked me for anything, and I could not refuse him.
"Huh?"
Suddenly, the air felt tight. As if the pressure had increased several times over.
The mana around me shook as someone passed by.
I had trained my sense of mana since I was a child. I knew the feel of guards, of adventurers, even of knights who had fought at the border.
None of them felt like this.
I had felt fear before, in the training yard, against opponents far stronger than me. That kind of fear, I understood.
This was different. It was the feeling of being small before something that did not even need to look at me.
A hooded figure caught my eyes. He was only walking, and he was not looking at anyone.
Yet looking at him felt like looking at a predator that had killed countless lives.
My hand moved to my hip, searching for my sword. It was not there.
I had left it at home because of this dress. I had never regretted anything more.
Around me, the street was already reacting.
People stepped aside without a word. A merchant pulled his cart out of the way, and a mother held her child close.
No guard moved. No adventurer reached for a weapon.
Guards trained for years to hold their ground against bandits and beasts. If they would not move, there was a reason.
I understood why. Every instinct I had told me to do the same.
A man who could make an entire street tremble without lifting a finger was not an ordinary traveler.
He was either a villain, or something worse.
My legs were shaking beneath the heavy skirt. I told myself that it did not matter.
I was the daughter of a noble house. If a danger walked through our streets and no one dared to speak, then what use was my name?
I drew a breath, and I called out before my fear could decide for me.
***
The street had gone silent.
Maria's knees were trembling beneath her red dress. Yet she did not step back.
Respect. Honestly, I would have run by now.
But I couldn't break character. If I apologized, the act would fall apart.
If I didn't, I would keep scaring a girl for the sake of an act.
Think, Aurelion. Think.
A real dragon would not care what a human girl called him. But walking away now would look like I was running from the argument.
Before I could find an answer, hurried footsteps cut through the silence.
"Lady Maria!"
An armored man pushed through the parted crowd. A noble crest was engraved on his chest, and a sword hung at his hip.
He stopped beside her. He did not touch the sword.
Smart.
He bowed to me, lower than a man in armor normally would. A bead of sweat ran down his temple, but his composure held.
"Forgive her, sir. She does not understand what she has done."
"We will leave at once."
"Release me. That man is not ordinary."
Maria said it without looking away from me.
"I know, my lady. I feel it too."
"That is exactly why we must not stay."
The knight did not release her. He leaned closer instead, and lowered his voice.
But the street was so quiet that I heard every word.
"Lady Maria, please. Not today."
"Your father cannot bear another shock. The physicians say the mana deprivation has taken almost everything from him."
"His body barely has enough mana left to function."
"If you are harmed here, he will not recover from it."
Maria's jaw tightened. For the first time, her fierce eyes wavered.
Mana deprivation.
I knew that one.
In Hero's Fate, it was a rare illness. The body slowly lost its mana, until almost nothing was left to keep it running.
And I knew the cure.
On paper, it was simple. Pour an overwhelming amount of mana into the patient's body, enough to leave lingering mana behind for good.
That mana would rebuild the body from the inside. A full reconstruction.
Simple, on paper. But almost every patient died from mana poisoning before it was done.
The body could not bear the flood. That was why no one in the game ever finished the treatment.
Besides, no one had enough mana to try it in the first place.
Except me. Mana was the one thing I had too much of.
Then my hand found the bottles inside my robe.
Three bottles of strength potion. I had only taken them because I had a feeling I would need them later.
Strength potions had a side effect that almost no one cared about. They neutralized mana poison.
Free. On the house.
Thank you, potion lady. I owe you one.
Coincidence? It was a little too convenient.
I decided not to question it.
The act told me to stay silent and cold. But I had heard too much, and I knew too much.
I spoke.
"Your father will recover, for I am the one who can help him."