Chapter 2
“Ugh, it’s so cold. What kind of weather is this?”
Of all days, it had to be a cold snap on the day I returned.
The capital I returned to after a monster subjugation expedition was so freezing that there wasn’t a single soul around, not even a stray lump of horse dung on the street.
I looked around the darkened plaza, pulled up my hood, and quickened my pace.
I should have just listened to Philip and spared myself the trouble.
Philip, the butler, had offered to have a carriage waiting at the capital’s castle gate to meet me on my return, but I flatly refused, saying it wasn’t necessary.
I couldn’t make Philip suffer by waiting up all night, as I was set to arrive in the capital sometime between evening and dawn. He was turning sixty next year, after all.
Still, if someone were to ask if a noble really needed to go to such lengths, I could answer that I wasn’t accustomed to acting like a noble who would naturally exploit a sixty-year-old butler.
After all, I wasn’t originally from this world.
The place I used to live wasn’t a medieval fantasy land of magic, but South Korea, a world ruled by science.
How did I end up here, you ask? I don’t know that myself.
I finished a typical day, drank a beer, and fell asleep, only to wake up in the body of a girl named Serira in this world.
Serira Ventus. Five years old. The Ventus family’s only daughter, she had gone on an outing to the countryside with her parents and was involved in a horrific carriage accident.
The count and countess, who had shielded her with their bodies to protect her, died instantly, and Serira was rescued with a severe head injury.
After returning to the count’s estate, she remained unconscious for a whole month, then, on the day the doctor declared her beyond hope, she suddenly opened her eyes. To be precise, it wasn’t Serira, but me.
At first, I couldn’t accept the situation and did all sorts of crazy things.
I ran around the mansion like a madwoman in a panic, tearing at my hair, then resigned myself to living like an aphasiac patient. I even attempted suicide multiple times, trying to somehow return to my original world.
But none of those countless attempts ever succeeded.
This was due to Philip, the loyal butler of the Ventus family, and Hilda, my loving nanny.
Philip installed thick magic mattresses all over the mansion so I wouldn’t die if I fell, and when my crazy behavior worsened, Hilda simply tied a rope around both of us and stayed by my side at all times.
After all those twists and turns, I realized, I couldn’t escape this world.
And so, I accepted this world and became Serira.
But then, perhaps out of pity for me, or perhaps feeling sorry after hearing my countless curses, God gave me a power to live comfortably in this world: spirit summoning.
It started when I stumbled upon a snake slithering over a campfire, and it turned out to be Ignis, a high-ranking fire spirit.
We were drawn to each other as if by fate and formed a contract.
In this world, where those who wield natural power have almost been wiped out, I was living reasonably well, treated as a high-ranking spirit summoner, one of only three in the entire empire.
Tap, tap.
As I hurried along, another trial struck me. It started to rain, a downpour unfitting for winter.
The raindrops that began as a gentle tap tap quickly turned into heavy plops, quickly soaking my robe.
“Should I call Iggy?”
It would be a bit warmer if he carried me. Would he grumble again if I called him for something trivial?
“Let’s just go quickly.”
Thinking of Ignis, who had suffered from monster subjugation, I wanted him to rest a bit longer in the spirit realm. Just as I was about to run, I heard a suffocating cough nearby.
“Cough cough, hack! Hrrrk.”
I tried to ignore it and take a step, but the sound grew louder, forcing me to turn my gaze towards the direction of the sound.
There, an old woman was vigorously coughing, covering her mouth with a worn handkerchief.
“…Grandma, are you okay?”
She kept glancing at me while coughing, so I couldn’t help but approach.
As I got closer to the old woman, her red eyes looked up at me.
“Oh dear… for a noble young lady to come and help me, I don’t know how to thank you…”
When did I say I’d help her?
I was momentarily thrown off by the old woman saying something I hadn’t, but then I remembered the grandmothers and grandfathers who had snatched my seat on the subway as if it was their right, so I smoothly played along.
“Grandma, what kind of help do you need? Shall I escort you to the guard station?”
“Would you… really?”
“Yes, of course.”
As I helped the old woman to her feet by her arm, I realized she had no robe or cloak to shield herself from the rain, aside from her worn clothes.
I hesitated for a very brief moment, looking at the pouring rain, but as someone raised in a country of Eastern courtesy, respect for the elderly was ingrained in me, so I took off my robe to wrap it around the old woman.
The old woman, who had been looking at me with a surprised expression, chuckled warmly.
“To think someone would show such kindness—thank you, dear.”
“It’s nothing. Let’s get going before it gets colder.”
At the guard station, which we reached by pushing through the rain, I left the old woman with a guard and took shelter there for a moment. My body temperature dropped rapidly, and my teeth chattered.
Ah, it’s too cold. Should I send a word to the mansion after all?
While I was deeply considering this, the old woman, who had exchanged a few words with the guard, approached me. She rummaged through her clothes and pulled out two small crystal bottles, offering them to me.
“These are gifts, as a token of my gratitude.”
“Oh, no, no.”
I waved my hands, but the old woman firmly grasped my hand and pressed the two bottles into my palm. I was taken back by the surprisingly strong grip of the scrawny old woman that I had no choice but to accept them.
“This red potion is a love potion. Whoever drinks this potion will fall in love with the first person they see after consuming it. And this white potion is an antidote to the love potion. If you happen to no longer love the man you gave the potion to, you can use this. Dear young lady, I hope you find happiness.”
The old woman smiled sweetly at me and then disappeared with the guard.
I chuckled, looking at the two bottles in my hand.
A love potion, really? Where in the world would such a thing exist?
Of course, in a world with spirit summoners, mages, and magic swordsmen, there were magic potions, but they were mostly for healing or poisons.
I had never heard of a potion that controlled someone’s mind.
Well… maybe black magic?
I think I read in a book that mages of that lineage could create mind controlling drugs…
But it had been 50 years since black mages disappeared, so that couldn’t possibly be true.
“My Lady, would you like me to call a carriage if you need one?”
His words, from the guard who was looking at my pathetic state with pity, broke me from my thoughts, and the cold I had briefly forgotten consumed my body again.
“Are carriages operating at this hour?”
“Ah, I know a coachman. I can call him for you if you need. Just be generous with the fare.”
If there was a carriage that could take me now, I could pay double, no, quadruple the price.
“Please call him. I’ll pay very generously.”
“Yes, please wait a moment.”
He quickly left the guard room. As he disappeared, I immediately summoned Ignis.
“Ignis.”
As soon as I called his name, a fiery snake with half-closed eyes appeared before me, coiled up.
“Ignis, I’m sorry. I really tried not to call you and endure, but I’m too cold to bear it.”
I reached out and hugged the coiled snake tightly. Hot flames enveloped the snake’s body, but they didn’t harm me at all. Instead, they shared their warm heat.
[You foolish master, what were you doing not calling me until your body became like this?]
Iggy’s exasperated voice echoed in my mind.
“You don’t like it when I call you for useless things.”
[I only dislike it when you call me for truly useless things.]
There were a few times when I had used Iggy as a light source instead of carrying a lamp, like when I wanted to heat bath water or go to the bathroom late at night.
Anyway, while muttering about those past incidents, Iggy made his flames burn even brighter, saying that his master was too foolish, and it was a big problem.
I grumbled about being called foolish, but I quietly shut up as warmth spread throughout my body.
If our relationship were written in a form of contract, I would be the master, but since Iggy was my lifeline and my source of income, he was in fact the one in charge.
“Yes, yes. Thank you for taking care of this foolish master.”
As I hugged Iggy tightly and warmed myself, I heard a conversation from behind the guard’s break room.
“That old woman was a mage?”
“Yes, and not just any mage, a black mage. I heard from another old woman from the same facility as her that she was a very famous black mage about 50 years ago.”
“Nah, that’s not true, is it? Almost none of the elderly people at that facility are in their right mind. Besides, why would a very famous black mage be in a facility? They’d probably be punished and dead, or they’d create a dungeon or something and live alone.”
“Her magic power isn’t what it used to be. And while she is a black mage, I heard she was pardoned for some major contribution back in the day. And think about it. She comes out of the facility every day, wanders around, and acts as she pleases, but the facility director, far from kicking her out, even asks the guards to protect her well and take her back to the facility if they find her. She’s not an ordinary person.”
“True, they do give that old woman special treatment at the facility all the time. Wait, then was she really a black mage? I’ve never seen one before.”
“Of course not. The black mage purge happened before you were born. Even I, who’ll be fifty the day after tomorrow, have never seen one before.”.
Black mage? I perked up my ears at the guards’ words and listened to everything they said, then looked at the two bottles the old woman had given me with a different perspective than before.
So these are real? Amazing! I thought I had experienced almost everything surprising since coming to this world, spirits, monsters, magic, and so on, but it seems I was just a frog in a well.
The world is vast, and there are so many wondrous things.
A love potion that makes you fall in love? If this existed in my previous life, I would have had a fiery romance with my favorite person.
“My Lady, the public carriage has arrived.”
“Oh, yes.”
Unlike when I first received them, I carefully put away the bottles the old woman had given me and went outside the building.
