05.1 – The Road South [1]

The sun rose behind Velmira, casting her shadow long across the road leading away from Herzfeld.

She stood at the village's southern edge, her hood drawn against the early light, watching smoke curl from chimneys as the settlement woke.

From this distance, it looked peaceful. Harmless. A place where people lived simple lives, raised children, and grew old surrounded by familiar faces.

A place she could never belong.

The Moonveil Cloak hummed against her skin, its enchantment already working against the dawn. The drain was there — constant and manageable — but it would be with her all day. Every day. For as long as she needed to move under sunlight.

Velmira turned south and started walking.

The road was well-maintained here, packed earth worn smooth by decades of merchant traffic.

Fields stretched on either side, stubble from the recent harvest poking through the first frost.

In the distance, she could see a farmhouse, a woman hanging laundry while children played in the yard.

Normal. It’s so achingly normal.

She'd been one of them once. A human with a normal life, a normal job, normal concerns about bills and relationships and what to eat for dinner. That person felt like a stranger now, someone she'd known briefly and lost contact with.

How long until she forgot her human life entirely? Centuries? Millennia?

The thought chilled her more than the autumn wind.

By midday, Velmira had caught up to a merchant caravan.

Four wagons, laden with goods covered by canvas tarps, drawn by patient draft horses. Perhaps a dozen people traveled with them — drivers, guards, and a few passengers. They moved at the steady-unhurried-pace of those who made this journey regularly.

She approached cautiously, aware that her appearance might trigger the same fear she'd seen in Herzfeld.

But she hoped merchants were practical people.

They dealt with strangers constantly, evaluated threats and opportunities with the cold calculus of profit and loss.

"Hail," she called out as she drew near the last wagon.

The driver — a weathered man in his fifties with a salt-and-pepper beard — turned to assess her. His eyes took in her fine cloak, her noble bearing, the quality of her clothing beneath the travel wear.

"Hail yourself," he said, neither friendly nor hostile. "Long way between towns to be traveling alone, miss."

"I prefer solitude," Velmira said. "But I'm heading south, toward Waal. If you're going that direction, perhaps we could travel together. It's a kind of mutual protection."

"Protection." The man's laugh was dry. "You don't look like much of a fighter. Unless… you're a mage?"

"Something like that."

That got his attention. The wagon slowed as he called forward to the lead driver, a gruff command in a dialect she somehow understood despite never hearing it before.

The caravan came to a halt.

A broad-shouldered man dismounted from the lead wagon and walked back to examine her. He had the bearing of someone used to command, and the scars on his hands suggested he knew how to use the sword at his hip.

"Otto," he introduced himself. "Caravan master. You're offering protection?"

"I'm offering to travel with you," Velmira corrected. "Whether that benefits you or not depends on what we encounter."

"A mage,” Helmut says. “You have papers? Association credentials?"

She didn't.

"I'm independent. Recently arrived from... distant lands. Still learning local customs."

Otto's eyes narrowed.

"You have no association backing and guild certification. How do I know you're not a fraud? Or something worse?"

Velmira reached into her cloak and withdrew a silver coin, Yggdrasil currency, stamped with symbols this world had never seen.

She held it up to catch the sunlight.

"Pure silver," she said. "Foreign mint, but I know it is genuine. I can pay my way."

Otto took the coin, examined it with a merchant's practiced eye, bit it, weighed it in his palm. His expression shifted slightly, not to trust, but to interest.

"This is high-quality work," he admitted. "Foreign, like you said. Eastern kingdoms, maybe?"

He glanced at her pale skin, her distinctive features.

"Or further?"

"Further," Velmira confirmed.

Otto considered for a long moment, then pocketed the coin.

"You can travel with us to Waal. Three days. You pull your weight yourself; help with camp and keep watch rotation. If you cause trouble, we leave you by the roadside. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

"And if bandits or demons attack, you fight. That's the protection you're offering."

"If necessary," Velmira said. "Though I'd prefer to avoid conflict."

Otto snorted.

"Wouldn't we all? Get in the last wagon. Helmut will find you space."

***

The caravan moved at the patient pace of commerce, and Velmira found herself grateful for the slowness. It gave her time to observe, to listen, to learn about this world through the casual conversations of people who'd lived in it their entire lives.

Helmut, the driver she'd first approached, was talkative once he decided she wasn't a threat. He pointed out landmarks as they passed; a shrine to some local spirit, a battlefield from the war with the Demon King, and a village known for its pottery.

"You really are from far away if you don't know these things," he observed.

"Where exactly?"

"A place that doesn't exist anymore," Velmira said, which was true enough.

"Ah. One of the northern territories the demons burned?" His expression turned sympathetic. "I lost my brother in those raids. Twenty years back though, but it still feels fresh sometimes."

"I'm sorry."

"We all lost someone." Helmut shrugged, the gesture carrying decades of acceptance. "That's why we rebuilt. Why we keep trading, keep moving. Because life goes on, even when it shouldn't."

Velmira said nothing. Life went on for him because he was mortal, because time eventually dulled even the sharpest grief. But for her? Every loss would accumulate, stack up across centuries, until she carried the weight of ten thousand farewells.

Unless she stopped caring. The thought circled back, persistent and unwelcome.

They made camp as the sun touched the western horizon, pulling the wagons into a defensive circle in a clearing beside the road. The routine was clearly well-practiced; drivers tended horses, guards established a perimeter, and others started fires and prepared food.

Velmira helped where she could, though her vampiric strength made some tasks almost comically easy. She lifted a heavy crate that two men had been struggling with, carrying it one-handed to the cooking area.

The silence that followed was uncomfortable.

"Strong for someone so slight," Otto observed carefully.

"I am enhanced with magic," Velmira said.

Dinner was a communal affair. Stew made from salt pork, root vegetables, and herbs, served with dark bread and weak beer.

Velmira took a bowl and forced herself to eat, each swallow is an exercise in willpower. The food sat in her stomach like stones, but she managed to consume enough to seem normal.

Across the fire, a young woman in her mid-twenties watched with knowing eyes.

"You don't like the food?" she asked.

"Helmut's cooking isn't that bad."

"My stomach's been unsettled," Velmira said, the excuse already tired from overuse.

"Travel sickness, you could say."

"For someone with travel sickness, you walked twenty miles today without complaint."

The woman smiled, but there was intelligence in her gaze.

"I'm Elise. My father owns two of these wagons. I help with the books, make sure we're not getting cheated in trades."

"A merchant, then."

"A very nosy merchant," Otto called from across the fire.

"Leave the woman alone, Elise."

"I'm just making conversation, Uncle Otto."

But Elise subsided, though Velmira could feel occasional glances throughout the meal.

As darkness deepened and the fire burned lower, the conversation turned to gossip and news. Velmira listened more than she spoke, absorbing details about this world.

"Did you hear about the Continental Magic Association hiring extra mages?" one of the guards said.

"Triple pay for northern route protection. Demon activity's picking up again."

"It's been eighty years since the Demon King fell," Elise said.

"You'd think they'd have cleared out by now."

"Demons are immortal," Helmut pointed out.

"Hard to clear out something that doesn't die of old age. And they breed — or whatever demons do to make more demons."

"The Association's stretched thin now," Otto added. "Too many mages want comfortable city positions. Not enough of them are willing to patrol dangerous routes."

He glanced at Velmira.

"Well present company excepted, maybe."

"I'm not with the Association," Velmira reminded him.

"Right. Independent. Which means you don't follow their rules."

"Speaking of mages," Elise said, her voice brightening, "did you hear about that elf? The one traveling north with human companions?"

The conversation shifted, and Velmira's attention sharpened.

"Frieren," Helmut said. "Still alive after all this time. My grandfather saw her once, said she looked exactly the same then as she does now."

"That's what elves do," the guard said. "Live forever and watch us die. It’s creepy, if you ask me."

"She's a hero," Elise insisted. "Part of the party that defeated the Demon King. Traveled with Himmel the Hero for ten years. Have some respect for her!”

“Yeah… they say she barely spoke, barely smiled, but Himmel claimed she was the kindest person he knew."

Velmira found herself leaning forward slightly, drawn to the story of someone who might understand her isolation.

"I saw her once," Otto said quietly.

"About twenty years back, passing through the Royal Capital. She was standing in front of a statue of the Hero Party, just... staring at it. For hours. Didn't move, didn't speak. Just stood there looking at stone versions of her old companions."

"That's sad," Elise said.

"That's what immortality costs," Otto replied. "Everyone you love turns to stone. Or dust. And you just keep going."

The fire crackled in the silence that followed. Velmira felt the weight of Otto's words settle over her like a shroud. Everyone you love turns to stone. Was that her future? Centuries of watching people she cared about age and die while she remained unchanged?

"They say she's traveling north now," Helmut said, breaking the heavy quiet. "With her apprentices. Continental Magic Association sent them on some mission. Dangerous one, probably, if they need someone of her caliber."

"Apprentices," Velmira said, speaking before she could stop herself.

"She takes mortal students?"

"Apparently. A girl named Fern, and some warrior boy." Helmut shrugged. "Seems odd to be honest, an elf who usually keeps to herself suddenly traveling with humans again. But then, she spent ten years with the Hero Party. Maybe she missed the company."

Or maybe she was fighting against the same detachment Velmira feared. Maybe taking apprentices was Frieren's way of staying connected, staying human despite not being human at all.

The thought offered a strange comfort.

***

Velmira slipped away from the camp once everyone had settled into sleep, their breathing slow and even around the dying fire. The guards at the perimeter were alert but focused outward, watching for threats from the darkness beyond the wagons.

They didn't notice her leave. Vampiric stealth made her a ghost in the shadows.

She needed to feed. The constant drain from the Moonveil Cloak, combined with the energy she'd expended forcing down food, had left the hunger sharp and insistent.

Better to deal with it now, in privacy, than risk losing control around the merchants.

The forest was alive with small movements and sounds.

Velmira's enhanced senses picked out each creature: rabbits in their burrows, owls hunting from the trees, a fox stalking through the underbrush.

She found the fox first.

It never knew she was there. One moment it was nosing at the base of a tree, the next Velmira's hand was already closed around its neck.

The creature tried to struggle, but her grip was absolute. She bit quickly, efficiently, draining enough blood to ease the hunger without completely emptying the animal.

When she finished, the fox was dead.

Velmira laid it gently on the forest floor, looking down at the small body. The rust-colored fur is already cooling. It had been alive moments ago, pursuing its own survival, and now it was gone because she needed to feed.

The horror should have been sharper. Should have cut deeper.

Instead, she felt... tired. Resigned. This was the second time she'd killed to feed, and already the act was becoming routine.

But it’s necessary.

Hmmm… Is this how it starts? The slow erosion of empathy; one small death at a time?

She buried the fox using [Earth Cradle], covering the evidence. Then she stood in the darkness, listening to the forest's indifferent continuation around her.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to the covered earth. But the apology felt hollow and performative. She'd do it again tomorrow night. And the night after. And for all the centuries to come.

Adaptation or corruption?

Velmira didn't know anymore.