Chapter 17: Tansang Town

As soon as Hetty finished speaking, nearly everyone present instinctively swallowed hard.

Everyone except Betty—the little girl simply didn’t understand a word.

Rebecca couldn’t help but think of those monsters that had devastated her family’s lands—creatures born from the magical tide. Before this, she had assumed those monsters had wandered in from the ruins of Gondor, breaching the Grant Wall and invading Ansu’s territory. After all, the Cecil domain lay on Ansu’s southern border, close to the Gondor wastelands. If a sentinel tower had malfunctioned, causing a breach in the Grant Wall, it was plausible some monsters slipped through.

But now, Rebecca’s mind drifted to a darker possibility—what if those monsters weren’t from the Gondor wastelands at all, but had naturally arisen within the Cecil domain?

What if those monsters… signaled the arrival of a new magical tide?

“Isn’t this a bit too much?” Amber was the first to break the silence. The half-elf lady forced a smile and pointed at the notebook in Hetty’s hand. “It’s just a diary left by a wild mage, and the contents are vague at best. Are we really jumping straight to the conclusion that it’s about a magical tide?”

Gawain didn’t argue. Instead, he nodded. “Yeah, maybe I’m just being overly paranoid.”

After all, his analysis was based on inherited memories and wild speculation. Reciting the major historical events from seven centuries ago in the first person was thrilling, but afterward, even he felt it sounded a bit sensational.

“Exactly,” Amber relaxed when Gawain nodded. “You’ve been dead for seven hundred years, and your mind’s still stuck back then—I know you went through the magical tide, so maybe it left some psychological scars… Ah!”

Rebecca smacked Amber on the head with her staff, glaring. “Don’t be disrespectful to our ancestor!”

Gawain gave Rebecca’s staff a strange look, thinking to himself: Didn’t this little girl just a moment ago use her “Rest in Peace Staff” to beat the ancestor without a hint of respect?

“Regardless of how credible all this is, once we reach Saint Sunil, we must report everything to His Majesty the King,” Hetty said, handing the notebook back to Gawain. “How much the King believes… that’s beyond our control.”

Gawain silently pocketed the notebook, pushing the swirling thoughts deep inside.

He then looked up at the sky, where a massive “sun” hung high overhead.

The clearing in the forest had no canopy to block the view; the sky was wide open. The colossal, oppressive crown of light brought warmth, illumination, and magical power to this world.

Perhaps it was this last element that made the natural laws here so different from Earth’s.

Gawain’s gaze traced the sun’s surface, where faint storm patterns swirled across the gaseous giant. He searched for those ominous dark red markings but found nothing—perhaps they were just fleeting illusions, now vanished.

Still, the urgency in his heart remained. He merely suppressed it for now, quietly planning his next steps.

First, establish a foothold in this world. Even if it was just a fallen noble family, having a starting point was better than being stranded in some forsaken wilderness.

After passing through the dense forest, the journey became much smoother. Maybe the “law of karma” really did exist—no more monster attacks or strange natural phenomena plagued them. They reached the main road and even encountered a small merchant caravan along the way. After paying a hefty price, Gawain and his group finally escaped the hardship of trekking over mountains on foot and rode comfortably in the caravan’s wagons toward Tansang Town.

The caravan leader was a plump northerner, a trader dealing in local specialties and herbs along the southern border. He had originally planned to make a final deal in the Cecil domain but turned back halfway upon hearing of the terrible disaster there. At first, he was wary of Gawain and his battle-hardened companions, but Hetty persuaded him with two gold coins, even convincing him to give up his own wagon for their use.

Gold truly is the most eloquent negotiator (no doubt about it).

On the seventh day after leaving the Cecil domain, the gates of Tansang Town finally appeared before them.

This was Gawain’s first close encounter with a human settlement in this world. Of course, when he first left Cecil, he had climbed a hill to glance at his nominal estate, but by then the entire Cecil region had been reduced to ruins by rampaging elemental forces and a mysterious blue dragon that had turned everything into an abstract painting with a blast of salty breath. There was no way to get a sense of local life from that.

But Tansang Town… honestly, it left him feeling disappointed.

According to Rebecca, the town was large. Situated on fertile plains near a river, it was one of the most populous towns in the south, home to nearly ten thousand people on a triangular stretch of flat land. The Whitewater River flowed from the west, splitting into two branches around the town’s north and south sides. It irrigated vast farmlands nearby and served as the town’s transportation lifeline. To the east lay a mine, the town’s most important economic resource.

Yet despite fertile fields, a mine, and a navigable river—a place that should be a land of plenty—what Gawain saw after entering the town were mostly pale, emaciated commoners, countless low, dilapidated wooden houses, and filthy, foul-smelling streets.

Because civilization here hadn’t advanced enough for humans to dominate nature or imprison all monsters and beasts, and with frequent border conflicts, the town was surrounded by low walls for protection. The impoverished districts were crammed inside these walls like moss and sores, layer upon layer. The shabby houses offered little more than shelter from wind and rain, and the wide main road from the gate to the town center was no better off.

Sitting in the caravan wagon, Gawain watched the street scene outside. He saw poor townsfolk in short shirts walking along the sides of the road. Only a few wore shoes; most had their feet wrapped in tattered cloth, and some were so destitute they couldn’t even afford that. Those walking in the center of the road were noticeably better dressed and all wore shoes.

They didn’t interact or clash—they simply walked their own paths, as if separated by an invisible barrier.

Though living in the same town, on the same street, they seemed like people from two entirely different worlds.

Gawain searched his memories of Cecil but found little to compare. Gawain Cecil had been born in the glorious Gondor Empire, raised in wealth and privilege—there was no such scene back then. When the magical tide struck, Cecil had led his people on a bloody escape northward, sharing hardship equally with no class distinctions. Later, when Ansu was founded, pioneers built the kingdom from scratch on a barren land; even the founding dukes and kings had once laid down their swords to till the fields. Where had this division come from?

And then… Gawain Cecil had died young on the southern border at thirty-five, never living to see the day his kingdom would fracture into rich and poor.

So he could only ask his “descendants” about the rules of this place.

“The people walking along the sides are serfs and mine slaves,” Hetty explained. “There are also poor free folk from the outskirts who aren’t allowed on the main road because they can’t afford to donate during the temple’s construction. Those in the center are respectable ‘citizens,’ merchants, or mercenaries from outside who pay various taxes and thus have the right to walk in the middle.”

Gawain recalled the coins the plump merchant had slipped to the gate guards—those must have been the entry taxes.

Then he thought of the soldier buried in the forest—the son of a serf.

He had been allowed to take up arms and die for the lord only because Rebecca had shown mercy. Yet even in death, he wasn’t granted a warrior’s burial—because he hadn’t redeemed himself, not even his sword was fully paid off.

“Ancestor, is something wrong?” Hetty asked, noticing the flicker of unease on Gawain’s face.

He withdrew his gaze from the window and shook his head slightly. “No, nothing’s wrong.”

He was simply reacting instinctively as a time traveler, unsettled by these realities. But it wasn’t yet time for him to judge or “correct” them.

He still didn’t know enough about this world.

After a brief pause, he looked at Hetty. “What are your plans now?”

Hetty seemed ready. “First, we’ll seek out the local lord. Viscount Andrew is relatively approachable. Through him, we should be able to contact Sir Philip. If things go well with Sir Philip, we can find the group that broke through that day. Then, depending on the situation, we’ll decide whether to settle the locals here or head straight to the capital. The disaster in the Cecil domain isn’t something a couple of messengers can handle—we need Rebecca to personally meet the King and explain.”

Gawain had no objections—mainly because as an ancestor who had just crossed over and was seven centuries out of touch with modern times, he couldn’t think of any better advice. “Then let’s do just that.”

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(End of chapter)