Reincarnated as a mana core

Around 10 am the group arrived near a village they had been headed towards and Argul slowed down when the quaint little settlement came into view.

There were around 200 buildings that all stood next to the same long road that snaked along the edge of a forest. It was probably right to assume only half of these buildings were residential, which, assuming an average household consisted of 3 to 5 members, meant around 300 to 500 people lived here. A lot of those people could be seen working in the fields surrounding the non forested side of the village.

The village as a whole somewhat reminded Argul of one of the historically more recently founded European villages that tended to be very long. Only the randomness of the buildings, one of which was a solid 8 stories tall, and the distinct lack of a church marred that image.

In her experiences the vast majority of villages in Europe had a church, however small it may be. The length to which people had been willing to go to build a church during the middle ages was quite frankly astounding and a practice that has continued to this day. 

Argul sometimes wondered what Europe would have looked like if people had handled defenses with the same enthusiasm. How many small village forts would there have been in a land comparatively riddled with castles?

Not that she thought the churches were a waste. Sure, there were aspects religion had developed over time that Argul absolutely abhorred, but she couldn’t deny that churches had also served as the heart of communities back then. They were what connected a lot of people with different close minded opinions and walls, in comparison, only divided instead of connecting.

Now and in the future however, she thought that defenses, especially walls, would become much more important. With mana around, nature would develop to be much more complex, dangerous and difficult to tame in the next few years and even if a region was successfully conquered, people would have to manage that carefully or a new species able to wreck their stability could evolve into existence right under their noses. The addition of monsters would only compound that issue, though hopefully the adventurer guild being built in Doombluff would help with that.

While Argul rambled on in her mind, she slowly made her way through half harvested fields, keeping to existing paths so as not to destroy any of the plants. As had been the case with the previous villages the group had visited, the adults of the village were much too busy to look up and a group of 7 children were the first to take notice of Argul and the camper.

She could vaguely hear their shouts of fear and let out a sigh as they started to run away from her. It was the same everywhere and though she couldn’t fault the people in these trying times, it still hurt a bit.

“Look! It’s a giant dog!” A boyish scream of excitement rang over the fields and Argul blinked confused. Looking up she realized that the kids were running towards her and not away, which was completely unexpected and maybe even a little stupid considering her size. Considering she was pulling what could be considered house around though, it wasn’t a stretch to assume she was friendly. Now that she really looked at them she also noticed that they seemed much healthier and happier than the children of the other villages, which probably only added more fuel to their curiosity for the world around them.

Argul decided to ignore her daughter’s snicker that came out of the wheat field somewhere to her left, the bending stalks being the only thing betraying her position, and then slowed down further as she watched a boy around 7 years old punch another a bit older boy playfully. “No you dolt, it’s a wolf!”

“Who even says dolt anymore?! Are you my grandma or something?!” The other boy shot back with a glare.

Before their bickering could continue however, a girl who looked to be around 13 threw her hands in the air in exasperation and interrupted them. “You are both wrong! Look at the snout and those ears, it’s obviously a fox.”

“It’s not!” The two boys shouted in unity, much to Argul’s amusement.

The kids continued to argue until they were only a few meters away from her and stopped running, staring up at her with wide eyes and heavy breaths. “Sooo, hah, so big!”

Argul had stopped walking a minute or so before them, waiting until they arrived and looked right back with a slightly tilted head. The kids were incredibly tiny to her and though she was somewhat used to it thanks to Mia, it still amazed her how different her perspective was.

Half a minute of silence later the smallest of the group, a boy around 4 years old, arrived and stumbled past the other children before he looked up at Argul. It took another moment for him to catch his breath and then, finally, he asked the most important question that had somehow been ignored by everyone else. “Are you a dinosawr?”

The pure innocence the boy radiated completely blindsided Argul and her heart may have melted just a bit. The world was a cruel place however and she was forced to do something she really didn’t want to right now or lie to the boy, which was a no go. “No.”

Everyone else's breath caught at her answer, but the boy just looked sad and disappointed, making Argul panic a bit. “W- wait! I’m magic though. That’s also cool right?”

No response from the boy, though some of the other kids nodded absentmindedly. What to do, what to do?

Ah, she still had her hidden trump card! “Want to ride on my back for a bit?”

“Yes!” The boy didn’t hesitate at all and scampered up to her, his previous sadness already forgotten. He stopped right in front of her, looking around and hesitating so Argul offered her right paw in an effort to lift the boy up. He looked at her limb for a moment and then climbed on top of it. Instead of waiting to be lifted though, he worked his way up the steep incline of Argul’s leg with surprising strength. Argul watched him go at it, fascinated how two thirds of his small body seemed to disappear underneath her fur. It was super adorable.

Once on top of her shoulder, the boy fell more than walked between her shoulder blades, disappearing completely beneath her furth. A moment later his head reappeared and he climbed on top of her head to sit between her ears, beaming with joy. “Let’s go!”

Argul let out a chuckle and started walking slowly, trying to ignore the other kids giving her big puppy eyes before she caved in a bit and allowed them on the small front porch of the camper. They were still disappointed, but quickly distracted by Alyra, who stalked her way out of the field of wheat.

Not long after Argul continued onwards, she was intercepted by a group of worried parents and, after seeing the children were alright, they invited themselves on the camper. At that point Arthur and Mia came out to check what the ruckus was all about and integrated themselves into the conversion, freeing Argul from her torture.

This village, much like everywhere else in the world, was home to a lot of random people. What differed though was that many of them had the luck to either arrive with one of their loved ones or already found them somewhere in the region. That and their willingness to help each other contributed much to their early success and happiness. It apparently also helped that they were in the far south west of Erdanien and the kingdom's presence was fairly small. They didn’t elaborate further, but Argul could guess it had something to do with taxes. Though it may also just be that the kingdom made the common people miserable, who knows?

The village had been prepared for the mana wace too and they helped each other flush out the remaining influence of their old universe, much like Argul had done in the beginning. Nobody was lost as a result, which further differentiated them from other settlements.

The months after the mana initiation had been hard, but not impossible to manage and they came out a lot better than others. The overall success of the village ultimately earned them the privilege of being the last stop of a trader, who’s route went all the way to the border of the Munzumira Republic. Argul could see them attracting frustrated people of nearby settlements and grow into a town in the future if they kept being successful. The only confusing thing was the name the village had been given, Halfwhich, but who was she to judge?

It took another 30 minutes to get close to the village center where the group had been allowed to park their camper. During this time people came and went, treating Argul like some medieval bus and some of them even took a peek inside, which annoyed her greatly. She didn’t think they were intentionally being rude though. From what she could observe in the village, they were incredibly open with each other as if they were one big family, but that didn’t mean Argul wanted to be part of that.

Once they finally came to a stop all the adults thankfully left, taking the children with them. Not without a fight of course, the biggest of which was unsurprisingly put up by the small boy.

Argul was helped out of her harness by Arthur and, not much later, the whole group gathered around a table, eagerly awaiting the results of Luna’s baking experiments.

Luna had made a simple sponge cake with a bit of cacao. Sadly she couldn’t use too much of that now exotic powder as she wanted to make a few other things with cacao and resupply wasn’t really possible without intercontinental trade.

The cake itself looked quite good and nothing suggested anything was wrong. It smelled really nice too.

Luna gave everyone a slice, more or less throwing it into Argul’s mouth in her case since she refused to change into her humanoid avatar all the time and then took one for herself.

Argul took her time tasting and savoring the treat. It was a little dry, which meant it had been just a bit too long in the oven, but aside from that it was well made. The sugary-vanilla flavor was something Argul hadn’t tasted in a long time and together with the small streak of cacao flavored cake was quite nostalgic.

The group took the next few minutes to properly enjoy the cake and compliment Luna. Sadly however, they were interrupted by a few people inquiring about the magical lights Arthur had to have talked about at some point before they could start playing any games and the guy was forced to deal with that since no one else wanted to.

They ultimately left the village in the early afternoon with some new tools and less light figurines and continued south. If they followed the trail left behind by the trader they might even meet them and perhaps gain some insights of the regional happenings from them. None of them wanted to make Alyra feel weird by asking things she shouldn’t be able to know as a more normal being.