After yet another heavy discussion, Pan headed inside to check on Ria. Sure enough, she still had trouble opening her eyes. When her father spoke, it seemed as if she could recognize the voice, but not the words.

This half baked hope seemed to be worse than her original condition for Pan. Tears were welling up when as he realized that now Ria would be lucid when the paladins and clerics arrived. Go me.

I assured him that there was still plenty of time left for me to try and resolve the matter. I'd do my best to come up with a solution until the end, neglecting to mention the personal deadline set for myself.

*Oi, oi, the difficulty of this is too high. I haven't learned anything about how magic or alchemy and such work in this world. And it would be terrible to just leave you here…* I rambled trying to find a solution in the dark, to this four dimensional puzzle never seen before, and my only hints were given in another language by people who also didn't know how to solve it.

Even the hyperbolic analogy turned literal towards the end.

*Maybe I should try looking at these horns.* The red skin alone might be dulled with paints, or explained away as a rash. It may take longer to notice the horns, but the demonic look wouldn't be complete without them.

There were two on the side of Ria’s forehead, about between the eye and ear. The protrusions were only about as long as a pinky but had a wide base so they looked large. The shape was more like a shield volcano than a horn.

Putting a hand on it to feel it, Ria suddenly sprang up with a cross between a squeak and a cry.

“Eeep!”

*Cripes!* the wooden stump I used as a seat obviously didn't have a back, and as by retreating I ended up sprawled on the floor. I rubbed my head while looking up.

She’d drawn herself together and looked more alive than ever. Eyes like a tarsier, it was a learning experience that someone could open their eyes that far. Perfectly still at first, it took all of five seconds before her movements began to dull again.

By about 10, her eyes were half lidded and it took not a quarter of a minute for her to fall back into her semi-dream state.

I thought that maybe it was because I touched the horn that she leaped up, but it happened so quickly I couldn’t tell for sure. Stressing her out by trying again immediately was also a no-go. Instead, I rearranged her under the covers, after a quick to get rid of the accumulating dust.

Deciding to wait an hour before trying again, I went off to go fishing and practice magic. The fish I first caught upon my arrival in the village was still cold and looked fine. Inventory looked like it would be able to preserve food, unless it was secretly doing something wonky, like maintaining the food in a vacuum where heat couldn’t radiate away, or forming an arbitrary expiration counter on the food.

I judged these situation possible, but unlikely. So in the meantime I was slowly accumulating fish. It was good practice for using as well, my radius of effectively hitting a small moving target expanded out to at least five meters, but past that I couldn’t actually see the fish in the stream.

Catching between two and seven fish each day, so by that time I had caught around 20 pounds of unprocessed fish. Fish doesn’t really have a lot of meat on it, but luckily I’d watched enough cooking anime to know a lot of the other bits could be used to make soup stock.

It would first need to have a test taste done by some peasant though. I have an iron stomach, but I didn’t really want to risk it.

When thinking about my food resources while fishing, I realized I could probably ask one of the womenfolk how to cook in this primitive era. That would be better than vaguely recalling the cooking process of a TV show mixed with wikipedia articles.

I dedicated the afternoon to Soma and Mao. May the cods be ever in my favor.

Ignoring that stretch of a reference; most of the women in the village were either fishing or processing the fish. There were a few eels among them, but only about three or four feet long, none like the behemoth that Pan had brought out that first day. It looked like the primary method of preservation was putting them in brine or salting them.

Where were they getting all this salt? Is salt actually a common commodity in this world? If that was so, why has my fish tasted so bland? We weren’t even anywhere near an ocean, well I didn’t know that, but I was already complaining, so why not continue.

“Where does all this salt come from?” I asked of a woman currently skimming stuff off the top of the brine water.

“You’re the young magician aren’t you? Looking for salt to break the curse? People like you shouldn't mess with the plan of heaven.”

Say what now? The woman was young, in her early to mid twenties and had long black hair; if not for being raised in a dirt poor village, she might have been quite the looker. But the words she spouted were something I expected from a malicious crone.

I noted that I should survey the village to see how many actually thought positively of me caring for Ria. Come fall, they might be more that willing to sell her out, which might implicate me as well.

“No, I’ve caught some fish. I wanted to preserve them for my journey.” Luckily the truth cut down the burgeoning criticisms she was about to voice. My answer also seemed to give her pause for several moments.

“You want to salt fish?” She asked. For some reason it surprised her. I wondered if the wizards of this world were actually more like wuxia cultivators, who quickly ended up transcending the need to eat. That didn’t make much sense considering Pan offered me a giant eel as payment, but maybe this woman just didn’t think things through.

“Yes. I require salt to preserve fish. Where do you get it from, or do you purchase it from merchants?”

“It is purchased from travellers, but we have a great deal stored up.”

“Isn't it valuable? Why do you have so much?”

“The previous head of the village thought it was wise to get a lot, since it would let us keep food longer. But he bought too much and we had to give seeds and farming equipment to pay them.”

What.

I really wished the new world would make a bit a more sense. The village was in poverty because they bought a bunch of salt? I hadn't even done anything exciting and already I began to resign myself to a life of absurdity.

Clearing my mind, I tried to settle down. I could get through it, persevere, persevere.

“Well, then might I be able to trade for some salt with the breams I’ve caught? Or just trade them for already preserved products?”

“Ralph’s had a good couple weeks. He’s not lacking for food, and some of his catch is probably preserved by now.”

“And he would be?”

“The one with a ■■ finger on his left hand, got a fishhook caught in it once. He’s about my height and got dirty looking hair.”

“Thanks.” I sound as gracious as possible before heading to find this Ralph character. Someone through conversation it ended up being I would just be trading for preserved food. Well the result was basically the same, and I hadn't actually planned on becoming a cooking master boy.

Ralph had been eel-wrangling when I found him. At first, it had just been the eye-catching spectacle of a man wrestling with a fish, but after a while of observing I noticed the mangled pointer finger on his left hand. The eel was about five feet long and thrashing, the fact it didn’t knock him over was a surprise, as he was very thin.

Subduing it by hitting it against a rock, I met with him as he climbed out of the bank towards where they kept the barrels of brine.

To be precise, I stood awkwardly for a few seconds. Tale of the Fantasy Fishmonger, once there was a guy who went to another world and learned magic. He saw some elves and raised an undead minion. He then went on to live a happy life fishing in a river.

“Can I help ya?”

“Er, right, I’m looking for some preserved fish. I’ve caught a bunch of breams to trade for it?” My level of self-distraction was, and still is, pretty high. The conversation lured me out of my daze.

“They aren’t things ya’ve been ■■■■■ on are they?”

“Just regular fish.”

“That’s good. Don’t want ta end up like Ria. Don’t really get why Pan’s having ya treat her, but I suppose he doesn’t want her last days ta be ta miserable.”

“Why do you think it’s no good?”

“Heard a story from my grandpappy once about something like this. Kna a fellow that also turned all red. Didn’t die but the priests chased him down.”

“So you don’t think it’s some demonic curse?”

“No, those’d probably be more painful. And the clerics here aren’t good enough to handle any demonwork. Grandpappy said that real demons could burn down a stone mountain.” Ralph was nodding to his own story. Well, I was glad to have some background information on demons in this world. Note to self, stay far away from demons.

“How did your grandpappy know all of that?”

“He travelled like ya were probably daing before ya got here. Got his left hand smashed fighting a Behelek, and decided to retire.”

“I...see.” Who knew what a Behelek was, but staying away from those and demons was a good idea for the time being. I also kind of like Ralph, he was pretty down to earth. The only comparisons I really had were Pan, Irritating Child, Creepy Child, Ill-and-Unconscious Girl and Young Crone, so maybe I was just having trouble meeting normal people. I diverted the topic back to the matter of fish.

“So, I’ve got about 20 of these…” I pulled out a bream from Inventory and Ralph almost dropped his eel.

“How’d ya da that?”

“It’s my *Inventory*. A magic box, I guess?” Man, can’t we just get on with it? I know you had to have seen at least some of the s I’d sprinkled around town.

“How much can it carry?”

“One hundred things.”

“It doesn’t get heavy?”

“No.”

“Can ya carry this eel ta my house for me? I’ll give ya a pickled eel.”

Fine, whatever. At that point, I was longing to pound X to skip dialogue. Tossing the eel into my Inventory, Ralph happily lead me to his cottage and we worked out a deal.

I got 14 dried fish and one pickled eel for 20 of my bream. I kept six in storage, just in case. I didn’t really know if I wanted to eat a pickled eel, but it was a freebie, so I wouldn’t say no. In the worst case scenario, it’ll serve as a distraction. I’m not sure how many people will be able to remain undistracted at the sudden appearance of a pickled eel.

All went well, and I told Ralph I would trade with him in case I caught more breams. His enthusiasm was so great I figured he either played me for a sucker, or he was really in awe of my magic.

It was probably the latter, because by the next day everyone knew of my magic Inventory and I somehow became the village porter.