“PERVERT!!!”

The girl’s screams resonated within Roan’s ears while he was wandering down the farmlands of Ebony Village. For a person who had been starving, her vocal cords were oddly powerful.

Tapping his ear, the Magic God grumbled: “Do they even teach manners in the countryside? I saved her life! She couldn’t even look me in the eye!”

Roan thought back to the scene just a few minutes prior. After waking up, the young girl had mistakenly identified him as a pervert and screamed out at the top of her lungs. Shivering while holding up a small butter knife, the girl curled up in the corner like a scared kitten. All while Roan held onto her second pair of panties.

It really was a misunderstanding, but in her fight or flight state, it was hard for the girl to listen to reason. In the end, Roan decided to leave and let the girl cool down before returning.

“What an ungrateful brat! I’d even spent Serenity’s essence on you! Do you know how many patients would have killed for just one drop of essence!” Roan spat. Now in a worse mood, the Magic God considered leaving Ebony Village altogether.

“But her magic source sure was pretty…”

Roan’s shoulders dropped slightly as he turned back to face the stone hut. He was about two hundred metres away, and the run-down home was nowhere to be seen. However, Roan’s ‘eyes’ were still able to pick up on the young girl’s magic source.

“She really would be an excellent first disciple…” Roan knew nothing about her personality, but her innate magic source alone was enough to entice the Magic God.

“But why was that girl forced to stay in that shithole? I don’t get it...”

Roan turned his attention away from the young girl’s behaviour and started contemplating about her circumstances. The girl was still recovering from her shock, and she had the worst possible first impression of him. Even if Roan asked her straight, the girl wouldn’t answer his question.

“She didn’t look like a felon to me… I wonder what happened to her?”

The more the Magic God thought about it, the more questions he had. Fortunately for him, Roan was just about to receive a chance to answer all of his doubts.

Roan’s ears twitched suddenly as his superhuman senses picked up on a distinct melodious whistle. In the distance, a young teenager was holding a sickle harvesting his crops. Sweat was dripping down from his face as he manually cut down the common wheat of the farm. It was a simple scene of a dutiful farmer harvesting his precious crops.

But Roan saw so much more.

“Old McDonald had a farm~ Ee-i-ee-i-o~ And on that farm, he had some chicks~ Ee-i-ee-i-o~.”

“Howdy, kid! Growing some weed?”

“Woah! Who the hell are you?!”

“Just a passing magician, not that you’ll remember me.”

“The hell you smoking?”

“Nothing important. Go to sleep for a few minutes, please.”

Roan tapped the teenager between the brows playfully. It was a simple movement, one that wouldn’t topple a toddler. But that touch was all that it took for the farmer to fall down to his knees. His eyes rolled back, showing only whites and his body had lost all control. It was as if someone had cut the line to his soul, allowing it to roam free in the farmlands.

However, just ten seconds after he collapsed, the farmer robotically opened his eyes. He got to his feet and stood in attention. There was no life in his eyes, and neither was his will returned to him. At that very moment, the farmer had turned into Roan’s puppet.

“Answer my questions.”

“Yes...”

“Are you a farmer?”

“Yes...”

“What’s your name?”

“Bob...”

“What’s the name of your village?”

“Ebony Village...”

The corners of Roan’s lips curled upwards. If Kassadin had seen this face, he would unconsciously take two steps back, hoping to find a way to escape. It was in times like this where the Magic God turned into a new entity entirely. With that smile on his face, Roan was no longer the Magic God, but the God of Mischief.

“The hypnosis spell worked better than I’d expected. These country bumpkins really didn’t learn any form of magic, huh? Well, all the better.”

Roan was pleased with the farmer’s lack of magic resistance. It would have been a bother if the farmer was resistant to Roan’s hypnosis spells after all. Rubbing his hands, the Magic God finally got to the main reason why he’d stopped the poor farmer.

“Talk. Tell me everything you know about the girl in the stone hut.”

❖❖❖

Yachi sat alone in her broken hut, dazed and confused. A few hours ago, her stomach was rumbling, and her body was shaking. Yachi’s body was already weak in the first place, and she had to endure four days without any food.

Yachi cried, but there was no one there to hear her. She scavenged for any morsel of food, but there wasn’t even a gram remaining. She attempted to steal from the farms, but guard hounds would bark and chase her back into her wretched home.

There were no other options left for the poor young girl. She knew that her time was up.

Yachi’s parents no longer cared for her. The friends that she used to play with now called her Demon to her face. The kind Village Chief that helped everyone in the village was now condemning her to death. There was just… nothing left for the poor girl.

The young teenager laid down on her broken bed, all alone and hungry. The thick, pungent scent of dung and musk permeated her sensory organs. It was so putrid that her eyes were frequently watering. So, Yachi closed her eyes. She’d thought that at least in her dreams, she would be able to escape this harsh reality that was called life.

Alas, how could it be that simple?

With her eyes closed and her consciousness waning, Yachi could feel her entire body like never before. She could feel her body eating itself from the inside out. She could feel herself getting weaker by the second. And finally… Yachi could feel her mind breaking.

All of the memories from her past resurfaced. Yachi remembered her parents, the two people in the world that she had trusted the most. The distinct memories of them playing with her in the barn. She remembered the day where her father taught her how to jump in the mud, only to be scolded by her mother when they returned. Yachi remembered the days where she would spend in the kitchen, learning how to cook and knit from her mother. She remembered the days where she would learn to read and write from the village’s teachers and the number of gold stars she earned. Yachi’s mother was so proud when she saw those stickers and paraded her around the house.

They were all fun memories...

Yachi had thought that even if the whole world had turned against her, at least her parents would stand by her side. She had that confidence.

But it was all shattered on that fateful day…

“Demon! You’re a demon!”

“Go away, cursed child! How dare you destroy our village?!”

Voices of anger were spewed in her direction ever since then. Yachi was just twelve-years-old then. Words hurt, and Yachi was just a young girl who held no mental defence. She looked for her parents for help, crying with everything that she had.

With her father and mother in her arms, Yachi felt invincible. Her parents would shield her from any harm, Yachi believed. Yet…

“Cursed child… I can’t believe that you’re a cursed child, Yachi!” Her mother yelled with tears in her eyes.

“Fuck off! How dare you touch my wife, you cursed child!” Yachi’s father pushed the girl off with everything that he had.

That day, when Yachi’s powers awakened… The entire village turned on her. Even her parents, the two people that were meant to protect her with everything that they had, threw her away.

It was a painful memory. One that Yachi always hoped that it was a dream, and one day, she would wake up, and her life would return to normal. Yachi always had that hope. One day, she would open up her eyes, and her old life would be back. One day turned into a month. That month became a year. And finally, three years down the line…

Yachi knew that there was no hope.

The reality that Yachi prayed for would never return. She was the cursed child of the village, and her existence alone was the cause of her pain.

Thus, Yachi closed her eyes and prayed for a new dream.

Yachi prayed… that she would never awaken ever again.

“So why am I alive?”

Yachi looked down at her body and raised both her arms up. She knew how weak her body really was. Or at least… how vulnerable it should have been.

After awakening from the dream that she’d thought would be her last, Yachi felt as if she’d reincarnated into a new body. Her aching hunger was gone, and the constant cold that ran through her veins had been replaced with a vigorous life force that she’d never felt in years.

“Was it the work of that pervert?” Yachi wondered.

That was the second thing that made the young girl confused. When she woke up, Yachi wasn’t alone. There was a thirty-year-old man that she couldn’t recognise right next to her. The villagers treated her as a plague and rarely spent more than five minutes with her, so it couldn’t have been one of them. Furthermore, Yachi had lived in the village all her life, and she’d never seen a man quite like that pervert.

“Did he really save me?”

Yachi thought back at the man who held her panties with great intrigue. That man didn’t look like a doctor, and neither did she see any kind of food with him. Thus, there was no possible way that he could have treated her weakened body.

“No, there was that weird staff… Was that man a magician?”

Unlike most of the other village kids, Yachi loved to read. Before her incident, Yachi was one of the most knowledgeable kids in the village and had read more than half of the library’s books. She knew about the existence of magicians and loved to read new stories about them. Unfortunately, there weren’t many books in the village, so Yachi’s knowledge of them was quite limited.

“Why would that magician save me? He said that he wanted to claim me for himself… Wait, does that mean I would become his human experiment?! Did he save me just to experiment on me?!”

Yachi continued to form misunderstandings in her mind. Fortunately, Roan wasn’t here to listen to her ramblings, else he might have just hypnotised her to erase her memory clean.

“Still, that man saved my life, right? No, but he’s a pervert! He held my underwear as if he’d just found the holy grail! I’m sure that he’s up to no good! Just like the rest of the villagers!”

Once bitten, twice shy. Yachi no longer had faith in anyone after her parents betrayed her. So what if that man had saved her life? He definitely had an ulterior motive!

“Girl… Have you calmed down?”

Just as Yachi was about to steel her resolve to never see that pervert again, a familiar voice entered into the decrepit stone chambers. Roan walked into Yachi’s home, only to see the young girl still seated in the same place that he’d left her.

The teenaged girl dropped her jaw, and her eyes were plastered all over Roan’s body. In her initial state of shock, Yachi didn’t completely observe Roan and instantly labelled him as a pervert.

Now that she was calmer, Yachi was able to clearly examine Roan. His face was average but kind. It gave a calming and charming effect to those who saw it. But more importantly, the man before Yachi didn’t possess the same expression of fear or lust that Yachi was accustomed to. Instead, there was something there that Yachi hadn’t seen in a long time…

“Y-You… why did you save me?”

“So you did notice,” Roan smiled gently. “I’d thought that you would be one of those kinds who bites the hand that feeds you. Looks like I was wrong.”

“A-Answer me! What do you want from me?! Is it my body? You want to use my body, don’t you?!”

“... You haven’t recovered yet. You’re still afraid of me.”

Roan sighed. As much as he wanted a disciple of his own, Roan wasn’t one to force his will onto others. If Yachi were to fall under his tutelage, Roan wanted it to be from her own desires.

The Magic God snapped his fingers, summoning a small portal into another dimension. The sudden act of magic greatly stunned the young girl, but Roan didn’t bother with her shock. Reaching into the portal, Roan pulled out a bowl of chicken porridge and placed it right before the frozen girl.

“Eat,” Roan advised with the gentlest expression he could muster.

“Although your body has been healed, your mental state isn’t on the same level. We can have this conversation later when you’re sane. Oh, but before that.”

Roan waved his hand, and beautiful green particles filled the broken-down home like fireflies in summer. Yachi was once again taken aback by the move and was ready to bolt out of the stone hut if need be. However, what happened next stunned her speechless.

Pieces of stone grew back out, patching up the broken roof above her head. The walls which were worn down and mouldy turned back into their pristine shape. Dirt and sand on the floor were instantly cleared, and the pungent stench which plagued Yachi’s nose was no longer around.

A soft, silken bed appeared at the corner with comfy pillows and a warm blanket for the young girl. If that wasn’t enough, Roan added in individual lamps and heaters that were created using magic stones. There was even a toilet inside the house! Something that was luxurious for the rural folk of Ebony Village.

With just a wave of his hand… Roan had turned the decrepit shed, into one worth living in.

“Better! I’m astonished that you were able to live in this shithole.”

The Magic God knew that Yachi wasn’t in the mood to listen to his story. Roan had to earn her trust first, and that wouldn’t happen overnight. Thus, he offered to help the girl gain some semblance of sanity by feeding her delicious food and repairing the place that she lived in.

“Now then, rest. I’ll be back soon.”

And just like that, Roan parted with Yachi for the second time, though this time, it wasn’t on a sour note. In fact, the weight on Yachi’s heart was lifted, and her mind somewhat calmed down a little.

Everything was so surreal. From her near-death experience to the high-level magic that Yachi hadn’t even read about! In the end, all the young girl could do was breathe a sigh of relief.

“As I’d thought… he really is a magician.”