Hearing the festive sounds from the vilge PUB made the old Lady, Lady Zhisata, smile in her rocking chair on the balcony of her 2nd-floor house. ‘It's good to enjoy life!’ she thought, and from her words, memories of the vilge’s beginnings fshed in her eyes.

  Lady Zhisata rocked gently on her chair. It was hard not to feel proud—Ahas, once a scrappy settlement clinging to survival through hunting and monster farming, had blossomed into a vibrant, self-reliant community.

  Her old eyes still remembered the Ahas of dust and desperation. The Pub down the hill—now full of clinking mugs and rowdy songs—had once been a crude distiltion shack. Back then, they didn’t drink to celebrate. They drank to survive.

  ‘The water out here was deadlier than the monsters,’ she mused, the memory tasting bitter on her tongue. ‘Alcohol was cleaner… safer.’

  She chuckled to herself. There was even a time she sipped something distilled from mosses scraped off boiled monster horns. It had scorched her throat, nearly knocked her ft, but it kept them alive.

  Even now, long after those lean years, the art of spirit-making in Ahas had never faded. Distilling methods had been honed, perfected, and passed down through generations. The pub’s current owner—descended from one of the first brewers—guarded those techniques like sacred rites.

  ‘He named his son Jeff, right? That alcohol crazed man.’ The thought made her chuckle. ‘Well, it’s all his fault the vilge ended up like this!’

  That was why every vilger, young and old, held not just respect, but a genuine love for alcohol—not merely as a drink, but as a living legacy.

  ‘Not that I can say anything about it!’ Beside Lady Zhisata’s rocking chair stood a table with a bottle of spirits and a gss.

  The Lady had created the vilge for a special purpose, and it had served her well. She was pleased that the vilgers allowed themselves to let loose now and then, especially considering how harsh life in the frontier was.

  “Me too!” she said with a smile, reaching for the bottle.

  But a sudden, sharp throb stabbed through her arm, making her flinch.

  Her sleeve rode up, revealing a patch of shimmering scales—smooth, cold, and unmistakably snake-like.

  She immediately gred, and the pain faded as she forcefully covered her hands with water magic. ‘The Spirit has been restless these days, maybe because of the attack from the knights!’ Her eyes drifted back inside her house. A shrine was inside there, a shrine that housed a very powerful artifact.

  The artifact that she had to guard, to live her life for, and for which she would need to sacrifice old warriors and vilgers of the settlement. She would offer them the best alcoholic drink in the vilge before revealing their reasons for sacrifice.

  Her throat felt dry as she swallowed her thoughts. Turning her gaze back to the night sky, she closed her eyes. ‘Edgar Valence, I’ve been keeping my part. What about your assassins?’ she wondered, grabbing the bottle and pouring herself a drink.

  She needed it.

  “Gulp,” then she reminisced about her younger days. ‘Edgar was a fine redhead man isn’t he?’ a tinge of red on her face as she remembered the legendary hero.

  The small gathering of alcoholics ended te in the evening. Sierra, who was true to her words, drank only two cups and left the PUB, which was filled with vilgers, warriors, and hunters sleeping on the wooden floor.

  ‘This vilge is too crazy for alcohol,’ Angelo thought as he watched Jeff carry his father. ‘But I have the information I need. This is a good vilge,’ he smiled to himself. He’d thought about doing something risky to gather more details, but the vilgers—every st one of them—were already loose-lipped because of the alcohol.

  “Angelo, I will be tucking in now. How about you?” Jeff asked, he was too polite, too nice, even when drunk.

  “I will be walking outside for a while, that was a good drink!” the veteran smiled, he touched his stomach and activated a magic ‘{Remedy}!’ he didn’t need to recite the words. Pain surged from his stomach, something he was familiar with. From his breath, the fog of alcohol came out with a burp.

  Angelo then waved at the father and son and went outside the PUB.

  Unlike the lively chatter inside the pub, the silence outside felt even louder as the st voices faded behind the door.

  The veteran smiled. It really was a peaceful vilge—one full of drunkards, sure—but peaceful all the same.

  'How peaceful can it really get out here on the frontier?' He wondered, reaching into his coat.

  He pulled out a worn leather pouch; it had not been in his hands since forever. He flipped it open and checked—still a bit of tobacco left.

  'Nice! Let’s have a smoke,' he thought, with a grin.

  He made his way into the main gate of the vilge, and the warriors there greeted him. Their faces were also flushed, but they were still able to maintain some level of attention required for them to be lookouts.“Angelo! It’s dangerous out there!” the warrior warned him.

  “It's okay, I will just sit here,” Angelo said, and he sat on one of the benches for the night duty guards.

  “So did you find anything about the friend you are looking for?” one of the warriors asked.

  “No, but I have enough information to go on,” Angelo smiled, and the warriors were satisfied with his answers, but they didn’t feel the malice hidden behind the veteran’s smile.

  Angelo then took out his smoking pipe, “Mind if I smoke?” the veteran asked the warriors, and they just said ‘Feel free,’ and ‘No problem.’

  The veteran tapped his pipe, blowing it to clear out anything inside, and then he took out some of his dried tobacco. He didn’t need the use of a fire starter. He pointed his fingers in the bowl of his smoking pipe. ‘{Ignition},’ and lit it up with a small magic.

  After the first sip, he felt his mind calming down. “Where is the direction of the Mosspeak?” he suddenly asked. One of the warriors pointed into the east.

  Although it was already deep in the dark, the night sky was clear. The two moons illuminated the y of the nd; it was enough for Angelo to see the mountain. That was where he would be heading.

  “Have you ever heard the term Banal?” another question from Angelo to the warriors.

  Of course, they haven’t; just the look on their face told Angelo all he needed to know.

  “They are creatures that were born to destroy; they are like monsters, but in the form of humans.” Angelo wasn’t sure why he was telling something confidential to the warriors of the vilge.

  “Do you hate demi-humans or something?” one of the warriors asked, almost making Angelo ugh.

  “No, not at all, I will be leaving tomorrow to meet my friend, have a good watch!” Angelo stood from his seat, tapping the shoulders of the warrior who asked him. ‘Time to sleep!’