Starting with the sentries on the frontier

Chapter 25 "This is not your fault"

Upon returning to town, Zag did not immediately go to find Rosa. Instead, he went to the tavern and chatted with Felix for a while, confirming that the alchemist who had appeared in front of Zag that afternoon had indeed run away.

"He insisted on leaving town this afternoon, saying he was going to East Harbor. By the way, East Harbor is at least a day's walk from here. Won't he have to spend the night on the road? I tried to dissuade him, but it was no use. He just hired that sea stone warrior as a bodyguard and set off!"

Felix was unaware of Zag's suspicions about the alchemist and assumed the two were acquainted, so he enthusiastically recounted many of Peter's experiences at the tavern.

"He never drinks, saying that drinking will interfere with important matters. Who knows? Maybe everyone who comes out of the Dawn Mage Tower has 'important matters' to do to save the Dawn Continent! Anyway, whenever he has free time, he hides in his room fiddling with his bottles and jars. He even spent money to hire two people to experiment with his potions. One is the drunkard who always comes to my place on credit, that's Lanmir, and the other is Rosa's father. I heard that he did this to ask you to post a request to find Rosa... Thank goodness, little Rosa is alright."

"Anyway, this guy is really strange. I even saw Mr. Matthew bring a whole bunch of glass bottles to him!"

Zag quickly gleaned a key point from Felix's rambling: "Ranmir? Where is he now?"

Felix thought for a moment and replied, "He should be in that dilapidated cabin outside town, right? But I didn't see him come drinking yesterday; I thought he'd changed his ways!"

"Thanks!"

After casually thanking him, Zag turned and left the tavern, heading with Snowball to the "broken cabin" that Felix had mentioned.

He knew that place; it was on the riverbank not far from the wooden bridge at the town entrance. It was indeed very dilapidated. A family of commoners who made a living by fishing used to live there. Later, the family's son went to Dongchui Port to become a guard and took his parents away. The dilapidated wooden house was then left unused and occupied by Milan, a notorious lazybones in town.

Before even getting close to the dilapidated cabin, just from a distance, Snowball's expression changed: "It definitely smells like a werewolf."

Zag gritted his teeth: "Now we can be 100% certain that these two civilians who were forced to become werewolves are connected to that alchemist named Peter."

"Are you alright? Didn't you also drink his alchemical potion? That one called 'Blessing of the Sea God'?"

As Snowball spoke, it leaned close to Zag's neck and sniffed hard, but seemed to have no idea what it was.

"I don't know, I hope I don't turn into a werewolf."

Zag wasn't in the mood to talk about this right now; instead, he was on high alert, ready to use Fireball at any moment, as he slowly approached the cabin.

"Nobody's here."

When they arrived at the door of the cabin, Snowball spoke first.

But Zag still knocked on the door, waited a while, and after confirming there was no response, he forcibly broke the door open—he didn't have a key!

The house was a complete mess.

Empty bottles were scattered everywhere, and a nauseating sour smell filled the air. The tables and chairs were covered with scratches from wolf claws, and pots and pans were scattered about. Only Lanmir himself was nowhere to be seen.

Zag took a deep breath: "This matter must be reported to the association and the lord. This is no longer a simple anomaly; it was premeditated!"

Snowball offered, "If you need, I can try to track him down, because he hasn't been gone too long and he's very weak... Maybe it's because he just transformed into a werewolf, but I can smell that he's extremely weak, which means you could burn him to death with just one fireball!"

"Walk!"

Upon hearing this word, Snowball shot out like a small cannonball and led the way.

But they didn't go very far before they found Ranmir.

It was a werewolf much smaller than a normal werewolf, wrapped in tattered strips of cloth, covered in blood and scratches that looked like wounds it had inflicted itself.

But it did not die from blood loss; it drowned.

It lay quietly in the jungle upstream of Fairy River, face down, lying in the water, with two empty wine bottles scattered around it.

One of the bottles contained a note. Zag carefully pulled it out; it contained only one sentence and a signature:

"Isabella, we will eventually reunite in the peace of our souls."

"Your loving Ranmir."

Zag didn't know who Isabella was, nor did he expect that Ranmir could not only read but also write, and even write quite beautifully. He simply carefully put the note away, tucked it close to his chest, and then hoisted Ranmir onto his shoulders—

Thanks to his fairly muscular physique, carrying a werewolf the size of a Black Hound wasn't too difficult.

He carried Lanmir, who had turned into a werewolf, toward the town. Although it was getting dark, it wasn't completely dark yet, but there was no one on the streets.

In an era of limited entertainment, people tend to go home early to rest, unless someone prefers to party all night in a pub.

This is somewhat advantageous to Zag, at least it prevents panic among the townspeople.

Snowball silently followed Zag and asked, "Zag, what are you doing?"

Zag opened his mouth as if to say something, but then closed it again.

After a long pause, just when Snowball thought Zag wouldn't answer the question, he finally heard his "answer": "Until the people of the Association see evidence, it's hard for me to convince them of such an absurd thing, but this matter must be reported. I don't know Peter's plan, but I have to stop him, at least let the Association and the Lord know how dangerous this is—"

"Think about it, turning someone into a corrupted magical creature with a potion, a justifiable murder, or something worse..."

"And those potions are now on sale in Mrs. Weyland's Aromatic Apothecary, for a mere 1 shilling. How many people will buy them? How many will drink them? And how many... will turn into monsters?"

"I don't know if I'll turn into a werewolf too, but at least before I completely become one, there's something I can do to warn everyone."

"You won't turn into a werewolf, at least I haven't seen any signs of transformation yet," Snowball reassured Zag, then asked, puzzled, "Why are you meddling in Modo's affairs?"

Zag replied, "I am a Modo now too."

"But this has nothing to do with you!"

"No, Snowball," Zag stopped and looked at Snowball intently, saying, "If I had agreed to the 120 shillings request that day, Rosa's father wouldn't have gone to the tavern to drink that damned alchemist's potion for a mere 80 shillings, and he wouldn't have turned into a werewolf, do you understand?"

"But you didn't know that the alchemist was problematic, and that's not your fault at all!"

"You're right, it wasn't my fault." Zag nodded, as if agreeing with Snowball's point of view, but he quickly took another step and added, "But I could have prevented the tragedy from happening."

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【Dawn Magic Encyclopedia】Osha Root is a common plant that contains magic and has the effects of healing diseases, increasing vitality, relieving pain and keeping warm. It is the most commonly used magical material in many healing alchemical potions.

In addition, due to its spicy and pungent taste, it is often used as a spice in the North.