EPISODE 2:

Foreboding Place

Liu and Aleph quietly walked inland. An hour or so later, they found themselves in the woods. It was a bright mid-morning, as the sunlight seeped through the foliage of leaves. Up until that moment, Liu still couldn't believe that he was now in another world, living another life.

He looked at his own hands. He still haven't had the chance to see what he looked like. Well, he was quite afraid of what he would see. In his previous life, he wasn't the most good-looking of guys. He was too plain for anyone to take seriously, so all the girls he tried to flirt with thought he was just joking.

It didn't bother him in the long run, though. It felt a little lonely, not having a girlfriend, but he got used to it soon. Well, in a way.

Liu was still looking at his hands when a thought struck him. Huh. If I was reincarnated, shouldn't I be in a baby's body? Or at least, a child? Why do I seem like a teenager?

Oh, well. He used to read a lot of transmigration stories when he was alive. Probably that's what happened. One way or another.

"Hey! Are you alright? Maybe you're still tired from all the sleeping you did." When Aleph said that, he was snapped back to reality.

"How could I be tired when, as you've said, I've been sleeping all weeks long?" he said. "I'm not tired. I just--remembered something."

"What is it? Do you need to pee? Or do you need to poop? We can stop for a while to find you a nice little pooping place, hidden from view."

"You know, sometimes just asking 'what' is enough," he said, sighing.

"Okay," Aleph said. But when Liu thought it was all over, Aleph spoke again. "What were you thinking? Are you thinking about your family?"

Liu closed his eyes and massaged his temples. Right. He never even thought about that. Not yet, at least until Aleph mentioned it. Although he hadn't seen his family since he sort of packed his bags a few years back, he suddenly wondered what would their reaction be once they learned about his death.

"No. But now, I am," he said. "Well, it's nothing. Surely they won't miss me since they've already disowned me years ago."

"'Disowned'?"

"Exiled me out of the house," he said. "Anyways, it was a long story. I have other relatives, but I don't think they still care for me since I haven't got in touch with them for years."

Still, that thought produced another thought on Liu's head. Now that his family doesn't know he's dead, whose going to prepare his burial? He couldn't help but feel sorry for his body. Not only was it probably badly broken due to the accident, but it will be taken care of by police.

That was quite a sad life, Liu remarked. Because of the suddenness of everything, thoughts were popping up in his head like crazy. Then again, his life on Earth was over. And there was nothing he could do, right?

He sighed and looked forward.

"Hey, Aleph still doesn't know your name yet. Do you have one?" it said.

Liu looked at her, with furrowed brows. "Are you really a homunculus? Won't I be accused of kidnapping for taking you with me?"

Aleph stomped her feet. "Hey! You're doing it again!"

"Doing what?" he said, in an even more confused tone.

"Whenever Aleph asks you a question, you would ask me another question! That's quite rude!" she said. Liu tried to remember what she asked him, but when he finally did, she continued to rant on anyway. "Plus, Aleph's totally, one-hundred percent a homunculus! But don't tell that to anyone, or else Aleph will really be in trouble!"

"And why would that be?" he asked.

"Well, as you might have known, homunculi are very rare. Only the most brilliant of alchemists succeed in creating one. And one's as smart and special as Aleph, is very, very rare. So, if someone knows Aleph's a homunculus, they might be tempted to sell Aleph!"

"Huh, if you really are smart, you shouldn't have told me you're a homunculus," Liu said, in a nonchalant way.

Aleph gasped, horrified. "You're not--you're not--!"

"Don't worry, I'm not planning to sell you. As you have said, only smart homunculi gets sold, so there'll be no sense in trying to sell you," he said smugly.

"Hey! Whatever do you mean by that?" Aleph said. "Are you saying Aleph is stupid?"

Instead of answering her question, Liu looked around. "Where are we, exactly? What's this place?"

Aleph followed suit, and to Liu's surprise, it seemed she actually forgot what they were bantering about.

"Aleph think we're in the forest of Easthope."

"Forest of Easthope?" he repeated.

"Yes. It's the biggest forest in this island, and it's near the sea and the Humming Hills over there," Aleph said, pointing to the northeast.

Liu slowly nodded. "Huh. You're very familiar with this place. Is there a town near?"

"No. According to Aleph's calculations, the nearest town I know should be in about five kilometers," she said.

"Five kilometers? Are you sure? And how did you know that?"

"Aleph's just good at making estimations. Aleph's just knows," she said. Even though Liu wasn't buying it yet, he just nodded.

However, as they were walking, Liu soon noticed a bunch of houses in sight. His brows furrowed.

"Is that a village?" he asked. But then he realized the number of houses seemed too few for it to be called that.

"Aleph didn't know there's a hamlet here," his companion muttered slowly. Oh, yeah that's right. Hamlet was the correct word for it. "Well, to be honest, Aleph's never been to this area because Aleph avoided people as much as possible."

"We should try checking it out," he said. "Maybe there are people there."

He walked faster towards the hamlet.

"Hey, wait!" Aleph called out and ran to catch up with him.

As they were approaching the village, Liu spotted a young girl bringing a basket of vegetables back to a house.

She was wearing a petticoat and dress. Liu was reminded that those types of clothes weren't used anymore in his previous world. He was quite impressed. He didn't expect the world he got into looked something from the medieval era.

The girl looked back at them, surprised, but she threw a stone at them and then ran away into the house. Luckily, both of them dodged that.

"She's mean!" Aleph declared. Then, a young boy, also peeked out of the door and looked at them. Liu smiled awkwardly at him, as if to say they weren't bad people. But the boy just slammed the door and got back inside the house. "He's also mean! Man, humans are mean.

Liu found the behavior weird. Sure, it was good for those kids not to entertain strangers, but to act like that? Not only were they rude, they looked wary and scared, too.

He shrugged it off.

They continued walking.

"Wow! Look at that!" Aleph suddenly exclaimed and ran off.

"Where are you going--" Before Liu could finish his sentence, he saw what Aleph saw. At the far end of the street, there were plenty of clothes and other objects lying around like plates, kettle, pots, spoons, forks, boxes and parchments. Rolls and rolls of textiles were also strewn around carelessly. Beside them, were bags and chests.

It seemed that whoever the owners of these are, they left in a hurry. And they dropped their baggage off.

Liu narrowed his eyes. Were they trying to run away? Or escape from something?

Besides this little detail of commotion that happened, the hamlet looked pretty normal, although very quiet. But if it's really in a medieval-like era, then that won't be surprising.

"Wow! Look at that! Lots of clothes!" Aleph sat on the ground and picked up a bunch of stuff. "And there are food, too!"

"Hey now, the owners must still be here somewhere," Liu said, but was himself doubting that. If they really ran away, then surely they aren't around nearby. Still, it's better to look out for anything. This might be a trap laid out by ne'er-do-wells in an attempt to rob them.

He looked around. A hundred meters away, he saw it: a broken carriage with loads of boxes and chests, similar to the one in front of them.

This means that these stuff might be merchant cargos, he thought to himself. He had years and years of experience reading webnovels, manga, and books that he already had a suspicion. Are there bandits here? If so, they may have tried to rob the merchant and the poor fellow scurried off in fear.

But wait a second, he thought again, if this was robbery, why did they left the loot behind?

Something's really off about this place, he said to himself.

"This is awesome! Aleph would like to wear this and this!" The homunculus tried on different clothes. "We can have these, right?"

Her voice sounded so pitiful. Liu looked at the clothes she was wearing. It was dirty and tattered in many places. It was clear enough that Aleph needed a new one.

And, well, these things seemed to have been abandoned, so it was theirs for the taking. Liu nodded at her as a go signal.

The homunculus beamed happily. "Thank you! And thank you, merciful Goddess of Lost-and-Found Objects!"

Clasping both hands, she looked up to the sky as if praying.

Liu looked up, too. "Goddess of Lost-and-Found Objects? That's a thing in this world? Really?"

"Yes!" Aleph replied. "The Goddess of Lost-And-Found Objects helped Aleph find food and everything while Aleph was camping out in the wilderness. Along with the God of Spare Change and the God of Mushrooms!"

Eh, Liu said to himself. So Aleph was just making those up? And he was stupid to nearly believe there's a pantheon that includes such a goddess.

He shrugged. Well, now that Aleph had said it, perhaps it wouldn't be so bad to take some of the useful objects lying around. Liu picked up a dark blue cloak, a few clothes that he assumed might fit him, and to his surprise, some canned goods.

Huh, he said to himself, observing the object. A canned good! And here I was thinking that this world is completely backwards! Well, the design looked old, like it was made before the world war. But does that mean there are quite technological advanced cities in this world?

After picking up a few more useful objects, Liu  put them inside a backpack he also found lying around. It was quite sturdy and probably unused, since it was from a merchant's cargo. Although it's a bit dirty, but with only a few washes and it could look new again.

He donned on the cloak to hide his clothes and then put on the backpack. On the side, Aleph was now wearing a very short frock coat, without taking off the original clothes--which looked like a simple lab gown. Liu just chuckled to himself.

"What are you laughing at?" Aleph pouted. "It looks good on Aleph, and you can't change Aleph's mind."

"Yeah, it looks good on you. Now we should get going. But, you should wear a cloak so others won't see your lab gown," he said, handing her a miniature sized cloak.

"What? Aleph's clothes? What's wrong with them?" she said, looking at herself.

"You said that you don't want others to find out you're a homunculus, right? You can still pass for a human child, so you should pretend as one," he explained. "Your old clothes are a bit suspicious."

He eyed her current clothes. It had foreign symbols on it.

"Good idea," she said and picked up the cloak. "But this thing's heavy."

"Just wear that for now," he said.

They started walking again, carrying their own loots inside their bags.

Liu spotted a long stick on the ground and picked it up. Without a weapon, they would be in danger if there really were bandits roaming around.

Better this than nothing, he said to himself.

"Do you have plans where we really are going? We've been walking for hours," Aleph said.

Liu stopped, a little embarrassed.

"Didn't I say we're going to a town? I would need a job for us to survive, right? I'll be looking for a job there," he said. "But now that I think about it, I-I'm not at all familiar with this world."

Aleph sighed. "You should've asked for Aleph's help! If there's anything Aleph is particularly good at, its finding places! Aleph can be your guide, while in exchange, you will feed Aleph, right?"

"Well, you never said so! Plus, we're bound to stumble upon a town one way or another, right?" he said.

"Silly otherworlder," Aleph said, which caught Liu off-guard. "This is a small island! There's only one town here and it's at the southernmost part. The town of Ignalia."

Without warning, Aleph changed direction southward. Then it beckoned him to follow.

Liu knitted his eyebrows. "Oy, you shouldn't also tell others that I'm from another world or they might make it a big deal. Plus, I have a name."

"Name? Aleph starts to think you haven't had any because you didn't answer when Aleph asked you," Aleph said, a little smugly.

"Liu," he said, looking far ahead. "My name's Liu Xin Tao. Or at least, that was the name I had in my previous life. I might change it now that I'm technically reborn."

"Eh, don't bother. Aleph likes it better that way. It's short, and easy to remember. Although it sounded so foreign," Aleph said. "Okay, from now on, Homunculus Aleph will be your guide and loyal partner-in-crime in Meddega, weird Master Liu."

They walked off to the direction of Ignalia, the only town in that island, according to Aleph.

Unbeknownst to them, shadowy figures were lurking behind the trees watching their every move. Then, the shadows followed their footsteps.