Demacia.
A remote frontier town.
The bright moon hung high. The weather was mild, and the cicadas wouldn't stop chirping.
The scenery around here wasn't anything special—just grass and trees, an endless stretch of green that made the whole place feel soaked in summer.
By the fence outside a secluded little shack, Luke leaned with his back against the wood. He wore a rough linen shirt, sleeves missing, both arms bare. Staring into the distance, he let out a weary sigh.
"…Sigh."
Behind him, the shack looked like it had been standing for who knew how many years—old and worn. A faint candlelight flickered inside, swaying with each bout of soft coughing.
Before long, the coughing worsened, as if whoever was inside was about to hack out their lungs. Just listening made it obvious the owner of that voice was suffering—she was gravely ill.
Hearing it, Luke sighed again. Right now, he really wanted to light a cigarette and ask himself a question.
How did my life get this miserable?
The woman coughing inside was his mother. Her name was Melli—information Luke had pieced together from scattered fragments of memory in his head.
When Luke transmigrated here three days ago, this was exactly what he'd walked into.
The original owner of this body seemed to have tried to jump off a cliff, and Luke just happened to "pick up the bargain" by taking over. What he didn't expect was that the moment he arrived, he'd also gain a bedridden, critically ill mother to care for.
The most ridiculous part was that this family had been out of food for a long time. The two pieces of bread under his hand right now were something Luke had traded for by doing a day of temp work.
And now, he didn't just have to fill his own stomach—he also had to take care of the sick person inside.
"Should I just run for it?" he muttered.
Another burst of coughing came from behind him, and the thought popped into Luke's mind again. He shook his head and forced it down.
Some things, once you do them, you'll regret them for the rest of your life.
Even if he didn't have any real feelings for the woman in that room, this body still shared her blood.
"…Am I really going to have to sell my looks?" Luke muttered. "The general store owner's daughter has practically spelled it out for me."
He plucked a piece of foxtail grass from somewhere, stuck it between his lips, and stared ahead with the eyes of someone who'd seen too much. This option felt like it might haunt him forever, too.
When he pictured the general store owner's daughter—two hundred, maybe close to three hundred pounds of her, that wide smile, thighs so slick they practically shone—
Luke swallowed hard.
"No. I'll think of something else."
In the end, he couldn't cross that mental line. He decided to take it one step at a time.
Over the last two days, he'd set up two simple hunting traps in the mountains. He should catch something today. In a bit, he'd go check.
As for everything else… he'd deal with it when he was actually about to starve.
"Cough—cough—Luke—cough, cough… come inside."
His mother's call, broken up by coughing, pulled Luke out of his thoughts. He turned his head and answered, "I'm coming, Mother."
Then he headed into the shack.
It wasn't far at all. By the time he finished responding, he was already at the door. He pushed it open and saw the cramped interior.
On a wooden bed board lay his mother—hair mostly white with a few strands of black mixed in. Her face was deathly pale and gaunt, her eyes dull with exhaustion.
She was only in her forties, yet the illness had worn her down until she looked like someone in her seventies. It was pitiful.
Luke walked up and crouched beside her. "Are you hungry?"
Melli forced herself to turn slightly. Her eyes were weak, but the gentleness in them was unmistakable as she looked at Luke. In a raspy voice, she said, "No. I just want to talk to you."
"Go ahead," Luke replied. "I'm listening."
He didn't have anything else to do right now anyway. And who knew—maybe this unfamiliar "mother" would drop some earth-shattering secret.
"Over all these years… you've suffered, taking care of me."
Melli looked at Luke with pain and tenderness in her expression.
Luke answered immediately, "It wasn't hard."
It really hadn't been—if he had to name something that suffered, it was his stomach. He'd wake up hungry all the time.
"Have you ever regretted… being my son?"
Something changed in Melli's eyes, a layer of meaning Luke couldn't quite read.
Still, he answered honestly. "No."
The person who could've answered that question was already gone. So of course Luke picked the nicer answer—saying something that made a dying person feel better wasn't difficult.
"I regret it," Melli said softly. "I regret being your mother."
That made Luke blink, confused.
But Melli continued, and it was like she suddenly looked years younger—not in her body, but in her gaze. She stopped looking at Luke and instead stared at something far away, something in her past.
"I was an extremely selfish, stupid woman. The decision I regret most is giving birth to you—making you wander from hardship to hardship, never living a good life for more than a few days.
"It's all because of the choice I made back then. Only now do I realize how foolish I was. I didn't even consider what you would want.
"I intended to take this secret into my grave and protect it for my whole life. But these past few days… I've finally thought it through.
"I don't have the right to do that. Because this is your life."
After a long stretch of confession, Melli looked back at Luke. Speaking so much had left her even weaker. She reached out and grabbed his hand, holding it tightly, then forced out the words with difficulty:
"Behind the cabinet… against the wall… there's a hidden compartment. Inside are two things. Keep the necklace. Use the other as travel money. Go to the capital… actually you… are…"
Her hand went slack, dropping lifelessly. The light in her eyes scattered, fading into emptiness.
Luke froze, completely stunned. He nudged her, trying to get a response. "Mother—finish what you were saying. What am I?"
Damn it. If you had the strength to say all that, why didn't you say the important part first?
He looked at her again. Melli was gone. And once she was gone… it would be forever.
But maybe it was better this way. She was only forty-something, yet this illness had tormented her for years. From now on, she wouldn't suffer anymore.
Remembering what she'd said, Luke shoved the cabinet aside. He fumbled around for a while, searching, until he finally found a hidden compartment with difficulty. He reached in, and his fingers quickly closed around a black sandalwood box.
Just from the feel of it, it seemed expensive.
"So what, my mother used to be some noble lady who ran away with a commoner?" Luke's mind raced. "And now she wants me to go back to the family and take back what's rightfully mine?"
He opened the sandalwood box.
Inside was a delicate necklace. A smooth gemstone hung from it, round and crystal-clear—beautiful, like an angel's eye. Within the gemstone were three prismatic star-like shapes, arranged almost like a trident.
This necklace was absolutely worth a lot of money. So why hadn't she pulled it out earlier and sold it, so the family could live better?
Luke grumbled to himself, but like Melli had said… it had been her choice.
There were two items in the box. The other was a gold bracelet, finely crafted—definitely something that would fetch a good price.
Luke decided to do what Melli told him. He'd sell the gold bracelet, keep the necklace, and head to the capital.
He was very interested in the story behind this necklace—and in the world he'd ended up in.