Chapter 5: GRANDPA BECAME UNCLE

The village tolerated many strange things.

A blacksmith who spoke to his hammer.

A goat that regularly escaped church services.

A well that occasionally whispered insults during thunderstorms.

But an old man becoming physically younger by decades in less than two weeks was apparently where people drew the line.

Vael woke to find six villagers standing outside his cottage.

Mira led them.

"Explain."

Vael closed the door.

They knocked again.

He opened it.

"No."

He closed it.

Mira kicked the door.

Vael had once negotiated peace with a dragon emperor using fewer evasive maneuvers.

Eventually he claimed he had discovered an herbal treatment.

The villagers demanded the recipe.

Vael claimed the herb grew in cursed swamps.

The herbalist asked which swamp.

Vael named one that had vanished eighty years ago.

The herbalist knew this.

By breakfast, Vael understood the unavoidable truth.

He had to leave.

Not permanently, perhaps.

But until he could invent an explanation better than expensive moisturizer.

He packed lightly: clothes, coins, a dagger, medicinal herbs, three forbidden spell scrolls, and enough dried tea for a month.

General the chicken followed him.

"No."

General pecked his boot.

"You stay."

Peck.

"You are not joining me."

Peck.

Vael stared into the chicken’s single eye.

He had faced liches with weaker resolve.

Mira appeared behind him.

"I’ll take care of the bird."

"Chicken."

"It has a name."

"Unfortunately."

For a moment neither spoke.

Vael had lived beside these people for twelve years. He had intended to vanish one night eventually, either into a grave or into rumor.

He had not expected leaving to feel inconveniently unpleasant.

Mira shoved a wrapped bundle into his hands.

"Bread."

"I have food."

"Yours tastes like siege rations."

"They are efficient."

"They are crimes."

Vael accepted the bread.

"...Thank you."

The words still felt awkward.

Mira’s expression softened.

"Come back before I die, you miserable old bat."

Vael almost smiled.

Then the System appeared.

[Hidden Social Milestone Completed: Formed Genuine Community Bond.]

[Reward: Biological Age -5 Years]

Vael’s eyes widened.

"No."

Mira frowned.

"No what?"

Warmth flooded his body.

His beard darkened further. The lines around his eyes retreated. His posture straightened another degree.

Mira watched all of it happen.

Vael became, in the span of five seconds, a man who looked somewhere in his mid-sixties.

Mira’s mouth opened.

Vael pulled up his hood.

"I have to go."

"VALE."

He walked faster.

"VALE!"

He was halfway down the road when Toma ran after him.

"Grandpa Vale!"

Vael stopped.

Toma looked up.

Then up a little less than usual.

The boy frowned.

"Why do you look like Uncle Vale now?"

Vael considered several responses.

The System offered one unsolicited suggestion.

[Say: Love keeps me young.]

"I would rather die."

Toma blinked.

Vael patted his head awkwardly.

"Take care of Sir Bernard."

Then he left.

By noon, the cottage was behind him.

The road stretched east toward cities he had not visited in decades.

Vael walked with a strength he thought he had lost forever.

His magic was still weak, but he could feel it gathering.

The System floated beside him like an unwanted companion.

[New Region Entered.]

[Romantic Opportunity Density: Moderate.]

"Do not phrase it that way."

[Potential Heroine Encounter Probability: Increasing.]

"I am going to a city to disappear."

[That is often how romantic comedies begin.]

Vael groaned.

Several miles ahead, a young woman with a silver sword was fighting three goblins beside an overturned merchant cart.

The System began to glow pink.

Vael stopped walking.

"No."

[DING!]

"No."

[IMPORTANT CHARACTER DETECTED!]

Vael turned around.

The System rotated an arrow in the opposite direction.

[Wrong way.]

"I hate you."

[Relationship with System: Complicated.]

Vael continued toward the screaming.

He had no idea that the sword in the woman’s hand had once entered his chest.

He would recognize it in less than a minute.