The next three days passed in a blur, an exhausting yet productive, strangely harmonious blur that left the entire village transformed.
Lucien recovered faster than any of them expected. Emilia's potion worked beyond what normal medicine could achieve, knitting torn muscle, pushing fever out of his veins, and strengthening his heartbeat with every hour.
By the end of the first night, he could sit up without help. By the second, he could walk. By the third, the young lord moved with the energy of someone reborn. And through it all, he listens well to Emilia.
By the time he fully healed, while waiting for the knighthood from his house to come to fetch him, Lucien was following Emilia anywhere. Not because he likes her, but because he's witnessing something miraculous and trying desperately to understand it.
Each morning, when Emilia woke up and stepped outside with her hair still messy from sleep and her face soft with early drowsiness, Lucien would be seen around her cabin already. Hikarimetsu, who was never absent from sleeping with Emilia, always held her to sleep every night and always rolled her eyes and had a faintly sour expression every time she spotted Lucien hovering near the cabin.
"He's waiting again," Hikarimetsu muttered on the third morning, narrowing her eyes at the noble standing awkwardly, walking on tiptoe as though trying to be invisible.
"He's still recovering," Emilia said, tying her hair back as she began her morning routine.
She splashed cold water over her face, letting the chill wake her senses, then walked to her personal garderobe, and then she took the Sivakh root. She had found it two days ago, an unassuming pale branch rising amid a patch of poisonous mushrooms so lethal their violet spores curled in the air like drifting death.
Everything around them was wilted or blackened, yet the Sivakh had stood untouched, almost glowing softly against the rot. It's a plant born from corruption, a quiet miracle that drew strength from the very toxins that killed everything else.
Yet her eyes read it as [Sivakh Root, good for teeth, natural toothpaste].
When she scraped its bark and chewed the fibers, it released a cool, cleansing taste that freshened her breath, steadied her spirit, and cleared the fog of exhaustion. It worked similarly to the siwak she remembered from Earth, only stronger, purer, as if it carried a defiance shaped by the deadly forest itself.
She lifted the root to her lips, grateful once again that something tiny could survive where nothing should and help her start another day. "He's annoying," Hikarimetsu argued, arms crossed.
"Don't tell me you're jealous. He's nothing, you're my everything." Emilia sighed, speaking as casually as if she were commenting on the weather.
But her words didn't drift away so easily, they struck Hikarimetsu hard. A warmth bloomed in her chest, slow at first, then bright, lifting the corners of her lips into a smile she couldn't suppress, a smile both joyful and undeniably proud.
"So… I'm her everything," she murmured to herself, savoring the words as if they were some rare sweetness. With that feeling still resting on her face, she stepped forward and followed Emilia.
-
By the second morning, the villagers had finished clearing the land. The once-wild plot now looked almost unrecognizable, its soil was dark, soft, and freshly turned, rich enough to breathe earthy scents into the cool dawn air.
The stream nearby glittered in the early light, its mirrored surface reflecting the shade cloths Emilia had erected the day before. Those woven reed canopies cast gentle shadows over the delicate beds beneath them, forming something like a primitive greenhouse, simple but exactly what the plants needed.
Emilia moved among the villagers, teaching them slowly, step by careful step. She crouched beside a patch of newly moistened earth and held up a cluster of pale mushrooms.
"Mooncaps like this," she said, her tone warm but firm, "need constant moisture. Not flooding, but a wet environment that hugs them closely. Keep the soil packed tight around the base and water lightly twice a day."
The villagers repeated her movements almost reverently, mimicking her cupped hands and her gentle press of the soil. Steam rose faintly from the ground as the morning sun warmed the dew. She shifted to the next bed, lifting a darker mushroom with a velvet-black cap.
"Deathveil caps are different," she explained. "They thrive in thick loam mixed with Lumora stone. Without the Lumora, they'll rot. Put the distance every two meters, this far." She demonstrated it.
Then she brought them to the section near the waterline where long rows of slender green fronds were already sprouting.
"And Silkfern," Emilia said, placing a hand on a root as thick as her wrist, "drinks like it's been walking through a desert for a week. As long as you give it clean, steady water, it will never betray you. But let the soil dry even once…" She pointed at a shriveled plant she had purposely used as an example, its leaves curled like burnt parchment. "It dies instantly."
A few villagers winced, already forming a devoted protectiveness toward the strange plants. Because silkfern is important for their cleanliness, as it is used to wipe their body or after doing their deed in the garderobe.
By midday, calloused hands began to move more confidently, checking soil, watering with precise amounts, and whispering uncertain questions that Emilia answered with patience. Lucien, still weak but recovering shockingly fast thanks to her cooking and potions, followed behind her like a shadow.
He listened with wide eyes and furrowed brows, occasionally stopping to take in the oddity of it all: a woman who looked like nothing like a villager—she's bright, beautiful, and looked like she's from nowhere teaching a dying village how to cultivate magical plants like she's teaching them how to read.
Hikarimetsu, however, isn't nearly as amused. She walked at Emilia's side with her arms crossed, her expression fixed between annoyance and boredom, especially whenever Lucien leaned forward too eagerly or asked Emilia too many questions.
When he stumbled, she lifted her chin with a smug little huff. When he smiled too warmly at Emilia's explanation, her eyes narrowed like sharpened blades. But Emilia continued unfazed, focused, steady, and immersed in the work.
By the afternoon, the villagers are already preparing the next set of beds, and Emilia walks between them like a teacher who had done the job all her life. She corrected the angle of a watering ladle, adjusted shade cloth tension, and prodded the soil with a finger until the texture satisfied her.
"These plants," she told them as the sun sank lower, "are stubborn. They'll test you. But if you treat the soil right, give them the right light, the right water, and the right mana… they'll give you medicine, food, and protection."
The villagers listened as though she were revealing ancient divine secrets, nodding slowly and deeply, some even pressing fists to their chests, almost as a pledge. Lucien stared at Emilia as if watching the birth of something holy, like she was talking something foreign.
Hikarimetsu stared at him as if deciding whether she should bury him in the compost heap. And Lucien watched everything with open fascination.
"You cultivate these like… like nobles cultivate roses," he murmured, kneeling beside her as she placed a Mooncap gently into the earth.
"Roses don't bite your arm off if you harvest them wrong," Emilia replied without looking up.
Lucien blinked. "…Right." Hikarimetsu snorted loudly enough to be heard from several feet away.
The villagers carefully planted Lumora stones, glowing soft blue beneath the topsoil, forming a grid of steady mana that bathed the roots in constant nourishment. Once every sunrise and sunset, a small vial of monster blood was poured into the soil above each stone to keep them charged.
By the end of the day, the field looked alive, glittering faintly in the twilight, with glowing patches of mana pulsing beneath the earth like buried stars.
On the third day, Emilia's attention turned to the public garderobe. Emilia walked them through each step, drawing plans in the dirt with a stick: wooden seating over a pit, stone supports reinforced with packed earth, a slanted roof to shield from rain, and large woven baskets of dried herbs and silkfern for hygiene.
The villagers worked with enthusiasm, passing planks and hammering boards together while children carried bundles of hay and herbs. It's simple, sturdy, and far cleaner than anything nearby villages possessed.
The other part of the villagers built the bathhouse, a long, narrow wooden structure with two stone basins, one for washing and one for rinsing. Emilia taught them the basics of privacy screens, soap-making from ash and fats, and the concept of "don't let the bath be swamp water."
The villagers are delighted, it leaves Lucien speechless. "You made all this… simply because you disliked the bucket?" he asked Emilia, voice soft with awe.
"No," Emilia said, sorting herbs on a flat stone. "I made it because they deserve to live better." Lucien looked at her like she had just redrawn the world map.
Hikarimetsu clicked her tongue in irritation as she stood behind them.
The fourth day is the biggest project of all, Lucien, at this point already healthy enough, decided to join the villagers to help doing whatever Emilia told them to do. The villagers, guided by Emilia's design, began digging the irrigation channels.
It's hard work. Backbreaking work. But it also filled the forest edge with laughter and the rhythmic scrape of shovels. The water flowed smoothly along the trenches, curving toward the field, branching delicately toward the bathhouse, and splitting once more to reach the public garderobe.
Then they found it.
The strange forest plant Emilia had been searching for was a vine as thick as a man's wrist, firm as packed rope, hollow through the center yet unbelievably strong. When they cut it open, a faintly cool mist spilled out. It carried water with unbelievable ease, the perfect natural pipe.
They laid it through the system, connecting the stream to the field, the bathhouse, and the garderobe. Once the water touched the vine, it changed temperature, cool in the heat, warm in the cold. A miracle of the forest.
Lucien stared at it, speechless. "This should not exist," he whispered.
"It does," Emilia replied simply.
"And you know how to use it." He said in awe, No one truly knows about the function of the plant, but Emilia can use it perfectly.
"Of course." She replied.
Because her eyes already told her about Mistravelis, a natural pipe with a life shelf of 3 years. Cold when it's hot, hot when it's cold.
Lucien touched the vine with reverence. "This village will surpass the city if this continues."
Hikarimetsu muttered, "That is the point."
Throughout the four days, Lucien followed Emilia like an apprentice trailing a master, quiet, curious, and watching her with a mixture of admiration and confusion.
He watched her coax mushrooms into the soil, watched her weave simple shade roofs, watched her instruct the villagers with patience, and watched her test water flow with her hands dipped in the stream. Sometimes Emilia forgot he was there. Sometimes she didn't.
Hikarimetsu never forgot. Every time the young lord stepped closer, Hikarimetsu slid between them. Her expression rarely changed: mildly annoyed, faintly hostile, or absolutely possessive.
By the end of the day, even the villagers had begun whispering. "The Pathbreaker's guardian doesn't like the young lord much," one said.
"She doesn't like him at all," another whispered.
Lucien noticed but pretended he didn't. Hikarimetsu noticed and absolutely didn't pretend. Emilia noticed, sighed, and kept working.
When the sun finally dipped below the hills, the village stood transformed. Water flowed through clean channels. The field pulsed with mana. The garderobe and bathhouse stood ready. And the villagers, exhausted but proud, looked at their home as if seeing it for the first time.
Lucien stood beside Emilia in the twilight glow, the dusk painting his once-ashen skin in warm hues. He still looked a little fragile, his clothes torn, but his wounds were gone.
Four days ago, he was half-conscious, bleeding, and delirious. Now he stood there breathing cleanly, the fever gone, his limbs steady, the only sign of weakness the softness in his expression whenever he looked at her.
"You changed this village in four days," he murmured, voice low with something like wonder. "And… you changed me in three days."
Emilia snorted softly, brushing dust off her apron as she walked past him, checking the last patch of newly mulched soil. "Not four days. We've been working for more than a week. What you saw is just the last four days of progress." She straightened her back, hands on her hips, surveying the transformed landscape with quiet pride. "These people are strong, and they listen well. Give them a task long enough, and they'll reshape their whole world."
It's true. The village that once looked half-abandoned now buzzed with life. The fences stood reinforced with sharpened stakes. The fields are neatly sectioned, growing with the beginnings of Mooncaps, Silkfern, and the first sprouting clusters of Deathveil caps.
Water flowed from the Gloamspire in a steady stream, guided by the living pipe-plants they had unearthed—cool to the touch even under sunlight, warm when the air chilled. The houses and the cabins look far better as they keep renovating them using Emilia's ideas.
A public garderobe stood near the central path, ventilated and fragrant with herbs, with a proper waste pit lined with charcoal and moss just like Emilia taught them. Next to it, a simple but clean public bathhouse steamed in the evening light, its troughs connected to the new waterways. A waste-management pit behind it stood covered and sealed under Emilia's instructions, the first step in ensuring the village never returned to its old sickness-ridden state.
She loved all of it. Every improvement. Every visible sign of progress. Every villager walking a little taller, a little safer, and a little cleaner. This land is hers, the first place she ever shaped with her own two hands in this foreign world.
Lucien watched her with something raw and vulnerable flickering in his eyes. "Do you think you can do this in the city?" he asked quietly. "In my father's territory?"
Emilia untied her hair, letting the dark strands spill freely down her back. Exhaustion softened her posture, yet her gaze remained sharp—tired but satisfied. "The sanitation, the waste system—I can do all that. But the crops?" She pointed to the glowing Lumora stones embedded along the field's borders. "These belong to this village. If your father wants them, he can trade for them. Pay these people properly. Give them profit. They earned it."
For a moment, Lucien didn't speak. The wind moved through the grass. Torches crackled. The villagers, exhausted from the day's work, laughed faintly in the distance.
When Lucien finally looked up, the admiration in his eyes had deepened into something warmer, something that made Hikarimetsu's presence sharpen behind them.
"I understand," he said quietly. His gaze lingered on Emilia a moment too long. "You truly are… extraordinary."
Without realizing it, his hand lifted, slowly, hesitantly, as if he wanted to reach for her hair, for the softness of her cheek, for something he had no right to touch. Before his fingertips even brushed the air near her shoulder, another hand closed around his wrist.
Hikarimetsu moved so silently that Emilia barely felt the shift in air behind her. The warrior's expression is nothing but calm, her eyes were cold enough to freeze blood.
"Don't," she said, her voice soft yet unyielding.
Lucien stiffened, realization crashing into him. He swallowed hard and lowered his hand, stepping back with a shamed, apologetic bow. "My apologies. I overstepped."
Emilia knew exactly what Lucien had been about to do. She felt the shift in the air, the subtle pull of his rising admiration, the way his breath hitched when she let her hair fall loose.
It wasn't new to her, men had looked at her like that before, but here, in this strange new world, she had no energy for it. Not tonight. Not with the day's work still clinging to her skin and the quiet warmth of Hikarimetsu waiting just behind her.
So she didn't confront it. She simply turned, slipped her fingers around Hikarimetsu's wrist, and gently tugged her away from the noble young lord.
"Let's go," Emilia said, her voice softer than expected. "I'm exhausted, and I want to wash up before bed."
Hikarimetsu's face instantly brightened, subtle but unmistakable. A small curl at the corner of her lips, a glimmer of triumph in her sharp eyes. She moved quickly to Emilia's side, allowing herself to be pulled, but not without glancing back over her shoulder.
That glance is a statement, a message: "She is mine to guard."
Emilia exhaled through her nose, she squeezed Hikarimetsu's hand. "Don't torment him."
"I didn't," Hikarimetsu murmured, though the smug curve of her smile said otherwise. "I just looked."