Chapter 460 – Riverside Village Market

Greta had mentally prepared herself, but she didn’t feel any discomfort at all. Something soft supported her bottom, and her legs relaxed instantly.

“Settled in?” Mo Lan said. “We’re taking off!”

“Mm!” Greta didn’t ask about the broom cushion, silently gripping the broom handle tight.

Mo Lan didn’t show off like Madam Amisha had when giving her a ride. She ascended slowly, flying leisurely toward the opposite bank of the river.

On the flying carpet, Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph exchanged glances.

“She’s just taking Greta over there like that?” Vasida said. “That’s a human village on the other side!”

“Should we follow or…” Sylph asked.

Just as the three were hesitating, the little monkey Mo Lan had left on the flying carpet tugged at the hem of Lilith’s robe and handed her a letter.

“A letter from Moira?” Lilith took it and read it, then told Vasida and Sylph: “She says Riverside Village is friendly to witches. There’s no invisibility magic circle, and the no-fly magic circle only activates when flying magical beasts pass through. We can sneak over. Once she’s done with the act, she’ll meet up with us.”

“Then let’s follow!” Vasida said.

Lilith nodded and steered the flying carpet toward the other side of the river.

Mo Lan carried Greta at a leisurely pace across the River of Origin, landing outside Riverside Village.

Greta hopped off the broom and hurriedly thanked her.

“Payment rendered, debt settled. We’re even.” Mo Lan waved her hand, shrank the broom and tucked it into her large hide bag, then headed toward Riverside Village.

Only after leaving Greta behind did she quietly let out a sigh of relief.

Sticking to the principle that the more you say the more mistakes you make, she hadn’t initiated any conversation with Greta during the entire flight, dutifully playing the role of a businesslike trader.

Greta had also been excessively well-behaved and cautious, not saying a single word the entire way.

The prolonged silence had Mo Lan on pins and needles, eager to finish the act and leave.

What she didn’t know was that Greta, watching Mo Lan’s retreating figure, also quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

The broom had been remarkably comfortable to sit on, true, but she had essentially placed her life in the witch’s hands.

She’d been terrified that some careless remark might displease the witch and get her thrown from the sky into the river.

But the longer the silence lasted, the heavier the atmosphere grew, to the point where she hadn’t even dared to ask the witch’s name.

Fortunately, it seemed this particular witch had a very stable temperament.

“Just as I thought — everything the Temple instructors said was lies!” Greta thought to herself.

She glanced back across the river at the Black Forest.

West of the River of Origin was the Yala Empire; east was the Mage Empire.

From this moment on, she had officially set foot on land beyond the Temple’s reach. She no longer needed to worry about being hunted by Temple knights, falsely accused of blasphemy, or burned at the stake.

“I can now proudly say — I am a mage!”

Greta straightened her mage robes, gripped her staff, and walked toward the village ahead with her head held high and chest out.

Mo Lan had already entered the village. The guard in the watchtower at the village entrance had spotted her flying in on a broom from the opposite bank, and combined with her signature witch’s hat, called down to the people below to clear the spiked barricade from the gate while she was still far off.

The guards even performed a clumsy gentleman’s bow. “Lady Witch, welcome to Riverside Village of the Duchy of Lance!”

Mo Lan gave a slight nod and walked right in, looking for all the world like she’d been here many times before.

Once inside, following the directions described in the 《Witch’s Travelogue》 she’d read, she quickly found the market.

Riverside Village was close to the Emerald Creek Plains, so magical beast attacks were common and magical beast materials were abundant. Occasionally there were even specialty goods from witches. Add to that the stationed mage corps and their decent spending power, and merchant caravans came through frequently.

The resulting market was even livelier than Witch’s Town’s bonfire market on Independence Day.

To maintain her persona of a seasoned regular, Mo Lan first found an empty spot by the side of the market road. She pulled a piece of hide from her bag, spread it on the ground, then took out bottles of low-grade potions one by one and arranged them on top. She placed a wooden sign listing potion prices, and just like that, she had set up shop.

Witch potions were clearly very popular here.

When Mo Lan had entered the market, she’d already felt herself drawing quite a few stares — many people had eyed the potion-brewing witch badge on her chest several times over.

By the time she’d spread out the hide and started taking out potion bottles, a good number of people were already walking her way.

The moment she set down the price sign and looked up, her stall was already surrounded.

“Miss Witch, I’ll take three bottles of low-grade disease-curing potion.”

“I want one bottle of antidote potion.”

“Miss Witch, do you have any sleeping potions? I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately.”

…

Her stall was cleared out at lightning speed, with plenty of people still empty-handed.

She had only intended to carry the act through to the end, so the potions in her hide bag weren’t many, and they were all just low-grade potions that weren’t worth much.

She hadn’t expected to still underestimate just how well witch potions sold among humans.

“Miss Witch, when will you come again?”

“Miss Witch, can I place an order in advance?”

…

Mo Lan declined the customers wanting to place orders, rolled up her hide along with the ordinary gold coins on it, and escaped through the crowd as if fleeing for her life.

Greta had just demonstrated spellcasting with her staff at the village entrance to prove her mage apprentice status and obtained a map of Riverside Village. As she walked toward the market, she spotted the slightly disheveled witch.

The witch gave her a nod, then bolted into the depths of the market without looking back, trailed by a group of villagers asking when she’d return.

Greta silently cursed the Temple instructors again — the witch had an absolutely wonderful temperament, not even getting angry at being chased around by humans like this.

“Hey! What were you all crowding around the witch for just now?” Greta grabbed a passerby and asked in her somewhat clumsy Valen common tongue.

“Buying potions! She’s a potion-brewing witch! With a proper witch badge and everything!” said the villager, who was dressed like a warrior. “Witch healing potions work incredibly well. Carry one on you during a magical beast attack and it’s like having a second life!”

Greta looked curiously at the two Crystal bottles in the villager’s hands. “Those are healing potions?”

“Yep.” The villager clutched the two potion bottles tighter to his chest, afraid Greta might snatch them.

Though the fabric of her clothes wasn’t even as nice as his own, the style was clearly mage robes, and she was holding a little staff! She was at least a mage apprentice. Even if he could knock her flat bare-handed, the status gap between mages and warriors was vast — you just couldn’t afford to offend them! If she actually wanted them, he’d be in a real bind.

Greta stared in the direction Mo Lan had disappeared, full of regret. “If only I’d asked the witch what she was coming here to do!”

After being saved by a magic card, she had developed immense respect for magical items with healing properties and wished she could stockpile as many as possible.

She turned around, and the person beside her had vanished — the villager had slipped away while Greta was spacing out.