It's been one year since something eventful has happened.

Is that what you expected me to say? Well, too bad! Life doesn't go by that fast!

It hasn't been nearly that long, so not gonna get to the Arc 5 stuff yet. But that doesn't mean nothing is happening.

Just so you know, I use the fanmade map of Re:zero.

My 4th wall breaking powers are running out, so you're not gonna see me for a while, but do not despair! I will surely return someday!

My satisfied existence wishes you a pleasant read, as if you do not find the read pleasing then you will not remember anything from it and overall it would be a waste of time, that is the reason why my satisfied existence wishes you a pleasant read, as wasting your precious time would be extremely poor of me.

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I was in a carriage, riding to Priestella.

There were a couple of reasons on why I was doing this.

First reason: I've hit a plateau in my combat capabilities. At first it seemed like my sword skills were improving, but then I realized the only thing that was improving was my Thought Acceleration. The only reason I seemed better at using the sword is because I could better react to my opponent. I tried turning it off, but my sword skills still didn't seem to improve no matter what I did, so I just decided to improve my Thought Acceleration, but I've hit the ceiling there too. My Beelzebub, Predator and stomach capacity improve seemingly no matter what I do, so while I do optimize their use, they're not my primary goal, as they will get strong no matter what I do. Considering all of that, training with Wilhelm is just a waste of time, so I decided to spend my time on more useful things.

Second reason: Knowing the city's roads and such will make it much easier for me to navigate them when I get to Arc 5. Which basically means I would be able to save more people... I hope.

Third reason: To meet with Darts. I couldn't remember him at all, but after it was said that he was a good Yang user who could use restoration magic, I remembered that Otto asked him to repair Roswal's Tome Of Wisdom in the novel. The reason I'm meeting him is simple: I want him to try and copy the spell that's on my clothes and I'm a Yang user. You heard it right, I'm a Yang user. I don't remember anything about Yang except Jiwald and physical enhancing, so I was hoping I could get some more information out of him about it. Although I don't hope to learn much from him in the Yang magic department.

Those are my main reasons for going to Priestella. The trip takes about 11 days and compared to the year that I have in disposal, that's nothing, so it's not like I'm wasting much time either.

I'm sitting right next to the owner and driver of the carriage, his name is Vodil. He has brown skin, white short hair, brown eyes and a pretty big and muscular build, by my world's standards. He kinda looked like Scar from FMAB.

Dammit, even more of them.

Unfortunately for me the trip is not that relaxing.

Cylob: "*sigh* There're more mabeasts coming."

Vodil: "Even more? They just keep coming and coming, those damn bastards."

Cylob: "You tell me. Well, you slow down for a bit, I'll deal with them and catch up to you."

Vodil: "Alright."

As you can see this is not the first time we've had this kind of conversation, as this exact thing has happened way too many times.

Why are we dealing with the mabeasts instead of running away from them? Good question. Answer: I want to get more experience in real fights. Vodil didn't mind either, as I didn't ask any money from him for protecting him and this small request of mine isn't that bad.

Is my Witch's scent really that bad to attract so many?

I jump off the carriage, barely keep my balance after landing on the ground due to the Divine Protection Of Wind Evasion stoping working on me, and run into the forest near the road. I could feel 3 dog-like mabeasts approaching me. Saying that I wasn't nervous would be a lie, but I wasn't too nervous, as the previous battles had more enemies than this one.

I guess wolgrams aren't the only dog-like mabeasts. I thought as I awaited their arrival.

They started surrounding me, but unfortunately for them I could perfectly read their positions even if I can't see them.

mabeasts: "GRRAAH!"

They all jumped at me at the same time, but I was expecting that, so I positioned myself, enhanced myself with mana and did a 360 turn while slashing through all 3 of them at the same time. This technique is actually a very bad one, as you lose your balance and it leaves you open after the turn, but in this kind of situation it was a good one to use, as there were no other enemies.

After I hear the mabeasts bodies fall on the ground, I use Predator to get rid of the blood on me and my sword, and put the sword back in its sheath.

I started running back to Vodil, but I noticed something strange.

No matter how much I run I can't get a single trace of Vodil's mana. Why is that? Did he ride away without me? No, he wouldn't do that, that would be too risky for him. Then, where is he?

I kept running and running and running, but no matter how long I ran, I couldn't see nor Vodil, nor his carriage, nor his earth dragon.

What the hell happened?

I started feeling creeped out, but if I got too emotional I wouldn't be able to get answers for any of my questions, so I just kept running.

Eventually I saw a village, not big nor small, in the distance.

Maybe Vodil went there?

I ran to the village and not long after noticing it I was already at the entrance.

I see a teenager carrying a basket af appas and quickly walk up to him.

Cylob: "Excuse me, but can I ask whether you saw a merchant pass by recently?"

teenager: "Huh? Can you repeat what you said please? I didn't catch what you said."

Come ooon dude. My social anxiety is already killing me and you add salt to the wound like that.

Cylob: "I said: have you seen a carriage pass by recently?"

teenager: "No I haven't. No carriages have passed by in a while actually."

This village is not that far from the road to Priestella, even if I'm the only one actually capable of seeing it from so far away, why haven't they seen any carriages recently? Even if it's a 'bad time' as Vodil said, it's still too weird... Or maybe that's normal in this world. I mean, the guy in front of me doesn't seem that worried about it, so I'm probably the one being overly cautious.

Cylob: "I see. Thanks for the info."

teenager: "No problem."

?: "Derev! What the hell are you doing just standing there?! I told to help carry the fruits!"

Derev: "I was talking to someone, mom!" After that he angrily mumbles: "Why do you always jump to conclusions like that?"

Rebellious phase, huh. Me too dude, me too.

Cylob: "I'm sorry for that."

Derev: "Don't worry about it." He says and runs to his mom.

...

What do I do now? Should I run to Priestella by myself or wait for another carriage? Which option is better?... I should probably stay in this village for a while. I can think about which option is better during my time here.

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Like it was already said, the village wasn't too big nor too small. A normal village situated near the Argyle estate, with normal people, normal weather and normal living conditions. Even the name of the village: Obuch, which it got from a traveller nobody has heard anything about, was nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing about Obuch was particularly outstanding, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, as it meant that nothing was particularly bad either.

Overall, Obuch was the definition of a normal village and it was planning to stay that way.

For some reason I feel really relaxed and calm here.

The reason I felt that way is because since coming to this world, I have been constantly doing something out of the norm, thinking about something out of the norm and being surrounded by something out of the norm. I have - not even once - been close to something normal. So when I finally was, I felt calm, relaxed and even happy.

As I was walking around the village, looking at adults working, teenagers helping their parents and children innocently playing, I involuntarily smiled for the first time in a long while.

So... peaceful.

After a while of just walking around and taking in the scenery around me, I decided to join the village in its normalness.

I helped carry some stuff, plow the fields, I even played with kids. A couple of them asked me to show them my swordsmanship and one of them even asked me to train him.

Cylob: "Why do you even want to learn the sword?"

boy: "I want to become a knight!"

Cylob: "Do you have something to train with?"

After fiddling around for a little bit he mumbled.

boy: "No." With a sad expression.

Unfortunately, what he said was true, but I had a log in my stomach from which I could cut a sword out. But before I took the log out of my stomach a question popped into my mind.

When I take something out, does it automatically destroy everything in the space where I take it out?...

...You know what? Constantly saying 'take out of stomach' is too much work and I don't want to say 'spit' either, so how about I give it a name? How about... Enyan. Yeah, I like that name!

I tried to Enyan the log into the ground and I succeded, but it took some mana this time - no - the correct term would be took more mana.

I see... So when I Enyan something I have to make sure that nothing is there in the first place. So I have to basically use Beelzebub before Enyan. The only reason I haven't noticed until now is because I always tried to put things in air which has no durability, so it took an unnoticable amount of mana. I guess that makes sense.

After learning more about my abilities I finally made a wooden sword for the boy.

boy: "Thanks so much!"

Cylob: "No problem. What's your name?"

boy: "Chisou! But everybody calls me Chis!"

Kids are so energetic, they can barely say something without shouting. But that's not a bad thing, as it means they've got nothing to hide.

Cylob: "You have a great name. My name is Cylob."

Chisou: "Cilob!"

Cylob: "No, it's pronounced S-A-I-L-O-B."

Chisou: "Cilob! Cilob!"

Such cuteness and confidence! I don't even wanna correct him!

Cylob: "Fine, you can call me Cilob."

Chisou: "Yay!"

Chisou had unkempt blonde hair that seemingly went everywhere, green eyes like shining emeralds and white skin. His height was up to my chin and he was stronger than most kids his age.

I trained him and, contradictory to his previous behavior, he took it very seriously. I was very surprised by the sudden shift, but I guess he wasn't lying when he said he wanted to become a knight.

Kids are really something special. Seeing him strive for his goals like this... hurts.

I felt a multitude of emotions while training him.

Admiration for how much he's doing to persue his goals, disgust at how useless I was at his age, happiness at how I was helping someone achieve his goals, loathing at how I was mostly copying Wilhelm's teaching style and not doing much myself, sadness because I knew I would have to leave eventually, I even felt some emotions I didn't know the names of, and... env-

-Stop all that negative stuff! Just enjoy the moment while it lasts!

And so I did. I enjoyed my time in the village greatly, even if I sometimes felt melancholic at the fact that I would have to leave. Teaching wasn't that bad either. I remember a lot of people in my old world telling me that I was good at teaching. I never believed them, but I guess they were telling the truth. If I had to guess, I would say that I probably picked this trait up from my brother.

As soon as night arrived, everyone went into their homes. Some of them even offered me shelter, but I respectfully declined.

The night is so beautiful.

I was sitting on a small hill not far from the village.

The only thing I could hear was the wind ruffling the grass. The stars looked brighter than ever and the light from the moon beautifully shone on the forest and the village.

So... peaceful.

I could stare at the view in front of me for hours on end... and I did. I sat on the ground and for the first time since coming to this world truly took a break. Not thinking about anything, not doing anything. Just... being.

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...

...

...

After sitting like that for a couple of hours, the calmness made me realize something.

I... should take my sword training more seriously. Chisou has good talent, but even he can't get good in one day or even a month, so why did I expect something like that from myself? I got pretty good powers, but I also got spoiled by them. I expect everything to be easy. As much as I say I work hard, my laziness that I had back at home went nowhere. It's still there no matter how much I try to deny it. I trained the sword for only a couple of months and got impatient because the results were too small. Wilhelm had to train nonstop for years on end to get to where he is, even with talent, and I expect myself to be close to his skill level only after 2 months? What's wrong with me?

...

I guess this is why Wilhelm didn't object to me travelling somewhere. He wanted me to learn this fact by myself. He could see the impatience in me and understood that this trip would be a good learning experience for me. Goddamn that's impressive insight.

I guess no matter how much I know about someone, I can't understand them completely. As much as I wanna act like a cool/all knowing guy, I'll never know everything. And no matter how impatient I feel, I should try to keep going.

I can't get rid of my laziness in one go, but I hope I can slowly get rid of it. Just like Subaru became a better person, I should too.

And so, I spent my time calmly looking over the village, while thinking about what I had to do in order to become a better person.