God shall bless his believers!"
As dusk approached, the young priest blessed the middle-aged couple at the door before turning to leave.
"God bless us all! "
The middle-aged couple quickly replied, watching the priest depart before closing the door. The middle-aged woman handed the holy bread distributed by the priest to her nephew, Adam, and her daughter, Lina, saying, "I'm going to cook dinner. We have cured meat today."
"That's wonderful, Aunt Maggie," Adam said, his smile heartfelt. His joyful smile was infectious, making others feel pleasant.
Watching his aunt and uncle busy themselves, Adam still stuffed the holy bread into his mouth, enduring the burning pain.
"I must find a way to leave Heavenly Sound Country," Adam thought, enduring the pain as he ate the rest of the holy bread.
Holy bread is white bread baked by Holy Sound Church priests with holy water and wheat flour. It's not special in itself, but because the holy water has been blessed by the church priests, it carries a faint holy power.
Therefore, it can dispel evil.
Adam happened to be among the supposed evils being dispelled.
His original name was not Adam Cooper, nor was it Nesser Riggs, but a name that felt out of place in this world.
"Thirteen years have already passed since I unknowingly came to this world," Adam mused.
He was originally an ordinary person from another world. While driving home from work, he hit a black hole that appeared out of nowhere and was reincarnated into this world, a world with divine arts, magic and Otherkinds.
And unfortunately, he was reincarnated as an Otherkind—a werewolf—rejected by most human factions.
The so-called Otherkinds are not much different from humans; they are just different in certain aspects, so they are called Otherkinds, and werewolves are one type of Otherkind.
The biggest difference between werewolves and humans is that most werewolves lose control on the night of the full moon, growing fangs and claws and resembling a bipedal giant wolf. They often lose their minds, becoming bloodthirsty, wantonly hunting the surrounding life.
Fortunately, he was one of the few who could control his transformation and suppress his bloodthirsty desires, maintaining a certain degree of sanity.
This involves the distinction between innate and acquired werewolves.
Innate werewolves are born from werewolf parents, just like humans, and are called pure-blooded werewolves. Acquired werewolves, on the other hand, can transform through infection, curses, spells, and other methods.
Adam is a half-blooded werewolf. His biological father was a werewolf. It is precisely because he is a half-blooded werewolf that Adam can hide in Roya, a border city of the Heavenly Sound Country. As long as he doesn't transform, he is indistinguishable from another human.
Heavenly Sound Country is a theocratic nation. There are many priests here, and for various reasons, no matter which church, they are the greatest enemies of Otherkinds. There are specialised teams to hunt down Otherkinds. Once an Otherkind is caught by the church, they are either burnt, hanged, or imprisoned until death.
In short, most Otherkinds only have one outcome—death.
Therefore, Adam's goal is to pass through Roya's city walls and go to the Kingdom of Loken on the other side, where the living environment for Otherkind is reportedly much better.
Adam had enquired and found that the wilderness of this world is full of monsters. Apart from crossing the border wall, the danger between the two countries is much greater.
He is currently staying with the Cooper family, nominally the nephew of the male head of the family, Arlis Cooper, but in reality, they have no blood relation.
The real Adam had died at the hands of bandits. He was a naive young man who came to Roya to seek refuge with his uncle after his parents died of illness.
When Adam first met the real Adam, he learnt most of his information without even needing to pry. The second time he saw him, the unsuspecting youth had already become a corpse in the hands of bandits.
Witnessing all this, Adam realised he needed an identity, so he helped the real Adam get revenge, and after silencing the witnesses, he arrived in Roya City as Adam.
"Brother Adam." The call made Adam turn around, only to see a seven- or eight-year-old little girl running over, hugging Adam's legs and looking up at him, her eyes sparkling. "Have you finished your holy bread? "
Lina Cooper is Arlis's daughter and Adam's nominal sister. Half a month of living together had made her trust him implicitly.
"I've finished it. Next time, I'll be sure to save some for Lina, okay?" Adam said with a smile, ruffling her hair and then re-braiding it for her.
Eating the tasteless holy bread always caused him pain, but he had to give others a sufficiently normal impression to avoid exposing himself.
Watching Lina happily pounce into her mother's arms, asking if her braid looked good, Adam turned and walked to the second floor, looking out the window at the twilight scenery of the border town.
"I must leave quickly…"
The next morning, Adam left the house and began selling the Cooper family's homemade pickled vegetable pancakes, greeting the neighbours around him.
The neighbours also became familiar with Adam, each calling his name with a smile.
Half a month ago, this nephew of the Cooper family came to seek refuge with his uncle after his parents died of illness, and his face was swollen from a poisonous hornet sting on the way. Now that the swelling has gone down, he's quite a handsome young man.
Adam sold pickled vegetable pancakes while gathering information. It seemed his disguise was adequate. He didn't resemble the real Adam, but Arlis, though he hadn't seen his nephew in many years, still had some impression. If he had seen a completely unfamiliar person at first glance, he would likely have become suspicious.
So Adam deliberately made his face swollen. Over the past half-month, as Adam's face gradually thinned, enough impressions were formed that Arlis had no suspicions whatsoever from beginning to end.
While hawking his wares along the street, he began to survey the area, glancing out of the corner of his eye at a distant mansion, which was his target.
Heavenly Sound Country and the Kingdom of Loken are currently in a state of hostility and do not open their borders. It is difficult for ordinary people to even get close. To cross the Roya border defence line, one must rely on the power of the nobility. Most nobles in border cities are involved in smuggling.
Generally speaking, it is almost impossible for a commoner to get involved in a noble's smuggling business, even with years or even decades of effort. Their servants are usually inherited from generation to generation, with sons following in their fathers' footsteps, serving the nobility for generations to gain their trust.
An outsider, no matter how much they prove themselves, cannot gain their trust.
However, there is now an opportunity.
"Those bandits are backed by Baron Mansla," Adam thought, recalling the information he had obtained from the bandits. After secretly noting the terrain of the baron's residence, he called out his wares for a while and then left.
He still needed to make many preparations; otherwise, both the nobles and the church in the city would be capable of dealing with him, an underage werewolf.
When he returned home, Arlis and Maggie had not yet returned.
The Cooper family was not wealthy, barely able to make ends meet, especially after Adam arrived.
"It's about time," Adam thought, rubbing Lina's head as she ran over at the sound of his arrival. Previously, to avoid suspicion, he couldn't show too much, so Adam always spoke little and did not do much.
But now, having gradually become familiar with them, Adam felt he could start acting appropriately, helping the Cooper family become a little more prosperous without exposing himself, at least not becoming a burden.
"Bringing out knowledge from another world would be too abrupt, and the worlds are different; some things are completely dissimilar, so that knowledge might not even be useful."
"Even if it were useful, if it was too far beyond this era, I might be considered possessed by a demon and immediately put on the stake? Or perhaps it would be related to interests and be called a lowly thief who stole noble secrets?" Adam was very clear about the nature of the church and some of the populace in this era.
His gaze swept across the humble home and Adam saw a book with a painting on its cover.
"Perhaps I could try to become a painter."
Becoming a painter in this world is quite good, especially engaging in religi
ous-related painting work, which Adam happens to be quite familiar with.