Fortunately, the mill was a mere minute's walk from the cemetery. It was located by the river where it tirelessly pumped the water through its wheel and ground the grains to feed the insatiable hunger of the granary. Attached to the mill was a wood structure that doubled as a house and a shop from where the miller sold his wares.
It wasn't long before they were knocking on the miller's door, and from the sudden commotion that ensued, probably startled the poor guy. A man with a massive white beard peeked his head from behind the door and stared at them cautiously. But, when he saw Medea, his beard trembled as he swung the door open with great gusto.
"Lady Medea! Please, come in!" the man sure was energetic despite his age. He quickly invited them in and scampered off to another part of the house.
"Uh," The three of them froze as soon as they entered the miller's house. Their surroundings were littered with tattered clothes, upturned furniture and a chaotic mishmash of rotten food and other garbage.
The whole place smelled so bad that Gil was almost sure the miller was hiding a putrefying corpse in here.
"What the fuck, man! This is like damn hoarder's house!" Figment cursed out loud, his expression scrunched up in pure disgust. "Cover your nose already!"
Gil didn't need to be reminded twice as he pinched his nose and breathed through his mouth, but even that felt like he was ingesting some noxious gas that was poisoning his insides.
"Solamh, what is this?" Medea frowned as she swept her gaze around the disastrous scene.
"Ah, Lady Medea please wait! I can explain this!" Solamh's yelled back from another part of the house.
Gil stood still, not willing to step on anything that might go squish under his feet. Just the thought of that happening almost made him bolt out of the door and let Medea handle the rest. But, an image of her taunting him with passive-aggressive words while wearing that annoying blank expression caused him to stay rooted to the spot.
Sometimes pettiness overruled the more logical reasoning of a human.
They heard a distant door slam shut, followed by footsteps impacting the junk that littered the floor. Solamh reappeared, carrying something wrapped in layers of rough hemp fabric. The smell that permeated the entire place intensified and finally made Gil take a step back.
Medea scrutinized the wrapped bundle in Solamh's embrace, her hand finally moving to cover her nose. The black haired women, on the other hand, completely ignored the horrendous smell and hurried towards it instead.
Gil watched in awe as the woman wrapped her arms around the small bundle and pulled it away from Solamh. There was no hesitation in her actions, leaving even the miller in shock at her quick actions.
"No! How could this..." Tears welled up in her eyes as she tightly embraced the bundle.
The series of events clicked together in Gil's mind as he finally deduced the answer to what had just transpired. The smell, the messy house, and Solamh's behaviour all made sense now.
"Well, I'll be damned. He really was hiding a dead body in here," Gil muttered under his breath. Initially, the smell had kept him from paying attention to the wrapped up bundle, but now that he looked at it in more detail, its shape and size easily gave away the identity of what was hidden underneath.
Medea had, at some point, moved closer to him. A fact only made known to him when she tugged his sleeve and placed a finger on her lips, signalling him to stay silent. Gil nodded and returned his gaze towards the two figures standing amongst the heaping rubbish.
Solamh's lips trembled as he watched the tears drip down the woman's cheeks. Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply, but as he was about to start explaining himself to Medea, the woman grabbed his arms and yanked him back.
"How could you hide this from me?!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, her hand shooting out to hit him on the face. Her sudden action startled Solamh, but he made no attempts to stop her. A dull smack rang out as the old man endured the pain without much reaction.
Gil had dismissed this woman's relationship with the miller's family as a casual, neighbourly friendship, but looking at their behaviour, it was apparent that he couldn't have been more wrong.
"Ainnir..." Solamh's voice choked as he looked away from her, unable or unwilling to maintain eye contact with her.
"Tell me why! You told me Braon got better, but this..." Ainnir moved her hands to unwrap the bundle, treating it with extreme care and reverence.
As she peeled the layers off the wrapped bundle, more and more black stains appeared on the fabrics, and once she removed the last, disgusting piece of cloth, a bloated and disfigured corpse of a small child emerged in all its hideousness.
If that sight wasn't bad enough, a red, viscous foam trickled out from the mouth and nose of the body and dripped down onto the ground.
Gil had to take another step back as the smell hit him head-on with full force. He had experienced a lot of things since coming to this world, but something about watching a woman gently embracing a child's decomposing corpse trumped it all.
From the state of putrefaction, the blue tinge of the skin and the bloating, Gil figured that at most four or five days had passed since the child's death. By now, the micro-organisms inside the body would have already gone to work, eating their way through the intestines and invading other parts of the body.
Solamh gritted his teeth and hobbled his way towards Medea.
"Lady Medea, please, I beg you to bring Braon back! He was all I had left!" Solamh fell to his knees, his forehead scraping against the filthy floor. Gil stared at the pitiful old man grovelling at their feet, a million thoughts racing across his mind. But, he was most curious about why Solamh thought Medea could bring back this child.
"Solamh!" Ainnir finally broke out of her reverie and turned to glare at the old man. "That's enough! How much longer are you going to torment Braon with your foolishness?!"
"You don't understand! I have nothing left to live for! Broan was my last hope, my last light! And watching him grow up was the only joy I had left," Solamh's voice became quieter the more he spoke, his nails digging into his palms as he clenched his fists. "Everyone is gone, taken from me by this cruel world. Please... I beg you."
"This isn't right..." Ainnir whimpered while embracing Broan's corpse, but Solamh ignored her.
"Lady Medea, people say that you are an evil sorceress that conspires with the devils. They say you poisoned Lord Fithel and deceived him, but I don't care about any of that! If you can return Braon, my precious grandchild back to me, then I will even sell my soul to the devil!"
Gil raised an eyebrow at that. From Almha's comments and Brigit's behaviour, he knew the villagers didn't exactly have a good impression of Medea, but he didn't realize that it was this bad.
'An evil sorceress?' Gil hummed in thought. Come to think of it, didn't she try to drug him on their first meeting? He smirked at that memory and turned to see how Medea would react to such an outrageous claim.
If she was surprised by this revelation, then her expression failed to give anything away. She watched the kneeling old man in silence before doing something he would not have expected her to do even in a million years. She fucking kicked him.
It wasn't a light tap either as the man was sent sprawling across the trash-laden floor and only came to a stop when he smashed against the wall on the opposite end. The impact was strong enough to shake the entire house.
"I apologize," Medea said with a frosty expression. "But, the devil is not accepting any souls right now."
Gil gasped, his mouth hanging open at the sheer absurdity of the situation. He figured that maybe Medea had a plan in mind when she told him to keep quiet, but he didn't expect something so... straightforward.
What baffled him more was this action was so uncharacteristic of her. He had come to know Medea as a sly, yet composed woman that used words to maneuver her way through the society. Her outburst had taken him by surprise and not to mention, the amount of power that simple kick carried.
This all but confirmed that she wasn't normal. And to think he had tried to mess with her.
"Holy shit, did she just spartan kick that old dude to death?" Figment muttered, his eyes wide open like two saucers.
Solamh hadn't so much as twitched a finger since he crumpled to the ground and Gil doubted the man's old body could endure much punishment. He directed a questioning gaze towards Medea, but she was still staring at the limp body of the old miller.
"Solamh!" Ainnir screamed and rushed to his aid. However, she refused to let go of the bloated corpse, making her progress difficult through all the chaotic scatterings.
"Fractures on the skull and the ribs, lacerations on shoulders and back, and internal bleeding in the abdominal region," Medea voiced the old man's injuries like reading through a list. "Patch him up and keep him alive until he fulfills his usefulness."
Ainnir was leaning over Solamh when she heard Medea and instantly froze up in fear. Whether scared of the heavy injuries to the miller or afraid of Medea, Gil couldn't tell.
"And bury that filthy thing," Medea turned around and left the house, not waiting for a reply.
"Y-yes," Gil heard Ainnir's trembling voice before he also followed after Medea and finally inhaled some fresh air.
As he stepped out, he noticed Medea waiting for him, her golden locks blowing in the wind like an ethereal stream.
"Damn, this chick is feisty. Exactly how I like it," Figment nodded in appreciation.
'Well, I don't.'
"Nobody asked you."
Gil wasn't sure what he should be feeling right now. Did he feel pity for the old miller? Sure, but it was the same pity he would show to a starving child in a less developed part of the world; fleeting and insincere. It wasn't something that impacted him too deeply or even made him re-evaluate his worldview.
Maybe, he should be horrified or even sickened by Medea's behaviour, but these emotions just refused to surface. Ultimately, he was left with a sense of morbid curiosity and a bit of apathy towards the whole thing.
He felt like blaming the modern media for desensetizing him to everything.
"Why do people turn to evil when they desire something?" She asked, turning around to face him. Her voice pulled him out of his thoughts and made him focus on her.
"Can't blame them, really. I mean the evil probably has a monopoly on trading souls for wishes," Gil shrugged.
"A simple misunderstanding," Medea replied with a wave of her hand. "I hope this was enough to alleviate some of your boredom."
"In fact, it was more than enough."
"Good, because we should return to the manor for the day."
"But, what about the reason we came here in the first place?"
"Do you want to tell that senile old man that his son came back to life?"
"Now that you say it like that, it definitely sounds like a bad idea."
"A wise choice, Mr. Guest. Now, let us head back."
They had only been out for a few hours, but so much had happened during this time that even Gil just wanted to sit down and think everything over. But, his curiosity just wouldn't let him keep his mouth shut.
"You know, that sure was a strong kick. I didn't know you possessed such talents," he glanced at her from the corners of his eyes, but otherwise tried to appear as uninterested as possible.
"I could say the same about you, Mr. Guest," she nodded towards the villagers that greeted her on their way.
"What do you mean?" Gil frowned at her statement. He quickly replayed the events of the past few days in his mind but failed to find anything that could have given him away. He had made sure to reset every scenario in which he had revealed anything sensitive.
"An ordinary traveller would never visit this remote region without a purpose," Medea said, returning his gaze. "And, Mr. Guest, you asked me about the location of other cities, so tell me, how does a traveller end up here without a smidgen of knowledge about the surrounding area? It is as if you appeared out of nowhere."
Well, technically he did appear out of nowhere, but she didn't need to know that.
"Thus, I would like to propose a trade," she continued before he could say anything. "We will keep our curiosities in check until the right time."
'Another trade where I'll get ripped off? It's like the NAFTA negotiations all over again.' Gil sighed as the memories of his first trade with her surfaced in his mind. He was not looking for a repeat of that anytime soon.
"And what exactly defines this 'right time?'" he asked with his arms crossed.
"The right time is the right time, and you will know when it is the right time."
"Alright, whatever," he said, raising his arms in defeat.
"I am glad we could come to an agreement."
He wasn't in the mood to argue with her right now, so they just walked back to the Vampire Manor without any fanfare.
Medea returned to her bedroom, while Gil sat on the chair he had laid claim to, but as he was about to relax and take a nap, Brigit approached him while nervously fiddling with her hands.
'Great, here comes another problem. This day just keeps on giving.'