I did not come here on purpose, nor did I know why I was here. All I wanted to do was go to karaoke to celebrate my high school graduation, but ended up in this unknown wilderness.

I sadly shook my head.

She touched my shoulders with kindness. For a moment, I thought of my grandma. She was such a gentle person as this old lady, but somehow I managed to hold back the tears.

“Where—am—I?”

I asked with difficulty, and used my hands to describe this question, and magically it worked.

“This is the Land of Ruins, northern part of Aniesian Continent.”

Well, I was stuck for a minute, mainly because I had never heard of these vocabularies.

A few months later, here I was, staring into the night sky with the bonfire near my feet, finally understanding what those words mean.

It turned out that, yes, a person can die from many stupid reasons, like getting hit with a flower pot on the head. Maybe that was why my body and soul got traversed into this new land called Aniesian Continent?

Well, it took me quite some time to accept the fact though.

This world was full of demons. Everyone here was a demon, and of course, I am the only human. For appearance, demons looked just like humans. If you were ever given a guessing game based on looks, you would never be able to differentiate humans and demons, unless a demon started to show off his magic skills.

They were definitely different from the demons in movies and books. Everyone on this continent knew how to do magic, and was born with a holy pearl that signified the specific type of magic element.

There were mainly seven types of magic elements: wind, fire, water, earth, thunder, dark, and light. Of course, the list didn’t include some rare mutations out of all these main ones. Whether it was a mutated or normal magic element, the same person can only process one type of magic element.

At first I thought I could (maybe) walk out of this so-called “Aniesian Continent” and go back home. Maybe there was a connection between the Aniesian Continent and the modern world?

It turned out (at least from what I heard so far) that this continent was extremely large, and it was surrounded by sea water all around. There may be a link between these two worlds, but at least I didn’t know where at this moment.

Another interesting fact was that demons can live up to 300 years, compared to the 80 or 90 years of a human (if there weren’t any accidents or premature diseases). They were quite long-lived creatures. Within the 300 years, all demons had only one goal: to become a ten-winged immortal and live forever in the Heavenly Realm, but Grandpa Jin said this was painly a legend.

It might sound easier to say than to do. Most demons would never even achieve one pair of wings, therefore becoming a ten-winged immortal would be an impossible dream, but that didn’t discourage everyone to try. It was pretty understandable, considering no one wanted to die right?

Grandma Sha and Grandpa Jin were one of those peasant demons, who did not even have one pair of wings, therefore they couldn't fly. They possessed the magic element of Earth, therefore very skillful in planting and farming, as were all the other villagers in the Land of Ruins. Grandma Sha was actually 210 years old, and Grandpa Jin was 212.

They reminded me of my grandparents, which helped my home sickness a bit. I learned that their only daughter passed away long ago during a fire, and from then on they were childless. Maybe that was why they took care of me when I was super sick? I probably reminded them of their daughter. They must have loved each other a lot to spend all these years together. Sometimes they quarreled on very little things like too much salt or too little salt when boiling soup, but that surely warmed my heart because my parents do the same thing, but they never divorce, just occasionally argued on some stupid things.

Grandma Sha and Grandpa Jin were the only ones I know here. Ever since they saved my life, I considered them as part of my family.

I still missed home though, but I gained enough strength to handle it without shedding tears.

“LiNa, are you still thinking of your home?” Grandpa Jin sat down next to me, and lightly threw a stick to the bonfire to keep it going.

“Yeah, I think my parents and friends, and how they do without me.” After six months, I finally learned to communicate with them with some awkward sentences.

Grandpa Jin looked at the night sky and sighed, “We knew you must have come from far away. Your clothes looked so different. At first we thought you were from the south, but when you told us you were from a whole different world, we were quite confused and shocked. Never in our two hundred years have heard of another world outside this continent.”

Me too, never in my dumb brain would have guessed there was a demon world. I always thought demons were brutal and looked like monsters, but now it seemed all those mangas and movies were fake.

The demon life was actually pretty peaceful, although quite food-deficient and poor.

“LiNa, never tell anyone else that you come from another world, and never wear those clothing again.”

“Why? Grandpa Jin.”

“While it’s quite peaceful here now, but it has its chaos, I wish you never witness any of them. You must know that not everybody accepts other people’s differences. Unknown can lead to fear. When demons face fear, we often destroy it. In this world, you never want to be the different one. Act alike and disguise yourself as everyone else.”

Unfortunately, I was indeed different. Being the only human on this land was hard, I had no idea where my future lied. One thing I was certain of was that I can’t be a ten-winged immortal like everyone else.

Not far away, Grandma Sha had a few sweet potatoes in her hand and walked slowly toward us.

“Looks like you two have just started a conversation!” Grandma Sha smiled, and used a stick to dig a nice bed to place those sweet potatoes, not to overburn our dinner.

The night was dark.

As we looked across the land, there were bonfires here and there. The bonfires were vivid under the moonlight, and the white snowy background definitely helped them pop out. Our neighbors were kind of scattered, but in a distance that if something happened, at least one of them would notice. All those bonfires made me feel warm inside, especially on a cold winter day.

Although I wore thick layers of clothing and a furry hat, I can still feel the cold wind howling by my ears. If it was not for the bonfire, I would freeze to death. The Land of Ruins had weird climates. In the summer it was super hot and in the winter it was as cold as the North Pole (probably a bit exaggerating here, but close).

“Me cook these nuggets!” I took the stick from Grandma Sha, and rolled those sweet potatoes over every couple of seconds.

“You are such a sweetie!” Grandma Sha said kindly.

Living in such conditions, my survival skills definitely improved a bit. Only now did I know how much I appreciated modern technology. Just by twisting a few buttons to turn on the oven and range, you would get all the energy needed for any meals. Unlike here, we still needed to make the fire for each meal.

“What is the holy pearl? Can we see?” I asked with curiosity.