Chapter 9: Civilisation

I wake up, my arms entirely numb. Cracking my eyes open, I begin to sit up, only to hit my head on the wooden ceiling. Arms flopping around like a fish out of water, memories of my current circumstances come flooding back, washing away the dream still lingering in my mind.

Light filters through the cracks between the boards of the overturned cart, burning into my retinas as they adjust. Ah, I wonder if there are any monsters lingering outside?

Twisting around in the narrow space, I put my face close to a gap in the boards, peeking out at the world. I see the slavering mouth of a wolf. What a great start to the day!

Now, it’s practically impossible to do any real damage to the wolf, or wolves, with my sword, due to having to lift the cart to get at them. That leaves magic. A wisp of mana escapes my palm, turning a dark brown that smells of dust and mildew. Concentrating it on a small spot on the wood in front of me, it begins to rot, flaking and breaking apart as I watch.

Picking up my sword and awkwardly manoeuvring it within the tight space, I give the rotting portion a solid whack with the pommel, collapsing that section of wood and a bit more. It’s more effective than I was expecting, having an entire section of the plank collapsing instead of the small hole I intended. A wolf shortly sticks its nose in, trying to get at me.

What do you expect from a dumb monster? Heck, I’m not even sure whether these are monster wolves or normal wolves. The weaker wolf monsters don’t have much difference from the beasts.

Anyway, it is too difficult in such a small space to draw my sword and attack it, so I drew out some more mana from within me. I’m a bit low from that stunt yesterday with the earth mana, but I have more than enough for something like this.

Moving it to surround the muzzle of the chomping wolf, and filling the gap between the boards, I turn it to ice mana, trapping it. It’ll only take a few moments to get out of ice that thin, so I quickly draw out another portion of mana, directing it into its mouth, before turning it into molten rock – lava.

It melts through the bottom of its jaw, falling onto the planks and the ground around. Flames appear as the wood around the wolf chars black.

Oops.

I splash water magic everywhere. The flames go out and the lava hardens to rock, producing copious amounts of smoke and steam and causing me to be uncomfortably hot. I cough heavily as the smoke filters slowly out.

Great job, me.

Also, the hole in the cart is now considerably larger. Wolf size larger. Testing out lava magic was a great idea!

Unsheathing my sword, I get ready to poke it out at any wolves that might come through.

I wait with bated breath.

Not a single wolf is forthcoming.

Seriously, was it just that one?

Poking my head out the hole, I look around. No wolves. Huh. Well, now I can get on with the day. Crawling through the hole, I stand up, outside. I don’t know if you could really call that inside, though.

Now that it isn’t so dark, I can see the various items strewn on the ground. Neat. Double-checking that there are no wolves, which there aren’t, I start foraging from the wreckage.

Any foodstuffs had probably been eaten by monsters, because I don’t find any, but the valuables are untouched. That probably means the driver of this cart was either killed by monsters or had a sudden heart attack and died. Hey, you never know.

Strangely, there is no corpse, not even bones. It doesn’t have anything to do with me, so I just forget about it. I find some sacks, some rope, and – jackpot - a small pouch of coins, with a mix consisting mostly of copper and a small amount of silver.

I’ll be able to use all this stuff to good effect. I place anything useful I find in a sack - bar the pouch of coins, which I tie to my belt by its drawstrings. No wonder you always hear stories of thievery in medieval settings, nobody has any pockets to put things in! I mean, if you just have some sort of over shirt or coat with pockets on the inside, you could put your coin pouch there and you would be good.

The sack has no straps or handles, so there isn’t much I can do except grab a fistful of the rough fabric and carry it over my left shoulder as I walk away from the wreckage, back towards the river a short way away.

I look an utter mess, with my clothes covered in dust, dirt and the odd splotch of blood from my fights. My hair is slick with oil and yet more dirt and dust. This world doesn’t have shampoo, so I could only rinse it with soap back in the keep. And of course, the last couple of days, it didn’t get washed at all.

And these facts please me. Why, you ask? It’s obviously because everyone else is the same. There are no washing machines here, meaning clothing must be washed by hand. You can’t exactly do that every day because of the time it takes, so people should often have clothes with dirt and dust on them.

And if someone were to turn up with silky hair and immaculate clothing, it would bring more attention than I would like. So, it’s good that I’m dirty, to an extent. Well, dirt in the hair won’t matter, so after reaching the river, I look around just in case there is anyone there.

There isn’t, of course, so I take off my clothes. Placing them on the shore with my weapon close at hand, I step into the cold, rushing water and rinse my body and hair of the sweat and dust. A water slime drifts towards me, which I give a swift punch, causing it to splatter over the surface of the water.

The gelatinous particles are swept downstream as I step out of the water again. Then I stand there for a moment, sopping wet.

I forgot I don’t have a towel.

Ah, whatever. One by one, I vigorously shake each limb to get as much water as possible off, then don my clothing again. I’m still a bit wet, so it clings to me as I walk along. It’s particularly unpleasant for my feet, having damp socks and boots.

I may as well get used to the discomfort, because I’ll likely be doing things like this, or worse, for the rest of my life.

Now, on to more serious things. In terms of the magic I will use in the future, I think I’ll ignore formations. They’re too convenient and powerful in battle. And I can’t use magic of all elements either. If someone with that talent shows up out of nowhere just after somebody of the same talent dies, people will start asking questions.

How about I restrict myself to earth and fire? Yeah, that sounds good. Extensive deliberation of pros and cons? Hah! I fart in your general direction!

Now for the last – and most important – point. Immersion. A battle isn’t a true life and death combat unless both sides believe in the possibility of death. There are people who go into a fight, thinking it will be effortless, sure. But as soon as that blade approaches their body, they begin to realise their imminent demise.

Unfortunately, I don’t. Because nothing can kill me. Not unless I myself decide to die.

But… there are ways I can make myself believe I can die.

And so, from now on, I will believe that I am a normal human being. I will not remember anything about my powers, although I will still remember that my face has changed and that I do not wish for my identity to be discovered. As for the details around these points, I will henceforth never think of them again.

I rub my head. Did I hit it on something in the night? I’m getting a bit of a headache. Well, it isn’t that bad, so I’ll just ignore it.

As my boots scuff against the earth over and over, the trees slowly fade into the distance behind me. I’m out of the forest. According to what I remember of the map, there should still be some distance to go.

I continue following the river. In a short while, I should be able to see the road, which curves somewhat to draw near the river.

The calm whisper of wind brushing past the grass and quiet rush of water alongside me almost makes me forget about the monsters roaming around in its tranquillity as I stroll along the shore, my clothes slowly drying under the warm rays of the sun.

I half wish I could start exercising, with great weather like this. I wonder what season it is here? I don’t think I caught that info in general knowledge class. If this is summer, I wonder if it’ll snow in winter?

Is it easier to survive low temperatures or high temperatures for poor people? With cold, you have frostbite, crops can die leading to a rise in food costs, it’s harder to work, meaning it’s even harder to get money for food… And more, I suppose, but I never thought to learn anything related to such subjects, beyond the very surface.

With heat, you get heat strokes, plagues of insects, which cause actual plagues, can also eat crops… If crops are always dying, how do we still get their produce? I smell a conspiracy… Just kidding. You only really get one of these extremes in any given place, so crops still have time to grow.

I see the road off in the distance, so I start walking towards it. Even if one were to say my travel today was unproductive, ignoring the distance travelled, I have been drawing in the pure mana from the air, slowly replenishing my mana heart.

The crunch of my boots on the ground marks the transition from soft grass to hard dirt. I have reached the road. Furrows in the ground mark the passing of many carriages, although I imagine it would be worse if it rained. Beyond the first few who pass by, the deep and jagged marks left behind would greatly impair passage of those behind.

Interesting how people in the modern world complain how hard it is to see and drive in wet weather. Do they not realise that wet weather used to mean that the only travel possible was within walking distance?

But then again, humans are like that. They are a creature that does not wonder at how much things have improved, but rather gripe and moan that it is not perfect, expressing myriad ways some aspect of living could be greatly improved. And if their suggestion is implemented, they still criticize it.

Enough philosophy, let’s get some exercise done. Now that I don’t have to worry about monsters or getting lost as much, I can run without restraint. And by ‘without restraint’, I mean a light jog. What, you build stamina by sprinting for twenty seconds before exhausting yourself? If you look up the definition of stamina, notice the words ‘ability to sustain prolonged effort’. Prolonged. As in for an extended period. And thus, my pace that one might remark to be slow, is quite efficient in building stamina.

And as every player of skyrim knows, stamina is important. After all, it lets you carry several times your own weight - wait, no, I mean it allows you to do a series of power strikes against your enemy without tiring…

Excuse me a moment, would you?

*Mumbles* What was I actually meaning there? Should the point have been that it lets you run a long time? But I’m already doing that. Ah, right, that’s it!

*Cough* Sorry about that, I mean, stamina lets you outrun your enemies. And your companions, but hey, it’s not your fault if they can’t keep up while you’re jumping up the side of a mountain.

I scratch my head a bit.

Wait, that is your fault, isn’t it? And you don’t jump up mountains in real life, you use… The dreaded…

Proper path.

*shudders*

Unlike the more direct route taken in most open world games, the proper path is often winding and needlessly long, not to mention devoid of any excitement of discovery. A well-trodden path is only an unwelcome reminder that you are not the first to be there.

The bag slips out of my sweaty palm and falls to the ground. Stopping, I wipe my hands on the front of my tunic, pick it up again, and continue jogging.

Looking up, I see a carriage moving towards me. Moving to one side of the road, I jog past it. It doesn’t stop, and with its superior speed, it quickly evaporates into the distance.

Not too far now, I think. I keep jogging, feeling the heat building up in my limbs and chest heaving at increasing rates as time flies on. When my energy inevitably runs dry, I slow to a walk. I look up at the sun, slightly missing the convenience of watches, before dismissing the thought.

I don’t know when I started running, or the time now, so I can’t say how long I’ve been running. My watch disappeared back… But I can say with confidence that my jog was considerably longer than I was capable of back on Terra. Should I change that to earth 1? It’s still confusing me. Whatever, it doesn’t matter.

The first part of the city that comes into my view is the walls. A couple minutes later, I spot the peak of a tower peering over the top edge of the wall.

After that, I begin to see the line of horse riders, carriages and people on foot, trailing back a kilometre from the city gates. Just great. I sort of expected this, but I had been trying not to think about it. I reach the line a short while later. Then begins the hour long wait as it slowly creeps along.

If it not for the tough, salty pieces of meat I chew the entire time, I would likely be falling asleep on my feet. Or perhaps not. As it is, a brightly decorated carriage occasionally bypasses the line entirely, startling me out of my sleepy stupor. Nobles, no doubt. I feel a slight touch of the righteous anger that results from watching someone cut in line smoulder within me.

It fades away shortly as I again begin to relax into sleepiness.

Eventually, I reach the front of the line. The guards at the gate look at me, shuffled through a few of the papers in their hands, then wave me through. Wanted posters, most likely.

I’m in the city, now I just need to find food and shelter. An inn, then, and a cheap one, I don’t have much cash. Then I need a way to make cash to sustain myself, while I train.

That might be a problem. Sure, I can hunt weak monsters in areas near the city to earn a few coins – but so can everyone else. Monsters get hunted everyday by large groups of newbie warriors. I can get up earlier, go out hunting earlier, get to the new monsters that spawn earlier. Others that are just as determined could do the same. There will be less, true. Still, it would be hard.

And that’s why… I probably need to get a part time job. Which will be hard to do, in a new town, where I know nobody, and nobody knows me. But I should be able to go without for a time on the coin I currently have.

I walk down the busy street. Buildings of wood and stone line the edged of the street, broken occasionally by side streets. The ground is paved with cobblestones, and the sharp clack of hoof on stone echoes out as carriages move by in the centre of the road constantly. It is near mid-day, and traffic is high.

I have some time before sunset, so I use it to acquaint myself with the city. There are some aspects I already know, or rather, expected of the city; main roads, such as those leading from the gates, are well patrolled by guards, and the closer to the centre of the city you get, the bigger and more lavish the buildings become. The further away you get from the centre of the city, and main roads, the shabbier places get, and the shadier people you find.

I had half-expected the place to stink to high heavens as well, but I’m very glad that the place has disappointed me in that regard. I suppose they must use water magic to deal with sewage issues. Otherwise, with their level of technology, sewage and washing water being tossed out of the window onto unsuspected street-goers wouldn’t be an unusual sight.

Wandering around only on heavily populated streets for safety, I see a wide variety of stores, houses, inns, a few restaurants and a few other places. Remembering what is where is another thing entirely, but I’m now fairly confidant I can find my way around the place.

Beginning to make my way to one of the less fancy inns I had noticed, I question the owner about room availability, thank him, then leave. I have a large list to go through before the end of the day. My goal is to find something cheap, yet close enough to the main streets to ensure some semblance of security.

As the sun slowly sinks down in the sky, I find what I’m looking for. A small place, with only a few rooms, the price dirt-cheap at eight coppers a night. But the doors have locks, and there are fittings on the windows to place a board across them, and that’s good enough for me.

It isn’t in the best part of town, but it isn’t near the slums, either. And as for the reason this place isn’t teeming with residents? Well, that’s because they have standards. I pay the price and receive a tarnished copper key. It looks normal, and it makes me hope the doors have different locks and keys. Unlocking and opening the door to my new room, I step inside.

A small, square room greets my eyes. It is barely large enough to hold a bed – reason one for people disregarding this inn. The rooms don’t have beds. Their only furniture is a small wooden chair that looks like it had seen better days. I breath in, and a musty smell filters through my nostrils. I doubt this place has been cleaned in a long time, and that is another reason.

I could, with some time and effort, clean this place with water magic. But I have decided not to use any magic besides earth and fire, and those aren’t going to help me here. In fact, I’m not sure I have any way to clean the dusty room at the moment. So, I settle for moving what dust I can to one corner using my foot. I grasp at the resulting pile of dust, some drifting down from my hand as I move to the window and toss it out.

Repeating this last action a few times, I now have somewhat less of an urge to sneeze uncontrollably. I notice that it is starting to get cool, and I’m hungry. I need to get a blanket and some food before sundown, or I’ll be spending the night cold and hungry. I’m not stupid enough to think I can safely roam the streets at night. The night is the territory of thieves and thugs, and they don’t like intruders.

I move out again, placing the supplied wooden plank in the window fittings and locking the door behind me, although I hardly need to. I have nothing to leave in my room. All my worldly possessions are on my person.

I strode quickly through the streets, less people roaming around as the sky grew steadily darker. Food first. My destination is some street vendors I noticed selling food earlier. I should have gotten some food earlier, I’ve no clue why I didn’t. Oh, right, I was chewing on jerky at the time. That was shortly before I ran out of the stuff.

I walk up to one.

“What’re you selling?”

“Wolf meat. Cooked.”

“How much?”

“couple coppers.”

“Sure.”

I hand him the cash, and receive a chunk of slightly warm meat in return. Well, he didn’t say anything about how long ago it was cooked. I’m lucky it’s not stone cold.

“Thanks.”

He shrugs, and I walk off. I bite into it. It’s tough, chewy, and tastes pretty bad. But it has the nutrients I need, so I rip off one piece at a time with my teeth, and slowly chew until it’s broken into small enough bits to swallow.

My hands are now covered in grease. Let’s add a fork to the shopping list for tomorrow.

The next destination is a fabric store. Not one of the high-end ones, just a small store. I waste a bit of time trying to find it again. I got a little lost. As I arrive, I wipe my fingers on my tunic. With how chewy it was, I have just finished the wolf meat.

“What do you need? We got everything from sacks to drapes here. I’m about to close up shop, so hurry it up.”

I was greeted by a woman standing behind a counter, the wall behind her lined with shelves, stocked completely full of fabrics of all colours of the rainbow.

“Cheap blankets.”

She nods, but indicates that she needs more info.

“What’s your definition of cheap?”

You think I’m loaded with this getup?

“Under twenty coppers.”

She pulls a neatly folded blanket from behind her.

“Nineteen coppers. Thick, warm, a little itchy but it’ll do the job.”

“Sure. Here you go.”

I hand over some coinage from my money pouch. It’s noticeably lighter than earlier today. Twenty-nine coppers lighter. I need to learn to barter.

Taking the blanket, I hurry back to the inn. It probably has a name, but I haven’t bothered to ask. As long as I know where it is, I was good.

Because I prioritised saving money, the inn, fabric store and food vendor are all a fair distance away from one another. By the time I make it back, the sky has grown almost completely dark.

Stepping inside, the innkeeper’s reception counter is dimly lit by a single candle. The innkeeper is sitting behind the counter, rolling a set of dice around. He’s a large man, an ugly scar crossing from his left eyebrow, across his nose, and ending at his upper lip.

I nod at him and climb the stairs, entering my room. I place my sack on the floor. I had gotten so used to holding it over one shoulder that I hadn’t set it down last time… silly me. I unbuckle my belt and detach my sheath from it, putting it on the ground. I Take off my boots and stockings, they reek of sweat. Ugh.

Grabbing my coin pouch, I stuff it halfway down the leg of my pants as I lay on the hard floor. I couldn’t afford to lose my money right now, and this is the best hiding place I can think of. Wrapping the blanket around me, I close my eyes and fall slowly into an uncomfortable sleep.