It’s been three days since we arrived, and our situation hasn’t changed. We’ve put up notices in the adventurers guild offering to pay for any information about gates and their locations, but we’ve yet to have any responses.

I sigh, I suppose I shouldn’t expect information quite so quickly. I slowly drag myself out of my oh so comfortable bed. Lily and I have started staying in a relatively nice inn after I lost an argument about where we should sleep, and while I may have been against it at first, the food and bed managed to win me over, the softness was a far cry from the tough beds they have in the barracks.

I slowly walk downstairs, stifling my yawns, and soon arrive at the crowded tavern portion of the inn. It’s a nicer inn, so every surface is dirt free, the polished wood tables and floor lending a warm feeling to the place. The walls are painted a very pale green, and light comes from a few chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

I soon spot Lily and have to stop myself from groaning.

“I can’t believe you would serve food like that! It was cold when it arrived at my table, what kind of fucking service do you think this is? I want to see your boss, let’s see what they think about you giving such shit service.”

I quickly walk over to stop her tirade against the poor overworked serving girl, who looks like she wants to be anywhere but there.

“C’mon Lily, we need to get to searching for a gate back home.”

“But my food was served cold!”

I simply look down at her short stature, doing my best to show how much I cared with my dead expression.

“Come on, let’s just get going.”

Lily seems to growl a bit, but starts to follow when I start walking away. She does make sure to cast one last glare at the poor, probably innocent serving girl as she follows me.

I’m already nursing a headache from dealing with Lily and I haven’t been awake for more than thirty minutes. It seems I was slowly turning into her handler, having to constantly try and clean up after her incessant need to yell about something.

I’d had to deal with her at the armor shop for not getting good enough service, at the weapons shop for not having any weapons she wanted, and I’m sure I would be hearing her complaining about the inn we just stayed at for the rest of the day.

I look over at her and sigh. My gaze lingers a bit, and something I’d been thinking for a while just slips out of my mouth, be it from my sleepiness or just wanting to complain.

“You know, you’d actually be quite cute if you weren’t such a jerk.”

Lily pauses for a moment, before looking at me in a surprised way.

“And what part of me isn’t cute!?”

I ignore the fact that she completely ignored me calling her a jerk, I felt like I’d lose if I minded it, and out of sheer annoyance from having to deal with her I decide to vent.

“Basically everything that comes out of your mouth is the opposite of cute. You curse like a sailor, you complain about everything, and you constantly pick on people. That poor serving girl you were yelling at, who was probably innocent by the way, looked like she was about to cry, and all you seemed to care about was shoving your complaint onto her. If you want to be classified as cute you need to act cute, looks can only get you so far.”

“So you’ve got a fucking problem with me fucking cussing?” she says, clearly emphasizing the fucks so as to make it clear she’s doing it to get a rise out of me. “And if they don’t want to get complaints, they shouldn’t serve cold food.”

“And acting like you did is going to stop them serving you cold food? If anything they’ll be more likely to serve you last, simply out of spite. What were you expecting to get out of complaining anyway? Aside from getting kicked out that is. If you were complaining to just complain you should probably review your outlook on life.”

Lily turns away with a hmph and simply starts walking, apparently deciding that the silent treatment would be the best way to deal with me. I smiled, if I was getting the silent treatment I may actually have some peace for the day.

Our first stop was at the armor and clothing store, we’d both needed to get fitted for a few sets of clothing, so as to not end up smelling horribly after being stuck in the same set of clothing for a while. We’d also commissioned a set of good armor out of molt plates, as it wouldn’t mess with my magic casting, and the extra protection would be very nice with how I wouldn’t respawn while in this body.

Lily remained silent, still annoyed at me while I greeted Aselya, who was wearing a bored expression as always. I was soon handing over the gold for our clothing and armor, and went into an area closed off by cloth hanging from the ceiling to change.

I was son wearing a dark green shirt made of some mysterious, but surprisingly soft fiber seeming material, and a pair of leather pants, with my new molt plate armor covering my chest and forearms. I could’ve gone for a more full body covering, but I wanted the freedom of movement that came with the lesser set.

Lily and I came out at around the same time, and I couldn’t help saying something that I thought might rile her up a bit more.

“So? How do I look?”

Surprisingly, she didn’t seem to get annoyed at me, just giving me a quick once over and turning away, clearly still giving me a silent treatment, but seemingly not as annoyed as she had been.

I shrugged, and grabbed my backpack up off the ground where I’d left it, putting the excess clothing in one of the side pockets, and giving all the stuff I’d had to buy again a once over.

I’d had to repurchase my alchemy set, my ward net and tent, and I’d even repurchased my book on alchemy and the monster compendium, though I couldn’t spare the funds for the book on inscriptions quite yet.

Before leaving the clothing store, Lily and I took off our armor and I inscribed it with runes of toughness. It wouldn’t hold up for too long against anything imbued with sharpness, but it could at least take a couple of blows now.

I was soon heading out of the city with Lily following me. We were going to be out of the city for at least a few days this time, searching around where we’d first arrived for a gate. I wasn’t particularly optimistic about our chances, but I didn’t have any better ideas on where to search.

We were soon leaving the city, the bustle and noise slowly fading away as we started to walk through the farmlands, the farmers out doing whatever farmers do for their crops. We walked in silence for a while, until we arrived at the edge of the farmlands, the smaller wall separating the farms from the monsters.

We kept walking along, easily handling the groups of monster that attacked us, simply casting a few spells and then gathering the loot. Along the way, I snacked on some of the hard cheese I had brought along, finishing it off with some fruit that had a hard peel that wasn’t edible, but had a texture inside similar to an apple.

Oddly enough, it tasted more like a dragonfruit than anything else. I’d slowly started to enjoy them though, so I finished one off, and then handed one over to Lily as she kept shooting sidelong glances over at me snacking on it, only for her to make a confused face and stare at it for a moment after her first bite, slowly finishing about half of it before throwing it away.

We had gotten around three quarters of the way to where our gate had been, when the sun started to set and we set up camp. While we sit around a fire, both of us express our hope to find a gate soon, but neither of us seems to be convinced that is going to happen, Lily finally seemed to be over giving me the silent treatment, though she seems a bit confused on how to treat me after learning I think she’s a total jerk.

We slowly grow tired, and head off to our own tents before I slowly fade into a meditative sleep.

The next day is spent arriving at the spot where our gate was, and I sigh. I hadn’t expected it to still be there, but I had hoped. I slowly turn away from where the gate had been before commenting.

“Well, it seems we’ll be searching for a new gate after all.”

“Of course we can’t get a fucking break,” lily said with an aggressive tone.

I sigh a bit, she really seems to not care about my opinion like she does about her followers, as I hadn’t seen her curse once when her posse is around. Ignoring the fact that my opinion about her cursing means nothing to her, I heft my backpack before giving some optimism I didn’t agree with.

“I’m sure we’ll find a new gate soon enough.”

“We better” Lily mentions darkly.

I sigh, I just hope we find a gate before Lily snaps and really blows up at one of the people she’s always being so rude towards.

The next few days were spent searching fruitlessly, both of us slowly growing more quiet and reserved as the search went on. Eventually, we both decided it would be best to head back to Kurheim and see if anyone had answered our request for information on gates.

The city was the same as always, and we were soon at the adventurers guild to find out if anyone had any information on gates. After asking the lady at the counter if anyone had answered our request, we found out that someone had found one to the southwest of the city, but that it was gone now.

I paid out a little gold for the information, as I was hoping that if we found enough information on where gates appeared we could eventually track down the patterns for their appearance.

The next few weeks were spent much the same, though I got back into my habits of training my stats, and Lily started to join me on my runs and simple exercises. Both of our stats had started to slow down in their growth, but even with that, I expected that we would have enough stats that we could risk fighting a four star mob within a few more weeks.

I was meditating at the training grounds, when a group of what seemed to be a group of very experienced adventurers, with armor that was made out of some material I didn’t recognize, and weapons which seemed to be made from giant pieces of bone, or possible some form of ivory.

“Hello, I believe you were the one looking for information on those cracks in the air?”

“Yes!” I said, possibly in a bit too excited of a tone. “Do you have any information on where one is?”

“Yeah, it just appeared nearby our camp while we were eating, we weren’t sure what it was, but we remembered there was someone looking for information, so we talked to the guild and came to find you.”

“Can you show me where it is?”

“We can show you, but it’s in an area with a lot of four star mobs, and the occasional five star, you’d need an escort if you want to make it there safely.”

“And I assume you’re offering?” I said, expecting to have to pay.

“One hundred gold.”

That was a lot cheaper than I had been expecting, but I figured that if they were hunting in the area anyway, they probably just saw us as a way to make a little money on the side.

“Deal,” I said, then raised my hand to shake.

After agreeing, they said they would be heading out on the weekend, so we agreed to meet near the north gate around sunrise on this world’s equivalent to saturday, the day after tomorrow. Why the days of the week were different when they spoke the same language eluded me, but I simply ignored it most of the time.

Immediately after, I found Lily and informed her of the deal I had agreed to, and watched as her face lit up immediately, for once acting like the cute girl she looked like. After she finished hopping up and down, I informed her of when we would be leaving to go to the gate, the day after tomorrow, and where we would be meeting.

We were soon getting ready for the trip. I knew we may end up having to fight, even if we were going to have an escort, so I loaded up the potion belt I’d had remade with my standard loadout of potions, four health, four mana, and two stamina. I then checked over all my gear, making sure it was all in perfect condition.

Once I’d gotten ready, I spent the rest of the day pacing in nervous excitement. It wasn’t certain that the gate would still be there, but the one we had found back on earth had lasted for a few days, and this one had only very recently appeared, so I expected it would still be there when we arrived.

I eventually found sleep through meditation, though I had stayed up far later than I normally would due to the mix of worry and excitement.

The next day I spent trying and failing to focus on my training, eventually just taking to doing laps around the training field to do something productive. At this point, I could run for hours, though with the sprints I was constantly doing in between jogging, I was worn out far sooner than that.

I eventually just sat down, hoping that the gate would bring me back. I’d been trapped here for three weeks, and I was missing the internet, I was missing my web novels, and most importantly, I was worried about my town having to face the monster wave.

I wasn’t sure what was going to happen with that, there were a good amount of police and people with guns, so they should be able to fight off the monsters, but I worried it would only be with a lot of casualties.

My mind then turned to what would be happening in countries with more strict gun laws. Would they be faring better or worse with having to fight using melee weaponry? My musing was interrupted by Lily, likely looking for something to distract her from the constant worried excitement she was sure to be feeling along with me.

“Do you really think that the gate will still be there?”

“It’s pretty likely. The gate we found on earth lasted at least a few days, and we don’t know how long it was there before we found it.”

“It better be. I’m sick of the food here, I’m sick of the uncomfortable beds, I’m sick of not having internet, and I’m sick of not being able to update my viewtube channel. What if I lose some of my subscribers?”

Towards the end of it she almost had a whining tone, and I was confused, the food had been good, and the beds had been more comfortable than mine on earth, what was she complaining about?

After my short bout of confusion, I let out a short “I’m sure you can have your luxuries back soon enough princess,” my voice dripping in sarcasm. Through the weeks we had spent together, we’d developed a relationship that was an odd mixture of friendly and antagonistic. I would be horribly sarcastic whenever she went all bitch mode, and she would be a jerk to me, but we stuck together, if only to be near someone else from earth. Eventually the bickering had lost the sheer rage of it and become more comfortable.

She glared at me for a bit, before returning to a worried expression, but she soon gave up on conversation with me, both of us simply contemplating our hope of returning. After what seemed like years, the sun began to set, and we headed back to the inn, we were going to get some rest, and tomorrow we would be on our way home.