“Yes, I talked it through with Second Lieutenant Wynn and the people involved. I will let you stay for two days and you can work with several of the people here in the keep. Some areas are off-limits for a civilian though, I think you understand.”
Markus was sitting on the couch in the lieutenant’s office, opposite Clement.
“For the most part you can take as much time as you like with the different people. Tomorrow morning you will be sparring with one of my men until noon, apart from that you are free to just approach people on your own initiative. You can visit the workshop outside, the stables and the kitchen. One of the villagers has set up her alchemical workshop here in the keep, so you can also help her out. I already talked to her and she would even appreciate some help.
You can also talk to our mage and the healer if you want to, but without talent and specialized training you won’t be able to pursue those careers.”
“Thank you for giving me this opportunity” Markus was not too sure about the merits of his idea, but hearing ‘alchemy’ and ‘magician’ assured him that this should at least be interesting.
“I hope it will help you come to the decision to join us as a recruit, to be honest. Well… even if you don’t, Lieutenant Wynn agreed that it would not hurt to let you stay for a bit either way.”
Markus got the feeling that Wynn, and probably Clement as well, just wanted to keep an eye on him, but he didn’t worry that much. After getting some information from the bandits earlier, he was sure that he could avoid being too suspicious.
Wrapping things up with the lieutenant, Markus decided to check out the tavern. He was planning on getting a room to avoid having to stay in the barracks. There was no real reason apart from him not wanting to share a bedroom with a bunch of other people.
The tavern was the largest building in the village and closest to the road. A small stable had been built next to it, but it was apparently empty. Upon entering the main building, Markus was greeted by the sound of soldiers laughing loudly, obviously fairly drunk. He recognized two of them as Bradley and Ashton, who had been fighting the bandits this morning. There were several others he had not met yet.
A large, brown haired woman was standing behind a counter, greeting Markus.
“Ohhhh, hello, young traveller. What can I do for you?” The woman was making a friendly smile. She was very voluptuous, if not to say chubby, but attractive, although already in her late thirties. Her breasts looked like they were currently trying to break out of her dress, that’s how large they were, and how tight the top of her dress was pressing them into position.
“Hello. How much does a room cost for the night?” Markus got a little closer to the counter.
“It’s only one small silver coin per night, with breakfast. We don’t have many travellers here these days, with the dragons and all that.”
“Sounds good, I will take a room for two nights then. Do you serve dinner as well? I haven’t eaten since lunch”
“Kitchen is already closed, so all I can offer is cold stew and bread. The stew’s pretty good though, even cold. A beer as well?” Without waiting for him to answer, she turned towards the door behind her and started shouting, “AAABYYY!”
Immediately a girl appeared in the doorframe. She looked like a much younger version of the tavern keeper, much more slender, but she had definitely inherited her mother’s chest. “What is it? I’m not deaf mom, but I will be if you keep shouting like that.”
“We have a guest, darling. Go and prepare one of the rooms.” Saying that, the woman took a mug from behind the counter and started pouring some beer from a large keg behind her. The girl meanwhile looked at Markus curiously, then went upstairs.
Placing the mug in front of him, the tavern-keeper then went into the back-room where the girl had come from.
Markus picked up the mug and looked inside. There was barely any foam on the beer, and the liquid was kind of murky. Feeling adventurous, Markus took a large gulp.
The ‘beer’ was warm and left a bad taste in his mouth. Swallowing quickly, he also noticed that it packed quite a punch. And there were small chunks in it. Supressing the urge to shudder from the taste, Markus decided to drink the remaining beer slowly, or perhaps not at all.
The woman returned and placed a bowl with stew and a small basket with slices of dark bread in front of Markus. “And, tastes good, right? Our beer is super popular with the soldiers.”
“Well, it is certainly interesting. Thanks for the food.” Markus picked up the spoon and started eating the stew. Compared to the beer, the stew was actually good, even cold. Dunking some bread inside, he judged that this was certainly the best meal he had in the last two days. “The stew is really good. How much do I owe you?”
“The meal is 4 copper, beer 2. Including the room, its 2 silver and 6 copper.” Markus gave her a large silver coin from his inventory after putting his hand into his bag. After getting his change, he turned his attention back to his meal.
While he was eating, one of the soldiers sitting at the table called out to him, “Heyy, boy! Come join us for a bit, will ya?” Turning around, he noticed that it was the soldier named Bradley. Markus picked up his food and beer and sat down at an empty chair at the table.
“So this is the rumoured young traveller? Doesn’t look that impressive to me.” One of the other soldiers made that statement and with an uninterested expression.
Ashton responded, “You weren’t there, otherwise you wouldn’t say that. He has endurance like a horse, or better. The Lieutenant was mocking us after he ran off, yelling ‘Don’t look so tired, the youngster wasn’t tired at all, don’t embarrass the army, the civilian was so smart and cool and I want to marry him’, all the time.”
Markus doubted that Clement used all of those words.
“Watch your mouth, or the leader will make you go explode if he hears you.”
“Well, anyway, thanks for helping to save Coraline.” Ashton said so to Markus with a serious face. He then raised his mug. “To Newman and Martin! May they rest in peace, poor bastards!”
The other soldiers raised their mugs as well, Markus imitated them. Then all took a big gulp of their beer. While eating his dinner, Markus listened to the soldiers telling stories about how Newman had healed them, apparently he was well liked. Martin was less liked, as he was sometimes the cause of the injury that had to be healed.
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After he finished, the girl from before approached him. “Excuse me?” Markus turned around. “Your room is ready. Let me show you to it, ok?” Nodding, Markus stood up. Putting a small silver coin on the table, he announced that the next round was on him.
“Ahhh, he’s even well mannered!? What’s up with you, do you want everyone else to fall for you, too? Get properly drunk with us until you throw up like a real man” Ashton was lamenting, obviously intoxicated. The others thankfully raised their mugs towards Markus. He then followed the girl upstairs.
“By the way, I’m Abigail. I guess you are the guy the lieutenant told me about, the one who wants to help with work?”
“I’m Markus. Yea, I have asked Lieutenant Clement if I could join some of the professionals at the keep, to get an idea of what everyone is doing.” Markus explained while following the girl to one of the rooms.
“I am feeding the horses and usually prepare the meals for the soldiers, so I guess you want to join me too then. I don’t really understand what you want to do, but feel free to stop by. This is your room.”
Markus entered through the door the girl just opened. Inside the room there was a bed, table and chair. A large bowl with water was standing on the table, as well as a clean cloth.
“I suppose you want to wash yourself. The toilet is outside, next to the stables. If you need anything, just talk to me or my mom. I did not charge the light a lot though.” She pointed at the lamp, which was standing next to the bowl. It looked similar to the wall-mounted lights in the keep, a square box of some sort of glass with a floating sphere inside, emitting light. On top there was a small metal box.
“It’s fine, I will go to bed soon. Thank you.” Markus sat down on the bed. It seemed rather comfortable, and the sheets were clean.
“OK, I will leave you alone then. Good night!” Abigail smiled at him, then closed the door.
After she left Markus went over to the table. The lamp was probably some sort of magic tool that could be charged with mana. Putting his hand on the lamp, he decided to try it out. Placing his hand on the metal part on top, he tried pouring some mana inside. His mana pool dropped by a few points, but the light didn’t change intensity. He then reversed the mana flow, pulling energy out. After a few seconds, the light went out, leaving the room in darkness. Pouring some magic energy into it again, the light went back on.
He didn’t want to break the device by accident, so Markus stopped playing around with it after understanding the concept.
Looking at the washbowl he remembered the shopkeeper who had offered him soap. He didn’t think too much about it at the time, but now he was feeling a little ill at ease about his hygiene.
He tried using the reflection on the water to see if there was perhaps something on his face. The bad lighting in the room paired with the wobbly reflection didn’t let him see that much, but this was the first time he got at least a vague look at his face in this new world.
He was certainly younger and the face looked familiar, but at the same time it was slightly different. Markus was not entirely sure, but he would say that he had gotten a little more handsome. He had to get his hands on a proper mirror to tell though.
After undressing, Markus pulled out the soap from his inventory and started to wash himself. Judging from the state of the formerly white piece of cloth, he certainly was a bit dirty.
He didn’t have a change of clothes, so he put on his previous clothes again. He wanted to use the toilet and inform the tavern keeper to wake him up early tomorrow.
The ‘toilet’ was terrible. It was an outhouse between the stables and the tavern. It didn’t smell as bad as he had expected, but otherwise it was just a plank with a hole in it, and there was no toilet paper, just a small pile of straw. That wasn’t possibly the substitute, or was it? After he was done with his business, Markus pulled one of the bandit’s shirts out of his inventory and ripped off a piece of cloth to clean himself.
For the first time since testing it, he opened the [notes] function in the menu. Adding a new one, he wrote:
- Produce clean toilet paper and wet wipes
as the first item on his to-do list.
He then went back to his room after talking to Abigail’s mother about waking him up the next day.
Markus then turned off the lamp and went to bed. The day had certainly been eventful. It had not been as ridiculous as yesterday, there had not been any falling from space or dragons, but he had for the first time in his life see people get killed.
Not only that, after witnessing it for the first time in the morning, he went ahead and killed a group of people by himself, most of them just because it was easier than the alternative. It was certainly an act he would not even have considered to do in his old life. Was it because he still unconsciously believed this to be a dream? Was it because it felt so game-like? Because they were a murderous bunch of criminals who had attacked him first?
Whatever the reason, Markus was aware of one thing: he did not feel as bad about it as he thought he would, or rather as he thought he should feel. Perhaps he was in fact a bad person all along, a sociopath, or a psychopath.
But if he was, then why did he worry about whether or not the girl soldier survived? Why was he feeling good when he say Lieutenant Wynn be happy when the girl returned and understanding that she was irritated before because she was worried?
Those were questions Markus could not really answer and honestly had no need to answer right now. He didn’t kill for fun, he had a reason, even if it was a selfish one. Not feeling bad about killing criminals was something considered wrong in modern, advanced society, but here it was probably alright.
Not feeling remorse should be a good thing. As things were looking, it was likely that he had to kill again at some point and when that time came, he had no need to hesitate. Markus decided to find some people or a cause it was worth killing for. But first, he would train his skills. And for tonight, sleep again in a nice bed.