Sam was a bit happy as he had been able to chase the girl down. He had found her lying down, and it turned out she had fallen and hurt her foot. If she hadn’t, Sam was pretty sure that the chase would have taken a lot longer. He was happy as this meant he had gained a guide to a town.

She had been afraid of him at first. Well he was someone her party, though she was unwilling, had attacked. He held her not responsible, but he could see how someone else might have.

He had asked Kita to guide him to a town and she had agreed. As she had hurt her foot he had to piggyback her till her foot gets better. Sam had another problem too now that he had found a way to a town, it was money. He had not a penny on him, but maybe he could lend some from Kita if he helped her to town.

He had run while piggybacking Kita for little over half an hour when he deemed them far enough away from the camp. Sam estimated that they were around five kilometers south from the camp.

“I am gonna stop and I will let you down. We will be walking the rest to the road.” He said as he slowed down to a stop and let her slide off his back.

Her leather armor had been hard and uncomfortable for him. ‘No good sensation piggybacking a girl in armor.’ He thought with a wry smile as he watched her stretch a bit from the ride.

“We have to walk another five to six hours to reach the road we are heading to. We can camp and sleep a bit there.” Kita said when she had finished stretching. She looked at him and then began walking, it seemed her foot was fine enough as she didn’t stagger at all.

While they were walking towards the road Sam asked her some questions about the area and where he was. He did his best to hide that he had just appeared from nowhere. As he had no clue about what was what, he could see that Kita found his questions weird. This didn’t make his new companion less stressed over the situation.

After a few questions he deemed it not worth it to question Kita anymore and made some small talk instead, like what she and the brothers had been doing and what kind of work she normally did.

Kita worked as a scout for hire. She was low on the food chain as she was new in the guild she worked at. She confessed that the mission had been scouting the area he had been in, but that nothing in the mission told what they were looking for.

The pay had been little too good for normal, but not unheard of. Her guess was that it was to see if there were any changes to monster population or other things that could disturb the harvest later in the year.

Like this they reached the road in just under six hours, the sun had just begun rising too. Tired and sleepy they walked behind some bushes a bit away from the road. They were quite hidden from any directions, so they chose to sleep there.

Sam took the first guard duty as he had slept a few hours before Kita’s party woke him. Kita hadn’t slept since the morning yesterday. Sam saw her fall asleep just moments after she laid down on the earth.

‘She is rather cute.’ He thought as he sat down a bit away from her. He watched the sky while passing the time for his time to sleep.

There were some cotton clouds softly flying by. The weather had been nice, just one day it had rained since he came here.

‘It would have been bad if I had arrived in the middle of the winter.’ He thought while smiling at the clouds.

He could hear some birds sing and other small animals. ‘That means that nothing dangerous is around… Or something with enough stealth is lurking about.’ He sighed as he became unsure about how good an indicator the small animals were as an alarm system. Then again if something with that kind of skill was here, he would not be it’s match either way.

He had a hard time guessing time as he had no clock. His Dragon’s Mind skill helped a bit with it but it was still an estimation. When he thought four hours had gone by he woke up Kita and fell asleep himself.

Kita Woke up by being shaken lightly. “Twenty more hours...” She trailed off as she got reminded where she was and to whom she was speaking to. She yawned, four hours of sleep was not enough, but it had to do.

“Wake me in two.” Sam said as he laid down and was asleep as if someone clubbed him.

From the sun’s position she guessed that the time was late morning. She looked around, she was a bit hungry and therefore started looking through her small packs. She had thrown away her backpack when she ran from the fight.

That said she always had smaller bags and pockets equipped on her belt and other places if she lost her backpack somehow. This was something her guild had recommended specific to scouts as they needed to sneak and hide and a backpack could be in the way. To have some rations in her clothes. She had only needed it a few times, but everytime it had saved her from going hungry when she least wanted to be.

She nibbled on a bit of hard bread, the taste was not that good but it settled her stomach. She used her skill from time to time to check the area for anything approaching. She found nothing that could be deemed weird or dangerous. She glanced at Sam, he looked peaceful in his sleep.

‘What a weird man. When I asked him what he was doing near the forest, he just said he was lost. But when I asked him where he was from, he didn’t directly answer. His own question about the area is like he doesn’t know anything.’ Kita couldn’t think of the man as dangerous, but then she reminded herself that she didn’t know what happened to the brothers. She hadn’t asked either, afraid of the answer.

After two hours she woke Sam up, he looked tired. He thanked her when she gave him some hard bread. They did some stretches and then left their little hideout. Kita followed the road west and Sam just followed. They didn’t speak that much this time, as they were a bit too tired because of the little sleep they had.

Sam could hear something coming from behind and it seemed Kita had heard it too. She didn’t react so much to it though. A few minutes later, a few horse drawn carriages came slowly approaching behind them. Kita walked a bit away from the road so she wouldn’t be in the way, Sam followed her.

“Can we hitch a ride? Or are they expensive?” He asked her. Kita had told him that she was new to what she called a guild. So he thought she didn’t have that much money.

“They don’t usually stop for strangers. From their point of view we could be bandit scouts, trying to stop them so that they become easier targets.” When the answer came back, Sam grimaced as he thought about it.

"It is not so everywhere, but in these parts near the forest, no settlements exist. So only caravans, adventurers and bandits use this road."

The carriages passed them and a few of the coachmen waved to them. Sam thought the act was nice. Kita said that they waved to them as they looked like workers of a protection or mercenary guild and therefore looked the part of one of the organizations that kept the roads as safe as they could be. She told him that there were probably a few from such a guild working as guards in the caravan too.

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They walked the whole day, when the evening was arriving they began looking for a place to camp for the night. They found a small water source pouring out from the earth making a small stream. So they made camp and started a small fire, this was so they could boil the water so it would be safer to drink. While they waited for the water to boil, they ate parts of Kita’s rations.

Sam chose to ask about economics. Sam didn’t have any money and didn’t even know what kind of currency that was used. Kita seemed astounded by his lack of knowledge, but he couldn’t hide this fact as it could be devastating to have no knowledge how it worked.

Kita taught him about it either way, there were six different coins made from three different metals, copper, silver and gold. For each metal there was a small coin and a big coin. ten small copper coins made a big copper coin. Ten big copper coins made a small silver and ten small silver made a big silver coin and so on and so forth.

The different guilds could act as a form of bank though so you didn’t have to care a ton of metals on you. Some of the guilds could give loans, but there seemed to be no government oversight when it came to rates. So that meant that you had to make a good deal yourself or be in debt for the rest of your life.

Kita had only three big copper coins as there was no need to carry money in the wild. She had put each coin on different inner pockets of her cloth. So if her clothes got damaged from a fight with monsters or bandits, she wouldn’t lose all coins hopefully.

Why she had money on her at all was because of the tax to get into towns. It was one big copper coin per person. Or rather it was the tax to get inside the walled off part of town where there were regular patrols.

Outside the walls was where the poor lived and no patrols were done, if you needed the guard then you had to get them from the guardpost. This made thieving and other crimes quite normal. Though there were neighborhoods that were not that bad off as those that lay near the road to the gates for example.

The guards patrolled those roads often and from the wall you could see the whole road. They always had a watchful eye on the road to the gate, this was to protect the trade caravans as they approached the gate. Other neighborhoods that had less crime had their own private guards, either hired from a guild or was controlled by a crime syndicate.

Sam thought it funny that there would be less crime in a neighborhood controlled by a crime syndicate, but then he thought they probably did crime in other areas to not draw attention to their main area and then could operate other forms of shady business in peace. Sam thought about it and concluded that 'don’t shit where you eat' was a concept here too.

Sam and Kita discussed how long they should sleep for. Both had not gotten much sleep the last two days and as one had to stay awake for guard duty. That meant that if both slept for six hours, a total of twelve hours was spent in the camp.

“How far do we have left, timewise?” Sam asked as he thought that if they could reach the town before the evening it was worth an hour or two less sleep.

“Around ten hours of walking I guess. We need to arrive before the gate closes for the night, it is at nine.” Kita answered with a yawn.

Sam thought a bit about it and then said. “So we need to leave at least at eleven? But that would make it a close call right? So let’s aim for nine and we have twelve hours to arrive.”

“Yeah, that sounds reasonable. we each get five hours of sleep then.” Kita followed up as she laid down and a moment later she was fast asleep.

Sam chewed on a bit of hard bread and drank some water as he rested against a tree. The only pass time under guard duty was his own thoughts and some skill training, but he was a bit too tired for that. He let his thoughts run around instead, both about the state of the civilization he would be living in coming years and Kita’s scout mission.

It felt to him that someone knew that something had happened there, but then he had nothing to go on and the mission information hadn’t said what they were looking for and the guilds often didn't tell who the contractor was if not necessary. They didn't tell the other way around either, so both the contractor as well as the contracted was unknown, beside from the guild's inner circles.

His thoughts landed on Kita after a while. She had guided him and was willing to pay the toll to get him into town as well as pay for a few nights at the inn she usually stayed at when she visited the town they would be arriving at.

Kita didn’t have a specific town of operation and worked through a guild that was a bit of a jack of all trades guild. It was big enough to exist in the whole region, about ten towns and a city. But too small to be a cross region guild.

He used his skill again to try to get a better feel of time. When he thought five hours had gone he woke Kita up and went to sleep.

Just before he went to dreamland, a thought arrived. ‘I don’t know what more skills Kita has besides her detection skill.’

Sam awoke by Kita shaking him violently.

“Hey! wake up already!” She sounded irritated, probably from lack of sleep and that it was hard to wake him up.

“I am awake! Stop, enough shaking!” As he answered her she pushed hard bread in his hand.

‘Well this is new, did she have a bad time on guard duty or something?’ He thought as he ate the bread.

As they didn’t have any tent, they could leave after they finished eating, that didn’t take long. They began walking again, a caravan passed them by and they stepped aside as they had the first one they had met yesterday.

They met a few others that traveled by foot too now, as they had passed the settlements farthest from the town. Everyone kept a bit of distance from each other. A greeting was often done when they passed each other. Kita told him that the distance was kept so that no bandit could come near and surprise attack that way. Most of the people they met had some kind of weapon at their side.

They had walked for around eight hours when they passed a hill.

“Well, this is the town Myrdall.” Kita said as they could see the town from a distance, it wasn’t that big.

Sam guessed that maybe ten thousand people lived in and around the town. Sam had seen some smaller roads gone off from the main road they followed, these went to farming villages and forester camps Kita told him.

From the height difference, Sam could see inside the wall a bit. The insides looked nice and the streets were paved, while the streets outside the walls were unpaved besides the main roads that went to the gates.

He couldn’t really tell from the distance, but it looked like the houses inside were well built while the houses on the outside could be anything from a normal looking house to literally a big tent.

As they came near the first houses, he could see some children chasing a chicken around and adults going about their day, it was quite lively. Sam saw that some were not human, but different sorts of demi-human. There were those that just had ears as a cat or dog, to a humanoid lizard.

‘Fascinating.’ Sam thought to himself as he saw what he thought to be a lizardman. The lizardman was just over two meter with a strong looking body and a slim lizard tail.

They followed the main road towards the gate it was connected to. There were two small gate doors and one big gate in the middle of the two. Kita told him that the bigger one was for caravans or others that had carriages. The left door was for people that were trying to get in, and the right one was for getting out. There was a small line of people standing in front of the left one. Two guards checked each person and took the toll. Sam could see a few more guards standing around too.

When it was their turn, Kita told the guards that she would pay for him too which made one of the guards smirk a bit.

‘Yea, I have no money and I let a woman pay for me. Shut up!’ Sam thought as he saw the smirk on his face.

Kita had passed easily through showing her guild badge and by her votching, Sam only had to answer some simple questions like why he seeked entry and such. Sam said he was to try to join Kita’s guild, which made Kita raise an eyebrow slightly.

They hadn’t really talked about what he was going to do, but he thought that joining a guild would be best for the moment if not only for easier passage through any checkpoints, as for example these town gates. On earth he had been in the jack of all trade business, so Kita’s guild sounded like a fit for him.

When they had passed the gate, both of them signed, both were tired and dirty from traveling.

“Let’s hit the inn, I need a bath and real food. As I promised I will pay for you too” Kita said as she began walking down a street.

“Thanks, I will repay you when I can.” He answered as he followed her.

He could see her watch him as he looked around. All the buildings they passed remind him of old towns in Europe, or how he envisioned how they looked a few hundred years back in time. The walls of the first floor were often made with stone and then the second and third floor were made of wood. The windows were a bit smaller than he thought they would be and a lot of amplar with different hanging plants growing down the walls.

‘Quite colourful.’ Sam thought.