After traversing the smaller maze of streets and building for 20 minutes, Ezhno finally reached the wider road he had been searching for, since he left the general store to head towards the fighting pits.
His stomach was rumbling a fierce tune of gurgles and gargles. He said to himself, "This was a mistake! I really should have just ate my food after I bought all of my provisions at that run down general store. I can not back down now, I said i would eat while watching the fights in the pits, and I will be damned if i back out now." Ezhno pursed his lips together, made a fist, and nodded his head with full conviction to finish what he set out to do.
He navigated around the dilapidated road, which was littered with pot holes and large and small puddles of water and muck . "How can there be such a shoddy road in a grand place like White Rock? This place looks like a battlefield. Even in the village, the roads are not this horrid." He said to himself.
After hopping over yet another puddle and walking over yet another large pothole, Ezhno stopped in place. He could not stop feeling that he had made a terrible mistake and pondered long and hard whether he should just head straight back to the village and call it a day. He thought to himself, " If I would have just left town and headed back to the village after getting the last of my supplies, I could of had enough time to enjoy my meal and rested for an hour or so back at my special spot.
Why the hell did I think watching a bunch of men and women fighting one another would have been entertaining in the first place? Would watching that and eating at the same time really be that enjoyable?"
After getting lost in his own thoughts, Ezhno did not hear all the commotion going on from a short distance. A horse drawn carriage was heading straight for him and the coachman was yelling and cursing for him to get out of the way.
After phasing back to into reality, he finally heard the yelling and rude remarks piercing his ears from the young coachman. The young coachman then yelled out, "Since you just want to stand there and not move, don't blame me for sending you into the afterlife!"
The horse and carriage was about 15 feet away from him. He stood frozen, unsure at what to do, The horse was just about to slam into him when Ezhno bent his knees and propelled himself backwards like a spring that has just uncompressed and had flung himself about 6 feet back.
As Ezhno landed, he lost his balance on the slimy large muck puddle. He slammed his bottom hard to the ground. The vile concoction of horse feces, mud and water splashed around and the entire area below his stomach became filthy beyond saving.
He was shocked at the outcome. Not shocked at the filthy mess he landed into, but by the jump he had just performed. He never thought he could launch himself that far back while standing in place.
While sitting in the cesspool of filth, Ezhno was bending his legs back and forth, not believing his legs were capable of doing what they just did. If one were to guess what was happening, it would appear as if he was trying to kick an imaginary wild beast away as a last desperate attempt to keep himself from getting ripped apart and eaten.
The young children stared and laughed hysterically at the scene they were witnessing, The elderly people shook their heads and wondered what weird things this youth had drank or eaten. The wealthier people would stick close to one another and walk further around the area. They did not want this mad youth attacking them, because he appeared to not be right in the head. The noise of the crowd snapped Ezhno back to reality. He looked around staring at these people that were gathering all around him.
As he scanned his surroundings, his eyes finally saw what the crowd was gawking at. Ezhno stopped in place, it would appear even though he was no longer in his daze, he was still pumping his legs back forth. His face turned bright red like a ripe tomato.
He got up on his feet and immediately sprinted away in a random direction, Ezhno did not want to be in that embarrassing situation longer than he already had. After running around for a couple minutes, Ezhno ducked into one of the alleyways that appeared to be empty. He sat on the ground next to a barrel of runoff water to catch his breath. After taking in a few deep breaths and calming himself down, he said to himself, "I can't believe that jump I was able to do. This truly can't be real, right?"
Ezhno pulled up his pant legs and started looking at, and rubbing his legs. He then started feeling all around his body, he paused for a second and said to himself,
" I have never really looked that closely at my body before, have my muscles always been this lean and sculpted? What the hell is going on with my body? After the horrible day about a year ago, strange things have been occurring that do not seem normal. I am constantly hungry, I am now able to easily block and evade the horses when they get out of hand. My eye sight seems to be sharper and I am able to see things a little further away than i was normally able to see. When i do my daily duties around the stable I do not get tired that fast or often. Even that sprint halfway to town did not tire me out like it should have, and now today with that leap backwards."
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Many thoughts continued to swirl around in Ezhno's head as he looked back at all the strange events that had happened to him. As he was lost in thought once again, a nauseous, foul stench was constantly attacking his nostrils. Ezhno's face started to sour up and as if by reflex, he started to heavily dry heave. He said to himself, "Not this shit again, It was almost as bad as the time I laid in that filth for two days about a year ago. "
Ezhno paused for a moment, as if he had an epiphany, but as soon as it sparked, the distraction of the odor once again stung his nostrils and the spark of enlightenment was gone in a flash. Ezhno started to dry heave once again, he thought to himself, "Dammit! Just now it felt like I was on to something and this damn stuff all over me had to go and ruin it. I really need to get this muck cleaned off of me."
He looked around to see if anyone could see him. He took the burlap sack off his back and placed it on the ground, Ezhno while resisting the urge to vomit was trying to work though the foul smell. He proceeded to take everything in his sack out to make sure nothing was ruined. He then checked on Little Maru to make sure he was ok.
"Looks like he is still sleeping, I can't believe you slept though all that little buddy. He then placed Little Maru on the ground. He picked up the sack and thought to himself, Luckily the sack was water proofed, I am glad i was able to find wax near the edge of the forest a month back and was able to make a bunch of candles and put a nice coating on my sack with it. Sadly the hive was dead and i was not able to procure some delicious honey." He then took the empty sack over to the barrel of water and proceeded to clean the filth off his sack. Once cleaned he inspected all of his goods one at a time and placed them back in the sack.
He left the two pairs of clothing on the ground and wondered which one he should wear. "Well, since the work clothing have no inner pocket sewn in and the nicer pair does, I might as well wear the nicer pair so Little Maru has a nice place to rest. "
Ezhno gave a quick glance around to make sure no prying eyes were locked on to him and he started to undress. He had never done anything like this in a public area before, so he wanted to clean himself up as fast as possible, change, and get out of the potentially embarrassing predicament he was now facing.
He finished up his super quick wash, grabbed his pants, and started putting them on. He looked up and saw two young ladies staring at him from the end of the alleyway. They both had bright red faces as they gawked at the scene in front of them. One even had her hands over her eyes but you could clearly see they were cracked between the fingers, still staring at the naked youth in front of them.
Ezhno was frozen in place, eyes wide open, as he stared back bright red at the embarrassing situation that was unfolding at that moment. The two girls both looked at each other and giggled and then continued looking at this handsome youth. One of the ladies whistled while staring at the impressive lower half, and said, "My, My, My what do we have here?"
The one that had her hands over her face from earlier looked at Ezhno's upper half and slowly gazed downward. If one had good hearing or could read lips, as her eyes made contact with his lower half, they would know she uttered the words "wow" under her breath. The atmosphere turned dead quiet. From behind the two girls, a horse with a high pitch neighing broke the awkward silence as the two girls once again stared at each other and then back at the lower half of the naked youth. In unison, with a not so serious playful voice, both said "Horse Man!"
Ezhno, finally snapped back from his frozen state and quickly covered his manhood and darted behind the barrel of water. The two girls then ran off towards their destination while laughing and giggling like little school girls. They were neighing back and forth at each other while laughing hysterically afterwards .
While hiding behind the barrel, he could not believe what he just heard, he said to himself, "Impossible. Do they know me? I have never seen them before. How do they know I take care of the horses and stable duties back in Forest Shadow?"
After a couple minutes, he decided to poke his head up and look around. After seeing the coast was clear, he stood up and buttoned up his pants. He grabbed his shirt, and put it on as fast as possible. He then proceeded to put his boots on and squatted down to pick up Little Maru. As he reached for Little Maru, he saw something protruding a little out of the ground. He pushed the dirt away only to find it was a copper coin. To his surprise it was not only one, but 5 coins in total.
To make sure that there were not anymore hiding around, he pushed the dirt around a little more, but sadly that was all that was there. He then said to himself. "Well, i guess there is something good that came out of all this, I am no longer broke." He chuckled to himself and put Little Maru away in the inner pocket.
He looked at the small pile of clothing next to the barrel of water, that was made up of his revolting soiled shirt and pants and said, " I am seriously not going to go though this again, sadly I am out of some more clothing, but luckily i was able to buy two sets earlier so it is not going to be a complete loss."
He continued to push them behind the barrel and made his way to the end of the alleyway. As he reached the end, he peaked around the corner like some kind of shady thief to make sure the two girls from earlier were not still lurking around waiting for him to pop out of the alleyway.
He gave a long sigh of relief when he saw they were no where to be found and said to himself, "I really should head back home now. This damn fighting pit is like a curse, a plague to my existence." As he stepped out of the alley, the anxiety of today's events finally wore off and Ezhno's stomach rumbled so fiercely that he could not help but clench it with his arms tightly. He was seriously thinking of just sitting down right then and there, not having a care in the world and just eating his meal he had bought earlier.
Just then, a large roaring crowd of cheers and boos, like a shock wave, jolted him from head to toe. He looked at the direction it was coming from to see the iconic old White Rock quarry not that far away from where he was standing. He turned around and started walking in the direction out of town towards the village, Ezhno then stopped in place, he shook his head, and bitterly laughed at himself, turned back around and said "Ezhno, you truly are a retard!! you seriously are a glutton for punishment today" Then proceeded over towards the fighting pit.