The road was bumpy, and Lucas could feel his butt getting sore as he sat next to the driver, who was mindlessly leading the horses. He made it look so effortless, but there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he wouldn’t ever be able to drive a carriage. Driving a car, a non-living steel box, was hard enough. Trying to get living beings to carry him around everywhere seemed almost impossible.
The clear blue sky was darkening. On the horizon, oranges and reds and yellows and blues mixed together as the sun set. The moon was also on full display, showing off all its moon-y goodness, and its appearance was vastly different from Earth’s moon. This moon, for instance, was much closer to the planet than Earth’s moon ever had been. It appeared to be about five times larger; that, or it was just much closer to the planet. Huh. He wondered if that would affect tides and stuff. Also, instead of being a round gray rock, the moon was full of greens and browns and blues. He suspected that the greens were forests, the browns were deserts, and the blue were oceans, seas, and lakes. It reminded him of those pictures astronauts would take of Earth while they were up in the ISS, except a lot smaller.
Alongside that marble called a moon were some dim stars, which fascinated him. At this time of day on Earth, he wouldn’t have been able to see a single star up there; it would have all been satellites and plains and helicopters. And when it darkened, there were so many more of them. For the lack of a better reaction, it was simply breathtaking. Wavy purple lights also showed themselves, in patterns similar to the aurora borealis. Or at least, he imagined they were similar; he had never seen the northern lights before, so he could only imagine they looked something like what he was seeing now. Despite how brutal and uncaring this planet was, it was certainly much more beautiful than Earth.
Ah, but speaking of this planet, yeah. He was tired of calling it “this planet,” and none of his books ever mentioned its name, either.
“Hey, driver,” Lucas said. He never got the guy’s name, and frankly he didn’t care enough to ask at this point.
“Yeah?” The guy said.
“What’s this planet called, anyway?”
The guy slightly turned his head toward Lucas and gave him a strange, questioning look. He raised his eyebrow, pursed his lips, and slightly clicked his tongue before giving Lucas an answer.
“It’s Earth,” the guy said as he turned his attention back towards the road.
Which made absolutely no sense, because this planet wasn’t Earth like at all. So, Lucas figured that his translation magic failed him again. It wasn’t the first time it’d messed up, since it had insisted calling that big, bright, fiery ball in the sky “the sun,” but at least that name still felt a little natural, whereas calling this planet Earth just felt wrong. He refused to do it, he wouldn’t. Comparing this Earth with the previous Earth would get way too confusing, and calling this new world Earth had no romance in it. It was an entirely new planet after all, with magic and everything! His own Earth wasn’t even half as interesting as this one was, even if this one constantly tried to kill him.
But he couldn’t think of a good name for this place, so he was kind of stuck. It was such an asinine problem to have, but his brain fixated on it, and it annoyed the hell out of him. There were definitely more important things to think about right now, like why Mr. Barolt was giving Xandrious the murder child, another chance, but instead he couldn’t stop thinking about how his translation magic sucked eggs.
“Lord Dry, there’s a rest stop up ahead. I think we should stop there for the night,” the driver said, interrupting Lucas’ thoughts. He welcomed the distraction; nomenclature was a tedious subject at the best of times, and at the worst it was downright tedious.
“Sure, sure,” Lucas said.
When they stopped for the night, nothing much happened. The rest stop the driver spoke of was nothing more than a large, flat, dirt circle. There was nothing more to it than that. There was no spot for a campfire, there was no well for water, there were no trees for shade – there was nothing but the ground itself. Surrounding the rest stop were some knolls, which both hid the spot from prying eyes. However, if someone knew there were people resting here, it would be quite easy to set up an ambush.
Suffice to say it was not a great place to let down his guard. Lucas was willing to bet that something terrible would happen here. But, it was getting dark, and traveling the roads at night would be an even worse idea, so he didn’t voice his concerns.
“So, uh, do we have tents to set up, or…?” Lucas instead asked as the driver pulled the wagon to a stop.
“No. It’s just the two of us, so we’ll sleep in the wagon,” the driver said.
“But there’s stuff in there,” Lucas said, looking behind him. Sure enough there were boxes and bags full of things. What things they were, he had no idea. It wasn’t like he was around when the wagon was loaded with all its cargo. He just assumed it was supplies because he was told it was supplies.
“I’ll unload some of it to make room, then load it back up in the morning,” the driver said. “But first, let’s get something to eat.”
In no time at all, the dude grabbed some small logs and stones from his wagon, plopped the rocks in a circle, threw the logs in the circle, and started a fire. Every move looked practiced, like the man had done this a hundred times before. He probably had, considering that carriage driving was extremely slow, so the guy had no doubt rested on the road hundreds if not thousands of times at this point.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
After the fire was started, the driver grabbed some tools. A pot, mainly, but also a stand to hold the pot over the flame as well. The impromptu chef quickly poured some water into the pot, as well as some meat and vegetables. At least, Lucas hoped those were vegetables, because he didn’t recognize any of them. There were no carrots or potatoes, instead there were some light blue things and some round orange-looking stuff. Hopefully it wasn’t an orange. The meat looked ordinary enough, though, looked like some kind of beef.
No one made any attempt at conversation while the food cooked. The guard was out and about, roaming around the knolls and the rest stop. The driver was content just humming to himself as he played a lute to pass the time. Lucas, well, he had no desire to talk interrupt the amateur musician, and pacing around with the A rank adventurer also seemed like it’d be a bore. So, with nothing else to do, he laid back on the dirt road and closed his eyes. A dirt-nap wasn’t exactly his idea of fun, but it wasn’t like there was anything else to do, so he may as well get what sleep he could.
----------------------------------------
“Food’s ready,” the man said, waking Lucas from his nap. His eyelids were heavy and his back ached. Yeah, napping on the hard ground wasn’t the greatest idea he’d ever had.
“How long was I asleep?” Lucas asked, groaning.
“’bout two hours,” the driver said as he took the pot off the fire. No wonder Lucas felt so sore. He expected the food to be done quickly, since it was, you know, camp food. Apparently he was wrong on that account.
With a steady hand, the driver grabbed a bowl and a ladle, and then scooped some stew into the bowl. Without saying anything, he handed the first serving to Lucas. Without utensils, he guessed he was just supposed to drink it from the edge of the bowl. How morbid. The stew itself looked strange as well. The light blue stuff that the driver had put in earlier had now changed into a dark navy color. The orange stuff turned yellow, and it wrinkled and shrunk down, looking kind of like wrongly-colored prunes. After taking a whiff of the stew, nothing smelled odd, but it certainly had a much richer and sweeter aroma than what he was used to.
Food is just food. He could eat this. Yeah. He slowly raised it to his lips, and drank.
It was okay. A little too spicy for his tastes, but it was okay. The prune thing tasted like carrot but with a much chewier texture, and the navy vegetable tasted like chicken. The meat also tasted like chicken, so the tastes didn’t exactly meld together, but whatever. It wasn’t 5 star cuisine, or even 3 star cuisine, but it filled his stomach all the same. The driver didn’t exactly seem to like the food either, since he groaned and grunted as he ate it. The adventurer never took his helmet off to eat, and instead just sat there doing whatever it was he was doing.
“Alright, bed time!” The driver said. Looking back, some of the cargo was unloaded from the wagon. He must’ve done that while Lucas slept.
“Uh, I just woke up,” Lucas said.
“Stay up for the first watch, then” the drive said with a shrug. For someone who had been calling him Lord Dry earlier, he certainly lacked respect giving him the first watch for the night. Or a watch shift at all, for that matter. Nobles were supposed to get the easy life, not the life where they stood guard and made sure everyone else could fall asleep.
Not that Lucas cared, though. This world’s mannerisms just seemed odd to him, that’s all.
As soon as the driver climbed into the wagon, Lucas heard him snoring away. That guy certainly fell asleep fast, it was enough to make Lucas a bit envious. But, he supposed he also fell asleep extraordinarily fast earlier. Perhaps riding in a carriage was more tiring than he originally thought. That, or just living on this planet was exhausting.
The guard was sitting near the campfire now, in that same cross-legged, head hung low position he had taken up in the wagon.
“So, you going to go to sleep too?” Lucas asked. The guard shook his head, silent as ever. Great. It wasn’t like he wanted a freak who wore monster bones as a conversation partner, either, but there was nothing to do out here. Sure, he could study up on those books Seldra gave him, but he could do enough of that at the University.
“What do people do for fun here, anyway?” Lucas asked again. The guard didn’t even respond to that, and Lucas couldn’t help but sigh. Goddammit, he was in a world where no one knew how to have fun. Fan-tucking-fastic. Right about now he’d be watching anime, or reading a manga, or playing a video game, or browsing the internet, or anything else that caught his fancy, but here? On the planet with mythical creatures and a brilliant sky and magical powers? There was nothing to occupy him. Great.
He already kind of knew this world had shit for entertainment, back during his stint in that manor’s jail cell, but out here when he was supposed to be a free man, the boredom really got at him. Back then it felt like boredom was a forced punishment, here it just felt like it was because he didn’t know how to entertain himself. It felt like his listlessness was his own fault. Another sigh escaped him, heavier than the one before. Maybe he could set the world record for amount of sighs in one night. That could be fun. Or maybe he could test his magic. Yeah, that sounded just amusing enough to stave off boredom for a while.
With nothing else to do, he lobbed an [Ice Arrow III] into the distance. It flew farther than he could see, and once again he couldn’t exactly measure how far it went. And since it was dark out, he wasn’t exactly inclined to go looking for it, either.
…
And that’s about as much as he could test his magic right now. Wow, that cured his boredom for like what, ten seconds? Amazing.
Without warning, the guard jerked up, his armor making a lot of clanking noises. He then turned around and stared into the darkness. Lucas kept looking back and forth between the man and the knoll that he was staring at, but nothing was happening.
“Uh, what are you--”
“Quiet,” the guard interrupted Lucas.
He heard it before he saw it. A roar, unlike anything he’d heard before. Then another one. And another one. Each one sounded closer, and each one sent shivers down Lucas' spine. Guess this is what he was dealing with tonight.
At least this time he had a buddy to help him face whatever monsters were closing in on him.