Terry had honestly expected to find himself being chased and confronted by Church crazies, the annoying rich girl, or even the stupidly pretty people. However, he could admit that last one seemed progressively less likely the longer he went without seeing them. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t see them at some point, though. It felt almost inevitable that they would show up at some hugely inconvenient time and make some fraught situation a million times worse. That was how things usually worked manga and anime. At the moment, though, it seemed that he was free from unwanted harassment. His current problem was much more mundane. He wasn’t sure where he was.

That wasn’t entirely true. He knew in a very immediate sense that he was on a road. It was the same one he’d been following south, but he was beyond even the meager knowledge provided by his terrible map. He’d planned on trying to find a new one in the last town but that had all gone to shit the second he’d started drawing attention. So, now he was standing on an empty stretch of road, staring down it, and wondering just how far away the next hint of civilization was. He might not have cared as much if those same disruptions hadn’t also prevented him from buying some more food. He could live on what he could kill in the surrounding forest. He knew that much because he’d done it before.

Of course, that plan came pre-loaded with more risk than he liked. Unless he got very lucky, Terry knew he’d get hurt hunting monsters in the forest. It was better than starving, but it was an undeniable, universal truth that pain sucked. A lot. He also wasn’t sure just how far he wanted to push his enhanced healing. Cuts and bruises might heal pretty fast, but that didn’t necessarily make him any more immune to poison or snake venom than he had been before Truck-kun came along with its vehicular kiss of death. When he was traveling out in the middle of nowhere would be an exceptionally crap time to find out that venomous things would still kill him dead or make him delirious or rot him from the inside out.

The only upside was that he’d run across a few streams that let him top up his water supply. He was starting to think that he must be immune to whatever common things lived in the water. If not, he was quite certain he’d have been in nine kinds of gastrointestinal distress by now. Not that any of those things solved his current problem. He distracted himself with the kitten for a little while. He held it in one hand, while it was batting and “biting” at the fingers of his other hand, all the while purring up a storm. Given the number of dead things he’d found on waking up each morning, he was quite certain that the kitten was perfectly capable of hurting him if it wanted to. It simply didn’t want to. I really should name the thing.

“What do you think, kitten? Do you want a name?”

On hearing him speak, the kitten stopped play mangling his fingers and stared up at him with its shockingly blue eyes. They were like a pair of sapphires. Its four ears twitched and flicked for a second. It made a little mewing sound that almost sounded confused to Terry. I must be projecting. He stroked the dark fur on the cat’s head. He’d originally thought it was black but after days of watching the cat, he’d concluded that it was just a very dark gray color.

“It’d be a lot easier to name you if I knew whether you were a boy or girl,” muttered Terry.

It wasn’t like he’d been a vet in his previous life. He supposed there would eventually be more obvious signs, but he wasn’t going to search the cat’s nether regions to try to find out for sure. That idea just felt icky to him. I’ll just give the cat a neutral name, he decided. Problem solved.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Why don’t I call you Dusk? What do you think? Is that a good name for you?”

The kitten had gone back to playing, so Terry made the executive decision. He knew Dusk wasn’t the most creative name ever, but it certainly beat calling it Gray_kitten_9003.

“Dusk it is.”

Terry looked at the road again and sighed. He might not know where the next town was, but there must be one. It was the only explanation for the road even existing. It was even in relatively good shape, which suggested that there would be traffic on it sooner or later. He went to tuck Dusk back inside his robe, but it seemed the kitten was done sleeping for now. It scrambled up his arm and perched on his shoulder. Terry didn’t love it when the kitten rode there. He kept worrying that Dusk would get dislodged if something unexpected happened, but it wasn’t like there were a lot of options. He supposed she could ride in his pack, but he kept his ever-diminishing supply of food in there. It seemed wrong to put that kind of temptation in front of a young animal. Resigning himself to just live with it, he was about to start down the road again, when he caught odd noises on the wind.

He'd quickly learned that there were all kinds of strange noises in the world. At least, they were strange to him, but they were also normal for the areas where he was walking. Things like trees creaking a bit as they swayed, animal noises in the distance, and similar natural sounds. He didn’t tune them out, but they had faded into the background after a week of travel. Hearing anything that didn’t conform to that natural soundscape immediately drew his attention. It didn’t necessarily mean something bad, but it did mean something different. So far in this world, different had generally been bad for him.

He didn’t see anything coming from ahead on the road, so he looked back the way he had come. At first, his eyes didn’t detect anything but the usual movement in the surrounding forest. That wasn’t a terrible shock since the road wasn’t exactly straight. It tended to wind around hills and other obstructions, so the maximum distance he could see was usually limited to a mile or two. Straight roads were something else he hadn’t known to appreciate in his old life. They offered better visibility for problems ahead of you and cut down on travel time.

Of course, trying to see what was happening was not helped by the fact that it was particularly bright out that day. He kept squinting and mentally cursing that stupid noble girl for ruining his hat. He missed that rice hat so much. It kept the sun out of his eyes. It kept his head dry if started to rain. It obscured his face if he kept his head tilted at the right angle. He could even use the hat as a makeshift fan. It was so damned useful. He needed to find another one. When he did finally see something moving on the road, Terry didn’t understand what he was looking at right at first. It was big enough that one hand dropped to the hilt of his jian while the other reached up to make sure the kitten was secure. As the shape swiftly drew closer, a sneaking suspicion took root in his mind. He squinted a little harder. When a new noise made its way to his ear, he closed his eyes and shook his head.

“You have to be kidding me,” he muttered.

Yet, there was no mistaking that squawk-roar. He even recognized the panicked edge to it. The cock-a-mawhojit that was racing toward him wasn’t just any cock-a-mawhomjit. It was Drumstick. He opened his eyes and watched the giant chicken-lizard close the distance. Terry saw that it was being chased by some people who were almost certainly adventurers. He couldn’t decide if this was his problem or not. It didn’t feel like his problem. He wasn’t especially motivated to intervene. He’d told the giant, cowardly beast to go back into the forest. Not that it seemed particularly likely that he’d be able to avoid this problem, especially not when Drumstick raced past him, skidded to a stop, and tried to hide behind him. He gave the chicken-lizard an unamused look over his shoulder, while the thing stared pleadingly at him with its yellow bird eyes. Terry shook his head in disapproval at the beast before looking at the approaching figures.

“Why is this my day?” Terry asked the air.