The next morning I was in front of the gate with Merry, we both were on our horses and had full iron armor so we wouldn't be bothered by the commun guard.
A few villagers were there to send us off to my surprise. A few moms gave homemade food to Merry and wished us a good trip, Toby was there as well, but what truly surprised me was the tree miners from yesterday Ed, Edd, and Junior Eddy as I learned their names.
I seriously need to get to the bottom of their names, it's so close to greatness and it can't be just a coincidence that their names match so well.
There has to be an interesting story for all of this.
With a final wave, we left the gates of the village on our horses, trees were passing us at great speeds and soon enough we were in the middle of the wilderness.
From time to time we could see of pile of bones beside some trees from some monsters that didn't have enough time to hide from the sun.
In another week, the dirt will absorb them as well and new flowers will blossom in their place.
We passed a few villages that were less populated than I imagined, everyone evacuated to bigger towns or didn't want to abandon their houses and barricaded themselves in.
Nobody got out to greet us, but we could see shadows looking through the windows as we passed.
Finally, after a day of traveling, we arrived at a big town, the line was still big even with the sun going down. I can only guess they made it harder to get in with the new wave of refugees.
We didn't stop at the line, instead, we continued to galop alongside the line getting closer to the gate.
Nobody said anything from the line, but they did give us annoyed looks.
The only guard with iron armor was ready to intercept us, but I threw him a few emeralds and passed him without stopping.
Now we were in the safety of the walls looking for a place to stay.
"I can't believe that bribing the gate guards was so easy, Bobby was right, if you have iron armor, people are too afraid to ask what you want."
"That's true, I didn't have a chance to explore the common towns, so I'm new to this experience as well."
We walked on the wide street with people getting out of our way, since we looked intimidating on the horses.
After some time we found a place where we could sleep and leave our horses to be cared.
I got two rooms, one emerald per night each, and if we wanted a meal for the whole day it would be another emerald.
It was pretty cheap in my opinion, a stack of sticks per day in exchange for a room with a warm bed and food for the whole day.
"Good night! There's no need to wake up early tomorrow, I want to explore this town a little before we leave."
Merry stopped right as she was about to open the door before turning towards me.
"Wait, wake me up as well I want to explore this town too."
"Sure, see you tomorrow, good night."
With this, we both got into our rooms and went to sleep.
----
The next day I woke up at the first sign of light, with some stretching and good food we were out on the streets.
"So what did you want to explore today?"
Merry asked me once we were walking down the street.
"Don't have a solid plan, I want to test some different foods, some not made with the system hopefully, also the main thing I'm looking for is an Efficiency book."
"I wanted to see if they have some normal clothes. I mean I know we don't sweat a lot and even when we do it doesn't smell, but I want to wear something else besides a tracksuit."
That is a reasonable request, I haven't changed a lot since I came to this world. Even the clothes from the party got left behind with my corpse, and now I'm back to a white T-shirt and black pants.
When you get your job from the system, you also get a uniform with it, that's the only clothing you can get from the system. That's also the only one you can have in your whole life.
It's not a simple cloth either, if you damage it, the clothing can repair itself the more you trade, but if you don't have anyone to trade with then your clothing remains damaged.
That's why there is an industry that takes advantage of this system and creates clothes from smaller parts of the original.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
But since it's not made by the system they can't repair themselves, so you better take care of them.
The first shop we got in, was one that Merry was looking for, it wasn't big and the dresses didn't have a lot of variety, but Merry was very excited to try something new.
After a few minutes of testing a few things, she chose a simple brown tunic and some black pants.
She's really embracing the villager look without realizing it. Of course, she would've got something else but two things stopped her.
How hard it was to get the clothes on, and how expensive it was.
Those two pieces together cost 40 emeralds!
We know how to cheat the system and get a bunch of emeralds, but the market price can keep up with is looks like.
I also bought a black shirt, hopeing it will last for a while.
Next, we tried some street food, like apple pie, tea with honey, and even some kebabs.
In the end, I went to a noble shop and bought two Efficiency 2 books for one diamond, and I even got some change back.
I also visited a blacksmith to borrow his anvil for only 2 emeralds, with this I had Efficiency 3 on my diamond pickaxe.
If I end up in another obsidian cage, I'll get out of it no matter what.
While I was working on my pickaxe, Merry was already out with the horses waiting for me, she wore the new clothes but unfortunately the armor covered everything so it wasn't seen for long.
"Once we get out, well stop a little further, I want to test something."
She looked with curiosity at me, but didn't say anything.
We passed the gate guards without a problem and soon we were in the middle of the woods.
"Ok, I think here is far enough, let's stop and get down."
I put a pole fance down and tied the horsed to it and warned Merry to get away from the horses.
"What I'm about to do will either be very stupid or a genius move, either way, there's a high chance they'll start to panic once I do this."
"What do you plan to do?"
"This."
I took out a speed potion from my inventory and threw it at the ground beneath the horses.
To my surprise, they were only startled a little from the sudden noise, not completely running like they'd seen death.
But to the horse's surprise, they were suddenly very fast, and this confused them a lot, they were trying to do one step and suddenly they were three blocks away.
That was not normal.
"So you threw a speed potion on them? Can't decide if that's stupid or genius. Don't you know how easy it is to scare a horse? "
"That's what I was afraid of at the beginning as well, but they're doing pretty good from what I can tell."
I untied them from the poll and tried to get them used to the new speeds.
At first, they were very confused, but soon they were pretty excited to test out their new strengths.
Once we got on top of them, the speed started to increase a lot, trees passed us in a blur, it was like we were in a car. With this, I also realized something, horses love speed, and now they want to see what's their new limit.
We went like that for half an hour, where we arrived at the first river, without any input on our side they just stopped, charged towards the river no matter what we said, and started to drink water like there was no tomorrow.
After that, they started to eat some grass like we weren't even there.
So with this new development, we decided to take a brake here.
"Looks like it takes a lot from them when they run that fast."
"Yeah, I'll feed them some apples so we can speed things up."
With their belly full and a 15-minute rest, we got back on the road.
It was a weird process but the results were amazing, in half a day we were at the capital and it would've taken over a day otherwise.
"I never want to experience that again."
Merry spoke as we got down from the horses, and got ready to speak with the guards from the castle.
"Well, the effect already ran off, so you're in luck. But enough with the chit chat, try to be mysterious, we want to intimidate them into sending the letter."
We got our helmets on and stopped when there guards were right in front of us.
"Who are you and what is the purpose of the visit?"
"We are sent by our Lord to deliver a message to sir Bobby."
"I see, we've been informed of your arrival, I'll send it right now."
His hand was lifted expecting the book, but I stood there in confusion for a few seconds.
"Oh sorry, here's the message."
I then just handed out the book, and turned around to leave.
"That was easier than you made it sound."
"I'm still confused about what just happened."
But it didn't matter, the message was sent, and tomorrow at noon will see each other in front of the city wall.
Since the castle and the city were two separate entities, we had to gallop with the horses for 15 minutes to get to the city, and the line was long.
We tried to use the same tactic as we did in the small town, but the guards stopped us.
They let us enter faster than the others, but they didn't accept that kind of disrespect.
We were both embarrassed about that blunder so we decided to just go to an inn and sleep those moments away.
-----
The next day I was at the meeting spot, Merry decided to explore the big city and I thought it was a good idea.
This is more of a personal moment than something that needs a lot of audience, so I appreciated.
A few minutes later two horses were coming towards me at great speed, it was Bobby and Froggy.
My two friends who I went through a lot together.
They stopped not too far away from me, Bobby seemed relaxed, while Froggy didn't recognize me yet, I had the armor on me after all.
"Bobby, this better be worth it, I'll miss my morning brewing batch."
"Froggy, you don't need to brew any more potions for now, we already filled our storage with everything you've done!"
"Yeah Froggy, I thought you would've wanted to meet your old friend."
Froggy froze at my voice, like a rusted machine he slowly turned towards me, and I took my helmet off so he could fully recognize me.
"Hi Froggy, I'm glad you managed to escape safely from the desert."
I smiled and gave him a strong hug.
He was still shocked and didn't move one muscle.
Finally, after a full minute, he spoke something.
"Trader you're alive!! I thought you died, Bobby told me he saw your corpse, if this is some kind of a sick joke I'll be very angry, what's happening here?! "
I let him get everything out of his system and then It was my turn to speak.
He could bearly keep his thoughts in line.
"Yes Froggy, I'm alive, this is not a sick joke I truly died with my body still melted from the acid. By some miracle that I don't want to talk too much about it, I came back to life. A few days ago I reunited with Bobby and we arranged for this meeting and include you in the loop."
"So that's why you were so happy once you came from your 'secret' trip. You found out that Trader was alive! Why didn't you tell me anything?"
"I wanted to see your reaction honestly."
He said that with a mischievous smile.
"I need to sit down for this, and a strong drink."
"We should get inside, we have a lot to catch up to after all."
With this, the whole gang was together for the first time, everyone was happy, and I wished for these moments to never end.