Ryuji was quick to walk through the portcullis before the guard said anything else to him. He glanced back and the guard seemed to really be looking more vigilantly out at the woods and the road. After the way the guard reacted, Ryuji decided he better stash the necklace for the time being. He didn’t want to draw too much attention since he didn’t know the first thing about this world. The guard had called him by the title of my lord. If he wasn’t careful someone might question him more stringently and his identity wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny.
As he walked under the grates of the portcullis, he noticed they were very rusty, as though the gate hadn’t been closed in some time or at least hadn’t been cleaned. The stones that were mortared together to form the wall were all covered in moss. The cobblestones of the street were sparse and there was a lot of mud in the street where it should have been cobbled. In short Ryuji’s first impression was that this town was a little on the rundown side.
The smell was the next thing to make its impression. The city had a general odor of animal dung, unwashed bodies, mildew, and an overlay of spices with a few other less noticeable scents mixed in. It was utterly revolting and made Ryuji look around at the people that were visible to him. For the most part, they fit the general impression that he had formed from the smell. Most of them looked utterly unwashed and some just looked like they were practically rolled in dirt.
To take his mind off the condition of the people he looked about at the buildings instead. He noticed that they didn’t remind him of any particular type of architecture. After seeing the big stone wall he was kind of expecting to find an old European-style town but that wasn’t really what this was. All of the buildings were made of the same dark grey stone as the wall. As he got closer to one, he realized that there wasn’t mortar so much as it simply looked like someone had melted all of the stones together. The rooves seemed to be made of copper or brass that had corroded over time. How very strange this place was.
Another thing that struck him, this was most definitely a high-fantasy setting. Everywhere he looked there was a profusion of different races, so much so that it made Ryuji a bit anxious. He could see people with fur and animal body parts, some were very obviously dwarves, and others were most definitely elves. Once he looked closer, there were a few different kinds of elves here. He spotted a couple of races that at first, he had mistaken for children until he saw the one with a build just like a half-sized human but the guy he had mistaken for a boy had a full beard. Over there was another race that looked a little taller and had actual anime eyes and one of them had a huge pair of breasts for her tiny body size. Ryuji was, like any boy his age, very interested in the female bodily proportions and hers were somehow a little off, he wondered if she might topple easily.
He shook himself. Enough with the gawking, what was he going to do now that he was here? He figured he only had maybe three hours until dark. Well, he could do all kinds of things but there were some fairly standard tropes he could follow. The most used was to go looking for the adventurer’s guild. But probably the smartest would be to go to find a place to live and something to eat might not be a bad idea as he realized he was starving. Then he realized that the reason he was getting so hungry all of the sudden was a new smell mixed in with the rest, the smell of cooking meat.
He made his way towards the cause of the smell growing more enraptured the whole way there. What he found is a kind of market pavilion with a bunch of almost lean-to-type stalls with open fronts where people were selling all kinds of goods. In one of these half-tent enclosures, he spotted a campfire-type setup with meat skewers roasting above the open flames.
Ryuji wasn’t normally inclined to try strange foods from places he wasn’t sure of the health standards of and this place certainly didn’t fit that criterion. However, there was something that drew him inexorably toward the smell of cooking meat. As he was walking up to the front of the stall, if you could call it that, he realized he has forgotten something important. He never checked on his special gift from the god or demon or whatever class that youma would fall into.
Just as the raven-black bird-type beast-man was turning towards him he reached into his coin pouch expectantly. After messing with the unfamiliar sensation of drawstrings he managed to get the pouch open. Ryuji then had to spend several more seconds fishing around in the pouch to come out with its sole contents, one small copper coin. He held the copper coin up, more to simply inspect the coin than to offer it to the proprietor. The coin was roughly the size of the end of his index finger in width. It sported a single-sided impression of a stylized sun that appeared to be smashed into it unevenly.
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The owner of the stall was most unpleased with this gesture and appeared to harbor some resentment towards Ryuji aside from the coin. “Hey fancy, can’t you read? The sign says two small copper per skewer! I don’t even know why I’m talking to you about it, send your friends that want them to get the meat themselves, pointy ears. Go get some bread, tree-humper!” This last rude remark was said as Ryuji was walking off.
Ryuji was in shock at how unprofessional that birdbrain was. He was furious about how rude he was. More than anything else though, he was astonished that he hadn’t thought to check until now to see if he was the same as before. And the answer was most emphatically, no, that he was not!
Ryuji felt of his ears and was astonished to find that they were tall, very tall, and pointed! He was an elf? How could he be an elf? He also now noticed that he had blonde hair like some kind of foreigner or delinquent. He wondered to himself what else might be different.
Just then he noticed a different stall, this one seemed a lot bigger and a lot cleaner. The stall even had a wooden sign out front that depicted a basket full of bread. When Ryuji looked at the stall, he decided that the sign was unnecessary because the owner had racks of bread lined up under the awning. As he approached the smell of freshly baking bread hit him and he decided he liked this smell just as much if not more than the smell of cooking meat skewers.
When he got a little closer, he noticed the sign that showed two small loaves being exchanged for a small copper. He decided that he wanted to look at the offered products before he settled on anything in haste. He went to replace his only copper into the pouch only to discover that there was another copper already in the pouch. He dug it out and looked at the two copper in his hand before thinking to check the pouch again. As he dug his fingers around in the pouch, he suddenly felt another coin in the pouch and understanding dawned on him.
The pouch was indeed unlimited but that didn’t necessarily mean it was without any effort. One had to dig the coins out of the pouch one at a time. He smiled as he placed a third, fourth, and finally a fifth small copper coin with the first two. Deciding he had more than enough money on hand, quite literally, he walked up to the proprietor, a wrinkly old crone who looked to be human enough just old.
He looked over the assortment and saw that some of the items had different prices marked on them. In the end, he settled on two loaves of some kind of bread that looked like it had butter or something melted on top, plus a sweet roll. The old crone told him they all cost a copper each and he happily handed over the three copper before asking the questions that he needed to know next.
As the old woman was carefully wrapping the bread in some kind of large leaves, he asked her his questions. “Say, young lady, do you mind if I ask you a few directions? I am new to this town and find myself in need.”
The old lady’s eyes looked up in surprise at his choice of words. After a second she chuckled at the flattery and responded. “Oh, a young lady, am I? You golden-tonged devil you! Go ahead and ask me whatever you want but be careful of your flattery or you may find yourself with more companionship than you bargained for one fine night!” She just chuckled to herself and shook her head more as she finished and handed the wrapped bread to Ryuji and stood waiting expectantly for his questions.
Seeing her response he smiled at the old lady. He had always enjoyed giving unnecessary compliments and exchanging quips with people just to get reactions out of them and he was glad to see it still had the same effects in this world. “I was wondering if you could tell me of a cheap place to rest for the night and also where I might find the adventurer’s guild if there is one in this town?”
The woman seemed to take slight offense at the last part of that but then she just shrugged seeing that it wasn’t meant as an insult but an honest inquiry. “The guild’s easy, that’s it over there, though to call mercenaries something fancy like adventurers is a bit much even for a flatterer like you.” The old woman pointed to a big two-story building a street over, but due to its size, it could be easily seen from their current position.
Then she smiled a gap-toothed smile before continuing. “The best and the cheapest place to sleep in town are the same places. You should go see my old friend, Teresa, at the Old Snoring Tree Inn! It’s three streets in that direction but the sign is a big tree and bright green so it’s hard to miss. She has right shabby rooms but they’re clean and the cheapest you’ll find outside the Baron’s dungeon” She cackled at her own joke.
Ryuji thanked her and walked off stuffing the end of one of the still-warm buttery-loaves in his mouth. The flavor was outstanding and he made a note to go back there! Now that he had the directions, he would try his luck with the guild tomorrow but for now, he wanted to see if he could get a room for the night. On his way out of the plaza he noted several items he would like to have, but a room came first.