It was just a bit before lunch on the second day so Ryuji decided to go get some of the delicious bread but first, he wanted to get a meat skewer. He was craving one of the meat skewers and had been for the whole day. He went to a different stand than the one the previous day because the guy there was an ass and was racist. Even though he was never able to do anything about it Ryuji had never liked people that acted out of prejudice of any kind. At his school he was one of the first students to welcome any new student and was always quick to try befriending any foreigner, he just felt it was the right thing to do.
Once he found a stand selling the meat skewers, he bought two from the young boy there. He then went in search of Lizbet’s bread stand. She looked at him kind of odd when she spotted the meat skewers but she didn’t comment. Apparently, the elves of this world didn’t or couldn’t eat meat. He thanked her and paid her all the while calling her young lady. For all he knew, elves lived to be ten thousand years old so in this world, he might actually be older than her even if he was only in high school back in Japan. Lizbet just smirked at the cheesy attempt at flattery.
Ryuji then walked into the crowd a bit so that nobody was paying him any attention. He made a tear in the top of the bread and stuffed one of the skewers inside of it before removing the thin strip of wood from it and closing it up. Now he could walk around enjoying his meat while still looking like an elf enjoying their bread. Ryuji hoped that the meat wouldn’t prove poisonous somehow but he just couldn’t resist the craving for meat.
The next thing on his list was looking for supplies that he might need for living in this world. He, at the very least, wanted to have a change of clothes. He began looking around the small market area and quickly made his way to the back corner where a familiar-looking cat person who had dark gray fur with aged white spots was sitting on a stool under the awning of his lean-to-style shop.
The old cat recognized him from the previous day and waved to him as he approached. He looked around the shop but it was mostly just accessories. Pouches, bags, purses, and the like. He also found that the old cat had a good selection of hats, cloaks, and capes. He then came across a very curious item in the very corner of the stand. It was like a large canvas cloak with a pole sewn into the bottom hem and sticking out on both sides.
Ryuji asked about this odd-looking contraption and the stall owner looked at him sympathetically before giving his answer. “This item is mostly for women but once in a while, a guy buys one. It’s a washing cloak. You put the cloak on and it has a stiff collar with a wood neckpiece in it to keep it on your shoulders while you move. The pole at the bottom is flexible enough that you bend it into a hoop and tuck the ends into the opposite side of the cloak bottom. Once you do that it looks like a bell over you and since it stands away from you, you can take your clothes off and wash yourself without anybody seeing you. Apparently, a lot of humans and elves as well as a few other species are ashamed of their bodies and don’t want anybody to see them so they use this to bathe in towns and such.”
Ryuji was fascinated by the idea and then something struck him. “Does that mean that people other than those will bathe in the open? There aren’t any public baths in town? I’m guessing that cat people bathe in the open?”
The old cat eyed him suspiciously with his slitted pupils narrowing a little. “You must not be from around here. We generally do but don’t go getting the wrong idea, it’s not like we bathe each other with our tongues. We’re not animals, you know. We just don’t get hung up on privacy like humans seem to. But a big part of that might be that we tend to have less space to live in than humans do. I live with two of my daughters and their husbands and children in our home. With nine people in the same house, we don’t get to have much privacy but it’s not like anybody actually needs it that much.”
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After that exchange, Ryuji bought a satchel similar to what he was used to carrying for school. He had a plan. He figured that with something this size he would be able to carry a large number of small copper coins to a bank and get them exchanged for larger coinage.
He had already noticed that a lot of the items in the plaza had prices near them. After he confirmed the price of the pouches, he now knew what some of the number symbols were. It seemed that by using those he was able to figure out the symbol for small copper, large copper, small silver, and large silver. He was going to have to do some exchanging soon because it would be too odd and too cumbersome to pay for more expensive items with only small copper.
After thanking the old cat person for his time Ryuji left his shop and walked around the plaza looking for clothing. He found a lot of interesting things but no clothing nor any shoes. He also found a couple of vendors selling weapons but almost no armor to speak of. Since he was curious about this, he stopped back by Lizbet’s bread stand and asked her about the lack of clothing.
She explained that clothing had to be fitted to the person wearing it so there weren’t many people who sold clothing in the plazas and bazaars. Ryuji thanked her for the information and asked about the location of a clothier. It turned out that the commerce district was almost all the way across town. He thanked her again and was about to leave when he remembered something else that he wanted to talk to the old baker about.
He paid her to bring another shipment of sweet bread to the inn that evening and this time he didn’t bother claiming it was from Teresa. He asked her about the possibility of putting nuts or fruits in the bread dough and she told him it was too pricy for most people so he paid her more for the nuts and fruit to go in some tomorrow. She grinned at him and told him to be off before he spent his entire fortune on bread.
He left in high spirits and was even happier that he could eat his meat without anybody being suspicious. He was just finishing the second meat bun when he realized that he seemed to be in the wrong place. He looked around and all he saw were houses and a lot of the people in the houses didn’t look too friendly.
He had just made up his mind to go back the way he came when three guys called out to him from behind. “Hey pointy, you lost? We’ll help you find your way, you just gotta pay us for it.”
When he turned, he saw that the three looked like complete thugs right down to their grins, the kind of grin that says payday. The tallest of the three was the one that spoke first but now the brawn chimed in. “Hey, didn’t you hear us? Give us your money or you’re gonna get hurt! Hurry it up!”
Ryuji didn’t think twice about it, he didn’t even blink or turn. Without any hint of what he was about to do he bolted backward and turned mid-run as he dashed away from the thugs. As he did so he noticed that there was nobody left but him and the thugs on the street. He didn’t bother thinking about that he simply looked for a good alley to dash down.
He turned down one alley onto another street, he only stayed on that one for a short before running down another alley. He dodged and ducked down a bunch of different paths but he heard the thugs hot on his tail. After a couple minutes, he didn’t hear them anymore and turned to look behind himself. He couldn’t see the thugs anywhere but he kept backing up anyway and just as he turned around, the tallest of the thugs came around a corner ahead of him, and as soon as he saw Ryuji, he ran straight toward him.
Ryuji turned and headed back in the other direction but the middle thug turned onto the street in front of him. Ryuji ducked down another alley and looked behind him to see how far away the two thugs were. Almost immediately he crashed into something in front of him.