CHAPTER 65 - Information
Lightning surrounds us as we dip. Bruma takes the vanguard, being the only one with energy left after not taking part in the battle. She strikes anything that comes too close to us into a puff of ashes, be it animals or small monsters.
I follow after her with the child on my back. My body is telling me to stop on my tracks, but my mind is telling me to run as far as possible. A couple of minutes after we start running, I recover enough to create a brief link with the child, making it possible for me to ask him for general directions.
“Where is the nearest city my friend, can you tell us where to go?” I say as I look at his face, which keeps showing no emotions.
He looks around, but ends up simply pointing one of his small arms to our right, not saying anything. Seeing he is not interested in talking, I shut down the link and tell Bruma where to go.
‘There is no reassurance that this is the right way, but I need to choose somewhere to go anyway.’ Having no idea where I am in the grand scheme of things, and knowing that we are at least leaving the accursed place we got dumped into the moment we crossed worlds, we follow through, trusting that we will get somewhere at some point.
Over the course of an hour we cover a great distance, finally arriving at a dirt road that seems somewhat active. There is no one in sight at the moment, but there are traces of people going through it recently, so it should be good enough.
Exhausted from running, I drop on the floor and take my time just to check how bad my condition really is. My muscles are sore from the strain and the overcharging effect of coursing so much qi through them, but overall I am fine.
Some of the bruises and cuts that I have all over my body are already slowly closing as I feel my body replenish with qi from the floor. I focus on absorbing as much qi as I can just in case any other threat greet us again.
I have no information about this world, and the first thing I need to do is to go undercover and get some kind of id or something that will identify me here. So far, the only humans I have seen were from those tribes in the rainforest, but there has to be more advanced civilizations if this road I am standing on is anything to go by.
The first couple of hours goes by as I wait in the middle of the road, expecting someone to come, and finally someone does arrive.
A small convoy of three carriages show up. The three vehicles are propelled by two animals each. The monsters don’t resemble anything I have seen before, but I bet they are peaceful and herbivorous by their looks.
They have three pairs of legs, the two legs on their back are thicker and stronger, with hooves that give them a firm stand, while their other two pairs of legs in the front end with some kind of big claw or talon. It seems like the kind of appendage they would use to dig for roots or the like to eat.
Waiting for them to get to me, I bide my time and wait till they are a few meters away from me to stand up and walk to the first carriage.
The man of the first carriage moves his hands under his robe, grasping for something, most likely a weapon to defend himself.
Not wanting to create unnecessary troubles for me, I push the child in front of me and tell Bruma to come, and then, once the three of us are together, I show him my watch, hoping that the man will fall for it and let his curiosity get the best of him, thinking that the weird item is a artifact of shorts.
The three of use are all in rags, both me and the child have cuts all over our bodies from escaping and or fighting, our clothes a few strands away from being fully torn down, only Bruma seems to be in a better state, but her usual white fluffy fur is coated in a layer of dust and dirts from all the running, making her look miserable too. Definitely what you would expect from those who pursue riches in ruins in isolated spots, so maybe we are lucky, in the end, both their first and third carriage seems to carry goods to sell.
The middle aged man ponders for a while and then whistles loudly. A woman from the second carriage comes to the front and they discuss something. They do so quickly, definitely scared of something in the area, be it an ambush or something else, I don’t know.
Finally, the man asks for the watch and I throw it at him, carefully to not show hostility and he catches it examining it. He must have seen the detailed and compact design of my world's modern machinery as he expects it thoroughly , each second showing an even wider grin on his face.
Once done, he points behind him, telling us to go to the second carriage of the convoy where the woman from before and another two guys are sitting down inside the carriage. The first and third carriage seems to be some kind of specialized vehicle for goods as I can sense some weird flow of mana cursing through its metal wheels, seemingly reinforcing the whole frame of it and distributing the weight evenly.
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The man tells us something too, but I can understand a single word, so I just signal him that I am unable to hear or understand a thing. The man, not showing much concern for it all, just signals us again to ride the other carriage, and we comply, but only after pointing to his robe.
I will need a way to hide my weird and different clothing from the natives of this world, and as of now, his robe is the best thing I can ask for. Even now, I am getting weird looks from the rest of his crew, probably due to my clothes.
The man stands up quickly, and sends a harsh look at me, trying to look straight through me for a few seconds. Once he sees his vain attempt of intimidation doesn’t work, he finally concedes, taking off his robe and throwing it at me with a furious look.
‘He probably liked that robe, but it seems that my watch is enticing enough, I will need to find something else to bribe people with from now on.’ I ponder as I now don’t have anything else from my world to trade with.
Getting on the second vehicle of their small convoy, I discreetly send a pulse of mana of a measly intensity, seeing if they react to it.
Once they don’t show any signs of anything, I keep increasing the intensity until I discover the amount of mana I can use to perform a short range scan without alerting them. I assume I could increase the intensity some more, but I don't need to cause trouble for us so early on, so I don't do much in our way forward as we move along the road as I only use short range scans to both explore the area and examine this whole convoy closer.
The whole convoy seems normal, far too normal. The people here have the same appearance as the people from Earth and I have yet to see any abnormality on any of them. What I have seen though, are the mana flows in the wheels and in some of the items that the people around me are holding. Specifically the man who I talked to and the woman who he talked with too.
There are some other items that are infused with mana on the other people, but most of them must be either trash or not-combat oriented items, as the mana wavelength I get from them is so weak that It would be hard to even notice if I wasn’t intentionally looking for something.
For a day, we make progress along the road at a fast pace, showing that the animals are more than strong enough and resilient to push a whole carriage for themselves if they ever so wanted.
Along the way, the three of us keep our mouths shut and I try to get as much as I can from what they are saying. Sadly, they don’t talk much either, and when they do they do so in short sentences, clearly and concisely, which would be good… if I knew at least the topic of their conversations.The only thing I can get from them is that the animal's name is Yatri.
We wait till night comes to stop and rest, and that’s when I finally understand it.
‘There are nothing visible or easy to spot differences, but they are pretty different from us.’ So far, I have only accounted for the gravity of the planet, thinking that humans from Earth would have a denser mass and would in turn be stronger, yet now I have to digress.
‘These people have been in contact with a higher concentration of mana their whole lives, from the moment they were born till now they have been exposed to such a high amount of it that they don’t need to sleep as much.’ The easiest difference to spot is their lack of need for sleep in comparison to my past self.
The days here have double the length, making it possible for a longer rest, yet a longer activity range too. That shows that people here either have less consumption of energy due to the lower gravity and body or they have a bigger amount of energy stocked up for each day, be it in a higher fat percentage or something else.
The next day, we all wake up at dawn. Yes, all of us, myself included. Deciding that this was one of the small gaps that I would have of peace and I should make it count, I asked Bruma to guard us at night while I took a much needed rest. At least half the night, as my habit of 8 hours of sleep quicked in and woke me up halfway there.
After eating breakfast, we all got back inside the carriage and in formation. The day before they had been a lot more tense and ready to fight, but today they are a lot calmer.
‘Was it the place where we found them so dangerous? Or was it that we seemed like dangerous individuals to them?’ I didn’t know which one of those two was, but finally we got to see our destination by launch time.
A small city laid in the middle of a valley. The population of it should not exceed twenty thousand people or so, seeing that all of its buildings were at most two to three stories tall. The city itself wasn’t big either, but there was a huge span of farming fields surrounding it, with a few simple cottages and windmills scattered around.
The scenery was beautiful, not gonna lie, but I was anxious, desperately trying to look far ahead to make out what was going on in the entrance of the place.
Soon enough, I was able to see how the entrance was managed. A few soldiers clad in armor were patrolling the side of a huge gate that served as entrance. A stone wall, a few meters tall and a couple meters thick surrounded the city, telling me that there was a big enough risk of conflicts around the area, enough to build such defenses.
There are about a couple of dozen guards in sight, not too many, considering that it was probably one of the few doors of the city.
Our convoy slowly approached the gate, taking the right side of the road and advancing on a separate line than the left side, where all kinds of people entered and left the city on their own by foot.
‘Now, what should I do? Should I wait and try to make use of this convoy of merchants or should I take my leave before I am forced to identify myself at the entrance? In fact, do I even need to identify myself to enter?’