Before I had a chance to respond to the elf, Sanon did so first. She quickly backed up, a defensive expression crossing her face with every hair on her body standing on end, giving her the appearance of a pine cone. Brom sure wasn’t kidding when he said dwarves didn’t like being touched.
Sanon looked as though she might tear this guy a new one, so I opted to step in and attempt to de-escalate the situation, or at least get the guy to buzz off. “Woah hey man that wasn’t necessary. Why don’t we be civil about this.” I said, taking a step forward.
The man placed a hand to his chest in a superfluously haughty expression, gasping once again before beginning a long rant. “Be CIVIL?! After this dwarf so callously touched the statue of my uncle?! Absolutely not! I, the lord of this town, shall NOT allow such blatant disrespect!” he ranted on.
During his tirade, I inched closer to Sanon before grabbing her arm with the intent of getting the hell out of there. This proved to be a mistake as Sanon began batting at me like a pissed off cat. Nevertheless I continued my efforts, quickly dragging the two of us away while the alleged lord was distracted listening to his own voice.
“Come on Sanon, let’s get out of here!” I whispered to her. Her strikes softened at this, and she nodded. Though I will clarify that she did not stop hitting me until I had let go of her partway through our escape. Apparently, the repeated hitting is something of a reflex.
Sanon of course had words for me about the incident, and so she tore into me in the alleyway we had chosen as our haven away from the elf. “That was really stupid Max! I was already wound up when he slapped me. I understand that you only wanted to get us away from that guy, but if I hadn’t known it was you, I could have really done some damage!”
I had realized the error of my means the moment I made the decision, but in the moment I had tagged it as necessary. That doesn’t mean I held no remorse or guilt. “Yeah… I know.”
Sanon did a single, fierce nod. “Good! Next time, a bit of forewarning would be nice. I won’t hold it against you, so let’s just move on. We should probably avoid that part of the town, especially if that really was the lord. Let’s go find something to eat.”
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And eat we did! There were a number of options for food, but the most appealing to us was one that seemed to be advertising ‘human cuisine’. Now this I had to see, especially since it proved that my fellow outworlders had been doing at least some kind of advancements, even if they were only culinary.
…
To say I was disappointed would be a massive understatement. I was simply furious. These… posers seemed to have heard about the recipe from a human they had met in Elion, and tried to copy it! I respect the attempt, but it was just so bad. Sanon seemed to like it enough though, so there was at least that. We had ordered a classic — pizza.
And if there were one food that I would have to correct, it would be that. I don’t know what it was they used for dough, but it came out all crumbly, yet somehow tough. The sauce was way too sweet, even for normal pizza sauce. And even though I know that sweet sauces are used on some pizzas, I had a pretty strong feeling that it was intended as a tomato sauce substitute. The toppings were tolerable, but I couldn’t really identify anything. It had a variety of vegetables and meats, and the combination resulted in a savory and tangy taste, which actually complemented the sauce quite well!
I had been harsh on it at the time, but really the only part that needed major correcting was the dough. If Helsa didn’t have flour, then that may be cause for concern, especially since I hadn’t really seen any bread in the shops.
If I had to rate the pizza, then the overall flavor was at least a 7/10, but the crust definitely left something to be desired. Even so, I still expressed my discontent to Sanon regarding the crust.
“Is it really that bad?” Sanon cocked her head.
“I mean- not really, but the crust really needs work. Does Helsa have like… wheat… or maybe barley?” I asked.
Sanon’s expression became confused. “I’ve never heard of either of those things. Are they from Earth?”
“Yeah. They can be ground into a dust that when mixed with water, among other things, can be baked into bread.”
Her eyes lit up. “Oh we have bread! It’s like the crust of this ‘pizza’ stuff!”
…
“I’m almost afraid to ask, but how do you make it?”
“There’s this tree that we dig up the roots of. We crush them and then mix water into the powder. And after it dries we eat it!”
That is not bread. I’m not a bread guy, but I’m also not stupid. That is not fucking bread.
Fortunately, Sanon wasn’t finished talking. “I’ve heard that some people bake it though! I think I tried it once back when I was… 42? Yeah! It was kinda fluffy, but I don’t think the cooks here did theirs like that…”
That would definitely explain a lot…
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When we left the restaurant where we had bought the pizza, we explored the town more, keeping a keen eye out for any people that looked like they might be authority figures. Pissing off the lord was probably a bad move on our part, so we did our best to appear as inconspicuous as possible.
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…
Unfortunately, a human and a dwarf walking around was quite a rare sight, since dwarves are hardly ever seen outside of the south, and humans are just plain rare. It didn’t take long for an elven guardsman near the town gates to spot us and chase us down when we passed by.
“Stop right there!”
No criminal scum?
“The two of you match the description of the people that Lord Oresco found tampering with the statue of the late general Poporeo. You’ll be coming with me now.” said the guard said, grabbing the both of us. This of course set Sanon right off.
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Dear readers, the following events are what I would describe as a monumental dumpster fire. That Murphy asshole and his law are now at the top of my shitlist. To say that our previously nonexistent reputation in that town is ruined, would be an understatement so massive that Japan would let that one youtuber guy back in out of respect for our reputation-ruining skills.
The guard grabbed the two of us, which prompted Sanon to reflexively beat the living shit out of him. He then drew a shortsword on her, which prompted me to bust out Stabby. Instead of living up to its namesake though, I chose to put an assload of mana into its shield spell and blasted the guard’s sorry ass all the way back to the Lontish Civil War.
The guard, after getting up off his ass, then started blowing a whistle and calling for help. This of course resulted in a small battalion of soldiers in plate armor to show up in response. I found out that there was at least one magus among them when I noticed an invisible force tear into the ground, narrowly missing me.
I decided that I may have been in over my head here, so instead of holding my ground and fighting off an entire division of soldiers like the overpowered isekai protag that I am, we fucking booked it.
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We found another alleyway to hide in while the soldiers searched. Most people might consider this a pretty dire situation, but if any of you remember the feathery coat I got in Tokal, then you’ll know what happens next!
“Sanon, get in the coat.”
“What?! No!”
“Sanon I need you to get in the coat.”
“Why?!”
Wearing the hooded trench coat, I passed mana into it. From her perspective, I ceased to exist.
“Get in the coat.”
“Fiiiineee.”
Sanon (1) added to inventory!
Sanon is around 4’3”, so she fit inside my coat with me relatively easily with me being around 5’8”. The hard part was lifting her. I could not. So instead we awkwardly shuffled out into the light, which immediately proved to be a blunder.
I had forgotten that sudden changes in light can make the camouflage properties of the feathers go haywire, and so we nearly toppled over when the coat decided to turn us into a goddamn neon sign. Fortunately it didn’t take long for it to settle back into normal camouflage, so we continued on, slowly.
We kept out of any areas with major changes in light level, such as shadows. Hiding out in the open was definitely nerve-wracking. Making our way back to the caravan wagons like this would be an ordeal.
We passed by a couple of soldiers that were discussing as they searched. One of them appeared to be a heavily armored spearwoman, while the other was a much more lightly armored magus. The armored one appeared to be scolding the magus.
“You daft idiot! We weren’t ordered to kill! We were only to detain him so the Lord could question them personally!” she said, staring down at the young magus, arms crossed.
“Yeah well the Lord would have just ordered them dead anyway, or he would have just whipped them till they bled out. You know how he is! It would have been a mercy!” the magus protested.
As enamored as I was by listening in to enemy chatter like some kind of stealth game protagonist, I wasn’t too keen on remaining in one place for too long. Sanon was already uncomfortable being in such close quarters with me, so I made sure to be as quick as possible.
A number of minutes later that I cannot give an exact count of, we had once again made our way to the main gate, which had been swarmed with soldiers. This presented a problem, because that was the only way out of the town, and if we wanted to get back to the caravan, we would have to either go through the gate, or over it.
“Any chance you can dig us a hole under that wall?”
“Why would I be able to do that??”
So no diggy diggy hole then…
“Alright, got any ideas then? We need to get through the gate.”
Sanon shifted in the coat, and looked up at me from within its confines. “Not a clue. I can’t see.”
“Well, there are guards arranged in a semicircle in front of the gate, not to mention that it’s closed. Think we could go over it?”
“And risk you getting hurt and me getting cut? Absolutely not.”
Out of ideas, we stayed in place for a while before an idea hit me. “Hear me out Sanon.”
“Max, I don’t like that tone of voice. What are you planning this time?”
Kaboom.
“Kaboom.”
“...I’m listening.”
“Ok so basically I’m gonna do the water thing but right behind their little semicircle. Gonna put a shitload of mana into it. Kaboom. Then we make our getaway.”
“Max, no. You’re insane.”
“Max, yes. I’m a genius, thank you.”
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The stunt that I pulled in the following moments reminded me of the actions of a certain eyepatch-wearing arch-wizard from a certain anime series back on Earth. The ensuing destruction is something that I would come to regret, though.
I harnessed a veritable boatload of mana from within myself. I could feel my insides decompressing as I put forth the spell that wouldn’t be heard around the world. No, it would only be heard for a radius of a few miles. Even so, the damage was sizeable. “Bond hydrogen and oxygen near the gate I am looking at.”
It started as a few small popping noises, like the time when I nearly blew myself up. And like that time, it quickly progressed into a full blown explosion. The soldiers caught on to what was happening all too late, and the ensuing explosion sent a number of them flying, while a few others instead chose to ground themselves in a pose not dissimilar to what people do during a tornado drill.
It was loud. God was it loud. The explosion temporarily blinded me too, but when I got my vision back, the gate had been obliterated, with a section of the wall around the blast crumbling. A nearby check-in station had been blown away by the blast too.
Unfortunately, I had also expended a wee bit too much mana, resulting in me collapsing onto the ground, Sanon struggling to free herself of the coat. “You got this Sanon. Now’s your time to shine. Get us the hell outta here…” I said before passing out from the decompression.
“Oh burnin’ hells Max!”