The four beastkins and one Satoshi did not stop running till they were out of the slums. Once they were finally out, all but Satoshi plopped down wherever they were standing, breathing heavily.
Satoshi had somewhat recovered from his throbbing headache and had used some water from his bota bag to clean off the blood on his face. And since he wasn’t really running like the others, he wasn’t exactly tired, at least not in the same way that they were. A small and constant lingering pain in the back of his head served as a reminder that there was a limit to his ability. Though for some reason, Satoshi felt that the limit wasn’t really that of the ability but his human body and that it wasn’t capable of handing an overuse of the awesome power. Satoshi mentally noted another thing to experiment on before moving on to look at the beastkin party, in a small attempt to forget the pain.
The leader wore heavy armour and carried a similarly heavy shield and sword. It was an unbelievably admirable feat in Satoshi’s mind that the wolf-man had managed to sprint for a couple of kilometres with so much weighing him down. It told Satoshi of a physical capability far beyond any he had seen in his previous life. Moreover, the cat-rogue who had been gravely injured just two days back and the rat-mage who was not even a physical fighter, had managed to keep up. Yet in contrast, what shocked him more was that the rabbit-ranger woman, who should have been in the best physical condition with a similar weight on her back as the rest, was having it the worst. Admittedly, it wasn’t all tiredness in her expression, but Satoshi had his thoughts elsewhere to realize that.
(A woman does have her fair share of troubles.)
Two round mounds of heavenly disposition entered his gaze hidden under the hood. The elastic wonders molded under the heavy breathing of their owner, sensually inviting Satoshi to lose himself in their chasm.
(I guess this world doesn’t have a concept of bras. All that running must hurt her shoulders.)
Concern for the woman made its way into Satoshi’s mind.
(If only I knew their language, I would have offered a back massage. Then maybe my hands would slip and it would also become a front massage. It would definitely help her in a lot of ways. In a lot of different ways. In fact, I could just give her a full-body one in all the right places.)
As benevolent a human as he could be, he wished to lend a hand..maybe lend two.. to let the woman overcome her worldly troubles and give her a taste of what lies beyond. But alas, the barrier of lingo impeded the woman from being able to experience an experience that not many could experience.
Satoshi diverted his gaze as the leader began to speak up. Ignoring the random assortment of gibberish sounds the group was spouting, Satoshi played with his ability while keeping the strain to a minimum.
Soon, the group stood up and checked up on their stuff. After they were satisfied, they started to move again.
It turned evening and the surroundings changed once again. It finally seemed they were in some better parts of the civilization. The houses, again made of wood, looked to be on par with what he’d seen in the lizardman city. They were a multitude of shops and stalls, beastkins shouting in advertisement here and there, from food stalls to random accessory shops. Satoshi looked around like a little kid, interested in everything, yet his face would turn dark every so often for not being able to approach and figure out the exquisites.
Not just the shops, Satoshi found the whole medieval setting simply breathtaking. Beastwomen, young and old, wearing long overalls went around with beastmen or simply haggled around at vegetable-fruit shops. All kinds of animal people just walked around normally, without minding the other’s species, heading back from work, occasionally stopping at food shops to get something to eat. Satoshi desperately wanted to try some of that food, even if he had to kill everyone in sight just to have a taste, but he refrained.
(Good things come to those who wait!)
He kept following behind the party. They had yet to show any displeasure at him following and he certainly assumed their first business would be to sell the stuff. If he could get some part of the money from them, or maybe take all of it…. Was when he realised he didn’t know what kind of money was in use here.
He looked at a nearby shop run by a cowman selling some kind of a cold green leafy dish. A father dogman handed a few dark brown coins to his doggirl daughter which she happily handed over to the cowman stall owner. Satoshi was equally interested in the nature of those coins as well as the green leafy dish, but for now, he swallowed his saliva and kept looking around to gather as much information as he could in this limited amount of time.
Overall, he noticed two types of coins being used as exchange for goods; a dark brown and a grey shiny, deciding internally to refer to them as bronze and silver coins.
Suddenly, a catkin bumped into Satoshi, muttered something akin to an apology and went away. The road was certainly narrow and crowded, yet the interaction seemed somewhat unnatural to Satoshi as if it was longer than it should have been.
(I am pretty sure he was trying to steal my money. I don’t have a single piece of coin on me lololol)
He didn’t really care about the happening other than be amused at it and kept looking around to burn as much of the visual information into his memory.
------------------
Soon, the group stopped in a much less crowded area in front of a huge building. Maneuvering between the crowd had been hard for the adventurer party but the smiles at their destination seemed to say that it was all worth it. It wasn’t very hard to discern that they would be exchanging their haul for coinage right here.
The leader walked up to a Satoshi who was in the process of admiring the huge wooden building. Having gotten the attention of their robed follower, the leader made some hand signs requesting Satoshi to wait for them outside the building. Having gotten a nod as approval, he said something to the rest of his party and they wordlessly moved into the building.
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Finally alone, Satoshi released a long-held sigh.
“Aahhhhh…. I can finally speak again..”
He felt good at being able to exercise his tongue and jaw.
All of a sudden, a lot of loud noises started coming from the building, most likely an uproar from the bear hide. Satoshi ignored them and scratched his teeth with his nail.
“Keeping my mouth shut all the time is making germs pile up into my mouth. I really need a brush and some toothpaste.”
Lost in his reminisces of modernity, he kept looking around evaluating the people and buildings. The noise from the building was slowing dying down.
“A lot happened today. I need to sit and think through everything and figure my shit out. First to get some food, but for that I need money. I just hope those guys are gonna come back with a decent amount. If not, I’ll go in, kill everyone and take whatever I want. Even though I would rather not meddle in the healthy working society as an outsider who doesn’t know jack shit, but when it comes to the stomach, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
He kept his gaze on the gate of the huge building, part in wait for the four beastkins and the rest to assess the people moving in and out. All of them were dressed up as hunter-gatherers similar to what he had seen on the four the past three days. Based on the equipment, he tried to divide them into roles and characters.
“Tank: Something of a damage absorber, with heavy armour and shield.
Ranger: Attacks from a range with a bow or crossbow and wears light armour.
Mage: Some robed, some light armoured. One thing in common though, is that they each have either a cane or a wand.
Weapon-weirders: Light armours and carry some specific weapon like sword, spear, axe etc.
Miscellaneous: No idea what their role is supposed to be. Like that dagger-wielding catkin. Whatever, I will figure it out overtime.”
Right then, the said catkin rushed out of the building carrying a small pouch and looked around. Having spotted Satoshi, he hurried over and handed the bag. He made some weird hand signs with his abnormally dexterous hands that Satoshi did not understand one bit. Satoshi simply opened the bag to find various bronze and silver coins in it. Satisfied, he just nodded at the catkin, letting him rush back into the building in another rushed manner.
“Uhhh.. I reaaaaaaally need to figure out a way to communicate with these people. If I keep nodding to everything, someday I’ll end up selling my kidneys.”
Undeterred with the potential troubles ahead, Satoshi moved away.
“I don’t think they’re coming out any time soon and I’m not willing to wait. I got me some mon-ney~”, said Satoshi, taking out a silver coin from the pouch, “And I’mma get me some delicious smelling food nexxxxt~.”
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Even though the sun had set, the hustle was still up. Satoshi went around buying and eating food till he was satisfied. Initially, he had some trouble as he could only point at stuff and had to somehow get the stall-keeper to answer the price in a show of fingers. He then tried standing next to the food stalls that smelled nice, looking at how much the customers paid, how much change they got and what they said to get the food. It wasn’t very hard to pick up the common words that were meant to refer to the food item and he would reproduce it with some coinage and do by.
He found out that there were four types of coins, at least the ones that he’d seen till now, based on their type and size.
Small bronze coin - The most basic currency
Large bronze coin - Equivalent of 10 small bronze coins
Small silver coin - Equivalent of 10 large bronze coins
Large silver coin - Equivalent of 10 small silver coins
And his current arsenal after spending a small amount was: 2 large silver, 6 small silver, 8 large bronze and 14 small bronze.
“The food was a few small bronze coins at best. I don’t know how those people split the money or even if they duped me. But I feel like this is a lot of money for such a small effort. Hunting might be a pretty profitable business.”
The coins he had on him would be able to take care of his food expenses for an entire year.
“Now I need to figure out where to sleep.”
There would have surely been an inn somewhere around, but there was no way he could ask for directions.
“Haah.. I really need to figure out this language problem somehow..”
Satoshi looked about and moved into a dark secluded alley. Making sure there weren’t any people around using his passive detection, he took off, gaining a height of several hundred feet into the sky.
“This feels good.”
He had been wanting to see the place from up high, but he couldn’t because of the people around him. Even though it was night, the five moons provided enough light for him to make out the structure of the place.
“First there were three, then four and now five. How many moons does this place freaking have?”
Satoshi distinctly remembered seeing only a maximum of four moons every time he could look up in the night sky.
“Oh well, whatever.”
He looked back down at the civilization.
“It’s hard to properly tell with the light, but umm.. I think this is pretty big.”
He could see dim lights from lamps and candles all the way around.
“The modern world of electricity is definitely nice but this also has its charm.”
Satoshi reminisced seeing the world of bright starry land from airplanes back in his previous life.
“But uhh.. This is quite big, isn’t it..”
The lights extended pretty far with intensity decreasing as the distance increased, slowing fading from sight. And in the direction that he faced towards the middle of the civilisation,
“That’s most definitely a castle...”
A large majestic structure stood, illuminated under the light from the five moons. It was 5 stories tall and covered an area more than 100 times of a regular house.
“I’m pretty sure that thing isn’t made of wood…”
Satoshi spent a few minutes admiring the sights, before slowly descending, concurrently looking for a suitable rooftop to spend the night. He felt much more at peace being able to feel the atmosphere.
“I need to thank whoever gave me this ability.”
“In time.”
Satoshi felt he heard some words that he could finally understand.
“I’ve had this feeling before.”
Satoshi looked around and extended his passive detection to as far as he could reach without incurring another headache.
“Knock. Knock. Someone there?”
…
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there was. Considering the way this world is, I’m not eliminating any possibility here.”
After a few minutes of silence, he decided that there was nothing he could do to address the issue and added yet another thing to his mental to-figure-out list and descended. Having found a nice and cozy wooden rooftop, a considerate gust of wind gently blew the area clean and took off.
“Phew.. I think I can kick back and relax a bit, now that I have found a civilization. Food and shelter are basic necessities, but now that I have some money on me, I can handle food, and shelter is not really that big of an issue. So my first course of action will be information gathering and since there is only so much I can gather from observing things, the natural pres.. Uh, what was the word.. Ah, prerequisite! Yeah, the natural prerequisite for information gathering is being able to speak the local language. Which is haaaaaaaard!”
Satoshi threw a tantrum in his solitude.
"How the fuck do I go about learning their language!? There are just so many troubles with that that I don’t even know where to start. I guess there’s only one option: Kidnap someone and force them to be my obedient slave. Not that this idea is completely foolproof, but it’ll definitely be easier to personally deal with a single person and have her deal with the rest. And yes, it has to be a woman. Why the hell would I want a male slave? No kids either, they’re stupid and annoying and needy.”
Lying on his back, Satoshi looked towards the sky and heaved a sigh. Now that he wasn’t using his ability to fly, he could spread it more for detection. Streets were becoming empty and most of the reactions, if any, he felt were from indoors.
“The biggest problem is something else altogether.”
He remembered showing himself as a human to the leader. The leader had asked to put the hood back on, and Satoshi had a hunch that he hadn’t even told his teammates about the fact.
“I haven’t seen a single human all day today, and if the reaction of that leader guy was any indication, I’m not going to encounter any as long as I’m here.”
Satoshi put his arms under his head and closed his eyes.
“I’ll deal with this tomorrow.”