As the clouds darken everyone would normally think that it is going to rain but not this time. Two men were waiting for the rain as they wouldn't want to waste their time walking to the river to collect water in order to water their crops, hence staying in the house is one of the best choices that most of the people do. This time, though, it doesn't rain even after they patiently waited. It has been almost 3 hours but there's still no indication that it is going to rain.
It was then when multiple lightning struck, people in the village and towns knew something was wrong and without waiting for the bell to be sound, the bell that everyone recognizes as one of the messages to tell everyone that danger is oncoming. In just ten minutes, most of the people were already inside their house, praying to their gods.
At the same time somewhere inside the forest, after one of the lightning struck the ground, a young man suddenly appears. It seems as if the purpose of the dark clouds and lightning were just an indication that someone has been summoned to this world. After summoning the young man the lightning stops and the dark clouds slowly disappears.
The surrounding people in the village and towns slowly came out from their house while looking straight at the sky, confuse to see that nothing is happening and was a little sad that it was not going to rain.
He started finding dried sticks in order to create fire in order to get warmth. He knew he needed dried sticks but in fact, he doesn't know which sticks is the dried ones. This made him a little uncomfortable about the knowledge that was, in fact, should be helping him. After about an hour collecting an abundance of sticks that he wasn't sure of. Truth to be told, he had to take multiple trips in order to get these amount of sticks.
He pauses and ponders for a while, creating a house here and living comfortably till old and die. Shook his head left and right abruptly he decided that he want to find human civilization. Shinichi finds a good spot to create the fire and before he realizes he was able to make a small fire within the fifteen minutes. The feeling of happiness and achievement can be felt while the young man was staring at the small fire. Slowly putting more and more sticks on the fire in order not to extinguish it. Looking at the leftovers stick he decided to make a wooden spear out of it. As he does not have any rope or vines around him he decided to sharpen the edge of either the long or the short sticks. At the end of 2 hours of creating a spear, it ended up being a javelin.
He thought about some things that he needs to do the next day but only for a while as he unconsciously doses off to sleep, of course, he had been working hard to survive from morning by taking a short break here and there is definitely not enough to satisfy his body needs to rest.
Woken up by the sounds multiple of growls, Shinichi turns towards the river to discover that there were more than ten alligators having their breakfast meanwhile he realize that two of the alligator were slowly coming towards him. In an instant Shinichi got up and ran towards the forest as fast as could, he wasn't thinking much when he discover that he had gone too far off from the river and he was lost out in the forest. He was both hungry and thirsty but there was nothing he could do except continue walking towards the same direction, praying that he is going to the correct way.
After two hours of his little journey, Shinichi saw a cave not too far off from his route. He was contemplating to himself whether to go near the cave or not when he saw a dark figure, a shape of a human walking towards the dark cave. ‘Finally, a human' thought Shinichi as without hesitation he ran over to the cave. Shinichi finally manage to stop himself after he unconsciously intended to call out to the person inside the cave, why he manage to stop? Precisely because he saw a couple of human bones lying at the entrance of the cave.
The feeling of regret slowly beginning to strangle him while he fights himself but half a minute was all it took for Shinichi to gather his courage to slowly step inside the cave. The first thing he saw after stepping inside the cave was the blood trail. It leads towards the right side of the cave.
‘Is it hurt or it is just one of its victims that it was carrying’ thought Shinichi.
He was being extremely cautious and was ever ready to run out if there was a bear rather than the human figure that he was seeing earlier on. Peeking at the left side of the cave, it made him feel relieved. Despite being in the cave there were multiple torches that allow him to see everything in the cave. The blood trail leads to a human being that looks to be injured. ‘Finally, a person that can help me' thought Shinichi. He briskly walks near the injured man but he was wrong, dead wrong. The man is not injured but he is already long dead. There was a big puddle of blood near him and the man wasn't breathing anymore. Seeing an injury and the big puddle of blood, Shinichi couldn't help but vomited out his previous dinner on the ground.
‘Why did I do that' He thought to himself. At the same moment, the ring suddenly shook and somehow or another shrink in size, proportional to his finger. Its color changes slowly from gold to a dull bronze. It made Shinichi freeze for a few seconds before he frowns. In an instant, he tried to pull out the ring due to his anger but it wouldn't budge. He tried a few more times before giving up and told himself that this is karma due to him robbing a dead man treasure.
In his excitement, Shinichi tried various stuff and found out
The feeling was too weird that made him decided to not ever do it again. There was another thing that he tried, as the pocket is subjective thus he decided to dig a hole on the ground and try to see if he could still open up a dimension from there but it failed miserably and causes his index finger to bleed. The last disappointing thing he tried to do was to put items inside as he thought about how convenient his life would be if he could put most of the items inside this dimension of his but his right hand aren't able to even get inside the pocket, only after he release the item he was able to get inside the dimension.
The real excitement was when he felt there was something inside the dimension. When he took it out, it was a gold coin. There was even the number ‘100' and a face carved on it. Shinichi trembled in excitement as he assumes that he is rich! He doesn't know how much worth is this coin but when he was touching around his dimension he felt there was an abundance of these coins but at the same time this causes him to be caution. He knew that there should be probably a penalty or condition in order to have this power thus he wouldn't want to use it more than he needs to. Now that he had finally finished testing out his discovery, he finally felt his hunger and thirst that is slowly making him weak. Shinichi abandons the rest of his intention on testing out the ring and continues his journey to find other human civilization.
Two days later
In the village of the great wolf,
A man coming out from his house while holding an ax on his right hand. His name is Ryousuke, he is forty-one years old this year. Previously he was one of the great generals but due to his back injury he confronts his best friend, the king, he wanted to retire early to take care of his family. Now nine years later, his daughter had grown up. Nineteen years old this year name Touka, she supposed to be already married but her to be husband was sent to war and didn't come back.
Nobody in the village knew that he is the great general of the hurricane, holder of a bronze spear that had killed thousands of his enemies. As an ordinary routine of his, Ryousuke comes out from his house every morning at around five to start his jog and exercise before starting his job as a woodcutter. As for his daughter, she will start to gather the wood that he had collected the previous day and trade with the wives of the various farmer or blacksmith if their tools had started to show signs of breaking.
The great wolf village has about seventy-eight families altogether, thus he and other several woodcutters would need to do their very best to supply the village with as many lumber as they could before the winter comes. He is worried not because of him and daughter but the whole village. Many children and adults died in winter due to cold and if he could lessen it by getting wood he would try his very best. After all, if he was unable to work anymore, he could just go to the nearest town and live there with his daughter without working as he had a massive amount of gold. Around sixty gold coins with a number '10' carve on it was inside his secret compartment in the house.
An ordinary family of four living in the town would need two silver per day, sixty silver per month and 720 silver per year and finally 57600 silver if the family lives in the town for 80 years. That is equivalent to 576 gold comparing to the amount he had he still will have 24 gold coins left. The very reason why he stayed in this village was that this is his wife house and also due to the fact that he doesn't want his daughter to get caught up with the nobles that can be merciless and will find ways to force Ryousuke to let go of his beautiful daughter.
After putting his axe inside a sling bag that he had traded from one of the people in the village he starts on his run around the village. He definitely didn’t want to rest too much, in the long term he might be too weak to fight if there ever a bandit attack on his village. His run was also considered a patrol by the villagers that saw him running every day and due to that, he was praised and well liked by the villagers that had their houses on the outer layer of the village that may be attacked by anything anytime without them knowing.
As he was about to start on his job, Ryousuke saw a person laying down on the ground while he approaches he started to evaluate the man and discover that the clothing that he was wearing looks to be one of the nobles as he never seen it before in his life. It looks to be a white t-shirt, probably due to the ground the shirt was stained and had dirt all over it.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Ryousuke was hesitating, whether or not to save this man like mention previously he doesn't like to interact with any nobles. It is also due to noble that his best friend, the king had a tough life. It also concerns him that he might bring problems to the village if he brought a criminal to the village. He was about to walk away when he remembers his wife words "Helping someone will always bring good deeds to him and his family" sure it sounds incredibly ridiculous for him the great general but now he is just an ordinary person and listening and following the words of his wife that has already pass away is one of the joyful moments to him.
After checking that the young man was still breathing and alive, Ryousuke carried the young man on his shoulder and slowly walk back to his house in order to nurse this man back alive and after that, he would question him. He swears to himself if the person is suspicious he, himself, will kill the person before troubles arrive at him and the village.
Shinichi view of perspective||
“Alright father, I will be careful around him”
The sound of the short conversation woke Shinichi up. As he slowly looks around, he was confused on how he got here in the first place. The last thing he remembers was seeing a smoke coming out ahead of him, he wasn't sure whether it is a city or town or even a group of campers but he was relieved. At the same time, most of the strength that got him going suddenly left him and he fell to the ground.
He was about to get out from the bed when the door to the room open and came in a beautiful young lady dress in a simple brown dress. Her figure was stunning in addition to her long brown hair and her black eyes, Shinichi was unsure whether is it a dream or not. She looked surprised momentarily but it was slowly replaced by happiness. The lady slowly walks up to him and told him that her father was the one that found him in the middle of the forest and save him.
She continues asking whether he is alright and are able to get up on his own. Somehow or another she knew that Shinichi had collapsed due to starvation and dehydration. After telling her name was Touka she waited for Shinichi to answer. "My name is Shinichi Kaede” replied
It leaves Shinichi clueless, what kind of trading is she going to do with a bunch of wood that was tied in a rope. As he looks around, he realizes the house was made of wood and the roof was made of a wood combine with dried leaves. ‘A different country?' Thought Shinichi as he continues to look around the house till finally, he looks at the food that was served by Touka previously. It looks like a common porridge till he tasted it. It tasted weird, it feels like a normal plain water without any flavoring thus being bland but due to his hunger he gobble up the porridge and before he knew it he had gone to the small kitchen that the house had to take a second scoop but stop himself seeing as there's none left.
Shinichi frown when he saw there were various kind of coins lying around in the room that he was awake from. He felt the need to tell these family that they should keep these valuables and they shouldn't trust any stranger in their house. He decided to rest only to find himself awake after 5-6 hours by the sound of the door opening. Shinichi came out from the room to find the previous young lady was accompanied by an older man. After assuming that the man would probably be the father he greets the man.
“Thank you for saving me sir, my name is Shinichi Kaede” Shinichi made a slight bow to show how grateful he is.
For some reason, the man was taken aback. His eyes were wide open but slowly replace into a slight grin. On the other hand, Touka didn't bother with Shinichi greeting and move to the kitchen to put the ingredients down. The man introduces himself as Ryousuke while taking out his right hand forward. Shinichi knew his intention and grab hold Ryousuke hand and did a handshake before Ryousuke led him to the dining table and told him to have a sit.
They had a conversation when Ryousuke started asking where Shinichi came from as he hasn’t heard the Kaede family. Shinichi knew that saying that he had amnesia wouldn’t work and it might also give him a bunch of troubles in the future thus he told Ryousuke that he came from the country far away to go on a journey but he was attacked by bandits and most of his people were killed, he manage to escape but a journey without food and water he wasn’t unable to hold on and faint.
Seeing Ryousuke nodded his head, Shinichi felt relieved knowing that Ryousuke believes him for the time being thus he shouldn't do anything that may make him a suspicious being. At the same time, Shinichi brought up a topic of how he exchange his money with this country currency while taking out his gold coin he asks Ryousuke what value does this coin holds.
Ryousuke stared at the gold coin that Shinichi was holding before saying that he shouldn’t show the gold coin around but Shinichi interject saying that his own room has the very same coin laying around. This made Ryousuke have a grin on his face before telling Shinichi about this country currency.
The currency that they are using is Zion, Ryousuke continued explaining the value while Shinichi made a table inside his mind in order to understand about the currency easily.
Zion 1 10 100 1K 10K 100K 1M
Bronze 1 10 100
Silver 1 10 100
Gold 1 10 100
The coins that the country is using is Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Each coin has numbers carve on it, 1, 10 or 100, vice versa with both Silver and Gold. This information made Shinichi hand that was holding on the Gold coin trembled. He just realizes that the value of the coin is 1 million Zion, after hearing that a normal meal in a bar cost about 5 – 20 Zion made him grin to himself. He is rich, he didn’t expect to be a millionaire after finding the ring.
Ryousuke suddenly brought up a topic asking about Shinichi wife that made him showed a weird face. After Ryousuke points his finger at Shinichi ring, Shinichi realizes he had made a blunder and quickly tried to lie his way out by saying that it was given by his lovely young sister that force him to wear it on his ring finger while laughing awkwardly to himself. At the time being, he felt a glare coming from the kitchen. Touka were glaring at him furiously, thus made Shinichi had a blank look confuse on why he was hated by her.
Ryousuke follows up by coughing loudly in which Touka realizes that both Shinichi and Ryousuke were staring at her. She immediately bows down to apologize Shinichi and her father before continues to cook for dinner. Ryousuke told Shinichi that he will be sleeping in his room in which Shinichi immediately decline and told him that he doesn't mind sharing that made Ryousuke gave him blank look that follows up by frowning. Finally, they decided on Shinichi getting the bed while Ryousuke would be sleeping on the floor, Shinichi told him that he doesn't mind sleeping on the floor but was declined as Ryousuke insisted on it.
Shinichi was forced to accept the apology as he knew that Ryousuke would continue to apologize to him endlessly. That night he was able to sleep much more comfortable than previously due to how he was reminded of the scenario he had the few nights he had, especially the first night that he was fortunate enough to be a light sleeper and was awaken by the sound of growling. The following morning he woke up to find that Ryousuke was gone and when he ask Touka, she looked reluctant but force herself and told that her father had gone to find some wood.
At the start Ryousuke decline Shinichi help but after being asked several times, somehow or another he gave in and allow Shinichi to grab hold one of his spare axe that he brought, so that he won't have to return back to his house if there's a chance that the tool that he was using broke. He taught Shinichi on how to cut one of the trees. Unfortunately for Shinichi he wasn't used to doing these type of work and before long he was extremely tired even then he tried his best and that made Ryousuke praise him for his determination. Finally, after almost two hours, Shinichi manage to cut down one of the oldest trees in the area.
Shinichi was able to create a casual conversation with Ryousuke. Unable to hold his curiosity, Shinichi asked Ryousuke the reason why he would always be surprised by the things that he does.
From there Shinichi kindly asks Ryousuke the reason why his daughter Touka doesn't seem to even want to talk to him. Ryousuke immediately apologizes while bowing his head. Apparently, he told his daughter that most of the nobles is a bad person and she should try to not mingle with them. Shinichi felt relieved rather than being angry. Both of them continue to gather and cut the old trees till late afternoon.
"Welcome back father" Touka was happy that her father was back but her smile turns to frown after seeing Shinichi. Ryousuke creates his own kind of sign to tell his daughter to greet in which Touka return a confuse look. "It's alright" was the only comment Shinichi could find to stop Ryousuke ridiculous and humorous action that he was currently making. It looked like Touka had already set up the table and all of the food had been cooked. Both Touka and her father approached the dining table as if it's their routine action. Shinichi had a grin on his face while he approaches the chair that he previously had sat.
, precisely because it was her dad that told her not to mix with the nobles. Hearing praises about the very noble that he talk bad about made her had a wry smile while listening to her dad story.
Shinichi felt embarrassed hearing these things about him and tried the food. The food consisted of rice and a little bit of meat. While trying the meat, Shinichi asks Touka what meat was it. This decision is one of the things that he regretted the most.
"Dog meat, Rin husband manage to H-Hey! A-are you okay?" Shinichi had a shocked and unfortunately, at the same time, he choked on the dog meat. Touka had a worried expression while she pats Shinichi back. It seems that after hearing her dad continued to praise Shinichi, she felt that he isn’t one of the bad people.
That day, Shinichi felt th
Before he realizes 6 months had passed by, the relationship between Shinichi and Ryousuke family were getting better and better, even the villagers started making casual greeting and conversation with Shinichi. Due to how Shinichi had always followed Ryousuke doing manual labor work, his stamina had increased tremendously and his muscle increase making his body appeared formidable. Merchants came to the village on the fifth of every month. Every time a merchant came by, Shinichi rejoices and approached them.
As Shinichi would buy various stuff from the merchant, most importantly books and any news or rumors that might interest him. The second thing that he was rejoicing was the fact that he could buy salt and another bunch of resources. Using the money that he borrowed from Ryousuke, Shinichi felt like receiving a pocket money every time Ryousuke pass him some money. As he and Ryousuke had made a decision to try to not show the gold coin value 100 to the merchant.
Firstly, it might attract too much attention towards them and the village. Secondly, the merchant will most probably don't have any change and Shinichi would be forced to buy all of his items. Thirdly the merchant impression of Shinichi will definitely change abruptly as he would know that Shinichi is one of the nobles.
Shinichi was in bliss. Ryousuke would usually tease them whenever he found them chatting away. Ryousuke showed that he already agreed to the marriage and even told Shinichi that they could marry the next month after they have enough resources to trade for the food. They would need a huge amount of food for their upcoming wedding.
"Is this the home of the great general Ryousuke?" A loud voice was heard that came with a carriage. His voice was loud enough that some of the neighbors came out from their house. Ryousuke was frowning as now that the villagers knew he is the great general, their impression will be very different. Opening his front door, Ryousuke slowly approached the carriage.
“Did you need me?” Ryousuke were feeling a little bit annoyed seeing the arrogance showing from the messenger.
"Yes! The king has given a direct order to you to go to the kingdom immediately!" The messenger replied without caring the emotions that Ryousuke were showing. He follows up his actions by passing the letter to Ryousuke to show that the order he received is legitimate.
Ryousuke couldn’t help but sigh to himself, her daughter
“Father in law, me and Touka will follow you to the Kingdom." Shinichi firmly decided as he didn't want his newly fond family to be separated so quickly. Touka suddenly pats Shinichi shoulder.
“What is it Touka?”
“Um sorry Shinichi, Rin is pregnant and I had promised that I’ll be there for her” Touka while in a depressing state said slowly.
Shinichi was contemplating for a while, he sure doesn’t want his future wife to break her promise of her best friend Rin. He also didn’t want to leave her alone in the village.
“Its fine Shinichi, I’ll be staying with Rin anyway, you don’t have to stay with me here. Don’t you always say that you wanted to try experience staying in a much bigger village than this?” Touka followed up and try her best to not make Shinichi sad.
‘What a lovely wife, I've got.' Thought Shinichi as he faces Touka.
“Shinichi?”
“I’m sorry, I got a little distracted there for a while.”
Cough*
"E-Eh… Yeah, father in law I’ll be right there, Touka takes a good care of yourself. Remember if anything happens you know where to hide.”
"Alright husband giggle*, you do not have to worry that much alright? Nothing has ever happened to our village before."
Meanwhile, as Shinichi was speaking with Touka, Ryousuke had told the messenger that he needs some time to pack his stuff up and gone back to the house. He didn't want to interrupt Shinichi conversation with Touka as both of them are already grown up and he trusts them. He knew Shinichi full well that the man wanted to experience new things, like he mentions previously he came from a place far away, seeing how Shinichi diligently study the letters and numbers from this country made him proud like his own son.
~ Back to present
Shinichi got on the carriage, to his surprise it was comfortable and spacious enough to be able to accommodate at least 6 people at once. As he looks at Touka waving at him endlessly while the carriage is moving he felt that he doesn’t need the ring that he was wearing anymore. His life is full of happiness as it is and he wouldn’t want to spoil it by being tempted of having an abundance of wealth.