And, like that, we left the city of… what was it called? Standsore? Something like that.

Before we left fully, though, I stopped by a little shop and, uh, ‘borrowed’ a map. See, we’re here, and to get to the empire, we’ll need to pass through a couple of cities, a number of forests, a mountain range, across a sea, and… Yeah, it’s a bit of a distance. But that’s nothing the dynamic duo of Ho-Jae and Simel can’t achieve!

Why, on our first day alone, we were able to leave the desert fully, make it across someone’s field without getting attacked by their no-horn bison, and sneak inside a forest all calm-like.

I did make sure to grab as much water as I could get my hands on to put in my inventory, but the problem lies in vegetables. My inventory doesn’t keep things fresh. It’s not even like a refrigerator either—I think it has the same temperature I’m currently in, so things go bad really fast.

Until we reached the next village in our path, my main strategy was to just bite every single bit of floral wildlife I came across, and if it didn’t have any bad effect, I’d show it to Simel to get a second opinion. Depending on his reaction, I’d either cook it for him or eat the rest myself. Things would, of course, be way easier if he ate meat, but now that we have access to actual greenery, I won’t force him.

Most of our trek is through forests, across dry lands, or by farmland. The place we’re heading for—some tiny village called Throughwalk—is luckily connected to that city we came from by a pretty well-used path. Actually, almost all of the places we’ll be going to are shown on the map as having roads, so braving the wilds is completely optional. I still do it, of course, but I could at any time choose not to.

It takes us five days or so to reach the village, and we arrive just at nightfall.

I’m just about to scout out a proper house to ‘borrow’ for the night when I notice Simel’s gaze. Judging. Knowing. “I—I was just…” Not letting me finish the sentence, Simel confidently strides ahead. The village would be called big if you compared it favourably to a shoebox. It’s basically just a bunch of farmhouses spread out, a church of some sort in the middle of the village, and a couple of non-farm houses close to said church. Simel is confidently heading towards one of those houses, and I can’t exactly do much other than follow.

I realise only when we’re at the door of the house that I’m not wearing any disguise. “W—wait, Simel, hang on, I need to—” I can say any more before he abruptly pulls the door open and slips inside to the sound of a gentle bell. Damn it, Simel!

I hesitate at the door for a second. Disguise or Simel? I grit my teeth. If need be, I can do away with whoever’s in there.

Grumbling a few curses under my breath, I step inside.

Warmth hits me alongside the smell of freshly-baked bread and bubbling stew.

“—Why, it really has been a while, your grace! I can’t say I haven’t been expecting you, but seeing you like this is still a bit shocking. Though, I must ask—pardon my curiosity—but did you ever find that Tallthi—” Her eyes fall on me. I stare at her.

This place is… an inn, I think? It’s warm. It smells like food. There’s a stout goblin woman standing behind a counter, previously conversing with Simel, now looking at me.

She blinks at me. I consider how fast I can leap across the room.

Her fat face twists in delight. “Why, would you look at that!” I freeze in place. She steps around the counter, hips swaying as she boldly steps up to me. She’s somehow even shorter than Simel, but she makes up for it in confidence as she looks up at me, smiling, her ears wiggling. “So you’re what’s called a human, eh?”

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I take a little step back. She advances on me. “—I am,” I say, to her obvious delight. “What’s it to you?”

She grins. “Oh, nothin’. It’s just I’ve heard so much talk of you humans as of late. Human this, human that, Tallthing here, Tallthing there. I’ve always been fascinated by wolfstories, so those bard’s tales about your sort… Very fascinating.” She puts her hands on her hips. “Now, is it true what they say, what with your sort eating babies and all that?”

I open my mouth, and then I close it again. I swallow down a bit of drool. “Not all of us, no.”

And for some reason, that gets her crestfallen. “Oh, I see…” Thankfully, it also makes her step back a little. I let out a breath. “Well, as I told his grace, we are unfortunately fully booked for the night. Lots of strange happenings going on over in Sandshore. Of course, knowing it’s his grace and his… human companion, I’d love to offer you our finest rooms. Best we’ve got right now is the stables, and I can’t exactly let his grace sleep with the farm animals, so…”

“No, no,” I say, quickly cutting her off before she can continue. “The stables would be great. Really, we’re thankful to sleep in any place where we might be able to rest our weary legs.”

She puffs up at my words, an amused glint in her eye. “My, haven’t you got some manners? And here I thought your kind was all about bloodshed and killing demons and what’s-it-to-ya. You really can’t trust everything they say through the lyrevine, isn’t that right?” She gives a little harpy laugh and I’m somehow able to muster a laughter to match hers. “Well, if it’s acceptable to his grace, I haven’t got any issue with it. I can’t speak for the animals, but I can’t imagine they’d object to such high-class company.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Sure.”

Before we head off to sleep, she actually let us eat our fill of stew and bread, which was… Let’s just say I absolutely did not cry, because crying isn’t my style, and besides, who cries over bread? No matter how freshly baked it is, that’s just lame. Besides, if you cry onto the bread the bread gets soggy, so, yeah.

We went to the stables. There were mostly just a bunch of tied-up drakes, but there was also some lunatic that had brought an entire damn snake? For some reason, the drakes didn’t like me looking at them, so we were able to procure a pretty good spot, with the drakes seemingly fully intent on staying as far away as possible. Interesting.

I put Simel to sleep, and then I contemplated sitting next to him. But I don’t want the night to go to waste when I’m in such an interesting place. I have a few things I want to do while the sun is down.

I give the drakes a few suspicious looks. They somehow retreat further away, straining their tethers and whimpering in their mouthguards. Okay, yeah, Simel should be alright. I’ll know if they get close to him. Still, if only to prove a point, I grab one of the thin-necked sprint drakes, twist its neck and disassemble it so fast the flesh didn’t even have time to go cold. Once I’ve put all of it into my inventory and licked the blood from the floor, there isn’t even a sign left that it was ever there to begin with. The drakes stare at me. I glare at them.

Got that?

Going by the looks in their eyes, they probably get it.

And so, I sneak out. The night air is cool and for just a moment I let my eyes linger on the seemingly endless starry sky, and the moons and the constellations. I take a deep breath through my nose, taking in the exact position of every single warehouse and pantry in the village, alongside what they contain. I’ve been in this world enough to know what’s eaten normally speaking. Alright, time to head out and get Simel some grub!

I head towards the furthermost place purely by instinct.

The farm is basically just three houses, each placed at an angle from the others to form a courtyard in the middle. This also happens to be how almost every other farm I’ve seen so far has looked like, so I’m not surprised. One of the houses is a stable for the thick, stubby drakes they use to pull their hoes and things, the other is the house that the family itself lives in, and then we have the storage house. Fun fact! For some reason, there are some goblins that also sleep in the stable? No idea what they’re doing in there.

Also, this is probably one of the two biggest farms in the village. The smaller farms don’t have their own stalls and storage houses, but this one does, so here we are.

The storage house is locked, but that’s nothing my claws can’t help against. Of course, it’s not like I can cut through iron, but if I just shove my nails in the hole and jimmy them around just a little, then…

—Click!

As easy as that. Smiling to myself, I head inside. Alright, we’ve got a bunch of grains, some pea-like stuff, a bit of dried meat and some salted meats… I drool a little.

I start shoving things into my inventory. I don’t think Simel would be too interested in eating the salted meats, but they’ll last for way longer than raw meat, so it’s worth it to grab anyways. And then some grain, and some of this, and some of that, heheheh, now this is the true meaning of looting! Ah, I miss playing video games. But this is almost as good! It might actually be a little bit—

“Wh—who’s there?”

I freeze in place. Sniff sniff. I turn towards the open door.

It’s a young woman. Goblin. A young goblin. It’s holding a little candle, dressed in a dress that’s too big on her. I usually can’t tell the ages of these things, but this one is clearly young.

And it’s just caught me in a pretty bad situation.

I stand up properly. I begin to walk towards it. It takes a few steps back, but it isn’t enough.

“P—please, what…” Its yellow eyes flash in the moonlight and it sees me. Of course, by that point, it’s already too late.

I do what has to be done.