Jojo starts towards the forest first, since it's the only landmark she can make out. She only makes it about halfway to the forest's edge, however, before she finds something even better: A road.

For the most part, it looks about how she'd always imagined fantasy dirt roads in her mind. Densely packed earth, a shade darker than the soil under the nearby grass, stretches about wide enough that four or five people could stretch out their arms and stand side by side without touching. There are vague divots where the wheels of passing carriages tend to be as they travel along, but it's nothing extreme, and certainly not enough to make the road bad to walk on.

As she starts walking along the road, however, she does notice one oddity. Every so often—about every ten minutes or so as she walks—she'll pass by a set of strange metal pylons arranged just off of either side of the road. They glow with ethereal blue light that flows through channels along their surfaces, occasionally lighting up strange runes that she can't make heads or tails of.

At first, she has no clue what to make of these odd structures, but after an hour of two of walking without incident, she puts together one theory: They could be keeping the monsters away. After all, she was attacked by a slime pretty quickly after arriving in this world, but since reaching the road she hasn't seen a single one of the hateful little balls. Of course, that could just be the natural randomness of life tricking her mind, but it's a good enough theory for her until something new presents itself.

The only reason she's thinking so much about weird pylons in the first place is, well...

She's bored.

She's really bored.

Jojo was never exactly one for stuff like hiking in the first place, but that's just made all the worse by the fact that she's literally in another world. It's supposed to be an epic adventure! Swords, magic, girls! Why is she just...

Walking?

So, of course she's bored! Anyone would be bored in this situation, it's not her fault, she's just—

"A town!"

Jojo jumps in joy at the sight on the horizon. A tall, sturdy stone wall stretches from the forest deep into the meadow before eventually curving away out of sight. Behind the wall, she can make out the peaks of rooftops, plus a few tall spires that likely belong to important buildings.

She takes off running down the road, cheering as she does.

The cheering calms down pretty quickly, though, and the running peters down to a jog, and then back to just a regular, sluggish walk, because, well... The town isn't really getting closer very quickly.

It practically isn't getting closer at all.

As it turns out, the horizon is very far away.

The sun is soon directly overhead, and Jojo is still just walking. Then, the sun starts to dip. It falls more and more, seemingly approaching the town in the distance even faster than Jojo herself is, and all she can do is just keep walking.

And walking.

And walking.

It takes a few more hours for Jojo to finally reach the town, and by that time it's nearly dusk. The sun barely hovers over the town, nearly blinding her as she follows the road towards the massive gates that stand propped open to allow people in and out.

Nobody else seems to be using the gates at this hour, so the only other people are two guards in heavy armor who Jojo just manages to notice before one of them waves at her and calls out.

"Hello there, missy!" The guard calls, his voice deep and gravely. "Just in time to avoid camping out overnight, eh?"

"Uh... Hi!" Jojo replies awkwardly. "Um, sorry if this is a weird question, but... Where am I?"

The so-far-silent guard, who Jojo now sees is a very young looking guy who can't even be out of his teens, makes a strange face at the question. The talkative guard, though, who looks much older and is sporting a rough, messy beard and mustache, just laughs.

"Confused, are ya? Happens to the best of us," the older guard says. "I'm guessin' you're an adventurer? Well, welcome to Petal Run. I know, I know, name makes it sound smaller. Entry fee's three copper, but adventurers get it waived, so you should be good. Just let me get a quick peek at your plate, yeah?"

"Um... I don't actually..."

Jojo pauses as a thought hits her.

How much is it even safe to say? Should she just tell people she's from another world? What if she's not the first, and it gets her imprisoned, or worse? No, that's way too dangerous. Better to just come up with something on the spot, and quickly, because she can see the friendly smile wavering on the older guard's face.

She puts on her best lost-looking frown and continues. "I don't know if I'm an adventurer, actually... I don't remember anything."

The young guard visibly scowls, and Jojo thinks she can see him tighten his grip on his spear. The old one, for his part, hides his reaction much better, but he still frowns.

"Nothing, eh? Well..." He sighs. "Have you got a little plate with your name on it on you? That'd be an adventurer plate."

Jojo shakes her head. "Nothing like that, no..."

"What about money? Depending on what you can spend, we could send you somewhere to get help."

Jojo slumps her shoulders. She pretends to dig around in her pockets, despite knowing they're empty, and as she does so she pulls the slimestone out of her storage. "All I have is this rock I got from a slime that attacked me when I woke up."

"Just a slimestone, huh? Hmm..." The older guard scratches his chin in thought.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Well, it'll cover the entry fee, at least," the young guard says, speaking up for the first time.

The older one shakes his head, though. "No, no, we're not gonna take this poor girl's only possession."

"Oh, come on! She's clearly—" The young one starts, but the old one puts up a hand to shush him.

"I'll tell you what, missy," he says. "I'll let Barry here tend the gate for a bit, and I'll take you up to the adventurer's guild since it's so late. They'll let you sleep there—you'll be sleeping on the floor, but there's a roof at least—and they can scan you and see if you're registered. From there... Well, we'll see what happens, alright?"

Jojo screws up her face in thought, but she can't think of anything wrong with any of his suggestions. The whole scanning thing sounds kind of iffy, but it'd just be suspicious to turn them down at this point, so...

"Yeah, alright," Jojo says. "Thank you for the help."

"Of course. I'm Gareth, by the way." He smiles and holds out his hand, which Jojo shakes. "Nice to meet you."

"I'm Jojo."

Gareth waves for Jojo to follow and leads her into the town. It's probably nothing special by this world's standards, but Jojo can't help but be rapt by everything around her. The old stone buildings, the cobblestone streets, the tall lights just now being lit by hand by workers. It's all so...

Fantastical.

She loves it.

It doesn't take long for them to reach the adventurer's guild. The gate led right onto the town's main road, and it's only a few minutes of walking to reach the huge two-story building that houses the guild. Lights are on in every window, and the sounds of talking and laughter emanate out onto the street. It's clearly one of the more active places in town, especially at this time of day.

Jojo can't help but gape at the sight of it. It takes Gareth a moment to notice she stopped following him, at which point he laughs and waves her forward.

"C'mon, missy, let's get you situated," he says.

"Oh, uh, right!" Jojo replies, and scampers in after him.

The main floor of the building is mostly taken up by a single open room split up into three parts. In the center is a general area, mostly just empty space, which is broken up by a few square pillars that have large bulletin boards on each side of them. The boards are covered in little slips of paper, and a few people dressed in heavy-looking armor are browsing them idly.

Those must be the jobs the adventurers take, Jojo thinks to herself.

To the right of the entrance, about a third of the room is cordoned off by a long counter. Two people are sitting behind the counter with bored looks on their faces, waiting in case they need to help anybody, while a handful of others scurry around behind them doing this or that.

Finally, the left side of the room seems to be some kind of tavern. This part of the room is by far the most populated, with all sorts of people filling the tables. There's armor-clad brickhouses, tall, gangly mage types, lithe, shady people who look liable to take a stab at anyone around them, and everything in between. A few waiters and waitresses swing through the crowds, carrying drinks to and fro and supplying the general air of merriment that fills the air. At the very back of the tavern area, there's another counter, behind which an absurdly tall woman in a sharp suit is wiping down a mug as she eyes the crowd critically.

For just a second, the tall woman's eyes meet Jojo's. A jolt seems to go down Jojo's spine, and she can't help but avert her gaze as quickly as possible.

Gareth doesn't seem to notice. He just leads Jojo up to the main counter and towards the nearest guild worker.

Behind the counter is perhaps the most bored-looking woman Jojo has ever seen. One hand is holding her head up over the counter, while the other taps manicured nails rhythmically on the countertop. Her eyes seem purposefully unfocused on anything ahead of her, as if she's willing the world to ignore her if she ignores it.

Despite the aura of boredom, however, Jojo can't help but feel like this woman is... Kind of adorable? She's short and mousey, with tousled silver hair and small round glasses. Her professional-looking purple shirt fits her nicely, and even slouched over as she is she seems absolutely cute as a button.

"Evening, Frankie," Gareth says as he approaches the counter.

The woman—Frankie, apparently—sighs and allows her eyes to focus on Gareth. She doesn't bother to take her head out of her hand as she talks. "Gareth."

He doesn't bat an eye. "Got somethin' down at the gate that felt like it could be guild business."

"Great," Frankie groans.

"See, this girl," Gareth motions towards Jojo, and Frankie seems to notice her there for the first time, "showed up at the gate with nothing and nobody. Says she's got no memories. Now, you know I ain't one to arrest a girl just for bein' lost, so—"

"You want me to vet her," Frankie finishes for him.

He chuckles. "Well, I wouldn't put it like that."

"Uh-huh." Frankie lets out a long-suffering sigh, then pushes herself up to her feet. "Well, come on then, girl."

Jojo gives a quick, uncertain glance towards Gareth, who nods at her, so she shrugs internally and follows Frankie behind the counter. Frankie leads her back to a door hidden away in a corner of the room, then opens it and ushers her into...

A storage closet?

Frankie walks in after Jojo and shuts the door, drowning them in darkness. A moment later, she presses something on the wall, and magical light suffuses the room from a gemstone on the ceiling.

Taking it in, it really does seem like they're just in a tiny storage closet. Between the shelves full of tools and the myriad boxes, there's hardly room for the two of them to even stand side by side, let alone anywhere for them to sit and get comfortable.

"Amnesia, huh?" Frankie asks as she pushes past Jojo, not caring whatsoever about personal space, and starts rummaging around for something.

"Uh... Yeah," Jojo answers uncertainly. She tries to make herself as small as possible so Frankie won't have to push her around in her search, but she's largely unsuccessful.

"Haven't heard that one in a while," Frankie says. "Ah, here."

Frankie pulls a small white orb out of a box full of stones and gems, and hands it to Jojo.

"That's a truthstone," Frankie says. "Lights up red if you lie."

"Ah." Jojo tries not to let her expression sink, but it's easier said than done.

Frankie just rolls her eyes. "Alright, let's get this over with. Name?"

"Um, Jojo."

The stone doesn't react at all, so Jojo can only assume it didn't detect any lies. That, or it's broken.

"Good start," Frankie says. "And you have amnesia?"

"Y-Yeah."

At that, the stone lights up a sharp, vibrant red. It also grows faintly hot to the touch, though not too hot to hold.

Frankie sighs. "Figured as much."

Jojo frowns deeply. "Sorry, I just—"

Frankie puts a hand up. "Save it. Are you a spy?"

"No! Of course not!" The stone goes back to its neutral white, and Jojo lets out a sigh of relief.

"You plan to hurt anyone in town?" Frankie continues.

"No, not at all!"

"Are you a criminal?"

"No."

"Do you plan to become a criminal?"

"No!"

"Do you intend to act in any way that would be a detriment to this town or its inhabitants?"

"Of course not!"

The stone stays white throughout the questioning, and eventually Frankie lets out yet another sigh and takes it back.

"Okay, look, uh... Jojo," Frankie says. "You seem clean, but a word of advice? The amnesia line is very suspicious. Everyone's entitled to their secrets, but in the future, if you don't wanna say something? Just say that. Kay?"

"Right..." Jojo crosses her arms tight across her chest and looks away from Frankie. "I just... I didn't know what to do. I don't have any money, or anywhere to go, so I didn't think they'd let me into town, and... I don't know if I can survive a night out in the woods. Not yet, at least..."

Frankie frowns. "You an adventurer?"

"No, but I'd like to be."

"What level are you?"

"Three..."

"Geez." Frankie grimaces. "You've got a ways to go. You know you need a Job to be an adventurer, right?"

"How do I get one of those?" Jojo asks.

Frankie raises an eyebrow. "You sure you don't really have amnesia? You get a Job at level 10. Everyone knows that."

"I don't... I don't really know anything about this world," Jojo says quietly. "I can't say why, I just... Don't."

Frankie gives her a hard look for a long, silent moment. Eventually, though, she just sighs and shakes her head. "Fine. You can sleep here tonight. In the morning, we... Ugh. I guess I'll give you some pointers on how to get your level up. Sound good?"

Jojo's face lights up with a brilliant smile. "Really!? Oh, thank you, Frankie! You're so sweet!"

Frankie groans and walks out the door. "Just don't forget I helped you out."

Then she shuts the door before Jojo can follow her out.