Chapter 8: ExplorationDay 6

  Waking up in her warm embrace, Tuuli didn’t try to push me out right away this time. She cooked up some porridge while I set the table. Honestly, this situation isn’t half bad. While eating, we tried to teach each other a few words and phrases in English and Valic — I still don’t know the real names for either. Doesn’t seem like Tuuli knows how to write, but introducing my alphabet wouldn’t be doing her any favors.

  I wonder if Tuuli would like to come back to town and the byrinths. Mainly using clumsy hand signals, I try to ask. Seeming to understand, she looks at me with a sort of pcating smile and expresses that she’ll stay here to farm and I should go off to fight on my own.

  A bit te, but I also try ask about pregnancy (finger-motions followed by belly-swelling). Tuuli shakes her head and adds some rather explicit gestures to suggest that she’s got it covered. Sure, it could just be a convenient misunderstanding on my part, but Tuuli isn’t some starry-eyed, infatuated teen. She’s an experienced widow who appears perfectly happy with our casual retionship. I have no idea if keeping me a secret is to keep me to herself or to keep her options open, but I hope she’ll be honest.

  With a nice hug and kiss, Tuuli points me to the wall and I warp directly back to my room. I go downstairs to get a bit more to eat — I’m paying for it after all. Still enjoying my solitude, but not wanting to get too comfortable in a bachelor’s lifestyle, I head out to bathe at the river near the byrinth.

  Making certain to move a bit further away this time, it was nice to rex for a while and just enjoy the scenery. Once I’ve really settled in here, I should go on some long walks. Being able to warp back at any time would be like camping with a microwave and satellite TV, but the ck of modern medicine or wildlife management should be exciting enough.

  Even if I’m not ready to trek through the wild, it’s time to see more of this world than one vilge, one town and one byrinth. After my extended bath, watched by only a few dedicated voyeurs, I go back to the inn to get my gear. Honestly, I could just move to another town, but I’d rather be able to do long-distance warp before leaving a pce where everything’s close.

  Traveling between cities should be easier if I learn to read the signs, so I might as well start getting some book-learnin’ on this trip. I drop by the general store for some basic writing materials. Pen and ink cost a bit more than expected and nice paper is way too expensive for casual note-taking.

  Next to these, I see a, well, it looks like a rge, foldable smartphone. Is this a reality glitch? Nope, just a folding wooden case for two wax writing tablets. The wax is nearly bck (like a powered-off screen) and the thing even comes with a stylus. I ask the clerk about it and get a response like I’d just asked a modern person what a phone was for.

  Basically, these things seem to be a cross between a drawing pad and an etch-a-sketch. I’m told that the tablets are almost infinitely reusable if the wax is changed every year or so. In this book form, I’m getting two tablets in a portable, durable ‘smartphone’ case. [1] I got the ink, pen and expensive paper for long-term archiving and the retively affordable notebook for daily use.

  The adventurers guild, where I typically sell my monster drops, also serves as a travel center. With a little help, I locate the list of common destinations and try to copy the names into my new notebook. With this in hand, I pay a small fee to a guild staff member to read the list back to me. Recording my phonetic guesses will hopefully be enough to help me crack the code. She manages to read my copied text, but frowns at the simplistic block-letters I write next to them. Fortunately, numbers are rather easy to read, even if unnecessarily ornate.

  It seems that one-way trips via Field Walker (a limited version of my ‘warp’) typically cost a couple silver. One silver is worth, um, I can’t remember. Using Nar as the smallest unit makes for some awkwardly rge numbers so I guess most people think in terms of coin types. The fact that coin values differ by factors of 100 feels really fake — a natural system would be messier, but would hopefully avoid the bother of getting 90 coins back in change from a small purchase. I heard that there should be some coins to fit into 10x spots, but they’re either rare or just a wish.

  I wonder if Guild IDs double as debit cards. I’ve read that in other stories and I’d actually join one for that convenience alone. Actually, do they even have Guild IDs in this world? Guild membership might just be written on your status card or… Wait, what did she say?

  “Um, yes? Imperial Capital. Do you have any space left?”

  I temporarily join the Adventurer’s party and step through the newly-created portal.

  My first impression is that the capital looks more modern than it should. Actually, the tall pilrs had a cssic-roman feel except that they’re not yet in ruin. At street level, there were a lot of fancy stores that I knew to avoid. I have absolutely no interest in fancy ce underwear or silk robes.

  The people of the capital are generally better dressed than in Vale, but otherwise pretty much the same. Maybe they’re a bit taller and it seems to be roughly correted with apparent wealth. Given my height and moderately nice clothes, maybe I appear to be an upper-css commoner or even a minor noble. Actually, I probably look like a demi-human. In fact, I might actually be a demi-human, at least from this world’s perspective. Now that I think of it, does my status card clearly state that I’m human? Should it say that I’m Homo telluris? Nah, hard to imagine that sort of detail in a game world with this level of technology.

  I don’t really know much about this city from the manga — probably skipped that part. What was clear is that this rich-folk area I’m in now isn’t particurly useful for anything besides people-watching.

  I decided to look for a more middle-css neighborhood (to use the term loosely). Could start asking around, but “where do regur people live” feels odd. A nice, annotated map (assuming I could read it) would be great, but probably a military secret.

  Didn’t take too long to find some of the weirder, niche merchants which could pass as “middle”. Looks like I could get spices and less common foods in bulk so I should come back here once I’ve managed to move out of a hotel room. But, that’s nothing for now so I’m pretty much done here and move on to my next target.

  I went back to the adventurers guild to catch a ride to ‘Quarter’, no, ‘Quasar’. Damn, doesn’t seem to be anything simir on my list from Vale and I can’t read the signs yet. Too many destinations listed here to do another transcription session (meaning, I’m too zy), but asking to go to the city where “that other Earthling lived” probably won’t work, especially since I seem to be in a duplicate (or reboot) of his version. Well, I’ll just try an indirect method:

  “Excuse me, but are there any trips scheduled to the city that has a byrinth in the center?”

  Behind me, I hear, “Sure, I’ll take you to ‘Curatar’. Two silver. Just wait a few minutes to see if anyone else wants to go.” Probably more expensive for tourists, but not going to try to hunt around for a better deal. Oh yeah, now I remember, a silver is worth 100 Nars, which means it’s 1/100th of a gold coin. Good that long distance travel isn’t too expensive, but daily commuting would really pile up.

  He announces the city’s name a few times (definitely not ‘Quasar’) before the two of us walk through his portal to Curatar… as far as I know. Heck, he could just as easily take me to a penal colony, but this world seems notably honest for having so many murderous thugs walking around. Maybe it’s the kill on sight rule that makes everything so bck or white. No one wants to fall to the dark-side, but once there, may as well embrace it because you probably won’t be able to climb back out. So, rather simir to some justice systems back on Earth.

  If you ignore the remote possibility of getting kidnapped or pressed into the navy, this long-distance transportation system is absolutely awesome. Pay a couple coins, (metaphorically) hold hands and step-through a portal to another city in an instant — who needs technology when this sort of convenient magic is possible?

  Curatar is a nice city that feels like a nice compromise between Vale and the capital. I may want to live here some day. Besides the convenience of the central byrinth, it’s far from the slums of Vale where I’ve had multiple cshes against the criminal elements. If they really want to find me, a simple description like “tall foreigner with a fancy sword” might be enough to identify me. Few got away from my battles, but I didn’t even try to blend in.

  As I walk around Curatar, I feel a bit like I’m a tourist exploring the home town of some historical figure, which is sort of accurate. As much as I might criticize the manga, I still liked the story and setting well enough to read it… more than once. I even skimmed through the light novel version, but dropped it when the MC started doing some creepy stuff to an elven sve girl. Can’t pretend the rest of the manga was exactly kid-friendly, but cruelty really gets to me. Heck, even if she had been really into it, I’m just too vanil for that sort of stuff — says the recent sve owner who is diddling his former sve when we have no shared nguage. Well, we all have our lines.

  While I’m here, I’ll get stuff for when I get the Mage job, which will hopefully be soon. I’ll use my useful appraisal cheat to look for empty skill slots, which are necessary for an attempted skill fusion to succeed. It seems that not even merchants or bcksmiths can see these so they simply have to guess if an enchantment will be possible. I pn to make full use of this incredible advantage and maybe even switch over to become a very, very lucky merchant.

  My greed must be easy to read, but a lot of people look like that around here. I picked out a wand and staff with open skill slots, which were mixed in with all the normal ones at the same price. Even if I told them the potential difference in value, they’d never believe me… and if they did believe me, I’d risk getting locked in some noble’s basement as a sorting tool.

  Before going up to pay, I prepared some BS excuse for why a guy like me needs Mage gear, but the shopkeeper didn’t seem to care about who buys what. I’m getting a bit better at keeping my mouth shut.

  It’s already noon so may as well check out the local cuisine. The meat-skewer I got wasn’t bad, but they’re better back in Vale. Of course, this was just the first food-stall I happened to see so there was still some hope.

  How would a strict vegetarian fare in this society? I guess it’d be possible with some effort and experimentation with the locally-avaible vegetables. Food allergies or other restrictions could be harder. Can’t say that I’ve ever read a manga where the MC was gluten-intolerant. Meh, good to be an omnivore, like the rat I am.

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  [1] This is called a diptych. They were very common in Medieval Europe but oddly rare in isekai manga. They are not mentioned in the LN.