A City Stroll

With a big stretch, I took in all the exotic sights and sounds of the street.

I hadn’t really noticed before, since I’d been taken straight to the guard station, but there was a semicircle of open space between the gate and the street with a radius of about sixty feet. I wasn’t sure if this clearing was to keep the bustle of traffic going in and out of the main gate from interfering with the rest of the town or more for military purposes.

The city was made largely of stone, like the kind you’d see in a movie or a Western game. Even the passersby looked like designs I’d seen in game docs: men in tunics, women in old-fashioned dresses.

It seemed like there was a large wealth gap here, too; I saw quite a few people wearing patchwork dresses or stained shirts and ripped trousers.

Next, I turned my attention to the buildings. From where I was standing, most of them seemed to be two-story stone buildings. I did see some that looked like wood or brick, though.

A tower peeked out beyond the roofs of the houses with a windmill attached to its pointed steeple; maybe it was a flour mill or something? All my knowledge about this stuff came from games and novels, so I wasn’t sure. I planned to stay here in the city for a while, so I’d check it out later.

The street stretched out before me, continuing straight to the inner wall that I could just barely make out in the distance. The road itself was about twenty feet across. On the other side of the inner wall was what looked like a lord’s keep.

Clearly, Seiryuu City was a bigger fortress city than I’d thought.

It was an incredible sight! As a game programmer, there was no way I could not get excited about a fantasy scene like this.

But was this spectacle really all part of a dream? I couldn’t shake the doubt from my mind. I certainly didn’t have the design sense to come up with such a realistic cityscape. Anything my mind would conceive would probably have a cheaper look, with vague details.

If this really is a dream, it must be somebody else’s.

And if so, whoever’s dreaming this definitely likes games. I hope they don’t do anything to mess with my sanity stat—

My thoughts were abruptly cut off when something soft and warm suddenly assaulted my arm.

“Hey, you there! You just came from the front gate, right? Right?! Instead of looking around with your mouth hanging open, you should come over to our inn if you haven’t chosen one yet! I’ll throw in a free meal or something!”

“Wh-what…?”

“Don’t worry about it! I can’t say we’re cheaper than the competition, but we’ve got clean beds and tasty food that’s made with love!”

Hastily closing the map screen, I was greeted by the reddish-brown eyes of a very cute girl. A thin ribbon tied her tawny-brown hair into a side ponytail. She was too close for me to see her outfit very well, but she looked to be around middle school age; the AR display confirmed that she was thirteen, although the disproportionately ample chest pushing into me suggested otherwise.

Still hanging onto my arm, the enthusiastic girl dragged me along. Maybe she was a barker or tout for attracting customers—something you rarely saw in Japan these days outside of school festivals.

At any rate, before I knew it, she was dragging me into some kind of barroom. It seemed a little dark, although that might have been because we’d just entered from the bright street. A glance at the sign above the door told me this was the very place I’d been heading for—the Gatefront Inn.

“Mom! Mommm! I got us a guest!”

“Goodness, you’re so pushy! You shouldn’t harass people like that.” A well-built older woman emerged from the kitchen, scolding the young lady as she came up to the counter.

Considering the soft warmth my arm had been treated to, I had no complaints about the aggressive advertising. Yep, it was worth it all right!

The older woman at the counter had a lovely face, even if her figure had a rather large presence. She might be around thirty or so…? In that case, it was probably rude to call her an older woman, then. Let’s call her the landlady instead.

An AR display popped up beside the landlady’s face when I looked at her. This dream just kept using game mechanics. The info screen that appeared was similar to the one I’d seen on the Yamato stone earlier, but the fields were a little different. This one seemed to show more specific information.

It made sense that this woman was the mother of the lovely young girl, given her beautiful face, but why did she have to be so chubby? A few pounds less, and she’d be exactly my type. I mean, I guess she’s already out, since she’s married. Adultery never ends well, so no thank you!

“Hmm? Are you planning to spend the night? You don’t have any bags…”

“My packhorse got startled by the starfall the other day and ran off… Luckily, I still had my coin purse, so I managed to make it to town.”

“Oh, that must have been rough! Well, we charge one large copper per night or a small copper for the large communal room. If you eat your meals at the bar, we’ll throw in a dish for free as a special deal for overnight customers.”

Hmm. I don’t know the standard cost for inns here, but if I want to figure out the exchange rate between large coppers and silvers, I should try paying for ten days in advance. The landlady seemed like she’d be pretty good at math, so I doubted she’d mess up the calculation.

“Well then, I’ll pay for ten days’ stay, please.”

“Certainly! That’ll be two silvers, then.”

I pulled two silver coins out of my pocket and handed them to the landlady. So five large coppers made one silver. If that wasn’t right, she probably would’ve mentioned knocking off an extra copper as a favor or something.

Now that I’d secured a place at the inn, I definitely wanted something to eat. All I’d had the day before was a protein bar, so I was getting pretty hungry.

“Ma’am, would I be able to take my meal now? I’d like to eat something simple if I can…”

“Well, if you want hot food, you’re either a few hours too early or too late. The kitchen fire’s died out for the moment, but I do have a premade quiche I can fix up for you, if you’d like.”

A quiche, huh? I hadn’t had that since I ate at a diner last month. Considering the town’s European-fantasy setting, I’d been expecting something more like rye bread or salty soup, but I guess I’d assumed too much.

“I’ll take that, then, please.”

“Certainly. Please have a seat; it’ll be right out. Martha, could you take our guest’s information for the register?”

The landlady returned to the kitchen, and Martha appeared in her place, pitter-pattering up to me with a string-bound logbook like a clerk in a period piece.

Martha’s outfit, which I hadn’t been able to get a look at before, consisted of a white blouse, a light-orange skirt, and a brown corset-style vest. Her shoes were made of leather and looked like soft hallway slippers.

“Yes, ma’am! Sir, if you could give me your name, please!”

“Satou.”

“Mr. Satou… Got it. Now your age and occupation, please!”

I had to stop myself from saying I was a twenty-nine-year-old programmer. My status screen said I was fifteen, and so should the ID papers I got earlier, so… “I’m a peddler, fifteen years old.”

“Whoa, you’re older than me?! I figured we were around the same age!” Despite her surprise, Martha swiftly took down my info on the straw paper of the logbook.

Apparently, I didn’t need to show my ID for inn registry. Right as Martha finished writing everything down, ready to start some kind of idle conversation, the landlady reappeared from the kitchen with a plate of food.

“Thanks for waiting! The side dish is on the house.”

Maybe it was just my imagination, but the landlady seemed to make a point of obstructing my view of Martha as she put down my food on the table.

Two slices of quiche sat on the plate, along with a small bowl of what looked like pickled bok choy. The slices were generous, and there was a wooden fork to eat them with.

The lone copper piece I paid for the meal felt like a cheap ten-yen coin.

Now then, it was time to dig in to my first full meal in over a day. I took a bite slowly, savoring the taste. The quiche was dense and heavy, made with plenty of potatoes. The other ingredients consisted of spinachlike leafy greens, mushrooms, and…red onions maybe?

Even though it was cold, it was tastier than I’d expected. I did think it could’ve used a bit more jerky, but it would be wrong to complain about a meal prepared especially for me outside of the usual kitchen hours.

“Mom’s quiches are even better when they’re fresh from the oven!”

“Martha! You haven’t cleaned up after those cowardly merchants who left this morning, have you?”

“Oh, sorry, not yet!”

“Then what are you lollygagging around for?”

“All right, all right, I’m going. See you later, Mr. Satou!” Martha headed upstairs to do her cleaning.

“What did you mean by ‘cowardly merchants’?”

“Ahh, well… After these guests witnessed yesterday’s starfall, they were in a tizzy all night, going on about ‘a demon lord picking a fight with the dragons of the valley!’ They left first thing this morning.”

She lost business because of me… That was a pretty bad thing I did.

Wait. More important, there was a word in there I don’t like the sound of…

“There’s a ‘demon lord’ around here?”

“Well, there was. Though the destined hero defeated the last one sixty or seventy years ago. And I haven’t heard anything about one being resurrected anywhere.”

So there was a “demon lord”…and a “hero.” Good thing that was taken care of. If this was a game, progressing through events as the protagonist would definitely end up with the demon lord getting resurrected. It was probably best not to stick my nose into it, poking around for more information.

“Besides, in the six hundred years since the Shiga Kingdom was founded, no one has ever seen a demon lord in Seiryuu City or the neighboring counties. Even if it did attack, it’d start with Labyrinth City, I’m sure. And that’s on the opposite side of the kingdom, so we have no cause for worry.”

If this was a game, I feel like this conversation would definitely raise an event flag for an attack.

“Around here, we’re far more worried about wyverns. They can swoop down and carry away young farmhands, packhorses, even children. Our army is strong, so Seiryuu City is safe… But outside the city walls, people working in the fields are in constant fear of an attack.”

Those things are scarier than I thought.

“But the dragons don’t attack people?”

“Haven’t you heard the legends? Dragons are lethargic and lazy. They sleep in the Valley of Dragons and seldom come out. The last time one appeared was two years ago, and the time before that was before I was born!

“It was terrible, apparently. They say a black dragon attacked and ate all the goats and sheep…”

She mentioned only livestock, so did that mean there weren’t that many human casualties? I wanted to talk about it a little more, but the landlady returned to the kitchen.

Before finishing off the quiche, I decided to try the side dish. The pickled stuff in the bowl turned out to be cabbage, not bok choy. I had mistaken it because of the whitish color, but the taste reminded me of the sauerkraut I had tried in a shop specializing in German beer.

The topping sprinkled over it was a finely chopped herb, maybe something like parsley. Returning from her cleaning, Martha informed me that if I mixed it into the cabbage before eating it, it would cut the sourness.

Wait, was she done cleaning already? It hadn’t even been ten minutes!

But since she was just sitting around while I ate, I asked her if she knew any shops where I could buy some everyday supplies. I could have just checked my map, but I thought it was important to communicate with the locals.

“Huh? Supplies? There are street stalls in the east quarter, so you could probably buy them there. But as long as it’s nothing too complicated, we can have our maid buy them for you!”

“Thank you, but I’d like to get a change of clothes and underwear and things like that, so I think I’d better go myself.” It was tempting to let them treat me like a celebrity, but I was a bit reluctant to have a stranger buying me underwear.

“Hmm… I know there are stalls on East Street that sell secondhand clothes…”

“Secondhand? I don’t know…”

“If you want new stuff, your best bet is to get it tailor-made on Center Street, but that’ll be pricey!”

“Is there anywhere that sells new clothes that’re manufactured instead of tailor-made?”

“What’s ‘manufactured’…? Oh, you mean like premade clothes? You use some big words for someone so young. They sell those on Teputa Avenue, but they’re still pretty expensive.”

Teputa Avenue, huh? I opened the map to search for it. It looked a little far from the inn. For now, I marked it on the map with a pin.

“Thank you. I’ll take a stroll around the street stalls and Teputa Avenue, then.”

“Oh, I know! How about I show you around? I can, can’t I, Mom? Especially since there aren’t a lot of customers today!”

Oh, that would be nice. Shopping with a local as my guide sounded exciting. Martha got permission from her mother, on the condition that she’d be back in time to help prepare for dinner.

Still, guest or not, I found it odd that she’d so easily let her daughter go out on the town with a man she didn’t know. Where was her sense of danger? Wait… Maybe she had assessed (correctly) that I wouldn’t hurt a fly. Yeah, that was probably it.

Even back in high school, a girl I was close to was always telling me what a good person I am… Okay, no—let’s not go dredging up traumatic memories.

Martha brought me to a section of East Street that was lined with all kinds of street stalls for about a third of a mile. Each stall had a space of only about twenty square feet. Maybe it was my imagination, but I could swear there was a faint scent of soy sauce in the air.

“A lot of these stalls are closed…”

“Oh, that’s because food vendors and farmers from the villages nearby usually do business here. They generally close around noon. Come evening, a lot of the food carts set up in the plaza instead.”

Most of the clothing vendors were about midway down the street, so we headed in that direction, idly browsing the other stalls as we went.

Some of the ones selling foodstuffs were still open, it turned out. Standing beside Martha as she admired some carved wooden accessories, I listened with great interest to a conversation between the proprietor of the stall next door and an older woman shopping there.

“How much for three of these gabo fruits?”

“Three of ’em would be two penny coins.”

“What? Two pennies? Surely one’s enough.”

“At that price you’d be bleedin’ me dry, ma’am! How about four for two?”

“Five for two!”

“Oh, all right. That’ll do. Only because you’re so pretty, y’hear?”

So haggling is standard here, huh? Man, I’m used to buying things for whatever the price tag says… That’s kind of a pain.

Incidentally, a “gabo fruit” appeared to be a root crop not unlike a red, fist-size pumpkin.

I was drawn to the unusual term penny coin, so I took one out of Storage to have a look. It was a square brass coin that weighed only a fraction of an ounce, though mine was rusted over.

Martha held a small hair ornament shaped like a water bird up to her hair and turned to me. “What do you think? Does it suit me?”

“Yeah, it looks great.”

“Which one do you think looks better?”

Heh-heh-heh… I knew she’d ask that!

I’d learned all too well in college how to deal with this. You can’t just blurt your honest opinion. You have to figure out which one she’s already leaning toward, based on her initial reactions, and go with that one. Otherwise, the process will just get dragged out even more.

“The light-blue one, I think. It goes great with your hair color.”

“You think so, too?”

“I’ll sell that one to ya for three copper coins,” the shopkeeper announced quickly, sensing that he might have a customer.

“I’m sorry; I don’t have enough pocket money today… I’ll try to come and buy it at the next harvest festival.”

Huh? I’d expected her to try to hint that I should buy it for her, but I guess she’s too modest for that. Thanks to extensive experience with my college girlfriend, I was already prepared to pay for it. I also wanted to give haggling a try, so I decided to get it for her as thanks for guiding me through the city.

“Any chance you’d take one copper?”

“If I did, I’d barely break even! Make it two coppers, at least.”

As I started to negotiate, Martha tugged on my sleeve, seeming worried that I was spending money on her. “Wait, you don’t have to—” But I waved her off.

From what I’d seen so far, I was fairly certain that five pennies made one copper, and four coppers made one large copper.

“How about one copper and two pennies?”

“Make it a copper and four.”

“A copper and three?”

“All right. Sold.”

I pulled the right amount from my pocket and paid the man. He handed me the hair ornament, and I affixed it to Martha’s hair for her. It felt like going around to stalls at a festival with a younger cousin or something.

For my success in bargaining, I was rewarded with several new skills. They seemed useful, so I enhanced all three with some skill points.

“Hee-hee… Thank you, Mr. Satou!”

“Not at all! It’s my way of thanking you for showing me around.” I replied to Martha’s shy thanks as noncommittally as possible. If I wanted to flirt with her, I’d go on to add a few compliments or something, but again, she’s a little girl and I’m not a creep, so I left it at that.

Since I had activated the “Estimation” skill, looking at a product would now allow me to see the cost displayed in an AR box beside it, in the form of white text showing a range like 2~4 copper coins. That was probably the estimated price range.

Anyway, there were an awful lot of children working around here.

“What’s wrong, Mr. Satou?”

“Oh, I was just thinking about how many kids there are…”

“They’re mostly servants and maids who get paid in tips.”

“Really? Wow, that’s quite the work ethic for being so young.”

“Huh? It’s normal.” Martha seemed genuinely confused by how impressed I was. I guess the standard age of employment was really low here.

Ooh! That must be—!

Peeking out through a gap in all the hustle and bustle of the marketplace was a pair of lightly twitching cat ears.

Beastfolk! It had to be! It seemed like they mostly lived in the west quarter, so I hadn’t seen one in person yet.

Unfortunately, a sudden shout put a damper on my excitement.

“Dirty little animals! Whaddaya think yer doin’ in the east quarter?!”

A blond young man in a tunic aimed a kick at a little dog-girl struggling under a heavy burden, and her bundle of firewood clattered to the ground as she fell. Her ears flattened in fear as she looked up at the man who’d kicked her. The cat-girl with her came running over immediately, bowing and apologizing fervently to him.

I couldn’t stand by and watch this.

“Do you have a problem with these girls?” In an uncharacteristic move, I butted in before processing what I was doing.

“Huh?! Are these your slaves? Get some leashes on ’em and put ’em back in the west quarter!”

To be honest, I didn’t have much of a plan, but luckily, the other guy quickly retreated. I gathered up the dog-girl’s scattered sticks.

“Th-the firewood…”

“P-please…g-give…”

The two little girls looked up at me from the ground. Did they think I was going to take away their firewood? The dog-girl was stammering so badly from fear, she couldn’t finish her request for me to give it back. I took a piece of string out of my bag and tied up the sticks as they’d been before, then handed them back.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“We’re…fine.”

“Oh, good. There are a lot of people on the main street, so be careful.”

The two thanked me profusely as they left. When I turned back, Martha was giving me a strange look.

“What is it?”

“You were so kind to those beastfolk…”

Hmm? Why not? They’re cute, aren’t they? Sure, they need a wash and a haircut, but I’m sure they’ll grow up to be lovely young women.

“Do people in the city hate them that much?”

“Well, yeah. Apparently, beastfolk used to attack or even kill hunters and villagers coming to sell produce.”

So they’re thought of as thieves and savages, I guess?

“Oh, hey—look over there!” Maybe she was just trying to change the subject, but Martha quickly dragged me over to what had caught her interest. I pushed the beastfolk to the back of my mind and looked where she was pointing. Small animals in cages were up for sale.

The vendor was a man in a fur coat who appeared to be a hunter. Some kind of hatchet hung from his waist.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen many people walking around with swords—only guards and young delinquents. All I’d noticed other than that were a few dagger-length blades hanging from some belts. Swords are heavier than they look, so I bet carrying them at your waist would drag down your clothes and give you sore shoulders.

Martha and I both commented on the animals in the cages, but our opinions were at odds.

“They’re pretty cute.”

“They look delicious!”

Embarrassed that she’d prioritized her stomach, Martha cleared her throat, then grabbed my arm and led me to the next stall. So I guess we’re pretending that didn’t happen.

By the time we reached the clothing area, I’d already bought mugs, a comb, soap, and some “tooth-polishing sticks.” These were some sort of dried plant stem that you were supposed to gnaw on while rinsing with water in order to clean your teeth; there were no toothbrushes or floss here.

I didn’t see anything made of glass, either. The closest I could find were wares made of gems or crystal.

By now I’d gotten the hang of shopping here. Vendors didn’t like it if I tried buying something right away at its estimated price, I realized after three stores or so. Instead, I had to start the negotiations at about half the going rate, then arrive at the price I wanted after three or four rounds of haggling. Man, I didn’t mind doing that every once in a while, but every single time was a pain.

In the central part of East Street, we saw a crowd of people standing in the plaza.

“Pious men and women of Seiryuu City! The day of the demon lord’s resurrection is nigh! You all must have witnessed it. The starfall was surely a portent of terrible things to come! Now is the time to devote yourselves to the temple of the benevolent Zaicuon!”

In the center, a rotund, self-important-looking man of around thirty years old was heatedly addressing the crowd, in garb reminiscent of a Shinto priest. Partway through, when he started going into devotion, the crowd began losing interest and dispersing.

“What’s going on?”

“That’s the high priest of Zaicuon Temple. He must be desperate because they’ve been losing followers.”

“Oh? Did they do something?”

“No, no. Everyone’s leaving because the temple can’t do anything.”

My confusion must have shown on my face, because Martha gave more details. “See, Zaicuon Temple doesn’t have anyone who can use Holy Magic. If you’re going to make offerings at a temple, you’re better off with, say, Parion or Garleon. At least they can heal you if you’re wounded.”

I see. I guess you had to be practical in a tough world like this. Such an attitude could hardly be called faith, but I guess people would inevitably flock to the religion with real-world benefits.

The fat priest was getting desperate, grabbing a citizen who was trying to walk away. The lower-ranked priests around him tried to stop it, but I didn’t want to get involved, so I ignored them, and we left the plaza.

The garment area had a lot of places to repair or resize clothing, in addition to secondhand shops. I finally found a stall with new clothing amid all the used clothes, so I bought a good amount of underwear there.

While I was at it, I picked out some nice, soft-looking towels. To my mild disappointment, they were really just two pieces of cloth stitched together; still, it was better than having nothing at all, so I bought some in a few different sizes.

Compared to food and lodging, clothing was pretty expensive.

“Look, Mr. Satou! It’s a dragon mask!”

Martha picked up a carved wooden mask from the stall’s display and held it in front of her face. There were also smooth silver masks, white masks, and all sorts of others for sale.

“People wear these at the harvest festival. This silver kind was quite popular last year.”

Huh… I picked up one of the silver masks. It looked to be the type that you attach with string.

“What do you think, lad? That dragon mask is s’posed to bring peace and good health,” prompted the shopkeeper, a woman who seemed to be in her twenties. Her shirt was cut in a very low V-neck, so it was difficult to find a proper place to look; she wasn’t really my type or even all that attractive, but it was still hard to tear my eyes away.

Trying to find something else to look at, my eyes fell on a wig for sale, beside the silver mask. “Do people wear these with the dragon masks?”

“Well, the only ones who wear dragon masks are the actors who play the dragons. The black wig here is for the actor playing the hero, and this blond one is for other parts, like the princess and her attendants.”

So this festival had a lot of different parts to be played. In the end, I couldn’t resist her recommendation, so I bought the silver dragon mask and the blond wig.

On Teputa Avenue, there were shops selling all kinds of clothing and accessories.

First, I bought a waterproof mantle with a hood for rainy weather at a shop for travelers. I also bought several sets of durable-looking shirts and trousers.

I picked up some footwear, too: a pair of waterproof shoes for travel, some boots that looked like they’d match my robes, and sandals. Most of the sandals they sold were the type that you tie up with cord, ancient Greece–style, but I wanted slip-ons, so I got a cobbler inside the shop to make some to order for me.

While I was waiting for my sandals, I found a bag that looked just like my Garage Bag. Thinking I’d struck gold, I braced myself and checked the market price—but this was just a normal leather bag, much to my disappointment.

Still, it looked like it could serve as a facsimile of my Garage Bag, so I bought it anyway. The color and stitching were a little different, but as long as nobody looked at them side by side, it should serve.

I’d gone a little overboard with my shopping. I wondered if it would be too much to carry. “Excuse me… Is there any way I could ask you to hold on to my purchases for me while I’m shopping?”

“Yes, of course. If you like, we can even have them delivered for you.”

“Oh, yes please. I’m staying at the Gatefront Inn, under the name Satou.”

Had they offered because I bought so much? What great service.

A boy of about ten, maybe the son of one of the shopkeepers, accepted the bundle of clothes from the clerk and set out to deliver them.

In the next shop, I picked out some clothes to wear downtown. The robe I was in was a top-quality enchanted item, but judging by the clothes for sale and the outfits I’d seen around town, its design seemed a little old-fashioned.

“How about this robe here? It’s very dignified.”

“It’s a little big…”

“What do you think of this doublet, then?”

The two salespeople, both women of about thirty, kept following me around with suggestions that leaned more toward the most expensive items than the ones that would suit me best. I didn’t exactly mind that they were pressing just a bit too close to me in a possible attempt to seduce me into buying, but the dizzying intensity of their perfume made the situation half as enjoyable.

“Hey, Mr. Satou, I think this doublet here would look nice, don’t you?”

“Oh, it’s very nice. The orange lining is a little too much for me, though.”

“Don’t worry—the color will fade after two or three years.”

Two or three years?! I thought incredulously, but maybe that kind of thing was normal in this country. Except for suits and coats, I was used to needing new clothes after every season.

A doublet is basically a tight-fitting, waist-length padded shirt. In Seiryuu City, most doublets had a slash from the elbow to the shoulder where you could see the inner cloth. On others, the slash went down the whole garment.

From what I’d seen in the city so far, this sort of apparel seemed to be a favorite among flashy young men.

“This color over here is very in this year!”

“Oh yes, I definitely recommend that color!”

Naturally, the saleswomen were pushing a doublet about three times the price of the one Martha had found for me. None of the clothes had labels, so I had to use my “Estimation” skill, but I didn’t doubt that the display was accurate.

Not only did the garment have bizarre decorations on the shoulders, it was a particularly nasty combination of green and pink. I firmly declined.

Yeah, I think I’m pretty much done shopping here. Tuning out the saleswomen as they complained under their breath, we moved on to the next store.

Just two buildings away, we found a shop with a variety of stylish robes. It was basically a menswear store, with lots of tastefully subdued clothing for merchants.

“Wow! It looks expensive, but everything’s so nice!”

“Yes, and the stitching is high quality, too. This looks promising.”

“Thank you very much. Ours may not be quite as remarkable as your Yuriha-fiber robe, sir, but we guarantee the highest quality you’ll find in ready-made clothes.”

The shop manager, a young man, promoted his goods with genuine pride. I’d have bought it even if he hadn’t pushed, though.

“If you’d like to have something tailor-made, sir, my parents manage a menswear shop on Center Street. I’m certain they would produce something just to your liking.”

Huh. Both generations were in the same line of work, but they had two different stores? Maybe he was working in a separate location to hone his natural talents.

I bought a plain but stylish robe with silver embroidery and an olive-brown merchant’s robe. Delivery was free here, too. This was starting to remind me of a certain online shopping service.

I had done all the shopping I’d planned for the day, but I was interested in seeing the menswear store the young man recommended, so Martha and I headed that way.

Upon entering the shop, a kindly looking, middle-aged married couple greeted us. Unlike the stores with clothes already made, very little merchandise was on display. Instead, they had samples of five different suits and a wide array of fabrics. A lounge area for discussing business took up the other half of the shop.

“Excuse me, but I’m looking for a heavy merchant’s robe. In a subdued color, if possible…”

“Welcome. Please have a seat here, and I’ll gather some fabric swatches for you. The five sample suits on the stands over there are our current best-selling designs.”

The husband guided me to the lounge and went into the back to gather samples. Just as he left, the wife came in to replace him, carrying some kind of black tea.

Martha sat beside me, uncharacteristically timid as she sipped her tea.

“The weather will be getting colder soon, so I would suggest this thicker cloth. If you’re going on a journey, we could also prepare a waterproof overcoat to match your robe, if you’d like.”

That sounded pretty good to me. Probably.

I’m the type to buy a bunch of different-colored clothes in bulk from that huge clothing company Uniqlo, so I ordered one of each of the five best-selling designs with matching coats. Apparently, the tailoring would take up to five days.

My order came to eight gold coins in total: pretty expensive, but I had plenty of money, so I paid without batting an eye.

“Wow, Mr. Satou! Merchants sure are rich, huh?”

“A merchant’s clothes are like a knight’s armor! I can’t be cheap about something so important.”

Oops. That sounded like an office lady who spends her life going to mixers. In reality, I was thinking that if I wanted to go sightseeing inside the inner wall where the wealthy people lived, I’d have to be wearing clothes to match, or I’d stand out too much.

Incidentally, the robe I was currently wearing would normally go for about one hundred gold coins. What an insane price! Just like in video games, magic robes here were on an entirely different level of value, I guess.

The clothes would be delivered to my room at the inn when the tailoring was done, but they’d be using temporary stitches. I’d have to come back to the store within a few days to take care of any minute adjustments needed.

The couple waved good-bye as we left.

The streets in this city were a lot cleaner than I’d expect from a European fantasy–style setting.

There was no animal dung to be seen and no homeless people to be found in the alleys. There were even gutters lining shoulders of the road, complete with stone covers.

None of this would be that unusual in a game, but if this were an alternate world instead of a dream, the country’s grasp of sanitation was disproportionately advanced compared to the rest of its culture.

Unlike East Street, Center Street had few street stalls and was full of regular shops. Most passersby seemed really well dressed.

On our way back, we walked by a man selling candy on the street, so Martha and I bought some. Instead of being hard candy, it was something called “malt syrup candy”—thin sticks with light-brown syrup stuck to the ends.

Eating it as I walked, I let my eyes roam over the people and all the wagons coming and going along the street. There were a lot of man- and horse-drawn carriages, so I guess magic wasn’t convenient enough to entirely replace machinery.

On that note, I also observed that most of the people pulling wagons were wearing collars.

“Are collars in fashion around here?”

“Wha…?” Martha answered around a mouthful of candy. “Oh, no, those are slaves. The especially rebellious or delinquent ones wear ‘enslavement collars,’ but the collars they’re wearing are probably just to mark them as slaves.”

I see… So that’s how it works…

At that moment, another horse-drawn carriage passed before my eyes. Like the rest, it was moving only about as fast as a brisk walk, probably because this was a crowded street. In the back were ten or so girls with collars—slaves.

Two of them in particular drew my gaze. One girl, with black hair knotted by the long journey and equally black eyes, had features that made her look markedly Japanese. Most of the people I’d seen looked Northern European, so this might have been the first Asian-looking person I’d encountered.

Since the girl’s eyes were downcast, there wasn’t some dramatic moment when our eyes met or anything, but I did make eye contact with the one beside her: a little girl with flowing lilac hair and the traditional Northern European features.

For some reason, she was gazing my way with utter astonishment. Stop it! Please don’t give me that earnest look. I can’t do anything for you… Also, I’m not into little girls, so…sorry.

Maybe because I’d been staring at her for so long, the girl’s name and level popped up next to her face.

> Arisa. Level 10.

That’s a high level for such a young girl…

More information appeared beneath her level.

That was as far as I could read before the cart turned a corner and vanished toward the west quarter.

Those titles definitely spelled trouble… No, I was definitely not getting mixed up in any of that. Not a chance!

“Welcome home, Ms. Martha!”

When we returned to the Gatefront Inn, a girl who looked like a first or second grader greeted us. At first I thought she might be Martha’s younger sister, but if so, “Ms. Martha” would be an odd thing to call her. Maybe this was the maid I’d been told about earlier.

“Thank you, Yuni! This is Mr. Satou. He’ll be staying with us starting today.”

“Welcome back, Mr. Satou, sir! I brought your packages to your room for you.”

“Ah, thank you! That was probably an awful lot for you, wasn’t it?” I patted little Yuni’s head. Despite her size, she spoke far more formally than Martha.

I wasn’t sure if tipping was customary in this country, but I handed her a penny coin as thanks. Martha remarked, “Good for you, Yuni!” so I figured I had made the right choice.

“Oh, right! Ms. Martha, guess what!”

“What is it?”

“Earlier, I saw a bunch of carts bringing in lots of meat!”

Yuni’s fists were clenched tightly with excitement as she drew closer to Martha, but Martha wrinkled her nose, apparently less than enthused. “Meat? Ugh, don’t tell me it was wyvern?”

“That’s right! The pieces had to be on lots of carts because they were each thiiiis biiiig!” As she said “thiiiis,” Yuni stood on tiptoe and stretched as high as she could to demonstrate the height, and for “biiiig” she flung her hands out sideways for the width.

Okay. This kid is too cute.

The count’s army must have finished breaking down the wyvern carcass and brought it here.

“Why are you so excited about wyvern meat?”

“Because! When the army defeats one, the count donates some of the meat to the orphanage! Meat! Real meat! How many months has it been, I wonder?” Yuni responded to my question like a child from an old-fashioned movie.

“I hate wyvern meat! It’s so gross. And it makes the west quarter stink…”

I guess in a fortified city like this, meat wouldn’t come around that often. Martha’s and Yuni’s reactions were probably evidence of their class differences: One could eat meat regularly while the other could not.

“Anyway, look at this, Yuni! Isn’t it cute?” As if the wyvern conversation had never happened, Martha showed Yuni the pin I had bought for her.

“Ooh! Yeah, it’s so teeny and pretty!”

As the two of them broke into boisterous chatting, I thought I might return to my room, but first I decided to ask if there was a communal bath in the inn. Considering how clean the rest of the city had been, it didn’t seem that strange to expect a bath or a sauna.

“The rich people inside the inner walls have public baths, but they’re off-limits to us commoners. Only nobles and people wealthy enough to have houses inside can use them.”

Close but no cigar, huh? I couldn’t believe you needed social status to get into baths! Damn this feudal society!

“That’s too bad. Then what do folks like you do when you want to take a bath, Martha?”

“There’s a water well in the rear garden, so we bathe with that. During the winter, we usually bathe only once a trimoon or so, since it’s so cold. In midwinter, we try to use hot water so we won’t catch a cold, but nobody has the luxury of bathing in hot water in this season.”

I guess getting fuel might be a problem in a fortress city like this, too. Checking the map, all I saw nearby was a tiny river, the source of which was undoubtedly underground water.

A trimoon was apparently a period of ten days; months were divided into three parts—the first, second, and third trimoon. They didn’t have the term week in this language, so a trimoon was the closest equivalent. They didn’t seem to have anything like our names for the days of the week, either.

As I learned more about their society through idle chatter, some new guests arrived. “Hey there, Martha! Do you have a room for us?”

“Welcome! Yes, of course we do!”

The new arrivals looked to be merchants: two men of around forty and one attractive blond woman in her late twenties. Since Martha was caught up in inn business now, I motioned to her that I was returning to my room. Not knowing where it was, I asked Yuni to guide me.

My accommodations were smallish and simple, about seventy-five square feet with a bed, a small personal table, and a chair. I asked Yuni if I was allowed to rinse off here, but she said the inn preferred all bathing to be done outside, lest the rooms get humid or musty.

Made sense, I guess.

All my purchases from the day were laid out on the bed, so I picked out a change of clothes and some bathing supplies and headed back downstairs.

As I left my room, I saw the group from before being led into theirs by Martha. The two men were sharing the same room, while the woman got her own accommodations. So she wasn’t married to either of them, huh?

Following Yuni’s directions, I went out through a wooden door into the rear garden, which was about 130 square feet around. The water well wasn’t far from the door. Rather than a pump, it utilized an old-fashioned bucket system.

Unfortunately, the only thing separating the rear garden from the small adjacent side street was a short little hedge. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, but the occasional person still passed by, and I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of being on display as I bathed.

Looking around, I noticed a partition screen over by the door. Oh, so I use this? I set up the screen to shield my body from the street and started to bathe in the cold well water. The partition was only about as high as my waist, but it would suffice for cover.

I rinsed the dust and grit out of my hair, then washed my body with the soap I’d bought. It smelled surprisingly nice and felt gentle on the skin (or was that just because I had high stamina?).

I was starting to wish I had some shampoo, but I’d have to make do with soap. It didn’t really foam up, but it seemed to clean well enough. I was used to shampoo, so this might have been the first time I’d ever washed my hair with soap.

I heard a creak behind me and turned my head. The back door had opened, and a woman was coming out. It was the female guest from before.

Our eyes met. She gave me a light nod, then began drawing water from the well. Huh? Paying no mind to the fact that there was a nearly naked dude bathing right nearby, she calmly pulled up the rope. It didn’t seem like she was disguising her embarrassment, either—she was just totally ignoring me.

When the woman finished pouring water into the washbasin, she set up a partition, took off her clothes, and started bathing.

Huh?

Are you for real? Have you no restraint?!

There was a partition between us, but…but still…!

Every time she moved, something—well, two things, which were presumably D cups—asserted their presence with a distinct jiggle. Of course, she was covering the key areas with her hands, but every once in a while…

No, no, I had to stop! I wasn’t some virgin who’d never seen a naked lady before! I forcibly reined in my gaze and went back to my own washing up. Come on, lower half! Stay calm!

But when I glanced back at the woman out of the corner of my eye, she was smirking at me!

Yep, adult women really are the best!!

…Though, according to the AR, she’s a bit younger than me.

She certainly was a sight for sore eyes, but since I was done bathing, it was going to look pretty suspect if I continued hanging around for much longer. I quickly dried myself off with my towel, but… Where do I throw away the bathwater? There aren’t any drains or anything, are there?

“You can toss out your water in the shrubbery. I believe there’s a drainage system underneath.”

The woman solved my dilemma, possibly out of pity for my bizarre behavior. I thanked her, took care of the water, and returned to my room.

You’ll have to forgive me for sneaking one last look as I went back inside. A man’s instincts are a powerful thing.

When I got back to my room, I changed into the tasteful light-brown robe I’d purchased earlier that day. I’d already changed into new undergarments right after I bathed. It was only at this point when I noticed I’d forgotten to buy socks.

I didn’t want my feet to get smelly, so I changed into sandals. Ahh…that was better. I usually wore slippers when working, so wearing shoes for such a long time was getting uncomfortable.

A tantalizing smell wafted up from downstairs, announcing it was dinnertime.

I wanted to go to the bathroom before eating. Instead of having one for each room, the inn had just one common bathroom. The toilet was of the old-fashioned pit-latrine variety. I had never seen one in person, not even at my grandfather’s home in the countryside. I guess this was typical fantasy, too, in a way.

Not that I was very happy about it.

After I was through with business, I looked for toilet paper, but of course there was none to be found. I’d gotten my hopes up, since the hotel register had been made with paper, but I guess that was a luxury.

Looking around, I found a bundle of thin straw within arm’s length. Am I supposed to use this?! I didn’t want to chafe my bottom, so I tore off a piece of one of the towels I’d bought and used that. It might be a little wasteful, but now wasn’t the time to be thrifty.

This had certainly been a baptism by fire in the ways of this new culture, but all things considered, it was really clean, so I’d be all right using it again.

The barroom on the first floor was enveloped in delicious smells and raucous chatter.

It was a little dark, but a number of lanterns hung from the ceiling and posts to illuminate the room, which upped the fantasy factor significantly. Very nice!

“Oh, Mr. Satou!” Martha greeted me as she bustled about among tables, carrying trays of food. “I was just wondering if I should go get you.” She motioned me toward an empty seat.

“Thank you. I’ll take whatever you’d recommend for dinner, please.”

“Well, you’re in luck! A huntsman just brought in some wild boar today, so I definitely suggest the wild boar steak. It might be a bit expensive, but it’s well worth the price!”

“Yeah, the boar’s fantastic! You’ll regret it if you don’t give it a try, son!”

It seemed that the meat was responsible for so many customers being there; even the drunks were trying to convince me to order it. They needn’t have bothered, though—my stomach was on board the moment it heard the word steak.

“I’ll take the wild boar with some sort of vegetables, then, please.”

“Anything to drink?”

“Tea or fruit juice, or milk if you don’t have those.”

“Huh? All we’ve got is booze and water.”

Right. I guess this is a bar. Well, I don’t want to mess up my stomach with unboiled water…

“Then something that’s light and easy to drink, please.”

“Want some hard cider diluted with water, then? Or if you don’t mind spending a little more, watered-down mead or wine would probably taste better.”

Hard cider was basically fermented apple cider, right? Like wine, it could go sour easily if not preserved carefully. But mead was honey-based and a staple of fantasy works besides. Come to think of it, I’d probably never had it before.

“I’ll have mead, then.”

“You got it! Okay, I’ll go put in your order right away. Sit tight!”

Martha headed to the kitchen, nimbly dodging with practiced ease the drunkards who tried to touch her bottom as she passed. Why were there so many pervs here, wanting to grope a middle schooler…?

While I waited for my food, I casually scanned the bar. Men in merchants’ robes and neatly kept tunics were cheerfully picking away at their food and drinking some kind of light-looking beer. Ale maybe?

Something about the patrons seemed off, though.

Hmm… What was it? From a cursory glance, the tavern was indistinguishable from a classic fantasy-movie set.

Oh! It was the tobacco.

There were no ashtrays on the tables, nobody puffing out smoke. Only steam rising from the hot food.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen anyone with cigarettes or pipes out shopping, either. Had tobacco not reached this country?

This was perfect for a firm nonsmoker like me, but a chain-smoker like Mr. Tubs would throw in the towel after three days, no doubt about it.

Martha returned with a steaming-hot steak on her tray.

“Thanks for waiting!”

“Wow, that looks delicious.” I wasn’t just being complimentary—it really did look great. This one meal alone was worth the price of three days’ stay at the inn.

On the main plate, a wild boar steak cut into thick cubes was accompanied by white piles that looked like mashed potatoes. Finely chopped basil and fried slices of garlic topped the steak, enhancing the smell of sizzling fat as it piqued my appetite.

Beside the plate was a deep dish filled with soup that was probably consommé. Little cubes of four different kinds of vegetables were at the bottom of the bowl—orange, red, green, and yellow. Judging by the bright colors, I had no doubt they’d taste as good as they looked.

The mead arrived nearly overflowing from a big bisque tankard. Beside it, a basket contained inch-thick slices of rye bread. At last, glorious rye bread—the staple food of all fantasy—would be mine for the eating!

“Eat up before it gets cold!” Martha admonished me before going back to her work, sounding amused at how I was savoring the food with my eyes.

All right, guess I’ll start with the vegetable soup. There was a tiny bit of resistance as I sank the large wooden spoon into the soup; clearly it was pretty thick. I scooped some of the fresh vegetables onto the spoon and brought it to my mouth.

Just as I’d expected from its appearance, the soup tasted like consommé. The ingredients had been cooked perfectly—the vegetables broke apart with a single bite, their rich flavors filling my mouth. When I swallowed the thick broth, warmth spread through my stomach. This must be a really popular dish in the winter.

Next up was the main course: the steak. I jabbed my fork into a piece and took a bite.

When I’d tried boar before, it had an off-puttingly funky taste, but this meat was different. There wasn’t much fat, and it was a tiny bit tough, but once I chewed it a little, my mouth filled with a hearty, rustic flavor that was nothing like beef.

Before the taste left my mouth, I took a bite of the rye bread. It was a little hard, but not as much as I’d been told. Just enough to make a fun crunching sound as I chewed.

It was slightly sour, but when paired with the meat, it mixed with the rich flavor of boar for an absolutely delicious combination. It was so good that I found myself reaching for the next bite before I was even done chewing.

Everything was delicious. I was pleased that this country seemed to have a lot of good food. It’d be fun to take a gourmet tour of the Shiga Kingdom.

When I had finished the full pound or so of steak, I remembered my mead and took a big gulp. It was a honeyed yellow alcoholic beverage. I had expected a similar taste and thickness to honey, but since it was diluted and all, it was smooth and easy to drink. Overall, it wasn’t nearly as intense as I’d expected.

As I was licking my lips and savoring the taste of the mead, Martha returned. “Oh my, did you eat it all already?”

“Yeah, it was delicious.”

“Well, we still have more, so would you like some bone-in meat or fried cartilage or something like that to go with your drink?”

Hmm… There’s still some room left in my stomach, so maybe I’ll give it a try.

“That would be great, thanks. Could I have another round of mead, too, please?”

“Sure! Just a minute.”

I watched Martha go back to the kitchen and sipped on the last of my mead, surveying the restaurant again. At that moment, my eyes fell on the woman I’d seen by the water well earlier, standing idly in the doorway and looking a little nonplussed. I guess the room had filled up without my noticing, since she seemed to be trying to spot an empty seat. Maybe she was looking for the two men she’d arrived with?

Her eyes met mine, and she smiled and came over to my table.

“Pardon me, but would you mind terribly if I sat here?”

“Go right ahead.” There was no way I could turn down sharing a table with a beautiful woman. I was a little embarrassed after what happened at the bath, but I did my best not to let it show.

When the message popped up in the log in the corner of my vision, I funneled points into the new skill with record-breaking speed.

Noticing the newcomer to my table, Martha came over to get her order. She must have failed to see the woman looking for a seat before because she’d been relaying my order to the kitchen.

“I’ll pass on the meat, thank you. Just the soup and rye bread for me. I’ll have an ale, too, if you please.”

“Sure, I’ll be right back with it.”

Martha’s hard sell on the boar steak didn’t seem to have worked on the woman, presumably a vegetarian, so she looked a little dejected as she went back to the kitchen.

“The barroom’s awfully busy, considering the inn’s so low on guests,” I commented as Martha returned with the lovely woman’s food and ale.

“That’s true. But now that I’ve tasted how delicious the food is, I can understand why.”

“Eh-heh-heh! Thank you! I’ll tell my father that later.”

She seemed pleased by my compliment. Apparently, the cook was her father.

“Mr. Satou, your food’s going to be just a little longer, so you can eat this while you wait if you’d like.” She placed in front of me a small plate of what looked like the sauerkraut I’d eaten that afternoon, saying it was on the house.

The woman murmured a “pardon me” and started to eat. I watched as she dipped the rye bread into the vegetable soup, scooping it up to her mouth.

Oh, is that how you’re meant to eat it?

“Is something wrong?”

“Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to stare. I just didn’t know you were supposed to eat the bread like that.”

I guess my “Poker Face” skill couldn’t disguise the fact that I was staring at someone.

“Ah, are you from the royal capital or the formal capital?”

“No, I’m from a kingdom far from here…”

Does the food differ depending on the region? And I understand “royal capital,” but what is the “formal capital”?

“Do they not eat rye bread in the royal capital and the…formal capital?”

“Well, commoners do eat rye bread there, but I hear that the nobles and wealthy merchants in the royal capital eat white bread. And they say the formal capital’s staple food is a grain called rice, so they don’t eat much bread.”

Huh… So there’s a city in this kingdom with a rice-based culture? I’ll have to check it out if I start craving rice. Since I normally live off junk food and instant ramen, though, that probably wouldn’t happen a whole lot.

Oh, maybe I should ask more about this “formal capital.” I asked the woman what it was as she ate her bread-soaked soup.

“It’s Duke Ougoch’s capital in the south. It was the first capital when the Shiga Kingdom was founded.”

“Huh! So it’s like the old capital? I’d love to see it someday.”

“Oh yes. It’s said to be a beautiful city on the bank of a large river.”

Ooh, that sounds nice. The starry sky reflected in the canals… It would definitely make for a lovely sight.

“Mr. Satou, your food’s ready! Sorry for the wait.”

“Oh, this smells great!”

Five cuts of bone-in meat rested on top of a wave-patterned plate. Were these ribs, maybe? Looking at the other patrons, it seemed like holding it by the bone and gnawing on the meat was the way to go, even if that resulted in a mess of grease getting on your hands and face.

I pulled out one of the handkerchiefs I’d purchased and placed it on the table for later. If possible, I’d prefer to avoid getting my face all sticky in front of a beautiful woman.

Obviously, there was no way this meat could’ve been cooked in a pressure cooker, yet it fell off the bone as easily as if it had. Some of the other guests around me seemed to be struggling with theirs, so Martha might have picked out the best pieces for me.

I wiped my hands with the handkerchief and took another swig of mead. Yeah, this is the best, all right.

I saw the woman gulp from the corner of my eye. (I wasn’t paying close attention to her, but my line of sight did happen to be around her collarbone at the time.) Maybe she wasn’t a vegetarian at all and had refrained from ordering the meat for financial reasons?

“You’re welcome to have a piece, if you’d like,” I offered.

Her face lit up with excitement for a moment, then faltered hesitantly, until her appetite finally won out over her shyness. “Well then, if you don’t mind…,” she murmured, and picked up a small piece.

Lovely as she might have been, the woman dropped all pretenses as she dug into the bone-in meat. Well, I’m glad she likes it. When she finished eating, she licked her fingers in an undeniably sexy gesture.

Since she didn’t seem to have a handkerchief, I gently pushed mine across the table toward her. The beauty thanked me and accepted it, wiping her hands clean.

She still looked a bit hungry, so I offered her more of the meat as we engaged in lively conversation. Apparently, she was from Seiryuu City, but she’d married a merchant and lived in the royal capital until recently. Her husband had passed away, so she’d returned to her hometown. The men who’d come with her to the inn were friends of her husband and had offered to accompany her to Seiryuu City, she explained.

I ordered more drinks and snacks from Martha, enjoying the woman’s talk of the royal capital.

Uh, what do I do now?

We’d been drinking together as the woman relayed tales of the royal capital and her journey to Seiryuu City, but it seemed I’d made two grave miscalculations.

First, apparently my high level made my tolerance to alcohol quite strong. I’d felt mildly intoxicated when I drank the mead, but it seemed to wear off pretty fast. I’d even picked up an “Alcohol Resistance” skill somewhere along the way. Luckily, perhaps because the mead was watered down, I hadn’t gotten an Alcoholic title or anything like that.

The second miscalculation was that the woman drinking alongside me was now leaning heavily over the table. If this had been a college mixer, I might have thought of bringing her home, but I could see that was wrong now, especially since she was recently widowed.

Instead, I waited until Martha had a free moment and asked her to guide me to the woman’s room so I could carry her to the bed. I wouldn’t have been able to fit up the cramped staircase if I’d carried her bridal-style, so I had to sling her over my shoulder instead.

“What a gentleman you are, Mr. Satou!”

“Oh, not at all.” I bade the admiring Martha good night and returned to my room.

I could still feel the pleasant warmth of the woman I’d carried on my back.

Taking off my robe and placing it in Storage, I dove into bed.

Man, this inn was a good choice. The food was delicious, the bed was clean, the staff was adorable, and the woman in the neighboring room was beautiful. This was much better service than I’d come to expect from my dreams.

The surprisingly comfortable bed seemed like it should put me straight to sleep, but the excitement of the day and my conversation with the beautiful woman kept me up for a while. As I waited for sleep to come, I started playing back in my head the events of the dream so far.

The lizardmen and dragons I defeated with the Meteor Showers. I hadn’t been able to see the dragons, but the lizardmen had been realistic enough to make all of Hollywood weep for joy. This dream of mine had an impressive attention to detail.

The battle between the count’s army and the wyvern. The encounter with Zena and her comrades was intense enough for an RPG commercial. I’d committed a hit-and-run by mistake, and now that wyvern was probably in little Yuni’s stomach.

The streets and people of Seiryuu City. Ever since my arrival, the realism of the city streets and the variety of outfits the people wore had amazed me. The disparity of wealth in the city, the different kinds of clothing for different occupations, the patchwork clothes and dirty shoes—there was such immense variety that it was hard to believe this was a dream. I wish Mr. Tubs would step it up and put the same level of effort into his setting designs.

And the food I’d had earlier. The mead, which I’d never tasted before, was delicious, and the wild boar steak was absurdly good. It would be no exaggeration to say the combination of the steak and my first-ever rye bread was probably the best thing I’d ever eaten. I had never had meat like that in Japan. My subconscious had a better imagination than I’d thought, inventing all these scenes, languages, and even tastes I’d never experienced before.

…Hmm.

The realization had been slowly sinking in all along, but putting it together now… There is no way I can go on calling this a dream.

When had I first gotten the sense that something was off? I’d definitely felt it when I saw the realistic detail of the city streets, but even the people I’d met along the way hadn’t looked or thought like anyone from the stories or games I knew.

And I didn’t know anything about phrases like trimoon or Zena’s father’s full rank, a hereditary knight, which was apparently different from a regular knight or viscount. I had a feeling there was just too much information in this dream that didn’t come from my own knowledge.

The most extreme cases of this were the languages, like Shigan and the “ancient scalefolk language.” Even when I was in middle school with delusions of being a sorcerer, I’d never created my own language. At best, I’d patched together words from foreign languages.

And that food! I’d had quiche before, so my afternoon meal could have been my imagination, but I had no idea what mead tasted like, and if I was able to invent a taste as incredible as that wild boar, I might as well just start living in my dreams.

At any rate, I didn’t have enough information to figure out how I’d ended up in this situation, so I put that question on hold. I still couldn’t entirely dismiss the possibility that this was a dream, but for now, my best bet was probably to assume this was some kind of gamelike parallel world.

As for my current course of action, I figured I might as well continue enjoying my travels here while still looking for a way back home.

Yep, sightseeing was the primary goal.

Of course, it wasn’t like I didn’t want to ever return to my normal routine, but hey, I was in another world! I wanted to live it up as much as possible and use my experiences as inspiration for my work as a game creator.

Besides, we’d already turned in FFL, and all that was left to do for WW were some numerical adjustments. And there was perfect documentation for that already, so I was sure even Mr. Tubs could take care of it somehow if it came to that.

I might get fired for taking time off from work without permission, but luckily, my old coworkers who had retired could always lend me some cash. I’d get by just fine until I found another job.

And as for my personal life, my girlfriend had long since dumped me, and my parents were happily living in the countryside with my older sister and her husband. My family’s pretty laid-back, so even if I disappeared for a while, I doubted they’d worry much.

My sister might get mad at me, but she did take over my old room with great pleasure the second I moved to Tokyo and all, and I was sure I could get back on her good side with tales of my travels.

And if, for any reason, it turned out that I couldn’t return to my own world, it didn’t seem like I’d have too much trouble getting by here; the only things that could threaten my peaceful existence were probably demon lords or gods.

Surely, as long as I kept living quietly, beings like that would have no reason to go out of their way to mess with me. I could just go on seeing the sights and living a modest life.

I was afraid that if I started picking fights and throwing around barrages of Meteor Showers, it would raise an event flag for me to become a huge demon lord myself. And I certainly wasn’t looking to cause any (additional) mass genocides in the first place.

Peace was the priority, after all.