The sound of horseshoes clopping in a uniform rhythm resonated like an alarm clock inside his dizzy head, which was further disoriented by the alarming quantity of people speaking and shouting.
The first thing that greeted Verhund when he opened his bleary eyes was the grim color of the wagon's clothed roof. He was actually inside of a good's transportation carriage, laying on top of many seemingly air-tight boxes, his hands were serving as a pillow for the back of his head and his legs were crossed as if to rest away the boring journey.
He looked towards the wagon's exit with narrowed eyes until his vision adapted to the noon sunlight, it seemed that he had just passed through some gate as he could still see a long line on the other side of the wall.
Verhund just stared for good while before jumping out of the caravan with a backflip, by now, he was already at a considerable distance from the city entrance. He landed right beside a man armed with a scimitar and barely wearing any form of defensive equipment. Besides a breast protector, arm and knee guards, there were only clothing articles on him.
The man in question just gave an odd glance to the half-awake stranger before moving on and disappearing into the hasty crowd. Verhund noticed that no one questioned the impractical defenses nor the weapons in the guy's possession.
Verhund soon blinked his drowsiness away and ambled along the throng. His eyes flashed from one street to another, taking in the people and the buildings.
After studying his surroundings for 10 seconds, he came to a conclusion: this city was weird.
First, the people didn't seem able to decide in what century they lived in. Those who seemed to be civilian were mostly wearing modern clothing while the guards and some other individuals we donning full plate armor and armor pieces on top of cheesy and boring shirts and pants straight out of a cliché Isekai.
It also seemed that they were not all human, some races had barely noticeable traits such as a midget that is in actuality a non-Irish ginger dwarf walking on by the side here, a blonde elf youth with pointed ears under their hair there, and others had blaring alarms announcing their species, such as the beast-kin waving their tail and animal ears in the distance.
Second, what is wrong with the architecture? Some houses were of timber-framed German origin while others had classic British looks and even french balconies just below a dome-shaped roof akin to Arabian palaces.
It doesn't help that their height and number of floors were all over the place, it wasn't strange to see a two-stories cottage beside a five or six storied mesh of concrete, bricks, and logs.
Far in the distance, a large tower with over a hundred floors stood erect, displaying the power of the mambo jumbo used to make these monstrosities without an inkling of modern machinery.
Verhund gave a hollow chuckle and focused on his sixth sense, the minor danger signs all around him instantly jumped on him, highlighting themselves and becoming easier to spot. The danger originated from those wielding weapons was as diverse as the buildings' designs, some were barely a threat to him while others couldn't be beaten even if he was given a lightsaber to fight with.
The greater danger was located elsewhere, however, the city seemed to have an underground area, which Verhund credited to being the reason so many people were parading in swords and axes around.
If what he felt from the underground was to be converted into a single, living entity, he felt that it would be hundreds of times stronger than the overly buff guy entering a nice-looking restaurant on the next block while carrying two greatswords on his back.
"Welp. The basement's fun but the living room is not necessarily boring."
Verhund simply shrugged his anticipation away as he entered a marketplace. The roads inside were blocked in favor of giving visitants space to inspect the wares, but even then the place was still filled.
Carriages that served as taxis could take visitors to the surroundings, they could not risk going fast either for if they collided with some strong Rando it would be the horses that got hurt.
Inside the area, whatever words were spoken got so jumbled over one another, it became impossible to properly eavesdrop most if not every conversation, all that Verhund managed to gather from the hustle and bustle was that there was an event with an eerily obscene name happening today, which was not that much informative.
Thankfully, information was not necessary in order to make progress in regards to his intentions.
"Baby steps to conquer the world..."
Verhund soon found the first thing he would do. Initially, his plan was to steal whatever from a stall close to someone relatively dangerous and then run around the massive bunch of buildings.
This changed when he saw a certain scene, however.
An unnaturally beautiful girl with large weights for her size had just bought a love apple after hesitantly parting with her money, she quickly turned around to face a crimson-red haired boy with gray-white eyes, she placed the sweet in front of his mouth as if asking for him to have the first bite.
Right when the boy opened his mouth, however, some kids ran over and stole a handful of sweets from the stall and made a loud ruckus, catching the couple's attention.
That was when the girl felt a pull from her hand, she quickly looked back to see her empty hands. Dumbly staring for a moment, she turned her head to see a young man running with the sweet she bought with the money earned after toiling for days on end.
She faced the boy she liked once again, this time tears clouded her eyes, drowning them in childish despair as she bit her lower lip. The boy could only smile wryly at the girl, coming to the conclusion that she would erupt if he ran after the thief and left her alone.
And as for Verhund's plan of making someone strong chase after him, it was going pretty well.
"Stop there, you thief!"
It was actually the man carrying a scimitar from a couple of hours earlier, the one he didn't give much attention to. These are the kind of events can be described as "what goes around, comes around", it seems especially so when he is put on the receiving end of things.
"We're starting off with a fantastical problem!"
And so, the first order of the day is: Run Forest, run!