One of the advantages of switching from the unshapely blob of fat that was my real body to the muscular and chiseled frame of my host was that I no longer had any need to check the time.
It was as if the habit of pulling out my phone and throwing a glance at the hour simply didn't exist in my new self. My flesh was free from this instinct, even though it was also a mental habit.
And the reason for that was extremely simple.
I had no reason to reach out to pull my phone and check the hour… If I was somehow constantly aware of the precise hour of the day!
Back when we rushed to reach the relay station, I hardly paid any attention to the details that would allow me to judge the passage of time. And yet, from just the clues that went below my conscious perception, my mind could somehow make out the precise time of the day.
And what was even better, this strange, natural sense of time also worked when it came to waking up.
I woke up literally a few seconds before Nay moved up to shake my arm and pass over the night's watch. And three hours later, when I could somehow feel that the sun would rise any moment now, I decided that my watch has ended…
And the time came for my strange little group to make the second stretch of this rushed journey.
"Wake up, guys," I called out as I emerged from the pile of hay stacked in one of the few warehousing boxes at the far ends of the main station's barn. "We should still have enough time to grab something to eat on the go, so hurry up if you don't want to miss it."
For Nay, my voice was enough to wake up and near instantly shake her sleepiness off. For my younger brother, though, I had to spice up the waking process by adding a few numbers to the counter of how many times the kid's ass got kicked in his life.
"Oh, fuck off already!" the youngest whined, rolling around within his own pile of hay to avoid my strikes.
"If you want to travel-hungry, then be my guest and take your time," I called out, lowering my leg before turning around and heading for the exit from the books.
If the kid wanted to stay back, I was more than happy to leave him behind. Doing so would simply mean that he would give up his share in our money nor bother me with his wishes any further.
'But to think he would really request to be granted a name,' the host part of my now-remade soul amused itself with the memory while making my eyes perform a small roll.
Not paying any more attention to the youngest, I stepped out of the box and walked into the main open area of the barn. And exactly like it was in the stables at the imperial city, the middle of the barn was where the company conducted all of its business.
"Any chances for a breakfast?" I asked out loud to attract the clerk's attention.
There was a different guy behind the circular counter in the middle of the barn than who we saw when entering this place yesterday night. Even though the sun has yet to rise, the man behind the counter was far into his fifties if not sixties, making me ponder about the policy of the place.
'Wouldn't it be easier to make some young guy do the job at this unforgiving hour?' I thought, recalling the methods my own company used when deploying human resources to various stages and parts of the development team.
Back in the real world, I made sure to give the older workers preferential treatment, as not only their work ethics and experience scored them some brownie points… But I also couldn't demand fifty and sixty years old people to perform as energetically as a random youth taken off the street!
"Breakfast we have. It should be done in just a minute," the elderly clerk announced before taking a quick glance at something below the counter.
The old man's face tensed up a bit.
"Actually, if the young master won't mind," he raised his deep, brown eyes at me, "would you mind accompanying me outside for just a moment?"
That was… unexpected.
From what I gathered about the Imperial Express from my host, their clerks weren't of the type to mind the business of those they cooperated with… But that didn't really mean much. As a mere mercenary, how could I have a certain knowledge of the inner workings of one of the biggest enterprises in the entire empire?
"Sure thing," I nodded my head before following the surprisingly agile elder outside.
The old man didn't stop just at the doors, leading me out to the open plain of the street instead. There, he turned himself to the north while squinting his right eye to shield his vision from the first rays of the rising sun.
"It's none of my business, but are you, by chance, chased after?" the elder suddenly asked after staring off into the distance for quite a while.
My face tensed up.
That was true. And it wasn't something that I could be surprised by the elder finding out.
He didn't look like someone who would learn of our arrival right before the night, he wasn't someone who would ignore the condition of our horses… Or someone who would struggle to put the two and two together.
At least, that's how he appeared to me. But still, what was weird wasn't how he noticed the likely scenario behind my situation.
No.
The surprising part was how he actually brought it up.
"And what if I was?" I asked, treading carefully as I attempted to sound out the other party's intentions.
"Then you don't have the time for breakfast, I'm afraid," the elder sighed before nodding his chin in the direction he was looking at. "There is a huge unit, between seventy and a hundred and twenty horses strong," he announced before turning to me and giving me a simple, calm smile. "And you only have about an hour advantage over them."