I woke up with the sun beaming on my face, which is already strange since I never once opened the blinds to my window.
The second thing I notice is the soft bed that I was sleeping on suddenly became hard and coarse.
As I try to open my eyes I was blinded by a bright light as I get up.
Uuuu.... the sun....
I get up and slowly open my eyes
As I get up I notice that I'm currently in some alley, with stone walls that seem to belong to houses in my left and right.
I start trying to remember what happened before I blacked out.
I remembered that I finished writing the next few chapters of my novel, then I fell asleep once I finished...
The clothes I'm wearing right now that was supposed to be my pajamas, instead are replaced with rags of cloth.
Did I go out of the house and I got robbed? No that can't be it, I haven't left my house for years and it doesn't make sense for a robber to steal everything from me including my clothes but randomly decide to dress me with rags that look like potato sacks as a replacement to wear .
Maybe I drank a bit too much alcohol before I went to sleep and got drunk and did something crazy, I know that I'm a lightweight when it comes to alcohol and I would usually get black out drunk and end up with my apartment completely trashed with me having no memory on what happened... that would explain why I can't remember much...
I get up from the ground and slowly start walking through the alley while looking at my surroundings. Seeing crates and wooden doors with obvious stains and mold. The wall, on closer inspection isn't made out of concrete but instead of stones and bricks.
I... don't think I've ever seen this alley before, maybe I wandered out while I was drunk. But it looks like I'm farther away from my apartment than I thought... or maybe not, I don't really know what the outside of my apartment looks like now.
As I kept walking I eventually see the end of the alley, there I can see several people walking in the street.
As I was about to go out of the alleyway I suddenly stop in my tracks after I realize something I almost missed.
What should I do about my clothes?
I look down at the rags of cloth I am wearing. Cloth that barely pass as clothes and more akin to a ragged and torn potato sack with a piece of rope to tie it all together.
If I go out wearing these clothes, won't people think I'm some kind of cosplayer or more likely a pervert? But regardless of what they think I' am, they will 100% take pictures and videos of me and post it all over the internet. Afterwards I'll be trending in social media with people commenting stuff like "what a weirdo" "or lol is this some sort of exhibitionist play or something". Then they'll talk about me in all over the news which will make every person in the country know my face. Then it will end up in news channels all over the world which will make every person from every continent know my face. Then they'll find out where I live and people will start to stalk me and take pictures of me and they'll use pictures of me eating cup noodles and say stuff like "****** Noodles is the favorite food for perverts, ****** Noodles should change the brand to that lol". Then that company will send me a cease and desist letter about eating their brand of cup noodles and every other food company will do the same thing. Then they'll find me to much of a liability for their brand image and they'll all team up to put me in prison for life!
I quickly hide behind several stack of boxes as I start trying to think of a solution to get out of my situation
"What should I do..."
"Maybe I can try to go out late at night... But if did that it will be much harder to find my apartment building.... But I guess its better than being sent to prison...."
I look up the sky and see the sun is still high up
"...Looks like I'll be here for a while sigh"
I sit down on the ground behind the boxes
Hopefully they just think I'm some homeless person and ignore me... Wait can't I just go out pretending I'm a homeless person?
...No even homeless people wouldn't be wearing something like this in this century and city
sigh
I lean back against the boxes as I start waiting out the day. When I noticed a silver ring attached to the index finger my right hand.
? What's thi-
"...Nah, I ain't gonna sell it for that little"
"2 gold coins for a single sack of flour? that's a ripoff!"
"Blame the seasons pal, not the seller"
I suddenly hear several people talking behind the boxes I'm leaning on taking my attention.
I slowly take a peak from behind the boxes and notice two men arguing with each other.
One of the men is slightly older and is sitting on the ground with a carpet, with sacks of wheat, potatoes and cheese.
While the other man looks slightly younger seemingly arguing with the older man.
The most noticeable thing about them is their clothes.
The older man is wearing what seems to be a cloak made out of wool or maybe silk, while the younger man seems to be wearing a ragged tunic. Both men look straight out of the medieval ages or the renaissance.
Did I end up in a Renaissance fair?
I looked around some more and see many other people wearing the same clothes as the two men.
"Eh? is this really some Renaissance fair? or is their some sort of event going on?"
I see several people like the older man selling swords, bread, fruits and some even selling strange looking items that look straight out of fantasy, sitting on blankets while some of them in wooden stalls.
"If this really is an event then they're really going all out"
I get mesmerized at the sights before my eyes staring and marveling at all the people and the setting.
I didn't realize there were this many fans of this era, or maybe they're fantasy fans...
"Can't you pity me a bit, I live farther up north and the winter there killed all my cattle, if I don't get anything to eat I won't make it in the next winter"
"Just because the winter wasn't as bad down here compared to the north, it doesn't mean that the winter here wasn't bad at all.
"Hell, all of this I'm selling is what I could get after the cold destroyed the rest of my crops. The winter here in Valkyria doesn't have any favorites"
?
"Didn't King Erik give out grain from the kingdom's storage? I heard most people got their share from there."
"A chaos beast was spotted near the road to Eis Citadel from our village, so I had to take the long way around the mountains.
Once I did arrive at Eis Citadel the storages were already closed."
"Well that's just too bad then."
???
Valkyria... Chaos beasts... King Erik... Eis...
Is it just a coincidence? or does that sound like the setting from my novel?
I listen attentively to the two people talking
"Can't you sell it to me for 20 silver coins instead?! I had to move farther since the chaos invasion destroyed my home back at west!"
"I'm not budging, its been 10 years since chaos hit, if your a real Valkyrian then suck it up and find another way to get food that doesn't involve begging.
The older man points at a blue banner lined in the streets
"The dire wolf in our flag shows how we deal with hard times"
"But I-"
"No money no food, now scram before I call the guards on you"
I felt pity for the younger man, but I took a look at the banner the older man pointed at.
There I saw a familiar design of a wolf with its head high biting on a piece of stone
...The flag of Kingdom of Valkyria is a dire wolf with a rock between its jaws...
It comes from an old tale... from when a hungry dire wolf was starving in winter, but a man offered it food and a place to stay...
But the wolf knew that If he relied on him for his food and shelter... It would become a slave that can never harm the man but will do whatever he desires it to do... So the wolf refused and bared the cold eating on rocks to survive...
That was the description I wrote down for the flag of the Kingdom of Valkyria in my novel.
I already have a hard time believing it if they somehow read my novel and copied it for this entire event.
But the description and the design of the flag is something that I have never wrote down in my novel itself.
I only wrote it down in my notes and left it out because I had a different idea on how the plot will go and that paper was eventually thrown into the trash.
The only way they could have got and copied the description I wrote and the design I sketched out is if they went to the garbage dump and somehow found that specific piece of paper from an mountain of garbage.
The only people that would ever do something like that, would be a deranged or obsessive stalker that is completely obsessed with my novel.
Which I highly doubt is the case because the amount of readers my novel has only reaches to the double digits.
And I haven't read or seen any obsessive comments in my novels comment section. With the highest praise it has ever received is it being called a mid tier novel to meh tier novel.
So with this place highly unlikely being some sort of an renaissance fair as it has too much it copied from my novel.
And it can't be an event by a fan who read my novel because it had the exact the design I sketched out for the flag of Valkryia which only I know.
And it can't be a dream since I'm pinching my arm hard while I'm lost in thought.
"Ow!"
The area where I pinched felt a distinct pain and start showing redness
"It's not a dream..."
"I'm inside "I'm breezing through the academy with my high stats"."