The sun was starting to shine again after the long night I had spent. All night I kept walking and moving through the forest without sleeping a wink. My legs were aching and I was really sleepy at this point. The drinking water and food reserves in my backpack are also almost gone. I hope I'll get out of this forest soon and find a settlement.
Shortly after pouring out all my grievances it seemed that I would soon get out of this forest. That's because I finally found a path here. That means there are people who usually pass this way. *Notes: A footpath is a type of road that is used only by pedestrians and not by other forms of traffic such as motor vehicles and bicycles.
I survived!
I became even more excited at this possibility. About an hour into my walk down this path, I could finally see a settlement from here. It looked like a very simple village, I wasn't sure but looking from afar the style of building was rather different from the houses I usually saw. If modern houses use bricks or light bricks, this was more like stones arranged and glued together with clay and straw.
Wow the medieval feel is very thick.
The village isn't too big either, it's encircled by a 70 cm high wooden fence and guarded by two people who look like guards. There are probably only 12 houses in it, isn't it a very small village?
I cautiously walked up to the entrance of the village and tried to greet the guards who were there.
"Hello, excuse me." I tried to say my greetings.
"Who are you and what is your purpose in coming here."
What should I say for now, after assessing the situation up to this point I can probably assume that I'm not in my proper era, or even worse I'm no longer on the familiar earth. I'll try asking with some ambiguity first to provoke information. Uh do I have to use my real name? Well there doesn't seem to be a problem, after all no one recognizes me here. If something bad happens I'll just have to disguise my name sometime in the future.
"I'm Weiss, the traveler. I actually wanted to go to the city of Blumen but suddenly the carriage I was riding was attacked by a beast and fell off a cliff. Luckily I managed to survive but then got lost in the forest not far from here." I added a few lies and truths to my story to be on the safe side.
"Blumen City? Do you know where that is?"
"No, you know I never go too far from the village. The farthest I go is to Verte town to sell groceries."
The two people looked at each other and asked questions. I listened carefully to add to the information I had.
"Excuse me, if I may know where I am right now? The map I brought is also missing and I can't find it."
"You are currently in Erste Village, as far as I know this village is in the western region of Baron Richter."
"Erste Village yes, if I want to go to the nearest town where should I go? At least I want to immediately hire a horse-drawn carriage in town to take me to the town of Blumen." I don't even know if the town of Blumen really exists, I hope they don't ask further about it.
"The nearest city from here is Leben city, it's about 2 to 3 days' walk to the east."
"If I may know, is there a horse-drawn carriage going to the city in the near future?" I asked the two guards.
"I don't know, but maybe you can ask the village chief."
"Well thank you for the information gentlemen. Oh yes, but which house is the village chief?"
"Enter from here then the house at the far end and facing the village entrance gate, that's the village chief's house."
"Okay, then I'll have to excuse myself."
"Yes."
The two guards let me into the village, unexpectedly they weren't as bad as I thought. If this was a fantasy novel, I'd probably have been tricked and put in jail or something.
But two to three days huh, seems pretty far away. Wait a minute, if by two or three days you mean by walking, maybe the actual distance is not as far as I imagined. If the average human can walk up to 12 km a day, it might actually only take about 20 km. Well whatever it is for now I better ask the village chief if it's possible for me to rest in this village.
I'm so tired!
~~ To be continue...