Chapter 105

The road ran north and south, and the farther north they followed it, the more the trees thinned out. Within an hour, the landscape had given way to wide, flat plains dotted with occasional farmhouses. Luke and Zea approached the first one they found, a sprawling, multi-family building sat right in the middle of a ring of sheds, barns, coops, and pastures.

“I wonder how many people it takes to take care of this much land,” Luke said. The farmhouse was big, big enough for twenty people or more, but the sheer size of the fields and pastures, not to mention the number of animals needing to be taken care of, felt like way more work than two or three families could handle. He supposed the difference was, as always, the stats and skills.

They approached openly and were noticed well before they got close. Within minutes of being spotted, a trio of well-built farmhands were called in from the fields and flanked an older man in his fifties as he came down the road to meet them.

“Hi there,” Luke said, pitching his voice to carry and waving one hand. The other was firmly latched onto his makeshift loincloth. There had been enough incidents with it falling off on its own, and he didn’t figure flashing a bunch of total strangers was the best way to start the conversation.

“That’s far enough,” the middle-aged man said in stilted Thalian. “We don’t need any trouble from any of you barbarians. Whatever you want, you just go looking for it somewhere else.”

“Barbarian?” Luke asked. He glanced down at Zea, who shrugged back. “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

One of the farmhands snorted and tightened his grip on the pitchfork he was carrying. “Dressed like a woodland savage. Smells like one too.”

“Don’t be stupid,” one of the other farmhands said. “When’s the last time you met a savage that spoke Thalian? And you know how they feel about non-humans. Plus that guy’s got to be, like… level 2, tops. My kid sister’s got more XP than him.”

“Shut up, the both of you,” the middle-aged man said. He turned back to Luke and Zea. “You’re not from the woods?”

It didn’t seem like the farmer was keen to attack them, but with [XP Mask] blocking him from feeling anyone else’s experience now, Luke made liberal use of [Analyze] to ensure that they wouldn’t be a threat.

[Name: Human Farmer]
[Level: 11]
[Strength: 11]
[Agility: 5]
[Stamina: 17]
[Perception: 3]

The farmhands were similar, give or take a level or two. None had strength over 15 or perception over 5. If Luke had to make a move, it would be over before they even realized he wasn’t standing in front of them. That went a long way towards helping him stay relaxed.

“We came through the forest,” Zea said, “from the south end. It’s been a hell of a walk. We’re just looking for a meal, a bath, and a new set of clothes for this lug. We’ll pay, good copper.”

“Wait there,” the farmer in charge said. He retreated with his flunkies thirty feet down the road and they started whispering to each other. They spoke a language Luke wasn’t familiar with, but he could see that Zea was paying attention, so he didn’t interrupt her.

Whatever they decided, it didn’t take them long to figure it out. They returned as a group and their leader said, “We’ve got a spare set of clothes for you, eight coppers, and we’ll fill one of those packs with road food for another six. Don’t want you coming anywhere near the house.”

“Throw in a bucket of water and some soap, call the whole thing twelve copper, and it’s a deal,” Zea told him.

“Show me the money first,” the farmer demanded. Zea fished out a handful of coins, which he grunted at suspiciously before pocketing. He accepted an empty knapsack, tossed it over his shoulder at one of the farmhands, and said, “Go fetch what they bought and be quick about it.”

They all stared at each other in awkward silence for a minute while one of the farmhands went running back to the house, then Luke said, “So, what’s the deal with these barbarians from the forest?”

One of the two remaining farmhands snorted and muttered something in that other language, then spat on the ground. The other farmhand nodded along, but neither of them bothered to answer Luke’s question.

The farmer in the middle of their group just shook his head and said, “Bad business. They come from the south, attack from the trees at night, steal food and supplies, kill livestock and destroy whatever they can’t take.”

“Do you think they made that road we found?” Luke asked Zea.

“How the hell would I know? I’m not going to go back and explore it. We’re going north until we find a road going east.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Luke didn’t really care that much. He was curious and making conversation, but it looked like the topic was a sore spot among the locals. He supposed he couldn’t blame them if they were being targeted by cattle rustlers and horse thieves, though the idea that they were coming from the woods didn’t make a lot of sense to him.

As long as the ‘barbarians’ or whatever left him and Zea alone, he supposed he didn’t much care. Killing men wasn’t like killing monsters anyway, and bandit hunting aside, he wasn’t keen to repeat it. Luke wouldn’t say he’d really processed that either; mostly he’d just tried not to think about it and told himself that if there was anyone who deserved to be murdered for their shit, it was a bunch of people who’d made a living out of murdering other people and stealing their shit.

After a few minutes, the farmhand came back with some clothes rolled up under one arm, the knapsack held by one strap in one hand with a chunk of soap and a stiff-bristled brush, and a large bucket full of water in the other. He set them down in the middle of the path, gave Luke a nod, and backed away.

“There you go. Do your washing and get out of here.”

Part of Luke was hesitant to drop trou in front of a group of strange men, but considering how little he’d been wearing the last few days, it wasn’t like there was much mystery left. With a sigh, he started lathering himself up with the soap and splashing water all over himself.

Two of the farmhands at least were gracious enough to look away, but the other two men watched him with borderline hostile glares. Luke scrubbed himself as quickly as he could, then when he was done, upended the bucket over his head to sluice off the soap and grime. “No towel, of course,” he said. “Fuck it. I’ll air dry and get dressed later. Let’s just get out of here.”

“Yeah,” Zea agreed, glaring right back at the farmer. “Thanks for the food.”

The two walked away, Luke wearing nothing but a backpack held over his crotch and his ass hanging out in the breeze. They were a thousand feet down the road before the farmer and his helpers turned their backs on him and marched away.

“Well, that was fucking weird,” he told Zea. “What was that language they were speaking?”

“Ostari. I know a little bit. It was mostly just mutterings about how they don’t trust us, how weird the money looked, and how much we overpaid for what they gave us.”

“Think it’ll be a problem later on?”

“From them? No. But it does sound like they’re having problems with a tribe of raiders. If we’re lucky, those will stay as their problems.”

“When have we ever been lucky?” Luke asked.

“Pretty much. I think we’d best be very careful while we’re traveling through this region. The sooner we make it to a main road and get the fuck out of here, the better off we’ll be.”

“You think everyone else is going to be that hostile, or was it just because we came from the woods?”

“Your clothing situation might have had something to do with it. Maybe these raiders also come running in buck naked.”

“Speaking of,” Luke said, pausing to kick his boots back off. “I think I’m dry enough.”

“But I was enjoying the view,” Zea protested.

“You can enjoy it later. I haven’t had a pair of pants in so long my ass is tanned.”

The pants were tight in the crotch and short in the legs, and the shirt strained itself across his chest and shoulders, but considering they were second hand from some random farmer, he supposed he couldn’t complain too bad if he didn’t have as much ball room as he would have liked.

“Ugh. You look like shit now. We’re getting you some good clothes next time we find a place that isn’t some two-horse shit heap of a town.”

“Sure. If you say so.”

“I’m not walking around with you looking like a bumpkin.”

“Hey…”

It didn’t look that bad. Maybe he wouldn’t fit in at a noble gala, but still. Luke looked down at the clothes. Well, maybe they were that bad. Everything was mottled brown and gray, frequently darned or patched, and somehow still wore out at one knee. The clothes were decidedly rougher than what the farmers had been wearing, and Luke suspected he’d been given some worn out pieces that had been destined to be cut up for rags.

“I miss my jeans,” he said. “And my good work boots.”

“And indoor plumbing and convenience stores and the internet, yes. You’ve told me before,” Zea finished for him.

“That doesn’t make it any less true.”

Neither of them followed the line of that conversation. They both knew it would end with the question of whether Luke was going back to his own world or staying in Aros, and whether Zea would follow him if he did leave. She didn’t have anything really tying her down in Aros, but at the same time, migrating to a new world was a big commitment, especially considering that there were no dwifkin there.

Luke wasn’t even sure if he could make her human, even at the command console, or if she’d want to be if he could. They’d both avoided that conversation, perhaps sensing that there weren’t going to be any good answers and that the longer they delayed it, the longer they could pretend it didn’t need talking about.

He was pretty sure he knew what her answer was going to be anyway.

His musings were interrupted by a flicker of movement on the far end of the field. It wasn’t the first farmer he’d spotted out working, but this time, something caught his attention. For one thing, it was farther away than anyone else he’d seen. For another, whoever he’d noticed wasn’t dressed in farming clothes.

“Just saw someone dressed in black and green, looked like armor,” Luke said quietly. “Behind us and to the right. Tall guy, head shaved but with a beard. He was in that copse of trees.”

“One of those ‘barbarians’ that farmer was whining about?” Zea asked, not bothering to look.

“Not unless ‘barbarian’ means something else to these people. He looked better dressed and better equipped than any of the laborers we’ve seen around here. He was there and gone so quick I didn’t even get a chance to throw an [Analyze] on him.”

“So he’s got some speed on him. Might be high level.”

“Could be,” Luke agreed. “You want to do something about this?”

“Not really. You?”

“Nah, those guys were assholes. Fuck ‘em.”

“As long as they don’t come at us, I think we’re fine. But maybe let’s pick up the pace?” Zea said.

They started jogging, through at a speed where they practically flew over the ground. Luke doubted he could had pedaled a bike as fast as they were going back on Earth, and he definitely couldn’t have kept it up for hours.

“You think we’ll run into anymore?” he said as they jogged.

“Knowing our luck? Probably.”

Well, there was some truth to that. Luke’s mace thumped reassuringly against his back with each step though. If trouble found them, he’d be ready for it.