Chapter 60 - Leaving At Last

Waking up in the morning, feeling like P-Diddy, I stretch and get out of bed.

Today's the day, we finally leave Sanmara and get back onto the road to the capital. Thankfully, Teresa was pretty accepting of my real age, given she met me when I was a kid before, and the rest of the meeting passed pretty normally.

We mapped out our general route, planning to hit three other cities along the way to stock up on supplies and materials to keep on the road, and eventually end up in the capital in about two years' time.

The time frame was met with multiple groans and suggestions about how to make it move faster, but otherwise, everything went smoothly.

The journey could finally start, as soon as we get out hands on a cart and a horse.

Heading to the northern exit of the city, we scanned our options.

"Do we want a covered cart or uncovered?" I ask, yet my wallet can already hear the answer, and it's a painful one.

"Covered obviously, but preferably it would be a closed carriage," Teresa said, the other nodding along as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.

"Yeah, a closed carriage is a little out of our price range," I say, feeling my wallet scream in agony.

The cheapest, most rickety, and ugly closed carriage was priced at well over five oro. Needless to say, until this job and the multiple others we're planning to take along the way start paying more, a covered cart was the best we're gonna get.

Thankfully, we were able to find a reasonably priced one, and I was able to haggle the price for the cart and horse down, yet I was left with a measly five soldi to my name.

After saying our goodbyes to the City Lord and packing our belongings into the cart, we found ourselves departing from Fortress City Sanmara.

Heading through the northernmost gate, we were briefly held up by the guards.

"Present your identification." A familiar, sleepy-eyed guard said.

As the defacto cart driver, I hand over my union I.D and the guard waves us past.

"Not gonna bother checking my cargo?" I ask, genuinely surprised. What if I had like, a bomb, or a ton of stolen goods or something?

"Sir, this is a passenger cart. Also, we scanned your cart when you drove through the gate. If you had anything worth hiding, our scanners would have picked up on it." He said, yawning and bothering us no further.

Driving the cart was a bit hard at first, given I've only ever driven cars, bikes, and street bikes, but eventually I think I'll get the hang of it.

One thing I doubt I'll ever get the hang of is listening to Ivy's groans.

Really? Motion sickness? You've been riding for what five minutes?

"Motion sickness? Really? It's been like five minutes." I scoff, letting my true thoughts come through.

"Shut up." She mutters, as Flare continues to rub her back and shoots me a glare.

What, I'm allowed to make fun of people sometimes right?

Man, I kinda wish I had another guy here with me, sometimes I just wanna shoot the shit ya know? Especially since the main person who I can have a little rib off with is out of commission.

This is gonna be a long journey.

///

The first day of our journey passed in the blink of an eye. Long gone are the days of roughing it through the woods with Surge, instead replaced by nice dirt roads.

Pulling the cart off to the side of the side, we moved a couple of feet into the woods and set up camp. We took our newest horse companion, Gary, with us.

Funneling mana through my staff, I raised a wall around five feet tall around our campsite, as well as a post to tie Gary too.

I feel like a robot, I drive the carriage, I set up the walls around camp, I start the fires and cook the food, it's like I'm a one-man service bot.

Sighing, I finish up the wall and Gary's post and get to work on the campfire pit.

Once the entire campsite is set up, I take out my tent and pitch it next to the others.

"Alright, fire is set up, walls are up, and Gary is tied up. Anything else? I'm beat." I say, forgoing my tent and simply raising one out of stone.

"Yeah, we were just talking about what to eat tonight. We have meal rations so-" Teresa was explaining, before being cut off by Ivy.

"Why are we bothering with meal rations? I say we save the rations for when we need them, and instead, we just hunt some animals for dinner tonight." Ivy said, back to her usual more energetic tone. "Antonio and I can go out, or Flare and I, or even one of us alone could manage to get a few animals to eat."

"I'm with Ivy on this one. When we were coming to Sanmara I was able to hunt, and my arms are in better condition. I think we ought to just hunt until we can't." I say, throwing in my two cents.

"You know how to hunt?" Ivy asked, which hurt a bit. Hunting was easy when all you had to do was wait for something to attack you.

"No, he doesn't. What we ate on the way was monster meat." Teresa said, a look of understanding coming over Ivy's face.

"What's the difference?" I ask, which is a genuine question. What's the difference between an animal and a monster?

"Monster meat is tougher and usually you have to fight em, animals are leaner, less ferocious, and generally tastier. I don't have a problem with eating monsters, but some people have an aversion to it." Ivy said, continuing to list more ways that animals and monsters differ.

In summary, if an animal is stronger, smarter, and more aggressive than average, they're considered a monster.

Well, what's the difference between some humanoids or demonoids, and monsters in that case? Intelligence?

I better not ask that one.

"I'm with Ivy and Anotnio on this one, hunting is easy, and barely takes any time. Iv and I will go out and get an animal or two to cook." Flare said, joining the conversation and siding with the three of us.

Defeated, Teresa simply sighs and sends them on their way.

Surely nothing can come from a simple hunting trip, so I think I'm gonna focus on trying to figure out this new golden power within me.

Was that a flag?