I tried imagining the container being one of those small, plastic bottles you saw everywhere for drinks. The next instant, I held a bottle from a famous drink company in my right hand, filled to the brim with the exact contents I’d been thinking of. After twisting off the cap off and taking a swig, I found it really did have the slightly bittersweet taste of a sports drink. I wasn’t tired or anything, so I wasn’t really sure if it was healing me at all, but I was going to put my faith in Celes and believe it must have some sort of effect if I could already do this much.
The next thing I needed to check was my Item Box of course!
Item Box, open!
I concentrated and poured everything I had into focusing my mind as I stuck my right hand out. It wasn’t like I really had to do all that, apparently, but since this was my momentous first use of the Item Box, I wanted to make it seem as cool as possible.
Slipping my wrist inside an invisible space in the air, a list of my inventory appeared inside my head.
[Inventory: Empty]
...Yeah, I knew that was going to happen...
It wasn’t like I was hoping for you to put something in there as a little extra service, Celes. No, not at all... Like, seriously, I wasn’t disappointed in the slightest. It wasn’t like I was hoping for some sort of divine sword that split heaven and earth, or a whooole bunch of useful items for every situation you could think of to be stuffed in there for me. Nope, not this girl.
Next time I saw Celes, I thought I’d tell her all about a certain arrogant King of Heroes who loved his flashy gold armor, and maybe some stories about a certain blue cat-thing with a huge pocket on its belly for good measure.
Anyway, it looked like that was that for now. I wouldn’t know about the language thing until I met some other people first.
All right, time to head to that town. I bet I’ll come across some type of road if I just go down this hill.
I took a big stretch, then lightly brushed off my pants before finally setting off. I made sure to have Celes change my outfit to the type of clothes you’d find in this world before she sent me here. I mean, it’d be kind of a problem for me if she just tossed me into this world stark naked, so I made doubly sure to ask her for clothes. I felt like I could’ve been in danger if I didn’t. Seriously, knowing what she was like, I’d had a really bad feeling about it. My danger senses were going into overdrive, I tell you.
After walking for a little while, I noticed a little squirrel-ish creature staring at me from one of the tree branches above me.
“Hey, you up there in the tree. Is this the right way to get to a town with people in it?”
As I gave it a nonchalant smile, the small critter replied: “Yup, that’s right. Just go straight ahead.”
“Oh, thanks a bunch. You really helped me out!”
“Hey, no problem!”
I walked in silence for a bit, eventually coming to a stop and placing both hands on a nearby tree. I then proceeded to bash my head against it repeatedly.
“Understand, read, and write in any language... UNDERSTAND! READ! AND WRITE! IN ANY! LANGUAGE!!!”
Celes...why did you decide to go that far with my special service power?!
That little guy from before couldn’t write too, could he? I was beginning to get a little freaked out by that, so I was just going to stop thinking now.
The sun had already gotten pretty low in the sky. The town looked close when I was back on the hill, but it still seemed like I had a ways to go. A little while later, I finally found something that resembled a highway leading to town, but it was still pretty far away. I’d heard things looked much closer than they really were when you were somewhere high up, so I guess this was a prime example of that, huh...
I always loved reading, so I had a pretty good repertoire of random knowledge. I even chose a science major in college, and I had a deep respect for all the mad scientists out there who sacrificed everything for the sake of their research. But I had no intention of doing anything like that myself, though.
I was starting to get pretty thirsty along the way, not to mention tired, so I ended up downing a bunch more potions along the way. They actually helped me feel more energized, and it killed two birds with one stone, since they slaked my thirst too. There was a drug back on Earth that could get rid of all your fatigue as well, wasn’t there? What was it called again? I remembered it was a combination of the Greek words for “love” and “labor,” so Philopo...
I was getting freaked out again, so I stopped thinking. Again.
This potion doesn’t have any weird side-effects to it, right?!
Also, if Celes was supposed to drop me close to town, how come she’d put me so far away? It was dangerous to leave things to Celes. I knew she probably didn’t mean anything bad by it, but her basis for judgment was a bit...screwy, to say the least. Well, the way she saw things was probably way different than a human would, so I guess that’s just how it is. That didn’t change the fact that it still felt dangerous to leave it all up to her, so I was just going to try and do my best to get through everything on my own. For now, I was just relieved that I’d made sure to specify that I actually wanted clothes. And I was a little miffed that I’d made it this far with no resistance whatsoever. At this rate, it seemed totally possible that cats were going to end up being the villains here or something.
It was a little bit after the sun had set (there appeared to only be one in this world) that I finally made it into town. It was just before it got completely dark outside, so I’d say I was cutting it pretty close. There were no walls surrounding the town, which meant there were no gatekeepers here either. It seemed like people could come and go as they pleased.
It wasn’t like it was the royal capital or a huge bustling city or anything. It was just a small rural town that didn’t hold any strategic value whatsoever. I’d bet there wasn’t really any benefit to using all the money you’d need to build the walls surrounding the town, the costs to maintain them, paying the people necessary to staff them, and just the general inconvenience of it all. I’d be in a bit of a jam if you needed some sort of ID to get in and out of town, so I was thankful for that.
I went ahead and made four healing potions before I headed into town: three blue ones and a single yellow one. I wanted to make more than that, but I was empty-handed at the moment. I didn’t even have a bag to carry my stuff in. I might get myself into trouble if I suddenly used my Item Box without knowing what did and didn’t fly in this world, and I would look like a total weirdo if I just carried it in my hands.