“First, I need to find civilization. Everything starts from there.”
He had no idea whereabouts he was in relation to the map he was shown before coming here, but since he was standing on a road, as long as he kept walking along it in one direction, he would doubtlessly find a town sooner or later. The only issue was which direction he should head in. Even if he heavily rationed his supplies, they would last him a few days at most. The worst was that he only had one bottle of water. That meant every drop of it had to be used as drinking water, which left nothing for other tasks such as certain hygienic practices of the hands, face, and body. As a Japanese expat, said hygienic practices were of paramount importance. He had, therefore, a serious problem.
“Ugh, I guess I’ll have to just deal with it. Damn it, why’d she have to drop me in the middle of nowhere? That freaking loli, I swear…” muttered Renya under his breath. Despite being aware that she probably chose somewhere uninhabited so no one saw him appear, he could not help but curse at her. As he uttered a string of frustrated expletives, the emptiness of swearing out loud in the middle of a forest with no one around to hear slowly caught up with him and he stopped. He took a small branch lying at the side of the road and propped it up on the ground.
“Not the most original idea, but whatever. Let’s see which way you fall,” he said as he surrendered his decision to God. Then, he remembered who God was and reconsidered. The thought of relying on that little girl irked him, so he instead decided to leave his choice up to random chance.
“All right, let’s see what random chance has in store for me,” he said as he let go of the stick. As it began to fall, the surrounding silence was broken by the faint sound of a human voice. He turned toward its direction. The stick fell the other way.
“God damn it, I hate random chance…” mumbled Renya as he stared as the stick, perfectly aligned with the road but pointing in the exact opposite direction of the sound. If he kept to his original plan, he would have to follow the stick, but the sound he heard was unmistakably a person’s scream. He probably had little time to hesitate, but hesitate he did. On the one hand, there was the stick. On the other, the source of a scream and likely some sort of trouble. Ignoring the scream and heading off in the other direction felt like running away. However, he’d just arrived in this world and was a stranger to everyone around, so he had no obligation to act, either. After chewing on the choice for a little while, he ran off in the direction of the scream. Asking himself why he did, he found that he had no answer. The best he could come up with was that a voice meant a person, and a person — hostile or not — meant the chance to ask for directions to a town. At worst, he could just ignore whatever was happening and walk away. With his mind set, he quickened his steps toward the source of the voice, bamboo sword held firmly in his left hand.
The speed at which he ran surprised him. Thanks to the girl, physically, his body was indeed young and fresh and devoid of any old memories. Mentally, though, it was still inhabited by a 94-year-old soul who kicked the bucket after racking up a whole lot of checkmarks on its list. Somewhere in that soul was the distinct impression that his legs had not felt so light when he was alive. The pleasure of such an experience alone might be worth the price of admission. Feeling rather glad he took God up on her offer, Renya kept up his brisk run. He gave an appreciative nod toward his body, which had not even broken a sweat, and trained his eyes on the fast-approaching source of the scream.
He could faintly make out a number of darker-skinned men in leather armor off in the distance. They stood in a circle surrounding two women. One had blond hair and wore a robe like that of a nun. Beside her was the other one, who stood with her back toward the first woman in a protective stance. The second woman had her long black hair in a ponytail and was brandishing a long sword. She was not fully armored, but wore metal plates over the vital points of her body. Seeing their relative positions to the men, Renya immediately decided that walking away was not an option.
There was a part of him that honestly wanted to stand by and watch how things played out. It would be a morally questionable choice, but no one could fault him for being a bystander right now, and it was not the kind of situation one often had a chance to see. Given the circumstances, he figured it was a reasonable thought to have. He was, after all, a 94-year-old zombie in some ways. Surely, he could afford to be a little more degenerate. Something about acting his age and such.
The group of people he was racing toward quickly noticed him, as well. At first, the men were cautious, but their expressions soon turned mocking as they dropped their guard. The women’s expressions, which originally lit up with a glimmer of hope, also shifted to disappointment. Suddenly, it felt awkward for him to jump in now, but it felt equally awkward to stop, turn around, and run back the other way. With no better choice available, he continued his approach.
Even Renya could figure out the gist of what they were thinking from their expressions. The men had their guard up for a moment, thinking a new enemy might have appeared. When they got a good look at Renya, they probably decided immediately that he was not a threat. For the women, it must have looked like help had arrived, but upon closer inspection, they realized that he was unlikely to be of much help at all. It was probably the crude leather armor and the bamboo sword. They were a little lacking in the intimidation factor. Renya comforted himself with that thought.