They departed the following day at dawn, wanting an early start. They traveled faster than before, mainly because there were no longer slaves in tow. The two horses the traders had ridden were no longer walking alongside the wagon but were now helping to pull it. With the spider silk Noah had collected and wood from the forest, he managed to create extra harnesses so that they were leading.
For Noah, this was a situation he was familiar with. He had fought in numerous wars and seen countless post-apocalyptic worlds, living through one anarchic hellscape after another. He was used to growing eyes in the back of his head and expecting enemies at all times.
“Master!” Tin exclaimed.
“Yeah, I see them.”
Swarming from the side was a pack of wolves, each almost as large as the horses pulling the wagon. Noah handed the reins to Tin, who whipped the horses into a full gallop. He took out his bow and began launching arrows. Noah had made most of these arrows himself. He had to rush them, so they weren’t his best work, but they got the job done for short-range encounters.
The wolves dodged the arrows as they charged and moved around back to attack from the rear. Noah climbed into the wagon and stared them down through the open back. Changing their attack angle had momentarily slowed them down, but they’d catch up in seconds and flank them.
Noah tossed a net out of the back, made of thorny bushes and bristles that dragged behind the wagon. The wolves that stepped on it cried out as sharp spines and seed pods spiked their paws. Those who were injured gave up the chase, while the rest of the pack learned and split up to avoid the net.
Before they could leave his view, Noah opened up the barrel of slimes and began throwing them. Even if the small beasts didn’t make a direct hit, they exploded like water balloons. The acid splashed on the wolves, who instinctively knew to avoid slimes. Finally, the pack realized that this prey wasn’t worth all the trouble and gave up. One threat had been neutralized, giving them time to breathe, but it didn’t end there. Bears and other forest beasts would pop up now and then and need to be dispatched with arrows or cold steel.
The more Noah fought, the more he realized how unprepared his body was for all this. He was healthy and strong and had lifetimes of combat experience, but his hands hadn’t built up a layer of calluses that a native of these lands would have. Every time Noah gripped his sword, he could feel blisters forming on his palm. Any monsters he managed to kill, he would harvest for parts. Then, with Tin controlling the horses, he would work in the wagon, removing the skin, teeth, organs, and anything that looked valuable or useful. Sometimes, they’d even stop so that he could collect medicinal plants and mushrooms.
Then, in the afternoon, the next challenge revealed itself. In the distance, a tree lay across the road. A rider on horseback might be able to jump it, but never a wagon like this. But, whether or not it had fallen naturally, Noah knew who would use this opportunity.
“Tin, stop the wagon.” They came to a halt a hundred yards from the tree. “Turn the horses around. If I die, ride back the way we came. Stay at the waterfall until someone uses this road and then travel with them.”
“Master, are you sure about this?” she asked with her basset hound eyes.
“I’ve handled worse.”
He got off the wagon with his sword in hand. On his arm, he wore a shield made from the carapace of the spider he had killed. He was wearing one of the slave traders’ coats, the closest he could get to leather armor, and he also had his satchel filled with lye packets. Rather than approach the tree, he dove into the woods. If there were any goblins in hiding, he’d flank them.
He spotted them as he approached the barrier, hiding behind the trees. They were the size of children, with protruding stomachs and green skin. Their faces, barely even humanoid, had beady eyes, pointed ears, and sharp noses. They carried swords, clubs, and bows, likely stolen from slain travelers.
He closed in on the first one, his footsteps giving him away and causing it to screech in alarm. Noah dispatched it with a swing of his sword, overpowering its attempt to block and lopping off the top of its skull. The others, alarmed by the death of their comrade, turned their attention to Noah and attacked. They launched their arrows with poor aim, but Noah was forced to duck for cover.
He pulled out one of his lye packs, focused on a goblin with a bow, and threw it like a baseball. The small pack nailed it between the eyes and exploded. The goblin took an instinctive breath in and then immediately screamed in agony. Not only were its sinuses and lungs filled with lye, but it had gotten into his eyes, leaving it blinded.
The way it shrieked, like a crying baby, was nothing less than unnerving. The goblins, hearing those screams, became frightened. This was a cruel world, and living in the woods, every day was a bloody fight for survival. But none of them had suffered or seen someone suffer a flesh wound and make that kind of noise.
Noah gave them no time to gather their courage. He dealt with the other goblin archers the same way, leaving them howling in agony. Then, with their long-range attacks neutralized, he closed in. The remaining goblins tried to fight, but Noah slaughtered them with gruesome hacks and stabs. His spider shield fractured whenever he blocked a swing, but it held together long enough to kill them all. These goblins probably ambushed their prey, catching them by surprise to make up for their weak bodies, but once they lost that advantage, they were easy to dispose of.
He was closing in on the last one, slightly larger than the others and armed with a club. It growled and made a wide swing. Noah didn’t try to block and stepped back out of the monster’s reach, then swung down his sword and cleaved the goblin’s head open. To his discomfort, blood splattered across his face and got into his eye. He rubbed it out until he could see, then nearly staggered, hit with sudden fatigue.
“What the fuck? That fight must have taken more out of me than I thought.” He pushed through the sudden weight and returned to the road. It was exhausting work, but he moved the tree out of the way. “Tin, come on through!”
The wagon approached and stopped where the tree had lain, but there was confusion on Tin’s face. “Master, where are you?”
“What are you talking about? I’m right here.”
Tin’s confusion was turning into panic. “I can’t see you anywhere!”
Standing right in front of the horses, Noah was confused. He walked over and grabbed her arm. “Tin, I’m standing right beside you.”
Touching her just made her yelp in surprise. “I still can’t see you! What’s going on?”
That’s what he would like to know. Was something affecting her vision? Maybe she had been hit with some kind of goblin attack, or it was an illness, either a disease or poison from something in the forest.
“Tin, look around. How is your vision?”
“It’s fine, I can see everything clearly! But I can’t see you!” Was he the problem? He could see himself just fine, but his eye was still itching from the blood. He rubbed it with his palm, and Tin gave another yelp of surprise. “Master, you’re back!”
“I was here all this ti—” He stopped, noticing something. His fatigue was gone, vanishing just as suddenly as it appeared. He felt it last when he first woke up in this world. His eye… It had been itching as well. He rubbed his left eye again, and Tin once again freaked out. “Tin, can you see me?”
“No, it’s like you vanished into thin air!”
That fatigue, he was feeling it again. He stepped back and began kicking around leaves and dirt. “Can you see this?”
“See what?”
Well, that answered that question. But, for some reason, the fatigue seemed to deepen when Noah acted. He rubbed his eye again, and from the look on Tin’s face, she appeared to be able to see him again. “What happened to the road?” she asked. “It just suddenly changed when you reappeared.”
Noah put his hand over his eye again, not rubbing it, but just covering it. He repeated the experiment, making a mess of the road. “Can you see any difference in the road?”
“No.” He covered his eye once more, and she nodded her head. “Yes, now I see.”
“So when I disappear, you can’t see what I do to the road, but when I reappear it suddenly changes, right?”
“Yeah, sort of like flipping a page. Master… I think you’re using magic!”
“Magic? No, that doesn’t make sense. My parents were normal, I haven’t even studied any kind of magic.”
“That’s the only thing it can be. But I’ve never heard of magic that could make people disappear like that.”
“I’m not disappearing, I think I’m becoming invisible. It’s… an illusion. I’m creating an illusion that makes me invisible… and when I alter something around me, it expands the illusion to conceal the change I’ve made until I release it.” He covered his eye and felt the fatigue, then covered it once more, and it stopped. “Covering my eye is the trigger that activates it.”
He then remembered his last moments with Lindsey. He had covered his left eye because the sun was blinding him, and he woke up in this world in that same position. His glitchy reincarnation hadn’t just preserved his body at this age; it had given him magic of some kind. Maybe the magic itself caused the error, the magic present in this new world.
“Tin, do they have any kind of word for the energy used for magic? I feel like something is draining out of me when I use it.”
“They call it mana.”
‘You have got to be kidding me.’ “Let’s see what happens when I cover my other eye.”
The moment he attempted it, he fell to his knees, almost blacking out. “Master!” Tin exclaimed. She climbed down and helped him to his feet.
“So, you can see me. That means I didn’t turn invisible. But something happened, or at least tried to happen. I have a different spell in each eye, but not enough mana to use the second one. It must be like a muscle. I have to train it to increase my stamina. Anyway, let’s get out of here before the smell of those goblins attracts wolves.”
The next day, while Tin looked after their makeshift camp, Noah was busy experimenting with his magic. He had come across a giant spider draining the blood from a captured rabbit. As he approached, Noah covered his eye and cast his illusion. His feet on the underbrush should have given him away, but the spider didn’t seem to notice. He decided to make more noise, picking up a stick and snapping it, but still, the spider didn’t seem to notice.
“Over here.”
Finally, the spider spun around, its black eyes searching for the source of the noise. It seemed that Noah's illusion also concealed sounds but not his voice. Maybe because he intended for his voice to be heard? He had been practicing since he discovered his magic to try and get a better feel for his mana. Noah couldn’t fully stress himself since he needed to save his strength for when he needed it, but he was starting to sense the flow.
He drew his sword, a new one. After the fight with the goblins, he had taken their weapons, and despite being slightly rusty due to inadequate care, they were of higher quality than the cheap machete that Noah had been using until now. He now carried a Medieval-style longsword, a short sword, and a knife. He devised the arrangement with thoughts of ancient samurai, who carried a katana, a wakizashi, and a tanto dagger.
He reached out with his longsword and used it to rustle a nearby bush. The spider didn’t see or hear anything. Noah could feel his mana flowing through his sword towards the bush, enveloping it in the illusion. He focused on the energy running through his arm and tried to slow the flow, to keep it from moving beyond his sword.
It was exceedingly difficult, like trying to flex a muscle he had never used. It reminded him of all his years as a newborn when his muscle tissue was practically gelatin. He tempered his breathing and drove out all distractions from his mind. He could feel the flow of his mana like he had grabbed hold of it.
He pulled it back, leaving the sword enveloped, but this time, when he rustled the bush, the spider raised his front legs and bared its fangs, believing an animal to be causing the disturbance. Noah slowly approached and tapped one of the spider’s raised legs with his sword. It hissed in fury and swung at something it could not see. The illusion could block sounds from reaching his enemy, but it couldn’t erase the sense of touch, so he couldn’t just turn invisible and stab someone without them feeling it.
There was something else he noticed. While invisible, he could see mana in the environment and life forms. He couldn't measure or detect affinity, but certain animals seemed shrouded in mana. He didn’t get the impression that they could use magic, more like it clung to them, like an odor. What made them so special? This was just another question that Noah chalked up to something he’d learn later.
The spider raised its guard but couldn’t sense the presence of anyone or anything nearby, so it could do nothing to stop Noah from ending its life. He harvested what he needed from the body and then returned to camp.
It was a sweet relief to Noah and Tin when they finally left the forest. After two days of repeated ambushes by predators and goblins, the sea of trees flanking them gave way, replaced with open pastures, fields where farmers and their slaves were planting crops. The road became more uniform, receiving more maintenance due to the increase in traffic.
In the distance, they saw the town of Clive. It was surrounded by a log fence to keep the monsters out. It reminded him of the colonial village museum from his fifth-grade field trip. The creek from their waterfall camp joined into the river that flowed beside the town.
Guards in cheap leather armor with a few metal plates were manning the gate, and they stopped Noah and Tin as they approached. One looked over the horses and the wagon with a wary eye.
“These belong to Garrow and his men. How did you come by them?”
“Were you close with Garrow?”
“No.”
Noah slipped the man a few bronze coins while hoping they were worth something and that he wasn’t trying to bribe him with pocket change. “Then I suppose you’re mistaken, right?”
Seeming satisfied, the guard pocketed the money and waved them in, and Noah and Tin entered the town. For Noah, it was like he had traveled back to Medieval Europe. Peasants walked the muddy road, street vendors tried to sell their wares, and the air stank beyond all de***********ion. The buildings were brick and wood, only a few more than two stories high, with their windows using foggy glass.
“What do we do now?” Tin asked.
“We’re going to sell this wagon, everything in it, and the horses. That guard recognized them, so others may as well. Plus, I can protect a stack of coins better than this load of pelts. We can just buy replacements if we need them.” They rode past a beggar lying in the street, and Noah brought the horses to a stop. “You there, where can I find a weapon dealer?”
The bearded man pointed a trembling finger to the east. Noah didn’t thank him but tossed him a copper coin. They turned down one of the eastern streets, and a sign caught Noah’s eye. It had an anvil with two crossed swords in front of it like a crest. They stopped the wagon outside, and Noah disembarked.
“Look after the wagon. This place is probably crawling with thieves, so be wary.”
She was armed with a dagger, and he believed in her competence. He stepped into the store, with a bell ringing above his head from the door opening and closing. This store was made of brick to lessen the fire danger from the forge in the back. Numerous weapons hung on display, from swords to halberds. In his previous lives, Noah could have bought a Damascus sword online for $60, which would have put these to shame.
He studied the prices to figure out the rate of conversion for money. The numbers were slightly different from past worlds, but they appeared to have the same values. From what he could tell, ten copper coins equaled a bronze, ten bronze equaled a silver, and ten silver for a gold. The metric scaling made it easy to compare them to US dollars, but from what era?
There was a suit of armor selling for two gold coins, about two thousand dollars. But was that two thousand dollars back in the Old West? Or was that two thousand dollars in the 21st century, after more than a hundred years of inflation? He couldn’t even tell whether the prices were reasonable or not. This could be great equipment at a high price, mediocre tools sold to beginners and cheapskates, or even junk the owner was asking the moon for to try and rip Noah off.
A man appeared from a back room and stood behind a counter. He was a great bear of a man, buff and dirty from a life spent standing over an anvil. Seeing Noah’s modern clothes, unease crossed his face. “Can I help you?”
“Do you buy weapons as well as sell them?”
“Only as long as they incorporate metal. I don’t buy bows or staffs.”
“Perfect.” Noah returned to the wagon outside and retrieved an armful of weapons looted from dead goblins. He stepped back inside and laid them out on the store counter. “What can I get for all of these?”
There were four short swords, two longswords, six daggers, three spears, and an axe. The blacksmith raised his eyebrows in mild surprise at the size of the haul but maintained a poker face for the sake of business. He examined each weapon, making exaggerated grunts and sighs over every chip and sign of rust.
“This is mostly garbage. I can buy them for one silver.”
“That’s a bad joke. That’s less than a bronze coin per weapon. You’re selling daggers for three bronze each. Seven silver.” Judging by the prices of the display pieces, that was more than the blacksmith could sell them for, and while he would have liked to go higher, the blacksmith was low-balling him.
“That’s ridiculous. My merchandise hasn’t been dragged through the woods. Yours has. I’ll have to spend all night polishing and sharpening these to make them worthy of being put on display. Two silver.”
“Leave them as is and then chalk down the price. You can sell them to some newbie warriors as training gear. Six silver.”
“I can’t come anywhere near that. The best I can do is two silver and five bronze.”
“You can always just forge them into something new and sell at a higher price. Four silver.”
“You think you’re the only one selling weapons by the arm-load? Plenty of adventurers come in here to dump what they found in some goblin tunnel. Scavenged swords are hardly rare on the market. Two silver and seven bronze. That’s my final offer.”
‘So, ‘adventurer’ is a term used here. It probably applies to monster hunters and the like.’ “How about this: my axe, plus two daggers, in exchange for that nicer axe up on the wall? Everything else, you buy at half for what you’re selling their counterparts for. That’s ten bronze for the short swords, another ten for the long swords, four and half bronze for the daggers, and another four and half for the spears. That’s right around three silver.”
The blacksmith gave a huff. Three silver was such a round, whole number. It was five bronzes above what he could get if he sold the weapons for half price, but his inner perfectionist didn’t want to complicate it with a smaller payment. Had Noah planned that from the beginning? Either way, he felt stuck on those three silver coins like a ship hitting a reef.
“Fine, three silver.”
“Deal.” He and Noah shook hands, and Noah received the three coins and the axe. “I also have another thing outside that you might be interested in. Follow me.” He led the blacksmith out into the street and showed him the tripwire roll in the back of the wagon.
“What is it?”
“A tripwire system, offering a hundred yards of protection. Any monster that touches it makes the metal alarms jingle. It’s so loud that even the dead can hear it. I’ll trade it for three bronze and the small shield you had in the corner. It’s got to be worth that in materials alone.”
“Fine, but only to get rid of you. You’re exhausting.”
The deal was struck, and Noah and Tin set off on a much lighter wagon. The axe Noah had gotten was perfect for chopping both trees and monsters. The shield he now wore on his arm was only around the size of a dinner plate, but that worked for him. It was strong enough to block a sword slash and wouldn’t hamper his movements.
They sold and traded their wares with directions from many of the townsfolk. The blacksmith wouldn’t buy the bows, but Noah found another weapon dealer who allowed him to trade up to a better piece and a quiver of good-quality arrows. After that, the medicinal herbs and mushrooms were bought by an herbalist, the wolf pelts went to a leatherworker in exchange for some armor and two backpacks, and the clothes and bags were traded at the garment shop for some new outfits. Due to the weird looks he was getting, Noah was aware that his modern clothes made him stand out. They were too valuable to get rid of or sell, so he simply packed them away and donned the apparel of the countryside.
He ditched the severed heads of the slave traders into someone’s pig pen, and the hogs went to town. From asking around, it seemed that the Garrow fellow he killed wasn’t the wanted criminal he had hoped for. It was a shame there was no bounty to collect, especially after three days of putting up with the smell of those heads.
His next destination was the owner of an adventurer’s shop. He sold traveling and survival gear, such as rope, candles, dried rations, and other curios to help travelers survive the beasts dwelling outside man’s domain. Now he was buying the last of Noah’s haul, including the remains of several spiders and the barrel of slimes.
“So? What do you think? Seven bronze and everything’s yours.”
“I can do five bronze, but only because you actually have living slimes. I’ve never seen them captured like this!”
“No, no, I can’t do five… Do you sell maps?”
“I do.”
“I want two maps, one of the country, and one of the area. Throw those in and I can go down to five.”
“For two maps added, the best I can do is three and a half bronze.”
“Four bronze and you won’t have to deal with me for the rest of the day.”
“Deal.”
With that, Tin and Noah left, having sold everything they deemed not worth carrying, plus the wagon and horses. Tin was in a good mood, now wearing proper clothes and footwear. She looked nothing like the slave girl that Noah had met when he first came to this world. One might look at her and not even think she was a slave.
The sun had almost set, but they made their way to their final stop, an inn known as the Old Wineskin. It was busy inside, the air stinking of pipe smoke, ale, and poor hygiene, and the floor creaking under countless pairs of shifting boots. The hostess, a large woman who looked like she birthed children by the litter, greeted them at the door behind a front desk.
“Are you here to eat or to sleep?” she asked.
“Both. What are your rates?”
“Five copper coins a night for one room. For ten, you also get firewood, a hot bath, and two square meals a day for one person.”
Noah counted up the coins for him and Tin and stacked them on the table. “We’ll take the full package for three nights.”
The woman handed him an iron key. “Take a seat in the dining room wherever you like and I’ll bring you the house special.”
Noah led Tin through the crowd of drunken villagers while looking out for pickpockets. Every man in the bar looked either like a Viking or the kind of guy Vikings typically killed, all of their clothes made of either wool, linen, or animal hide. Any women were either travelers huddled together or courtesans sitting across the laps of their drunk clients and laughing at every lousy joke as they waited for the alcohol to take its toll.
Noah and Tin found a small table near the fireplace and took their seats, with Noah warning Tin to put her bag directly under the table.
“This town is just as I expected,” he said.
“Is something wrong, Master?”
“No, everything is fine. I rather like the atmosphere here, the feel of it.”
He had seen plenty of towns that had been knocked out of the modern age in his previous lives, usually due to some kind of apocalyptic event or because it was in a third-world country, but none of them had the Medieval Europe aura like in fantasy books and movies. For all of his life experience, this was something he was glad to be able to cross off his bucket list.
“So we’re going to stay here for three days? Then what?”
“I’m not sure quite yet. I don’t have enough information. I want to know more about this country, about the other countries. I want to see what I can make of myself and what will give me the best chance of survival. But for now, I want to rest up for a few days and learn what I can about the area.”
He took out the maps he had bought and looked them over. Their quality was just as he expected from a Medieval society. The map of the Algata province showed the towns around Clive, as well as vague rivers and mountains, but there was no scale for referencing distance, and none of the roads were labeled. The national map was no better, but it did name the bigger towns and the capital of Uther near the southern coast. It was hard to determine the size of the country, but it was probably somewhere between England and Texas.
Right now, what he needed to work on was a backstory. This was not a country with an educated public, but Noah was still ignorant of the culture and lifestyle, which would require years to catch up on. Also, if he claimed to be from somewhere but failed to answer a question that any native would know, it would make him look suspicious.
In his past lives, his backstory would generate itself, just like everyone else’s, and as an adult, when he needed an alias, he could easily craft a new one using his knowledge of the world. He had hidden in other countries and taken on new identities in past lives, but this was a whole new ballgame.
The hostess arrived with wooden trays and beer mugs. The house special was a bowl of meat and vegetable stew and a biscuit, with a pint of the local ale to wash it down. Noah didn’t even want to imagine how a health inspector would react to seeing the kitchen and how the food was prepared, but after three days of nothing but rock-hard bread and dried meat that was little more than salted leather, he ate greedily.
Tin, however, stared at her food. “Master, is it really ok for me to eat this? I need only scraps to survive. Master doesn’t need to be so generous in buying me such wonderful food.”
“You’ve done everything I’ve told you to do and have yet to disappoint me. You deserve to eat proper meals. Besides, I need you strong and healthy so you can continue to assist me.”
She bowed her head with her shoulders trembling. “Thank you, Master.”
After eating, they went up to their room. It was awfully stark; just a bed with some itchy blankets and a fireplace. There was also a table with a lone candle and water pitcher. Firewood had already been delivered. As Tin lit the candle, Noah began moving around the room, knocking on the walls, floor, and ceiling, searching for hidden doors or peepholes. For all he knew, there could be people watching them, waiting for them to fall asleep and then rob them, or worse.
He once made the mistake of spending the night in a backwoods motel that was owned by a serial killer. The flat tire within walking distance should have warned him, but he refused to believe the cliché.
“You get a fire started while I look around. Don’t open the bags or reveal any of your belongings until I get back, and move the bed against the door.”
For the most part, he was sure that no one was listening or watching them at the moment, but that might not last. He wanted to check the inn itself, and on the off chance that someone was managing to avoid his detection, he didn’t want to activate his magic. He left the room and locked the door behind him. There were rooms on either side and across the hall, but they would come later. He went downstairs, maneuvering through the crowd and stepping outside into the dark street. The town was clearing out, everyone heading home or to whatever spot they slept on.
Noah walked down the street, and as planned, he sensed a tail behind him. He stepped behind the nearby butcher shop and lay in wait. His pursuer, knife in hand, entered the alley. He never even saw Noah, certainly didn’t see his hand aiming for his Adam’s Apple. A solid blow ripped the air from the man’s lungs and sent him to his knees, unable to even scream in agony. He dropped his knife, and Noah got him into a stranglehold, lifting him back onto his feet.
“You weren’t following me before we reached the inn, I certainly would have noticed you, so that means you didn’t see me with Garrow’s wagon and horses. Either someone who did see me put you up to this, or you’re just going after me because I look like an easy mark. So, which is it?”
“Eat shit, you damn kid!” the man gargled. He tried to free himself from the choke hold, but Noah just tightened his grip. He couldn’t see anything, no matter where he looked.
Noah took out his knife and held it under the man’s eye. The blade was invisible like Noah, but the man could feel the tip threatening to pierce the skin of his lower lid. “If you want to save yourself, start talking. I can make you beg for your life and then beg for death in a matter of seconds.”
“This is just what I do, punk! I wait for pieces of trash playing adventurer to make a wrong turn and then I take everything that they have!”
“Is there anyone else or do you work alone? You really don’t want to lie to me.”
“I don’t need help.”
Noah put his knife away. “Clearly, you do.” For the briefest moment, the man felt Noah’s hold on him loosen, thinking he would be let go. But instead, Noah grabbed his head and snapped his neck.
Noah searched the corpse for anything of value and dumped it in the river beside the village. He then returned to the inn and scanned the outside. He had measured the distance from the window to the corners of his room, and, assuming that all the rooms were the same size and configuration, there didn’t appear to be any false walls that someone could hide in.
With his illusion still active, he went inside the inn and maneuvered through the crowds, putting all his effort into not bumping into anyone. He checked the thickness of the floor and ceiling of each level and found no anomalies. Unfortunately, his mana was starting to run out, so he had to hurry with the last step. He returned to the floor of his room and listened to the surrounding doors.
He could hear two female adventurers making plans across the hall and a man sharpening his sword in the room to his left. The room to the right was silent. From his pocket, Noah drew a length of wire. It was originally part of the handle of one of the swords he had sold, but he took it before taking it out of the wagon. Lockpicking had been a skill of his several lifetimes ago, so he was a little rusty. Regardless, he managed to open the door and peeked in, seeing the one inhabitant sleeping.
Noah ended his search. He now felt like he could truly relax. Noah returned to the door of his room. “Tin, it’s me,” he said while knocking.
He could hear the bed, used as a barricade, being moved aside, and Tin opened the door. “Is everything ok?”
“Yeah, I think we’re safe.”
They both stepped into the room and released their held breaths upon the door closing. Finally, they could let down their guard, at least for the most part.
“Ok, let’s go over the money we collected.”
He spread out the coins from their sales on the table with the lone candle. There were a great number of silver coins, plenty of bronze, several copper, and some gold. “With all of this, we can stay at this inn for as long as we want. For now, let’s work on keeping it safe.”
He kept the copper coins in two of the three snake wallets as bait or a decoy against pickpockets. The third wallet held the bronze coins and hung around Tin’s neck. Noah hid the silver and gold coins in his jacket lining and his backpack's straps.
Soon after they finished, there was a knock at the door. “Here with your bathwater!” a chambermaid announced.
Noah let her in, and she placed a wooden tub on the floor, filled with steaming water and some rags. In this world, it seemed like outside of swimming, the only way to keep even remotely clean was with a simple washcloth. Noah tipped her, and she departed.
“Good, I’ve needed this,” he said.
As he and Tin stripped down, she approached him. “Master, please let me wash you.”
“What? You didn’t do that before.”
There was a desperate shimmer in her eyes. “Something which I beg your forgiveness for. I must show my gratitude for your kindness.”
“You don’t owe me anything for treating you like a person.”
She embraced him from behind. “It is my duty to service my master. Please, allow me to continue not disappointing you.”
“Very well. I appreciate your efforts.”
She made a slight noise of relief, almost like a cross between a laugh and a gasp. “Please take a seat.”
Noah sat on the foot of the bed, and Tin retrieved some of their leftover soap, then brought the tub next to him. She kneeled before him and wetted the front of her body with one of the rags, then with the soap, lathering up her breasts and between her thighs. He could tell she was excited.
Despite her perpetually expressionless face, he could see the slight curling of her lips, the shimmer in her eyes, signs of joy. It was an ironic combination; she had never known pleasure from contact with a man, and he was so numb that contact with a woman was one of the last few things that could give him pleasure.
She began by taking one of the washcloths and scrubbing Noah’s legs, trying to remove the sweat and dirt from their days in the woods. Then, her breathing would deepen, and she’d start rubbing her chest against him, grinding against him like a stripper pole. Her breasts were far from ample due to her harsh life and poor diet, but what softness there was, she used to please Noah. She made sure he felt every cubic centimeter of fat as if the mass of her breasts equaled her loyalty.
She washed off the soap and then got on the bed to repeat the process on his arms. Her efforts gave him an amused smile. With her inner thighs nice and sudsy, she’d straddle his hands, letting him cup her womanhood in his palm and feel how wet she was. She was beginning to pant and whimper, her lust building up. Her frantic breaths in his ears were likewise getting him worked up. He had a few ex-girlfriends that would give him this treatment.
“Tell me, have you done this before or is this an idea you came up for me?”
“This is new. I’ve never felt so much gratitude to my master before.”
She moved behind him, scrubbed his back, and then began smooshing her breasts against him in sweeping motions. It reminded him of washing windows. While she ground on his back, she washed his chest, and her hands naturally fell to his throbbing manhood. She stroked it lovingly as if wanting to memorize every detail.
She started rubbing against him with more force and jacking him off. Despite Noah being on the receiving end, Tin’s efforts made her breathe heavily with an aroused whimper passing her lips. The feel of her breasts on his back and her masterful stroking were also getting to Noah. Despite his sexual experiences, he always enjoyed a little foreplay.
He didn’t bother trying to resist and simply ejaculated, while behind him, Tin shuddered as if having a climax of her own. She greedily licked his cum off her hands and then got off the bed, kneeling before him again. Her gaze, full of drunken lust, was glued to his semi-flaccid manhood after its eruption.
“Master, you’re so dirty. Let me clean you.”
She began sucking on his member with worshipful dedication. Every drop of cum, she slurped off while savoring the taste of his sweat. Like the other night, she paid attention to his balls, either massaging them while his cock plunged into the depths of her throat or sucking on them and rolling them around her mouth while she jacked him off.
“My, my, you sure do enjoy servicing me, don’t you?”
She looked up at him, a slave to him and her desires. “Yes, Master. My body feels so much gratitude for you.” She couldn’t resist playing with herself. “Especially down here.”
She stood up, and he allowed her to get on his lap, shuddering in bliss as she felt him enter her. She was so wet, his cock sliding against her inner flesh without any resistance. There was no hesitation in Tin’s movements, and she didn’t need to adjust her position or let her body become accustomed to the feeling of being penetrated. As soon as she was down to the base, she began bouncing on his cock at full speed.
Noah laid back with his hands gripping Tin's ass. The effort she put in was commendable; she was fucking him like a pornstar. She didn’t bother trying to conceal her moans of bliss. Instead, she was putting all of her strength into keeping up this rhythm, dropping all her weight onto Noah’s lap so he could truly explore her body.
She couldn’t allow him to exert himself. There were no fields to work, no livestock to take care of. She couldn’t fight, couldn’t hunt, couldn’t do anything to repay her master for the kindness he had shown her. All she could do was offer her body for his enjoyment, to give him something to unleash his desires on.
Despite her efforts, Noah wasn’t giving in. He retrieved one of the damp washcloths and wiped the soap off her breasts, making her nipples erect. He then sat up and began running his tongue and lips across her skin, kissing her areolas and sucking on their peaks. He often pulled his mouth away to join with hers, kissing her with skill she could only call art.
Rather than letting her continue bouncing, he implemented his own technique. Cupping her ass in his hands, he began gyrating her hips in one direction while he moved in the opposite direction with his hips. Now, instead of doing long, deep strokes, his cock was stirring up the depths of her womanhood like he was whisking some scrambled eggs.
The two-fold attacks were more than Tin could bear. “Master! Ah! Master!” she moaned. She let her voice ring out, escaping their room and being heard by everyone in the inn. She cried out like she was being stabbed, but it felt like Noah was going no less deep inside her.
She held onto his shoulders as a wave of climaxes rushed through her. Again, Noah fell back while pulling Tin down with him. Tin, lying across his chest, was given no time to rest. He lifted her hips and began bucking his own, driving up into her at maximum speed and depth.
There was no cruelty to his sensual barrage, no pain, yet Tin wondered if she had done something to enrage him. She would suffer beyond words if any other man tried to do this. She could feel his skill and experience with every move he made. He knew exactly what to do to not cause any harm, despite the intensity itself leaving her on the verge of blacking out.
“Master, it feels too good! You’re going to break me!”
“Hold on, I’m almost there.”
She held onto him for dear life as if a tornado had ripped off the inn's roof and threatened to pull her up into the sky. Soon, the storm passed, and Tin felt that final thrust as Noah emptied himself into her. The sensation of her master’s seed flooding her womanhood, the heat of it inside her, made her moan a single crystal-clear note, like a bird call. Then, she collapsed on top of him, using the last of her strength to run kisses across his chest.
“Master, when you wanted to know the area and me and some other slaves raised out hands… thank you for choosing me.” Noah didn’t say anything. He knew this was a situation where one couldn’t simply respond with ‘you’re welcome.' Yet after so many lifetimes, he still didn’t know the proper response. “And at the waterfall… thank you for letting me stay by your side.”
Then, she closed her eyes and fell asleep, snuggled on his chest like a cat.
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