Takemura Itsuki

“These past ten days… have been the most boring days of my whole life… No training, no fights… and just… thinking… thinking about your own deeds. That’s what I have been doing all this time. It was like I had been meditating all day long just like Buddha did to attain enlightenment. But, I guess… I attained a little enlightenment too…”

“Do I… really need Haruto… to continue my life…?”

“No, I don’t.”

***

Isekai’d

Written by Dhruv Pabreja

***

The cart’s wooden wheels rolled over the uneven full of stones lying all around. The carriage continued to move forward. The brown horses continued to walk as they pulled the carriage stuck on their backs. At the back of both the horses sat Airi, wearing her same pink colored cloth on top of her white shirt and black pair of pants and brown boots. She had a little leaf in her mouth and she chewed it a little as she had her eyes fixed on the front. She was continuously looking at the narrow road of soil cutting through the trees on both sides as the carriage slowly moved through it. Her eyes were a little narrowed as she was bored. She looked at the road bending towards the right some steps away in the front. “If I’m not wrong… we’re gonna be at the city soon.” The horses’ feet continued to tap on the ground as they walked forward, Airi’s eyes stuck at the front. She slightly pulled the whips on her right hand, and the horses’ heads turned to the right. They too started to walk a little rightwards as they continued walking. As the carriage turned through the trees and bushes, her eyes started to bubble up and her mouth opened in a large smile. Excitedly, she turned her head at the back, slid open the curtains to her right, and then excitedly shouted, “We’re at the city!”

“Yay, I guess,” I replied. I was lying on the ground, my head tilted a little up because of the bag beneath my head, and my eyes were facing the front at the chest, where my hands were lying. My eyes were narrow and uninterested, with dark spots beneath them. I closed them again.

Ichika, who was lying in the exact same position on my right, opened her eyes a little. “Rea…” Her eyes opened wide. “REALLY?!” She tilted her head up and left towards Airi.

Airi nodded back with her huge smile. As she turned her head to the front again, she said, “See this!”

My eyes widened too and I moved my back up, sitting up on the ground. “The hell, man!” I turned my head to the left, looking toward the crowds of people standing in the front.

Ichika just tilted a little part of her back up and fixed her left elbow on the ground, looking towards the crowds of carriages and other vehicles all around, with people roaming here and there. “So this is the entry of the city, huh?” Ichika said with a little smile.

“New Dansamia City is completely fortified from all the area, except for the hundred-meter wide openings which are all over the circular city. This might be the eastern opening of the city, that’s why it’s so much crowded.”

I looked at the carts and carriages full of people or gunny bags standing in some queues in the front of the large walls all over. I turned my head up and looked at the large walls about three to four times of an average person’s height. Two soldiers in red robes, white shirts, and black pants were standing on top with a shield on their backs, scabbards on their waists, and a bow and a basket of arrows hung on their right shoulders. The two were talking to each other as the one on the left turned back, looking at a third one walking towards them. “Man…” I said in awe. I then looked at the front and noticed Airi turning the carriage to her left, towards a smaller lane with just two or three more carriages in the front.

“The city is famous for its handicraft products, which are sold all over the country. Not just that, it’s a hub for all the warriors,” Airi started to explain. The carriage stopped and stood silently in the line. The wide stretch of free area in front of the trees was surrounded by the chatters of lots of people all around, the sounds of the carts and carriages moving, and the neighs and bellows of the horses and oxen. “Almost anyone who wants to become a warrior comes here for training and jobs. The training centers here are full of highly experienced teachers, some of who were even ex-soldiers and have seen warzones. Plus, it’s got the best government soldiers’ training arena where you can take admission and become a soldier in about three years. Not just that, this city has the New Dansamia City Warriors’ Association, or NDCWA, where you can easily register yourself and then get the license to go hunting down animals out in the wild!”

“Hunt animals?” I asked.

Ichika tilted her head a little up at me. “In this country, the eaters of meat are reliant on the warriors who work at little meat shops. The warriors are hired by the meat shops to go out hunting for them. The warriors get the dead animals for them, out of which meat is then processed and sold in the market.”

“They are termed as hunters. And, hunters often compete with each other in the Annual Hunters Rankings, where the ones who register the most points based on what and how much they kill are ranked. The ones who are seriously competing in these rankings often kill each other off to reduce their opponents. This is not a healthy competition, but it got large sums of money. The one who kills the most is rewarded a hundred thousand coins for every day they are placed at the top. The ones at the second spot receive sixty thousand coins, the one at the third forty thousand, and the rest of the top ten receive ten thousand each. The top hundred receive about a thousand each month, which is literally a large sum to feed a family.”

Airi then turned her head to the front, whipping the carriage. The carriage had entered the shadows of the walls on top. The carriage stopped, and some soldiers roamed around the carriage for a while. One of them looked at me when he opened the door from behind. He then looked at the stuff and bags all around us at the carriage, and then closed the door. The carriage started to move to the front again. Airi’s face hit the sunrays coming from the other side of the walls again as her mouth opened wide in smile and excitement. I popped my head out from the right of Airi, and Ichika did the same from Airi’s left. “Man…” I said in awe, my eyes and mouth wide open.