Chapter 103: You Look Familiar
Simon slept the day away. He luxuriated in the feeling of having his armor off for the first time in days, and despite how much he hated looking at his chubby body when he was stripped down to his boxers, he wouldn’t have enjoyed those scratchy linen sheets anymore if they were made of silk.
It was only when the sun was close to setting that he finally decided to stop being lazy and get his act together. He made his way downstairs without his armor or his sword and inquired about where a man might be able to get a bath. He would need to do some laundry tomorrow to get the salt and the sand out of his clothes, and he would definitely need to take a whetstone to his weapons sometime after that before he went to the next level because the rust spotting was growing worse.
Still, all of that could wait until he’d wasted a few coppers on a nice hot soak. While he was in the bathhouse, he learned he was in the town of Esmiran and that he was somewhere to the east of Mietere.
The only time he’d heard the name of that city before, he was dealing with that locust-leech storm at Millen’s farm. He wondered if that meant he was close or not but decided not to ask.
He was definitely in another country or region, though. People’s skin was slightly darker than he was used to, and their clothes were just a little bit different from his. When one of the other men mentioned that he looked like a sailor, Simon laughed and said, “I haven’t spent much time on a ship since Abrese.”
That got him some dark looks, and though no one explained, Simon quickly found himself alone after that. He made a mental note not to mention random places he’d been without understanding why the populace might hate them.
Fortunately, nothing bad came of it, and as he reentered the inn, he found no lynch mobs waiting for him. Instead, he ordered a beer and some food and listened more than he talked as he waited for his food to arrive.
All in all, he would have called the fare in this place only decent. The meat was too stringy, the bread was too coarse, but the beer was decent enough. He didn’t complain, though. At least it was new, and the part of him that feared he’d be stuck eating that same wedge of cheese and loaf of bread forever. So that was okay.
It was only later when he had joined some strangers in a friendly game of dice, that they arrived. Simon had been on a winning streak and managed to win almost a whole silver coin after seven straight rounds of guessing whether the dice would come up even or odds.