“Quick, get help!”

  “Where the hell did he come from?”

  “Is he alive?”

  There were other voices I heard, but I couldn’t quite make them out. Everything sounded so far away and my head, god my head, it hurt so badly. I never wanted to move from this spot. The warm sun beat down on me, and a soft breeze caressed my skin. I could feel that warm soft grass when my olfactory woke up, and the smells exploded in my nose, the earth my face was laying in. The warmness of the day, the grass that I was on. This was almost as nice as the fuzzy rugs I kept on the floor in my bunk so I wouldn’t have to stand on the hard, cold material that was the floor of a truck.

  “Just ten more minutes,” I mumble.

  “He’s alive! Get the healer!”

  I groaned at the yelling. Why wouldn’t these people let me sleep? I’ve never had people bug me while I was sleeping in my bunk. Well, except for that one time the DOT officer told me to move even though I was parked in… Nevermind, I don’t want to think about that.

  Wait a second. Why am I outside? Wasn’t it winter?

  It all came rushing back to me. The blizzard, the streaks of weird looking lightning. I SLID OFF A BRIDGE. In a rush of adrenaline, I pushed myself up from the ground and turned, so I’m sitting on my butt with my legs spread out in front of me. I didn’t really know what I expected to see, but it definitely wasn’t what I saw.

  I was just outside of what looked like an old Japanese village, and there were four people who were standing around me. I seemed to be just off of a main road, and I squinted to look up and down it. Maybe I was looking for cars or just to see something, but I honestly don’t know what I was looking for. One minute I was looking up to the sky as I was falling in my truck from an icy bridge and now…

  “Mrrr,” came a deep bellow from beside me.

  I blink and notice the large black ox standing expectantly right next to me. The pain in my left side jolted me awake from piecing together the crash to waking up in a warm field next to an ox. Something jerked me into the door, causing the pain. My hand went to my rib cage and I let out a groan.

  “Here, wait, stop moving. The alchemist is coming to help,” a person said.

  I looked over and saw a large bald man; An obvious looking farmer judging from the bulk of him. He was someone who definitely used the muscles in their arms quite a bit. He had brown eyes and I could see the concern and confusion in the man’s eyes. The man was wearing a gray loose-fitting robe that had a blue thick trim around the neck. It was the same look as the rest of the surrounding farmers.

  There was now a new person running towards me. She was smaller than the surrounding farmers. This new girl wore fine, gray robes. She also wore what looked like a heavy brown apron over them. Her long black hair hung in strands beneath a round straw hat.

  I’m in…..

  “Here, I have something for you,” she said softly and thrust a small jar towards me. “It should help.”

  I stared at her, too dumbfounded to take the beaker. My left hand held my side, and I just stared into her big brown almond-shaped eyes. No, they weren’t just brown; they were a beautiful swirl of different earthen tones. And maybe a speck of blue?

  “Uhhh, am I dead? Are you like…”

  Nope, I wasn’t going to ask that. I stopped myself from asking the cliche question.

  She frowned and shook her head. “No, no, I don’t think you’d be sitting up and talking if you were. If you take this potion, though, it should help with the pain you have on your side.” She said and pointed.

  The other man looked at me and her and gave a knowing grin. “No, she’s not from the Heavens. She is our village alchemist apprentice, and you won’t find a better healer on this side of the Toko River.”

  “The Toko River?” I blinked and looked up at the man. Up close, I could see the wrinkles around his eyes and flecks of gray in his thin goatee; he looked older than I had initially thought.

  He frowned and then looked back at the alchemist. “You think he’s alright, Niku?”

  She frowned and shoved the beaker back towards me before saying, “he’d be better if he drank this.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Huh?” I blinked and looked back at her. “Oh, I’m sorry I’m…” The hand that wasn’t holding my side now went to my head. I closed my eyes and lowered it.

  The pain came from nowhere, but suddenly it felt like my brain was going to explode from the pressure. Before I realized what was happening, I felt large, powerful hands grabbing my shoulders and laying me back.

  “Hold his mouth open. If he just drank this, he’d be alright soon enough,” came that soft voice, but even I could hear the impatience growing in her voice.

  Once more, I felt the soft grass as the large man cradled my head and held my jaw open. I had it clenched from the pain, but he wrestled my mouth open easily. He really was strong. Soon enough, I felt cold fizzy liquid flow into my mouth and I couldn’t help but swallow. It had an effervescence to it like seltzer water, and the flavor was citrusy. Frankly, it tasted like a kick to the jaw from an electric lemon followed by a jab from an electric lime. My mind raced. It was like what I imagined the Dew from a lemon tree on a mountain would taste.

  It only took a few minutes for the pressure in my head to lesson and I could open my eyes again. I looked up at the woman, Niku, and the large man. They were blocking the sun, so I could see them both clearly. My vision was back to normal, and I reached for my face. Yeah, I was still wearing my glasses, so the potion didn’t fix everything, but I could feel the pain in my side had faded.

  “That stuff was amazing,” I mumbled.

  The man laughed a little. “I told you she was the best. She might even be the best in the entire Sasuke Empire.”

  I noticed her start to blush and shake her head quickly. “No, Nakayasu. My master gets mad at me when you say that.”

  The man gave another gruff laugh, but shrugged. “That’s because he’s jealous. Soon you’ll be better than he is. I know it,” he said confidently.

  While they did their back and forth, I gave my side one last rub and the pain was completely gone. To be honest, I felt great. I felt refreshed, like I had just sprung for a nicer hotel room during one of my resets and even treated myself to a massage. I climbed to my feet and then accepted Nakayasu’s help the rest of the way.

  Now that I was up, and my pain was magically gone, I could look around and see where I was a little better. I was standing just outside of a field like I had originally noticed, and the buildings definitely had that east Asian feel to them. There was even a three tiered pagoda in the middle of the village and a structure that reminded me of a Shintō shrine. It looked almost like a doorway or like a two-dimensional house. Scarecrows, their faces blank and unsettling, were attached to each pole that held up the ancient shrine.

  I was on the side of what appeared to be a main road into the sparse village, which led right to the pagoda. From that middle of the houses, or well, huts got more sparse. They left enough room between each home to have a small field for them to grow things in. When I looked away from the town, the fields got bigger and the huts turned into actual houses with larger fields around them. I put my hands on my hips.

  I was still trying to piece all this together mentally when I heard the man speak to me again.

  “So, were you lost? Or how did you end up..? You know if you just pulled a regular sized carriage instead of this super long one you probably wouldn’t have gotten into an accident,” Nakayasu said and motioned to everything around them.

  Another bellow from the ox brought my attention to my more immediate surroundings. For one there was a big black ox that still was standing next to me. Then, like Nakayasu motioned to, there was what looked like an especially long wagon. Impossibly long from the movies and such I had seen. It was probably twice as long as a normal wagon. I blinked and looked at the ox.

  “Betsy?” I asked and cocked a brow.

  The ox responded with another deep bellow and a long slow nod of its, hers, head. Behind me I could hear the other two debate whether I was actually alright. I tried to ignore them as I moved closer to Betsy and put a hand on the creature’s head. I looked into her eyes and saw something there. I saw a sort of understanding.

  “You’re my…” I started, but I couldn’t finish the statement. It was too ridiculous for me.

  “Well your ox, Betsy? She must be pretty strong to carry all of that weight. Weird to see a non cultivator using a spirit beast, but more power to you. You must have some seriously deep pockets, friend,” Nakayasu said cautiously.

  With an awkward smile, I looked over at the man. “I do alright, I think,” I reply, unsure if that’s actually true. I didn’t have money here, did I?

  That was when Niku grabbed me by the beard and forced my head down to look at her. The top of her head only came to my chin. She was looking into my eyes with a narrowed inspecting gaze and I tried to open them wide for her.

  “He seems to be alright. The potion worked. He must just be a little shocked from the crash,” she said with a confident nod while still talking to Nakayasu. “And yeah, he must have some money if he’s this deep in the Empire from the United Islands Empire. That’s where you’re from, right?”

  I stared again into her eyes, completely dumbfounded. There was a name for the condition where a person’s eyes had little sections of different colors, but for the life of me, I couldn’t think of it. It was so neat. Besides that, the woman was beautiful. The shape of her eyes, the soft tanned skin. She had a little thickness to her while still looking to be healthy and in shape. Thicc, as the term was back home.

  “He might be rich, but I think he’s a little,” Niku paused and looked for the word. “Dull.”

  “Wait, what? I’m not dull,” I frowned. “What makes you think I’m from that kingdom?”

  She looked me over a little more. “Well, you have the eyes and pale skin, like I said. You couldn’t possibly come from further than The United Islands. It’s too far. Though with the length of that beard, I guess it is possible. Though I don’t think you’d be as round in the middle if you were on a boat that long.”

  I put my hands on my hips and frowned, unsure of what to say when Nakayasu came to my rescue. He came over to stand next to me and put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Well, wherever you are from, welcome to the Sasuke Empire,” he said and gave me a big smile before he turned to look at her. “Take it easy on him. I don’t think he’s dumb. I think he just thinks you’re beautiful.”

  She blushed, and I stammered for something to say. The only thing I could get out was, “wait, what?”

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