章 11: It's all about the Benjamins
Waking up again the familiar sounds like many times before hit his ears. He ignored them and immediately set off trying to find the feelings he had before when he managed to unlock meditation.
After what felt like a few hours he still had zero gains for all his effort. Suddenly he heard footsteps.
By the amount of footsteps there was more than one person and they became louder as the automatic door made the whooshing sound he knew they came into his room.
"Are you sure we need to move him?", a female voice asked in resignation who Harrison recognized as nurse Finkle said.
"We need the ICU space for people who actually have a chance at recovery. He is not our top priority anymore. The media fallout was much lesser than they expected so the higher ups I guess are not bothered with him making it or not anymore. Well, it's not like he has a chance of recovery with such injuries, anyway. He will be fine in the normal room as long as the ventilators are attached, anyway. It won't make any difference it will just cost less to keep him breathing until he dies.", a male voice explained the decision without a shred of sympathy.
"Check the emergency battery level and switch to internal oxygen supply and unplug the ventilator from the wall sockets.", he continued.
There were rustling noises of equipment being unplugged, and screeching of wheels followed.
'So they see no hope of me recovering and are just waiting for me to die!!! It's all about the money as always...,' Harrison thought with boiling anger as he was being pushed out from the ICU in the normal ward room.
Soon he heard the equipment being plugged back into the wall sockets as the screeching of the bed wheels and other equipment being moved stopped.
'It does not matter to me anyway since I never had much hope in you, anyway. I need to find a way to heal myself. Maybe get some better potions or maybe magic if it exists in the other world and heal myself with it in this one... ', he consoled himself.
'Aaaaargh. I swear I am going to find the guy who had me swatted and make some additional holes in him without even a remote chance of recovery...' the thoughts of revenge fueled his will to live as the room became quiet.
He continued trying to meditate, but he was either too agitated by the recent events but his focus was all over the place and could not make any progress. Since he could not make himself go to sleep he started doing multiplications again but even before he reached the next level his mind finally succumbed to boredom and made him sleep.
Waking up in the cave he quickly got dressed and went out towards the pond. It was daytime, so he had no trouble finding the tracks left by the horse and he started following them. Every couple of meters he marked a tree with his dagger so he could find his way back.
After crossing a couple of small hills and valleys he finally came out from the forest onto a road paved with stones. Taking out a grey piece of underwear he wiped it on the brown dirt on the backside and put it the underbrush by the road to mark his exit point.
His reasoning being that no one would touch a piece of underwear that looked like someone had soiled himself in it. Also, he would have no problems cleaning it afterwards using his inventory quick cleaning method.
"Left or right? Which way did she go? Which way did the stupid horse go?, he asked himself since the hoof tracks stopped on the hard stones and the horse went out of the woods at a ninety-degree angle leaving him no clues.
Luckily for him he could spot a pile of fresh horse shit in the distance and he figured that must be the way.
Walking slowly and stopping every few one hundred meters in the underbrush listening to noises he made headway with a very slow speed. He removed all his gear he made his clothing and body dirty so he would not look too suspicious as a twelve-year-old kid wearing clean leather armour.
After a while he saw smoke coming out from the distance and after the road went down on the incline, he could see fields cultivating unknown crops with some people on them. After a long stretch of fields he could see a small town from which the smoke was coming out from the houses and workshops.
Harrison stood there for quite a while considering if it was really wise to go into the town but he decided that sooner or later he would be forced to make contact.
As he walked, he soon met a first passerby going his way. It was an old man pulling an oxlike beast with a cart attached behind him. Harrison was getting more anxious with every step he took towards him but seeing the man ignoring him he walked his way.
Before they passed eachother the old man nodded and said: "Aka sha!"
Harrison had no clue what was said, and he nodded in reply and returned the same words to him.
"Aka sha!"
Just like that the oxlike beast passed him and went into the distance and Harrison went closer to the town.
He met some more townsfolk and they all just nodded and said the same thing but this time the system subtitled their words as good day.
Finally he reached the town and the first houses on the outskirts which looked run down with some kids that were even dirtier than he was running in yelling in front of them. An old lady grey-haired lady wearing a dirty apron came out and started yelling at them and they ran away.
He nodded his head at her and said aka sha and she replied in turn.
"Aka sha! Besham kengu duri?", she said with a questioning gaze.
Harrison just looked at her, and started nodding and shaking his head and ignored her while walking forward.
'Mind your own business, lady. I have no clue what you want.', he thought in his head.
She gave him a disapproving look but then waved her hand in resignation and went back inside the run-down house.
The houses on the outskirts were all made out of mud and less than two meters in height with straw covering them. They had windows but had no glass with horizontal and sometimes vertical sticks serving as a barrier from any animals that wanted to intrude on the inside. They had simple shutters made from a single piece of wood. The floor in them was mud as far as he could tell from the outside.
'Even my cave is better than this.' Harrison thought in contempt.
After going trough a few a row of such mud houses and yelling aka sha at every passerby came what he saw next were houses made from timber that looked like his former worlds hunting cabins with proper roofs and chimneys made from bricks. They were three to four meters tall with windows made of glass which looked of low quality and not of uniformed thickness and was obviously distorting the view outside.
After those wooden houses came a few brick houses with only two being two stories tall in the middle of the small town. These looked like proper houses like people on Earth may have used in the 18th or even 19th century. With proper windows, big doors and flowers blooming in front of them. He could not see inside since the windows were higher than his head and also most curtains were closed on the lower stories.
In between the brick houses, and the wooden houses were workshops. The clanking of an anvil was prominent from a blacksmith's shop so it was easily recognisable. There was also a sign of a potion on one which Harrison figured was an apothecary. There were also various stalls in front of them but he ignored them as he had no knowledge of the local language or prices.
Walking down the main avenue he met people from what seemed from all walks of life. Beggars, workers, farmers, servants, soldiers and hunters. He noticed a peculiar thing.
Harrison greeted everyone he met but with getting closer to the center of the town the people he met had better clothing and looked much cleaner and neater on the outside but showed obvious looks of contempt at his greetings.
He could read on their faces disgust, disapproval and amazement and the frequency of such looks was rising proportionally to the quality of their clothing.
'Who do you think you are greeting boy?', could be read on the faces of those who did not reply.
'I guess everywhere is the same. It's all about the Benjamins.', he thought in resignation.
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