The wanderer, walking away from the town, didn't fasten his brown overcoat. He let it be attempted to be fluttered by the wind. The wind failed.
His brown overcoat wasn't very heavy. It just had that much material hiding in it. It wasn't heavy—but it hid plenty.
His chewing sticks, yes plural. The metal pipe. The cup of questionable material. His clothes that he carried all the way from that lost city-state. All of them were in his overcoat perfectly stuffed.
But his overcoat was his newest treasure he got. It was a bargain, he had just fanned a few people for two days straight, no matter what. The last bargain from that city-state.
The people he had to fan, made statements like—"oh, your eyes are being blessed but your body won't", or something more objectionable. But he didn't remember it much, he just liked the brown dirty overcoat and asked the one who had it where could he get it from or something similar in the city-state.
The wanderer's only memory of the brown overcoat's origin.
Just shy of two hours before noon, the wanderer made a stop to rest. He didn't see something that he could compare to the books he read on. None of it matched the terrains described in the survival books.
Just grassland. No giant boulders for shelter, no tinkling sounds of a stream, no forlorn, lonely tree. He sat at the edge of the dirt road, surrounded by one thing—sameness.
Stagnation in change of scenery elicited emotions humans never wish to remember. The wanderer was no exception.
Another memory, another split second jerk his body faced. The grassland was ashen. He jolted himself. Attempting to cast away the vile and vicious things he had seen.
The grassland's grass even after sitting down didn't reach above his ribs. So he sat straight, couldn't even fake his body into thinking he was leaning on something.
These were the outlands. A simple easy place where greenery could grow. But people, beasts, and cities? They needed to build their foundation.
A foundation whose materials they can't find anywhere in the outlands. It was never a question of luck, just of how this world functioned.
The wanderer remembered a quote, "you want foundation? Craft it yourself. The world never has one, never had one, and will never need one." The book the quote was from, it was the most slandered one.
The wanderer washed away the quote and stood up as it felt the morning had moved along. He had to stick to something after all, even if he just didn't want to move anymore. Indecisiveness plaguing him again.
The wanderer walked further, in the direction he learned to be opposite the "morning's horizon". Some may call it by a different word, or words.
It was outlandish. Not to him. But to his own past. Actions he had started, the plan he was on; it was outlandish, alien even.
A day passed. Night descended. Then another day passed followed by another night.
Twice his mind whispered through those days, one word—'Willfall'.
The wanderer retorted to the ever-present word, "go get yourself a new body!"
He still kept going. It was just two days without food. He didn't have to worry about water.
'Food? Who cares. But if that request conditions are met, hmm, maybe?' He consolidated his wondering heart.
Whenever he felt thirsty, he traced two imaginary small circles side by side, then tapped with two fingers in the direction above the middle point of them. And voila! He had water.
Not a lot, just enough.
This was the 'action of water' known all across this continent. The wanderer never learned the name of the continent but he knew this knowledge by heart.
Right before another day truly went away into the 'evening's horizon', he saw it. Much rather heard it. Tinkling of water. A stream was close by, he just had to hurry.
But most importantly, the wanderer remembered a detail from the previous town's town guild inner board. A warning and request of sorts.
The request was outlandish. The warning, hardly dire enough to be one of importance.
The request stated, "If anyone on the way to the capital of Kingdom of Riga hears or sees a stream of water, please kill as many swimbeasts as you could, and also boil the water of the streams. It's a humble request, and a warning to save the people from sickness. You can collect payment by bringing corpses or just the heads of the swimbeasts. Each swimbeast irrespective of their size will be compensated with 1 wheat Riga. -Signed and under orders of the monarch of Kingdom of Riga."
The wanderer was hungry. But he was also out of money, mostly.
So he hurried. Running on these outlands wildly away from the dirt road, towards the sounds of bumbling stream. Peculiar choice for zigzagging on a plain but the wanderer's reasons were sound. He knew the risks of the 'actions'.
He arrived at the stream. Jumping over a small pit, he landed right into the stream. The stream was just deep enough to reach the top of his boots without slipping inside it.
He jumped out of the stream. He looked in both directions of the stream. No signs of habitation—neither settlements nor camps.
The wanderer relaxed just a bit. A small sigh. Breathing in the air touched by the stream's freshness.
"That monarch!" Sharp exhale. "Can burn his rivers himself!" Another breath slid sharply out.
He wondered within still, 'why not put this task on the city of Cleaving? All streams and rivers anyhow end up there.'
He rolled up his sleeves to scavenge for a rock big enough, or several rocks. He found a few from the stream bed.
This was his weapon. He took out a rope he had hidden away in his brown overcoat.
Using the rope, a small patch of extra cloth, and a rock he could place in it, he made a sling.
The wanderer knew few ways to kill swimbeasts, but the sling was the only option he wanted to choose. Also he could turn it into a rope mace, or flail.
But what worried him the most was ironically, 'why was there a worldwide request to butcher as many as you could?'
Next part of the request required boiling the stream as much as you could. Not a problem, and the why is something no one will question.
The wanderer waited for the first swimbeast to appear in his sight as he kept swinging his sling to keep it ready. A small irregularity in the stream, and a rock was there blasting at it.
No matter the reason behind the hunt of the swimbeasts, he didn't want to do as it said. He was hungry, and the wanderer was catching his prey. For him, 'the decree can burn itself down. Did he even care for the—'
He missed a swimbeast, it swam backwards. "Aye! Come back!"
He slung another rock at the swimbeast. This time, he hit it. The swimbeasts were weird looking, but who was he to judge.
Another ripple in the stream—he shot at it.
The wanderer kept slinging away for half an hour. Killing about a dozen or so swimbeasts.
After he was done, he didn't have to worry about collecting the bodies. He had already placed a few rocks in the stream to make a temporary dam.
He added clumps of grass for support. The dam would have fallen if ten more swimbeast corpses were caught on it, ruining his chances.
Instead of camping by the banks there, he cut the heads, wrapped them carefully in grass, and moved on. He was going to follow along the stream downstream, away from the 'morning's horizon'.