The wanderer walking away from the town, didn't pull his brown overcoat. He let it be tried to be fluttered by the wind. The wind failed.
His brown overcoat wasn't much heavy. It just had that much materials hiding in it.
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 it were in his overcoat perfectly stuffed.
But his overcoat was his newest treasure he got. It was a bargain, he just had to fan 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 to the brown overcoat's origin.
It is just shy of two hours before noon, that the wanderer made a stop to rest. He didn't see something that he could compare to the books he read on survival.
Just pure grassland. No giant boulders for shelter, no tinkling sounds of a stream or some forlorn and lonely tree. He sat down on the side of the dirt road.
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 who's 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.
He still kept going. It was just two days without food. He didn't had to worry about water.
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, but warning wasn't dire enough to be a warning. 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.
He arrived at the stream. Jumping over a small pit, he landed right into the stream. The stream's depth was just enough to touch the top of his boots without spilling inside it.
He jumped out of the stream. He looked in both directions of the stream. No sign of any human settlements or camps.
The wanderer relaxed just a bit. A small sigh. Breathing in the air touched by the stream's freshness.
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 hid 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 had a few ideas on how to kill swimbeasts, but a sling is the one he could choose the fastest. 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.
The wanderer kept slinging away for half an hour. Killing about a dozen or so swimbeasts.
After he was done, he didn't had to worry about collecting the bodies. He had already placed a few rocks in the stream to make a temporary dam in the stream.
He also added several of grasses as support. The dam would have fallen if ten more swimbeast corpses were caught on it, ruining his chances.
Rather than staying there and making camp for the night, he went on after cutting off the heads and wrapping them in grass. He was going to follow along this stream downstream, away from the 'morning's horizon'.