Sausage Fest
As Mikax began to wake up the following morning he refused to open his eyes. He was hoping beyond hope that the last day of his life was a terrible dream. He could no longer feel the effects of the alcohol, one of the many perks of his resistance. He used his other senses to determine if this was the room he knew from E2 or not. As he felt the bed and smelled the air a pit began forming in his stomach and his eyes began to sting.
Mikax had fought in a war, even if only briefly. He had struggled to keep his brother and himself in school and fed after his parents had passed. Mikax even had spent 25 years inside a game in extremely harsh conditions that included death and torture. Yet, right now he was struggling with his current situation.
This wasn't because he was afraid. He believed after his time in the King's court that nothing in this world could harm him. Even if something could, death didn't scare him, he had died countless gruesome and excruciatingly painful deaths already.
It was because he was alone.
All of the things that Mikax had done so far in his life had been with someone by his side. Almost always, that person was his brother Keanor. He didn't regret saving his brother, he knew that if the roles were switched Keanor would be the one in Bedel right now.
'Why did they have to target Keanor' Mikax sighed as he thought to himself. He focused on his breathing and calming himself down. The last thing he needed right now was to lose his cool.
'What were some ways that the guild had told me to calm down?' Mikax tried to recall the techniques that his friends in the guild had tried to pass on.
"I know there was something about counting," he said to himself as he sat up and adopted a similar pose he had seen others do to meditate.
'1 2 3 4 …50 51 52…100 101 102…' he had closed his eyes and counted in his head, however even after reaching almost 500 all he wanted to do was burn the world to the ground.
"Well, this is not working." Mikax finally broke the silence and stood up off the bed. "Wasn't there one about drinking water upside down?"
He produced a flask of water from his pouches and went to the corner. Before he committed and got upside down he instinctively looked around the room. He knew he was going to look ridiculous, he also knew no one was there but he did not want to take that chance.
After a few more seconds of double-checking, he adopted a 1 handed handstand with his feet against the two walls in the corner. Mikax began chugging the water from the flask as fast as he could. It might have been one of the oddest situations he had ever put himself into.
After about 30 seconds of this, he started to think about how foolish he looked. He started to smile, then he started to laugh as water poured over his face.
He pushed off the wall and let his feet come to the floor again. Still chuckling to himself he put his flask away and produced a towel. Although Mikax felt a lot better he was sure that whoever had told him that technique was just trying to see him make a fool of himself.
Now that Mikax wasn't in a murderous state he decided he could leave his room to find something for breakfast. After the previous day's nonsense once he arrived in Redgate he just wanted to relax so he hadn't learned anything about the town. Now that this was his new base of operations for the foreseeable future he should at least take a walk to see what it was like.
He made his way downstairs and was surprised to find the young man Onas was manning the front counter. When Mikax looked towards the bar area he saw a beautiful full-figured woman in her early to mid 30's helping the few customers that were still lingering. 'Finally, I can catch a break.' Mikax was getting disappointed that he hadn't had any main character run-ins yet. Usually within the first day, the harems foundation has already been started.
When he approached the bar the woman quickly greeted him, "I am Lyra. Are you the man Orion told me that will be staying for a while? He said you dressed in all black and had a secretive air about you."
Putting his hand on his neck and rubbing nervously Mikax awkwardly laughed, "Unless you have other strangers around like me then I'm probably the guy. I'm Mikax."
"Well, my husband and I are so happy to have you stay with us for the next year!" The woman was very cheerful and completely unaware of the emotional damage she had just done to Mikax's hopes and dreams. "He's in the kitchen right now so I'll let him know you are here and to get something cooking. What would you like to drink?"
"Mead please." Mikax hadn't intended to start drinking this early in the day but his mood had turned south abruptly. He was feeling less and less like the protagonist of his own life. His luck couldn't be this bad, could it?
Lyra exchanged a few more pleasantries with Mikax before disappearing into the back.
Mikax began mumbling to himself as he sat at the table. A heavy aura hung over his head as if a storm cloud decided to follow him. The other guests who had noticed him all tagged him mentally as 'crazy' or 'dangerous'.
Mikax was entirely unaware of the effect he was having. He had begun to throw an entire pity party for himself. It didn't matter to him who saw, in his mind the wolf didn't concern himself with the opinion of the sheep. Shortly after the party of one had begun, Lyra returned with the mead he had ordered.
Mikax's head picked up as he began to sniff the air. Excitement built inside of him as he noticed the smell of the mead this time was different. Not in a bad way at all, it smelled even better than the night before. Immediately he began to down the mug of mead without stopping. This action had left Lyra laughing at him.
"I heard you liked our homemade brand of mead so I brought out one of our special barrels just for you," Lyra covered her mouth with her hand as she said this to try not to be rude while giggling to herself.
"This is honestly the best drink I think I have ever had. May I have another? I promise to try and savor it this time." Mikax quickly said while bowing his head and holding out the mug to Lyra.
Lyra politely took the mug from Mikax saying, "For our best customer? Of course!" She then headed into the back again.
'Best customer? Why would she call me that I've only been here one night.' Mikax had not done the math when he checked in, he knew he overpaid but had never realized by how much.
100 copper equaled 1 silver and 100 silvers equaled your standard gold coin. Since the gold inside his coin was pure it could be said to be worth even more. However, even at the standard exchange rate he had paid for almost 1000 nights. If Mikax included the rate at which his bar tab was climbing it would be closer to 500. That still meant the Valedge Inn was in over a year's worth of debt to Mikax.
When Lyra had returned with his mead she brought with her a platter-sized plate of assorted foods. Most of these Mikax had seen before but there were some exceptions. Several different cooked vegetables were on the plate that he couldn't put his finger on, along with one food that resembled eggs but was light blue. They all were amazingly delicious though.
Mikax sat quietly as he ate everything on his plate. He hadn't eaten a meal this good since he was a kid. Even then it probably wasn't this amazing, it was probably just his brain enhancing a positive memory. Right now Mikax didn't care which it was, all he knew was that he was enjoying at least a small sliver of this new world.
After he had finished his meal and thanked Lyra and Onas, Mikax headed out to explore the town of Redgate.
As he came outside he tried to make note of all the surroundings. He wanted to be able to find his way back and having a few extra landmarks in mind wouldn't hurt. He could tell they were on the main road of the town. If he looked to the left of the Inn he could see the opening of a gate in the distance. Wondering if it happened to be red he decided he would start there for his stroll around town.
As he walked through the town he stopped to look at a few of the stalls that were open on the street. Not wanting to be put into the situation he was in yesterday he refrained from buying anything. He would have to figure out a better option for money since gold coins seemed to be rare around here.
Once he finally reached the gates he was once again disappointed. They were brown. Large brown wooden gates in a town called 'Redgate'. Now he needed to find the other main entrances to the town. One of them had to be red. He hated it when things were deceptive. Back on earth the Vikings had notoriously done something similar, he hated to admit it but it caused him a lot of trouble in school.
After an entire day of wandering the streets, he had found all 4 main entrances to the town. The Valedge Inn was on the southern end of the town on the road that would eventually lead you to the capital. The exits to the east and west would lead you towards other smaller outskirt towns similar to Redgate. The North used to lead to a border town however he had found out from one of the gates guardsmen that the town no longer existed after a demon raid about a month ago.
The only thing all of these entrances had in common was they were big and brown. He was beyond pissed about this. This wasn't the worst part of his day though. While wandering the streets he noticed that the male-to-female population of the town was abysmal. An almost 4 to 1 ratio. On Earth they had term for this.
'Sausage Fest'
The town of Redgate was exactly that. As he came from the west gate back towards the Valedge Inn Mikax was really questioning weather or not to stay in the town. A full year of almost all guys. He was beginning to think he was the antagonist of his own life.