The door to the cabin was wide open. The young man had kept it like that because he had wanted to get the monk’s body out of the cabin but before he was able to do so he got sidetracked thinking if the enemy wanted to find the monk who had retreated, they were going to follow that trail of blood and then the young man would be caught. The corpse has not produced any unpleasant odors yet, but it will eventually after the decomposition process starts getting into gear. Now he was considering whether it was safer to stay at the cabin or should he get out of there as quickly as he can? The young man had a horse now courtesy of the monk but where was he going to go? Calm down. The young man felt like he needed to keep it together and think for a bit.

The monk had died through loss of excessive blood from a wound which he got from a blade of some sort. The young man was still not entirely sure if they were dead, or exsanguination was truly the cause of death, but he was certain that the wound did not come from a bullet. The war that was happening was using mediaeval weapons for some reason and not modern artillery. Actually, the weapon could be later than the Middle Ages, the young man recalled that the Americans were still using swords during their civil war. Whatever danger that was going to happen will only occur if the young man got a bit too close to the battlefield. Even if there were archers, how far could it exactly reach? The young man thinks he should just help himself to the food on the dining table and make a decision at a later time.

The young man ate the food on the dining table as he stared at the blanketed monk lying in the corner of the room. If his dinner was not disturbed by their presence, he would have considered the meal to be delicious and gave compliments to the chef whoever they were, but his mind was too preoccupied thinking about the monk that he could not savor the taste of the food. The young man had taken off the monk’s body armor and covered them with a bedsheet he found in one of the drawers. It would be easier for him to carry out the monk without the armor as they would be a lot lighter. The young man had no idea if the armor they had worn was a muscle cuirass from late antiquity or an armor plate from the middle age and whether the material was from bronze, steel or iron. 

In the young man’s head, he was already thinking of selling it to a blacksmith if he met one later on hoping that it could be valuable. The price could be a bit on the low side as there were dents all over especially the helm. That particular part of the armor that the monk wore on his head was covered with blood the most and even the blankets surrounding him were not enough to soak all of it. The young man did not want to lose his appetite but there is really no helping that when there is a dead body in the room. All the drastic measures he took so that his eyes would not be morbidly observing the corpse was in vain since he was still imagining it in his head. The young man had thought of trying to get rid of him entirely from the room but then he discarded the idea when he considered that he was going to leave traces of blood all over. 

The young man supposed that the sight of blood everywhere would ruin his appetite even worse. He was never a heavy eater anyway, but he did still have to eat no matter how begrudgingly he did. The young man did not want the food to go to waste even if he was already which he was not anyway. He was not sure when or where his next meal was going to be. Even the meal he was currently consuming probably was not even meant for him, but he was eating it anyway since there was nobody else here to eat it with the monk being dead and all. The young man still waited a while until he noticed that he was beginning to starve when his hands were trembling while he covered up the monk. The young man had not eaten a proper meal since he got to this place that he did not know much about.

The young man woke up at the meadows then went to the woods. What was his last memory before he got here? Anyway, he should probably give the monk a proper send off since they did let him stay in this cabin of theirs. The young man may have no idea as to who they were, but he still felt obligated to do so but how exactly should he do that? Maybe a burial or cremation would do. The young man was not sure to choose between either of those two. Another option was to let him drift in the currents of the river, but the young man did not think he could carry him all by himself to the river. The young man just did not understand why the monk did not warn me. Sure, the monk could not speak his language, but they could have at least given me some sorts of heads up on the events that were to ensue. 

Now that the young man has had the time to give it a thorough thought of it, did the monk even mean for him to come to the cabin here? He realized now that the monk’s inability to say no was not an invitation for him. They had just finished meditating, got up then left the riverside. The young man just assumed he was going to lead him to either a monastery with other monks he lived with or a cave he resided alone. The young man did not expect him to be staying in a cabin alone. The monk did not stop him from following him, but they were not really welcoming him as he entered the cabin when he looked back at it again. They may also have pretended to not know his language so that the young man would not bother him but realized that plan of theirs if even that was their plan failed since he still followed them.

The young man was sure that they were not a native speaker of his language since the books in the cabin did not have any writings using his language. But that did not stop him from having suspicions that they could actually speak in it. Multiple bookshelves were filled with voluminous titles apart from the illustrated one that he had flipped over earlier in the day and none of them were written using Roman alphabets. The young man remembered about the camera he found in the meadows before. He made a mental note to take a few photos of the place before he would leave, including the distinctive scriptures that he was unfamiliar with. At least as a memento for him if not for more practical uses. Maybe the young man could use the pictures as references for other people in the woods here when he goes to meet and ask them about the monk.

Did the monk really not know the language here? How did he live in this country without knowing the language of the natives? The young man was actually impressed that they could pull that off. The monk maybe had a community that could speak their language and possibly was able to sustain themselves without even needing to deal with the natives that they never bothered to learn to speak the language though they were able to grasp enough words to express their inability to speak in it too. But then the young man remembered that he might not even be in his own county anymore. The young man shuddered. He truly hoped that that was not the case. He has also heard stories of people losing their identification documents abroad then living in the streets because they could not get back home. The young man needed to make sure he did not end up like those people. He needed to get back home.

The young man finished the food on his plate but there were still a lot of leftovers remaining. He placed a woven rattan dish cover on the food that was left. The food will get cold, but it would not hurt to keep them instead of just throwing it away. The young man then got up to take pictures of the place. It could be useful later. The young man did not know why he kept saying that to himself as if it was for sure to be true. It was as if he was trying to convince himself that and even, he did not believe in it. The young man had kept the cane he made when his legs were injured even though his legs were better now thinking that it would also be useful later. Maybe the young man should not be keeping unnecessary stuff with him just because he thought it was going to be useful when he did not have any basis for saying so and as for now, he really has no reason to keep the cane he had made. The young man added the walking cane to the burning fire which was currently beginning to dim but began sparking again. He then realized that might not have been a good idea. 

The young man did not want to attract attention but what the young man just did right there was the complete opposite of that. Making the fire brighter again was going to make people suspicious. The young man had planned to go meet other people, but he was not comfortable with the idea of anyone knowing his presence right now when he was not ready. But he also did not want to completely extinguish the fire since he was not going to be able to light it up again. The young man decided to just let the fire do its thing. He proceeded to take a thorough look throughout the monk’s cabin. The place was not really that spacious for him to search through but still he had not really seen much of it since most of his time was spent reading that children’s book about the selfless hero or rather looking at the illustrations earlier in the day. The young man still could not believe that he got lost in that book so much that he did not realize what had been happening around him. There were so many weird things happening to him all at once that he just could not make sense of it all.

The young man looked around the cabin for something noteworthy, maybe a flag of the country that the monk had really originated from. Though he did not find a flag, the young man found several maps. They were drawn on paper that were now brown as if coffee had been spilt on them and that could be the case though he suspected that it was due to the old age of the paper rather than the careless spillage of coffee. None of the atlases looked as if they were world maps or maybe they were just not drawn using the Mercator projection. Maybe the young man was going to find a treasure map that was lying around the place he has been spawned in then get sent on an adventure to find that said treasure. In the meantime, is the young man just going to be sitting there reading maps?