It didn’t take long for them to get me loaded, and I was well on my way outside of the city. Betsy and I had already navigated our way back to the Royal Road, and I looked back into my wagon. I smiled seeing my little living area and then past that was the cargo. The extra long bed wasn’t too full, a regular sized wagon could have been able to take the few crates the man was moving.
“Betsy,” I called out to the ox, who gave a soft bellow in response. “It looks like it might be alright for us here.”
Another soft bellow, and she nodded her gigantic head. I took that as agreement as much as anything. A solid nod instead of the faint impression I got from her sometimes was better. Now that I thought of it, it seemed she only did that when she was annoyed with me.
“Betsy?”
Another bellow.
“Do you like being an ox instead of…” but I trailed off. Who knew if someone was listening and it was such an odd question?
Betsy stopped the carriage now and looked back at me with a side glance. That imprint came back in my mind, and I saw Betsy there. She was still just an ox, but when she did this, she had more control over her body. It almost made her seem more human. It was faint, but I saw her shoulders shrug.
I blinked, and then I heard a bellow, and the cart was moving again. I nodded my head and sighed. “Yeah. It’d be nice to go home, but…” I trailed off again and shrugged myself.
“Mrr…”
After that we didn’t talk for a while. We just rode along in silence and I watched the countryside. Let me tell you, having a spirit beast with an innate knowledge of things was awesome. It meant I didn’t really have to do much.
Wait, if I’m not doing anything, does that mean Betsy is actually the transporter…?
I stopped myself. That’s not a rabbit hole I was ready to go down. I did almost hear Betsy give a little chuckle. It wasn’t the mental impression she did sometimes. It was more of a soft repeated snorts from her nose. I stared at the back of her head. Oxen couldn’t laugh, right? I must have imagined it. I shook my head and looked up at the sky.
At some point during the day, I had eaten the rest of my snacks from the bakery this morning and I had fed Betsy the rice crackers. She bellowed happily since she had something other than grass to graze on and I promised to get her more different kinds of food.
“Probably tastes better than diesel and def, huh?”
She exhaled loudly and shook her head and I once more got the imprint of her rolling her eyes at me. I smirked and leaned back into my seat to relax, and we were off. We rode until the sky turned a brilliant shade of pink and purple and I had Betsy pull into a clearing just off the road.
Our impromptu rest area was just off the Royal Road, and the roads were pretty empty since it was so late in the day. We parked far enough away so no one would bother us while we rested and we couldn’t have possibly been in anyone’s way that was traveling.
“Will you be alright with eating what’s here for dinner? When we get to the capital, I’ll work on getting…”
What do oxen eat? “... hay?” I asked, unsure.
She just bellowed and then nodded her head as I climbed down and untied her from the yoke. When I had Betsy settled away from the wagon and near a patch of grass that looked delectable, I climbed back up and in and lamented.
I needed some sort of cloth or a divider to close my bunk away from the outside and give myself some privacy. If I were to strip down, people might see me hanging brain, and well… that just wouldn’t do. So I just took off my outer robes and made do wearing the bit of fabric that wrapped around my body that was the inner robe. Maybe I should have saved my t-shirt from my original clothes, but they were all thrown away.
While I was in my bed eating some dried rations and looking over the path manual for ‘The Wandering Dragon,’ I lamented on not having a wind core like the old skeleton kami talked about in my dream. The path manuals had everything in them, from cultivation techniques to various weapon stances. It was awesome and kind of scary how coming in transformed my audiobooks into manuals compatible with this world.
I wasn’t even sure I had an element in my core? I did like the books always said and closed my eyes and tried to imagine my… I stopped and blinked. Did they use qi in this world like in the old xianxia stories or something else? Either way, I couldn’t get any sort of idea of what sort of power I had. I just knew I was a cultivator because everyone else told me I was.
Betsy, however, I knew was lightning orientated. I felt that through the bond we shared. She gave a loud, annoyed bellow when she felt me reach out and sense her spirit through our link. The energy I felt from her was deep blue with red undercurrents that matched the lightning that blasted me in my truck and sent me to the world.
As I looked through that one and a few others, I noticed that cultivation was sort of like how it was in classic xianxia stories. Except you grew channels and your core right away when you really became a cultivator. That skeleton kami guy seemed to know about my core and what my element was. Kinda wish he told me.
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I shook my head and huffed and felt my stomach. There was power in there, I knew there was. What I didn’t know was how to access it or what element it was. I sighed. I suppose I would need to find a master of some sort.
Eh, joining a sect or whatever would make it hard to transport, I thought.
Wouldn’t they want me to stay at the sect all the time, anyway? No, I’d have to just keep reading these books. When I put ‘The Wandering Dragon’ down, I reached and picked up ‘Twin Stars.’ This manual was much like the others in that it was just pieces of paper bound tightly with string and had hard covers made of some material I couldn’t name.
The ‘Wandering Dragon’ manual on the cover had the silhouette of a lone figure with a sword and a dragon coiled around above him in the sky. The ‘Twin Stars’ just looked like the name. It had a design of a red and black sphere next to one that was a deep blue white. They overlapped a little, so the silhouette almost looked like a figure eight.
Before I really got to reading it, I heard some voices muttering outside. I couldn’t really make out what they said, but Betsy gave a low bellow. Frowning, I surveyed my small living space, wishing I had a weapon. I figured I would try to get out of this with my winning personality.
“Hey guys, what’s going on?” I called as I leaned over the bench so I could see outside. I found three guys and one woman looking around my little area. One guy was near my wagon and the other three were looking around the perimeter of the little clearing I had parked at.
They all looked haggard and worn. The one in the best shape was the one I was looking at, since he was closest to the wagon. He was a little thicker, with more of a belly than the other three, from what I could tell. A rather unfortunate birthmark covered his left cheek. He was also the only one wearing a robe of some kind. The others just seemed to wear shirts and slacks.
When I climbed over the bench to sit on it, I saw the woman go over and stand with Birthmark while the other two stayed on the opposite side. Classic pincer move. I just smiled and gave them all a wave as I looked between the two pairs.
“What can I do for ya? I have little to eat besides some plain traveling rations,” I offered easily.
“We want the money you have,” Birthmark said with a sneer. “Then we’ll go and you won’t have any problems.”
“Umm,” I look around at the group and see one of the ones to my right, opposite Lady and Birthmark, go to inspect the back of the wagon. “Sorry, man, I can’t just give you my cash.”
“He’s got some crates back here with stamps for that fancy teahouse in Yoshino,” I heard a gruff voice yell out.
Birthmark’s sneer only grows, and he looks at me. “Well, the money and the cargo or you’ll end up having an awful night.”
I reached for the coin pouch at my belt when Betsy gave a mighty bellow and then I heard hooves beat into the dirt. Before I could look over at the last guy on the right, I heard a loud grunt and a bloody yell. My eyes grew wide when I saw Betsy gore the guy with one of her horns.
“What the hell!” The one that moved behind the wagon yelled.
“Get the ox!” Birthmark yelled out and reached for a knife on his belt.
I don’t really have time to look at the aftermath, and frankly, from what I saw, I didn’t want to. Betsy turned the man that was standing there into a bloody mess when she rammed him with her horn. She didn’t launch the body in the air with her charge, instead she launched him into the ground. Blood flooded the patch of grass where the limp body lay, its limbs splayed at odd angles.
The other three moved towards Betsy and I jumped down from the bench, unsure what to do. All three had blades in their hands now. Not big elegant swords like you’d expect to see in a Japanese themed Fantasyland. Instead, they looked like worn pirate swords. All of them had a slight curve, were chipped, and showed neglect.
She had her hooves dug into the dirt and she breathed out of her nose so hard I could see the air. She lowered her head and right when the female leaned in with a stab from her sword, Betsy maneuvered away from the strike with a quick dash forward. The giant ox moved towards the fourth bandit I hadn’t given a name to yet. She brought her head from right to left towards Fourth and bashed him with a swipe. Yeah, Fourth seemed as good of a name as any.
The man went flying when she struck him with her horn. She didn’t gore him like she did the first guy, but this man went flying into the woods off to the side. I cringed when the body hit the tree with a loud crunching thump noise and figured he wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon.
When Birthmark advanced towards Betsy’s front, I pointed off towards the woods in front of him.
“Hey look!” I shouted and got his attention so he’d stop concentrating on Betsy
He stopped mid slash and looked off where I pointed with a loud confused “huh?!” Before he could realize there was nothing there, I balled up my fist and clobbered him as hard as I could in the chin.
Now, one thing you should know is I’ve never been in a fight. I rather liked my peaceful streak in life and always considered myself a kind of pacifist. Stay harmonious with the universe, and all that. I’ve never been trained or anything. I’ve always toyed with the idea of finding videos to learn Tai Chi, but life gets busy.
A loud cracking noise came from Birthmark’s face and I watched in what seemed like slow motion as his bottom jaw broke and swung around like a cartoon character. He cried out and landed in the grass, clutching his face while he looked up at me. The man laid there in the fetal position, unable to move from the pain of getting his jaw unhinged.
Me and Betsy turned and looked at the last female that stood there. She stared at us like a deer caught in headlights. She had her short sword at the ready, but she looked down at Birthmark.
“God dammit, Ishikawa, why do we ever listen to you? Got us trying to rob cultivators,” she spat towards him before she narrowed her eyes back at me and the ox.
I stood in what I assumed looked like a fighting stance. Fists at the ready feeling a little like Jet Li after that punch to Birthmark, or, well… Ishikawa, I guess his name was.
She huffed, dropped the sword, and ran off into the woods and I relaxed. My hands dropped to my sides, and I looked over at Betsy. She returned my gaze with what I thought was… pride?
“Come on Betsy, let’s go find somewhere else. It’s early yet,” I groan and shake my head. “I don’t want to be here if any cops or something show up.”
Betsy huffed but nodded and moved towards the wagon. I didn’t comment on it, but I noticed she went a little out of her way to step on the man’s ankle. Not just step, but stomp her hoof down on the man. He cried out, and I sighed.
It only took a few minutes to get her back into her harness, and we traveled down the road once more.
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