Chapter Ten

Will was elated when he saw the dirt road, he suddenly lost all strength in his body as if all the exhaustion from the past month had finally caught up with him. He slid down on the ground for a while, but realized it wasn't completely safe so he got up and dragged his backpack back to the edge of the forest. He set up a small camp behind one of the larger trees so he had cover and started planning his next step.

The road stretched from one horizon to the other, it was following the edge of the forest. On the other side of the road, there were only plains as far as the eyes could see. The plan was to head as far south as possible without endangering his life. He figured out that because the days were getting longer and longer as spring turned into summer, so he could safely ȧssume he was pretty far north on this world's hemisphere. So the more south he could get, the easier it would be to survive winter. However if he went too far south, he would encounter more civilization or more wildlife. So Will had decided to try and find a middle ground, go as much south as he could without encountering too big of a settlement.

He spent almost an entire hour trying to figure out which direction of the road lead more south than the other. Once he figured that out he decided on the direction. Now he would rest until evening and then start his travels. Twilight and darkness were his best chances to not encountering random travelers, and since it was close to the road, predators from the forest would most likely keep away.

Will woke up from his nap at sunset, packed up his small camp, erasing any tracks or clues of him ever being there. He walked the whole night alongside the road, he had to stop himself from humming because he was in a great mood and didn't want it compromising his location. He took in all the new smells and sights from this new environment. Even the sounds were different, much more quieter. He could see all the stars clearly, smell the grass and dirt from the plains, and hear small critters from the edge of the forest.

Once dawn approached Will widened his eyes as he saw a light in the horizon. It wasn't a natural light, it flickered and moved. Will jumped into the forest trying to hide, forgetting that his eyesight was much better than a humans. He would probably see them before they saw him, even with a torch. Will peeked out from behind a tree and observed the flame, to his surprise, it wasn't a torch. It was a lantern hanging on a post. There wasn't only one, there were multiple ones, as if marking a border.

Will moved closer while staying at the edge of the forest. He started getting a better picture of what was in front of him. It was a village, not a big one, and it wasn't fenced. However, he could see some guards patrolling alongside the 'border' posts. They weren't heavily armed either, at most some leather helmets and arm guard. Nothing covering their ċhėsts or legs, they all carried short swords though, some even had bows.

Will observed them until it was fully morning, and saw the guards changing shifts with some new guards. They didn't swap gear, which meant all the guards had their own gear, this meant it wasn't a poor village, but not an important one since it didn't have any fortifications like a wall or a fence. Will got even closer and started walking around the village, he wanted to ȧssess it more closely. He had to leave the forest to do so, so he left his backpack inside some protruding tree roots and marked the tree. He approached the outskirts of the village and walked slowly alongside the border, every time a guard would come in the vicinity, Will would duck down and hide in the somewhat tall grass.

The village had plenty of houses, or by Will's standards from his previous world, it was more like shacks and cottages. They looked sturdy enough, but nothing fancy. He could see that further inside the village there were some brick houses, and some were even painted. He ȧssumed those were the wealthier people in the town, however there weren't any obvious divisions between these houses and the rest of the village. Once he had done a complete round, he estimated that there were approximately two hundred and fifty houses in the village, which meant on average 600 people. Will's ȧssumption was based on the houses having two to three people in each house. He also took into account the big houses close to the center having more people.

The periphery of the village were all poor people based on their housing, or at least recently arrived immigrants. This made Will realize it made sense that there were no fortifications yet, the village was still growing. A lot of the wooden shacks near the border were quite new, there were no signs of weathering on them. [This settlement can't be more than five years old.] Will thought after doing the math in his head.

Will went back for his backpack and decided to rest until night again. He would sneak in during dark and do some more in depth reconnaissance. His plan moving forward was gathering knowledge and skills, and the only way to do this was to observe these Humans. Preferably without being noticed, he didn't want to be hunted down for just being a Goblin.