I woke up in my bunk and groaned when the sun hit my eyes. We had been on the road for a couple of days and I thanked my previous self that I had never been a long haul truck driver. This sucked. At least up to this point here in Japanese Fantasy Land, all my stuff had been short, simple trips. I scratched at myself with one hand and rubbed my eyes with the other as I tried to put everything together. Where we were, which direction I was facing, all that sort of stuff.

  While I was trying to work through the brain fog, I smelled something roasting. Then I heard Betsy give a content bellow. I sat up on my knees to look over my driver’s bench at what the hell was going on and found myself in a medieval rest area that was completely packed. Not only were there wagons and various people milling about, there were also some food stalls.

  I kneeled and peeked over and found someone roasting what smelled like coffee beans right next to my cart. When I parked here, it was relatively empty and when I looked at the sun I was surprised how high it was. I must have been tired. I couldn’t remember the last time I was actually awake before the sunrise.

  I grabbed my outer robe and slid it on, trying to fix myself before I crawled over and sat on the bench. I sat there and shielded my eyes and Betsy was eating from the hay bale I set out for her the night before. Apparently autumn came fast here, because there was a definite chill in the air compared to the previous days. It wasn’t cold, but I could feel the changing of the seasons coming and, lord, it was going to be nice.

  “Aye, sir! You want to buy some coffee?” It was a younger guy, probably in his twenties, with spiked hair and a show stopping smile.

  An old, hunched woman, clothed in muted colors and mostly covering her head, stood behind him. She was operating a coffee roaster and what looked like a coffee press on a cart with two large wheels.

  “So, how about it?” The guy stepped closer to my wagon and stared hard at me. “Only one dou.”

  I sighed. I was never much of a coffee drinker, but right now, I would take about anything to help get rid of the brain fog I was in the middle of. Digging into my robes to find the coins I kept on my person. I had done alright when I first got here moving stuff around and most of that money was locked away.

  “The silver one with the hole in it,” the kid said and pointed at the coins in my hand.

  I squinted and then looked at the ones in my hand. “I thought the one without the hole was worth the least?”

  His eyes almost bugged out of his head. “No, no, Mr Cultivator. That’s worth twenty of the silver ones without the hole.”

  Now my eyes almost bugged out. Didn’t I give one of those to the guy for my lunch yesterday? I squinted and looked at him. “You sure?”

  He looked at me like I had three heads. “Sir Cultivator, you’re not from here, right? I think I’d know the money the empire uses and how much it’s all worth.”

  I blinked and shrugged. That made sense, so I handed him a coin. “Do you have cream and sugar?”

  “No need for this stuff, sir. This will taste like the Heavenly mana you all seem to want so badly, huh?” He grinned and took the coin and gave me a little bow with the coin cupped in his hand. I watched him turn and the old woman already had a small wooden cup of coffee ready for him. He gave her the coin, and she put it somewhere below the cart top.

  I held out my hand and took the cup from him and thanked him. He gave me another bow and then walked off with the old woman pushing the cart and following behind him. “Don’t drink that stuff too quickly. It’ll put hair on your chest!” he called as they walked away.

  I looked down at the liquid in my cup. Liquid might have been too generous a term for the stuff he sold me. It was as thick as mud and when I looked up to see the backs of the people who sold me this stuff they were already gone. All I saw was Betsy staring at me expectantly.

  I frowned at her and then shrugged and took a cautious sip. The liquid was so thick I could almost chew it, but it did indeed taste like a gift from the gods. Or kami? Whatever they called them here, maybe both. It was a little bitter, but beyond that I tasted a smoky chocolate flavor to it that was bold and seemed to hug me from the inside and warm me to my core, to the tips of my fingers and toes.

  I gaped and looked back up and tried to spot the duo. The kid was indeed correct. I think I could feel the hair growing on my chest as I sat here. Or, well, more hair. I looked down in my robes at my chest hair. After I shook the thought away, I looked back at Betsy and took another sip of the delicious mud.

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  “Alright girl, let’s get you harnessed in and get on the road,” I said and put my cup down before I climbed down from the driver’s bench.

  Before I did that, I lifted the hay bale over my shoulder and carried it to the back of the wagon and threw it in. I knew Betsy would rather have a few more minutes of freedom than be shackled in and wait for me to put away the hay.

  “Hey, you threw that like it was nothing!”

  I grinned and looked at the kid, who stopped playing their game with a group of other children. I just kinda gave him the finger guns and winked. “Make sure you eat your veggies, kids!”

  They just looked at me, confused, and I laughed and shrugged as I walked around to the front of the wagon. Betsy was staring at me and I thought she might have been frowning.

  “Yeah I know, girl. We’ll try to take a couple of days off when we get down there. We definitely aren’t used to doing anything this long. Maybe we could try to find some pills to help recharge your core? Then you could just zoom us there in no time,” I wondered out loud as I looked at her.

  She gave a bellow and nodded her big at me.

  “Alright then, next town we see we’ll see if we can find a shop. I wonder how much they’ll be?” I asked no one in particular since I knew Betsy wouldn’t know.

  She gave me the impression of her shrugging and then walked around and into the wooden poles that held her attached to the wagon. I clasped her all in and then patted her head. “Are you feeling good?”

  Another bellow and another shrug.

  I rubbed her head softly and nodded. “Yeah, I know. I think we’re almost there?”

  Truth be told, I didn’t think we were. I knew we had to pass some mountains and get off the Royal Road. I was pretty sure we were close to that point, but I wasn’t entirely too confident about when that would be. Once she was locked in, I hopped up to my driver’s bench, took a seat, and then fished for my map.

  I left the actual driving to her. Betsy knew what she was doing and was the best version of cruise control I could ever hope for. It took her a few minutes to navigate through all the people and different carts who were also just getting going for the day, but eventually we were back out on the Royal Road.

  I leaned back and put my feet up as I dragged my finger along the line on the map that represented the highway that connected all the regions. It started to get really serious when I reached for a pencil and started drawing a line on the map.

  “So, I think if that rest area was this one right here, we should be pretty close to where we need to follow the side roads. Either that, or we passed it and Norimoro and Amber are well past us and down where we want to be already. Maybe they died from some of those goblins she was talking about,” I said with a sigh and looked up and around.

  “Have you seen a sort of skinny squiggly tree?” I ask Betsy.

  She just shook her head and I could swear I actually heard her sigh.

  I frowned and looked back at my map. “We’re looking for Sanroku. When we get to that town, we’re going to go off the Royal Road.”

  It turned out the rest area we slept at was only a few miles outside of the next town and while I was staring at the map Betsy pulled me through a small village that had a little welcome sign that said:

  “Welcome to the Base of the Sanmyaku Mountains,

  Sanroku. We hope you enjoy your stay.”

  I was chewing on the end of my pencil, thankful they didn’t have eraser caps here, not paying any attention to what was happening. Betsy had it. She was a good girl. I didn’t even bother looking up until the road got so rough I nearly bounced out of my seat.

  “Betsy watch…” I looked up from the map and looked around and saw that we were climbing up a mountain.

  I grinned and looked behind me and saw the little town we had passed through. There was an ominous sign that read that they’d have food and supplies ready when travelers got back.

  “That’s odd,” I said and then thought about it. Maybe not, since you’d probably want to go this way to avoid bandits on the way back north?

  I shrugged and pushed the sign from my mind and called up to Betsy. “Good girl, I clearly don’t pay you enough.”

  It was hard to make out, but the look of pure incredulity I got in my mind was hard to miss the meaning of. I chuckled and shrugged. “Come on, I take care of you, don’t I?”

  An exasperated sigh and she bellowed.

  “If you can push it, there’s a town at the top of the mountain where we might be able to get you some of those recharge pills. Don’t like, completely burn yourself though,” I called up to Betsy.

  Then just like she flipped a switch, Betsy kicked on the overdrive and we were bucking up the mountain. I had to hold on to the driver’s bench, so I didn’t get thrown off. You’d have thought considering this was a known pass, someone would take care of it. I guessed no one really wanted to spend the money, and I was riding through a mountain pass that the two regions contested over.

  “So, just no one takes care of it. Makes perfect sense,” I said out loud and raised my fist in mock anger.

  The thing I didn’t notice at the time was the eyes that were watching me from behind cliffs and from little holes in the mountains. I just rode obliviously and razzed Betsy as she pulled us up the mountain as fast as she could. The only thing I was really worried about was possibly breaking a wheel on one of these bumps.

  I grabbed the armrest of the wagon and looked back at the wheels on each side and shrugged. They seemed fine, and the bumps I guess were worse than they seemed since this thing didn’t have shocks or the air ride suspension I was used to. Maybe if I had paid more attention to everything around me and not just me, I would have noticed the things running around behind rocks and ledges waiting.

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