Into the forest

Cyril finished his meal, fulfilled his promise by taking a leak through the second-floor window, and went downstairs. The bartender was tending bar again, making some calculations in a battered book.

- Thanks for breakfast, boss, - Cyril said, taking a high stool. - By the way, you haven't introduced yourself.

- Dyck, - the bartender said grimly, frowning at the ledger. - We have a month to settle our debts. Otherwise, will have to close the tavern.

- Dyck? Is that your name? - Cyril asked, and smiled. - Well, then, we have kirdyk.

- What does it mean? - the bartender raised an eyebrow, looking up from his book.

"Fuck, this is stupid, man," Cyril said to himself, but he couldn't stop.

- In my native language, it means fuck up, - he shrugged. - Collapse, bad, over. Kirdyk. Understand?

- Are you stupid? - Dyck asked quite seriously. - I don't want it to be over, Cyril. You promised, as you said, to pimp this place up. Please take the matter more seriously.

- All right, all right, - Cyril said, holding up his hand to indicate that he was giving up. - It's just your booze that makes me feel really good.

- I'm very glad, - said Dyck. - I guess, Freya's glad too. If you offend my sister, I will personally cut off your balls and make you eat them.

- So she's your sister, - Cyril said.

"Anyway, there is no shit you can make to me, friend," he added to himself. "I can't be harmed by metal."

- Ok, down to business, - Cyril slapped on the rack. - First, we need to do something about the toilet. It stinks. No decent guest will come in here again once they've inhaled that stench. Further. I'll look into the baths, find out how they work, whether you have running water, or you piss in pots, and we'll arrange for you to have a bath here for your guests. I want the king himself to come into this place and put his golden ass down here. After that, let's go to the menu. Freya should smile more often. However, I've already arranged this. What else…

Cyril thought for a moment. He was in an unfamiliar city, in an unfamiliar country, and probably in a strange world or another time. There was so much to find out, to understand, to recognize, but most importantly, to comprehend how he got here, and why he couldn't die.

He could remember losing his family a week ago. At first he didn't believe it, refused to believe it, then the tragedy was confirmed. He couldn't find a place, called somewhere, tried to go to the crash site, but, of course, no one would let him. Representatives of the airline asked to wait and expressed their condolences.

"What the fucking condolences? What the fucking wait? My wife is dead, my boy died! I can't wait, I can't live without them!"

His screams went unanswered. Cyril started drinking and drank a lot.

"I even withdrew our last money from my account, I think I lost it in some casino."

Then he did go. On the third day of the binge, his mind went blank, and he didn't know what he was doing. Got on a motorcycle... "Where did it come from, this bike?" ...flew along the highway. No, he definitely didn't crash on a road.

"I remember staying in a city. Got a room? Fuck knows, it's all a blur."

Two days seemed to fade from memory. Then Cyril could remember himself already here, in this strange place where there were no glass dishes, but he could continue drinking. Where did the local coins come from into his pants pocket? "Can't remember." Why does he understand the local language and writing? "Fuck knows."

"And what the hell is going on with my body!?"

- Okay, - Cyril said, coming back to reality. - How advanced is the technology here? I saw a musket yesterday, before that I jumped under a cart wheels. Do you have phones? Printing? Radio?

"I'm a dreamer."

- Internal combustion engines? Steam engines?

Cyril continued to go over the technological advances at random, but the bartender only raised and lowered his eyebrow, making it clear that he didn't even understand the meaning of these words. However, printing was already invented here, but it only used in noble houses.

- I see, - Cyril said, and got up from the high chair. - I gotta go to the woods to collect some herbs, I'll be back in the evening.

- Into the woods? - the bartender was surprised. - It's dangerous.

- Well, you don't feed me for free, - Cyril retorted. - By the way, gimme a basket.

The bartender disappeared into the kitchen, made a noise, and soon came out with a large basket and a knife sized of a palm.

- You weren't going to pick your herbs with your bare hands, were you? - the bartender asked, handing over the basket.

- Fuck, boss. I'm not a professional, - Cyril shook his head and pushed the double doors to go outside.

The street was flooded with bright sunshine. A few pedestrians scurried along the sidewalk, and the cobblestones were broken by the wheels of even rarer carts. The horses hooves clicked, leaving a horse shit behind. Cyril followed Freya's route and looked at the passers-by and the carts. They looked very much like the medieval Europe in his son's history book.

Soon, he reached a crossroad, saw a sign on the corner with the name of the street of Gray Letters and turned in the direction of the forest.

"What a stupid name for a street," Cyril thought. "However, everything is strange here. Alchemist himself is worth a lot. Heck, that's fun when you think about it. Maybe there's magic here, too. No, these are fairy tales. I'm probably in the past, if this isn't all one huge hoax."

The street ended as abruptly as Cyril had lost his family. He was just standing in front of a wall of green trees four or five stories high. Turning around, Cyril noticed that buildings in this city were at most three stories high. The method of construction resembled German houses with beams over panels, but no matter how Cyril tried to remember the name of such a construction, the word stubbornly eluded his memory.

"Well, it really doesn't matter," Cyril thought, and went into the wall of trees. "This trunks are so thick. How old are these trees?"

The trees grew so dense that it would have been difficult to fit three people between them. However, the alchemist said that demaned herbs grew in the depths of the forest, and there was nothing to do at the edge of woods.

- Make way, mighty Ents, daddy came for some weed, - Cyril joked, recalling the walking trees of Tolkien. - I hope you will be merciful enough to crush my mortal body. And if you don't, you're shameful faggots, and I'll get you my axe.

Cyril made his way further into the forest. The sun was barely breaking through the leaves, so his search for herbs was going to be difficult.

- I'll put my eye out, this dark is fucking overwhelming, - Cyril muttered.

It was getting pretty boring to go, and he didn't see the right herbs yet, and he just left the marks on bark of the trees, using his knife, so he could find a way back.

- Well, that's different, - he nodded with satisfaction, noting that trees here were growing much less frequently, and more light was coming in from above.

He kept moving until he saw one of the right flowers. Cyril bent down, pruned the flower by the root, as the alchemist had indicated in the reference book, and dropped it into the basket.

- I do the dumbest shit, - Cyril grumbled, getting up and stooping to cut more plants. - Where are the animals?

He looked around, but saw no animals.

- Hey, wolves! Bears, fuck, tigers and wild boars! Come out one at a time, it's boring without you.

The forest responded with a birds polyphony, and Cyril followed into a dense bush between the trees.