2 First Quest Completed
He roamed through the streets for more than an hour.
He wanted to go to a restaurant, but he was sure they would beat him up if he made even a half-step into the restaurant.
He didn't fear the pain from the beating, but he feared death. After all, from what he witnessed till now, killing people on the street in broad daylight wasn't a big problem. Of course, if the one to die had a complicated background, there would be a problem. But if Nolan, a stinky beggar died, and the one who killed him was a little more influential, for example, he owned a restaurant, then no one would bother him or would care about the beggar who lost his life. In other words, in this world, the rich rule while the poor shiver in fear. The law of the jungle.
But Nolan didn't blame them if they wanted to kill him the moment he entered the restaurant. After all, he himself could barely stand his own smell, let alone the others. He just stank too badly.
Another reason why Nolan didn't enter the restaurant was that he didn't know If the three copper coins the jewelry salesman threw him would be enough to buy him a proper meal.
However, Nolan didn't despair. After all, how could he let a hungry stomach distract him? He still had many things to do.
…
As he walked mindlessly from street to street, he carefully thought of his next step.
In the end, he ended up with a list of things to do before the end of the day.
The first task on his list was completing the quest the system gave him. With this, not only could he get the reward, but he would also have enough money for a meal. His second task was finding clean clothes, and the third was to bathe.
He had already planned where to take a bath, in the river.
According to his theory, this city probably had a population of over a million. And to protect such a city, there must be large walls surrounding it.
Though he had still not seen the walls, he was almost ninety percent sure. And a city of this scale must be built near water sources, which means there must be a river passing through the city.
Nolan roamed the streets for another half-hour before finally stopping in front of a stall selling clothes. "This is it." He muttered as he walked closer to the owner of the stall.
The owner of the stall looked to be at most in his late forties. He had short dark hair and wore casual European clothes. He also had a measurement tape hanging down his neck, indicating his profession.
The tailor noticed the beggar walking towards him and immediately grabbed the broom next to the stall.
'Fu.ck!' Nolan cursed in his heart. 'Why does everyone have a fuc.king broom?'
Puff!
Nolan fell on his knees two to three meters(6.5-9.8 feet) before the stall. "Good sir, you are a great person! I beg you. Please give me some old clothes you don't need. The heavens will bless you with immense wealth."
The tailor glanced all around himself. His blood boiled when he saw potential customers avoiding his stall because of the stinky beggar. "Get away from here before I beat you to death!" He roared angrily.
A slight, unnoticeable smile spread across Nolan's face as he saw the salesman become anxious. "Perfect." He muttered in a low voice.
He knew how much he stank and planned to use this to his advantage.
He planned to make the tailor lose customers so he would have no choice but to give him clothes to get him to leave. Of course, this plan had a fatal flaw. There was a chance that the tailor would give him nothing and would just beat him away.
In other words, Nolan was betting. Betting on whether his smell was enough to stop the tailor from getting too close to him or not.
"Sir, please! It might not mean much to you, but you will save my life!" Nolan continued begging. He had gone as far as to hit his forehead on the ground.
Standing under the sun, the tailor started sweating. It was not that hot of a day. After all, it was the middle of Fall. He started sweating because the stinking smell of the beggar fully reached his nose.
The beggar stank so much he felt he could vomit at any moment.
He couldn't even hit the beggar. After all, it stank badly from a few meters away. He didn't even want to imagine, let alone experience, how badly it stank when close to the beggar.
Soon, tears filled the tailor's eyes. One because of the unbearable smell and two because everyone kept a distance of at least twenty meters (65 feet) away from his stall.
"I wish the new emperor Rowan exterminated you all! You are all useless. Including him. It's already the second year of Wan, and he has done nothing!" The tailor screamed in tears as he took the closest cloth at hand with his free hand and threw the cloth at Nolan. His heart ached when he saw that he threw his most valuable cloth, but still, it was a small price to pay If he could get the beggar to leave. "Take it and get lost! GET LOST!!" He screamed from the bottom of his lungs as he threw the broom in the other hand at Nolan.
Nolan guarded against the broom. "I'll take it." He said with a faint smile as he quickly picked up the cloth, stood up, and ran away with all his might.
…
"Haa!" Nolan exhaled. He stopped running after stepping into another street.
He rested for a while to catch his breath and then continued walking normally as he examined the clothes.
"I am really lucky." He muttered. "Though I don't know much about clothes, I can still tell that this is made of silk. Such a beautiful black silk hanfu. I hit the jackpot this time."
"The power of stinking is truly invincible." He giggled.
A/N: hanfu- Traditional Chinese clothes.
He couldn't help but notice that this street didn't have as many people as the other. Also, at the beginning of the street, there were many stalls, but as he walked deeper into the street, the stalls set on the sides of the street were fewer and fewer.
He also noticed many people distancing themselves from him. But he couldn't blame them. After all, set aside the terrible smell coming from him, he looked terrifying. His black messy hair was so dirty that it had a brown color. And his shabby clothes, If you could call them that, looked like a dirty old bag hanging on a stick.
However, he couldn't care less about the people's behavior. He just walked in one direction, hoping that soon a river would appear in the distance.
"Quest window." He muttered, and the bluish quest window instantly appeared before his eyes.
[Quest: The Beggar from Another World]
[Beg 10 times: 2/10]
[Gather information about the world: 1/1]
[Reward: Old Rusty Shovel, Exp15]
"Ohh?" Nolan exclaimed in shock. "When did I fulfilled the second requirement for the quest?"
As he walked, he started recalling the events that occurred since he transmigrated into this world.
"Aghhh!" He rubbed his head in frustration. "The only time I had contact with someone was when I begged. And they didn't say much, except curs…ing…me" Nolan stopped. He concentrated on remembering every detail the tailor cursed at him.
…
" I wish the new emperor Rowan exterminated you all! You are all useless. Including him! It's already the second year of Wan (Wan 2), and he has done nothing!"
…
"That's it!" Nolan exclaimed, slapping his forehead with his free hand, and resumed walking.
However, his expression turned serious. "The second year of Wan? This means they count the years from zero after every emperor ascends the throne. All in all, I'm in an Empire, and they count the years like the Ancient Chinese counted." Nolan mumbled to himself as he walked.
He continued walking for a long time.
"Finally!" He exclaimed as he noticed a river far in the distance.
He didn't lose time. He quickly threw a glance around himself. There were no stalls on the sides of the street.
He quickly walked to the right side of the street, sat, and leaned on the wall of one old building.
There was another building next to the building he leaned on, and between those two buildings was a little gap, just enough so Nolan could hide his new clothes.
He then stretched his hand in the front and opened his palm. "Please have mercy."
…
He monotonously repeated the same words for two hours. From time to time, someone would pity him and would throw two or three copper coins at him.
[Ding]
[Congratulations on completing the Quest: The Beggar from Another World]
[You received: Old Rusty Shovel, Exp15]
After two hours of begging, he finally completed his quest. He also noticed how useful his skill [Begging lv 1] was. If not, he would have begged far longer than two hours to complete the quest.
A smile spread across his face as the quest window with the completed quest appeared before his eyes. However, he didn't have time to be happy. His stomach growled like an angry beast.
He quickly took the new clothes from the gap between the buildings and headed towards the river.
It took him another half-hour to get there, and by the time he arrived, it was sunset. He didn't feel as hungry as before, but his stomach still let out a low roar from time to time.
However, it made him happy that around the river, there were no houses. Even the nearest house to the river was about fifty meters (164 feet), so he didn't have to worry much that someone would see him bathing.
On the shore of the river stood a lonely tree with only dozens of yellow leaves on it.
He sat under the tree, on the dry crunchy leaves, admiring the scenery of the setting sun. From here, he could also see the high walls surrounding the city, which confirmed his theory to be a hundred percent correct.
In fact, he didn't enjoy the scenery. Though the houses were far away, he still didn't want to strip naked in broad daylight, so he decided to wait till the night fell.
…
The night fell quickly, so he took off his clothes and entered the water.
He cleaned his body for almost half-hour. And by the time he finished, he was freezing. But still, he didn't get out of the water immediately. Instead, he stood in the river with his lower body underwater.
He looked up at the sky. The moon shone brightly in the clear sky, surrounded by thousands of stars. The moon took his breath. He had never seen such a beautiful moon on Earth. Or did the city lights and noises destroy the beauty of the moon?
He couldn't get an answer to that question, so he just lowered his head.
He looked at his reflection in the water. Though blurry, he could still see his features.
"Not bad!" He exclaimed in shock as he passed with his fingers through his wet hair. He then proceeded to make various poses. "Hahaha! I'm handsome!"
Though he admired his handsomeness, he was still freezing in the water, so he got out of the water and headed under the tree where he left his new clothes.
He squeezed the water out of his hair and broke a branch from the tree, tying his hair using the branch as a hairpin.
He then took his clothes and tried putting them on, but he realized a problem, he didn't know how to wear them.
"How should I wear this?" He tried and tried, and only after many tries and failures and a half-hour later he finally figured out how to wear the hanfu
Dressed in the black hanfu with his black hair and handsome face, no one could say he was the stinky beggar from before.
Not even Nolan himself could believe that was him, let alone others.
Before heading towards the street, Nolan took his old clothes, washed them in the river, and then hung them on a tree branch to dry.
The oil laps in the city lit long ago. The moonlight lighted his way toward the busy street, and Nolan was ready to experience the nightlife of this street with only thirty copper coins in his sleeve.
