After a bit of walking, I found the sign for the Silver Moon. The logo had a crescent moon design. Fairly standard, all things considered. The building, which was made of brick and wood, looked like it stood three stories tall. It certainly seemed sturdy enough, at any rate.

I passed through the double-leaf doors. The room inside resembled a bar or dining hall with a large counter on the right. To the left, there were stairs leading upward.

“Welcome. Are you here for a meal, or is it a room you want?” The lady behind the counter called out to me. Her red hair was tied up in a ponytail and she looked quite lively. A woman in her early 20s, or so I guessed.

“Ah, I’d like to rent a room please. How much a night?”

“Two copper! Meals are included with the price. Oh, you’ll have to pay up front as well.”

Two copper coins...? I couldn’t tell if that was expensive or cheap. Logically it was at least cheaper than one gold coin, but I couldn’t guess how many copper made up one gold.

With no other option, I took one gold coin from my wallet and placed it on the counter.

“How many nights will this get me?”

“Whaddya mean, how many? Fifty, right?” She replied, clearly exasperated.

“Fifty?!”

I felt stung by the sudden look she gave me, which made me feel that she was basically saying “Hey, can’t you count?” or something. So then... one gold equals one-hundred copper. Ten gold could buy me five-hundred nights. I could live comfortably for around a year and a half without lifting a finger. Well, that meant I had a lot of money, didn’t it?

“Well? What’ll it be?”

“Err... one month’s lodging, please.”

“Alrighty! One month it is. I haven’t had many customers lately, so you’re kind of a life-saver right now. Haha, thank you. I’m out of silver coins though, so I’ll just give you the change in copper.”

The lady took my gold coin and returned forty copper to me. If she took sixty copper, then that meant one month was roughly thirty days in this world, too. Pretty close to the old world, then.

With that sorted, the lady brought out what appeared to be a hotel register from behind the counter. She opened it up in front of me, then handed me a feather pen.

“Okay, then. If you could just sign here, please.”

“Oh, excuse me... Thing is, I can’t actually write. Could you fill it in for me, please?”

“Really? Well, that’s fine. What’s your name?”

“It’s Mochizuki. Mochizuki Touya.”

“Mochizuki? That’s a pretty unusual name.”

“Ah, wait, no. My given name is Touya. Mochizuki is my surname... my er, family name.”

“Ooh, okay! Your given name and family name are reversed. Are you from Eashen?”

“Err... somewhere around those parts, sure.” I hadn’t the faintest clue where in the world Eashen was, but I couldn’t come up with anything better, so I left it at that. I resolved to look over my map later to see if I could find this Eashen place on it.

“Okay. Your room’s on the third floor, right at the end. It gets the best sunlight out of all of our rooms! Here’s your key, be sure not to lose it. The toilet and the bath are both on the first floor, and this room here is for dining. Speaking of which, will you be having lunch today?”

“Oh, please. I haven’t eaten since this morning...”

“I’ll whip up something real quick, then. You can use this time to go check out your room, maybe rest a bit.”

“Got it,” I said. I then took my room key, went upstairs to the third floor, and opened the door to my room. It was roughly the size of a six tatami room featuring a bed, desk, chair, and closet. I opened the window and looked down on the street. The view was really nice. Also, it was heartwarming watching children running around and playing below.

Invigorated, and in a surprisingly pleasant mood, I left my room and locked it shut. As I made my way back downstairs, I was greeted by a lovely smell.

“Here you go! Sorry for the wait.” I took a seat in the dining room and the lady carried my meal out to me. There was some soup, something resembling a sandwich, and a salad. The bread was a bit hard, but very good for the first loaf I tried in another world. Delicious, even. I devoured the entire thing.

After that, I gave some thought to my next course of action. I was going to be staying at the inn for a while, so I figured I should go get a feel for how things were around town.

“I’m heading off for a walk.”

“Alrighty! See you later, then.” After the innkeep, who told me her name was Micah, saw me off, I left to go explore the rest of town.

Being a town in another world, everything was unusual and fascinating. My wandering gaze made some people regard me with suspicion, and whenever I grew aware of that fact, it caused my gaze to wander even more. Carrying on like that would just put me in an endless loop... That was no good.

One thing that I did notice about the people in town was how many of them were carrying weapons around. Some had swords or axes, others had knives, and a few were even carrying whips. It struck me as somewhat dangerous, but I figured that was just how it was in this world. I made note to consider buying a weapon of my own.

“First things first, though. I need to start making money. I can’t very well live in this world without a source of income...”

Never would have thought I’d be job-hunting so soon. Honestly, it would’ve been nice if I had a specialty of some kind... Alas, my best subject in school was history, and the history of another world wasn’t exactly much help.

The only other thing that came to mind was music. Did this world even have pianos? Well, even if there were some around, it wasn’t like I was especially talented at it.

“Hmm?” Something suddenly caught my attention. Noises... Voices, even. Loud voices coming from one of the alleyways off from the main road. Sounded like an argument of some kind.

“...Guess I can check that out.” With that thought, I set off for the back alley.