While traveling down the road, which fortunately did look like an actual road, as opposed to the dirt path I had managed to loose a few days before, I came across a farmer, whose cart had broken down. Clean break at the axle and it was obvious that he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. Now, being the good Samaritan I was, I stopped and asked if I could help. As it turned out, I could. I don’t think I mentioned this before, although it should have been apparent after the events in the last town, but I was not just more adept at fighting than I ever was, this body of mine was also a lot stronger than the dad bod I had back home. I put the broken off wheel on the back of the cart, picked up the cart at the axle and together with the farmer who was pulling it, we managed to get the cart back to his small homestead. I remember considering to ask him, why he didn’t use an ox or horse to pull his cart, but decided against it. After being bombarded with different animal names I had never heard of before, I didn’t want to out myself as completely clueless.
As it turned out, that wasn’t even necessary, because once we parked the cart, the farmer introduced me to his wife as ‘the friendly champion who helped him bring the broken down cart back’.

“Excuse me,” I asked, “but how do you know I’m a champion? I mean, just about everyone seems to know, but I don’t know how they know.”
The farmer raised an eyebrow and said, “Ah, you must be from that town where they pull the champions from the other worlds, aren’t you?”
I nodded in agreement, figuring that this kind of practice must be rather well known.
“I heard that the otherworld champions were all a bunch of douches, but it seems like I was wrong. Goes to show that you shouldn’t listen to hearsay,” the farmer proclaimed, while his wife brought a tablet with fresh bread and a few goblets crudely carved from wood and filled with milk.
Upon the sight, my stomach growled audibly and while I looked down in embarrassment, the farmer burst out into laughter, while his wife smiled mildly.

While eating, the friendly pair asked me all kinds of questions about the world where I came from and listened in awe, as I told them about cars that moved without horses, metal birds that soared through the sky and machines, that could do more calculations in a split second than a man in his entire lifetime.
As I told them about the family I was dragged away from, the woman asked, “You miss them, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I replied, staring off towards the distance to hide the tears swelling up in my eyes, “Yes, I do. I mean, I’m still hoping to wake up in my bed and laugh about getting so worked up in a dream, but it’s been weeks since I’ve come here now. I know that time works differently in a dream and that in reality, it could just have been mere minutes or even less having passed, but still...”
The woman smiled at me and said, “You know, if I were you, I would go back the way you came and tell that stupid jerk you pulled you away from your life and your family to take you back immediately.”

I laughed at the notion, but when I thought about it, the idea of just demanding to be sent back hadn’t crossed my mind until then. In the beginning, I of course thought it was just a dream and that I would wake up eventually, which is why I just rolled with the script, doing what was expected from me, but at that point? At that point I began wondering, if that was such a good idea. Still, it was a long way back there, I had no idea where that town was, where I was at that point and where I’d even get there. I couldn’t very well just backtrack either, even if I had that kind of sense of orientation, because of my little mishap with the river leading into the cave. And, due to my...’problematic’ departure from the last town, I couldn’t very well go back there either.
In the end, I stayed with the friendly pair for a week or two, tilling the fields, pulling out weeds and removing rocks, so the farmer could bring out the seeds. In exchange, I was given food, drink, shelter, a bit of local money and, maybe most important, information about the world they were living in and picked up some skills that would still prove to be useful down the road.

But, as it were, happiness like that never lasts. Nothing ever does. After a while, a bunch of armored guards came by the farm, looking for me. I saw them from afar and instinctively hid in the barn before they spotted me.
After they had left, the farmer called me to him and put the wanted poster on the table, asking, “They claimed, that some sort of ‘monster man’ demolished the hall of justice. Do you happen to know anything about this?”
I took a sharp and deep breath, looking back and forth between the farmer and his wife. There was a pang of fear in her eyes and worry in his. Not that I can blame in.
I exhaled and then explained, how that came to be, ending with the words, “But I swear to God, that I did not set the hall on fire. I just panicked and ran. Did...anyone get hurt?”
“I don’t know anything about that. Still, they must want you really bad, for them to come out all this way. I...I am afraid I cannot let you stay here any longer. If they come back and find you here, if they learn that we have shielded you…”
The farmer left the sentence incomplete, but I could imagine all too well what he meant to say. There was no way I could do this to them either. Not after all the kindness they had shown to me. And that is also the reason why I am not stating their names in this paper, nor where their farm is located. To this day, there are many who wish for my demise. If they were to learn who aided me, I dread what they might do to them in their blind fury.

After saying my goodbyes to the friendly farmers, who even shared a little care package for the way with me, I returned to the road towards the capital, hoping that by going there, I might find a way to return home. That day, my journey to glory had ended and my long way home had begun.