I write an Isekai about communist revolution until an anime is made out of it

On the Run

I slipped out of the glade as quietly as I had entered, finding a point where the border fence lined up with the wall of a building to slip back out, throwing my pack first the same way I had done going in. This time, the streets were scattered with light, and I pushed myself through the grimy alleyways until the densely-packed streets gave way for sporadically-settled fields which word of my fuck-up apparently had yet to reach.

Then it finally occurred to me that I had no idea where to go, other than simply "away".

Well, for now "away" seems good enough.

I ran, ran until my legs ached and my lungs screamed and the memory of the fitnessgram pacer test echoed between my ears and I could only walk through the branches and brambles until the night sky parted and the sun began to climb over the horizon.

Oh shit, you've really done it now, haven't you? So much for amassing an isekai harem, looks like all I can do now is keep my head fixed onto my shoulders until I find somewhere I can stay. About that, where should I even go? Definitely it would make sense to reach somewhere politically independent enough that whoever's in charge there won't have my ass for what I've just done, but where would that be? Well, wherever I was supposed to be headed was on the northern border, so just keep going north? It's not like I can go anywhere more specific; the sun rising in the east is all I have in terms of navigation.

That's exactly what I did, forcing north through farmer's forests and hillsides and untamed wilderness and across countless dirt roads towards what was hopefully safety. I stopped frequently to catch my breath, and guzzle down the canteen I had brought, and refill it at every stream I passed, and whenever the alien calls of one monster or another echoed through the woods I stopped and drew the tommygun and waited until it seemed clear to press on. Sometime around noon (12:47 according to the pocket watch I'd packed, but who's counting?), I planted myself on the still-standing stairs of some lonely ruin, relieved my shoulders of the backpack that had been gnawing into them for twelve hours, and took stock of my situation.

I had water, at least, and firepower, of course, but not much else. There were some snacks packed, which I began to inhale almost before I had sat down, but nothing to last more than a couple days. My best course of action would have to be selling my excess for things that I needed; I had brought a whole stash of basically-useless trinkets specifically to sell them for money I could use freely.

See? I'm not that stupid - I prepared to set myself up for carrying on without royal support, just ignore how I lost royal support in the first place.

On top of supplies, the most important thing to buy would have to be navigation; a map, or at the very least knowledge of where I could safely turn to, or anything at all would be greatly helpful. Of course, the main problem with that was finding a place that would sell it to me. For all I knew, that "penalty of death" Sylia told me about was only for Amlenian city, and I was already safe, but I couldn't exactly afford to risk walking into the nearest town and finding out. Hell, I didn't even know where the nearest town was.

Mainly just as a means of ignoring these new problems, I raised my head and began to take in the scenery. Having spent the past twelve hours staring at the ground, concentrated on nothing more than keeping myself upright, I had completely overlooked my surroundings. There was all manner of greenery, and some plants and trees which looked like they definitely didn't belong here, and some reptile eating dung way off in the distance, and what looked like a cross between a house-cat and a snapping turtle dug-in underneath some shrubbery and apparently very confident in its camouflage, and I could hear their shrieks before I saw what looked like "ratbirds" coasting over the canopy hunting for - whatever "ratbirds" eat, I guess. I've always been very much an indoor person, and to be perfectly honest all the dirt accumulating on me was driving me mad, but still the view was beautiful. "Beautiful", sure, and indifferently devouring itself for survival; "the jungle eats itself and lives forever" and all that junk. I was probably lucky I hadn't stepped on some poisonous flora, or an anthill, or been bitten by a snake, or whatever the hell else lurked around here, or - some bulky beast I was actually equipped to handle.

Speaking of which, this wasn't exactly primeval wilderness, was it? It held no shortage of sawdust around tree stumps, or plucked plants, or the occasional abandoned campfire, or sometimes even thatched-roof huts which people actually lived in that I took caution to avoid. There might have been some places out there left basically unsettled, but a lot of the "wilderness" around here was reserved as hunting grounds for the aristocracy, if I was interpreting what Slyia had mentioned that one time back in Morgenheim correctly. Well, not exactly "hunting grounds", more like - well, zones reserved for "farming experience points" is kind of demeaning put in those terms - practice ranges, I guess?

You know, that's a wonderful socio-biological analysis you have there, but wasn't I running for my life or something?

yeah, let's actually get back to that.