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

A New Arrival

After five day's following sticks on the ground left by someone whose name I still didn't know, I rode across yet another inconspicuous hilltop, and was met with a bright plane of sea stretching out to the horizon. Before the ocean were the clustered rooftops of a thinly-walled city, engulfing the land around a semicircular bay. Outside the walls were sprawling slums so much visibly shittier than the interior that I could make it out from where I stood miles away, and after that was the farmlands that I would have expected to start as soon as the walls ended.

At that point, I saw no more arrows on the ground, so I figured this was where she was leading me. Could have just said so; did she not know either or something? Could that mean that the author of my existence was just "discovery writing" with no real plan?

Look I've lectured you (who is me) about this at least three hundred times, pondering this is useless since there's nothing I can really do to find out about it, let alone change it.

Well alright smart guy, what should I be internally rambling about instead?

How about that cat-lady who I know exists? Everything about her is violently suspicious; I really ought to find out who the hell she is. Now if only I had any idea how. Well, much like all that studying and homework which now seems less painful by the day, it can wait until it's too big of a problem to ignore. You'd think I'd know better by now, but -

eh.

As I drew closer and the roads became cluttered with more and more traffic of all kinds, the thought of being robbed emerged to the forefront of my thoughts for a few minutes. Fortunately, all I really had to do for that was pack my guns into saddlebags, and if anyone could get them out from there (or pull the revolver from my holster) then they honestly deserved to have it; if that assassin had put half as much effort into getting efficient weapons as he had put into saddle security, he'd probably have succeeded.

Upon reaching the edge of the slums those fears were confirmed; the labyrinth of crooked wooden and stone and mud shacks emanated with gloom, and their inhabitants were hardly better-off. On top of that, I overheard the first new language since my arrival; the individual dialects of "common" ebbed and flowed between every single village, but they were all at least recognizable - this was not.

After a brief tour of urban poverty, I made it to the walls - basically a giant ancient Greek column (considering the "real" ones were brightly colored before two thousand years of decay), if it was extended in the manner of the venerable "long egg". The top didn't even have railings, let alone battlements, and there was no gate to speak of - just an opening between two lengths of wall which the road passed through, staffed by guards who were too busy rummaging through the sacks and baskets on the backs of a group of what I now assumed was either an oppressed minority or refugees to even slow my trot past them.

I rode past increasingly well-dressed crowds to a wide square, and with no idea what to do next I defaulted to the RPG habit of selling off my loot in a building with a picture of scales hanging above the doorway.

Yes, I do have loot. Seems like a much bigger deal now that I've actually killed someone for it.

This particular building definitely looked like a "central market" of sorts,  towering over not just me but the rest of the square, beckoning a flow of people in through what I could only describe as inverted french doors. As in, each individual door has been turned backwards, so that instead of both sides meeting under the tip of a structurally-sound arch, there's a huge spike hanging over the doorway imposing enough to keep most of the passers-by from standing under it.

I hitched Honse outside among a zoo of other mounts, and used that opening in the crowd to squeeze through the doorway and into what was jarringly recognizable as a supermarket. For that first glimpse some synapse or two convinced itself it was back home, in Costco. And at first glance, the whole place was indeed a fantastical Costco, with countless rows of towering shelves filled with every product imaginable, and many I'd never have imagined. Clothes, armor, clear and solid flasks lining the halls, everything I'd ever conceive of as food and several things that I wouldn't, complete with the crown jewel of a longship hanging from the ceiling. Lenin once again crawled from his nook in my consciousness to ramble about how the evils of capitalism transcended reality itself as I spent a good ten minutes looking for somewhere to sell.

I eventually made my way to a counter staffed by a man who I genuinely mistook for a communist propaganda cartoon at first glance. With a week's ride worn into my ass, I failed to muster the fucks necessary to leave and go looking for a better salesman, and made my way to this one.

Have you ever tried to haggle in a language you barely understand? It's an exquisitely abysmal experience, and I highly recommend that you avoid it at all costs.

I wound up settling for less than I would've liked just to end it, which was in hindsight probably what he was hoping for all along. Well, whatever. I still had more cash than I could possibly need to get by, and -

well what now?

I spent the next few hours alleviating that specter of uncertainty by wandering around the city, people-watching, torn between the wear of a week's ride beckoning me towards the colorful scents of bakeries and restaurants and food stalls, and my omnipresent dread of social contact in unfamiliar places, reinforced by that scathing last attempt.

I had just finished gorging into a travel ration in some quiet back alley beneath the setting sun when a familiar voice rose from behind me.

"Enjoying your stay, mister offworlder?"

"Cat lady! I was beginning to worry that I hit you yesterday."

"Please, you couldn't have hit a heliophaunt at that distance."

"You say that, but it didn't work out so well for -"

Some civil war general yelling at his men for hiding from snipers in 1864, I think. No idea who he was, though. Also, what the fresh fuck is a "heliophaunt"?

Shit, quick, change the subject before she asks.

"You know you could have just said this is where you were  you were taking me. What's this place even called, anyway? About that, what's the deal with you? who even are you? what even are you? why do you speak English? What's the meaning of all this crap? Why can't you let me know any of that? Do you even know?"

"Curious as always, mister offworlder? For all your ignorance you must at least realize you won't have your questions answered that way. But, I will give you something, for pity's sake.

In that pause, I realized she'd been sulking towards me as we spoke, and was now only a few feet away.

"You can call me Vay"

With that, she pulled the cloth from her face, grabbed and lifted me by the collar of my coat, and squeezed her lips against mine, and for that split second I stared into her closed eyes, paralyzed with excitement. That moment of bliss passed as quickly and unwelcomely as it had came, as she covered her face and took off down some corner long before I had pulled my senses together.