Chapter 4

General POV~

Aryan and his captives kept travelling for some more time. By this point, Aryan's back was beginning to pain from being kept on the horse like a sack of potatoes, but there was nothing he could do except wait for nightfall.

"I think we should find a place to rest now. We have been travelling for quite some time now." One of his captors said

"I agree. Let's find an inn to spend the night."

"Right, let's head to the nearest one then."

Hearing their conversation, Aryan was elated. It would seem that his prayers had been answered. Once his captors went to rest, he would bust out of these confines and make a run for it.

Although he was still not at all knowledgeable about the civilization in which he had found himself in, he was fairly confident in his ability to make a living.

He might not seem like it, but he had been a bit of a science nerd back in the day. As such, he knew how to make various contraption and machines. The scientific knowledge of the modern world had to account for something, right?

The horse-men, changed their direction and headed towards another part of the city. By this point, the sun was almost over the horizon. Meaning, that the twilight hours would be starting soon.

In this part of the world, the sun came falling down like the wrath of Ra. Anyone that was left outside in the desert, whether it be during the day or during the night, they would die without question.

It was simple physics.

During the day, it was too hot, the light rays of the sun had nothing to block them and the sand acted as the perfect heat absorber. While during the night, in the absence of the sun, the ground would rapidly cool down to give a freezing temperature that was in the negatives (of the Celsius scale).

As such, the twilight hours would be the one time when the temperature was the closest to what Aryan had been used to.

He, as a modern man from India, was used to living in a moderate monsoon type climate, and was not at all experienced in living in the extremes of temperature conditions.

If not for the floating screen that had provided him with the talent of [Heat Resistance], Aryan would not be able to be as comfortable as he was. Well, if you could even refer to him as being 'comfortable', considering that he was tied up on a horse…

Aryan's attention was taken by the surroundings, extensively studying the layout of the streets and the buildings, taking in mind the architecture and the texture of the various structures that were built. The streets, the shops, the houses and even the various public buildings he saw; he tried to remember all of them.

After all, even if he did manage of escape, it would not be ideal if he didn't even know which way to run to. That was the problem with not knowing the layout of the place he was in; it was the disadvantage he had for being in a foreign territory.

Best case scenario, he could get lucky and manage to avoid his captives. Worst case scenario, he could be captured by them again, or walk into another dangerous group.

'I must remember the way to escape. I need to remember the roads and even the structure of the houses…'

It was not long before they entered into a street which was bustling with movement on all sides.

The shops in this area seemed to be bigger than the ones he had seen before and the goods seemed to be of a higher quality.

'This seems to be the main trading street in the city. Is this where the inn is?' Aryan thought in mind. The twilight hours had barely started and it would not be long before he could initiate his plans into action.

Looking around himself, he saw shops of various things. A leather shop, a food shop, a grain shop, a shop that sold tools, another one that sold armor. He even saw people going around while dragging along some other people with a leash.

'What in the…?'

"We are here." The man in front of Aryan spoke.

"What are we waiting for, let us head inside."

"We will go ahead and book a room at the inn. Make sure to not be too late."

At this point, Aryan noticed that they had stopped in front of a large building that seemed to attract more people than the other shops. The amount of people going in and out was not that large in comparison, but certainly something that you would notice. Along with that, the rest of the shops were set up in the form of stalls.

But this building in front looked to be a full on trading centre.

When they stopped, a large chunk of his captors broke off from their group and headed elsewhere. Leaving them with a total count of 4 people, excluding Aryan.

'Wait a second… is this..?" Aryan thought in bewilderment.

But he was not able to complete his words as his captors jumped off of the horse and roughly dragged him down from there, slamming him onto the ground.

Grunt*

Aryan grunted, not in pain, but in annoyance. The talents provided to him by the floating screen were more than enough to ignore such damage, but that didn't change the fact that he didn't enjoy being treated like that.

'Just you wait.' For a moment, Aryan thought of breaking out of his confines to teach these people a lesson, but then he quickly poured water onto that thought.

He had never been in a life and death struggle, and in the ancient age, life conditions were sure to be way harsher than the modern era. He suspected that even a normal person from this time could be an experienced fighter in the modern age.

'Calm down. I need to look for a chance to escape.'

"Let's go, you useless monkey!" The man said as he grabbed the back of Aryan's shirt and began into drag him into the building.

As they walked into the building, the other 3 followed along with them.

Aryan, although dissatisfied, could do nothing except be dragged away from there.

Upon entering the building, the amount of noise that was previously heard outside, seemed to stop and disappear. The inside of the building was frighteningly quiet as compared to the bustling atmosphere on the outside.

The only sound that could be heard was the distant voices of the stall owners on the outside.

Aryan looked around himself with a narrowed gaze. The interior of the building was nothing special. At least in comparison to modern day standards.

The interior was made out of colored stone bricks and there was also a pretty imaginative usage of wood and cloth to make various designs on the walls. Aside from that, the inside was also decorated with various potted plants, something that Aryan had not seen since arriving in the desert.

The building was also filled with people, but they did not make any noise at all.

They were all extremely quiet, as if afraid to make any type of noise.

Directly opposite to the door, a small desk was erected upon which three men sat behind. They all attended to the people that had walked inside, like the receptionists of the ancient age.

"Where is Ahmet? Hey Tehmuk, go find him." The man who was holding onto Aryan said to the one beside him.

"Okay." The man replied with a nod and walked away.

As they waited for the man to come back with whomever they were looking for here, Aryan took the liberty to look around the entire building with interest and desperation.

He searched for any possible escape routes that might be within his reach. But alas, he was hoping for too much. Ancient Egyptians rarely made windows in their houses, the reason being the intense hot winds that blew across the barren wastelands of the desert. In fact, it would be weird to see more than two windows in a house.

And for this exact reason, the building in which they were had no more than a single window on the ground floor, which too was covered by a thick red cloth.

'Shit… There aren't any visible escape routes. And it's too crowded to just make a run for it. Not to mention..' Aryan took a glance at the door, which was guarded by two men of an Indian color complexion wearing barely any clothes. Both of them held a spear in their hands and their eyes exuded a cold glint. 'There's guards stationed here…'

While he was thinking, Tehmuk came back with another taller man accompanying him. The other man had luxurious looking clothes and had a natural look that seemed to see the world under his feet. He looked like a second grade villain in some novel.

'This can't be good.'

"Ahmet! You are finally here. We brought you new goods." The man behind Aryan said.

"What? You brought the goods so soon."

In response, Ahmet, or so he was called, looked at me with a calculating gaze. As he scanned my figure, his eyes lit up in curiosity and interest.

"Hmm. Quite an interesting specimen." he said while holding his chin in contemplation. "His face and body shape seems to be quite average. But his garments are of an interesting color." He held Aryan's shirt and rubbed it a bit to figure out the material it was made of, "A good quality material, I see." He continued.

As he was done with looking at my clothes, he gazed right into my eyes.

"State your name." He commanded with a voice of steel.

In response, Aryan just kept quiet and tilted his head a bit, as if he did not understand what he was saying.

"He can't speak. Everytime he opens his mouth, all we hear is gibberish."

"I think he has some sort of defect in his throat."

"Maybe he committed a sin against the gods. Perhaps Thoth."

The men behind him spoke one by one. And in response, Ahmet's eyes turned confused, then shocked and then a filled with anger.

"Cheruk, are you trying to waste my time? No one would want to buy such a slave. It's because you are a long term supplier, that I haven't kicked you out for wasting my time. On such an important day too!" Ahmet said with darkened eyes, looking towards the one who had been holding onto Aryan the entire time.

"Now now, don't be too angry." said Cheruk, "He was found on the outskirts of the city, wandering the desert. We brought him here exactly knowing what kind of day it was today..."

"Hmm?" Ahmet raised his eyebrows at him.

Seeing Ahmet looking at him in confusion, he let of of Aryan and took him to a smal deserted corner of the building.

'This is bad. Whatever they're talking about, it certainly can't be good for me.' Aryan thought and began to exert force onto his confines. 'Fuck it! The moment these three behind me get distracted, I will snap the rope and make a run for it!'

After a bit of talking, the two men returned and the taller man glanced at me.

"I'll pay you with 2 deben[1] for this man."

"Make it 5."

"I see nothing of value on him that would extract such a hefty sum."

"Whatever, he belongs to us, we shall sell him at any price we desire."

"Well, then I can pay you 3 on the maximum."

"Deal!"

Aryan looked towards them in bafflement as his fate was decided so quickly with a few exchange of words.

The slave trader, Ahmet, reached in the pocket of his long robe and pulled out a few yellow colored copper like coins. And then, counting about a dozen of them, he placed them in the hands of one of my captors.

"And with this, our transactions are completed." Ahmet said with a smile, "Now get out, the Pharaoh's representatives from the capital are about to arrive." The man said while making a shooing gesture with his hand.

"Hahaha! Pleasure to do business with you Ahmet!"

"We earned a good sum this time around!"

"We shall drink to out soul's content today!"

At this moment, with his captors busy with appreciating the amount of money they had recieved and the slave trader busy with trying to get them to leave, Aryan found the little window of opportunity he needed.

*Stretch*

*SNAP*

With the loud sound of a snapping rope, Aryan, with an impressive display of his leg power, jolted up upon his legs. And then, with speeds that would put even professional runners to shame, he bolted towards the cloth colored window without anyone had a chance to react.

"Wait! Stop him!"

"Don't let him get away!"

A variety of shouts broke out among the small crowd that was gathered in the building. At the corner of his vision, Aryan saw the guards that stood in front of the door bolt towards him with impressive speeds.

Forcefully crushing the thoughts of the consequences that would befall him if he were to get caught now, Aryan jumped towards the cloth covered window.

'Let's hope I don't get caught now!'

With this thought, Aryan smashed his body against the cloth on the window.

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[1] There was no definite currency used in the ancient Egyptian civilization, at least according to what I could find. Instead, the Egyptians worked on a Barter system.

But to streamline and standardize the system, they did assign gold coins. And the way the gold coins were used were according to their overall weight.

A "Deben" is supposedly a unit that standardized the barter system by assigning a common unit of weight.

The simplest unit was Shet = 7.5 grams

The more complex one was Deben = 12 Shet = 90 grams