SHINJIS NEW LIFE
by Gunman

Disclaimer: I do not own Eva or it's characters.

Summary: Shinji and Ayl face some goblins and finally reach the city.

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Chapter 3
Goblin Fight and Reach The City

The caravan had stopped at a clearing next to the road and set up camp. Cooking fires were made where the drivers and guards could roast their food. Ayl and Shinji were sitting next to each other at their own campfire.

"Shinji, what you did earlier was incredibly reckless." Ayl scolded.

"I know." Shinji said back, remembering the whack she had given him. It had been hours ago and yet she was still angry. "But I was just trying to do the right thing." Shinji said back.

"The right thing to do would have been to finish off that werebear. What if someone who is only gathering herbs runs into it? That person will become it's meal. Or what if it had decided to attack the caravan? That thing would have slaughtered everyone. Only I am strong enough to fight it in this group." Ayl said.

"Is it really necessary to kill all the monsters?" Shinji asked.

"Yes! These monsters exist only to kill sentient races. I have lost many friends to these monsters. And many parents have also lost their children to those creatures as well. Some of them even experienced something worse then being torn apart." Ayl said.

"Which is?" Shinji asked, hoping that she wouldn't say what he thought she would.

"Goblins kidnap women and use them as breeding tools." Ayl answered with a disgusted look. "And not just them. Trolls and Orcs also do that."

Shinji grimaced. That's exactly what he thought she might say.

"Alright. Next time we see a monster like that, I'll kill them." he agreed.

"Good, Shinji." Ayl said and started to eat the meat she was roasting.

Shinji did the same. While the meat was juicy and tasty, it could have used some condiments to make it even better. He thought that maybe those things were rare on adventurers.

"Ayl, do adventurers carry any spices with them?" Shinji asked.

"No. In the wilderness you have to travel lightly, especially if you don't have a dimensional storage bag or water magic. But I agree that this meat could use some spices." She answered.

"Right. And you were going to teach me those things?" He asked.

"Yes. Once we reach the city, I will teach you and when I feel confident that you can do well enough, I will take you to the Adventurers Guild and have you join my party. Unless you don't want to become an adventurer." She said.

"No. It would be better if I joined The Guild. I was brought here for a purpose. To help people. Have you thought about what kind of quest we will take when I'm ready?" He asked.

"We are going to destroy the monster occupying the salt mine so that Inn's and Tavern's can finally get their share's of salt." She answered.

"And why hasn't anyone taken care of that already?" He asked.

"Because the monster is composed of mithril. Mithril is one of the hardest materials in this world and it is resistant to magic. Not many adventurers have weapons that can kill a mithril golem and killing it with magic takes a lot of effort. But with your powers, we can easily kill it and collect the reward." She answered.

"So I will destroy it with my power and we split the reward? How dangerous is this monster?" Shinji asked.

"The monster is a B-rank, so the reward will be pretty high. The owner of the mine is offering a 20 gold coin reward for destroying it, and if we can salvage mithril from its body, we can sell it for a good price somewhere between 50 and 80 gold coins." She answered.

"Wow." Shinji said, but something about that didn't seem right. "But would you mind explaining the currency system of this world to me?" he asked.

"Of course." she said as she took out a copper, silver and gold coin from her purse. "In this world we use copper, silver, gold and platinum coins as currency. 1 silver coin is worth 100 copper coins, 1 gold coin is worth 10 silver and the platinum coin is worth 10 gold, but platinum coins are rare. Only the king has platinum coins in his treasury. And I have seen only one platinum coin in my entire life." She answered, waving the individual coins as examples.

"Got it. Thank you Ayl." Shinji thanked and continued his meal. Ayl did the same.

While they were eating, Shinji failed to notice how the caravan guards, merchants and drivers where whispering something to each other while looking at them, but Ayl heard them with her superior senses.

"Shinji, you attracted a lot of attention how you dealt with that werebear." Ayl said.

"And that is a bad thing?" He asked, now feeling a bit concerned.

"Could be. No one has ever seen anything like what you did today. You healed a werebear, almost instantly, and then it just walked away. That kind of thing could draw unwanted attention to yourself from undesirables and powerful people. So from now on, don't show off your powers carelessly." Ayl instructed.

"Undesirables?" he asked.

"Not a lot of people in this world have healing abilities like yours. Such a power could be used by wicked and evil people to heal their own kind, which would not be a good thing. To say nothing about keeping you from people who could really use your help."

Shinji hadn't considered that. Something else he needed to be careful of.

"Very well then." Shinji said.

"Good. Now, rest up. Practice, if you want. I need to run a quick errand." Ayl said and wandered off into the darkness.

Shinji nodded and finished up his meal. He took out the coins that Brighid had left with him and begun to practice levitating them. But all through it, Shinji couldn't help but feel he was being watched. He kept looking around the camp, thinking that the caravan drivers and guards were the ones watching, but saw no one.

Almost an hour later, Ayl returned and sat down next to Shinji. The young man looked up and saw that she was holding the very spear that he had pulled from the werebear.

"Is that the troll spear I pulled out of that werebear?" Shinji asked.

"Yes, but it's not a troll spear. The design is dwarfish, so we might get to trade it up for some gold." Ayl said bluntly.

"Isn't that spear pretty long for a dwarf? And why did a troll have a weapon like that?" Shinji asked.

"It probably belonged to an adventurer. Most likely made for a human by a dwarf." she explained. "It's too bad that you won't be able to use it in a fight." She stated.

"Why not?" Shinji asked.

"It's too long to wield, even for me. Might make a good jousting lance, if I was rising a horse. But even if you fly it around with your power, you can only strike at one enemy at the time, which could be fatal against multiple enemies." She answered.

Before Shinji could say anything else, they heard a scream from behind them.

"GRAAAAHHH!" "AMBUSH!"

Shinji and Ayl heard the guards yelling before Ayl noticed about a dozen goblins charging at them from the treeline.

The guards drew their swords as did Ayl and ran at the goblins. Shinji couldn't see much at first but then Ayl launched a fireball at the goblins, which illuminated the area a bit. Now he could see some of the goblins and used his power to send the spear flying at the goblin on the far right and managed to impale it through the neck.

Ayl and the guards were furiously fighting the goblins and Shinji saw one of the guards getting stabbed on the side as Ayl cut off the head from one goblin nearby. He saw a few of the goblins charge towards him. Focusing his powers, he pulled the spear out of the goblin he impaled and hurled it at the goblins. The long spear was spinning through the air, striking the goblins as it spun, and then skewering them like shish-ka-bob before it impaled itself against a large tree.

Ayl cut down another goblin that tried to stab one of the drivers, only for another goblin to take its place. She was quick to notice that several goblins were advancing on her position. It was like they realized she was the major threat. She pulled her knife out of her back sheath and blocked an attack by a third goblin, spinning around to kick it in the face. She twisted her sword to slide down the blade of the first goblin she had been fighting, slicing its neck and nearly taking its head clean off. She then hurled her knife into the neck of the third goblin she had kicked earlier, ending it's life.

Three more goblins attacked her, this time as a group and from the front. Ayl deflected their attacks with swift precision, knocking their swords away with a strong thrust and then severing their heads from their bodies. She was breathing hard, having put considerable effort behind that last attack.

Suddenly, an arrow hit Ayl in the thigh causing her to cry out in pain. She collapsed to the ground as a couple more goblins rushed up to her. Shinji looked at the direction where the arrow came from and saw a goblin with a bow.

He grabbed a dagger from off the ground and flew it at the goblins that were advancing on Ayl, slicing them across their throats, and then flew the dagger back to the goblin with the bow, impaling it in the stomach. The caravan guards were quick to finish it off, as Shinji ran to where Ayl was lying..

"AYL!" Shinji shouted as he approached her.

"Shit. This is not how I want to die." Ayl groaned as she looked at the arrow on her thigh with a pained expression before she pulled it out. "ARGH!"

"I'll heal you Ayl." Shinji and was about to start but she stopped him by grabbing his wrist.

"Wait. The arrow was poisoned. Even if you heal the wound, the poison will kill me." She said through gritted teeth.

"Then what do I do?" He asked.

"Try curing the poison first by saying 'cure'." She said.

Shinji focused his healing power and said: "Cure".

Ayls leg glowed slightly as she felt the disgusting feeling fade away as Shinji's healing took effect. Then she only felt the pain of the wound on her thigh.

"Recovery." Shinji said and the wound closed, looking like there was never any injury.

"It worked. You cured the poison in my body." she said as she stood up, feeling no pain whatsoever. "Go, help the others." She said and Shinji went to the guards who were injured.

Two guards were injured and one was dead. Shinji healed the one who had an arrow in his stomach and cured the poison and then the wound while the other had a deep cut on his leg.

"Thank you, lad. I thought I was dead for sure." The guard who had an arrow in his stomach thanked Shinji.

"Yeah. Wasn't sure I'd walk again. My thanks." The guard with the deep cut on his leg said.

"You're welcome." Shinji said and went back to Ayl.

The elf adventurer was looking at the spear that was imbedded in the tree, and the four goblins that were impaled on it. She looked at Shinji as he approached her.

"I see you found a way to take out multiple enemies at one time." Ayl said to him.

"Uh. Yeah. They didn't exactly stand in a straight line, though." he said as he used his power to draw out the spear from the tree, pushing the goblins off of it as he did.

"Good work, Shinji. You actually killed the goblins without hesitation." Ayl complimented as Shinji wiped off the blood and put the spear back in the wagon.

"Are you feeling better?" He asked.

"I'll live. But if it wasn't for you, I would have died." She retorted.

"What kind of poison was in those arrows?" Shinji asked.

"Goblins use their own urine and excrements as poison. They are poisonous and there is no known antidote. Only those with the blessing of the Goddess of Healing can cure it." She answered, which made Shinji want to vomit in disgust.

"But how did you know what I had to say in order to cure the poison?" He asked.

"I once met someone who could cure all poisons because she had a partial blessing from the Goddess of Healing. Luckily you can use the same healing as that person." She answered.

"Yes, otherwise I would have lost my first friend in this world." Shinji said.

"Don't let it get to your head." She said and pulled her knife from her belt. "Now, gather up their weapons while I collect their ears."

Shinji did as she instructed, but paused when he realized what she had said.

"Wait. Their ears?" he asked.

"Yes. The Guild pays a bounty on these creatures, but you need to show proof you killed them. Usually you'd have to present their heads, but their ears are often good enough. And we can probably trade the weapons for something as well." she said as she started cutting the goblins ears off.

"Hmm. Like trophies?" he asked.

"Something like that" she answered.

Once Ayl and Shinji had collected their trophies, the leader of the caravan, a middle-aged man named Horst came over.

"Me and the men would like to thank you for your help. If you hadn't been here, we all would have died, gutted by those abominations." He said.

"It was only fair. After all, you agreed to take us to Ithalan and even offered us food." Ayl replied.

"We will take shifts guarding the camp, you two can rest. We'll wake you at dawn." Horst said and went to talk to the guards.

"Let's sleep now Shinji. We're still half a day away from Ithalan." Ayl said and climbed into the wagon. Shinji followed suit and it wasn't long until they were both asleep.

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Shinji woke up just as the sun was about to rise, mostly because he had a habit of waking up early in his previous world. To make breakfast for his guardian and roommate. He tried to get up, but he felt something on his chest. Looking down he saw that Ayl was using his chest as a pillow.

Shinji managed not to gasp and tried to wake her up. "Wake up Ayl."

Instead, she just turned to her side, her head still on his chest.

He started to shake her. "Please wake up Ayl."

She opened her eyes and soon noticed that she was using Shinji's chest as a pillow. She quickly rose up.

"Sorry about that. I must have moved in my sleep again." she said with a yawn.

"Don't worry about it. I just didn't want anyone to see that because it would have created all sorts of misunderstandings. They think you're a man." Shinji retorted.

"Yes, that would have been embarrassing." She stated and pulled her hood on and got out of the wagon.

Shinji also put his cloak on and went after her. Shinji noticed that Ayl was watching the guards piling the dead goblins.

"What are they going to do with the bodies?" Shinji asked her.

"They will burn them. Goblin corpses soil the ground otherwise and their stench will attract beasts. Fire magic will completely incinerate them without smell." She answered.

"No wonder. I can smell their stench from here." Shinji said, holding his nose and trying not to vomit.

"Are there goblins in your world?" Ayl asked.

"No. In my previous world, we have no monsters and no other races like you do here. Only humans." He answered.

"I see. I suppose there is no magic either." Ayl stated.

"No. But there is all kinds of technology that would amaze you." Shinji countered.

"Is that right? Tell me about them someday." Ayl said.

"Sure. And you can tell me more about this world." Shinji said.

"I will have you read a book about it. Explaining everything about this world would be too tedious." She said.

"There are books in this world?" Shinji asked.

"Yes, though they are rare. Making a book takes time and copying one with illustrations takes even longer if the one copying is not as good as the author of the original. The Adventurers Guild has an extensive library where adventurers can read them for free. Anyone who is not an Adventurer has to pay for it." Ayl explained and right after that the guards lit the corpses on fire.

"By the way Ayl, what was that spell you used at the inn when I was practicing?" Shinji asked.

"It was a detection spell. It's a light magic spell that allows me to see the aura of living creatures in a certain distance." She answered.

"How far can you see?" Shinji asked.

"About 100 meters." Ayl answered.

The drivers had started to make the wagons and horses ready. Horst was handing out bread for guards and drivers who were ready and he handed a bread for Shinji and Ayl as well. Ayl explained that they would eat them while on the move.

About 10 minutes later the horses were pulling the wagons again and Shinji was practicing his power with a copper coin.

"Ayl, what kind of a city is Ithalan?" Shinji asked.

"It is the capital of this country. The city is divided into districts and there are all sorts of shops, inn's and even brothels for those who can afford it." She answered.

"What kind of districts?" Shinji asked, deciding not to ask about brothels.

"There is the Nobles District, Commoner's District, Financial District where most shops and inn's are as well as the guild, then there's Army District where the army trains it's soldiers and houses them and their equipment. There are vast farmlands outside the city walls and rich mines in the mountains. Then there is the Royal District where the King and his family live in their fortress castle, along with their elite guards." She answered.

"And is there an inn where I can stay for the time being?" Shinji asked.

"The inn where I'm staying has good food and reasonable prices. You can get 2 nights in a room and meals for 1 silver." She answered.

"Sounds reasonable for now. I'll just have to earn more money with you." He answered and switched hands with the coin he was using for practice.

Ayl just nodded for that.

It was almost 5 hours later when the city finally came into view.

"There it is, Shinji. Ithalan, capital of Caratharas." Ayl said

Shinji gasped as he saw the city come into view.

The city itself was like something out of a fantasy novel. High walls made of thick stone surrounded the inner districts of the massive city, with the buildings seeming to get taller and taller the further in you went. The walls looked like a combination of limestone and granite, giving it an almost tannish color. Flags and banners adorned the parapets, a symbol that Shinji did not recognize. Further towards what Shinji felt like was the center of the city was a massive towering castle where the King and his family lived. It was large and majestic looking, like something out of a European fantasy story, with four towers standing at opposite points of the large single tower in the middle of it all. The middle tower was twice the height of the other four towers, and at least three times the width. Flags adorned each of the towers themselves, and each of the four towers were connected by a stone bridge. Guards could be seen walking along the bridges, despite being so far away.

The city itself seemed to be at least three square miles, though Shinji wasn't exactly sure. It felt like it was the size of the city of Rome, from that one movie that he and Kensuke and Toji once watched called Gladiator. The walls to the city were so wide that it seemed to be never ending. The main gate to the city was large, at least 30 feet in height and width, with massive wooden doors and a steel portcullis that could be lowered and raised with ease.

Shinji had noticed several houses and farms outside the city as they passed and headed to the Gate. It made sense, since you couldn't grow crops inside a city with buildings so close to each other. Dozens and dozens of people were coming and going, and the Gate was being watched by armored soldiers.

Once the wagons had stopped at the main gate, Horst got out and spoke with the guards. After a few minutes, the caravan was allowed to pass through the Gate.

"So, what do we do now?" Shinji asked.

"We'll stop at the Adventurers Guild and drop off our trophies and the weapons, and then, get some lunch." Ayl said.

"Of course." Shinji said.

Once the caravan had stopped at the market place, Ayl and Shinji bid farewell to Horst and the others. They carried the goblin weapons and trophies to the Adventurers Guild, Ayl taking the lead.

The Guild Headquarters looked like a large mansion of sorts, but with an air of military decorum that only made Shinji think of some kind of police station. The building itself was at least three stories high with stone blocks on the outside, but inside it was decorated with wood walls and carpets, giving it a rather homey feel. There were three counters set up in the main entryway of the first floor. One to the left, one straight ahead of the main door, and one to the right.

Shinji just watched as Ayl took the weapons and her bag of goblin ears over to the counter on the right and spoke with a large man wearing a dull-gray suit with a leather apron. The man didn't seem very impressed with the goblin weapons, but seemed to perk up when he saw the bag of goblin ears and the dwarvish spear she had with her. He handed Ayl a bag and she walked back over to Shinji.

"How did it go?" Shinji asked.

"Well, Bolgan over there was more interested in the spear we brought back. He gave us ten gold for the spear, the goblin ears and the weapons." she said as she handed Shinji five gold coins.

"Well, that's nice." he said as he put the money in his coin bag. "So, what now?"

"I will report that I completed the giant spider quest and then we head for the inn." she said and went to the counter on the other side of the one she had come from.

Shinji looked around the room and noticed several bulletin boards and some armed people looking at the sheets that were posted on them. He noticed a couple of tall well-endowed women who had two horns on their foreheads and one girl who was a little taller than him. She had aqua blue hair and had a trident-like spear on her back. She was looking at the board so he didn't see her face.

He looked at Ayl's direction and saw that the receptionist was a rather beautiful woman in her early 20 and she had sky blue eyes and a waist long hair of the same color.

Ayl received her money and came back to Shinji. "Now that we are done here, let's go to the inn. We will get you registered after I have trained you to use your magic." Shinji nodded and followed her out.

The pair said nothing as they walked two blocks over to where the Inn was. Shinji was just looking around at the town, which seemed pretty clean and otherwise normal looking, for a Medieval-looking city that tried to be as modern as what he knew from his own world.

The pair stopped at the Inn, which looked a bit fancier than the one where Shinji had met Ayl and Brigid in.

"Lets go in. I'm starving." Ayl said as she walked in ahead of Shinji.

The young man followed.

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Authors Notes:

I was trying to describe the city of Ithalan and the Guild headquarters, based on the city of E-Rantel and the Guild from the anime Overlord. (Watch it! It's all sorts of things wrapped together, including funny) I was also trying to describe it from Shinji's POV, which is difficult since he doesn't have a lot of experience in things like this. So adding the movie Gladiator to this by having Kensuke and Toji watch movies with him seemed appropriate. This version of Shinji is supposed to be more normal than his introverted canon counterpart, but there are still a lot of things he doesn't know.

The goblins, trolls and other races in this I keep imagining as more from the Lord of the Rings movies, but also from other animes like Isekai and the like.

Anyway, please read and review.