I sighed deeply and looked at him. "If you want to join me to the next town, you can go hunt for us." I said. He scoffed and said "Why don't you hunt then? I don't want to help someone who can't pull their own weight." "Because if you don't hunt, I have no reason to travel with you. I could do everything myself if I wanted." I replied. The centaur snorted and that was that. He left to get something to eat for us. I was going to have to get a fire going. I just had to wait for him to return. I had some things for starting fires, but I still needed wood. I asked him how he was able to cook. He raised an eyebrow and said "What do you mean 'cook'? We just kill the prey and then eat it. Are you 2-legs so pampered that you need it warmed up for you? Stop playing around." I held my head in my hands and groaned. "No, you monster. Humans are weak to disease and germs. You need the heat from the fire to kill all the germs, so I don't get sick from whatever illness they might have caught. People die from eating raw chicken!" I snapped. He looked unsympathetic. "Yeah. You 2-legs are weak." he said.
Going out to get food was now moot. Even if he got an animal back here, there was no way to cook it. I was not going to get some disease out here on these plains. That was not something I was going to risk. It would be better to tough it out and make my way forward in a slow way. "I guess you don't have a plot of land for growing your own food, huh?" I asked. He shook his head. "Well, that's that. You can follow me, but it isn't going to be worth your while." Just as he was going to answer, there was a cacophonous noise. A bunch of hooves were coming this way from the left. The centaur with me was a bit unsettled and readied his bow. He was probably concerned that he might not be safe if they started a conflict. I doubted that he could take several of them out on his own. I probably could take one or 2 of them out. Not this group of 9 barreling towards us. They were all males and they had their weapons already drawn. All of them had a chestnut brown coat with light brown hair and green eyes. As they stopped in front of them, the eldest one demanded to know why we were in their turf.
He did not look like he was going to tolerate any nonsense. "I am a traveler, and I was trying to get to the next town." I said as I pointed northward. "The 2-leg settlement you want is days away by your power. You're not going to make it off our land before you collapse." one of the others said. "Well, I still need to try it. Could you let me go for now? That would be very nice of you." I told them. The leader said "We want restitution for something like that." I just winced. "What would be just restitution for safe passage?" I asked. The centaurs all looked at each other and shrugged. They were just going to spit ball it and improvise. That could be really bad for me depending on what they eventually decided on. The leader said "I could get you through our lands with little problem. I guess the proper compensation would be 15 gold." I balked and the others laughed. It must have been astronomically high for a human to pay. It is a something that I could pay. If it needed to be done, I would have to do it. If it went unaddressed, I would starve to death. I had all the money and loot here to pay for bodyguards.
