John's body moved before his brain caught up. The lord needed food. Food meant the carriage. He scrambled off his horse, hit the ground running, nearly tripped over his own feet but managed to stay upright through sheer momentum.
The carriage door wasn't locked. He yanked it open and dove inside.
The interior was exactly as excessive as he'd expected. Plush velvet seats, gold trim on everything, even the handles were ornate. But John wasn't sightseeing. He scanned frantically until he spotted it wedged in the corner, a wicker basket covered with an embroidered cloth.
He grabbed it, felt the weight of fruit inside, and spun back toward the door.
The lord was still on his knees when John stumbled back into the clearing, basket clutched to his chest. Steam still rose from the lord's shrinking frame. His hands shook.
"Here!" John thrust the basket forward. "Food, I got food, there's fruit and—"
The slap came from nowhere.
One second John was holding the basket. The next he was airborne, his body rotating sideways, the world spinning into a blur of green and brown before he crashed into the dirt. His head bounced off the packed earth and everything went white and ringing.
Through the static in his ears he heard the wicker basket hit the ground, fruit spilling out.
The lord didn't say anything. Didn't explain. Just crawled forward and started eating.
John lay there stunned, his face throbbing, watching through watering eyes as the young lord tore into an apple. Not bit. Tore. Teeth ripping through skin and flesh like the fruit had personally offended him. He swallowed without chewing, reached for another, consumed it in three desperate bites. Grapes vanished in handfuls. A pear disappeared core and all.
The basket emptied in under a minute.
The lord's hands scrabbled inside, searching for anything left. Finding nothing, his breathing got worse. Faster. Panicked.
His head snapped toward the bear corpse.
Oh no.
The lord crawled across the blood soaked clearing on his hands and knees, his fine clothes dragging through dirt and gore, and when he reached the massive ruined carcass he didn't hesitate. His hands dug into the exposed meat where the upper body used to be and he started eating.
Raw flesh. Still warm. Blood running down his chin and neck, soaking into his golden jacket.
John's stomach lurched. He rolled onto his side and dry heaved, nothing coming up because he hadn't eaten since yesterday, but his body tried anyway.
The sounds were worse than the sight. Wet tearing. Desperate swallowing. The occasional grunt of effort when the lord had to rip free a particularly stubborn piece of muscle tissue.
This wasn't dignified. This wasn't how nobles were supposed to act. This was animal desperation, the kind of hunger that erased everything except the need to consume.
Ten minutes passed. Maybe more. John lost track of time, his consciousness fuzzy at the edges, his face feeling like it had been hit by a truck for the second time in his short life.
Then he heard hoofbeats.
Multiple horses, moving fast. He managed to turn his head and saw them approaching through the trees. Guards, at least six of them, wearing actual armor unlike the flimsy servant tunics. They must have been following at a distance, close enough to respond but far enough to give the lord privacy for his hunt.
They reined in at the edge of the clearing, took in the scene. The demolished bear. The lord covered in blood and still eating. The servants standing frozen. John lying in the dirt.
The captain, a man with a scar running down his jaw, swung off his horse and moved straight for John.
"You." His voice carried zero emotion. Just cold statement of fact. "You entered the lord's private carriage without permission."
John tried to speak. "He needed food, I was just—"
The boot caught him in the ribs.
Air exploded from John's lungs. He curled instinctively, trying to protect his core, but another kick landed in his back. Then another in his stomach.
"You watched your lord in a moment of weakness."
Kick to the shoulder.
"You violated his privacy."
Kick to the thigh.
"You showed no respect for station or protocol."
The beating wasn't wild or angry. It was methodical. Professional. Each strike calculated for maximum pain without causing permanent damage. These guards had done this before, knew exactly how hard to hit to teach a lesson without killing the lesson recipient.
John tried to curl tighter but hands grabbed him, yanked him flat. More guards joined in. Fists and boots from multiple angles. His lip split. His nose made a crunching sound that definitely wasn't good. Blood filled his mouth, warm and copper.
Through the haze of pain he heard Spud's voice, distant and careful. "Sirs, please, he's new, he didn't know—"
"Silence. Unless you want to join him."
More impacts. John stopped trying to track them. Everything merged into one continuous wave of hurt. His vision tunneled, darkness creeping in from the edges.
Somewhere in the background, the wet sounds of the lord eating had stopped.
The last thing John registered was a boot to his temple. Not hard enough to crack his skull but enough to flip the off switch in his brain.
Darkness took him.
He came back to awareness in pieces. First was the pain, everywhere and nowhere, his entire body one massive bruise. Second was motion, swaying and bouncing. Third was breathing, not his own, the steady rhythm of a horse walking.
His eyes wouldn't open properly. The left one was swollen shut and the right barely managed a squint.
He was draped over a horse's back like a sack of grain. Face down, arms dangling on one side, legs on the other. Every step the horse took sent fresh spikes of agony through his ribs.
"He's awake," someone said. The younger kid, maybe. Hard to tell through the ringing.
"Don't matter." Spud's voice. "Just keep him stable. We got another hour at least before we're back."
John tried to speak but his mouth wouldn't cooperate. His lips were too swollen. His tongue felt three sizes too big.
So he just hung there, semiconscious, bleeding slowly onto the horse's flank, and wondered if this was still better than his old life in Japan.
The answer, terrifyingly, wasn't as clear as it should have been.