Chương 33: New Day

The morning sun of Inizio decided to punch me right in the retinas through the window, signaling that my brief career as a professional sleeper had come to an end. I rolled out of the bed, which had the structural integrity of a sidewalk, and realized that my clothes smelled less like a heroic adventurer and more like a wet dog that had lost a fight with a swamp. I took one whiff of my shirt and almost passed out. I knew there was no way I was putting that biological hazard back on after a wash.

I cracked my door open and caught the attention of the old innkeeper who was busy checking a nearby banister.

"A bit of a rough journey, eh, lad?" the old man chirped, pausing to squint at me.

"You look like you have been marinated in a dungeon. Give those rags to me. I will have the girls clean them up for you while you go scrub the rest of that grime off in the washroom. It is all part of the service here." I didn't need to be told twice. I handed over the crusty pile, and he scooped up the garments with a pair of wooden tongs like he was handling radioactive waste. He gave me a wink and promised they would be returned once they no longer violated any local health codes.

Left with nothing but my birthday suit and a towel that felt like it was woven from recycled hay, I made a tactical retreat to the shared washroom down the hall. It was less of a spa and more of a muscular traffic jam. I found myself shoulder to shoulder with a collection of players who looked like they spent their downtime bench pressing small houses. There I was, Arthur the Great, clutching a damp rag to my waist and trying to scrub yesterday's trauma off my skin while surrounded by a literal wall of pectorals.

It was a very humbling experience for my ego, though my soap on a rope skills were definitely S tier. After drying off and braving the hallway sprint back to my room, I found that the local magic had already pulled a fast one. Sitting right there on my bed was a perfectly folded, crisp, and remarkably dry pile of laundry. No damp spots, no lingering musk, just pure, enchanted cleanliness. I couldn't help but grin at the ceiling.

The inhabitants of this world might be living in the middle ages, but their laundry game was light years ahead of the chore list I used to ignore back at my parents' house. I geared up, feeling like a brand new human, and headed out to find Dimitri. The big guy was probably already vibrating with enough positivity to power a small village, and we had some serious shopping to do. I practically floated out of my room, a confident, high rolling smile plastered across my face as I marched toward the staircase.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. I was so busy mentally spending my gold coins on shiny new toys that I didn't even see the person coming around the corner. We collided with a dull thud. Her shoulder caught mine, sending a jolt through my arm that instantly popped my bubble of coolness. The girl gasped, her eyes going wide as she nearly stumbled back.

She didn't get angry or demand a duel to the death; instead, she started bowing her head so fast and so often that I thought it might actually fly off. Her black hair, cut right at the shoulders, was flailing around like a bunch of startled ravens as she stammered out apologies. She was saying something, her lips moving at a mile a minute, but the volume was so low it wouldn't have even registered on a professional eavesdropping kit. [Player: Level 2.] I threw my hands up in a quick "don't mind me" gesture, trying to prevent her from vibrating right out of her boots.

"Whoa, hey, easy there! No harm, no foul," I said, trying to project a vibe of effortless heroism instead of a guy who just got shoulder checked in a hallway.

"Seriously, do not sweat it. It is entirely my fault for power walking like I own the place without actually checking my blind spots. My brain was already three blocks away at the blacksmith shop." The girl paused her frantic bowing for a heartbeat and peeked up at me. Our eyes met, and a lightbulb went off in my internal database. She had deep, obsidian black eyes and skin as pale as high end porcelain.

As a self proclaimed connoisseur of all things Eastern, which is just a fancy way of saying I am a massive weeb, I could tell immediately that she was Japanese. The hair was the ultimate smoking gun. It was that iconic style you see in every slice of life anime, featuring those perfectly straight bangs across the middle of her forehead and the longer, face framing strands on the sides.

If she had been chomping on a piece of toast and running late for the first day of school, the perfect scene would have been complete. She opened her mouth to respond, and a string of sounds tumbled out, but between the heavy stuttering and a volume level that was basically a library whisper on stealth mode, I didn't catch a single syllable. It was like trying to listen to a radio station from three states away during a massive thunderstorm.

Before I could ask for a repeat performance or a set of subtitles, she let out one final, squeaky gasp and bolted. She rushed past me like she was being chased by a hungry dragon, keeping her head down and not daring to glance back even for a second. I stood there for a moment, watching her disappear around the corner of the hallway like a startled rabbit.

I gave my shoulder a quick shrug to shake off the awkwardness, adjusted my mental image of myself as a legendary high roller, and continued my descent down the wooden stairs to find my mountain of a companion. ••••• The morning sun was doing its best to make Inizio look like a sparkling paradise, but I was mostly focused on not tripping over my own feet as I met Dimitri in the main plaza. The big guy was already there, looking like a beacon of pure, unadulterated sunshine against the backdrop of the stone fountain.

With a jovial wave that nearly created its own weather system, he began leading me through a maze of winding alleys, his stride full of purpose.

"Behold, my brother Arthur! We have arrived at the sacred threshold where your transformation begins!" Dimitri boomed, coming to a halt and gesturing grandly toward a building that looked like it was losing a very long, very depressing battle with gravity. I stared. Then I blinked. Then I stared some more. The shop was, to put it delicately, a disaster.

It was caked in layers of grime that looked structural, and the wooden beams were leaning at an angle that suggested the whole place was about one loud sneeze away from becoming a pile of very expensive splinters. It didn't look like a legendary armory; it looked like the place where dreams and termites went to die.