Chương 98: Blacked Out

I glanced down the row to see how the applause department was handling my legendary performance. Dimitri and Fiona were already treating me like a hometown hero, hammering their palms together with the kind of frantic energy you usually see from a stadium crowd when a benchwarmer accidentally scores the game-winning point.

Our resident human tank looked ready to adopt me on the spot, his face practically glowing with pure parental pride, while the Scottish cyclone beside him nodded along so aggressively she was practically vibrating off her seat. For a fleeting second, I genuinely thought I was the undisputed champion of the universe, a medical marvel who had just conquered weaponized moonshine with absolute zero consequences. The left flank of our counter lineup, however, was throwing off a massive wet-blanket vibe.

June and Aiko were drilling their eyes straight into my skull, tracking my facial expressions with the exact same blend of underlying dread and pure horror you'd expect from a safety inspector watching an idiot willingly touch a live electrical wire. Her Royal Highness had her elegant face locked in a tight, rigid grimace, working overtime to maintain her preferred mask of snobbish royalty vibes, but the sudden panic in her eyes completely gave her away.

She was fighting a losing battle to conceal a genuine wave of aristocratic worry for my survival, utterly terrified that I had just signed my own death warrant by blowing off her explicit warning. Right next to her, poor little Aiko looked like she was on the verge of a total psychological meltdown from the tavern's sheer chaos, her wide eyes locked onto me as if she were mentally picking out the flowers for my upcoming wake.

As it turned out, the girls were completely justified in prepping my eulogy, because my glorious tap-water theory immediately blew up in my face at absolute mach speed. Before I could even give myself a mental high-five, a literal biological grenade detonated directly in the deepest machinery of my gut, completely overriding the system and triggering an immediate, mandatory mainframe crash.

The entire room didn't just tilt; my entire reality initiated a rapid, high-velocity dive into pitch black, instantly severing my conscious brain from the steering wheel. Gravity wasted absolutely zero time claiming its prize, violently snatching my entire frame off the barstool and sending me plummeting toward the deck like a completely deflated blow-up doll. I slammed hard against the tavern floorboards, but my internal nerve endings had already filed for corporate bankruptcy and walked off the clock.

A heavy blanket of total numbness completely insulated my body, meaning I didn't feel a single molecule of the brutal impact when the hard wood connected with my skull. I was entirely paralyzed, completely incapable of calling for backup, and the entire universe simply dissolved into an absolute blackout. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

••••• I slowly dragged my eyelids apart, fully expecting a visual confirmation of the afterlife, but instead, my vision focused on a completely strange, generic wooden ceiling belonging to some random local lodging establishment. It definitely wasn't the pearly gates, and it certainly wasn't the familiar territory I was used to looking at.

The immediate reward for regaining consciousness was a spectacular, heavy-metal drum solo pounding away inside my skull, courtesy of a monstrous hangover that felt like a tiny construction crew was using jackhammers on my brain tissue. Every single memory following my spectacular tavern wipeout had been completely wiped clean from the hard drive, leaving behind an absolute void of empty static where my timeline of the previous night used to be.

Trying to piece together the exact logistical chain of events that had transported my broken body from the dirty barroom floor to this current location was a total puzzle, and I had absolutely no clues to work with. Before I could even launch a mental investigation, a heavy, suffocating pressure across my midsection made me realize I wasn't alone.

I glanced downward to locate the source of this massive human anchor and discovered that Dimitri's gigantic, hydraulic-grade arm was securely wrapped around my torso like an industrial-strength seatbelt. I traced the tree trunk of a limb back to its owner and found our resident Russian powerhouse lying right beside me, completely dead to the world and snoring with a peaceful, rumbling rhythm that sounded like a sleepy diesel engine idling in a garage.

Operating on pure survival instinct, I carefully began the highly delicate process of executing a prison break, meticulously sliding his colossal hand off my ribcage with the caution of a bomb technician defusing a live explosive. Once the coast was clear, I shakily hoisted my aching frame upward to plant my feet on solid floor. As I finally took a good look at my immediate surroundings, the hilarious reality of our situation became painfully clear.

It turned out that Dimitri and I had apparently spent the entire night bundled together like a pair of discarded winter coats right on the hard, unyielding floorboards of the inn room. I scanned the immediate layout of the room until my eyes locked onto the solitary, massive king-size mattress dominating the floor space, which currently served as a temporary docking station for June and Fiona.

They were both completely dead to the world, buried deep within a synchronized slumber party that defied all known laws of social hierarchy. To my absolute, unmitigated shock, the standard rules of engagement had been entirely flipped upside down, because Her Royal Highness was actually the one playing the role of the aggressively clingy koala. June had her limbs securely wrapped around the smaller Scottish powerhouse in a total biological vice grip, entirely abandoning her preferred aristocratic boundaries.

Meanwhile, Fiona was operating on pure, passive maternal instinct, her petite hand resting gently on top of June's head like a protective little shield designed to keep the royal nightmares at bay. Directly alongside Fiona's slumbering frame, a very specific, untouched patch of blanket real estate caught my attention.

It was a perfectly shaped empty zone that had clearly been reserved for our resident ball of baseline social panic, which meant Aiko was currently missing in action from her designated sleeping coordinates. My internal tracking radar immediately kicked into high gear, scanning the dim perimeter until I caught sight of a small, distinct silhouette framed against the glass of the balcony window.

I carefully navigated my way across the floorboards, treating each step like a stealth mission as I glided toward the outdoor deck to investigate the situation. Once I closed the distance, the mysterious mystery was instantly solved. Aiko was completely lost in her own little world, crouched down low and delicately poking a tiny caterpillar pupa chrysalis that was anchored to a nearby flower petal.

She was so utterly hypnotized by her microscopic science project that she didn't even register my incoming presence or notice that I was standing right behind her.