Chương 114: Order Within Chaos

Morning had come early, which meant it was prime hunting time for Lloyd. He opened his eyes, lying motionless for a few seconds, letting them adjust to the pale, gray light seeping in past the curtained window, then rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and, forcing himself past the last remnants of sleep, hauled himself out of the sunken bed, which gave one final quiet creak beneath him.

His body had gotten some rest overnight, but the shoulder he'd injured in yesterday's fight with the wolf responded to any sudden movement with a dull, dragging ache, an unpleasant twinge that felt lodged somewhere beneath the skin. He got dressed in his black outfit, carefully buttoning it up, slung his backpack over his shoulder with a practiced motion, and headed for the door, leaving behind the shabby little room that had, over the course of one night, somehow become a fraction more familiar.

After taking care of his morning routine in the cramped, worn-down bathroom at the end of the hall, where the tap ran only ice-cold water instead of warm, stinging his fingers, he went downstairs, handed the key back to that same sullen woman at the counter, who didn't so much as glance his way, and left his self-proclaimed "five-star hotel," stepping out into the cool street not yet warmed by the morning sun.

Even though it was still early, the streets were already bustling with activity — everyone had been up since dawn: someone busily sharpening a sword against a whetstone, sending up a shower of tiny sparks; someone else laying out fresh produce on their stall, still damp with morning dew; another just opening the shutters of their shop, hinges creaking from lack of oil; and yet another hauling a heavily loaded cart of goods from one end of the street to the other, shouting at the sluggish, harnessed beasts pulling it — creatures that vaguely resembled Earth's oxen, but covered in scaled, dully gleaming hide.

The air was thick with a mix of smells — fresh bread, horse sweat, chimney smoke — and it occurred to Lloyd, just for a moment, that somewhere out there, back on Earth, some equally ordinary, unremarkable city was probably waking up in exactly the same way, at this very hour. This kind of scene had long since become familiar to Lloyd, almost mundane — a bustling, noisy ritual with which this strange, half-wild city greeted every morning.

And there it was, standing before him as always — the guild's massive, rune-covered building — and without much hesitation, he walked inside. He was met by an almost empty tavern, lit by the dim, gray light filtering through the grimy windows, and a pair of already thoroughly drunk Players who, judging by their rumpled faces and the persistent smell of stale alcohol, had most likely just spent the whole night here, heads slumped onto a table sticky with spilled beer.

Approaching the notice board, plastered with dozens of crumpled, tattered flyers, their edges long since yellowed and curled, he studied each quest carefully, one by one, as though genuinely hoping to find something among them he could actually handle.

"Alright, let's see what we've got here." The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Finding nothing especially interesting or profitable, he eventually settled on the same familiar quest as always and tore the flyer off the nail holding it to the board.

"I'm not going to last long like this..." The flyer bore a crudely drawn portrait of a Mushroom Wolf, along with the quest to kill it, beneath which was clearly written: "0/5." Strange as it might sound, as long as he kept the flyer on him, every kill got automatically counted, the number updating on its own, as though some invisible hand were tracking his every move.

"Still can't quite believe that." Which meant the Guild was practically impossible to cheat, no matter how clever a Player might be.

"Then again, maybe I just haven't found the trick to getting around it yet." Rolling the flyer up tight, he tucked it into an inner pocket of his backpack and headed for the city gates, weaving through the same narrow alleys and the slowly thinning, waking crowd, nodding occasionally to merchants he recognized but who never actually spoke to him.

After a while, he found himself walking along a narrow path marked on both sides by small, neatly arranged stones, which made the going noticeably easier through the thick, overgrown grass that kept catching at his pant legs, while somewhere in the distance drifted the faint, barely noticeable scent of flowers blooming nearby. At last he came to a stop in front of the familiar cliff edge.

Beneath the very island Lloyd stood on, there wasn't a single other island in sight — only scattered, small stones, apparently broken off from the platform's edge, drifting slowly back and forth through the air, carried by unseen currents, rising slightly one moment and sinking the next. Lifting his gaze upward, he saw that same, all-too-familiar sight he'd been watching for seven days straight now, and still hadn't quite managed to get used to. Then again, he seriously doubted he ever would.

Up there, an enormous tornado encircled the entire space around him, stretching from the ground itself far up into the sky, so high that its peak vanished somewhere beyond the thick, leaden clouds. Currents of air churned endlessly around this whole colossal expanse, forming a giant, sweeping funnel that stretched far beyond the edge of sight, to a point where the eye could no longer make out any individual detail. Inside this colossal vortex floated thousands of islands.

They hung at all sorts of different heights and distances from one another, ceaselessly drifting through the powerful, invisible currents of air. Some islands drifted slowly along wide, sweeping arcs, others spiraled tightly, and some abruptly changed direction, as if caught by a sudden, far stronger gust. Certain islands turned slowly on their own axis while still drifting leisurely through the open air. Despite all this seemingly total chaos, the islands never once collided.

Even when two enormous slabs of stone drew close enough that a collision seemed absolutely inevitable, at the very last moment their paths would always diverge. One island would smoothly veer aside, the other continuing calmly along its original course, and once again a clear, empty space would open up between them.

The same thing happened everywhere — thousands of islands ceaselessly moving within this giant, roaring vortex, passing one another at all sorts of distances, sometimes mere meters apart, yet not a single one had ever collided with another in all seven days Lloyd had been able to watch this spectacle, standing now just as he had every time before, at the edge of another cliff, preparing once again to trust in this strange, incomprehensible order hidden within the surrounding chaos.