Chương 125: Searching for the Flaw

At first came absolute silence, as though it had been summoned deliberately, on purpose, as though the room itself had briefly held its breath. Every outside sound vanished at once — the neighbor's snoring beyond the wall died down, the distant, muffled hum of the night city faded away, even the occasional creak of floorboards under a passing draft near the window fell silent.

The dying candle's flame on the nightstand, which had been faintly flickering until now, suddenly froze almost completely still, as though it too were listening for something, holding itself in tense anticipation. But perhaps all of this was simply Lloyd's imagination, stretched thin with anticipation for something important — the exhaustion of the past few days sometimes played strange tricks on his perception.

And then came the familiar, faintly jingling sound of a bell, and from the dark corner of the room, a spot even the weak light of the dying candle couldn't reach, two small, glowing green eyes appeared, hovering in the air at about waist height. From beneath a cracked wooden mask concealing the lower half of its face came a high, childlike voice, filling the hushed room all at once. — This place is definitely better than the last one.

The green eyes slid slowly back and forth across the room, scrutinizing every corner, every crack in the walls, the battered wardrobe, the crooked nightstand, as though judging the conditions of his current lodging against some incomprehensible standard known only to itself. — But not by much.

A warm, involuntary smile crossed Lloyd's face — he'd missed this voice far more than he was willing to admit, and just the sound of that familiar, faintly mocking tone alone made something inside him feel noticeably lighter, as though a fraction of the week's accumulated weight had lifted off his shoulders. — I'd almost forgotten your sarcastic streak.

Only silence answered from the dark corner, the green eyes still fixed on him, unblinking, calm, as though studying every little detail of his appearance — from his disheveled hair to the dark circles under his eyes betraying a week's worth of exhaustion, down to the barely healed scratch on his cheek left over from today's run-in with the Whirlrunners. — You didn't call me the moment you arrived here, which, I'll admit, surprised me. So why did you decide to summon me now, of all times?

Lloyd's brow rose on its own.

"So he's known I was here this whole time. Not that I doubted it." Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Lloyd pushed himself up and sat on the bed, lowering his feet to the cold wooden floor, the bed betraying him with a creak, breaking the fragile silence that had settled over the room.

He absently rubbed his chilled feet against each other, trying to warm up a little in the damp, chilly room, his gaze drifting back again and again to the two green lights in the corner, as though he was still a little afraid that if he looked away, they'd vanish just as suddenly as they'd appeared. — Well, I really do have quite a few questions built up. But I figure you won't answer most of them anyway. You won't even properly explain how to use skills correctly...

In response, Mippo only blinked its glowing eyes and nodded silently, as though agreeing with this bitter but fair observation, making no attempt to justify or argue, the bell somewhere in the dark giving a faint, barely audible chime at the small, almost imperceptible nod. Lloyd, hesitating slightly, continued, feeling his heart start beating a little faster, his palms turning damp against his will. — So a rather unexpected question occurred to me, even for myself.

Mippo tilted its head slightly to one side, fully turned to listen, the bell in the darkness ringing softly again at the small movement, echoing with a thin, almost musical sound that immediately dissolved into the room's silence, as though swallowed by the very walls. — Do I have a Flaw?

It looked at Lloyd with its green eyes for several long, drawn-out seconds, as though genuinely caught off guard by the question, the silence in the room growing so thick that Lloyd could clearly hear his own slightly uneven breathing, along with the faint, distant crackle of the candle wick burning down its last drops of wax. But then Mippo gave that same characteristic, childlike little cough to clear its throat. — Of course. Every Player has their own Flaw.

Lloyd turned his gaze back to the familiar crack overhead, feeling something inside him tighten unpleasantly, as though an invisible knot were slowly cinching itself in his chest. Of course, he'd subconsciously expected exactly this answer, but somewhere deep down, a tiny, naive hope had still lingered that he might turn out to be the exception — the one single Player who simply didn't have such a flaw. The corner of his mouth twitched into an involuntary, faintly bitter smirk.

"Well, at least I've got a True Name of mythical rarity. Maybe that's where my luck went instead." Then he looked back at Mippo, whose eyes continued glowing dimly in the dark corner, casting two faint, greenish patches of light onto the nearest wall, trembling slightly in time with the steady swaying of its unseen body, as though the creature were shifting its weight from foot to foot somewhere back there, hidden in the darkness. — It still hasn't shown up, and I couldn't find anything about it in the System.

Lloyd scratched the back of his neck, feeling a little foolish for even asking, as though he were asking about something completely obvious that any other Player would already know without needing hints.

He shot a quick, uncertain glance at the door, as if worried someone might be listening in on this conversation through the hotel's thin, worn walls, though he knew perfectly well how ridiculous that fear was — since it was apparently Mippo himself who'd made sure not a single sound could leak outside, wrapping the room in that same strange, unnatural silence. — Could you at least give me some kind of hint?