Chương 126: The First Answers

Mippo looked at Lloyd with the same unblinking eyes, but now there was something in that gaze resembling faint, almost fatherly sympathy, as though it were listening to a hopelessly naive, almost childish question from Lloyd — the kind of question someone asks on their very first day, not yet grasping the full depth of the surrounding world, all its hidden pitfalls and invisible, treacherous rules this place had lived by since time immemorial. — I'd love to help, but it's not that I can't tell you...

Lloyd watched Mippo with intrigued eyes, and by now the brief silence that had settled between them had dissolved, replaced by a tense, almost tangible anticipation, sending a faint, uneasy shiver crawling up from the base of his neck and slowly spreading across his shoulders. —... I don't actually know what your Flaw is myself.

Blinking a few times, as though trying to process what he'd just heard, Lloyd kept studying Mippo — or rather, the two green pupils glowing in the darkness of the corner — as if waiting for some continuation, some logical explanation that would finally set everything straight, bring some clarity to this already tangled question that had nagged at him the entire long walk back to the city.

"Sure, I knew he wouldn't tell me. But that he doesn't even know himself? Now that's something new." He'd already opened his mouth to ask something, but Mippo suddenly continued, not giving him a chance to get a word in, its voice noticeably more serious than usual, as though it were carefully weighing each following phrase on some invisible, sensitive scale.

— This might reassure you a little, but plenty of Players go a long time without ever knowing their Flaw, and some even die without ever finding out what it is. Its voice grew noticeably quieter, almost apologetic, as though Mippo itself wasn't happy to be delivering this kind of news, and the bell in the darkness went briefly silent, not making a sound, as though the silence itself were waiting to see how this thought would end. —...

But you have a mythical name, so your Flaw is clearly bound to be something unusual. Lloyd absently rubbed his chin, trying to sort through everything he'd just heard, his gaze drifting off again toward the green lights in the corner of the room, toward where the outline of the battered wardrobe, its crooked door barely hanging on by one hinge, disappeared into the gloom.

"So the only way I'll ever find out is through an endless string of fights, adventures, and accumulated experience. Then again, thinking about it, I'm at an obvious disadvantage compared to those who already know theirs — at least they understand what to watch out for, while I'm going in blind. It'll be pretty grim if I end up finding out right in the middle of some fight. Well, let's hope it never comes to that." If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent.

Report it. The corner of his mouth twitched into a faint, warm smile without him quite meaning it to, and he looked back at Mippo, feeling the exhaustion of the past few days ease slightly under the weight of these new, fresh thoughts, leaving behind only a vague, uneasy aftertaste lodged somewhere deep beneath his ribs. — Thanks. You really did help.

Mippo simply spread its hands — or rather, whatever could pass for hands in this near-total darkness — the bell somewhere over there giving another soft chime at the light, almost casual gesture, echoing through the hushed room and making the dying candle's flame flicker faintly.

Lloyd, meanwhile, fell into thoughtful silence on the bed, sinking into his own thoughts, feeling the weight of the past few days press down heavily on his shoulders, his eyelids threatening to droop on their own, but Mippo's serious, still childishly bright voice suddenly cut through his internal monologue, yanking him back to reality. — That's not everything you summoned me for, is it?

Lloyd nodded briefly, feeling a tired but genuine smile spread across his face on its own, his shoulders relaxing slightly, as though this conversation, despite the disappointing answer about the Flaw, had still brought some relief simply from the fact that he finally had someone here he could talk to openly, without holding back, without the constant wariness that had become second nature in this foreign world. — Heh, turns out you're pretty sharp.

Mippo tilted its head slightly to one side, its whole demeanor expressing silent, patient anticipation of the next question, the two green lights in the darkness shifting faintly, as though the creature had shifted its weight from one foot to the other, the bell answering again with a soft, barely audible chime that dissolved somewhere near the ceiling.

Lloyd fell silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts and choosing his words carefully — this question had been circling in his head for a while now, ever since the very first day of the Exam, but he'd never quite found the moment to ask it outright. He shifted on the sunken mattress, settling into a slightly more comfortable position, his gaze drifting absently over the crack in the ceiling, as though it might suggest the right way to phrase it.

Somewhere outside the window, muffled, came the distant bark of a dog, quickly fading back into the evening quiet, and the candle stub on the nightstand gave a short, crackling sound, as if agreeing with the weight of the moment.

In the few seconds he spent gathering himself, Lloyd found himself mentally running back through everything that had happened over this long, eventful day — the Mushroom Wolf, torn apart by his own blade; the motionless lake with the gaping blackness of the dungeon; the six Whirlrunners closing in around him in a tight, silent ring; and finally, that coordinated, close-knit team that had saved him at the very last moment.

Each of these memories unsettled him in its own way, but they all shared one thing in common — a sharp, almost physical sense of his own helplessness, his ignorance, his lack of even the most basic knowledge that, it seemed, every other Player in this world had long since mastered.

"Well, since the chance is right here, it'd be stupid to waste it. Time to finally stop wandering around blind." He shot one more brief, thoughtful glance at the two green lights glowing in the darkness, as if making sure Mippo was still there, still ready to listen and answer, then took a deep breath, feeling some of the day's accumulated tension ease in his chest. — Tell me about monster ranks.