Chương 127: Pleasant Memories

— Tell me about monster ranks. I know a bit about them, obviously, but I figure you could tell me a lot more. Mippo finally stepped out of the darkness, revealing itself at last — it turned out a lantern had been hidden in its small, gnarled hands this whole time. The creature set it down unhurriedly in the very center of the room and switched it on, and Lloyd, finally able to get a proper look at his companion in the light, found himself involuntarily holding his breath.

The lantern immediately lit up with a soft, warm yellow glow, and a large, faceted crystal set somewhere inside it began releasing a fine, shimmering yellow dust that drifted slowly through the air, filling the whole room with a ghostly, almost fairy-tale light, settling over the furniture and the walls themselves in a weightless, glowing film, like the pollen of some exotic flower, drifting down onto shoulders, hair, the faded upholstery of the old wardrobe.

Each speck of dust flared briefly with soft golden light before finally dissolving into the air, leaving behind a faint, sweetish scent, distantly reminiscent of caramelized sugar.

In that gentle light, Lloyd could finally take a proper look at Mippo — a round head that looked as though it had been carved from old, darkened wood, with a pattern of tree rings clearly visible across its surface, crowned with three feathers of different shades jutting up from the top — golden, ochre, and deep auburn — each of them trembling faintly with the creature's every movement.

Two large, round eyes, glowing with that same rich green light as before, seemed especially bright against the dark, wooden face, while the deep hood of its long green cloak, its edges stitched with fine golden thread, concealed most of its body, revealing only a knobby, greenish hand still gripping the lantern's handle, and the hem of a plain, rough garment near its feet, where small, slightly crooked toes peeked out.

Mippo silently pointed a finger at the floor directly in front of itself, inviting Lloyd to sit down beside it. Lloyd did just that, lowering himself onto the wooden floor and crossing his legs, feeling its cool, rough surface beneath him, and this simple act suddenly, with unexpected intensity, reminded him of his very first trial as a Player — of the very first dungeon he'd ever descended into, and, so far, the only one.

Endless, winding corridors, coated all the way to the ceiling in some strange, viscous green slime that clung to his soles with a sickening squelching sound at every step, the walls themselves pulsing faintly in the darkness, like the living, breathing tissue of some enormous, unseen organism. Green, slimy creatures skulking in the darkness of the side passages, their silhouettes still occasionally surfacing in his mind even now, whenever he closed his eyes before sleep.

His very first relic, which had nearly burned his entire right arm the first time he'd ever tried to use it, not yet fully understanding how it even worked — he'd spent a whole week afterward with a burned arm, gritting his teeth through the pain with every careless movement.

The dungeon's first Boss, an enormous mound of piled-up corpses that had blocked his path, moving on massive, gnarled arms jutting straight out of that monstrous heap of flesh — a sight the mere memory of which still turned Lloyd's stomach, the creature's deafening, guttural roar seeming to still echo somewhere deep in his bones even now.

And finally, the very first Phantom he'd ever encountered — a creature that had come within mere centimeters of killing him that day, a single wrong move, one misstep in the wrong direction. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

All of this had happened not too long ago, by the calendar's count — and yet it now felt impossibly distant, as though it had happened to someone else entirely, in some completely different life, left behind on the other side of some invisible line.

A faint, warm smile crossed Lloyd's face — those had been truly brutal times, far harder on him than even now, and the fear and confusion of those first days still occasionally crept back into his nightmares, jolting him awake in the middle of the night with his heart pounding. But for some reason, against all logic, those memories still warmed something in him, stirring a strange, nostalgic tenderness, as though he were remembering something precious, gone forever.

"Maybe it's because that's where I became a Player. That's where I got my first level. That's where I got my True Name." He glanced down at his own right hand, recalling that very burn, long since healed, leaving behind no trace at all except for an ingrained, instinctive caution whenever handling new, untested abilities.

The lantern, meanwhile, continued crackling softly, the yellow dust around it settling ever thicker, as though the creature were deliberately letting it accumulate, preparing to begin some long, thorough account. Thin beams of light filtering through that veil of dust traced strange, trembling patterns across the floor and walls, and the darkness in the corners seemed to retreat slightly, as though paying respect to this soft, warm glow.

Somewhere outside the window, that same loose shutter creaked faintly in the wind, and the candle on the nightstand finally went out entirely, leaving the yellow lantern as the room's only light source, deepening the shadows in the corners and lending the whole setting a particularly intimate, almost homely feel.

The sunken bed creaked softly as Lloyd shifted once more, settling into a more comfortable position on the hard wooden floor, and from somewhere far off, muffled, came the distant hum of the sleeping city, weaving into the room's silence as a faint, steady note.

Mippo, meanwhile, unhurriedly adjusted the edge of its cloak, as if settling in more comfortably for a long conversation, its green eyes briefly closing, as though the creature were gathering its thoughts, considering where best to begin this long-overdue explanation.

It leaned forward slightly, and the bell hidden somewhere in the folds of its garment gave a short, soft chime, as though anticipating the start of a lengthy tale, the lantern between them swaying faintly in turn, casting a new, slightly wider wave of golden light across the ceiling.

Mippo cleared its throat with that same characteristic, childlike little cough and finally spoke, breaking the silence that had settled over the room, the yellow dust around the lantern stirring faintly in response to the sound of its voice, swirling into slow, lazy spirals in the still air. — Well then. Let's begin.