Chương 128: Lucky Guy

After these words, the yellow dust began rapidly gathering into fairly familiar silhouettes, in which Lloyd had no trouble recognizing Mushroom Wolves, Whirlrunners, and several other creatures he'd encountered over the past week. Each of these tiny, glowing shapes froze in the air for a moment, as though posing, then smoothly flowed into the next, leaving behind a faint, shimmering trail that dissolved somewhere near the ceiling, among the thick shadows pooling between the time-darkened ceiling beams.

Mippo, for its part, wasn't the least bit surprised by the display — it simply watched its own creation calmly, as though it had done this many times before, its green eyes narrowing slightly, giving it a focused, almost lecturer-like look. — The first and weakest rank in the monster hierarchy is Shadow.

It ran a knotted hand right through the dust, tracing the gesture over all the monsters it had formed, causing them to glow briefly with a brighter, richer light, the dust swirling into small, obedient eddies around its hand, as though responding to its every motion, and another faint wave of that sweet, caramel-like scent drifted through the room. — You've already seen plenty of this rank. Usually a level one or two Player can defeat them. But...

It gave Lloyd a long, searching look that made him feel slightly uneasy, as though those glowing green eyes saw far more than its sparse, measured words let on. — Since this is the weakest rank, it can also include the weakest monsters in existence, period. The kind even an ordinary human, one without any Player's power at all, could take down.

Mippo made a sound distantly resembling a quiet, sly chuckle, the feathers on top of its head swaying faintly in time with its amusement, casting three thin, trembling shadows against the wall behind it. — You'd know that better than anyone.

Lloyd scratched the back of his neck nervously, feeling his cheeks flush traitorously at the jab, remembering his own first, thoroughly clumsy attempts at fighting in this new world, while the dust spread out across the room in a wide, glowing cloud, briefly enveloping the sunken bed, the crooked wardrobe, and even the edge of the nightstand with its extinguished candle, before beginning to form something else entirely, drawing together into a single, dense mass somewhere in the center of the circle.

— Second rank — Phantom. The dust began taking the shape of a monster Lloyd knew all too well, one that still sent chills down his spine at the mere sight of it. Though the dust only formed a tiny, shrunken replica of the creature, no bigger than a cat, Lloyd remembered its true size perfectly — a mountain of corpses towering over ten meters high, one glance at which had literally taken his breath away back then, his legs nearly buckling from the wave of paralyzing terror that had washed over him.

Even now, looking at this small, glowing copy swaying in the air on its miniature but still recognizable limbs, he couldn't help shuddering, a familiar, unpleasant chill running down his spine. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. — To defeat the weakest monster of this rank, a Player needs to reach level three. The most dangerous specimens would pose a serious problem even for a level five Player.

Mippo glanced at the miniature Phantom hovering in the cloud of dust, slowly rotating on its own axis, as though showing itself off from every angle in this soft, golden light, then narrowed its eyes and looked straight into Lloyd's with an almost threatening seriousness that made him want to look away. — You got incredibly lucky, landing a second-rank relic that also happened to be that very Phantom's weak point. In short, you got very, very lucky.

Mippo let out a heavy sigh and briefly closed its glowing eyes, as though the very thought of such luck stirred some mixed feeling in it — not quite approval, not quite a faint, fatherly worry over such a reckless charge, the bell somewhere in the folds of its garment giving a short, quiet chime. — Though if you hadn't thought to throw it straight inside the Phantom, and had just tried using it normally, none of it would have worked. How did you even come up with that?

Lloyd just spread his hands, a sly, faintly mischievous grin spreading across his face, leaning back for a moment, bracing his palms against the cold wooden floor, feeling the rough boards scrape faintly against his skin. — I guess it was just instinct. Mippo's glowing green eyes narrowed, studying Lloyd closely, as though searching his words for some hidden catch, some unspoken detail that might explain the miracle better than sheer chance.

Still, Mippo understood perfectly well that it really had been pure instinct, since an ordinary human — which Lloyd had been until quite recently — would have had essentially zero combat experience to draw on, and something like reluctant respect flickered across its gaze at that realization.

The room around them, meanwhile, went on living its own quiet, steady life — outside, a lone cart occasionally rattled by, its unoiled wheels creaking against the cobblestones, and somewhere deeper in the building came the muffled, by-now-familiar sound of the neighbor's snoring, which oddly didn't disturb but rather seemed to complete that particular, trusting atmosphere that had settled between Lloyd and his mysterious guide.

The lantern's light remained just as steady, just as warm, casting golden, trembling glimmers across the floor and walls, sliding over the crack in the ceiling and the worn edges of the furniture, while the yellow dust kept drifting lazily through the air, settling in a thin, almost weightless layer over everything in sight — over Lloyd's shoulders, over the wooden floorboards, over the edge of his own bare feet.

Mippo simply let out another heavy sigh, clearly deciding to let the subject drop, at least for now — apparently the creature was used to getting to the bottom of things, and this kind of uncertainty was clearly causing it some discomfort.

It shot Lloyd one more brief, appraising glance, as though weighing whether to press the topic further or save its energy for more important explanations still to come, the lantern between them giving off a barely audible, steady hum, as though it too were anticipating the rest of the story.

Then came the soft chime of the bell hidden somewhere in the folds of its garment, and the yellow dust slowly began to disperse, losing the shape of the tiny Phantom, before gathering together once more, forming the outline of a new creature Lloyd had never seen before, its shape at first glance appearing far more angular and predatory than any of the previous ones — sharp, elongated forms, resembling something between fangs and claws, slowly emerging from the swirling dust, taking on more and more detail with every passing moment, until something even more unsettling than anything he'd seen so far hung suspended in the air of the room.