"Ahahahahahaha!!"

I'm currently being laughed at by the woman in front of me.

She had the fortune (?) to witness my embararssing disagreement with my intestines, and my mad dash to the restroom.

I didn't have the luxury of worrying about spectators, but having been seen in such a state, it stings.

It really stings.

I swear, one day, I will avenge this humiliation.

"I'm sorry..." (Girl)

This woman, actually a young girl, continues to laugh.

She's a sharply dressed girl in a tour guide outfit, completely blue with a low cut skirt.

Black stockings, black heels, white gloves, and a cute hat that's too small for her head.

The outline of her dress indicates she has the curves of an adult, but she's incredibly short. She's at least 30 cm shorter than me.

Even shorter as she's hunched over, hands on knees, laughing.

I'm just standing here with a frown on my face. Can we get on with this?

....

"Ahahahaha!"

.....

Looks like she's done.

She looks up at me, ready to greet a new customer.

Yosh.

"Excuse me..." (Makoto)

I barely get a word out and her pupils dilate.

Cheeks puff out.

"Ahahahahaha!"

She continues to laugh.

What the hell? How can any one person laugh this much?

Yes, I made a fool of myself, but I'm clean right now.

And that incident is already long in the past!

The girl is on her knees again laughing.

Irritated, turn around and walk away.

Let's give her some time. I still haven't done much exploring in this "town".

...

Olympia Skywalk is visually distnct from the "field" I spawned in.

Unlike that "field" where you walked directly on the cloud, the Skywalk has a thick floor of polished marble separating foot from foundation. It's much easier to run on a solid, hard floor than on what is essentially walking on a mattress.

From my memory the Skywalk is about 1.6 square km in surface area. It has equally spaced lampposts with a magical-feeling flourescent light emitting from the cage, with the occassional garbage bins next to them. In the lore of the game the bins are a type of MIMIC monster that feeds on garbage. It served as a place to empty your useless items without dropping them on the ground, which could get you a littering penalty from the GAME MODS (GM).

There are bathrooms spaced 200 meters apart. Their original use in Sugar Maple was a location where you could customize your avatar's apperance with purchases from the Cash Shop. The Cash Shop was accessible through a special game menu, but it had a physical store one very continent. That store served to do nothing but promote dumping cash into the game.

Speaking of that store, it's here too. The center of Olympia Skywalk is the Inn, where dead players respawn and where live players go to restore their HP and status. Surrounding the Inn are the small tourist shops that make up Olympia Village.

Currently, all the shops are locked up and there isn't a soul in sight. The sky is darkening but the lights keep the area quite bright. The merchants might have gone home for the evening, but it's strance since the skywalk is supposed to be open 24/7.

That's because the primary purpose of this town is as a dock, loading/unloading passangers and anchoring ships from the various planned continents in Sugar Maple.

I say "planned" because only one dock was ever used, the airship down to Newberry Island. Nobody could ever progress far enough to catch one of the other ships.

Right now, there's no ships anchored. The ship to Newberry Island launches once per day,

And it's getting dark. I've explore the entire area of the Skywalk and there's nothing new to discover.

I guess it's time to go to sleep?

I walk over to the inn. There's no lights on in the building.

Nothing left to do but wait for dayroll I guess...

I enter the building. It's pitch black, but there are some lights on the floor indicating where the paths are.

No receptionist. Self-serve? There's no bedrooms on the first floor. I have to climb the stairs to get to the first hall of rooms.

I try to open the nearest door.

Click. Locked.

I try the one next to it.

Click.

And the one next to that.

And the one next to that.

And that.

And that.

....

ARE ALL THE ROOMS OCCUPIED?

That might explain why none of the shops are open. Everyone's asleep?!

Or maybe the rooms are locked by default. I don't know what it is.

The inn is only 2 stories tall but the hallways seem to stretch into infinity, I kept trying over and over to find an open room and finally found one after hours of trying!

I'm exhausted, of course.

Think about what I've done today.

I worked half a shift at work, died, got reincarnated in a parallel world similar to a video game I played over 20 years ago, saw my kouhais get eaten by demon imps, walked half a day on a cloud highway, and had lower bowel distress in front of a cute tour guide.

I'm ready to check out.

I don't even turn on the light in the bedroom. I just immediately strip down.

Yeah. I sleep in the nude.

I always have because I can get an extra day out of my undergarments by not sleeping in them.

When you sleep with clothes on, no matter how little, you sweat more at night than if you go in naked.

You start to smell more quickly the longer you wear underwear.

Why don't I use a new pair? Well, I used to. Until I ran out.

Amane had me working 98 hours per week, there's almost no time for basic self-care, cooking, and chores.

Sleeping naked was one of my secret techniques to coming into work looking, smelling, and workng clean.

Or at least, cleaner than my coworkers. I think I mentioned Tachibana and Hina-chan always had that bad copy room smell hanging around them?

I slide into the bed. It feels smaller than I was expecting.

My head hits the pillow and my eyes immediately close.

Sigh. This feels earned.

Finally, this chapter in my life can end.

No jokes, no twists, no cliffhangers.

Just sleep.

Oyasumi.