I stepped inside the city haven.

I observed the black-shrouded guards carefully. Their eyes glowed red from the depth of the visor pulled over their face. There was a black mane on their helmets.

The entrance was wide and breathtaking. It arched out into a semi-circle at the top. Three consecutive meshes of bronze bars hung above me. Their feet were pointed flints, ready to stab the ground upon any notice. They were 0.5m apace. Holes bore the walls at my sides.

As I walked in the middle, the ground resounded with a clang. I looked down, unable to distinguish this footing from the rest. The sound stopped after a few meters.

Permission to scan [Attributes] requested

Requestee

Administration staff from The Great city’s Traffic Permit Bureau

Yes

No

I selected [Yes].

Seconds passed by. The garden was a bit dull, on second thought. It was a population of shrubs and cacti of a dirty green color.

Welcome to The Great city!

The Great city is one of the border cities of the Arvald nation.

It borrows its title from the affluence of individuals who started as adventurers in this city, from generals to professors, from diplomats to ingenuous merchants.

‘The sun shines bright in the dusk.’

- Head to the west to reach the Shaolin Monastery.

- Head westmost to find the Sacred Dome.

- Head to the east to find the Elysian Cathedral.

- Head South to find the Temple of Epic

- Head to the center of the city to find the town center.

You are at the North Gate of the The Great city.

The North Gate is renowned for serving as the entrance to the city’s botanical hub.

System Notification

Rudimentary map of The Great city received.

The labyrinth shed its skin, revealing deeper colors of the opaque foliage.

The initial view had been a holographic projection. It was not a labyrinth; it was an avenue.

A bridge appeared in front of me. Water flowed underneath, from left to right. The river had a width of 4m. Its depths were made of subtle refracting marbles and sand. There were gray fish, just above the size of my outstretched palm.

I walked across the bridge. I reached its edge. A description appeared on empty air.

[A river that protects the garden from fire. It is host to fish, like the gray Tilapia, the Desert pupfish and the blue Devil’s Hole pupfish.]

‘These will be fried breakfast if a flighty alien gets in,’ I thought.

System Notification

You have been granted permission to observe the facilities of The Great city from a limited top-down instance. Interact with objects or seek an expert to discover the properties of individual objects. Public gardens, museums and aquariums are exemptions to the rule.

You can adjust the facility indicator by going to the [Archive] menu or tapping on one of the buttons below.

Turn off facility indicator & assistance?

Turn off facility assistance?

Perhaps this was the city’s way of saying ‘don’t touch’.

I retreated from the bridge’s edge. Regardless, this was an overwhelming stream of information. I tapped the [Turn off facility indicator & assistance] button.

System notification

Facility indicator & assistance turned off.

You can reactivate either feature by saying ‘User Command: Indicator’ or ‘User Command: Assistance’.

For single instance uses, you can say ‘User Command: Examine’ or interact with the object. A [+] symbol shall be appended to expand display to assistance.

I realized the value of information interfaces was higher than I thought.

I crossed over the bridge. I walked to the river’s shore, and plunged my head into its surface. The water was refreshing. I saw the blue Devil’s Hole pupfish staring at me. They scattered off. I lifted myself back, feeling a sting. I saw bloody strands float about the river. I patted my head. I rubbed my fingers through my hair.

There was no wound.

I looked at the gate. I waited for twenty seconds. No one came over. I stiffened my chest and breathed in the fresh air. This fresh air emanated from the trees. The most apparent candidates were trees called Yellow Palo Verde.

I dropped to a crouch. The water cleaned my hands. I used it to quench my thirst. I stood and entered the avenue.

The Yellow Palo Verde tree had yellowish-green foliage. The description said it was a deciduous tree, which meant that it lost its leaves seasonally. The Yellow Palo Verde’s green bark could carry out photosynthesis in extremely hot conditions.

Yellow Palo Verde trees were 3m in height. They grew in a stretch of land, about 2m of width, in the middle. This stretch of land spread the path out into a wider area. There were shrubs with tall foliage. The foliage, as mentioned, barred from sight the rest of the area.

Long tubular stems that looked like organ pipes introduced Organ Pipe Cacti to me. These were isolated plants, on sandy patches of land, reaching as high as 4m.

A dozen meters from each Yellow Palo Verde, there was a Joshua tree. The Joshua trees grew about two times as high as the Yellow Palo Verde trees.

The Joshua tree was a yucca plant. Yucca was a genus of perennial shrubs and trees in the family of Asparagaceae. The yucca plant was notable for its rosettes of evergreen and tough, sword-shaped leaves. As for the Joshua plant, it had a tall, flaky stem. Its alternative name was the ‘yucca palm’. A large root system supported the Joshua tree. It had stumped limbs that produced spiky, green leaves. Such leaves grew in clumps at the ends of the stumped limbs.

The Joshua tree looked barren and grew slowly. It looked like an oversized bonsai tree.

There were rose-shaped Ghost plants lingering about. The Ghost plants sat low on the ground. They had flower-like leaves. Ghost plants propagated in rosettes, which meant a vine-like stem. They were gray in color. Layers of leaves sat upon layers of leaves. They were sculpted with smoothness, each leaf ending with a point.

Closer to the Joshua trees were Mojave Asters. These were flowering shrubs. Their stems were green strands, with small leaves. The flowers adorning them were lavender in color. White blemishes mingled with the lavender petals, surrounding a yellow center.

I walked on.

I noted the Joshua trees and the Yellow Palo Verde trees, the Ghost plants and the Mojave Asters, and the Organ Pipe Cacti. (Leafy Place, 2021)

The dryness of the Joshua trees met the Mojave Asters’ soft colors. The Yellow Palo Verde trees looked healthy despite the surrounding Ghost plants. The Organ Pipe Cacti’s tubular offshoots stood in solitary fashion.

Time lingered.

A man with a dark-gray cloak approached me. He was followed by another man, with the same attire, and a hat on his head. ‘Way to dress in such a hot weather!’ I thought.

"Hello, fellow warrior in the garden. My name is David Keene." I looked at his bushy eyebrows. "I’m from the Sect of Dragon Hunters, of the Covenant of the Wise Fool."

I was confused. "What do you mean by ‘warrior in the garden’?"

"It means your sword, and my sword, never sleep."

My teeth clenched in amusement. "This sounds painful. Don’t you ever get necrosis?"

"What’s necrosis?" David asked, perplexed.

"That would be neurons dying on you," I replied.

"Don’t tease my cyclopes to this extent. You will spoil his charisma," the man with the hat said.

"I’m not a cyclopes," David countered, all swift.

I shrugged, half-lifting my hands. "You look like birds of the same feather. What will be spoiled, you say?"

"You don’t look like a disciplined warrior, far from it," the man with the hat said. I observed the black-and-white badge on their coats. The warrior brandished his sword from the right side. Looking at these two individuals, it became apparent to me that the warrior of the Covenant of the Wise Fool must be a boring entity.

On the other hand, the shrouded figure held its sickle, ready to strike the warrior. If these guys were from the Sect of Dragon Hunters, that meant the shrouded figure was from the Sect of Dragons. "Name yourself, bro," I said, extending a hand.

"I’m Darius Roboto." He gave a firm handshake. "Congratulations on reaching The Great city, Ashen Spines. You have made a good impression." I was only interested in the gameplay though.

"Why, thank you, Darius."

"That’s fine for now," Darius returned. To Darius’s right, David looked at me with cautious eyes. "We came to say hi. And now we’ve done it."

David stepped forward. "We look forward to seeing you join our sect. You will be in good hands. The Sect of Dragon Hunters hunts down problems. The sect of Dragons breeds problems. Once you are in a covenant, you can’t get out. You can only do so at the risk of being kicked out of cities or upon surpassing the covenant’s shadow. Also, our fifth inter-sect war took place forty years ago. All members of the covenant are obligated to participate."

That was a tough punch.

"’Problems’ is too ambiguous, David. There is novelty as well," Darius said. He brought his hands together. "Don’t worry. Your Sect choice within the covenant won’t affect the quests available to you – most of the time. We are gentlemen. That’s what counts."

"Sure thing, Darius."

Transaction request.

Darius Roboto has offered 1000 utils to you.

Accept

Reject

"Accept it. You haven’t received any compensation for killing the slimes, have you?" Darius said.

"You are just giving it away," I said. I tapped [Accept].

Darius smirked. I sensed no animosity from him. The duo took leave. I gaped at their backs. I looked at the Joshua trees, then the Mojave Asters. I looked at all the trees and took a random path. My mind went blank, then resumed thought. ‘This is a bombshell.’ I did not need to repeat it twice.

The name was Covenant of the Wise Fool.

I had found my catch to this covenant’s convenient rewards. The members themselves initiated the balance.

***

I was out of the garden. It had been a nice walk.

Part of me wondered why I hadn’t figured the catch already - that I was entering a battle royale. The first members I met looked innocuous – spotless – to say the least.

I window-shopped. There were clothes – shirts, t-shirts, shorts, pants on wooden slants, and coats. There were bowel hats, apple-green tunics, textured tunics of blue and white colors, and neckties. I could see working cloth for pipe-workers, white shirts and black pants for waiters, all-white and all-black costume sets, and luminescent smart apparels. These were apparently night gears.

I was in my white tunic and brown shorts, which was casual, in my estimation.

A guard with a determined face walked by me. There was an anxious guy following him. The guard wore a brown blazer. The blazer had the figure of an armored knight holding his sword at the ground with both hands. It was the blazer’s left side. The guard had a baton at his waist.

The prisoner was handcuffed. There was no chain linking the guy to the guard. I wondered why he hadn’t taken flight yet.

I looked at them. The prisoner wore a yellow tunic, with pink shorts. "I swear it wasn’t an admission. It was a joke!"

"Too bad," the guard said. His face looked irritated. "Your joke ill-befits a warrior like you! Only an idiot would defame so many clients at once like that."

"I know that too!" The prisoner said. "Please, I’m begging you!"

A guy in a red robe, in front of me, whispered, "You get what you deserve for petty crimes." He wore a protective mask, his face poking out.

"Knock off your smile, mate," said his partner, who wore a black garb.

"Oh, sorry."

The determined guard kept on path. He hardly paid the two guys to his left any attention. The prisoner followed along. The man with the black garb looked at the guard, his lips pressed inward in displeasure. He looked back at the man in a red robe. "Listen, mate. A person who has got depth knows what he should be satisfied about. Let’s go."

The red robe and the black garb disappeared into an alley.

I saw a service counter offering translations from Chinese to German. I walked to the next shop. I overheard another conversation. "Mr. Ishwar, I noticed a delay in the goods I ordered from you."

"Well, don’t keep checking the open-source booth, then. You are a valued customer, and it’s fine you got the privilege to access our processes. My customer service staff is on leave today. You can leave a negative review if you want," Ishwar said, tapping the booth.

"Well, I’m not that interested. My goods fall under registered value. I can make a model of your processes, regardless. I just need to check the IDs of the smart contracts."

"You can’t do much with anonymized data," Ishwar said.

"Well, money doesn’t follow all trails. It’s fine. We are talking about governance here."

"Mr. Lexus, we will be providing Open Processes strictly to the clients involved from here onward. I forgot to bring that to your attention. You will be pleased that your piece of hardware will come to you as you watch. Let’s discuss your feedback in a private room. Make sure to prepare your unique credentials; I’ll record our session. You can grant access of it to our customer staff at a later time."

"Sounds like bullshit," Lexus said. "I’ll go with it."

I came to the news stands section. I rushed through the humdrum the speakers at the corners made. My eyes read a road panel that marked out ‘Noob Academics street’.

That sounded dumb.

On Noob Academics street, I saw magazines ranging from meditation to gardening and first-aid in dungeons. There was a café, with orange walls. The notification blackboard outside this café listed master courses from a certain Skillpeer site. An arrow indicated that these courses were available inside the café, at fixed hours.

I heard someone badmouthing a waitress at another café. The woman looked demure and shy. I wondered why she hadn’t raised hell yet. The owner went over and started beating her. People intervened, and the woman managed to survive.

On one stand, I saw the title ‘Trending vs Indexing: OPD AIs plugging the sinkhole of your attention economy through suggested groupings’.

System Notification

OPD AIs stands for Open-Process Decentralized Artificial Intelligence. For now, these are only unique proprietary AIs that auto-destruct if the owner dies or they get corrupted.

I closed the notification.

I saw a woman in front of me. She looked like she would explode into a happy sigh. The person had black hair. "Good afternoon, my name is Emma Decker. I would like to ask you to help me, sir. Please have a look at this paper." The woman inched closer.

‘Airhead’ – the word appeared in my head as I looked at her. I was a thousand to util-less. I looked at the paper. [The Covenant of the Holy Mother is recruiting knights for its Holy Grail. If you are of any Covenant, other than those listed below, feel free to join us. We will negotiate a price for your future assistance.]

My covenant wasn’t listed among those on the paper. The Covenant of the Warrior was, though.

"Good sir, please consider joining the Covenant of the Holy Mother. The apocalypse will happen in ten years due to all these toxic demons. So, please change your covenant to ours!" Her hand touched my badge. ‘You are a missionary converting demons you already hate,’ I thought.

I pushed her away, lightly. "This game’s planet will likely have been engulfed by its sun in roughly six billion years, so I don’t give much fuck."

"Well, please mister! You won’t live long enough to see our planet explode. We are all going to die." The woman dropped her hands to her front, and lowered herself forward. Okay, cleavage.

"Well," I said, handing the paper to her. "Come back to me in eleven years."

"You look strong, sir. Please help me!" She clung to me, looking at my face with doe eyes. Never mind, no character depth I could see. Was she retarded? ‘For the sake of this retarded game. Just a black pill in the Holy covenant,’ I thought. The paper was pressed against my chest. I took it.

"Hey, listen. Will I get any repercussion for damaging your piece of paper?"

"No, please don’t do that!" I brought my hands to the top of the paper, then folded the paper three-fold. I handed it back to her. "You owe me 100 utils," she said, straight into my face.

‘Bruh, how come someone didn’t steal your strings yet?’, I mused.

I knew shit. A suicide song with thorns came to my head to allow me to distract myself. "Screw off," I said, trying not to make it sound that offensive.

"Hey! What the hell do you intend to do with Emma?" a passing man said. Oh, he knew her. I looked at Emma. She was clinging to me again. What kind of game was it, seriously? I needed to get back to simping for slimes. Emma had an H-force for chests, for some reason. She reminded me of bygone days. ‘Okay, revert to PG-13 thoughts,’ I chided myself. My hands were free, fortunately. "What do you intend to do if she gets traumatized, huh?"

"Riko!" said Emma.

‘Are you a dad?’I mused. "I saw a Cinderella maid in that restaurant recently. She received quite a beating from the restaurant owner for no good reason insofar as I could tell."

"What do you mean?" Riko was perplexed. Whether it was truth or a lie that I saw in his eyes, I ignored it. Riko caught the maid peeping from behind the window. He noticed her bruises. I could see that they had somewhat healed. "Take care of yourself, Emma," the man said, his neck blushing.

I went my merry way. Emma did not insist further. I saw what I wanted. The Covenant of the Holy Mother. Emma would probably get devoured and then devour some, same as the warrior. "User Command: 1 Util." I flipped the coin. I was the same. Denying the material world was impossible. Therefore, it had to be given form.

I looked at another magazine header, ‘The Conformist V. 145: The Wheel of Science & The Spirit of Times – revisited’. I looked around. ‘Top 100 realized projects for renewable geniuses: From solar panels to vertical gardens and cascading fountainhead turbines, to wind turbines and tidal generators’.

Amid the various infrastructure – cascading pyramid or trapezoid gardens – there was a nuclear facility. It was camouflaged, in the backdrop. It sounded like the wet dream of children. ‘Professor Pinker’s new psychological discovery makes you think like a young child’.

There was what seemed to be clickbait as well.

At the front, a crowd lined up. I wondered what it was about. The shop’s header read ‘The Red Library’. ‘Good or bad smut for your libido and your brain – you’ll find everything here!’

I approached the shop. There was slow music. It sucked. I noted erotic and crime titles. ‘Of course, works like magic,’ I thought. What appeared to be a Budjin deity’s statue looked at me from the door’s entrance. As I watched, some individuals only came up to the counter before turning back.

"Nude photography!" I heard. "640 MBTI samples of prostitutes. There are male versions as well. All individuals who participated in this gave their consent. Note: 70% of customers who bought membership to this database reported a better sexual life. 50% reported less masturbation sessions. 10% reported that this helped them come clean for an average of 1.6 months."

The speaker continued. "If you are a heavy user or artist, opting for the 1600-sample ‘Luxury’ database is recommended. Note that this service is part of the repopulation effort of Arvald. If you want to get a breath of fresh air, head to mbtidating.x."

That sounded desperate.

Subscribe to the ‘Red library’?

Yes

No

I realized I was at the counter. I tapped [No].

640 samples? I was pretty sure it sounded revolting. That was practically a day job and too self-conscious for a single MBTI type.

‘Ted Bundy vs the Zodiac Killer: Analysis’, read a random header.

I sped my pace. I came across food stalls. There was spiced sausage meat, spaghetti with eggs cracked on top, and cauliflower soup with potatoes. There were some snacks, such as meatballs, cheesebread stuffed with meat and ‘Brioche souflé au poulet’.

I took up a test-taking cake. The next counter advertised a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu bootcamp, a football bootcamp and more such sports.

Beside it, there was a ‘Watch’ prompt.

[The tiger vs the bull]

[The machine vs a Shaolin monk]

[The boa-constrictor vs the lioness]

It was martial arts matches.

"User Command: Maps!" I took out ‘The Great city – Beginner’s map’. The Adventurer company was two kilometers from here. One kilometer to the east, there were hotels. To the west, there was the Royal Lucretius institute.

The note for [The Royal Lucretius] was ‘the place where your perception and your perceptual beliefs meet’. "Lol, make sure that doesn’t explode on your face!" a woman said to her friend. They looked drunk. There was a brown mixture in a beaker. The thing exploded right on her face. I coughed at the fumes that came my way. She broke out laughing.

I opened my [Covenant Quests]. ‘Visit The Great city to commune with the selected messenger.’ That was the pending quest.

I walked past a drunkard. Then another. Two men crossed my path.

"Are you looking for me?" exhaled a person in my ears. It was a drunk woman. "Ashen Spines! Nice to meet you." The woman wore a black-and-white badge on her blouse. "I’m Nina, from the Sect of Dragons. Your selected messenger." She smiled.

"Cool," I said.

"Summon message: ‘Echo Chamber’" Nina cleared her throat.

"Genuineness is best expressed as art. You can classify art as Apollonian art and Dionysian art. Apollo’s a sour puss. Dionysus is another asshole. That said, why would you need to classify art at all? The answer is simple." Nina became dramatic. "If you are an existentialist, the very thing you seek is authenticity. That said, I dislike troublesome, egocentric people, you know? I don’t know shit about you. Sandy will know more about this, since she likes movies and partying. She ain’t touchy and isn’t as much as an introvert as me, see?"

Nina held the cuff of my tunic. "So you seek authenticity. If both parties admit that they are authentically flawed, they can become valuable accountability partners, and flourish together. Art that flows towards death~ Art that flows towards life~ That is awesome."

"From the instance you experience someone’s music, someone’s speech, someone’s walled garden, you obtain a temporarily consistent fragment of genuineness from that person. In your dreams, you think that having a flexible face, rather than a contrived face for each situation is indeed love of oneself."

The woman caught herself. "Okay. So where was I?" she inhaled. "Here, listen to this song."

It was a somewhat repetitive song making fun of people. The person sounded drunk too. "This is how I feel, right now," Nina said.

I scratched my cheek with my index finger. An apple flashed in my peripheral view. I caught it and took a bite. "That would have been a headshot," I commented.