Limitless, John Gold [best novels of all time .TXT] 📗

and the old ladies gossip about their neighbors. The endless circle of life shut off as soon as worldly ambitions and desires ceased.

While the one-story and two-story houses look identical, the people are all different.

Dwarf, Targun, Level 1377, Templar

 

The bearded character is walking the streets, looking for someone the same as me, and not talking to anyone.

“Excuse me, Targun. Have you seen a couple with a one-year-old girl?”

The dwarf snorts.

“We have a thousand couples here like that.”

“Their names are Camelia, Arman, and Rosie. A seamstress, a fisherman, and a child between Levels 150 and 300.”

“No, can’t say that I remember them.” The dwarf looks over my original bone outfit. “Wait, are you new? How did you get clothes like that?”

Everyone around me is wearing identical outfits looking angry. The pants and shirts are gray and tailored to fit.

“I made them myself. What does that have to do with anything?”

Targun looks me over carefully until suddenly his eyes grow as big as two saucers.

“You’re…you’re alive,” he says, continuing in a whisper. “How? Why? Only the dead come here.”

“I came to this world to find my family. What does that picture mean, and why is everyone wearing identical clothes?”

The dwarf leads me off to a small green garden in between some houses. There’s a well with spring water from which I drink deeply, subsequently earning myself a dead water debuff. Original!

After making sure nobody’s eavesdropping, the dwarf starts talking.

“The clothes are given to the deceased, and you can’t take them off, damage them, or give them to someone else.” He points at the square and two crossed lines on his chest. “These symbols show which trial you came through. You have the angry smile on your armor —congratulations on beating the rage trial! Only one in every ten thousand can pull that off.”

“How many trials are there?”

The dwarf pauses, listening to a voice only he can hear. He nods and continues.

“Sixteen.” It hits me how much trouble I’m in. “But there’s a legend that anyone who can beat all the trials will receive an audience with death itself.”

“What does that give you? Can souls leave the Gray Lands?”

“Nobody knows the answer to that question. There’s never been anyone who came back after the sixteenth trial, so we’ve always assumed they’re just sent straight on to the seventeenth.”

I’m able to find out how it is that the people who get here have no real needs: parents take care of their children based on instinct alone. The same is true of conversation, recognition, self-affirmation, and personal development. From the point of view of a modern person, that kind of desire suppression seems horrible. It’s ideal for the trial, however.

The dwarf tells me that there are seven enormous districts in the city. With each new era in Project Chrysalis, a new district opens, boosting the city’s overall population. Whole streets are populated with nothing but dragons, goblins, ogres, and orcs. The only quest people are given when they show up is to find a home in their district.

That’s an important point I have to clarify.

“So, anyone who died recently, let’s say ten years ago, would be in the region for Project Chrysalis’ seventh era?”

“Yep. If the people you’re looking for died recently and went through the same trial you did, that’s where they are. You just have to find the human streets and then the house they moved into.”

There’s just one more question bothering me.

“Why is the sign on your chest different from mine and everyone else’s?”

“When I died, my soul was sent to the loyalty trial. I beat it and found myself in Ran. Most dwarves go through the loyalty trial, so there are plenty of our kind there. But I’m from a family of warriors—the berserker class, all with natural abilities activated by rage. They had to have gotten here to Nirim after going through the rage trial. Most of all, they thirsted for glory in battle, and their willpower wasn’t strong enough to continue through the trials. So, I spend my days here looking for my brothers and father.”

From what the dwarf is saying, I can tell that there are at least two cities as well as a way to get between them.

“You came here to find your family? How do you get between cities?”

“I prayed to death itself, promising to go through the next test twice in exchange.”

“How much time did it take you to beat the loyalty trial?”

The dwarf smiles sadly.

“Hundreds, maybe thousands of years. Time here flies by without you being aware of it —neither the log nor the maps work. All you can do is not give up.”

I say goodbye to the dwarf and set out in search of Nirim’s seventh district. My family could be there.

∞ ∞ ∞

Tiamat teleported to his office. The shape of the old dwarf wiggled and wobbled until finally, it was a tall, strong man standing in front of Idzumi.

“What were you thinking? You interfered with the trial!”

“I may be wrong, and I’m prepared to take the consequences, but what does it matter? Doubling the difficulty level? There aren’t any creatures higher than Level 10000 in the world, and he has three gods jabbing at him! Could you have taken out opponents like that?”

The young man, who looked as if he was barely twenty-five, gave a sly smile. With just a little willpower, he cut loose all his hidden strength. Everything in the room quivered, a dish fell off the table, and the kiir slipped into his battle form as he sensed his master’s rage.

“Tiamat, don’t forget who we are and how we got to where we are. I’m one of the strongest representatives of my world—don’t compare me to some green peeper from a fifth-order world.”

Tiamat nodded unwillingly.

“Still, the keeper interfered with the trial. I’m going to submit a complaint to the council.”

Idzumi just smiled, remembering that about death. He was endlessly pedantic when it came to following the rules.

∞ ∞ ∞

I spend all day running up and down the streets in search of my parents.