A Civilization Of Its Own

Trent woke up to a strike to his temple and his eyes fluttered open to the dark shade provided by the hood of the Crimson Knight. He jerked his head in a waking response and his bird, Claw, who had been pecking at him, flew off his head and perched on the ground next to him.

Trent groaned and stroked its head. "Thanks, pal. It's good to have you back," he whispered and glanced around him, noticing a player creeping behind a huge rock on what seemed to be the top of a cliff they were on. Trent looked at his bird and then at the player. It seemed Claw was actually trying to warn him that a player was creeping up to eliminate him.

And if the player was successful, then Trent's life would have been over. Trent got to his feet, eyeing the player who seemed to be very poor in a flashy loadout. He still had the default skin on. "I'm sorry. Don't kill me and take the little credits I have," the player begged and was about to scramble away when Trent called after him.

It seemed that he had seen Trent defenseless, and as flashy as he was, the player wouldn't guess twice to be certain he had a horde of Neoncredits which he would automatically collect if he eliminated Trent. "What's yourID?" Trent asked.

"4007007," the player stammered, and Trent nodded.

[Do you wish to send 4007007 {PatchCake} 1M Neoncredits?]

Trent selected [YES] and gave the player a thumbs up. "Enjoy," he said and glanced over the cliff where he stood.

The scream of jubilation from the player danced into his ears as he studied the landscape beneath him. It seemed this was the depth of the Paradox World, and a human gamer would be stupid to reach this extent.

The atmosphere was eerie, with dim lights from the medieval but advanced architecture that the Paradox buildings seemed to possess. It was a full civilization, a full habitat he was gazing down upon. 'Some world, isn't it, Claw?'

His bird crowed in response, able to communicate telepathically with him.

There were cobblestone paths of streets, separating wooden, stone, and concrete buildings from each other. Everything felt like a dream with the dark sky glowing with patches of red, blue, and slight purple. Trent wondered if that was the Mana itself descending upon the indigenes because they resembled the Northern lights.

His eyes wandered the civilization, and among the buildings, one particularly caught his attention. His best guess was that it was an inn because of the fixed sign, which was creaking gently in the calm breeze.

"An inn would seem like a good place for shelter, am I right? Plus, there'd be indigenes there, I guess."

He glanced at Claw, who was on the ground, noticing the pouch bags the bird was trampling upon. "What's this?" he asked, bending to loosen their wraps.

A couple of items fell out once Trent loosened the first wrap. "System? What's this?" he asked, picking up one of the small pebbles. They had irregular shapes but with finely defined edges, similar to a cut gemstone that he easily held between his two fingers.

[Item: Shard]

[Description: Second in hierarchical value of currency, in between Gems and Shillings]

[Denomination: 1 Gem = 100 Shards / 1 Shard = 1000 Shillings]

Trent grasped the currency in his palms. He opened the other bags just to see Shillings and Gems as well. It turned out the goddess made him excessively rich in Paradox, just as in the game.

He heaved and got to his feet once again. "I can't carry all this money with me. Someone would surely find it conspicuous."

[You can deploy the Invisibility perk over them, using the game's system]

"I can do that?" Trent asked.

[Yes. You have been incorporated with two Systems]

'Sweet,' he thought. The goddess had indeed made this endeavour a breeze. He deployed the Invisibility perk over the money and started down the cliff toward the inn, with Claw perched dubiously on his shoulder.

Trent couldn't help but marvel at how serene this part of Paradox was. It had strikingly similar features to different eras of time. There were streetlamps and benches against the walls of the buildings, which reminded Trent of Old English times. But the medieval houses and sophisticated ones were contrary to that sentiment. This world was surely... paradoxical.

Glancing left and right before crossing the cobblestone street, Trent secretly enjoyed its serenity. 'Doesn't look like a world in chaos to me,' he thought as he approached the inn's door. He took a deep breath and readied himself to accept the appearance of the creatures he would have to see from now on. He could see their silhouettes behind the door: big, small, slender, and extremely grotesquely shaped silhouettes. Trent pushed the door open with a soft creaking sound, and a gentle chime of a bell hanging above followed as he revealed himself to the inn.

For what had seemed to be chatter and celebration, everywhere went stark quiet as all the indigenes present glanced at the menacing figure in a strange, magnificent red and black suit with a weird bird on his shoulder. They had confused, and almost frightened expressions on their faces. Trent wore a similar expression as he glanced from left to right, skimming every figure under the warm glow of the lanterns.

It was an inn, alright. But this seemed to be a bar within the inn, filled with many races of the Paradox. The delicious smell of roasted meat and strong ale enveloped him as his eyes scanned the large lobby.

The first group to catch his eye was the ogres, because of their massive stature and heads turned in his direction. They were seated around a table with meals before them. One even had his arm frozen in the air like he was about to give a toast with the mug in his grasp just before Trent entered.

His eyes travelled across the array of what seemed to be customers, all frozen at the sight of him. The only moving thing was the bartender's hand, which was polishing a goblet with a cloth. His hands were at work, but his red eyes were fixed on Trent.

'A Minotaur,' Trent said to himself as he skimmed all the indigenes in the inn, ranging from little dwarves on higher seats to a few male elves. 'Not bad. At least they have clothes on, unlike that half-horse,' he thought as he took one step forward.

The lobby remained quiet as Trent walked past every filled table. He slowly slipped into one of the barstools and locked eyes with the Minotaur bartender, who was still polishing the goblet.

The chatter started to creep in again, little by little, as if they forced themselves to. Trent simply shrugged. 'Well, I'm blending right in, aren't I?'