Chapter 3 - It's Not A Cult!

There was a knock at the door. Junior opened it to reveal the woman from the balcony standing in the hallway beyond. Though he couldn't see it, she was wearing . . . a lot. 

Dressed in what could only be described as combat boots and camouflage fatigues, a massive hiking backpack was slung over her shoulders. The pack was so laden with gear that the bedroll strapped on top would have brushed the hallway's ceiling if her back weren't already hunched under her burden. Her dark, shoulder-length hair was pulled back in a ponytail and a sheen of sweat gleamed on her forehead.

"Hi! I'm Millie," she chirped brightly as she extended a hand. "Nice to see you!"

"Hello Millie, my name is Junior," he responded. He'd put on the opaque sunglasses he wore in public. "Would you care to come in?"

Millie looked from Junior's sunglasses to her extended hand and back again, a light flush spreading across her cheeks. She snatched the limb behind her back as if to hide incriminating evidence.

"S-sure," she stammered awkwardly.

Junior turned and led the way back into his condo. 

Millie staggered through the doorway under the weight of her oversized backpack. From the entry she could see an austere-looking living room without much furniture. In the middle was a sofa with a short table in front of it. To one side she could see a black piano and to the other a short hallway which likely led to the rest of the rooms. Curiously, she could barely hear what sounded like voices talking in the background.

Junior moved to sit on the sofa. "Please join me on if you'd like," he offered

Millie remained standing. "Uhm . . . nice place. Looks a little bare but very stylish!" She winced. "Sorry! I didn't mean to say 'look'! I meant . . . shit. Sorry."

"Don't worry about it," Junior responded calmly. "We'll start a 'Look Jar'."

"A . . . w-what?" Millie stammered in confusion.

"A 'Look Jar'. Every time you say 'look', you put money in the jar." He mimed holding an invisible jar with one hand while placing something in it with the other. "Like a swear jar for sighted people."

Millie blinked rapidly. "I guess . . ? Sure. Uhm, do other people do this?"

"Of course. How do you think I can afford this condo?"

Millie looked at him sharply. His expression remained neutral, but Millie's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Wait. Are you messing with me?"

"Yes."

"You jerk! Okay you seriously almost got me. Good one!" She grinned.

Junior finally allowed a smile to touch his lips. "Relax, Millie. If I got offended every time someone dropped the 'L-bomb' I would be a very miserable man."

"Fair enough." Millie's shoulders shook with genuine laughter, which almost caused her to lose her balance under her giant pack.

Junior heard the heavy scuffle of her feet. "Everything okay? Do you want to take your boots off?"

Millie's eyes widened with surprise. "How did you . . . wait, you can hear my boots?" she asked, looking down at her feet as she caught on.

"Yes." Junior frowned. "Your steps sound heavier than I expected. Are you carrying something?"

"Oh wow, that's so cool!" Millie exclaimed. "Er, yes! I'm carrying my survival pack for the Tutorial. We need to get you one too, like, yesterday!" Her expression became more determined now that they'd gotten to the topic of her mission. "Now that you're my follower, I'm not letting you die. Not if I can help it!"

If it weren't for his condition, Junior would have wanted to roll his eyes at the casual way Millie kept mentioning his potential death. But strange as she seemed, the blue screen floating impossibly in a blind man's vision couldn't simply be ignored.

Failsafe System Integration . . . Initializing.

Please stand by.

"That's one of the things I wanted to ask you about," he said instead. "A friend called while you were getting ready to come over. She told me there's a lot of chaos out there right now. Mobs at the stores, banks running out of cash and closing their doors. Some countries have started instituting martial law. She also told me that more than a few people with beliefs similar to yours are coming forward."

"Yeah, I'm not surprised," Millie said, her voice saddened. Then she brightened and gave an enthusiastic first pump. "But good to know the LITRPG community is stepping up to the plate!"

"L-I-T-R-P-G." Junior repeated, but spelled out the letters instead of saying it as a word like Millie had. "I've listened to some reports my friend recommended. It sounds like a cult."

"What? It's not a cult!" Millie spluttered.

"Believers in this L-I-T-R-P-G . . ." he began.

"We're not 'believers', just fans," she disagreed firmly.

"Fan is short for fanatic, isn't it?"

". . . yes?"

"So, fanatics believe the universe is a video game," he continued.

"Not so much the universe is a video game," Millie argued. "More like RPGs are the closest to the hidden truth. Stats. Levels. Classes! Magic! It's gonna be awesome!"

Junior couldn't see the fervent gleam in the woman's eyes but he could certainly hear it in her tone of voice. He nodded along as if in agreement.

"And this truth has been revealed unto the chosen few, whom shall gain untold power and riches after the apocalypse to come," he intoned somberly.

"Yes!" Millie practically shouted. She couldn't manage to jump with her burden but settled for another fist pump.

But then she saw a small smile touch Junior's lips and thought about not just what he'd said, but how he'd said it. 

"Wait! No! Why'd you make it sound so cultish?"

Junior shrugged. "If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . ."

"It's not a cult!"

Junior laughed. Before he could continue egging her on, Millie wobbled unsteadily. The sheen of sweat on her forehead had grown into streams dripping down her face and her breath was getting short.

Junior heard these signs of distress and asked with some concern: "Millie, how heavy are the supplies you're carrying?"

"I didn't have time . . . to weigh in," the woman panted in response. "I was hoping . . . to get transported to the . . . Tutorial and I didn't want . . . to leave anything behind." The wobble in her legs rapidly grew worse. "I . . . may have slightly overd-"

Before she could finish, her knees finally buckled and she collapsed to the floor in a noisy heap.

"Millie!" Junior exclaimed, lurching to his feet. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"I'm okay!" she groaned, raising a limp thumbs-up. "Just . . . gonna lie here . . . for a bit . . . and catch my breath."

\ - / - \ - /

It took a while for Millie to recover.

Junior offered a drink of water and a snack, which she accepted gratefully. He also suggested removing her pack but that she outright refused.

"It would suck to get transported to the Tutorial without my supplies because I set my pack down at the wrong second," she'd declared adamantly. She was on the ground, back sprawled awkwardly across her massive pack like the world's most uncomfortable mattress.

Junior didn't argue the point. He remained skeptical of many things, including this 'Tutorial' Millie kept talking about. But what did he know?

Today's world was stranger than yesterday's.

Instead, he ordered his condo's smarthome assistant to increase the volume of the sound system.

"Athena," he said the name he'd chosen for his suite's AI. "Turn the volume up 30 decibels."

"Okay," a pleasant female voice with vaguely artificial undertones responded. "Increasing the volume from 30 to 60 decibels."

The voices Millie had noticed when she'd first entered Junior's condo increased from a background whisper to that of a normal conversation

A male voice was currently speaking in the manner of someone lecturing an audience.

"-ailsafe System gives us an Inventory, that will be a real game changer. Some LITRPG authors describe them as tiny bags which slightly reduce the weight of objects placed inside. Others make them into extra-dimensional spaces floating off somewhere behind the edges of reality with potentially limitless storage. Levels could make a big difference too. There could also be certain kinds of upgrades. . ."

"I wish I had an Inventory right now," Millie muttered between bites of her snack. "Or a Help screen. Even just a Status Sheet! I've tried all sorts of commands, but nothing. Gonna have to wait 'til the Integration finishes, I guess." The woman lying on the floor heaved a disappointed sigh and took another nibble.

Junior listened to Millie's complaints with one ear while still focusing on the lecture with the other. He'd continued to listen to the lecture at the reduced volume while he'd let Millie inside the condo. Like many people without sight, Junior had worked to develop his other senses to a degree that sighted people rarely appreciated.

Especially his hearing, considering the other . . . unique disadvantages he'd had to overcome.

"It doesn't make sense," Junior finally said.

"I know," Millie agreed. "Not all Systems include one but it would be super convenient."

"I don't mean just the Inventory," Junior corrected. "None of it makes sense. This whole supposed 'System'. Power without limit given to those with none. Why bother?"

This was the primary source of Junior's skepticism. He couldn't deny what he was seeing, but the claims coming from the LITRPG community defied belief. Magic. Godlike powers.

Nothing was free in life. He couldn't imagine this Failsafe System would be any different. 

"Good question," Millie said, her tone perhaps a little more serious than it had been until now. "Plenty of LITRPGers just skip that point entirely but others have tried to explain it. It's usually not good."

"How so?" Junior asked, listening intently.

Millie sighed. Junior could hear the rustle of clothing and shifting of various items in her pack as she straightened herself to sit more upright.

"Some say it's a way to produce soldiers for some cosmic conflict of unimaginable scale," the woman began rather grimly, at least for her. "Others that it's a way to harvest the souls of the countless masses who've died to fuel the growth of the survivors. Still others that it's a means to correct some existential flaw in the universe, or to imprison some calamity that would end reality as we know it if it were let loose. And of course let's not forget the fickle whim of gods or other ancient beings who enjoy watching mortals struggle for their twisted amusement."

The two were silent for a time with only the sound from the audio system as it continued to play.

"That's pretty bleak," Junior finally admitted.

"Yep," Millie agreed matter-of-factly.

Just then the soft padding of four little feet could be heard from the hall which led to the condo's other rooms. Achilles entered the living room, tongue lolling and jaws agape in a canine yawn. Millie's eyes locked on the Golden Retriever and widened with excitement.

"You have a dog!" she squealed with the enthusiasm Junior had grown to expect from his newest acquaintance.

He opened his mouth to respond but he abruptly halted his tongue.

The words on the blue screen finally changed:

Failsafe System Integration . . . Complete.

Then Junior's consciousness was swallowed by Light.