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“Where did that little rat sneak away to?” Boksa was looking everywhere for Lirzod, his veins tumefied, and skin reddened from rage. His eyes, cheeks, and lips bloated and blackened with every passing second, owing to distress. Not far away from him, Divas and Fimbry were also doing the same thing, except that their targets also included Burton and Sariyu, and they didn’t strike to the eyes as woebegone as Boksa. “I was sure they took off in this direction,” Divas scanned around, feeling the presence of things to some distance all around him, despite a lot of fog fattening his surroundings, but he still couldn’t find much that would help him reach the three youngsters.

Breaths turned almost as silvery as the fog began to bit by bit freeze everything it made contact with, including the water surface of the ice dumpster; the wind and water together chilled people's bodies, not leaving any spots warm—not even the hairy ones. Colder than the cold before dawn, the scenery for those who could see it and feel it was both beautiful and blood-curdling. Lost in the fog, most men suffered a similar fate—thrashed to the hilt, for Hardy Brothers took them out like snakes do frogs in a murky pond. Those who sensed the movements of Hardy Brothers in advance either tried to make a break for it or played possum, but none showed the will to fight back, or so it seemed. Somewhere in the ice dumpster, hidden from the eyes of the audience by fog, two people were having a go at it, and the fog's density around those two was quite low as compared to their surroundings to the point it could be called mist.

As most of the contestants tussled near the center of the ice dumpster, the sudden reckless move of Brown Hill threw them into disorder, also hindering Burton and Sariyu’s plan of facing the four brothers together with other contestants. As if that wasn’t enough, the moisture of the air above the ice dumpster boosted in a matter of seconds as sheets of fog took shape in midair followed by jets of mist that spurted out of the water and hastily covered all the ice dumpster before spreading to the audience stands, seemingly swallowing everyone in sight. The mist's momentum alone played with people's hair, twisting and turning their strands in weird manners.  The lighting of the area all around the ice dumpster paled apace, despoiling all the clime. Men turned mad with the whelming thrill and tumult. Most hearts missed a beat or two. All the contestants, who were visible just a few seconds ago, now got secreted from the audience’s eyes, especially the ones present near the cen...

She had the combined grace of a dancer and the smile of a performer enjoying the heat of the moment as she frolicked past the cohorts of frogs and their choruses—other contestants and their calls—with fleet feet. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that a few minds felt motivated to train upon feasting their eyes on her artistic maneuvers. “Like flies collecting near honey, everyone is attracted to her, although love is felling all who approach her, or should I say 'her loving feet?'” the referee spoke through the mic, referring to Sariyu. “Ahem, is anyone who can hold off her kicks going to stand in her way before she reaches the end of the ice dumpster?” “Hehehe, he must be talking about us,” like wolves prowling through the snow hail in search of prey, the brown-haired man and the gray-haired man crept through the packs of scuffling men and hounded the only girl in attendance for the test.

Almost all the audience—their eyes locked upon Boksa—goggled with the watchfulness of immense proportions, further rooting themselves to their seats. If the danger had a face, it would have resembled Boksa's current countenance, for his face swam in the sea of rage and thoroughly soaked itself. The towering temper that over-exuded out of every single pore on his skin whispered a warning to the ones in the vicinity. “This Number 28... what has he done?” one man among the audience clutched the arm of the one next to him as goosebumps trailed over his spine. "He's gonna get killed for sure now."

Two comparatively shorter men unleashed a blizzard of punches into the chest of a hulking man—eight-foot-tall and strong-bodied—who wore nothing but underpants branded with a wolf symbol. Nevertheless, he grabbed their fists and pulled them closer before his hands tightly gripped the back of their necks and pressed down their faces into the water with might and main, thereby drowning them simultaneously, and he didn’t stop until the frequency of bubbles rising to the surface lessened. “Who do you think I am? ‘Brown Hill’ Boksa!” soon after he let go of the two men, he tightened his muscles and precariously growled at the rest of men who were about to encircle him, making them scatter away as wild dogs do from a wolf’s growl. “That’s right. Run like the rats that you are, you spineless sissies.”

"You are pushing your luck too far, kiddo!" all the four brothers except for Aziz roared aloud. “Your tale ends tonight!” their feet lifted as one to step ahead. In that instant, the referee struck the bronze plate with a bronze rod, signaling the start of the deck test, which worked up the crowd into whistling, whacking the drums, and acclaiming in many other ways. “We, Hardy Brothers, hate flies that buzz by our ears!” the hands of the four brothers formed into fists and swung down at Lirzod concurrently.

At close quarters to the ice dumpster. Most men, who recently contested, had wounds all over their bodies. Some of them applied turmeric powder on their fresh and nude lacerations while some others put chili powder into service as brazier-red blood squirted from their wounds. A very few, however, employed alternate ways to gain resistance toward pain, and at the same time, keep their anger and hunger alive for the much-lauded win. If lunacy and masculinity had children, then this was how they might have probably looked.

Like all new contestants, Lirzod had finished removing his footwear at the allocated location nearby the ice dumpster. Sariyu, however, shut her nose so hard that blood amassed in that location. The drifting smell of shoes and socks shook her whole being. The word “unpleasant” wasn’t enough to describe the stink that winds wafted onto her. While her nose was sealed, the biting odor in the air still slipped through the tiniest gaps and left a godawful taste in her throat. She didn’t smell something so rueful in so long a time that it almost made her faint. Though Lirzod and Burton were calling her, she couldn’t open her mouth as the last thing she would want was succumbing to her senses at such a spot. More and more men arrived at the location to keep their boots, thereby intensifying her ailment. All she had to do was remove her footwear and leave the place like the rest, but she couldn’t find the strength to do so. It took her all to keep her nose shut.

The main attraction of the eleventh deck’s test hall was verily the ice dumpster; however, numerous minor events were also always taking place at several spots.   Some events showcased people testing the coarseness of their skin while some others promoted people to harden their tootsies by moving atop a mat embedded with small and spiky substances or to alleviate oneself in the art of contending and tangling with tumult. All the minor events helped entries tackle the main test under a brilliant light, enticing them into trying them all out despite the exorbitant prices put by the event holders. Some of these events might be a bit painful to watch for those with faint hearts, but even they could find subtly-funny moments thanks to entries frequently mishitting each other in foolhardy ways.

On the eleventh deck, at a particular spot inside the test hall known as Ice Dumpster, Lirzod was watching Burton compete with the rest. All the competitors brawled with each other in a three-foot-high icy-cold pool. At any chance, exactly a hundred of the entries were allowed to enter on one side, and those who reached the opposite side first would have won the test and would then be eligible to go to the twelfth deck. Burton had already tried it three times and failed. An entry could only participate once every three consecutive contests. However, he first had to wrestle with the masses to get a ticket for entering the event, which was nothing less than a brutal brawl of entries.  Getting a ticket for the contest was one thing, but winning it was an entirely different thing. Inside the pool known to many mouths as Ice Dumpster, people pummeled one another pitilessly, dragged others by their legs, pulled each other down underwater, stomped over some, pulled each other’s hair, t...

The guard hurriedly exchanged a few words with Ballu for the second time, telling him to also take care of the one with a hole in the stomach, before catching up with the commander who was chatting with Lirzod. “I never asked you, but... Did you finish the deck test?” Zentzu asked. “Yes, just barely,” Lirzod said, glancing back at Ballu. “That guy won’t kill them, or would he?” “You went out of your way and told him to not take their jewels, so I think he won't,” Zentzu said, “but if he lets his rage take over him, then anything may happen. Though killing isn't allowed, people still take each other to near-death situations, and sometimes, people do die. In any case, if those four die, then he'll be in big trouble. So, he will probably do everything he can while making sure those four won't die."

“Shut up, you skinny scoundrels!” Ballu bellowed. “Stop right there!” “We’re not stopping. Catch us in your dreams, uncle!” Ballu ground his teeth so hard it hurt his head. “If I catch any of you, I’ll skin you guys alive!” “That is only if you catch us!” their voices became more and more distant by the second. Visible frustration showed on Ballu’s face, for he knew that he would never catch up with those four thieves. They were too nimble, unlike him who embodied a distended belly and limbs. But the thought of wasting away Nawaz’s money didn’t allow his feet to rest.

    “‘Manifold’ Zentzu,” the librarian’s voice came back to a normal level. “He's been misbehaving a lot since he entered the library. He crossed the limits by recording a fraudulent name in the register. Since you are here, you must punish him appurtenant to his actions.” Zentzu looked at Lirzod, who portrayed a pococurante face, causing him to ruminate.  He must have not heard him. What should I do? “You must be joking,” the guard chortled, “this library isn’t even officialized, yet you want to punish him? For what?” The librarian’s shoulders slumped. He looked at the commander, hoping he might still help him.

“I was just wondering if I can beat the seals that invaded my privacy and not face any punishment,” Lirzod glanced at him, eyes asking for affirmation. The librarian was startled. “T-That’s probably not a good idea. They are just regular animals, justbeasts, so they do no harm to you. You can think of them as pets waiting for your call to serve you.” “You think so?” Lirzod slanted the head a bit as his little finger meddled with the ear.  “For sure, I’d not recommend fighting with seals,” the librarian said, standing stiffly.

At a random spot in a forest, dozens of monkeys ganged up on an already beaten man and stripped all the gold from him, scratching and biting him in the process. By the time the monkeys finished their work and left the scene, he lay on the ground in torn clothes, and not a single gram of gold could be seen anywhere on his body, other than a few of his hidden golden teeth. He even lost some of his fingers, for the monkeys simply bit his fingers off when attempting to get the rings. That man was none other than Dalkan, who often got called as the ‘man in gold.’ Now, the only piece of cloth covering his body that didn’t have a hole in it was his underpants. The huffs and puffs alone took away most of his remaining strength. After getting beaten at the bar, he escaped out with not-so-major injuries, but never in his dreams did he think that a bunch of monkeys would change his fate to such an extent. Am I going to die in a pathetic place like this?  He still couldn’t believe what ...

Stone Spitters left a short while ago. Bilka and Pilli were in the worst situation they have ever been in their entire lives. They couldn’t even cry out loud anymore as even the slightest movement of their limbs hurt them pretty bad. Still, it pained so much that they couldn’t contain themselves from moving around. It was a literal nightmare for the two of them as they crawled in their own blood, feeling plenty of veins needling them from the insides of their bodies. “What do you want to do now?” Pilli just wanted to ask that question, his face in a dismal decoration. “I want to beat the shit out of you,” Bilka extracted out some words out of the pain coursing through his veins and then went into a disconcerted pause before speaking again. “Getting beaten by him back then didn’t feel that bad, but right now, I feel pathetic. It’s beyond embarrassing to be lying on the ground like this.” “I apologize,” Pilli rolled his eyes toward Bilka, who lay beside him. Bilka didn’t say anything...

“You’ve chosen a slippery slope to climb, youngin,” a cackling voice—weirdly gruff—reached Lirzod's ears, but he couldn’t locate its source. With all rooms locked, the four streets seemed unpeopled, except for the presence of those two. “Who’s there?” Lirzod called out, stomping his foot on the locally not-so-dusty wooden floor. “Run. Run like a river [1] !” Hundred commenced to run and forced Lirzod to rush with him. “You said, Stone Spitters, but I don’t see anybody,” Lirzod questioned, already panting a little, even though they haven’t yet taken ten steps together.

“It’s necessary to have some fear of the unknown,” Hundred’s voice sounded as straight as a die. “Necessary fear, huh…” Lirzod reflected on some past things and nodded. “You are right. Everyone should have it when they act like a spoiled nut around me.” Hundred pressed his lips hard, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “I didn’t mean it like that.” “Maybe you didn’t, but who knows?” Lirzod exchanged a sort of a knowing look with him and chortled. “Maybe you did.”

“Say goodbye to your arm, tough-nut!” Geragorn dashed the mace vertically at his opponent’s shoulder. Lirzod crossed his arms to block the incoming attack, but a silhouette entered his vision before the mace reached him. The attack was neutralized with a delicate arm movement without making much of a sound. “Hmm?” Geragorn narrowed his eyes at the person who had interrupted his attack. “You... why do you care for this foolhardy fellow?”

After Burton left the room, both Sariyu and Lirzod looked at each other and laughed their hearts off like apes to man’s slip-ups. A few minutes later. “Why don’t you grab some bananas and gorge on them? You can take the rest to your room, too, if you want,” Lirzod asked. “I asked Primera to pack them for you anyway, since you like them.” “Thanks, but no. I’m not in the mood right now,” Sariyu had finished picking up all the banana peels and cleaning the dirt marks on the floor. “It’s not like you to throw the waste around like this.”

"11.58 seconds... 101 passed," the referee shouted as he pointed his finger toward Lirzod, who seemed to be lost in thought. “11.59 seconds… 103 passed,” he then shouted for another person. The people, who had bet that Lirzod would win, were satisfied without reservation. “I knew it! If we trust Inch Man, we will always make profits!” “Yeah, he’s a master gambler with a great track record, after all!”

In some random corridor of the tenth deck. One messy blonde guy munched on pint-sized sweets as fed by two luscious ladies accompanying him on either side. Golden rings decorated all his ten fingers, and six gold chains adorned his neck hanging all the way down to the chest. The two ladies kept on feeding him sweets as they laughed aloud, fortuitously grabbing the attention of many men. “What’s that Lady Luster doing here?” “Isn’t it obvious? He must have come to buy off some ladies again.”

Lirzod pressed his lips harder and cocked his head forward. Wait, how do they know my name? “Hehe,” Younger Darling snickered. “The cashews were good, so we’ll treat you good as well. You can come out.” The brothers exchanged glances and smiles, and it was too plain to see they didn’t mean what they said. “I gave you a lot more valuable food than what I took from you two, did I not?” Lirzod's voice was loud enough to reach their ears. “Huh? What are you talking about? You hurt our men and expect us to let you go for just giving a small packet of cashews?” Younger Darling waved his hand.

“Mm, a white lie,” Lirzod looked around and realized that they were in the D Block. “Huh? Hey, didn’t we already go past this block before? Why are we in this one again?” He looked at her but didn’t get a response. A second later, his eyes enlarged. “Don’t tell me, you...” Sariyu’s heart began to pump faster, and she pressed her lips hard, hoping to control it. “Were you looking to find a partner in this block?” Sariyu paused a moment and then nodded in haste. Whew... Her heartbeat then slowed down. “C’mon, do you really think you can easily find a good partner on this deck?” Lirzod raised his eyebrows. “Let’s focus on climbing the decks first. If we do a good job with that, we’ll meet suitable partners along the way. What do you say?”

Lirzod was walking down a sloping corridor. “Geez, these streets are like a maze. Shouldn’t K Block come after J Block? Just how are these blocks situated?” Though some part of him wanted to ask others for directions, some part of him didn’t. So he continued to roam, hoping to end up at the K Block.  However, the blocks had no straight paths that connected one block to the other. Because their shapes and sizes were different, it wasn’t easy to know which blocks surrounded a particular block. The curving streets were an additional bonus. When Lirzod arrived at the same junction for the third time, he scratched his jaw. “Am I walking in circles? Is this a maze or something?” he looked around, and his eyes eventually stopped on a little dog that was looking right at him with its tongue hanging out to the side, teeth exposed, and the noise of its breath sounded like laughter to him. That dog was there in the past two times, too. When he saw it for the first time, it was resting its...

Lirzod was still sitting inside the bathroom, not knowing what to do. He kept hearing threatening words from the outside. “I’ve been waiting for thirty minutes! If you don’t come out in the next minute, I swear on my beard, I will break the door!” a tall but sturdy guy roared as he banged the door with his cupped hand while the other hand clutched his belly firmly. “This is the longest I’ve seen someone shed weight!” another guy standing beside him was shocked. “Maybe he’s suffering from serious constipation. Why don’t you let him—” “Shut up!” the big guy neglected his roommate’s words and resumed his banging. His facial expressions changed for the worse with every passing second.

Dillo, the owner of the booth rubbed his eyes and took another look, but there stood the Darling Twins staring at him in a muted body language. His heart sank into his stomach, and his chest heated up like the frying pan he daily used to roast loaves of bread on. The next moment, he ended up shifting his head by a few degrees, only to find Lirzod similarly staring at him. His eyes enlarged. “Y-You are...” “I have to finish my bath first! Someone, please take care of that dead dog,” Saying that Lirzod wasted no time in entering one of the rooms, and almost at the same time, the Darling twins dashed away in the opposite direction. Dillo stood still and had a puzzled expression, unable to get his head around what just happened.

“I-I’m being honest. I came here for you as well,” Lirzod said in an emotion-choked voice. A few moments of silence increased the distance between their drifting senses. The blowing wind carried away the kerchief that covered her nose and widened Lirzod’s eyes at the same time. “A young master of a clan, born to stand out,” Stussy took another step forward, staring at him emotionlessly. “Maybe, fitting in doesn’t exist in your genes.” “No. I-I can blend in pretty well with people,” Lirzod replied while his feet took another step backward. Her gaze turned toward the horses before shifting back to him in a protrusion, “What about the animals then?” Lirzod averted his gaze, his chin dipped down to his chest. “I-I can blend with them, too.”

Sweating and panting profusely, a purple-haired boy was scurrying through the moonless woods, looking back once every few seconds at the ill-lit bushes, which orchestrated a sinister symphony as initiated by the heartless gale. Something stocky and stalwart ferreted out his footsteps stealthier than a leopard and pruned the distance while leaving less to no traces. Blinded by the unnerving darkness and his own heartbeat echoing in ears, the battered boy bumped into numerous trunks but adeptly rolled past them. Tiny roots and broad branches tested his luck, but they failed to make his four limbs touch the ground simultaneously. In case they succeeded, whatever was hounding him would succeed in its attempt at clutching him in a fatal grip.

Lirzod just came out of the room, 10-K43. “Please, ma’am! Listen to me, your child needs this kowa [1] !” a man’s voice reached his ears. When he looked to the side, a clean-shaved, gray-haired man dressed in full white, carrying a hymnal in one of his hands, was chasing after a woman who was running down the corridor, holding her newborn child in her arms. “Forgive me, brother!” the 32-year-old lady in blue was hastening in an aberrant manner—the after-effects of giving birth—but worry visibly showed on her visage. “My parents didn’t give me that after my birth, and they never told me to take that either. Only people in white coats did. I’m sorry.”

Yizzy’s eyes danced, sparkled and shone as he witnessed his mother’s torture, and a feeling of restlessness yet lightness birthed in his muscles. Heat radiated through his chest as a smile tried hard to escape out of his lips. And it eventually succeeded. “Yavin, Zeke, Wiktor, Vadim... and Tamsyn. I’m extremely sorry for everything I have done!” His mother, a four-foot-tall woman, shouted as she got whipped on her thighs from the front. “I deserve this punishment. I know I do. I know, I...” Her blood dripped down and fell into the bowl underneath and turned its liquid redder than it already was. Yizzy’s smile subsided. He clenched his fist and turned away before hurrying out of the portal, along with many other souls of all kinds. Unlike him, the souls changed into thin air as they entered the human world; however, their presence could subtly be felt by him. The atmosphere around grew a lot dimmer, and many lives were dying as darkness spread like a disease.

With mildly flaring nostrils, the old man stood with one of his arms clasped behind his body. “Godrick imparted Touchless Arts to Yizzy before he disappeared from the streets. His last words to Yizzy were ‘Look beyond what you routinely see.’” “You mean the first Touchless Martial Arts?” Lirzod’s vein on the neck throbbed. “Hmm, but it’s a beta version of it,” the old man gripped the staff a little tighter than usual. Lirzod shook his head in amazement. Touchless Arts were some of the hardest arts to learn even for martials. “As expected, Godrick’s great.” There was a rise in his vocal pitch.

"Why did you cut off the scene?" Lirzod fumed at the old man who just materialized beside him. "I want to know what happens to his nieces!" "Rick's nieces are no longer our priority anymore," the old man shook his head, but Lirzod's face instantly turned into that of a pouting gorilla. "Alright, alright, I won't show you their visuals, but... I will give you some information regarding them." Lirzod wasn't entirely pleased but still got excited. "So, what happened to them? Did they end up with their parents?" He didn't like the character of the sisters of Rick, given how poorly they treated him; however, he still pitied them when they got mistreated by the minister and were led to lead painful lives. "By the time the Golden Guards Unit showed up, almost all the maids have disappeared from the estate, except for a handful, and Rick's nieces were among those who stayed back."

As Lirzod stood and stared at the wall like a lunatic, the three women showed their biting might on Yizzy, and half-a-dozen hickeys surfaced at different parts of his body. The next moment, all the visuals were skipped, startling him. “Hey, geezer! Where were you hiding till now?” A couple of hours had passed in the past. The three girls just dressed up and left the minister’s room. The doors of the room closed, and the minister also dressed up and began to read some documents. Lirzod still had a frown on his face. That old fart… why’s he not responding? He must’ve never been kissed by a girl.

“Why did Rick let his nieces stay at such a place for so long?” Lirzod's frustratingly asked. “Why didn’t he just escape with them sooner?” “It’s not easy when you’re dealing with women,” the old man replied in a modulated tone. “You, you got some enmity towards women, don’t you?” Lirzod stared at the old man, narrowing his eyes. He wasn’t aware that he hadn’t taken a breath during the past few seconds. “The situation asked for it, so I spoke about women,” The old man said in a casual tone. “Both men and women deserve blame in unique ways, not by birth but through life.” While Lirzod’s eyes were half-closed, his brows raised a little. “You talk like there’s no good person in this world.”

“Rick was the new worker,” the old man’s voice slapped Lirzod like gently lapping waves. “What?” Lirzod was nonplussed but felt equally thrilled. “When did he get in?”  The old man materialized behind Lirzod and lightly hit the head with his staff. “I told you to just watch.” “Y-Yeah,” Lirzod rubbed the top of his head twice and then sneakily tried to snatch the staff out of the old man’s hands, but he miserably failed to even touch it. “You are a thousand years too young to be touching my staff, child,” the old man disappeared and appeared at Lirzod’s back and hit with his staff, again on Lirzod’s head.

Lirzod was on his bed. He had been rolling around for hours, but he couldn't sleep. Emptying packets of nuts didn’t help either. He didn’t know how much time had passed, probably half a day, but he failed to rest his senses. Every time he closed his eyes, he remembered Duera. She was the one who always made him sleep, either by telling him stories or by patting on his chest. When she wasn’t there, Primera took care of that job, though she mostly scared him to sleep with her one-of-a-kind horror stories. It hadn’t even been a day since he departed, and his heart which had pumped at normal speeds when he’s at the shore, now pumped in strange rhythms. From as far in his past as he could remember, there was never a day he spent away from either of those two. But at the moment, both of them weren’t by his side. He missed their company more than he had expected. Silently, tears soaked the pillow as he cried in a subdued way. After a few minutes, his eyes no longer produced tears, but...

It had been only a few minutes since the four men of the Egg Diggers guild got charred in a similar fashion, yet the information spread faster than wildfire, and with each gossip, the rumors just distanced themselves from what happened in effect. "Someone attacked the Egg Diggers and roasted them alive?” “How did he defeat them? Using fire?" "Given that they were roasted, he must have had some Buzzy Good [1] with him, or else, we have ourselves another serious fellow that stepped foot on the ship."

"I can forget that they threw eggs at me," Lirzod clenched his fist, breaking the raw egg in his hand. "But, throwing at a baby horse for fun is something hard to overlook." He stepped forward in their direction. “I don’t know where its mother is at, but if they are thinking it’s alone, then it’s not.” “Don’t fall for their trap,” 777 warned out of worry. “They probably hurt that horse to get to you. If you go now, you’ll be giving them just what they want.” “Then let’s give them something special that they’ll never forget,” Lirzod said and grinned as he glanced at 777, puzzling him. The egg—thrown at the foal before—rolled on the floor and now ended up stopping at Lirzod's feet. He glanced down. "Don't even think about it," 777 let go of the luggage cart. "Want to throw that at us?" one of the four men stood. "Dare it if you can."

Never did his heart pump blood in such a feverous manner. I-Is she coming for a kiss? T-This is too sudden. I'm not fully prepared yet. He was suddenly shocked. What if my cheeks taste bad? Wait, I haven't brushed either! His feet instantly stepped back twice and made the distance. "I'm sorry. I can't do this now!" he quickly walked past Sariyu, leaving her in puzzlement. He came and stood behind her. "Why are you hiding behind me?" Sariyu stepped aside, but he did as well. "Stop being so shy. It doesn't suit you." Her scent—it's more potent than Primera's.  Lirzod firmly stared at the floor. There's something unusual mixed in it. If I go near her again, I might not be able to control myself anymore.