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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 who

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.