Chapter 003: Dilemma
[If I am the only judge of my actions, what will I judge worthy?]
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{LUCIAN GILFORD}
The water was the obvious choice. Not food, not weapons—nothing that might explode, rot, or try to stab me if the transaction went wrong. Just bottled water. A harmless experiment in interdimensional capitalism.
I found the listing again, the familiar blue-and-white label staring back at me through the screen: Kirkland Signature Purified Water, 40-count, 16.9 fl oz. Price: 299Ʌ̶. Tax: none. Delivery: free.
"Can't believe I'm doing this," I muttered, glancing around the square to make sure no one was watching. The few people still out were too busy drinking or cleaning up after the festival to care about some idiot buying bottled water from his phone.
I hit Purchase.
The app thought about it for a second, the little wheel spinning like it was savoring the moment. Then a neat confirmation screen appeared:
Order Confirmed.
Kirkland Signature Water, 40-count case
Total: 299Ʌ̶
Payment Method: Store Credit
Estimated Delivery: 0700, 4/16/999
Note: Standard shipping delivers on the second morning following your purchase.
I blinked. Then read it again, slower this time, because I was fairly certain I hadn't time-traveled into a shipping policy.
"Two days," I said out loud. "Two days for bottled water. Sure. Makes perfect sense."
Apparently, even omniversal warehouse networks respected delivery schedules. Instant shipping existed, according to the FAQ, but that cost an extra 10 000Ʌ̶, which was about twice everything I owned. I wasn't about to bankrupt myself over bottled water.
I stared at the confirmation window until it dimmed and folded itself into a digital receipt. At the bottom, it showed the current date: 4/14/999, and right beneath it, the estimated arrival: 4/16/999, 0700 local time.
"So that's a thing," I said to the phone. "Congratulations, you've invented interdimensional FedEx."
The receipt tucked itself neatly into my order history, complete with a little progress bar that currently sat at Processing. There was even a 'Track Order' button, though it was grayed out. Probably waiting for someone in the Great Warehouse's cosmic shipping department to slap a label on my crate.
I closed the app and leaned back against the fountain, exhaling slowly. The night had deepened while I was distracted—lanterns swayed overhead, and the last of the festival crowds were trickling home. The square smelled of spent incense, spilled ale, and cooling bread. My phone's glow was the only piece of my old world still shining.
Two days. I could live with that. Probably.
I opened my wallet again, half hoping some hidden pocket might produce a miracle, but no—the same dead credit cards, the same useless bills. My store credit balance had dropped to 4,701Ʌ̶, and a small line of text beneath it now read Pending delivery order: 299Ʌ̶.
Everything about it felt absurdly professional. Somewhere, a company I'd bought socks from three years ago had figured out how to ship water across dimensions, but not how to shorten delivery times.
"Progress," I said softly, watching the stars above the rooftops. "Slow, bureaucratic progress."
The phone chimed once more before I could pocket it. A final notification blinked at the top of the screen:
Reminder: Orders arrive at 0700 on the second morning. Please prepare adequate space for delivery.
I frowned at that. "Adequate space?"
The app didn't clarify.
"Right," I muttered, sliding the phone away. "That's tomorrow night's problem."
For now, I just needed to find somewhere to sleep—and preferably not on the same bench where my water was apparently going to materialize in forty-eight hours.
The city was quieter now. The kind of quiet that only comes after people have spent an entire day pretending they don't have work in the morning. Lanterns still burned in the main square, their glass casings fogged from the smoke of a hundred festival braziers. Somewhere nearby, someone laughed too loud, and someone else was sick into a barrel. Civilization, in all its glory.
I checked my phone again out of habit. The screen lit my hand in soft blue and told me it was 21:12, which meant the clock had somehow synced to local time. I hadn't given it permission to do that, but then again, I hadn't given it permission to drag me into another dimension either.
The battery still read 100%. It hadn't budged since morning. Either the phone had achieved perfect efficiency, or physics was just humoring me at this point.
I turned toward the narrower streets, following the warm light spilling from the side avenues. Inns and taverns lined them—painted signs, polished doors, laughter muffled behind walls. I didn't have much left in terms of social energy or dignity, but the alternative was sleeping in the street and possibly getting robbed by someone with better night vision than me.
Halfway down one of the lanes, the phone vibrated softly in my pocket. The sound was faint, like a polite cough from a digital ghost. I pulled it out and stared at the notification bar:
Bedtime Reminder: It's 21:15. Begin winding down for rest.
I blinked at it. Then I laughed.
"Thanks, phone," I said, voice dry. "I'll be sure to brush my teeth, pray to the battery gods, and get my eight hours."
The reminder disappeared on its own, leaving the screen faintly glowing in the dim alley. I stared at the reflection in the glass—me, dirt-smudged, tired, hair half a mess—and decided that, yes, I looked like someone who could use a bedtime routine.
I pocketed it again and kept walking.
The street curved into a busier section near what looked like a market district—stalls covered with tarps, tables stacked with pottery and bread, all closed but still lingering with the smell of flour and herbs. A few vendors sat by the embers of their cookfires, speaking in low tones I only half understood. My grasp of the language was somewhere between "tourist ordering food badly" and "confused archaeologist," but I caught enough to pick out the words for inn and room.
I found one a few streets later, a narrow two-story place with ivy curling up the walls and a wooden sign swinging above the door. The lettering was simple enough that even I could make it out: The Hearthlight Rest. Cozy. Harmless. Possibly cheap.
Inside, it smelled of stew, candles, and faint wood polish—the universal scent of any establishment that charged by the night. The innkeeper was an older woman with a face like someone's aunt and an accent that didn't quite match my ears. I tried my best anyway.
"Room," I said, tapping two fingers against my palm like a coin gesture. "Sleep. One night."
She blinked at me, then nodded slowly, switching to a simpler dialect. I understood maybe seventy-five percent of it, enough to catch the gist: single bed, shared bath, payment up front.
Right—payment.
I hesitated, then offered the only thing I had that looked remotely official: my phone. She frowned at it like I'd just offered her a small black brick, which, to be fair, wasn't inaccurate. I quickly pulled it back before she decided it was cursed and threw salt at me.
"No, uh—coins later," I said, fumbling through my limited vocabulary. "New in city. Need—uh—money first."
She squinted. I smiled the way you smile when you're hoping someone won't call the guards. After a long moment, she sighed, pointed at an empty bench near the hearth, and muttered something that sounded like stay there, don't steal anything.
I gave her my most sincere thumbs-up and sat down.
The bench was warm. The fire crackled. My shoulders finally loosened. For the first time since waking up that morning, I felt the exhaustion catch up to me—slow, deliberate, like gravity realizing it still had a claim on my body.
The phone buzzed again as if on cue, this time flashing a softer tone:
Tip: Avoid blue light exposure before sleeping for optimal rest.
I laughed under my breath. "Yeah, that's gonna be tough."
I dimmed the screen anyway, slid it back into my pocket, and leaned my head against the wall. The murmur of the room washed over me—clinking dishes, low conversation, the pop of a log in the fire.
It wasn't home. But for tonight, it was enough.
The fire had burned down to low embers by the time I woke up. For a moment, I didn't realize I'd fallen asleep at all; the heat on my side, the rough wood under my shoulder, and the faint smell of stew all blurred together until movement crossed my vision.
An older man shuffled past the hearth, balancing a tray of breakfast—steam rising off a bowl of something rich and heavy, the scent hitting me like a hammer. My stomach growled loud enough to startle him. He turned, surprised, and I tried not to look like a starving stray caught sniffing around someone's meal.
"Ah—sorry," I muttered, rubbing my eyes. My voice came out hoarse. "Didn't mean to—uh—stare."
He smiled faintly, polite but wary in the way people are around strangers who look like they slept sitting up. He said something I only half understood—something like "good morning"—and went on his way, the aroma trailing behind him like a personal insult.
My stomach grumbled again. I pressed a hand against it as if I could scold it into silence.
Right. No food. No Valis. No job.
I sighed and leaned forward, elbows on knees, staring at the cooling embers. The idea of scavenging came and went just as fast—I wasn't desperate enough yet to become the local rat. But if things didn't improve soon, I might start taking career advice from them.
I'd heard enough in the Guild yesterday to know how things worked here: people earned money by diving into the Dungeon or doing mercenary work for the Adventurers' Guild. Guard duty, monster hunting, escort missions, running supplies between floors—all of it involved risk, blood, and the distinct possibility of being eaten.
I'd been alive in this world for less than twenty-four hours, and I was already considering mercenary work.
"Great start," I murmured. "Truly living the dream."
The bench creaked as I stood, joints protesting after a night in one position. I brushed off my shirt, which did exactly nothing for the wrinkles, and patted my pockets out of habit. The phone was still there, warm to the touch, as if it had been quietly charging on ambient magic while I slept.
When I woke the screen, the clock at the top read 07:08, and beneath it the date had changed: 4/15/999. My order status sat smugly under the Costco icon—In Transit. A single day down, one to go.
I shoved the phone back into my pocket before the irony made me hungrier.
The innkeeper glanced over from the counter, one eyebrow raised. I offered a small, apologetic nod—the kind of nod you give when you've taken up space all night and can't pay for it. She sighed but didn't throw me out, which I decided to take as a win.
Outside, the morning air was cool and clean. The street was already alive—vendors setting up, children running ahead of carts, the hum of trade settling back into rhythm after the festival. I watched a pair of armored adventurers pass by, laughing as they compared scars, and wondered if they'd started where I was standing.
"Would I even last ten minutes down there?" I muttered.
Probably not. But sitting around wasn't an option either. Not if I wanted to eat before my water showed up tomorrow.
I took one last look at the inn's faded sign—The Hearthlight Rest—and started walking toward the sound of the market bells. If this world ran on Valis, then I needed to start earning them. And if everyone else in Orario survived by taking up a blade, well...
I glanced down at my reflection in a puddle, grimaced, and muttered, "Guess I'd better figure out how to swing one."
The morning air carried the smell of flour, roasted nuts, and too many people who'd decided that shouting was the most effective sales technique. I followed the tide of voices through the narrow lanes, sidestepping carts and early risers with baskets under their arms. The stalls looked thrown together from scrap wood and paint—bright signs, crooked shelves, everything from herbs to iron nails.
I tried asking about work, keeping my questions simple. Some people nodded politely and ignored me, others gave me fragments of advice I could half understand: something about "Guild forms," "permits," and "don't get eaten." The last one, I understood perfectly.
A group of kids darted past, carrying a bundle of bread loaves. One of them stopped long enough to stare at my phone clipped to my belt before sprinting off again. I was going to need a pouch.
The market began thinning out as I wandered east, toward older streets. The noise faded, replaced by the hollow sound of wind scraping through half-shuttered windows. That was when I saw it—a squat little shop wedged between a tailor and a closed bakery, its signboard faded to the color of old parchment.
EVERYTHING MUST GO. CLOSING SOON.
The letters were hand-painted and uneven, like the owner had done it himself after giving up on dignity. Inside, the shelves were mostly bare—dusty bottles, a few bundles of rope, a cracked lantern, a wooden stool missing one leg.
I stopped in front of the window, staring through the glass at the kind of quiet desperation that only small business owners and people who bought bottled water from magical apps understood.
"Everything must go, huh?" I muttered. "Story of my life."
A few passersby slowed, glanced at the sign, then moved on. The door hung slightly open, a little brass bell above it waiting for a reason to ring. I hesitated at the threshold, torn between walking away and the gnawing sense that this was exactly the kind of place where my luck might start—or end—with equal probability.
My stomach chose for me. It growled loud enough to startle a pigeon off the roof, and the echo made me sigh. Maybe they sold food. Or maybe I could trade… something.
I glanced back toward the main street. The market was still alive in the distance, all color and chatter, but here the air felt thinner—like this corner had already been forgotten by the city.
I pushed the door open. The bell gave a frail ring as I stepped through the door, the kind that sounded like it hadn't been properly enthusiastic in years. The place smelled of cedar oil, leather, and that faintly sweet dust that collects when no one moves things for a while. The front counter leaned slightly to one side, and behind it stood a woman old enough to make the furniture look young.
She didn't startle when she saw me. She just looked up from the ledger she'd been writing in, her gray hair pulled into a loose knot, a pair of thin spectacles perched low on her nose.
"Morning," I said, nodding politely.
Her voice came out rough but warm. "Not many come through this early unless they're looking for something cheap."
"That might be me," I admitted. "Saw the sign outside—'everything must go.' You really closing?"
She set her pen down and leaned on the counter, the wood creaking under her arm. "Aye. Been running this place near fifty years. My husband built it, back when the Adventurers' Quarter wasn't all noise and taverns. Sold gear, trinkets, things most people didn't realize they needed until they did. But…" She lifted one shoulder in a shrug that seemed to carry her whole body with it. "Getting too old to mind the ledger or chase the rats."
Her eyes drifted over the bare shelves. "The young ones all go to the Guild now, or those big traders with their fancy stalls. Can't blame them. But I can't keep up anymore."
I leaned against one of the posts, careful not to look too comfortable in case it collapsed. "So you're just… closing?"
She chuckled quietly. "I'd call it retiring, but that makes it sound like I have plans. Truth is, I'll sell what's left, lock the door, and move in with my niece near the East Gate. She keeps chickens. They don't talk back."
"Sounds peaceful," I said, glancing around at the half-empty shelves. "You selling everything cheap, then?"
Her eyes narrowed slightly in amusement. "You've got the tone of a man with no coin."
I grinned despite myself. "You're not wrong."
"Then you've got the tone of most of my customers."
She turned, took a small wooden box from a back shelf, and set it on the counter. The lid clicked open to reveal odds and ends—buttons, belt buckles, a few tarnished coins, what looked like a broken compass.
"You looking for something specific?" she asked.
"Not really. Just… trying to figure out where I fit in this place," I said before realizing how pathetic that sounded.
Her smile softened. "Ah. You're one of those. The lost kind. We get a few every season. Some wander in from the countryside, some from the Dungeon. You've got the look of a man who hasn't decided whether he's staying or just catching his breath."
I laughed under my breath. "Pretty accurate."
"Then you'll want something practical," she said, closing the box. "Not gear. Not weapons. A pouch."
She ducked beneath the counter and came up with a small leather belt pouch, worn smooth but sturdy. "First thing a man should buy in Orario is a way to hold his money. Or whatever you think counts as money."
I eyed it, then reached instinctively for my phone—the corner poking out of my pocket. She followed the motion and frowned slightly. "Some sort of tool?"
"Something like that," I said. "It's complicated."
She nodded as though that explained everything. "Most good things are."
"How much for the pouch?" I asked.
"Three hundred Valis," she said.
I grimaced, glancing toward the door.
She laughed softly. "If you're planning to pay later, boy, you'd best make sure I'm still here."
"Fair point."
Her gaze wandered past me to the street. "Still, if you're serious about finding your footing, there's work enough in this city. Errands, deliveries, guard duty. Go to the Guild and ask for contracts that don't require a sword. You look clever. Clever's good here. Clever keeps you alive."
I nodded slowly. "I'll keep that in mind."
"Do that." She picked up her pen again, eyes dropping back to her ledger. "And if you ever come into money before I close, you can have the pouch for two hundred. Consider it a discount for ambition."
"Ambition," I repeated, smiling faintly. "I'll try to live up to it."
She didn't look up as I turned toward the door. "Most don't," she said, almost absently. "But it's worth the trying."
The bell gave another small, tired ring as I stepped back into the sunlight.
The street outside was brighter than I remembered, sunlight catching on the uneven stones and the dust motes drifting lazily through the air. The market had grown busier again, merchants shouting over each other with the kind of cheer that only came from profit. I moved through the crowd, still thinking about the old woman's words—the slow, even way she'd said them, the certainty behind every sentence.
My feet carried me toward the Guild almost on autopilot, guided by the faint map overlay still open on my phone. The city's rhythm surrounded me: clatter of wheels on cobblestones, the soft ring of a blacksmith's hammer somewhere far off, the smell of bread and smoke carried on a late-spring breeze.
It was halfway there, somewhere between a spice stall and a book peddler's cart, when the realization hit.
I stopped walking.
She'd spoken perfect English.
Not the stilted, broken version I'd been hearing from everyone else since yesterday. Not the half-understood mix of words that I had to translate by context and hand gestures. Her sentences had been smooth, natural—fluid in a way that fit too easily into my brain.
I frowned, the noise of the street blurring around me.
Had she really spoken English, or had my mind just filled in the gaps again? Maybe I was the one hearing things wrong—filtering their words through whatever cosmic translator handled reincarnators these days. It wasn't like I could ask her to repeat the conversation for comparison.
A passing merchant brushed my shoulder and mumbled something I only half caught. The accent was thick, foreign, just like every other voice I'd heard here.
No, the old woman had definitely been different.
"Great," I muttered. "Either she's multilingual, or I'm losing it."
Neither option was particularly comforting.
The thought followed me down the street, stubborn and heavy, until the Guild's tall front gates came into view again. I could see adventurers already lining up at the counters inside—bright armor, loud laughter, the kind of confidence that only came from knowing exactly where you fit in the world.
I hesitated at the foot of the steps, running a hand through my hair. The old woman's words echoed again in my head, soft but distinct: 'Clever keeps you alive.'
I wasn't sure if clever was going to cut it. But for the moment, it was all I had.