章 25: 5.4 Debug?

I haven't taken note of the city entrance when I first came in here, but now that I looked at it for the second time, I was kind of hitting myself on the back with how massive it was.

I mean, with an arch that massive, how the hell did I miss it?

"Kind of stupid of me to ignore this the first time..." I found myself whispering to myself.

Looking up, it was as if that arch somewhere in Washington state USA was bashed in with solid obsidian. It scintillated against the starlight, giving it an eerie and ephemeral glow that somehow only added to the mysterious beauty of the city itself.

And I was supposed to find the NPC here?

"No better time to search than now, I guess."

Standing below the arch, I peeled my eyes for anything that somehow resembled an NPC that could give out this beginning quest. As opposed to a game, the people here didn't really have speech bubbles that made it easy to know if they were speaking. Instead, they were actually talking and breathing like normal everyday people, going about their lives as if the world around me was truly a living and organic civilization.

Once again, I found myself applauding Guidance for such excellent attention to detail.

Still, as I found myself scanning for any sort of outlier in the sea of people coming to and fro through the city, I actually felt my eyes starting to strain at the boring task I saddled myself with. For some goddamn reason, I couldn't differentiate the people walking about the stone path.

I mean, seriously, why did they somehow all look the same despite their clothes being wildly different from one another?

"This is ridiculous..."

I let out a sigh as I shook my head to refocus. Why didn't this game have some sort of indicator as to who the NPC quest givers were? The subtitling work was amazing, but why the hell did the NPC dialogue not have the same details?

"I'm wasting my time here...."

I let out yet another sigh as I finally elected to actually move. I wasn't getting any progress in finding this guy with just standing still. In hindsight, maybe it was actually outside the city proper.

Blinking my eyes at the starlit sight of the outside forest, I shrugged as I stepped foot outside of the city outskirts.

[Kattleynan Forest: North]

I took note of the prompt that appeared as soon as I was one foot out of the stone-laden road. At least I now knew that I had been from the north. Wait... Where was this when I first came here then?

"Whatever.."

I shook my head at my own question. There was no point in questioning things anymore. Didn't I just tell that to myself earlier? Why was I still being stubborn?

Truly, the mystery of man was its own hubris at its own capabilities.

Scanning my surroundings, I let my eyes lazily roam the environment as I casually walked along the entrance. I wouldn't dare go beyond safety right now, seeing as I didn't know if there were monsters out there that I only somehow dodged during my first pass through.

"Stranger!"

I paused. That voice...

"Hey! Stranger!"

I quickly turned my head back towards the arch, my eyes quickly searching for the source of that energetic tone.

"Over here!"

Hearing her once more, I adjusted my trajectory, finally spotting the verdant green hair of my once tour guide among the, well, green of the shrubbery beside her. Saving my own voice, I simply waved back, letting my feet take me towards Shizu as I eventually greeted her.

"Didn't think I'd see you again this quickly," I chuckled, placing a hand on my hip as casually stood in front of her. "What're you doing here?"

"Here? Oh! I was just looking for abled adventurers!" Shizu smiled, her usual Genki attitude shining to the forefront. "Wait, are you an adventurer?"

I blinked at her question. In a sense, I could be called an adventurer... But the system called me a [Somatic] before... Was there a difference-

"Those things on your back," Shizu pointed out, a finger landing on her lip as she spoke. "Are they [Manifests]?"

Now that was something I could answer. "Yeah? Look, I already told you I just got here earlier, right?"

"You did?"

My eyes almost widened. Seriously? "You mean you forgot?"

To my surprise, Shizu closed her eyes and frowned as she visibly wracked her brain for the memory, "No? I mean yes? Strange... My memory shouldn't be this bad..."

I let out a small chuckle, "Hey now. It's fine if you don't remember me. I can only tell how many people you give tours through this city on a daily basis."

"A... tour?"

...

Okay, I was actually stunned for a solid three seconds there. "Don't tell me you forgot about the tour you just gave me."

"I.... gave you... a tour?"

Eh... This was getting creepy now. "You did. You told me about the interesting spots around the city," I reminded her, giving her a small smile of reassurance. "Don't worry about it. People can be easy to forget at times. And besides, you didn't even get my name until after the tour itself."

"Tour... tour..."

To my abject confusion, Shizu's body visibly shook as her hands slowly rose to the sides of her head. Her eyes were now wide open, her lips trembling as she inaudibly muttered some stuff. And if I was being honest, it was disturbing enough of a sight that I quickly moved to emergency mode.

"Hey," I asked, placing a hand on her shoulder as I tried to stop her from trembling. "Are you okay?"

"W-what are... I...."

This was getting out of hand.

Moving into place, I now placed my other hand on her other shoulder, sternly holding her in place as I tried my best to give her some comfort. I knew a panic attack when I saw one, and I wouldn't even think about leaving someone in the middle of temporarily losing their marbles.

"It's okay, Shizu. Just let it process..." I soothed, slowly moving to rub her back as reassurance. "I'm sure it's an honest mistake. I truly don't mind. Honest."