Grey looked up into the skies, his gaze memorizing every line and shift in the Great Udon’s expression.
Then he chuckled.
Did he know at the time that there were levels to Registration? No, he didn’t.
Would that be annoying?
Almost certainly.
Did it matter?
No.
Not in the slightest.
He had reached the point where being screwed over didn’t bother him anymore. He could see a sliver of light at the end of the tunnel, and that... that was more than enough.
What had really shaken Grey in the past was the feeling of spinning his wheels, of ramming his head into the same wall again and again without progress.
Why had he run back into the city even after seeing the Great Udon appear and knowing what was almost certainly about to happen?
It was because he hadn’t slept a single wink in over a day. Not only had he not slept in over a day, but he had done nothing but push his body to an extreme.
Let alone what was happening to his mind after experiencing death so many times, his body in this loop itself was reaching its limits.
He simply didn’t have the energy to do this right now.
Grey yawned and stepped through a threshold. The echoes of the Great Udon’s words faded from him.
His face was still in the air as though they were waiting for his reaction about something, but Grey instead found a little old lady standing in a hut built just for one person.
This hut had an opening and a ledge that held a few stamps and a list of names.
"Hey, I want to register for a place to sleep."
The old lady sitting behind the counter looked up a bit groggily. It was as though she couldn’t hear the Great Udon’s voice above.
"Government housing is only available for citizens of Zone 234. You will need to—."
"Not to worry, I already have."
The old lady blinked and shifted in her seat. Grey’s gaze locked in a bit when he saw what looked like a donkey tail flicker out from behind her.
"Oh, I see." The old lady nodded as though confirming something from her own system. "Fingerprint here. Signature here. Pick one of the available lots here.
"Please keep in mind that lots are first come, first served. However, following a 24-hour period, one must leave and register once again. To avoid conflicts, it’s better to pick a less favorable lot if you would like to avoid fights. If you are confident in your strength, pick as you please."
Grey raised an eyebrow. Honestly, he had expected a bed in a box. But it seemed that there were levels to citizens as well.
After all, there was a lot of room between commoner and citizen. Just because you were the former didn’t mean you would be living in an alley somewhere.
"As a final note, these three lots here are special order." Her fingers quickly pointed to three corners. "Following the first 24-hour period, they will be closed off to normal citizens at no gratuity. After this period, they must either be paid for with a daily rent that incrementally rises or be claimed with a Knight title."
"What about food and water?" Grey asked.
"This room comes with free food. This one comes with free water. This one comes with both and is the most sought after. So, once again—."
"Alright, I’ll take that one."
Grey rolled his thumb through ink and put down a print. Then he signed his name as a row of five hills with one in the middle that was much taller than the others.
A middle finger.
The old lady blinked for a moment, but then shook herself awake, pulling at a wheel of keys beneath her desk and handing one to Grey.
"Here you go."
"Is there a way to access tutorial information?" Grey asked, taking the key.
"Yes. Your room will have an interface where this information is widely available. It will also be possible to buy other forms of information through this network, but they will be limited by your Registration Rank, noble status or lack thereof, and wealth."
Grey nodded. "Gotcha. How do I get there?"
The old lady pointed.
They were basically in a cul-de-sac of condominiums stacked to four levels. The designs, from the beige exterior to the clay-like finishes, kind of reminded Grey of Californian architecture with a dash of medieval.
From the outside, though, they were certainly not luxury apartments by any stretch, and as Grey walked up to the fourth floor of a stacked condo far to the right, he wasn’t expecting much.
But when he walked inside, everything changed.
A bed made for a king. Or more like three of them, and still room for each one to have two concubines to themselves.
There was no real separation between the bathroom and the sleeping quarters. It was just one big open space with stainless steel making up the bulk of everything.
But the bathroom didn’t feel as sterile or jail-cell-like as one might expect. It mixed in undertones of stone and black just enough to escape that.
Grey sighed, walking to the side and holding out a hand in what looked like an opening in a futuristic water fountain. A cup manifested in his hand and filled up instantly.
With a thought, he threw his head back and chugged it all in one go, walking into his bathroom.
All the while, the Great Udon was so engrossed in his diatribe he didn’t even seem to notice what was happening. Grey had become a footnote in his own story, the great villain everyone expected to be watching the horror show hardly paying attention to it at all.
Then Grey yawned, pulled his pants down, and squatted.
He let out a low shout as he relieved himself of something he had been holding since Earth. Angling himself down, he took the purest piss he had had in a long time at the same time.
A bidet whirred to life, and the feeling of relaxation hit Grey all at once.
"Oh my, at least take me out first."
Grey yawned again.
He fell asleep on the toilet, his snoring finally echoing loud enough that the Great Udon realized what was happening.