Lord of the Myriad Worlds

Chapter 188: Wind Residence No. 53

"Wind Residence, Number 53, please."

Outside the Ministry of Internal Affairs, George activated his driver card and called a carriage.

The four-wheeled carriage was a pleasant surprise — smooth, stable, barely any jolt, and at its quickest it pushed fifty kilometers an hour. The credit went to Weir City's exceptional road planning: clean grids of perpendicular thoroughfares, a dedicated central artery engineered for high-speed carriage traffic, pedestrian crossbridges at intervals, access ramps branching off along the sides. The signboards overhead and along the routes left George almost convinced he had stumbled into a modern metropolitan area.

Except nothing here was electrified. Or steam-powered. Or petroleum-fueled.

Or was it?

In the Rookie Mission world, Joffrey had found coal deposits. Where there was coal, there was oil. With coal you could build steam engines — then internal combustion — then full electrification. And every player living in this city knew all of that perfectly well.

'So the fact that none of it exists here means there's a reason. Something that can't be ignored. Could it be related to the Magic Zombies somehow? Though I can't believe any Magic Zombie, no matter how formidable, could survive a rotary cannon doing full suppression fire — and if it came to that, you could always just escalate to something bigger.'

George was puzzled, but he didn't dwell on it. He was at best a somewhat overrated Rookie King. The right posture for now was not to arrive questioning and dismissing things — it was to ask humbly and observe carefully.

He briefly considered striking up a conversation with the driver, but thought better of it. Letting the driver concentrate was the decent thing to do.

"Sir, we've arrived at Wind Residence Number 53. That'll be four Silver Coins, thank you."Four Silver Coins. A bit steep, he thought — that was enough for four trips through the Arbitrary Door system.

Maybe the carriage fees were subsidized like this to support players who had chosen to settle quietly — those who didn't want to return home but also had no ambitions left — ensuring a minimum baseline of dignity and livelihood through vibrant service employment. Whereas the Arbitrary Door was kept cheap because the organization's understanding of magic had simply advanced that far.

He thought of what Night Owl had mentioned — the out-of-control magic source that had supposedly contaminated hundreds of worlds. The All-Heavens Lord Alliance had been built, in part, on salvage operations from that catastrophe.

Once he stepped out of the carriage and looked around, George was fairly certain he had arrived in Weir City's affluent district. The environment felt noticeably different.

He seemed to be in the city's northeastern corner — assuming the magical array complex due north of the city center could be taken as the reference point. To the south, a city park. To the east, a river forming a natural boundary.

Infrastructure: impressive. Ten-meter-wide roads, five-meter-wide grass verges on either side, a line of shade trees, then a three-meter pedestrian path, and only after all of that — the residences themselves. Detached houses, each separated from its neighbors by fine stone walls edged with iron railings.

The hundred-square-meter garden was behind each house.

"Number 53. That's here."

George walked up slowly. The neighborhood was hushed. Autumn sunlight fell warm on leaves turned deep red — laid against spotless blue sky, the effect was something like watching an aristocratic woman at her leisure, unhurried and effortlessly beautiful.

A breeze passed through, bringing a few leaves spiraling down. George, who had never been inclined toward poetry, felt one coming on anyway.

Come to think of it — the seasonal calendar here seemed to run parallel to the Rookie Mission world. The hundred-square-meter garden out back had been stripped completely bare. Every crop harvested, not a blade left. The previous resident had clearly been growing Star-quality produce in there.

Should he plant some winter wheat?

"Welcome home, my lord!"

The front door opened while he was still thinking. A pleasant voice, and when he turned — a maid.

Not a magical construct-type maid. Not a mechanical maid. Just a regular human woman, almost certainly either a player or a descendant of one born in this city.

Appearance somewhere in the six-to-seven range out of ten. In the first half of his Earth life, this was the kind of woman he would never have dared approach.

Tall — one-seventy or so. Dressed not in a stereotypical maid's outfit but in practical, comfortable domestic clothing — the kind that didn't impede work, with a plain neatness that communicated both professionalism and respect. Humanistic Care built into the design, as it were.

Whether that was ironic or not, George couldn't quite tell.

He nodded, and the maid stepped forward quickly to relieve him of his pack and the equipment pieces he'd been carrying — the items reclaimed from Internal Affairs today. The equipment being upgraded would have to be retrieved from his personal Arbitrary Door, but that could wait until he was better healed.

"My lord, my name is Xiao Ning. I'm a Three-Star Maid. I hold three Profession Cards: a Three-Star Cook Card, a Three-Star Farmer Card, and a Three-Star Herbalist Card. My services include: cooking and meals, laundry, crop management, supply procurement, One-Star potion preparation, limited combat sparring, massage and circulation therapy, and minor wound suturing. I'm trained in professional maid protocols and will not disclose your personal information. I'm also available to answer questions within the scope of my knowledge."

"A Three-Star Maid," George said, genuinely surprised. "Why aren't you a Three-Star Lord?"

"I was born in Weir City, my lord. I graduated from Weir Academy this year. My three Profession Cards are all at Three-Star — but my Destiny Grids are all below 5. Not nearly enough to qualify as a Lord. Not even enough for mercenary work."

"Switching to the Maid profession lets me avoid frontline deployment."

"And because that choice was made from the beginning, I will only ever hold service-type positions for life. The upgrade tokens for the Three-Star cards were issued at graduation."

"Unless I choose to go to the battlefield someday, these Three-Star cards will be my permanent ceiling."

Xiao Ning stated this with complete composure, as if describing the weather. George took a moment to absorb it — but it made sense. Since player bodies weren't digitized, having children was entirely possible. And who would want their children to be nothing more than a piece of code that could be infinitely copied? So naturally people married, had children, built lives — which explained why Weir City was so large. He'd been estimating tens of thousands of players, but looking at this, most of the population was probably second, third, fourth, fifth-generation descendants.

Seen in that light, the Alliance might be slow on expansion — but it was extremely durable in what it had. Holding its ground. Add to that a consistent refusal to cross hard lines, a genuine commitment to basic dignity — there was no path to overnight wealth, but there was a guarantee of something slow and steady that compounded over time.

"All right, Xiao Ning — what's the climate going to be like in Weir City over the next few months? I'm thinking about planting something in the garden. Do you have any suggestions?"

"Weir City has distinct seasons, my lord. Winter typically runs four months. So planting most crops in the garden right now is inadvisable. That said, winter wheat would be a solid choice. If you have One-Star wheat seeds, I'm confident we could bring in a harvest of Two-Star winter wheat by next summer."

"That said — if you don't already have seeds, I wouldn't recommend buying any. One-Star wheat seeds go for one gold per kilogram in Weir City. And the soil also needs replenishing — you'd need to purchase magically enriched soil, plus various supplements. All told, for a garden this size, you'd be spending at least ten gold. The math doesn't really work in your favor."

"Ten gold? You're right, not worth it."

George was seeing the pattern now. Life in Weir City was easy — even food and lodging free for descendants — but the moment anything touched the One-Star threshold, the costs became serious. The great city was comfortable to live in; it was expensive to grow in.

After thinking it over, he still took out five gold coins and handed them to Xiao Ning. "Go purchase some enriched soil and fertilizer. I'm planning to sow some winter wheat this afternoon."

"As you wish, my lord. And for your daily meals — what standard would you prefer? As a Three-Star Lord, you're entitled to one serving of One-Star food per day at no charge. I can currently prepare two options: white bread, and mushroom-and-meat broth."

"White bread is fine."

He answered without much thought, then settled onto a bench beside the garden, watching his shadow shift slowly across the sunlit ground. A thoroughly idle life — and he found it genuinely pleasant.

Around midday, Xiao Ning returned in a hired carriage and, with help from the driver, unloaded ten full sacks into the garden — roughly a thousand kilograms of rich black soil.

George scooped up a handful and felt the familiar quality immediately. This was the same rich dark earth he'd known from the camp's surroundings in the Rookie Mission. A thousand kilograms for five gold. Outrageously expensive.

Xiao Ning went to prepare lunch while George took a gardening tool and started working the soil — slowly, because the wound flared up almost immediately. He stopped decisively and let Xiao Ning take over the digging and turning after lunch. He provided five kilograms of seed, and by late afternoon the planting was done.

Xiao Ning was plainly delighted, cheeks going pink with the kind of excitement you get when something goes into the ground and you can start looking forward to what comes up. She probably earned experience from this, George supposed.

He didn't particularly mind either way.

"In four and a half months, I'll be heading to the Chaotic Killing Battlefield. How long do those missions typically last?"

"That depends on the mission type, my lord. Most standard conscription deployments end within six months. But one type can run for up to three years — Territory Pioneering Missions. If you, as a Lord, choose to apply for a Territory Mission, you could be away for the full three years."

"Have you applied for a Lord mission yet? If it succeeds, you'd receive a territory. Then you'd be a Lord with real authority, not just a title."

"I haven't decided yet."

George said it honestly. He wasn't in any rush. He'd just finished the Rookie Mission — he needed time to settle. And he still hadn't completed any Title Tasks. He needed to get a code name before anything else.

"In that case, my lord, I'd be the one to manage the winter wheat harvest. There's a real chance it'll come out as Two-Star. Would you want to keep it for personal use, or sell it?"

"Store it safely for now. If I end up joining a standard conscription deployment, I'll come back and manage it myself afterward. If it's a Lord Pioneering Mission, I'll leave it in your hands."

George didn't overthink it. He'd gathered what Night Owl was suggesting — she wanted him to apply for the Lord Pioneering Mission in four and a half months. That was fine. But first, once his injuries healed, he'd need to look for Title Task opportunities to build himself up...

'Most likely going to be challenging. Four months. Joining mid-mission — how far ahead of Thomas, Leon, Hathaway, and Ron could I realistically get? Under all those constraints, it might take two months just to secure the Head of Household position...'

'Go with the flow,' he told himself. 'I'm a newcomer. What's the hurry?'

George's mood, surprisingly, remained very good.