“The individual is tolerable; the collective is chaos. A single voice can offer wisdom, but a crowd is nothing more than noise demanding to be fed. True peace lies in sidestepping the stampede.” - The Te of Slacking, Book 2, Verse 5

To try and clear my head, I thought I’d go for a walk.

I should note how much this represents personal growth for me – although I’m not exactly sure whether this is a good thing or not. I think the last time I went “for a walk” for the sake of my mental health was back in 2002 when Mum confiscated my PS2 after I “accidentally” missed three days of school in a row.

So, you know, this felt like a big step.

However, if an impending apocalypse you personally are supposed to thwart isn’t the sort of thing to make you turn over a new lead, then I don’t know what is.

Unfortunately, stepping out of the Lofty Perch and into Lazytown proper was not the tranquil and life-enhancing experience I might have hoped for.

My village—or should I say small city now—has gone through quite a number of upgrades. Even more so since the last time I took a proper wander around.

The first thing I passed was the upgraded Barracks, now reinforced with stone and wood and having a jolly little banner fluttering above it in the breeze. Outside, a handful of Pixel Soldiers were jogging in tight little circles, arms pumping in perfect sync, as if preparing for… I don’t know, some sort of medieval Iron Man triathlon? The sight was almost comical—blocky little figures moving with robotic focus, their pixel-perfect spears bobbing rhythmically in time with their steps.

Scar had been blunt about their usefulness—or lack thereof. “They’re good for nothing except dying,” he’d said, “But if you’re going to have cannon fodder, it might as well be sacrificial lambs who can reconstitute themselves in five minutes.”

It was hard to argue with the logic.

I still couldn’t shake the memory of the Battle of Lazytown—the first one, not the inevitable sequel that everyone seemed to be bracing for. The blood, the gore, the sheer horror of it all.

Human bodies don’t reconstitute. They break, they bleed, and they stay gone. The image of Lia cleaving through wave after wave of Imperial troops like some kind of unstoppable juggernaut flashed in my mind, followed by the harrowing stillness of the aftermath.

The battlefield littered with the dead and dying, the blood everywhere. The distant wails of the wounded . . .

I shook myself, banishing the thoughts before they could burrow too deep. I plastered on a grin as I passed the Barracks, muttering, “Well, at least these guys don’t have to worry about dry cleaning,” as I watched one of the Pixel Soldiers trip, fall, and immediately reassemble itself in a slightly wonky formation.

I left the jogging soldiers to their blocky little drills and carried on, pretending the echoes of that first battle weren’t still following me.

Just opposite the Barracks was our shiny new Forge – more about this in a bit. Man, did I get in trouble over this – which was belching magical smoke into the sky, while an upgrades Watchtower stood proudly in the distance, looking like it was preparing to ping a giant “attack incoming” notification any minute.

The Granary just over the way had doubled in size overnight and now glowed with the promise of more bread than anyone could reasonably eat, and the new Wall Reinforcements looked sturdy enough to survive an apocalypse—which, come to think of it, if I didn’t get my finger out of my arse, it might just need to . . .

As I made my way down what I was resolutely deciding to call Low Street, I avoided the Market, which was bustling with activity as Pixel and non-Pixel merchants hawked everything from glowing potions to what looked like cursed turnips.

It was all noise and motion, with eager traders shouting over one another about limited-time offers and “rare drops,” and every now and then, the glimmer of magic flickering from a too-bright display.

I couldn’t help but feel it was a bit of a cheek that I only got a 10% discount on anything I bought there, considering that the vast majority of items on sale were mine—random crap I kept dumping out of my inventory because I didn’t feel like lugging it around.

But, as Scar had explained to me – at punishing length over one very dull evening – this was all part of building a "consumer-led" economy. Something about circulation, liquidity, and encouraging trade. I’d tuned out most of it after he used the phrase "tax-deductible resale strategy," but the gist was that it worked, so I let him get on with it.

And it wasn’t like I was hurting for cash . . .

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

In fact, one of our key early problems was that the System kept throwing up annoying little debuffs whenever we tried to brute-force more money into Lazytown. The worst offender was the Tech Tree Debuff that coincidentally seemed to pop up every time I tried to spend my hard-earned gold – no, I can’t even say that with a straight face. I got 200 gold in my sleep the other day – on upgrades.

Want to improve the Granary? Pay the available cost in gold and, oh look, your next ten purchases come with a penalty that nerfs the output of the entire village by 15% because, apparently, the System powers that be don’t like people skipping the grind.

Wah wah.

It actually became a real issue – any tangible benefit from me splashing the case was being more than wiped out by increasingly brutal debuffs – until Scar stumbled across a loophole entirely by accident.

I’d dumped a stack of my usual junk into the Market—including a fairly useful mana potion I hadn’t meant to throw in—and, keen not to lose it, bought it back at a substantial markup.

No debuff.

No penalty.

Nothing.

Apparently, the System didn’t notice. As far as it was concerned, this was a legitimate trade. A "happy little accident," Scar had called it, with the grin of someone who knew he was about to exploit the hell out of it.

As someone who might have, on occasion, been known—while managing the plucky underdogs of Tamworth F.C. in Championship Manager—to conveniently add a second player as Manchester United, who then miraculously decided to spend £50 million on Tamworth’s 36-year-old centre-back with a dodgy knee and retirement on the horizon, I absolutely got the play here.

It was a workaround that screamed genius if you were the one pulling it off and blatant cheating if you were on the receiving end.

Since then, we’d been running what I could only describe as the biggest money laundering operation in the realm. I’d dump random items—useless spears, broken arrows, half-eaten sandwiches—into the Market. Scar would ensure at least some of it had a useful item or two mixed in, and I’d "buy" them back at ridiculous prices, pumping epic amounts of gold into Lazytown’s economy without the System batting an eye.

It was absurd, but it seemed to be working.

So I wasn’t sure how I felt about the Market. On one hand, I’d accidentally become a financial powerhouse. On the other, I was pretty sure this made me this world’s equivalent of the dodgiest of second-hand car salesmen.

But hey, at least it wasn’t hurting anyone.

Yet, said a little voice in back of my head.

I stopped in the middle of a crossroads, trying to get my bearings.

Every corner of Lazytown seemed to boast some new building, some new upgrade, all of it humming with progress and productivity. It was the kind of frenzied activity to give a good slacker the hives.

There were just so many people.

It felt like half the world’s population had moved into Lazytown over the last week or so, bringing with them all their quirks, smells, and—most frustratingly of all—needs.

I know this will surprise you, but I am not a “people person.”

I don’t mind individuals in small, controlled doses. A one-on-one chat? Fine. A quick trade transaction? Great—minimal effort, maximum payoff. But crowds? Crowds are the worst. Crowds are noisy, smelly beasts that exist solely to remind you why misanthropy is a perfectly reasonable stance.

They jostle, they shove, and half of them are always yelling something incomprehensible. Humanity’s collective IQ drops by half the moment more than five people gather in one place.

People move like rivers—sometimes flowing smoothly, sometimes bubbling with tension, and sometimes drowning you in an overwhelming wave of ‘why are there so many elbows here and cannot everyone just fuck off.’

People, as a concept, are exhausting. They’re loud. They’re demanding. They want things—things I don’t have, like answers, solutions, or patience. And worst of all, they expect you to care.

About their problems, their opinions, their weirdly specific arguments over the price of a glowing sword at the Market.

As I picked my way through the throng, dodging hunters dragging bloody carcasses, merchants haggling like their lives depended on it, and a child running around screaming something about “levelling up,” I couldn’t help but wonder if, in establishing Lazytown, I’d accidentally created my own personal hell.

Me and you, Satre.

We’re like that.

My nice, quiet out of the way village in the middle of a haunted wood had turned into a bustling hub of activity, full of people doing things.

Which is why, for a little peace and quiet, I popped into the only building in the whole place hardly anyone would be seen dead in.

The Forge.

See, told you I’d cycle back here eventually. You have to trust my narrative, flow, people.

As I pushed open the heavy oak doors, a wave of heat and noise hit me. Inside, the place was every inch the classic fantasy blacksmith setup: walls lined with gleaming weapons, racks of armour catching the firelight, and a roaring forge in the centre that belched out smoke like it had a grudge against breathable air.

Sparks flew in bursts, landing harmlessly on the soot-streaked stone floor, while the clanging of a hammer on metal echoed through the space.

The blacksmith was facing away from me, oddly thin silhouette framed against the blaze of the furnace. His thin shoulders rose and fell with each hammer strike, the muscles in his arms flexing like a bunch of tangerines in a sock.

His hair was tied back in a rough knot, and every now and then he paused to inspect the glowing piece of steel on the anvil, muttering curses under his breath that I couldn’t quite make out.

This place sat firmly on everyone’s black list. If I wanted a bit of respite from the tumult outside, then this was, realistically, my only option.

I cleared my throat and called out, “Wotcha, Jorgen.”

The blacksmith paused mid-swing, the hammer hovering above the anvil. Slowly, he turned, the shadows of the room shifting as the firelight illuminated his face.

Of course our friendly neighbourhood blacksmith was Lia’s father.