"So, how did you get here?" the young man asked me as he took another one of my fries. "How did you manage to get through Gold?"

At first, I was considering whether to ally with him. Not anymore. He had taken a little over half of my fries by now. A third was my hard limit.

"I got lucky," I said dismissively. I took the cup of fries and pivoted the opening towards myself.

"That's hard to buy," the youth said.

"You can literally go and pay for it."

"I mean, your story. You don't make it this far just cause you got lucky. Plus, you look pretty fierce."

That's because you stole my food, you fry-burglar.

"What about you?" I turned the question around. "What's your name? And how did you get here?"

"I just played it safe, I guess. I'm sure you've heard of the Bounty Hall, and the Liberation's Call Syndicate. I was in a party of three. We just holed up, best we could, and avoided interacting with anyone else. It was a slow grind. And not as smooth as I hoped. We…well, you can tell I'm by myself now."

The distant roar of a car passed outside, perhaps a few streets away. And then it faded, and it was quiet again. The stranger was resting his forearm across the table, his hand half-eaten by his hoodie sleeve. It was strange, seeing a hand other than my own.

"What's your name?" I asked again.

"You don't need to know my name," he said. "And I don't need to know yours. We're in the City of the Lost. Here, we are all strangers. There's a lot you can't tell about this place at a glance."

He reached his hand out towards my fries. But then he paused and retracted his hand under the table.

"Go on," I said.

He reached out once more for my fries.

"Go on with your exposition," I clarified.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"O– oh." He retracted his hand again. "Right, yeah. You're new here, right?"

"Relatively, yeah."

"Well then, let's see…what do you want to know about?"

"Let's start with the society here."

"There's not much of one, to be frank."

Which wasn't a surprise, considering the severe underpopulation. People usually had more than enough money to spare, he explained. In turn, few held jobs, and guilds were rare. Many people, like himself, traveled alone.

"And the Liberation's Call Syndicate?" I asked.

"The LCS is here, alright," the nameless youth said. "But they're mostly in the shadows. If you see an ATM, you can try withdrawing money. That's thanks to them; they manage the money supply. Every three months, after you win a Challenge, you get an additional 20k or so in your account."

"That's surprisingly benevolent of them."

"It also makes them impossible to dismantle. Without destroying the entire economy, I mean. They do a lot of shady stuff behind the scenes. Extortion, threats of violence, outright robbery. Market manipulation, of course. Hard to say how much bad stuff they actually do. There's no, like, news station or anything around here."

"Does no one try to fight back?" I asked.

"No one wants to upset the people paying you money," the youth pointed out. "I mean, some dare, like the Vigilantes. There aren't many of them, but they're pretty bothersome for the LCS."

"The leader of the LCS is Doublerift, right?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"And he's a Legend? If the Vigilantes bother him, why doesn't he go and just wipe them all out?"

That gave the youth pause. "...Good question. I honestly don't know. But I think he's scared of losing."

"For real?" I asked.

"If you're like Bronze or Silver, Legends seem basically invincible. But this is Platinum. If Doublerift tries to take a bunch of Vigilantes on, he's not guaranteed to make it out alive. Especially if he runs into their ultimate weapon, Truck-kun."

"Truck-kun?"

"Yup. That's the strongest individual on the Vigilante's side."

"Huh," I said. "What does it do? Is it a truck that runs people over?"

The nameless youth shrugged. "Beats me."

That was all he knew of the factions in Platinum. He hadn't been here for long either, I surmised. We chatted a bit more, about the streets here, and where things sold for cheap. Once I finished eating, we walked outside. Before we parted ways, I asked him a question.

"Will you be back here next week?"

"I don't have any plans yet," he said. "You?"

"Same, I suppose."

He nodded, and went on his way, and I likewise.

The night was quiet once more.

I returned to the McDonald's the next day, and the day after that. Those times, I was there by myself. The next week, I went every day too.

I never saw the nameless youth.