Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 140: Ch138. Home, sweet home (3) - Metal, stone, and memories

Chapter 140: Ch138. Home, sweet home (3) - Metal, stone, and memories

The battlefield had faded into the distance, swallowed by smoke and shadow, but the images still burned behind Miles’ eyes as he watched the distance from the dark window of his apartment.

Corpses, both monstrous and human, strewn like discarded dolls across the shattered asphalt and the ruined buildings. Blood smeared across rusted wreckage.

The world had changed while he was gone, and not for the better.

But how? It had not been that long since he left, so...

’How much could’ve happened that it made everything look like... This?’ Miles bit down his lower lip, so hard he almost hurt himself.

And to make things even worse, Mara and Dee were nowhere to be seen. What the hell could have happened to them while he was gone?

What if they-

"No!" Miles slapped his cheeks with both hands, so hard it turned them red. It was no time for him to dwell in such thoughts.

He had to find them, no matter what.

And so, he left the apartment building, sneaking into the night.

There were only two places where he was sure he would find them, but he had not seen anything but ruined constructions on the way home. Which could only mean that Mara’s workshop was out of the question.

It left him with only one choice.

***

He crouched behind a collapsed stairwell, catching his breath. The once-familiar skyline of his old neighborhood was now broken teeth under a bruised sky. Some of the buildings and houses were supposed to be under the ghostly green light of the [Safe Zone] protection. But he had not seen a single marker. Only silence and smoldering ruin.

His fingers curled tighter around the scythe in his hands.

Something was wrong. Not just with the city, but with the players as well.

None of the players Miles had seen in that battlefield wore the Union Guild crest. Not on their armor, not on their banners. And that silence screamed louder than any alarm.

Where was Sarissa?

Should he have to go looking for her as well?

’No.’ Miles shook his head. ’She knows better than anyone else to fend for herself.’

So, he set his thoughts on the only option he had to find Mara and his best friend. His little brother.

The thought stirred in the back of his mind. Half memory, half instinct.

The Black Market.

Tucked beneath the bones of the city, untouched by Safe Zones, and yet more secure than any of them. Hidden in plain sight.

If anyone had survived the collapse – whatever the hell had caused it – if anyone could hide from whatever had turned the city into a graveyard, it was them.

Miles pressed deeper into the shadows, slipping past toppled fencing and overturned patrol drones. The moon had barely risen behind polluted clouds, casting only a sickly sheen over shattered glass and warped metal.

Every movement was calculated, every step weighed like a thief slipping past death’s gaze.

An hour passed, then another, and the streets grew narrower, emptier. The deeper he went, the more it felt like memory pressing down on him. Twisting familiar roads into stranger shapes. But instinct carried him where maps could not.

Finally, he found it.

Nestled between two buildings toppled by destruction and The Glitch’s decay was a squat, two-story structure of reinforced concrete and old steel. Its windows were blacked out.

No sign, no light, only a heavy metal door, pitted and scarred, with a sliver of rust curling along its seams.

Miles approached cautiously, then raised his hand and knocked.

Three sharp raps.

Two quick taps.

One final knock.

A rhythm he knew by heart because it was too easy to remember, and he waited.

A full minute passed before the slit in the door slid open. Cold metal, and even colder eyes peered through the gap, covered by shades.

"Password?" The voice asked, impatient.

Miles blinked. The phrase danced at the tip of his tongue, but the world had churned so much since he last heard it. He closed his eyes and let instinct guide him.

"... Veni, vidi, vici."

There was a pause, and then the sound of reinforced locks sliding back, one by one.

The door groaned open, revealing a narrow corridor slick with old water stains and half-lit by flickering magitech strips embedded in the ceiling. A familiar scent hit him like a ghost.

Oil, alchemy, dust, and magic burned at the edges.

He stepped through, and the memories followed him. Though brief and too short, they were meaningful enough.

The twisting corridors carved in stone, the glyphs in the walls, the meeting with the Archivist.

Down the stairwell, deeper than most basements dared to go, until the noise of the surface faded entirely. There, at the base of the descent, the city beneath the city unfolded before him.

The Black Market.

The same as before, yet darker now. Tighter. As if the world above had driven its chaos downward and this place had absorbed it.

Makeshift stalls jutted from cracked walls. Strange lanterns dangled overhead, casting sickly green and purple hues. Smoke drifted lazily in the air, scented with incense, melted wiring, and blood.

Miles moved through the crowd like a ghost, half-recognized by some, ignored by most. A masked enforcer watched him from the edge of a checkpoint, their fingers idly resting near a rune-scarred weapon. He did not look away.

Something had shifted in the Black Market, too.

It had always been strange.

Now it was tense, and even more crowded than before.

There were even some faces that Miles recognized from before leaving – players’ faces.

He passed by a cloaked merchant peddling teeth in glass vials. Another whispering to a crowd about a ’savior’. Most of them did not speak aloud.

They just murmured in languages that the system could not translate. And yet, everyone down there did.

He did not stop.

But there were no familiar faces, other than a few players here and there. Miles’ heart tightened against his ribs like a beast too big for its cage.

However, a few steps before the corridor that led to the Archivist’s study, a woman stood there, leaning against the wall as if waiting for someone.

Her hair was tied back, shorter than he remembered, streaked with soot and silver. A welding glove dangled from her belt, and a charm of knotted cords clinked against the hilt of a dagger at her hip. Her workshop apron was gone, replaced by dark tactical layers reinforced with plating and leather straps.

But her eyes had not changed.

Sharp, tired, always watching.

"It’s been a while since anyone used that password." She said, her voice slightly hoarse, oddly distant. "Do you mind telling me what brings you to the Black Market-?"

Then her gaze settled on his face, taking in the tired eyes, the worn-out coat, the quiet ache behind his stance.

Her breath caught on her throat.

"... Miles?"