Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 143: Ch141. [World Quest]

Chapter 143: Ch141. [World Quest]

Miles stared across the study. The air was tight, thick with silence and things left unsaid. Sarissa stood with her arms crossed, Diego at her side, and both of them staring at him like he was a ghost.

Maybe he was. Maybe he had not really come back, not all the way.

Not yet.

"I’ll tell you everything," Miles said, his voice slightly calmer. "But before that... Before anything, I need to know what happened. This last year. What happened to the world, to the three of you."

Sarissa’s lips curled downward, the same way they used to when she thought she’d heard enough.

"You don’t get to ask that." She spat. "Not after everything."

Miles did not flinch, though.

"I didn’t choose to disappear."

"And we didn’t choose to watch everything fall apart after Shinji started attacking!" she snapped, stepping forward. "You don’t get to walk in here and demand answers like nothing happened. You weren’t here. You didn’t suffer through what we did."

"I know." Miles said quietly.

"Do you?" Her voice broke, just a little. "Do you have any idea what we’ve been through, trying to hold things together while you were off playing... Whatever game you were caught in?"

"I need to understand what I’m walking into." Miles said. "If I’m going to help—"

"There it is!" Sarissa cut in. "Help. Like that makes it better. Like we should just welcome you back, hand you everything, and pretend the world is still the same."

"Maybe not." Diego said suddenly. His voice was softer, wearier, but it cut through the tension like a blade. "But he still deserves to know. If he’s going to help, if he’s going to fight with us, he needs to know what he’s walking into."

"Dee-" Sarissa turned, incredulous.

"He always helped." Diego said, looking her straight in the eyes. "Even when he was out of his depth, even when it cost him everything. He always helped me."

She stared at him. Then at Miles. Her jaw worked silently, grinding over unspoken words. And then, just barely, her shoulders sank. The light of the glyphs around the study caught in her eyes.

"Fine."

***

One year ago

The world had not ended in fire, but in silence.

After Shinji’s sudden appearance in the Black Market, and the chaos his strange pets had dragged Sarissa into, everyone became alert, wary – even more alert and wary than before – and now, she had every single one of her scouts collecting information all across the city.

What she found out caused the entire dynamics in power to shift drastically.

And the world she knew to shift irrevocably.

The first meeting she held after the one where she told the players about the [World Quest] – when she still somewhat trusted Shinji – was quieter, without the protests and words of aggression towards her.

"Everyone knows about the [World Quest] by now." She said, breaking the heavy silence. "And I’m here to speak of it. At least... Some of it"

The players looked at her, some with perplexity in their eyes, some with anticipation, others with quiet anger, but every one of them simply let her speak.

"It shouldn’t be as unexpected as it is, but we’re facing an enemy that’s risen from our own ranks today." He expression darkened, slightly unsure of how to put it in words, but she carried on anyway. "I’m sure you all have noticed that some of your friends, allies, and even close family have disappeared without a trace, and that’s not without cause... Because Hinata Shinji, leader of the Sakura Guild is the one behind it."

Gasps rippled through the main square, some sharp, others quiet and disbelieving. Sarissa could feel the weight of every stare pressing down on her.

"You’re saying Shinji is behind the disappearances?" One player asked, eyes wide beneath a hood.

"That’s insane!" Someone muttered from the back. "He’s one of the big names. We fought beside him so many times!"

"Which is why he got away with it for so long," Sarissa said evenly. "He built trust. Then used it."

A woman with a jagged scar down her cheek slammed the head of her hammer against the already cracked pavement. "My brother’s gone. You telling me Shinji took him?"

Sarissa nodded once.

"Maybe, or maybe he was a member of his guild all along. I’m telling you that he’s building an army out of players. Twisting them into believing in the same distorted creed he believes."

"No. No way," someone else whispered. "That’s not possible. That’s not how it should work."

"It is now." Diego said, stepping forward from the shadows of Sarissa’s back. "It’s how he works."

The square fell into a stunned, uneasy silence. The kind that came before storms.

And Sarissa, swallowing her own bitterness, knew this was just the beginning.

"I’m here to share all information I have on him." She continued. "So that none of you ever get to face him unprepared, if you ever get in such situation."

Everyone fell silent again, waiting for Sarissa’s words.

"Shinji is the first one to actually lay eyes on the first [Hidden Piece] of the [World Quest], but it was not without aid. And after we found out about it, the whole hierarchy of power within the enemies we face turned upside down, because he was able to do that after he made a deal with a [Demon]. Which means there are enemies far beyond the [Creatures], [Beasts], and [Monsters] we used to fight."

If the silence had been loud before, now it was deafening, its weight pressing on Sarissa’s shoulders like the world itself. But she had to go on, and so she did.

"Thanks to this pact he sealed, he’s now able to control the monsters, somehow. And now, he’s only waiting to get a chance to put his hands on the first [Hidden Piece], his army growing more and more as we speak."

The silence was still deafening, none of the players sure of what to say or how to retort. And before they even had a chance to steady themselves and break the silence, a system message popped up in front of everyone.

[New Quest Received: Raise your banners]

[Quest Description: No one survives alone. So now, you must choose to join an already existing guild or create your own, gather fellow players, and survive the storm that looms in the horizon.]

A flicker of color lit up every player’s eyes as the system message pulsed across their vision.

Then came the murmurs. Confusion. Dread. Fury.

"Create our own guilds?" someone scoffed. "What the hell does that even mean? We’re not ready for this!"

"This is a war," a cloaked archer muttered. "No more parties. No more random queues. We either stand together, or we fall alone."

More silence followed. This one was not stunned, but grim. Cold. Heavy.

Diego finally stepped forward again. "Now you know why we needed to tell you. Why you needed to hear it straight. Shinji has a head start. A demon at his back. And we’ve been scattered too long."

A low voice cut through the crowd.

"Then we stop playing."

Another followed: "We fight."

The players looked to Sarissa. Not as a commander anymore, but a rallying point.