Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 157: Ch155. [World Quest] (15) - One way to find out

Chapter 157: Ch155. [World Quest] (15) - One way to find out

The tremors did not stop.

Each shaking of the underground sent fine dust down from the ceiling, stone cracked in spiderweb patterns along the walls, with the webbing glowing faintly with a dim purple light.

Something vast stirred beneath them, letting out a guttural, ear-piercing shriek.

It felt like a presence so large, so ancient, it made every other lifeform feel like a mote of dust in a storm.

"That sound... it wasn’t just the dungeon reacting..." Sarissa’s jaw tightened. "Was it?"

The Archivist turned her gaze toward the cracked wall, her expression perplexed for the first time in gods knew how long as she appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the already vanishing arena.

"Not just reacting." She murmured. "Calling for someone."

And after a brief pause, she added.

"Right, Ender?"

Everyone looked at Miles, even Diego, who slowly broke away from his bear hug.

Miles sighed, taking a few steps back from everyone, summoning something from his inventory.

"Yeah..." His lips became a fine straight line as he looked straight at Sarissa. "Well, do you remember when I said that I didn’t come back empty-handed?"

She nodded without saying a word.

"So..." A tiny artifact materialized from a storm of golden sparks in one of his hands, and a teapot materialized from colorful sparks in his other hand. "Turns out that, whatever the game wants us to believe, that’s the first [Hidden Piece] down in that dungeon, isn’t..."

He threw the fragment of stone towards Sarissa, and as she grabbed it in the air, Miles poured a fragrant liquid from the crystalline teapot that materialized from his inventory, into an equally crystalline teacup, raising it towards Sarissa.

"Here, drink it. It’ll make you feel better. I promise."

She frowned ever so slightly, looking at the crystal shard between her fingers, and drank the fragrant, kaleidoscopically colored liquid that slid comfortably into her swollen lips and down her sore throat.

Immediately, her eyes went wide as she felt it.

She knew that feeling only by having felt it through Miles’ memory, but to feel the healing effects of his magic tea in real life, it was...

"Woah..." She exhaled, shocked at the feeling of her wounds closing instantly, her bruises vanishing, and the cuts on her skin disappearing without a trace.

Even more, she felt renewed strength coursing through her veins, like nothing could stop her right now.

"It’s awesome, isn’t it?" Miles allowed himself to let out a lopsided smile as he looked at Sarissa’s reaction, but before she could say anything – if she would ever – he added. "But the thing between your fingers is even more awesome."

"Why?" Sarissa frowned. "All I see is a piece of an artifact. I can sense some power in it, but it’s nothing noteworthy."

"Is it?" He allowed his smile to widen a little, letting himself become a little bolder. "Give me your hand."

Sarissa hesitated, tilting her head. But after a moment of consideration, she reached for Miles’ hand, and he took it.

Immediately, a message popped up before him.

[You have temporarily transferred the ownership of – Ascension Fragment]

"WHAT?" Sarissa’s eyes immediately widened. "How did you-"

"Wonderland." Miles cut her mid-sentence. "You know the place, you’ve been there. Although you haven’t explored it as thoroughly as I did. The thing is... It’s not just a singular place born from tales we read when we were young."

Miles took a slow breath and then added.

"It was a place ripped from another world, to become a prison for the Mad Hatter, for having challenged the system."

Everyone fell silent.

But if anyone had turned their eyes towards the Archivist at that moment, they would have been able to see her lips curling up very slowly and ever so slightly.

No one did, though, their focus on Miles as if they were struck by lightning.

"I’m going to tell you what happened during the time I was out there, and believe me when I say... It was only one month back in the place I was stranded, before I was able to finally go to Wonderland."

Diego looked at him, a slight understanding dawning on him, but he said nothing, fidgeting with his fingers as he waited for Miles to tell his story, like an innocent child waits for their mom or dad to tell them a bedtime story.

And when Miles began his tale, it was not just Diego who looked at him like an amazed child.

Even Sarissa allowed herself a brief reprieve, astonished at the story of a world outside of the system’s sphere of influence, inhabited by players from yet another world, with monsters that bled power into their killers when slaughtered by them, and a god as the master of one of its locations...

But not even his adventures there, by Kurt’s side, amazed and intrigued her more than when Miles told them about the Last verse, and what awaited him at the top.

And as Miles finished talking about Alice, and how he was finally departed from the Mad Hatter, a seed began to bloom inside Sarissa’s mind, but she had no time to dwell on it much further, with another tremor that, this time, shook the entire study.

"I guess we don’t have any more time to waste with bedtime stories." Miles looked up, his expression turning somber.

He turned to Sarissa, and asked.

"So... Do you want to accept that quest?"

She looked from the shard in her hand to Miles, and back to the shard.

"But... If you already have this..." She hesitated for a moment. "Then why have we been fighting for this whole time?" Her expression grew darker, but Miles immediately defused her anger.

"Because I have a theory about what lies in the boss’s grasp. It either is a missing part of this fragment, or its something related to one of my unearned aspects." He exhaled slowly. "Either way, the dungeon was bound to appear, and if Shinji puts his hands in whatever that’s down there... it’s only going to make things worse for us."

Sarissa’s lips were a line of hesitation and distrust.

"We have only one way to find out, Sarissa..."

His next words took her by surprise, like a punch in the gut.

"... And this time, I’m not willing to go at it without you."