Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 180: Ch178. Duties of a leader

Chapter 180: Ch178. Duties of a leader

The forge was quiet, the way it only ever got in the early hours before the sun burned away the city’s fog. Mara stood near the center of the room, her hands resting against the only anvil she had there, which was quite curious, since it wouldn’t be a forge without one, no matter how strange the rest of it was.

But that was not the focal point of her thoughts now. Her breath was shallow, and she still watched the faintly pulsing glyphs she had carved hours ago.

She hadn’t slept, yet again.

But not because she couldn’t. It was because she didn’t want to.

There was a weight in her chest that told her something was coming. That something was wrong.

It did after Miles went away to explore the other unique dungeons, once he realized that, if the [Mouth of the Abyss] had something particular to do with the [Ascension Fragment], there might have been other Dungeons with the same peculiarity.

After he vanished into the map and out into the world, Shinji also disappeared, but new dungeons began to appear, and some were not what they seemed, putting not only a bunch of rookie players at risk, but also putting guilds leadership on a tight rope, spending powerful players to find out why supposedly easy dungeons ended up being deadly traps for low-level players.

She never slept when she had these feelings. These... Inklings.

And now, just as she was rubbing the sleep off of her eyes, it came.

The system message popped up before her, cold and sterile in her field of view.

[Global Event Notification: DUNGEON WAR]

[Event begins in 90 Days]

[Details: Contest of Territory conquest and Survival]

[All Guilds Affected]

[Representatives Must Report]

It lingered there, demanding acknowledgment like a judge waiting for a plea.

Mara had ignored it for a solid ten minutes before finally tapping [Yes] with a resigned sigh.

She turned away from her workstation and opened the metal hatch to her office. The spiral stairs groaned as she descended, her boots heavy on every step. The moment she stepped into the lower hall, her second-in-command stood up from a wide bench.

He was young, but his sharp posture and clipped tone made him seem much older than his years.

"Saw the announcement." He said.

"Of course you did. Now everyone must." Mara gave a short, tired nod.

He was already fully geared. Long navy-blue coat, runed gloves, twin knives at his belt, and a scroll case slung across his back. His name tag hovered faintly over his head in her field of view.

[Tristan Vale – Union Guild Officer; Second-in-command]

Clean-cut, dark-skinned, always watching the room like a hawk. His sharp brown eyes missed nothing, and he had a voice that carried farther than it should, even when whispered.

"We need to address the guild." Tristan said. "Morale is high after the results of the last tournament, but the veterans are unsettled because of the strange occurrences in the lower-tier Dungeons."

"Yeah. Because they know what this means." Mara crossed her arms. "First it was the suspicion of Shinji making a move again, and now a World Raid? That’s one thing. But a global scale war? That’s something else entirely."

He waited a beat, and then said.

"Want me to prepare the hall?"

Mara didn’t answer right away. Just stared at the long table nearby where Union’s top brass sometimes met. It felt too early, too chaotic to do this properly.

Not to mention that she hated the bureaucratic side of managing a guild.

"Damn it... I miss the times when I could just go out with Sarissa and Miles, and storm a deadly dungeon without nothing more than a couple rounds and a water-dripping cactus..."

But they had no time, and these times were long behind her now.

"Yeah..." She said, shaking the reminiscence away. "Get everyone. Anyone not on active raid duty or recon is to report to HQ within the hour. Use my name if you have to."

Tristan nodded, already tapping through communicators, magitech tablets, and sending wide-burst orders to officers.

"And what about you, Ma’am?" He asked, pausing.

Mara looked back toward the spiral stairs. They looked more inviting than the long table.

"I’m staying down there. If they ask why, tell them I need to forge a contingency."

"You know they won’t buy that, right?"

"They don’t have to. They just need to be here, you can handle the speech."

He hesitated, twitching his fingers, then gave a tight nod.

"Of course."

He left swiftly, his coat trailing behind him like a navy-blue shadow. Mara listened to his footsteps fade up the stairs.

Once silence returned, she let out a long, slow breath and moved back into the shop.

The moment the door shut behind her, she slumped against it.

"Gods above and below, this better not turn into another [Mouth of the Abyss]..." She muttered, walking to the central bench and sitting down, pressing her fingers to her temples.

Her [Classpect] hummed gently in the air around her. The forge recognized her mood, its runes glowing a cooler blue.

She looked over at the silk-wrapped vial on her side desk. The [Broodmother’s Ichor] still throbbed faintly.

The same demonic corruption she’d felt in Shinji, the same feeling she’d had before.

The world was shifting, yet again.

And this time, Miles was gone, Sarissa was still away, and the kids in the Shooting Star Guild were barely ready for what came next.

Union was hers to lead.

She leaned forward, pressing her palms against the warm table.

"What would you do, Sarissa?" She asked the quiet air. "Run into the fire? Or drag everyone out first?"

The forge didn’t answer, for a while.

After a few seconds of silence, as if to answer Mara’s question, the space before her tore open.

No noise, no announcement, no warning. Just a silent rupture in space, like someone had folded the world in half and forgot to seal the seam, making colors bleed into Mara’s side of the fold.

She was on her feet instantly, her [Trifle] shifting into a blade in her hands.

The rift pulsed, glimmering with shades of black, violet, and a sickly red. And then, something tumbled through.

A human figure with shocking-red hair, porcelain skin, and freckles on her weary face.

Mara dropped both weapons and bolted forward, her heart nearly stopping.

It was Sarissa, but not the paladin who had helped Miles kill [Aardvark] in the Abyss.

Not the warrior who had faced aberrations with blade, fire, and fury.

The Sarissa before her was barely recognizable.

Her armor was torn, dented, soaked in something thick and black. Her skin was pale and cracked, and her hands trembled even as she tried to push herself up.

Her sword was gone, her eyes fluttered open just enough to see Mara.

"We’re..." She whispered.

And then her body gave out.

"Dead..."

She collapsed against the stone.