Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 184: [Extra - ] Ch182. Half healing

Chapter 184: [Extra Chapter] Ch182. Half healing

The scream hit Miles like a gunshot.

He was already sprinting before Mara could react. The hall between the forge’s main floor and the infirmary was short, but in that moment, it felt endless. His boots slammed against enchanted tile, and the blue runes lining the corridor pulsed in recognition, letting him pass unimpeded.

He kicked the door open. The scent of burning incense and bitter herbs hit him immediately, but that was a background note compared to what he saw.

Sarissa was sitting up in the cot, sweat pouring down her face, one hand clutched to her chest, the other reaching towards something he was not able to see or sense. Her eyes were wide, unfocused, flicking around the room like a caged animal.

The runes etched into the walls trembled with residual mana, reacting to the violence of her scream like a child reacts to their mother’s sudden yell. Almost as if flinching in intimidation.

"Sarissa!" Miles reached her in two strides, kneeling at her side, but still keeping some distance, however small. "You’re okay, you’re back. It’s me, it’s over."

Her lips trembled, her eyes locked onto him slowly, as if seeing him through layers of fog. She opened her mouth, then closed it, her breath shallow and fast, but no words coming out of her lips.

Behind them, Mara entered more quietly. She didn’t say anything, but the look in her eyes made it clear she was ready to step in if things went south.

Miles summoned the [Ethereal Teapot] without a word. It manifested in a swirl of silvery colorful sparks, steam hissing gently and filling the room with notes of cinnamon, lavender, apple cider, and strawberry, if it even made sense for these flavors to be mixed together in a single concoction, but he poured from the teapot into a small crystal cup that appeared along with it anyway, and carefully reached it towards Sarissa.

"Here." He said gently, raising it to her lips. "It’ll help, just drink. Slow and steady, small gulps."

Sarissa drank, though her hands still trembled too much to hold the cup. The effect, strangely, wasn’t instant, but Miles could see it.

Color returned to her face. Her breathing slowed, her shoulders eased down, and the tears stopped pooling in her eyes. But something was off.

The usual light that returned to someone healed by the teapot was... Dimmer.

"It didn’t heal her whole." Miles frowned, glancing at the teapot, then back at her.

"Maybe the damage she received was too high for one cup to be enough?" Mara murmured from the wall. "But it could be... Her connection to the system. If what she said about the Horizon is true, she might have been severed from it. That tea heals through that link, right?"

Miles shook his head.

"I got it during the [Hidden Quest] that led me to Wonderland. And if the place became a prison, being part of somewhere else before... Maybe that’s not the answer... Wonderland is something else, even the system doesn’t work properly there, although it finds its way into functioning.

Sarissa finally found her voice.

"He broke it, though." She rasped. "Like it was nothing. Like pulling a thread from a cloak and dismantling it."

Miles sat back slightly but didn’t move away.

"Tell us what happened. Start from the beginning."

Sarissa closed her eyes and took a long breath, organizing the thoughts clawing through her skull.

"I made it to the Horizon." She broke the silence, hesitant. "It was... Like nothing I’ve seen before, but I could understand it a little. I saw remnants of impossible things, ruins, things that looked like metal bones of ancient machines. I fought and bled many times until I found it, the Last Verse."

Miles and Mara both froze at the name.

"I climbed it after fighting through a swarm of Revenants just like you described, large enough to be compared to the aberrations we fought against in the [Mouth of the Abyss]. My wounds wouldn’t heal, I almost died, but when I entered the spire, even though time and space moved strangely inside the place... There was peace."

She swallowed.

"That’s where I met them. Alice and the Hatter."

"How’s he doing...?" Miles felt his lips curling upwards ever so slightly.

"He told me to remind you that you still have a promise to keep with him." Sarissa murmured. "Alice spoke in riddles, and she seemed to know me, or maybe who I was meant to be. And the Hatter... He was mad, but nothing like in my regressions. He gave me tea."

"Was it like the one Miles has?" Mara raised an eyebrow.

"No." Sarissa shook her head. "It was worse. But more honest, I think. It didn’t heal me. It showed me what I was missing, but then, the Spire shook."

She paused, eyes unfocused, as if the memory physically hurt to recall.

"They came out of the mist. Men in cloaks, silent, blades humming with something... Wrong. Technology infused with magic, and I fought them. I won, but it took everything. Every ounce of strength I had, every gram of will. And when I stood there, broken, yet victorious, he appeared."

Miles and Mara didn’t speak. Even the room seemed to be listening to Sarissa.

"The master of Luna Sea."

The name sent a tremor through the forge. The glyphs carved into the walls flashed once, instinctively resisting the memory.

Miles’ shoulders tensed up at the mention of the title, but he kept listening.

"He wasn’t human, his eyes were stars, and his voice sounded like planets falling into place. He looked at me and smiled, and I felt like I had never mattered."

Miles gritted his teeth, Mara pressed a hand to the wall, steadying herself.

"I threw everything at him. I screamed my story into the world, the one that bloomed after we killed [Aardvark], and it didn’t even scratch him. He caught my sword in two fingers. He looked at me... And he was bored. Then he took my story, unwound it like it was yarn, and said, ’You’re like him, but you’re not ready.’"

Sarissa shook.

"And then he threw me out, like garbage. Like I was an afterthought."

Silence fell, and the forge felt like a tomb. Then Miles exhaled, slow and long.

"He did go somewhat all-out on you, then..." He muttered. "That son of a bitch..."

"What?" Sarissa blinked at him.

He looked up at her, gaze steady.

"The promise I have to keep with the Hatter? It’s that man himself." Miles smirked bitterly. "Although calling him a man is underestimating him big time."

Both Sarissa and Mara stared at Miles, their eyes full of curiosity and concern, a silent plea for him to keep talking.

"Part of it has to do with my story, so I thought I didn’t have to tell you any of it, but now... Now I have a debt twice as high to pay him..."

"Who is he, Miles?" Mara urged him, frowning.

Miles took a moment to breathe, and when he spoke, it felt like the entire forge had held its breath.

"He’s the god of war and progress."