Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 93: Ch91. Pain as a teacher (15) - Lost

Chapter 93: Ch91. Pain as a teacher (15) - Lost

The moment Miles stepped through the portal, he knew something was wrong.

This wasn’t Wonderland.

Instead of the dreamlike, chaotic realm he had prepared himself for, he found himself standing in the middle of a vast wasteland filled with twisted metal, crumbling stone, and machinery that looked too advanced to belong to his world – this world, even.

The air reeked of scorched wires and something acrid, something almost... Organic.

A thick, unnatural fog clung to the ground, curling around rusted wreckage and discarded artifacts like grasping fingers. It was never still, shifting in ways that suggested something was moving within it. Watching.

Waiting.

Miles took a cautious step forward, his boots scraping against what felt like polished bone beneath the dust under his soles. His fingers tightened around the [Harbinger’s Scythe], which had just materialized from a storm of black sparks, his breath steady despite the unnatural tension pressing against his ribs.

’What the hell is this place?’

He had no answers. The Archivist said Wonderland was where he needed to go to grow stronger, but what even was this place? It felt wrong.

Then the sound came.

A groan of shifting metal, deep and guttural, echoed from somewhere within the wreckage. It wasn’t the sound of a machine struggling against rust. It was something alive.

Something waking up.

Miles stiffened, his senses on high alert. The fog thickened around him, but he forced himself to move forward, picking his way carefully through the debris. His mind raced through possibilities.

Did the portal malfunction? Was this a test? Or... Had something else brought him here?

His gaze flicked across the ruins, searching for anything that could resemble a landmark.

Towering above him in the distance was a colossal structure, half-buried in the remains of what looked like an ancient battlefield. Its jagged edges gleamed dully under the weak, sickly light filtering through the clouds above.

It was still Wonderland’s sky, at least.

’That’s my best bet.’

Adjusting his grip on his scythe, Miles made his way toward the structure, each step careful and deliberate. The deeper he walked, the more he noticed strange symbols carved into the broken machinery and stones. They pulsed faintly, almost like veins, whispering in a language he could not understand.

The fog shifted again, and this time, Miles caught movement.

Not from the shadows.

From above.

He barely had time to react before a massive form dropped from the skeletal remains of a twisted tower, landing a few feet away with a heavy thud.

Miles’ instincts screamed at him, and he took a hurried step back, raising [Harbinger’s Scythe]. But as the dust settled, his breath caught in his throat.

The thing was... Humanoid.

Mostly.

Its body was encased in a patchwork of metallic plating and sinewy flesh, as though it had been crudely constructed from whatever scraps were available. Its limbs were too long, its fingers ending in jagged, claw-like tips. But it was its face – or the absence of one – that made the blood in Miles’ veins turn into ice.

Where its head should have been was a single, glowing blue eye, embedded in a smooth, featureless surface. It flickered erratically, adjusting, focusing.

Then, it spoke.

"---Detected. Anomaly. Error."

Miles had no time to process those words before the creature lunged.

He barely dodged, rolling to the side as the thing’s claws tore through the air where he had just been standing. Sparks flew as its talons scraped against the rusted ground.

’Fast! Too fast!’

Miles sprang to his feet, his mind racing. He had fought plenty of enemies before, but this thing wasn’t just strong. It moved like a predator.

It attacked again, this time swiping at him with a brutal, sweeping arc. Miles activated the [Doppelgänger] Attribute Skill and ducked low while his second shadow enveloped him, soon turning into that strange, long, sleek black coat.

He felt his power increasing as he gritted his teeth, feeling the strong gale the thing caused. He couldn’t fight this thing head-on, even with his Attribute Skill activated. Not yet.

’Think. Use the terrain to your favor.’

Miles’ gaze flicked toward the wreckage around him. There was jagged metal debris jutting from the ground like spikes.

If only he could maneuver the creature toward it...

He turned and ran, and the creature snarled – a distorted, mechanical sound – before giving chase. Miles zigzagged through the wreckage, kicking up dust, forcing the thing to follow. Every second counted.

The moment he reached the cluster of jagged metal, he pivoted sharply, skidding across the ground. The creature lunged right into the trap.

A sickening crunch filled the air as its own momentum drove it onto the sharp debris, impaling its side. The creature spasmed violently, its blue eye flickering wildly as it let out a shrieking, static-laced wail.

Miles wasted no time. He surged forward, his scythe flashing as he described a compact downward arc aimed at its head – or whatever that thing was.

The creature convulsed once, twice, and then it collapsed, motionless, its apparent head rolling on the dusty ground.

For a long moment, Miles stood there, panting, heart hammering against his ribs. The eerie silence of the wasteland settled once more.

One second, two, three, four, and the system was still silent.

Then, the body twitched.

Miles jerked back as the creature’s broken form began to dissolve, its plating crumbling away like ash, revealing something else beneath it. Something...

Familiar.

As the dust settled, a human body lay there, motionless, lifeless.

Miles’ breath caught in his throat.

It was a player.

The remnants of armor still clung to the figure’s frame, but it was unmistakable. This had been a person. And it looked like it was a player, just like him.

"What in the major fuck..."

His grip on the scythe tightened as cold realization slithered down his spine. This wasn’t just a wasteland.

It was a graveyard.

And the people who had come here before him... They had died and... Had become something else.

The fog shifted again, and in the distance, beyond the towering ruin, Miles saw more figures moving through the mist. More of them.

He had come to Wonderland to get stronger, but had ended up in that hellish landscape with no explanation at all.

He had to survive.

And find out what the hell had happened to the people who came before him.