I stood outside as I noticed the gaming room felt colder than usual that evening.

Maybe it was the air conditioning seeping out from under the door, or maybe it was just me having unregulated temperature since early morning, from cuddling with Tanya to being mindbroke by Anshur.

Around this hour, me and Hailie would log on together, so I opened the door, to see that the young princess plus her butler, Gerald was already there.

I took a glance at Gerald, whom I forgot the voice of since he spoke so little. I stared at his butlery attire and soft, small movements as I pondered if he even has a life outside of cleaning after Hailie?

Speaking of that… Does he bathe Hailie, even? No, I couldn't imagine that being the case. And great, now I have Hailie lower-half bodily function questions and visuals in my mind, quite undesirable stuff to think about.

Hailie used her upper muscle to bring herself up and climbed into the VR pod, then Gerald would fix her legs, tucking them neatly in the seat and drape a blanket over it for precautionary, I'd supposed, since a person who couldn't feel their lower half wouldn't know when she's having a cold.

Her eyes sparkled when she saw me walk in.

"Evening, Cory!" she said, all brightness and warmth, as if Jesus hadn't made his fourth coming and still is not comfortable seeing us eye to eye.

"Evening," I murmured, rubbing the back of my neck. "Uh, listen, Hailie, uh…"

In all seriousness, I was bored, and I didn't want to do any serious quest today, so like…

"Can I hang out with your team today? Just one day, I won't be of interferance."

Her eyes widened a little, then her entire expression bloomed into delight.

"Oh… YESS! You? Of course! I'd love that! What do you mean interferance? I'm sure my friends loved you too! Um… They'll be so excited! I'll let everyone know!"

I let out a sigh of relief, thinking that I was stressed over literal nothing.

"We can meet at the hideout, what's left of it, anyway."

"Good idea!" Her excitement didn't fade, even at that reminder.

A few minutes later, the room filled with the soft hum of machines, the pods' lids lowered as we activated the thing, and the the world faded, swallowed by static and light…

…before rebuilding itself around me.

When my eyes opened, I was standing in what used to be the New Destiny hideout.

I hadn't moved my login point atop the nexus since the night before, but the place barely resembled what I remembered as I made my way down.

The hideout sat carved into the heart of a heavily-woodeed taiga mountain, its entrance a hollowed archway built of reinforced pine and stone.

Now, the arch was half-collapsed, with splintered timbers jutting out like broken ribs, their tips still smoldering with faint orange light.

This place always had a weight of coldness to it,. I brushed my fingers against one of the burnt logs near the entrance, and flakes of ash broke off and floated downward, dissolving before they reached the ground.

Inside, the air was dense with the smell of iron and smoke.

The wood foundation—once a warm, honey-colored lattice that gave the place its charm—had turned into a half-burned skeleton, if that word was appropriate for a structure.

Tables were overturned, their legs snapped off like broken limbs. A lone chair leaned against the wall at an impossible angle, its back scorched but still standing.

My footsteps echoed faintly as I made my way further inside.

A crimson handprint on the doorframe over here, a trail of footprints, half-covered by frost leading nowhere over there. I glanced up with both my hands behind my back, looking at the walls that once displayed banners and artworks I never cared or took noticed now hung in tatters, fabric edges curling from the heat.

A broken wine rack lay scattered by the far wall, its bottles shattered. The smell of fermented grapes mixed strangely with the metallic sting of blood in the air.

I crouched, picked up one of the intact bottles. Quite disappointed to say that it was dusty, with label half-burned, and the label were crazily blurred, while the cork had melted slightly, fusing with the glass neck.

glug glug

"Taste like vagina, good." I made an absolutely unrelated and wrong comment without shame.

There were still fires burning, just small ones here and there, gnawing on what little oxygen the place had left. I walked close to one of them, watching how the light trembled against the fake wooden walls exposing the beneath stone, it flickered and flickered, mesmerizing in a way.

I crouched near one as blew on it, steam rising from my breath as it hissed and grew further.

"Guess no one's coming back to clean this up, huh?" I whispered.

Silence answered.

I stood again, brushing my sharp, heavy gauntleted hands against my thighs, and walked toward the back of the hideout; the old bar counter. It was surprisingly intact, though the shelves behind it had collapsed, spilling glass, broken mugs, and corks all over the counter.

Someone had scrawled something on the wooden surface with a blade: Your suffering today shall ultimately be for a brand new destiny, a better future.

…

Sounds like something Ann would write, though, she's smart and lazy enough not to show her face around here.

I traced the words with my fingertip and felt the carved edges, for no particular reason.

"Ah… Right, I have to get my chestplate fixed, or at least, get a full speed build and lighter armor."

I sighed and proceed to check the place out even more, so, my eyes went behind the bar to the torture chambe- I mean, the wine cellar, ahem, where the door was open.

I wondered if I would get any good stash I could re-sell there.

I hesitated, taking a deep breath, then stepping through.

The corridor inside descended into darkness, lined with barrels and old, broken, looted barrels. The deeper I went, the quieter it became, until even my footsteps seemed swallowed by the air. And I could hear faint squelched of all the wine not properly soaked into the ground yet, still lingering in dirty puddles.

Thank god I am wearing metal boots.

Water dripped from overheard steadily and rhythmically. I naturally followed the sound like a curious human with a brain of a chimpanzee trying to explore any stimulation.

When I reached the end of the cellar, I found an entire section of the wall blown open, revealing the mountain's inner rock.

Crystals embedded in the stone glowed faintly, giving the chamber an otherworldly shimmer.

I brushed a hand against one; it felt warm, pulsing faintly like it still remembered the explosion that tore this place apart.

"You have nothing to be afraid anymore, my love." I said, cryptically just for the sake of it, "

On the ground nearby, there were scorch marks, circular and overlapping scorch marks, with something metallic buried halfway in the ash.

I knelt, brushed the soot aside, and uncovered a fragment of armor, these armors seemed to be guild-appointed… How do I know? Because there was a logo carving on it, and people only walk around wearing advertisements if the items given to them were free.

It was the Lion's Parade insigna, it seems as though some of the less-known members that I couldn't even recognize in the tavern got trigger happy and looted the place, despite it being just a guild war.

I digress, sighing, since… Yeah, I have no reason to be butthurt about it.

One of my biggest pet peeve was the fact that my scythe wasn't here, some fucker probably looted it already, so I gotta stick to a random, weakass longsword I found on the ground.

"God damn it, Jack, why must you be twindled by Ann's puppetry? You just did her job for her, whatever her job is!" I exclaimed.

The echo of my own voice filled the space, sounding more like a ghost than a person as it echoed.

When I finally turned back toward the stairs, the firelight from above flickered faintly across the cellar ceiling, like shadows of people walking past.

My heart jumped for a second before I realized that it was just the flames dancing against the stone.

Still, I found myself whispering,

"Ugh, I shouldn't have got involved with all these guild bullshits, why couldn't I just refuse Olga's invitation into the guild that day?"

Even though I act like I was a loner who didn't give a shit about no one, deep down, everyone knew for a fact that I often think too much.

I checked Hailie's location via the Bracelet of Eternal Friendship, and she was, slow and steadily, walking towards this direction, around two more minutes to go, she wasn't running, which meant she was probably going with her small team of five.

So I took this moment as a therapy session, walking around the ruins again, slower this time, studying every piece of broken wood and scorched stone as if each held an answer.

The wind outside howled faintly through the cracks of the mountain entrance, carrying flecks of snow that swirled in the dying firelight like tiny ghosts.

When I looked back at the entrance, the smoke from the fires rose upward, twisting in the air like something trying to leave.

It was uncannily, yet charismatically, calm.

I saw torches in the distance approaching from among the trees, two of them, enough to lit the way for a party of five, I supposed.

And out came a figure with beautiful, luscious white hair.

"Hailie!" I waved.

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