Chương 156: Chapter 151 - Interlude 14.3

3 Their reappearance wasn't met by cheers but cold silence. David looked around, taking on how he and the team he went into the fracture looked, and then stared back at the guy meeting them. His father's lackey, who had basically taken over the guild, died in the last minutes of the battle, swallowed up by one of the waves of the giant poison elemental, so he was still waiting to respawn. Instead, his second in command was there to greet them.

"You weren't the first." Was all he said before turning around and leaving the room where they appeared, ignoring the tattered armor hanging off them. David just sighed and followed him back to their camp. On the way, he saw their second team heading toward the fracture, no doubt to try to farm it more. His father, after all, had invested a lot of money in antidotes and training. A few minutes later, he was out of the game and in a general virtual reality space, used for meetings and discussions.

Naturally, it was set up as a conference room straight out of the buildings where his father's headquarters were. His father was at the head of the table, dramatically standing with his back toward them, looking out of the virtual windows.

"You were not the first," he repeated the lackey's words, then he turned around looking at everybody sitting at the table.

"At least you managed to kill the boss."

"Sir, we weren't equipped to deal with the equipment destroying environment, plus with the weird poison…" one of the people sitting at the table began to speak, only to be silenced by David's father raising a hand. David suspected that the man wouldn't be invited back next time.

"I know." From his long experience, David knew that his father wanted to say much more, but he held back. Only the slightest of twitches around his eyes betrayed this fact.

"I know," he repeated as he looked around.

"According to our sources, the kingdom determined from the samples that the poison has merged with dimensional energy, thus the amount of antidote you need to purge it equals the amount of poison you took in. They're working on developing a proper antidote for these specific poisons, but according to their best estimates, it will take at least a month of hard work before there is even a prototype." David had to hand it to his sister and her boss. They magnificently baited his father into this.

And now if he pulled out, he would look like a fool. On the other hand, if he wanted to see any profit from this venture, he would have to invest even more money and manpower to realize it. And based on the slight twitches he saw on his father's body, the man himself also realized this. It took a lot of effort not to grin.

"What's the next step?" came the question from his father's second in command. There was a terse silence before his father looked around the room, making eye contact with everybody, and then continued.

"We reorganize," came the expected answer. His father hated looking weak.

"One part of the guild sets up a research outpost near the fracture. There are some possibilities in the liquid that were retrieved." A lot of nodding and relieved faces greeted the information around the room.

"We will set up a secondary team to… farm the fracture, while the rest will focus on furthering the Steel Lion name in other arenas." The people around the conference room digested this information and then, a few seconds later, the air was full of questions. David just sat back, knowing that no matter what he would say, it would be ignored, and enjoyed the sight of his father trying to make sense of a gaming world.

"Well, sister, I would say congratulations, but I'd rather not," David said while glaring at his sister, who was grinning ear to ear.

"I warn you, however, that my revenge will be brutal." Katie's grin just widened as she curtsied with the elegant dress she was wearing.

"Best of luck, brother. Best of luck." They continued their walk toward their father's office in companionable silence, though his sister skipped a few times. David just made sure to steel himself. He doubted their father was in a joyous mood. Opening the door, he let his sister go before him, like a true gentleman, or like a true sibling, letting their other sibling absorb their parents' anger.

As expected, their father was sitting behind his giant desk, looking absentmindedly out of the window and spinning an expensive pen in his hand. They stopped in front of the desk, standing up straight, just as they were taught as children, and while Katie continued to grin cheekily, David spoke up.

"Father. You called us?" This finally caused his father to break out of whatever was going through his head, then swivel around in his chair and look at them. Naturally, he first noticed Katie's grin before his eyes landed on David.

"Yes, I did," he said in a calm voice that caused not a small amount of confusion in David. His father should be frothing with rage, not being calm and all…

'Maybe he is so angry it looks like he is calm?' he mused.

"This…event…was a major loss to us. Both to the budget and to our face." The man began talking in a voice that told David he was right. His father was beyond furious.

"The…fracture…has demanded more resources than we expected. I was told that if we don't find a proper antidote, then it would take years in-game to recoup our losses." He continued while eyeing a still-grinning Katie.

"Oh, no! That's horrible!" Katie exclaimed, slapping her hands together and tilting her head sideways. David even saw the beginning of a crocodile tear come into existence in her eye. He just stood there and stoically watched as his father took a calming breath, no doubt swallowing a lot of curse words.

"Katherine!" he snapped.

"Yes, father?" came the saccharine sweet response from his sister.

"What have you got to say for yourself?" The saccharine-sweet tone changed into a confused one.

"But father! I was nowhere near that…fracture."

"Katherine…" She clasped her hands together, and the confusion bled into cold fury.

"You couldn't be meaning that you had your staff listen in on a private conversation, then used that information to make a business decision that backfired and now you are blaming me for it? Right?" David felt a shiver go down his spine.

"There is no such thing as private information in this house. What you know, the family knows," came an angry response as his father leaned forward and slapped both his hands down on the desk, the sound echoing around the room. From the corner of his eyes, David saw his sister smirk.

"Mhm… then maybe the family should start making wiser decisions… Will that be all?" she asked and before their last remaining parent could answer, she dropped into a shallow curtsy and practically flounced out of the room, leaving them with a parting goodbye. Taking his chance, David raised his hand to gather his father's attention.

"I'll be leaving the guild, father."

"What?" A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. David simply shrugged. Naturally, as elegantly as possible; no point wasting all those hours spent in etiquette training.

"I joined Magic Unbound to play the game, not to do business…" With a nod, making use of his father's confusion, he also said his goodbye quietly and left the room, hurrying after his sister. Alone in the room, their father stared after the children, anger, and confusion warring on his face before he let out another word.

"What?"

"So, that happened…"

"Yeah…"

"How much did we lose?"

"Enough that there will be a lot of blame going around. Nobody in the guild is happy, nor are our supporters."

"Well… at least nobody in our country managed to get the first place."

"Wait, I was dealing with my equipment and didn't have time to pay attention. Who did get the first place?"

"Ahh, yeah, I watched the stream last night. The guys down south had an undead dungeon. Less powerful mobs, but enough for several legions."

"Huh, that makes sense. Were we the only ones who got something like that poison?"

"No. Every undead had this aura that ate away at anything organic. Metal was left alone, but everything that had wood or leather in it was falling apart." He shrugged and then continued his explanation.

"Then there were the necrotic effects. Took extra mana to heal them. Basically, you had to do overheal to negate its effects. They were chugging mana potions like we did with the antidotes."

"So we weren't the only ones to get a sucky raid…"

"Yeah. I did a quick search and every one of them was like this."

"Really?"

"Yeah. The fire fractures melted equipment and caused dehydration. In the water, you had to have breathing equipment or a spell to go underwater, plus it rusted everything metal. Ice was dealing with freezing and hypothermia, and so on."

"Makes sense, I suppose. Poison still sucks the most."

"What did you expect from the first raid of the game? That we will waltz through and claim the trophy looking like heroes from a fairy tale?" He couldn't help but snicker.

"Our fearless leaders sure did." His friend joined him almost immediately with his own snicker and giggles.

"Hehe, yeah…" Then he leaned forward and began to whisper.

"Have you heard who they are blaming?"

"Izzy?"

"Who would have known?" he asked sarcastically. His friend nodded in agreement.

"Shame, she has nice tits." She was furious. Absolutely mad.

"They dare?"

"Yes, miss."

"What the hell are they thinking?" she yelled, huffing in frustration. Her assistant answered blandly, as always.

"I'm pretty sure they are thinking about their wallets. Somebody has to take the blame… miss""And I was the only one who objected to going in, so naturally that means I sabotaged the run… They really are idiots, aren't they?" Naturally, her assistant recognized a rhetorical question and stayed silent as she stewed and angrily walked around in the room she had rented near the guild headquarters.

She watched the guild stream of their team attempting the poison fracture, while she had countless other windows open, watching several attempts from other parts of the world. At first, she was incensed when she saw that not everybody had to brave acidic and poisonous rains, but then slowly but surely the streams revealed that every fracture that was raided had some kind of effect that ruined equipment and caused the players to use too much heal, mana or antidote potions.

And this unexpected event hit everyone differently. Isabella could understand why. Fractures, compared to dungeons in other games, were much simpler. It was a rare fracture that wasn't just a straight line where you just had to kill monsters. This change of paradigm was unexpected, to say the least. Though not unwelcome. Isabella was a little afraid that fractures would become too boring. But with this, she could see the vague plans that Future Unknown had weaved around them.

However, marveling at the game that this production company had produced was the furthest from her mind. As expected, those blithering idiots, decided they would sacrifice her on the altar of excuses. Apparently, her actions had contributed to Eternal Light's failure in finishing the fracture first among the guilds gathered around it. Some were pointing out that she refused to add her considerable power to the first team, which meant they went in with a suboptimal formation.

Some tried to blame her for not figuring out that the poison inside would be special. After all, she did warn them about it… it made sense, at least to those morons, that her source shared more with her. Isabella knew that they couldn't really kick her out of the guild without causing drama with her family, but she knew very well that they would try to pass on the monetary losses to her. Granted, she wouldn't really feel it, but it was the principle of all.

Calming down a little, she turned around and turned to her loyal assistant, a friend from school who absolutely loved organizing things and had a not-so-secret fetish for playing maid. Not Isabella's thing, but she respected the girl's dedication. Plus, she was the best assistant ever. Even her father tried to poach her a few times.

"What do you think, Claire?" She tilted her head to the side, thinking before elegantly leafing through the papers held in her hand before looking back at Isabella.

"I believe Plan Fuck Those Assholes is the most appropriate, miss," came the placid answer, but Isabella could see the judgment in her eyes. She clapped her hands together and nodded with a grin on her face.

"Then we will do that!"

"Claire! Prepare the messages!"

"Yes, miss." Lucy looked over the incoming documents and couldn't help but let out a satisfied smile. The furor over the new fractures was still going on, even though the first place had been decided. The people delving into the undead fracture were not actually stronger than any of the other teams attempting any of the raid-level fractures, they were simply luckier.

She wanted to make sure that she kept up with the local powers, in her country and outside of it, so she made sure to watch all the streams about the fracture, at least the successful ones. The undead one, located south of the Emerald Kingdom, naturally in a cemetery hidden deep inside a forest belonging to an ancient ruler's family, was just as treacherous as the poisonous one in her kingdom. The guild that managed to clear it first was called Tempest and specialized in mages.

Most of the players had a build that made use of elemental or other kinds of magic. Even the tanks used elemental spells with their shields and weapons. Their luck manifested in that one of the healers had acquired a spell that kept out the foul wind that blew through the fracture and carried a decaying effect with it. She had checked and the Sanctuary Aura skillbook's price had risen by several hundred percent.

The skill had a rather long cooldown, but the moments of rest that it provided to the party allowed them to go faster and hit harder as less of their equipment turned to dust or decayed into an unrecognizable mass. The fracture itself was similar to the other ones. Single 'road' leading forward. Environmental effects hindered the players; here, foul wind flew through the air, and the ground was dotted with physical obstacles.

The undead dungeon appeared in a cemetery; thus the inside of the fracture was also shaped after that. The players had to navigate through collapsed mausoleums, and piles of broken tombstones as skeletons, zombies, and ghouls randomly emerged from the ground, grasping at anyone's ankles with hunger. There was already a compilation of people being grabbed by the ankles by mindless undead and screaming like little children.

After the random zombie attack came the 'organized' army of undead, led by death knights and wights, with a few banshees thrown into the mix. The middle boss was an undead abomination, created from countless zombie corpses, looking like a giant corpulent human, wielding a giant butcher's knife for the sake of stereotype.

After they were done with that, Lucy watched them march through a battlefield, littered with dead and undead, only to be met with an even bigger army while the wind visibly became blacker, causing what little greenery that survived to wither and turn to dust. Naturally, the last enemy was a bone wyvern with glowing ice-blue eyes that breathed equally blue flames at the players. While the information about the capabilities of their neighbors was interesting, Lucy was more interested in her own business.

The income from the antidote material was great, huge even. She would be using it mostly to fund the construction in the capital, easing their burden on that project. Because while it was great that Sam managed to get the property rights, way before anyone else, it was still the capital of the Kingdom and everything was much more expensive than in Ironwood.

Plus, they didn't have someone like Lord Silvercrest at their back to smooth over bureaucratic snafus and talk obstinate officials out of hindering the construction on their new properties.

'Maybe I should move to the capital temporarily to make sure everything goes well…' she mused. Then she opened her quest window and winced.

'Yeah, no… I have too much to do here… Maybe Tim could use the exercise?' she pondered before shaking her head.

'Nah, I don't want to break up the lovebirds…' Then she shrugged.

'Sam is the co-leader of this little shindig. I'll let him deal with this…' Katie walked back to her room, made sure it was closed, the noise canceling gadget that she had Isabella get her while wearing a wig and fake mustache, was on, then took a furtive look around and flopped onto the bed with a wide grin. She grabbed one of the numerous pillows she had on it, pressed it hard against her face, and screamed. After half a minute, she ran out of breath, let go of the pillow, sat up, and simply laughed.

"Hah! Father's face! I love it!" she exclaimed out loud. This continued for a few more minutes as she danced around the room, laughing at her father's misfortune and the faces he made, before sitting down in front of her computer. She brought up recordings of the streams, mostly streams that happened in the poison fracture, or as people called it Poison Spring, but she also checked out recordings from other fractures. She wanted to make sure to study them.

With Sam, she was sure that sooner or later that information would be needed.

'Maybe I could ask the nice things in the darkness to give me some extra training?' she mused before a ping on her personal messenger interrupted her software. It was encrypted to hell and back, and after a few tutorials, she even fiddled with it to make it more secure. No doubt, her father's men could break it within seconds, but it was useful against everyday idiots. Opening the application, her eyes widened and she couldn't stop a soft exclamation from escaping her mouth.

"Oh my, the cow really is shameless, isn't she?"