Chapter 288 - The Future Is Bleak

Inside the Gresh kingdom… in a remote city that was not as popular as the royal city or the Yleka city…

A huge building stood inconspicuously amidst the several other huge buildings in the central part of the city.

Inside this building, on the 10th floor, there was a lean and tall figure sitting. He wore a pair of thin-rimmed glasses even though such a thing was not necessary. 

As one leveled up, deficiencies such as this were cured at least inside the game.

Nevertheless, this person still wore glasses. He also kept moving them up and pressing them closer, despite them not being loose or sliding down.

Such a unique behavior was odd but the four people standing in front of him did not question this. 

They already were familiar with him and they also knew that this was his small quirk when he was deeply thinking about something.

He also did not wear glasses in front of everyone. Only when they were alone or he was alone.

Besides, the four people who were standing in front of the person were currently too nervous to notice all these small things.

They had other big things to worry about… really big things.

"So… you went and did something on your own Kouske…"

The four people silently stood, no one daring to reply. They knew that they had completely screwed up, even though everything was out of their hands.

From the minute they had shown up and to the time, they had left, things had indeed gone their way but still, somehow everything had gone wrong.

"Kurt, it's not exactly our mistake." Anya was the first to speak up. It was not her nature to be subservient to someone else, even if it was the person in front of her.

"We did everything you asked for. It had a huge nether debuff. What are we supposed to do? Kouske entered the tunnel alone and he was up against that monster."

"Even then he managed to steal things right under his nose. He even killed him once and made him lose a level. Isn't that in itself praiseworthy?"

"I am not sure why you are upset. We should have lost everything. That guy arrived there before us. He was almost successful also."

"If not for Kouske's interference, we would have lost everything. So, I really don't think we did anything wrong here."

"You know that if we stayed back… then that guy would have erased us altogether. Do you still think we should have tried more? Hmmm?"

All the others immediately turned to look at Anya. She was going a bit too far! Don't say anything more! 

They silently willed for the woman to stop talking, but Anya did not get the hint. She raised her brows and looked at the guy silently listening to her words.

"Perhaps you don't care about us at all and simply think of us as tools at your disposal?"

There! She had done it!

The room was instantly enveloped in pin-drop silence. Everyone uncomfortably twitched and wiggled. No one knew how the person was going to react.

But… unexpectedly… Kurt… or rather the big brother only revealed a small smile. 

"We are not on the same page. I am not talking about that at all." Everyone saw that he side-stepped the main accusation but no one including Anya wanted to bring it up again.

She was also slightly regretting running her mouth. She only did it because things needed to be said and lately, she had the nagging doubt.

Nevertheless, she was nervous. After all, the person in front of her was extremely powerful, someone with the ability to…

Kurt cleared his throat and continued, his gaze solely fixated on Anya. "I am not talking about that event. I am talking about what you did after that."

"Tell me Kouske, what did you do? Or do you also think that I am simply bossing you around?"

"No brother, no." Kouske immediately shook his head. "After that trip, I…" He slightly hesitated as so many things had happened after that.

Since big brother was busy, they were only able to meet him today. So he was not exactly sure what he was talking about.

Seeing him struggle, Kurt spoke again. "Did you do anything significant after that? Think. Think properly. Did any of you do anything after that?" 

His gaze then shifted from Kouske and fell on the others one by one. All of them looked confused. Kurt then again looked at Anya. 

"Since you guys are starting to question me these days, let me show you something." He took out four orbs, small crystalline balls, except that these were pitch-black in color.

He did not bother explaining anything. Nevertheless, the four of them had shocked expressions on their faces. 

They looked up at Kurt with their eyes filled with dread. Even the sharp-tongued Anya was now speechless.

"How… how could this be possible?" Kouske stammered. 

"That's also what I want to know. What did you do to trigger this change? This dark color could only mean one thing and I don't have to remind you what that is…"

"So what did you do?" Kurt asked.

"I… really…" Kouske paused, remembering the other small thing he had done. He had only done it because the demon was staring right in their faces.

"Brother… I spread a rumor… but… it's not possible… no… how could that alone have affected things so badly?" He dazedly answered.

Kurt sighed. "Is it related to that person again?"

"Yes and no." Seeing that Kouske was still in shock, Anya stepped forward to answer in his stead. "We just spread the rumor that he was forcing people to sign slave contracts."

"We received a piece of information from one of our spies. So we used it to our advantage. This brought us time to get out of the city."

"As you can see, we were able to safely retain the precious item so far and also avoid clashing with that person again."

"I really don't think that was a mistake. If all those guilds are not behind him right now, what do you think he would be doing? Hunting us down left and right."

"We really don't stand a chance against him. He is a monster, Kurt." 

"Before leaving the cave, we set a big trap for him, and yet he easily managed to tackle that and return back to the city so soon."

"Tell me, do you think what we did was wrong? I know we did not ask your permission but this had to be done." 

"And it's just a small thing.."

Anya explained, justifying their actions.

"No, Anya." Kurt pushed his glasses up one more time and bitterly smiled. "That's where you are wrong. It was not a small thing." 

"That single action has now changed the trajectory of all our fates."

"What you did might be a small thing but the ramifications of that small thing… were catastrophic… at least for us."

"If we don't do anything soon to change this, then all our fates are already sealed… even taking into account the precious item you recovered from the cave…"

Kurt took the small ring that was on the table in front of them. He tapped it and the next second, a huge death knight materialized in front of him.

This was the same death knight that was guarding the middle cave and its level was also still 80, not even a spot of damage on its body.

It was awe-inspiring and majestic. Yet at this moment, no one seemed impressed by it. Kurt sighed, and laid back on the chair, repeating his words once again.

"Even with this... Only death awaits us... What exactly happened?"

This is the second time his calculations had gone amiss....