Chapter 276: Doppelganger [3]
’None of it makes sense.’
Everything felt strange. None of it made any sense to me. From Rowan’s words to Zoey’s. I couldn’t understand anything at all.
Despite wanting to ask Zoey about it, I held myself back.
I didn’t want to arouse any suspicions.
’...It shouldn’t be too hard for me to find out.’
Staring at Zoey for a second too long, I eventually turned around and headed for the elevators, where I went up a floor and reached my other office. I was sure I’d be able to find out more if I went there.
And...
’While I did say that I don’t want to spend any more time in my office, this view isn’t really helping. It feels just as stifling.’
A long corridor met my sight.
It was one that stretched until my eyes couldn’t see. Doors appeared on each side of the corridor.
I looked around before eventually finding the door to my team and opened it.
Clank—!
"Kill me... I want to die. I can’t take this anymore."
"...Am I allowed to help?"
"Just strangle gently. En... Do it so that it doesn’t hurt too. Ah, and... also make sure that you make eye contact while doing so. Nn—! Wait, not yet!"
"....."
The moment I stepped into the office, I was met with a mess.
The first thing that caught my eye was Mia and Nora, with Nora holding Mia’s neck with both hands. She looked to be strangling her. This...
That wasn’t all. Looking around, it looked like the others weren’t faring any better.
Min and Niel were both sitting at their desk, faces hunched over their keyboards and looking completely unresponsive. On the other hand, Sarah sat on her seat with her head leaning against the wall, her face extremely pale.
The only one that looked to be faring okay was Joanna, but even she looked exhausted.
Staring at the sight in front of me, I didn’t know how to react.
’Just what in the world happened here while I was gone?’
"Nn!?"
I didn’t even get the chance to say anything before Mia suddenly took notice of me. For some strange reason, her face paled considerably at the sight of me. Almost as if she had seen a ghost. No, maybe worse.
As if noticing her reaction, Nora let go of her neck and looked back at me.
Her expression turned complicated before paling.
"Huh?"
"What...?"
The others also appeared to wake up by the sound. All heads turned in my direction, and I saw a noticeable shift in their expressions.
"....."
The room grew extremely quiet from that moment.
I just looked at everyone, baffled. I could see it in their eyes at the moment.
Everyone was staring at me with the same scared expression.
My heart sank.
’I really need to get behind the situation. This is too weird.’
Without saying anything, I walked towards my desk and booted up the PC. Thankfully, I knew exactly where to find my answers. The PC had a log of everything that I did. If something really did happen while I was gone, I could see it through the PC.
Waiting for the PC to boot, a hesitant voice reached me.
"...Squad Leader."
"Hm?"
I raised my head to see Joanna standing in front of me. Although her face was pale, and her expression seemed hesitant, there was a certain resoluteness in her gaze as she looked at me. I was a little thrown off by her expression.
It almost looked like she was about to go to war.
"May we talk for a moment?"
Joanna looked back.
"...In private, preferably."
I frowned.
However, seeing the look on her face and seeing the others looking in our direction, I nodded.
"Yes, we can talk."
’This might actually make things easier for me.’
I just prepared myself to stand up when I heard the sound of chairs scraping against the floor as the other members of the squad stood up.
"Hm?"
"...You can stay, Squad Leader. We’ll leave."
"Yeah, you can talk to her. We’ll come back in a bit."
"Take care."
They left without even waiting for me to say something.
I could only stare at the sight with an incredulous expression. Why did they seem so eager to leave? I looked back at Joanna as she bit her lip. She looked extremely uncomfortable.
I prepared myself in that moment.
Were they unsatisfied with my leadership? Was it because I missed so much time? No, maybe it wasn’t that. Clearly, something did happen. But what?
What happened?
My thoughts started to spiral as I waited for her to speak.
In the end, however, mustering her courage, Joanna finally managed to blurt out a few words. The words that left her mouth left me completely stunned.
"We need a break."
"....."
Ha?
What did she just say?
Break?
"We can’t keep going like this. I understand that we’ve been able to perform well recently under your leadership, even ranking first amongst all the new teams, but we haven’t had a single day off. All we’ve been doing is going through gates, and our minds can no longer bear the burden!"
"....."
My mind was blank.
I was at a complete loss.
Rank first? No day off? Going through gates?
’What did she just say?’
I couldn’t understand the situation at all.
Joanna turned back towards the door.
"She didn’t show it now, but just yesterday, Mia woke up in the middle of the night and puked because of all the trauma that she sustained. We went to the Guild doctor, and he said that she’s currently sleep-deprived and her mind is in a terrible state. The same goes for the others. And..." Joanna hesitated, her pale lips trembling slightly as she lowered her head. "I also can’t do this anymore. The constant diving and scenario changes are getting to my mind. I can barely keep up any longer. If things keep going like this, then..."
Joanna stopped there. She didn’t say anything else.
However, she didn’t need to say anything else for me to understand.
"Hoo."
Taking a deep breath, Joanna looked at me. Her tone turned a little softer.
"Squad Leader. I am extremely grateful for everything that you’ve done for us. We’ve managed to climb up the rankings within the Guild quickly because of you, but we can’t keep going like this. Please gran—"
"Okay."
"No? If thi—Eh, what?"
Joanna blinked her eyes while looking at me.
"You..."
"You want a break, right? You can have it."
I pretended to look at my watch.
"The <A> rank gate is about to open soon. I’ll grant you all a break until the gate ends. How does that sound? It should be at least a week."
"Really?"
Joanna looked both suspicious and excited.
I nodded at her.
"Yes."
"...Great. Yeah, great."
Joanna nodded slowly, trying her best to hide her excitement. However, it wasn’t a very good attempt as I saw her visibly clench her hand into a fist. In the end, I leaned back against my chair.
"Is that all?"
"Ah, yes. That’s all."
"Okay. You can tell the others to come back."
"I’ll do that."
Joanna turned around and proceeded to head out of the door, ready to bring the others back in. I stared at her back for a brief moment before turning my attention towards my PC and clicking around.
Eventually, I pulled out the gate log.
And it was there that my expression nearly crumbled.
"This..."
[Gate : Crooked Door] <A>
[Gate : Sealed Sea] <S>
[Gate : Hollow Castle] <A>
[Gate : Rusted City] <B>
.
.
.
[Gate : Desert of Nothing] <A>
Number of gates cleared over the past month : 16