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Book 2 Stronghold & Secrets: Prologue: The Guild\'s Response and Summoning

High in the middle of the clouds in a strange and resplendent manor that seemed to exist and both not exist at the same time, a boy made of fire raised an eyebrow. "Really? Non-negotiable?"

Standing across from him was a 7-foot-tall stoic human man holding a little girl in a set of pyjamas. The man had cold and almost dead-eyes though he was holding the 6 or 7-year-old girl with care.

The girl, on the other hand, was struggling to keep her eyes open. She had a set of peculiar fuzzy ears and a long grey-ish brown tail coming out from under her pyjama\'s shirt. She was of the slothkin species though her race was unknown.

"Yes..." the girl replied slowly. "We... have... to... go..."

The boy made of fire shrugged. "Well, go then. Damn. I wonder why I didn\'t get asked to go too? It\'s not every day you get the chance to dismantle a no-name kingdom."

He turned around and walked further into the palace, seemingly uncaring or unwilling to invest any more emotions into this.

"I... want... to... rest..." the slothkin complained. "Envy... use... your... power. I... am... already... getting... cold... feet..."

Just thinking about what Grand Guildmaster Sarah had asked her to do made the girl feel lethargic considering how many Stamina Points, Mana Points and World Points it would consume to accomplish by herself.

Nodding tersely, the tall man known as Envy spoke, "Both Sloth and I appear in the centre of the royal court of Milindo\'s castle in the Holy City of Ranton upon the planet of Altros on the mortal plane."

He gave the girl he was holding a look as if to say that she shouldn\'t make this a habit of hers. She knew the risks of using his power, after all.

The very next moment the two disappeared from the manor in the sky and reappeared in the middle of the very same throne room where Gilbert had petitioned to King Heidron for Lone to be released.

No one was perched upon the throne but the room was far from empty. A well-moustached and exquisitely-dressed minister scrunched up his eyes as he roared, "Who are you to dare step foot in His Majesty\'s royal courtroom during these tumultuous times without first being invited?!"

Envy frowned. "The man standing 2.4-meters to the northeast of me will have a deadly heart attack and die in exactly 2-seconds."

"What?! What nonsense is this man babbling about?! Royal guards! Rid this place of the-" the man suddenly grasped at his chest and fell to his knees.

Foam spilt out of his mouth as his eyes rolled back into his head. He was dead. The room became awash with the sound of silence and a feeling of dread consumed the other nobles and ministers who were gathered in the courtroom.

Sloth squeezed Envy\'s shirt as a show of thanks for calming things down when he didn\'t have to. "We... are... Sloth... and... Envy... of... the... adventurer... group... The... 7... Deadly... Sins. We... have... been... sent... to... punish... this... kingdom... for... its... crimes... against... the... guild\'s... members... and... employees..."

Sloth then slowly peeled her eyes open so much that even seeing her eyelids anymore was impossible.

A pair of pure-black pupils stared at the ministers and nobles before Sloth suddenly blinked. Along with her blink coming and going, so too did everyone in the room bar herself and Envy. They all just... disappeared, to where was unknown.

At the same time, thousands and thousands of soldiers and nobles likewise seemed to cease existing.

Sloth felt herself losing consciousness. "I... hate... doing... this... Envy... please..."

Nodding, Envy spoke. "Both Sloth and I safely return to our untraceable home in the sky, Faust Manor of Altros which resides in the spiritual plane."

Immediately, the two disappeared without nary a sign that they had even been there in the first place.

A few moments prior to Sloth and Envy\'s departure from Milindo, in the port city of Ros, at the lord\'s manor, Margrave Griffset slapped the adventurer Ceela across the face with a gloved hand.

"Useless! Absolutely useless!" he screamed in her face as his nervous son, Bastion, stood at his side. "I should have that mother of yours stripped and raped in public to make up for your failures! Maybe even that younger sister of yours too!"

Ceela bit at her bleeding lip as she mumbled, "I\'m very sorry, Lord Griffset. The Young Master didn\'t allow me to advise him of an-"

Another slap shut her up. "Don\'t you dare try to blame my precious boy! You know he only wishes to make me happy!"

Ceela closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. \'How was I supposed to know he\'d lie to you that he owned the Golden Foxkin after explicitly failing to get him after even almost dying to a fully armoured girl? I wasn\'t the one who told him to be a deceitful little piece of shit...\'

She wanted to cry, honestly, despite her age. \'So what if the other nobles are mocking you and holding you responsible for the demi somehow escaping Ranton castle\'s dungeons? I just... I just wish someone would kill this fat excuse for a person. His useless son too...\'

As if to answer her prayers, when she opened her eyes to apologise again, she found herself to be alone in the audience hall of the margrave\'s manor. "... What?"

Emma Malik was secretly happy that the handsome foxkin had somehow escaped. She never did agree with his imprisonment since she, too, felt that the hero and the crown prince were abhorrent.

She also had the displeasure of learning through her father that the foxkin had been set to get psychologically tortured through witnessing the abuse and murder of demi children. Thankfully he\'d somehow managed to kill them before they could be hurt in front of him but Emma still felt sick regardless.

\'Being a noble sucks,\' she thought to herself as she answered a summons from her mouthless father, Henry Malik.

When she reached his office though, he wasn\'t there. "Huh? Why isn\'t Dad here? Did he go out on sudden business or something?"

It wouldn\'t be until another hour that she learned the truth - 90% of the nobility and even the royal army had just up and vanished as if spirited away by some powerful entity.

Several days later, in a rundown wing of the royal castle of Milindo, Queen Heidron rushed down the halls with impatience.

The kingdom had been in a state of utter chaos for days now. Only a handful of the more virtuous noble houses still remained somewhat intact but rebellion was just around the corner and The Adventurer\'s Guild had stated it would reform the kingdom\'s government from the ground up with a heavy hand of assistance.

The commonfolk were demanding answers and change at every corner of the kingdom, seeking order, control, explanations and answers.

The slaves were rising up and actively hunting those with even a hint of an inclination towards being speciesist, their masters having been a part of the Great Vanishing somehow also correlated to their slave collars no longer possessing any power over them.

Still, the queen had a mission, one that needed to be done even at the cost of her own life. She knew not why she had this mission nor how the thought of it had even entered her mind, she knew only that it must be done.

Even should the kingdom she spent so long slowly gaining control over from the grasp of her unloved husband fall, even should her only remaining child the princess be lost, this mission must be accomplished.

Reaching a dilapidated and more than rundown old ritual room, the queen smiled from ear-to-ear, though her expression seemed almost maddened.

She reached into her dress and pulled out a ceremonial dagger. Raised it far above her head she suddenly started chanting in a long lost language that resembled both English and Milindonian but was also nothing like English nor Milindonian.

"Those from afar, those from beyond..."

"I reach out to you as you reach out to me..."

"In the name of your gods and in the name of my gods..."

"With the Old One as my witness and the New One as yours..."

"Hear my prayer as I listen to yours..."

"Bestow upon me a hero as I bestow upon you my life!"

With a rapid and fluid motion, she brought her hands down and stabbed herself in the stomach. She then raised her hand and stabbed again... and again... and again...

After successfully cutting herself open a total of 4 times, the life in her eyes left her as she collapsed over dead, though just before she left this plane of existence for a better one she could have sworn she heard chuckling and the sound of fingers clicking in her ears.

The next moment the entire ruined and abandoned ritual room lit up with a majestic white light. The entire castle and even the city of Ranton shook as the force of the light was so great.

Many heads turned towards the old wing of the castle and many people panicked or were greatly concerned by this strange and alien event.

Not too long after it started, the rumbling and the white lights faded. Left in their place instead were four young individuals wearing clothes not of this land.

Two girls and two boys opened their eyes only to be met with an unfamiliar and dark room that seemed ancient and it was accompanied by the distinct smell of iron.

The first of the four to react after the initial confusion was a girl of about a meter and a half in height with dark brown hair and deep blue eyes. "Is that... a person?"

The girl rushed over to the queen\'s corpse in an attempt to help her seeing as how she was covered in blood. "Hey! Are any of you gonna help me or are you just going to stare blankly... like... that..."

The girl\'s words came to a halt as her eyes opened in shock. Unbelievably, a bright blue screen had appeared in front of her.

Congratulations on successfully transmigrating to the world of Altros, Hazel McCullen! You have been gifted the unique skill [Emotion Sensing]!

Immediately she sensed a deep feeling of fear and dread from her shorter female companion, Alisa.

From the taller and more muscular of the boys, Scott, she got the sensation that he was excited but also beyond confused.

The last of her companions - and the only one she didn\'t like - gave her a feeling of malice and contempt but he also gave off hints of a deep-rooted fear as well as nausea.

"What the hell is going on..." Hazel muttered.