Maids VS Apocalypse

The members of Squad Four gathered one by one, and each time one of them arrived they would notice something very odd. The new member was smiling. It wasn’t a fake smile as far as any of them could tell, and it wasn’t a forced one.

Except for a certain dense blonde, they all reached the same conclusion without consulting the others: something is definitely wrong.

"These pancakes are really good!" He said.

"I’m glad you like them." Ben laughed and tried to act normal.

"You know, I cooked for myself all the time before," Mark said. "I thought I was pretty good, but eating the stuff you make." He shook his head and sighed wistfully. "I don’t even come close."

"It takes practice, Lad." The big guy replied. "That and rare ingredients from other worlds."

"Seriously?"

"Yup. Even the taste of salt can change from one world to the other. Some people made a career for themselves trading spices between worlds."

"The scale is a little absurd," Mark commented. "Can’t believe there is inter-dimensional trading before going to Mars." He stopped chewing abruptly and raised one eyebrow. "What happens to the rest of the universe?"

"... What?" The question came from Elya.

"They told me this world will merge with the Underworld when the CDC is over. What happens to all the other planets? The moon? The Sun? The other stars?"

"That’s..." Elya opened her mouth to answer but found herself unable to.

"The answer to your question is very simple." Franco stepped in before things could escalate. "Since the Dimensional Rift can only be torn in places where a significant number of sapient life exists, once Earth is swallowed the border will seal itself. Once that happens this universe will become entirely inaccessible. Some theorize that it stops existing since there is no one to observe it."

"Nerd."

Everyone ignored Ramsay’s comment as the conversation went on.

"Does that mean you can only travel to worlds with intelligent life?" Mark asked before stuffing his mouth with pancake.

"Sapient." Franco corrected. "You can travel to fallen worlds, even if their residents can’t be called intelligent."

"Can’t believe you’re giving us an existential crisis so early in the morning." Elya grimaced.

The discussion went on for a while after which Mark stood up abruptly, bringing back the tension that had begun to dissipate.

"Alright! Time to finish that quest!"

"We’re taking the trucks today." Ramsay suddenly said.

"Huh?" Mark turned to him with a frown. "What about my training?"

"You want to pedal all the way to Hope’s End?"

The Sergeant explained that, since only twelve Rifts were left, they would finish sealing them in the next hour or so then head straight to their next destination.

Mark found the change of plans a bit off, but he welcomed it nonetheless. Apparently, he was looking forward to moving on with their trip, so much that he ran outside to prepare the armored truck.

Lara followed him right away and a few seconds later Ramsay told Alex to go keep an eye on him. After a brief silence, Franco turned to the brown man with a frown.

"What’s wrong with him?"

"I only saw him like that once before, but..." Ramsay said.

"Only once?" Ben asked. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

"Yeah. Back then he stayed up for days working on something just for it to end in failure."

The something Ramsay referred to was the launch of Maids VS Apocalypse, though he decided to keep that detail to himself.

"Why would he act all happy, then?" Elya asked.

"Happy?" Ramsay raised an eyebrow. "Is that what it looks like to you?"

"Good thing you called off the prank, then," Franco said. "He’s probably not in the mood for jokes right now."

"Yup."

Unbeknownst to Mark, he had spent the entire day yesterday participating in an initiation ritual. The Sergeant had tricked him into cycling across the city for no reason whatsoever, saying that it was to help with his lack of physical strength.

The plan was to have him seal all the remaining Rifts before revealing the truth, but seeing the state he was in, Ramsay decided it would be in their best to end it there.

"You said he stayed up for days, but..." Tilting her head a little, Elya pondered for a moment before asking. "It’s barely been a day since he last slept, right?"

She remembered him napping through the entire afternoon after they fought the red hoods. Even if he were to go without sleep since then, she doubted it would be on the same level as staying awake for days.

"That’s why makes it weird." Pausing for a moment, Ramsay then added "Anyway, it’s better to not let him overexert himself for the time being. Let’s hope that whatever is troubling him gets resolved by the time we reach the destination."

~[ ]~

’Maybe I should just kill myself...’ Mark thought as he watched the scenery outside, a big smile on his face.

He was once again in the passenger seat of the truck Natalie had lent him. The one driving was Franco while Lara sat in the back. Alex, Elya, and Ben were riding in a different truck while Ramsay rode his bike as usual.

The palpable silence told him everyone had noticed his foul mood, though he didn’t understand how that happened when he was smiling the entire time.

Still, he was thankful for their consideration. Even he didn’t know what he might do in his current state, but one thing for sure was that it wouldn’t be anything good.

After spending the previous night experimenting with his System, Mark discovered many things, chief among them being another way for him to get a debuff.

For the first phase of the experiment, he converted most of his MP to Gold and drank a potion to restore it. That was his second potion for the day, the first being the one he drank in the gun shop.

Once his MP was back to 100/100 he repeated the process and saw that the effect of the third potion was much weaker than the previous two. That’s when he decided to move on to the next phase.

He converted 10% of his MP then patiently waited for it to recover, which took about 20 minutes. He did it once, twice, then a third time. Once he reached the ninth, Mark noticed that it took 21 minutes for his MP to recover fully.

Thinking it was odd he went and checked his stats. To his utter dismay, a (-5) was right there, not beside Focus, but beside his 150 Mind stat.