An awkward silence passes over the clubroom.
“So you saw Zharkov, eh?” Andrei asks. “We’ve been avoiding him for quite a while, so I wonder what he thought when he saw you.”
Aleksandr rests his face on his palm, barely giving passage for the sound of his words to travel. “He immediately criticized my apparent diminishing of skill. Funny that he, of all of us, noticed that I’ve been getting worse by the day.”
“Probably because you’ve been playing DreamReign so much. It’s probably rotting your brain at an expedited rate,” Vasily states passive-aggressively.
“Oh please. Let’s not bring any idiotic conspiracy theories into this,” Aleksandr snaps, rejecting the argument.
The trio resorts to silence again. If almost by instinct, each taps their neck twice to access the interface and launch the game.
Aleksandr, now in default clothing, slowly elevates himself off the bed. He scratches his head, recalling the situation. Thinking of a way out, in case the grudge-bearing party left a sentinel to box him into this room, Aleksandr opens the menu interface.
A welcome message materializes, acknowledging Brave’s return to the virtual world. Aleksandr disregards this, swiping the pop-up away to access his friends list. His clubmates, listed under the names Assassin and Vector, appear online and at the ready. Scrolling through the options, he forwards both a distress signal.
Brave sighs and waits for a reply. One is received fairly quickly from the two in a newly-formed group chat. Reassured by his friends’ imminent assistance, Brave readies to breach his own door. He just waits for the signal…
“Push!” a familiar voice orders.
Brave kicks the door open to face the scavenger he had met earlier in the day. Vector and Assassin present themselves as reinforcement with their weapons drawn. The teen submits without a fight, placing his hands over his head.
“Hey… Brave. D-didn’t mean to keep you in there. I know I was posted to watch the door, but honestly, had you peeked out, I would’ve let you walk free,” the scav stutters.
Brave lowers his fighting stance. The others follow suit.
“So that’s why you didn’t catch up or stop me when your group was chasing me around town…” Brave laughs, now at ease. “Don’t you want revenge?”
“N-no. It wasn’t your fault. The group usually pins blame on the new recruit. It’s an easy way of keeping morale high when the rate of success is low,” the scav admits, pacing back and forth.
Brave shrugs. He signals Vector and Assassin to descend the stairs while he locks the door and hurries to follow them.
As Brave passes by the counter, the attendant shifts his reading material out of sight.
“Want that silver back?” he asks with an uninterested tone.
“No, sir. Keep it. I’d like to thank you for your service,” Brave responds chivalrously.
The man grunts and returns to reading.
As Brave’s party leaves the building, they come to face something they probably should have expected: the fully reequipped mercenary force.