****(POV)

An exhausted man could be seen slumped over his chair. The always valiant and reliable Dario felt a headache coming.

In fact, it was the same for the rest of Draconic. It had been such a pain to take care of the entire population of Metropolis-C. The ordinary civilians had been contained in the shelters or straight up evacuated outside the city.

They had directed the at-risk weaker Climbers to leave or hide in the Tower for as long as they could. It had taken the whole day. During that time, there had been many fights with even some deaths too.

The drugs had been way too potent! Any reason had sufficed to warrant a duel to the death in the eyes of the drugged people. It included stuff like "You slept with my wife" or "You ate my sandwich," and even "You looked at me, asshole!"

There was a video of one guy circulating on the Net. Having lost his mind, he kept shouting at the Heavens and challenged them to a fight. Sadly, it fell flat when he lost grip over the wall of the skyscraper he was climbing.

Dario could only sigh to himself. That's when a small knock was heard as a man in a cheap suit entered. At this point, Dario was convinced that Tallis and Josh didn't know about something called shopping.

"Any News?" Dario inquired.

"Of course, I have plenty of news! Do you want the good ones or the bad ones?"

"Let's start with the good ones."

"...." Tallis remained silent.

"The bad ones then?"

"Well, this whole thing is a mess. The pirates are confirmed to have been led by the Pirate Conqueror. Out of the approximately 200 that participated in the heist, 40 survived along with their leader. There are many saying that Metropolis-H may have been involved."

"The MTA and Ouroboros are still analyzing the situation and trying to figure it out. I bet you've already reached a conclusion, right?"

"The pirates were wearing Metropolis-H clothes. I'm pretty sure they would never be that high key. Still, all these attacks all happening at once coincidentally is close to impossible. It's most likely that part of Metropolis-H's MTA is involved if not all."

"What about the hijacking of the holograms and Arcadia?"

"Both had the same cause: hacking. U-bots did the maintenance on the propulsion engine. There was a flaw in their system that could be exploited. This was especially true with their processing power used for project EVE." Tallis explained.

"How is the tracking for the culprit going? Ah, actually, never mind. Only they would know."

"It's a dead end. I have a source that is convinced they will never find the hacker this time. We were not ready at all. It really seems that terrorists, pirates, and Gene Corp have all vanished in thin air."

"I guess if we want to be optimistic, we at least survived. Then, there is also Josh being away on this mad plan. Honestly, what were you guys thinking?! He could have just joined a damn team!" Dario exclaimed.

"Oh, I kept repeating that the idea was bad, but he wouldn't listen. Then again, in his eyes joining a team would be akin to being sick and treating the symptoms rather than the cause. He'd Climb for a while but then what?"

"I still can't understand him. We can easily bring him to Floor 33 for him to gain a Class change token. Then he'd be fine afterward! I'm sure the Tower would give him great options too." Dario complained.

"As they say, you can lead a wild Josh MF Malum to the Tower, but you can't make him pick a Class," Tallis added, acting as a wise sage.

"Pretty sure that's supposed to be about a horse and drinking…."

"Nope, making a horse drink is easy. You deprive it of any water for a while, and then it will drink for sure. Anyway, we are supposed to wait 20 days before we rescue him. This will be horribly difficult." Tallis sighed.

"Of course it will be! We'll have to venture into enemy territory, Draconic alone, and accomplish a lightning-fast rescue mission before they can react. Still, I'm convinced we can accomplish it somehow."

"Oh, the rescue will be challenging, but I was actually talking about waiting." Tallis shrugged as if that was obvious.

"Why are you saying—" He stopped as the office door was slammed open.

SLAM!

A green tornado could be seen entering the room, obviously incensed. Why was Kasha using her movements abilities in the guild? She slammed a piece of paper on Dario's desk.

BAM!

"Right here is a petition from all the guild members. They all think the same. It's time to get Josh! If the guild shareholders disagree, I'll bash their head in! Tell everyone to get ready!" Her tone was authoritative. She didn't care one bit that he was the guild master.

He slowly inspected the petition.

The signatures on it came with small messages. Some showed their unconditional support for the cause. Some were relatively neutral but wrote they'd follow. Some had jotted stuff like, "I'm signing so that Kasha doesn't beat me up."

Dario could only raise an eyebrow in surprise. How many had she threatened? Also, since when were Josh and her that close?

He turned to Tallis to leave the convincing to him only to realize he was gone. How cocky he had become! He was still young and easily impressionable not long ago, but ever since his long talk with Josh, he had become fearless!

"Kasha, listen to me attentively. I already told you that we will save him and that everything is under control. Don't worry. We have reason to believe they are trying to research his godly rat. That will take a while, and they won't harm him during the process."

"We'll just let them do their research and become even more powerful?! They won't have time to harm him if we save him right now!" Kasha argued.

She had a point. Their current plan sounded incredibly dumb in comparison. But, he had been told this was the best way to assure the Nightmare's cooperation. It would have made things so much easier if they could capture him, but he was just too damn slippery!

"Ask Tallis about the details! I've already tasked him to plan the upcoming operation." Dario felt proud of himself. This was how to redirect the fire successfully!

"Don't even try! He's already told me that he's given you a complete report on the situation and is waiting for your input!" She kept pushing.

That backstabber! There was only one thing left to do.

"I, Dario Ignas, solemnly swear that I am already planning to rescue Josh Malum. We will move when the timing is the best to save him. What do you think will happen if we fail the rescue once? They'll go into hiding forever!"

She turned silent for a few moments, processing it all. "You swear?" She stared at him right in the eyes.

"I do."

That's when she finally gave up and left. At this moment, Dario felt that he wouldn't want to be in Gene Corp's position right now. He wouldn't be able to sleep if he knew Kasha was coming for his head.

Then again, was there really a need to worry about Josh MF Malum?

He closed his eyes, left alone with his thoughts. He could finally relax a bit. There was still so much to be done, but they would have to collect more information before anything concrete could be done.

Part of him was excited at the prospect of fighting, but he feared how it would turn out. He almost missed the good old times when Draconic stayed far away from wars. They used to be duelists that fought for pleasure and nothing else.

Nowadays, they were part of the system instead. As an S-Ranked guild, they had ties with the MTA and obligations. This had all been unavoidable as otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to Climb that easily.

Funny how many schemed for power in order to further push their goals. For Draconic, power had always been the end goal. The money, the fame, and the rest didn't matter. Perhaps he was getting old. Being nostalgic was one of the most telling signs, right?

He felt himself drifting into sleep— RING RING RING!

"MOTHERFUCKER!" He couldn't help but swear. Who was calling him at such a time?

He took a second to compose himself. "Dario here, who's this?"

"It's me. We have a huge problem." Allistair, the man in charge of the whole Metropolis-C, was saying it! What was it now?!

"What happened?"

"The Gene Corp Bastards bombed the whole D-23 forest. Slothtrosities are wandering outside. They are moving slowly, but at this rate they will reach Metropolis-D in a few hours. Markus needs your help."

"I doubt we even have the power to do anything about it. Did you guys call for the evacuation of the city?" This was such a pain!

"Of course we did, but we'd want you to head there along with other Rankers to bait them away. We are hoping that your Dragon's Presence will be able to counter the effect of their yawn."

This would be risky for sure, but it had potential.

"Alright, you can count on me," Dario muttered before hanging up.

It seems like this painfully long day wouldn't be over just yet. Also, didn't Josh buy this land? Why the Hell did they have to deal with it while he was taking his sweet time training?

Yes, he definitely missed the Dojo from back then. He felt like punching the old him that had naively believed a guild would be an upgrade from it. Bullshit!

That's how the Draconic guild could see their leader tiredly leave for the battlefield once more. Many wanted to help, but it was his burden to bear.

Still, as he looked at the determination in their eyes, he felt that perhaps a guild wasn't that bad. At least, he could be proud of this one. His back somehow straitened by itself as he began smiling.

It was time for Sloth versus Dragon to happen!…