NOVEL NEXT Chapter 202: Episode 202
It was the next morning, and Elesch was still sleeping as if she was in a deep sleep, the kittens all wrestled next to her, or some even on top of her. Smudge was sleeping on her face, as some saliva dripped from the edges of her mouth.
Then her alarm went off, but she didn't wake up. In fact, she had five alarms over a span of thirty minutes, and she didn't react to a single one of them. She didn't stir from the spot she was on, nor did she didn't slightly open her eyes.
She was still as a statue, maybe even more still. After another couple of minutes, her eyes started to stir open, blurry at first, but then the faint ringing of her alarms echoed through her head, and she removed Smudge from her face first and then looked at her phone.
Upon looking, she saw the time and the five alarms, but she didn't react. She put the phone on the nightstand again, put Smudge on her face again gently, and went back to bed. After another hour of sleeping, Adam shook her entire body, and eventually she opened her eyes again.
As she opened her eyes, slowly and gently. Adam's face slowly manifested itself into fruition, and he showed her the time again, and her brain finally started to form a thought, and that thought was: "Oh fuck, I'm late for the Project Dominion first meeting. Marcus is going to kill me!"
Elesch lightly nodded her head back and forth, which was almost invisible to the naked eye. Adam dragged her out of bed, made her brush her teeth, and splashed some water on her face, which started to wake her up. Then changed her clothes, and then made breakfast quickly, and fed herself and the kittens.
After eating breakfast, she stretched out her hands and yawned, and smiled at him. Adam was happy that she was finally awake and put the cats into the carrier. Then, after breakfast, he dragged her ass towards the guild while holding the litter box.
"What happened? Why are you in such a rush?" Elesch asked confusedly. She had forgotten the thought her brain had farted.
Elesch blinked rapidly, trying to piece together the foggy remnants of her thoughts, but Adam didn't give her time. He was already half-dragging, half-pushing her out the door, litter box under one arm, phone vibrating with the guild notifications in the other.
"Morning routine's over," he said sharply, but kindly. "Project Dominion waits for no one, not even my girlfriend."
He kissed her on the lips, which made her mind falter slightly. Elesch stumbled into the hallway, rubbing her eyes. The sunlight was pouring in from the windows, slapping her eyes.
"Right... Dominion," she quietly said, trying to shake off the haze.
She could vaguely remember Marcus' briefing, the maps, the red veins crawling across the continents, but all that felt distant. Like a nightmare, she had woken from.
Adam's patience was thinning. "C'mon, we're already behind schedule. If Marcus sees you dragging in late, you're explaining yourself to the President, too."
Elesch froze mid-step. Her pulse picked up. The weight of Marcus' words from yesterday, that cold, unwavering authority, had finally hit her. "Oh…shit," she said. "We can't be late. Not even a minute."
Adam smirked, a little cruelly. "Welcome to the big leagues, Elesch. Get used to this feeling, it doesn't get easier."
They raced across the street, the cats squirming in their carrier as Elesch clung to Adam's arm for balance. They arrived at the guild, passing through the doors, and inside the council chamber, which was already very loud.
Marcus's gaze, cold and commanding, swept the room, finally locking onto Elesch as she and Adam entered. She froze mid-step and swallowed hard. Marcus didn't smile, didn't even nod.
He just raised a single eyebrow and gestured toward the empty seat at the table.
Adam leaned in, whispering harshly, "Sit. Now. Don't make this worse than it already is."
Elesch scrambled into her chair, smoothing her clothes and brushing imaginary dust off her uniform. Around her, the rest of Project Dominion was already assembled.
Zane lounged casually, smirking like he had done nothing all morning, while Michael was quietly checking the equipment, just in case anything was faulty.
Rhea, Viktor, and Selene all gave her varying degrees of polite acknowledgment, but none were willing to cover for her.
Marcus' voice cut through the room, low and dangerous. "Now that everyone is present, we will begin."
Elesch's stomach churned. She had survived countless fights, faced horrors from other realms, but being late to this briefing? That felt like a death sentence.
Adam leaned closer, whispering just for her. "Focus and Breathe. You're here now, and that's all that matters. So, just don't fuck it up."
Marcus swept the room again, as Adam kissed Elesch on the lips again, making her smile slightly in reassurance, but still making her extremely nervous.
"So, your first mission starts today, and that's to eliminate the demons that have appeared in Tokyo. You will fly out to Tokyo in exactly five minutes and split into three teams." Marcus then looked over at Elesch and Adam. "You two are a team, and Zane and Michael are a team, and Rhea, Viktor, and Selene, you're going to act as the frontline. While the rest of you try to retrieve any hostages and essentially protect the people. I want no fatalities, and I mean none."
There was a deafening silence. Elesch swallowed harder, then Marcus approached her and smiled at her. She vaguely smiled at him as he moved his mouth, though she wasn't able to hear anything. From her peripheral vision, Adam was laughing, so she laughed.
Marcus patted her shoulder, which woke her up again, and then went over to Zane and Michael, laughing off with them, and talking about some club they wanted to visit tonight.
"Are you okay?" Adam asked.
"Yeah..." Elesch responded; her headache and visions of what was happening last night appeared in her head in an instant. "All the memories from last night are coming to my head."