[Day 50]
I slammed my third mug of coffee onto the table so hard that Vlad flinched.
[Vlad]: Brother… that was the family-size mug.
[Adam]: I earned it. There were two glowing eyes staring at me through my bedroom window. At dawn. At eye level. I sleep on the third floor, Vlad.
Lilith, halfway through stirring a cauldron of morning tonic, didn't look up.
[Lilith]: Did the eyes blink?
[Mike]: Did they glow menacingly?
[Silk]: Did they follow your movement?
Tyrant walked past, carrying a beam twice his size. He paused.
[Tyrant]: Big bird.
[Adam]: IT WAS NOT A BIRD, TYRANT.
He shrugged like a man who once punched a wyvern unconscious because it annoyed him.
[Tyrant]: Big bird.
I rubbed my temples.
[Adam]: Oh, when is D3rlord3 when you need him… Right. He's insane now. Because he stared into a yellow door like it was a TED Talk.
Mike sipped his coffee, grimacing.
[Mike]: Amateur mistake. Never trust a door with a color adjective.
[Vlad]: Yeah, but Adam, what exactly did the eyes do?
I took another aggressive gulp.
[Adam]: They winked.
Everyone froze.
Lilith stopped stirring.
Silk's threads briefly stiffened.
Mike lowered his mug like it suddenly weighed twenty kilos.
[Mike]: Hold on. Glowing. Floating. Not blinking… and then it winked?
Silk dropped from the ceiling.
[Silk]: That is statistically worse than blinking.
[Adam]: THANK you.
[Vlad]: Did it leave any tracks?
I shook my head.
[Adam]: Nope. Nothing. No footsteps, no claw marks, no feathers, no magic discharge. Just… two glowing eyes staring at me like I owed them rent.
Tyrant gently set the beam down, cracked his knuckles, and said three words that absolutely nobody found comforting:
[Tyrant]: We. Hunt. Now.
Lilith groaned.
[Lilith]: Please don't let this be another cosmic being with abandonment issues.
[Vlad] leaned in close enough that I could smell the berry juice on his breath.
[Vlad]: Adam… I think that was the guy who escaped the Horror Mod's prison. Remember? The one with the white eyes. His name was—uh—Hero Something.
I froze.
[Adam]: HEROBRINE?!
Mike spat his coffee all over the floor.
[Mike]: BRO. BRO. You're telling me that guy is loose on our property?!
Silk clung to the ceiling like a terrified Christmas ornament.
[Silk]: Recalculating survival probability… Recalculation failed.
Lilith pinched the bridge of her nose.
[Lilith]: So we didn't just get a monster with glowing eyes. We got the glowing-eyes monster.
Tyrant, meanwhile, was already walking toward the door with purposeful, doom-filled strides.
[Tyrant]: Hunt. Now.
[Vlad]: Brother, we cannot just let Tyrant run at Herobrine like he's a lost chicken!
[Adam]: Why not? Tyrant could probably suplex a god.
Mike shook his head vigorously.
[Mike]: This is Herobrine. He doesn't get suplexed. He appears, stares at you like you disappointed him, destroys your childhood, and vanishes.
[Adam]: Sounds like every teacher I ever had.
Lilith flicked her wrist, a faint magic circle forming.
[Lilith]: We need a plan. We can't just rush out there. This is a multidimensional, semi-sapient, griefing-obsessed ghost entity.
Silk peeked out the window and immediately shrieked.
[Silk]: Correction—he's still staring at us through the window! He hasn't moved in ten minutes!
Vlad yelped and slammed the curtains shut so fast the rod nearly snapped.
Absolutely not.
I am not making eye contact with a myth that deletes people from existence because he's bored.
Mike clutched his coffee cup like a lifeline.
[Mike]: He didn't move for ten minutes?! That's not stalking—that's buffering! We're about to get griefed in 4K!
Lilith rubbed her temples with a slow, pained groan.
[Lilith]: Okay, first step: don't look out the window. Second step: don't panic.
Silk dropped from the ceiling, skittering in anxious circles.
[Silk]: I am experiencing elevated emotional output! Equivalent to… what humans call "screaming internally."
Adam took a shaky breath and tried to calm everyone—and himself—down.
[Adam]: Guys… guys… listen. He's just staring. Staring is fine. Staring is—uh—non-lethal. Mostly.
From outside, a faint tap sounded… like someone dragging a fingertip across the glass, and a creepy song started to play.
[Have you seen the HEROBRINE....]
[Everyone except Tyrant]: AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH (╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻ (╯°□°）╯︵ ┳━┳ (っ °Д °;)っ .·´¯`(>▂<)´¯`·.
[Tyrant]: (•_•)
[One hour later]
We all sat down in shame, because we got scared of a drawing and a radio.
Tyrant stood in the center of the room, arms crossed, judgment radiating off him like a disappointed father who just watched his kids cry over a cartoon.
The rest of us collectively avoided eye contact with him—or with each other. Mike nursed a mug of cold coffee like it had personally betrayed him. Vlad looked like he wanted to crawl into a furnace and turn to ash. Lilith hid her face behind her hood. Silk hung upside down from the ceiling, trying to pretend she was "in sleep mode."
[Adam]: …Okay. In my defense, that song was NOT supposed to play at 6 in the morning.
[Mike]: And the drawing was life-size! Who makes a drawing life-size?!
[Vlad]: You YELLED in three languages and threw a shovel at the radio, Mike.
[Mike]: And I REGRET NOTHING.
Lilith groaned and rubbed her temples.
[Lilith]: I threw Tranquility potions on all of you three times. Three. Times. And you still screamed like dying goats.
[Silk]: Correction: dying goats produce significantly lower decibel levels.
Adam slumped in his chair.
[Adam]: This is officially the lowest point in our careers. We have fought monsters, seen gods, walking armed zombies, and today we lost to… a spooky drawing. And a cheap radio.
[Vlad]: We are never telling anyone about this. This moment dies here. Buried. Forgotten. Gone.
Tyrant slowly raised one hand.
Everyone tensed.
The sound of everyone yelling "NOOOO!" echoed through the entire castle.
[Later]
After the humiliation faded slightly, I excused myself, left the others to argue about who screamed the loudest (Mike won by a landslide), and headed down to the new gun workshop.
The place still smelled of fresh metal and oil—Vlad's influence was all over it. Racks of half-finished firearms lined the walls, blueprints were pinned to tables with knives, and enchanted shells hummed quietly in their crates.
I rolled up my sleeves.
Time to make something useful.
First, I kept Crescent Rose—my comfort weapon, my old friend—but gave it a proper companion set:
• A refined Vector SMG, lightweight, precise, perfectly moddable.
• A Lawbreaker revolver—big, brutal, and built for ending lives.
• A Lawbringer revolver—sleek, polished, a counterbalance to its violent twin, this one focuses on speed.
• Reinforced tactical armor with layered plating, shock absorption, and runic insulation, it was painted red for the theme.
And on the chestplate?
I added Silk's crest—the same symbol that appeared when she first manifested on the island.
A mark of unity. Or stubborn sentimentality. Probably both.
The armor glowed faintly as it adjusted to my body—a good sign.
At least this surgery didn't turn me into a dog.
I holstered the guns, flexed my hands, and—
The workshop door slid open.
Silk crawled in from the ceiling, lenses blinking with curiosity.
[Silk]: New equipment detected. Emotional output: pride? Vanity? Ambiguous.
Mike appeared next, coffee in hand, goggles still on from the earlier panic.
[Mike]: BRO…You look like if old John Wick got isekai'd into a tech-fantasy RPG.
Vlad followed, wiping grease from his hands.
[Vlad]: Not bad, brother. Are you planning to start a small war or a big one?
Lilith stepped in last, eyes glowing faintly.
[Lilith]: At least now, if that white-eyed menace does show up, we won't all die screaming again.
[Adam]: Well… since you're all here— listen up. We're heading out on a trade run soon. Also, I found out something new about the system. Turns out I can send people on Duos caravans now.
Mike perked up like someone had whispered "free Wi-Fi."
[Mike]: As in… two-man tactical trade units? Bro, that sounds AWESOME.
Vlad groaned the groan of a man who has seen too much.
[Vlad]: It sounds like paperwork. And explosions. Probably both.
I pointed around the room, assigning teams.
[Adam]: Vlad and Mike— you two are Duo One.
Mike pumped a fist in the air.
[Mike]: Urban Elf & Ultra-Blacksmith vampire: Operation Maximum Profit! Let's gooo—
Then I turned to the spider-machine hybrid already calculating fifty scenarios.
[Adam]: Silk and Tyrant— you're Duo Two.
Silk's lenses widened briefly.
[Silk]: Optimal. Tyrant provides brute strength and intimidation. I provide strategy and ranged support. Success probability: 89%.
Tyrant simply stated:
[Tyrant]: Hunt. Trade. Same.
…which I chose to interpret as agreement.
Finally, I gestured to Lilith.
[Adam]: Lilith, you're with me. Duo Three.
Lilith folded her arms, eyes glowing faintly.
I clapped my hands to refocus everyone.
[Adam]: All right, teams! Gear up. Restock. Check your packs. We leave in one hour.
The room exploded into chaotic preparation—armor clattering, guns reloading, spell pages flipping, someone chanting in Latin for no reason. Mike screamed about his missing coffee thermos like a man losing a limb. Silk ran eight tasks at once. Tyrant was sharpening a blade the size of a door.
I leaned against the wall, watching the madness unfold, and one uncomfortable thought crept into my mind.
Is it really okay to let this group of chaos gremlins roam around unsupervised?
I mean, yes—they're good people. Mostly. But also—
• Mike once tried to fix a toaster and accidentally blew up the kitchen.
• Silk can calculate probability and make nuclear bombs in the Stone Age, but not social cues.
• Tyrant will fight anything.
• Lilith's idea of "restocking" is "acquire forbidden knowledge."
• And Vlad…
Vlad just finished binge-watching The Godfather and RWBY back-to-back.
He walked past me right then, adjusting his coat like a mafia don and spinning a massive red scythe-gun hybrid he definitely hadn't been holding five minutes ago.
[Vlad]: Do you think the caravans respect power… or fear?
[Adam]: Put the scythe down.
[Vlad]: I am practicing my character arc.
[Adam]: PUT. IT. DOWN.
He sighed dramatically and leaned it against the fridge like a disappointed dad hanging up his golf clubs.
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
[Adam]: …Future me can deal with this. Present me just wants a calm trade run and zero disasters.
Silk scuttled by upside-down, holding six bags at once.
Lilith approached, handing me a potion labeled in glowing script.
[Lilith]: This is for emergencies. Do not drink it. Do not open it. Do not shake it. Do not show it to Mike. Do not let Tyrant bite it.
[Adam]:…Why did you give it to me then?
[Lilith]: Because you always attract the worst things first.
Mike popped his head out of the hallway.
[Mike]: FOUND MY THERMOS! Also, who wants to hear my tactical plan involving a tank, three chickens, and a Bluetooth speaker?!
Yeah.
This was a terrible idea.
But we were committed now.
[Adam]: All right! Caravan teams—meet at the gate in one hour! If anyone causes an explosion before then, I'm demoting you to carrot farming!
They all paused.
Every single one.
Even Tyrant.
And just like that—they scattered again.
I stared at the ceiling.
[Adam]: Why does leadership feel like babysitting a group of superpowered toddlers?
In the distance, something exploded.
[Adam]:…I'm not even going to check.
[Later]
Everyone gathered at the departure platform—packs secured, weapons holstered, armor gleaming. Even Mike was standing still, which was deeply suspicious.
I checked each face, each team, each mismatched disaster waiting to happen.
[Adam]: All right, everyone… Are you ready?
A chorus of nods answered me—some confident, some murderous, some entirely too excited.
[Adam]: We're going in 3…2…1—
My thumb tapped the Send Caravan command.
The world responded instantly.
Light—brilliant, blinding, weightless—wrapped around us, pulling us upward as if reality itself grabbed us by the collar. Armor hummed, weapons vibrated, and the ground dissolved beneath our feet.
The villagers watched, awe-struck.
And behind them, standing perfectly still at the edge of the crowd…
A smiling man with glowing white eyes watched us disappear.
His grin widened as the light consumed us.
[Chapter end]