Chapter 100: The Camera Clicked
Arthur walked through the streets carrying a basket full of fruits that Ivana liked. From time to time, the people he passed warmly greeted him, and he returned their greetings with a nod and a bit of talking. He wasn’t that snob of a person to ignore people who knew about him.
Eventually, he reached his destination, the company that his parents had built, only for it to fail. However, that story was years ago.
Happy Guild.
It was a guild he belonged to, even though he was never a Ruiner. Instead, Arthur remained a support, staying in the backlines during every mission so he could keep an eye on Ivana and ensure she stayed safe.
He then gazed at the huge board placed at the center of the entrance, impossible to miss for anyone just walking around.
[Happy Guild]
Arthur entered the guild only to find the usual bunch of weirdos turning the entrance into complete chaos.
"Hey, who grabbed my shampoo?! I want my hair as silky as possible when taking a picture!"
"Where are my pants that I bought yesterday?! It’s expensive!"
"Ole! Ole!"
Arthur sighed and shook his head. This scene was a daily thing that couldn’t be stopped, no matter what he did. It had bothered him at first, but after years of being with them, he had become immune to the noise.
"Hey!"
Ronald, the Smiling Knight, smiled while calling out to Arthur, who returned the same smile.
Arthur replied.
"You’re not going to stop your members, Vice-Captain?"
Ronald waved his hand dismissively and let out a weary sigh, as if saying that dealing with this happenstance of chaos wasn’t his strong suit. To be fair, it had never been. He had been trying to keep everyone in line ever since he founded the guild, yet they had always been like this.
If there was anyone who could stop them, it was a single person within the guild.
"Oy."
Ivana, who was dressed in a velvet dress, had her hands crossed while looking down at them upstairs. The whole place immediately quieted down as they watched her go down before standing beside Arthur.
Ivana rubbed her temples while her other hand quietly slipped toward Arthur’s basket, stealing a grape before she spoke.
"Just prepare, will you?"
"Yes!"
The group immediately scattered, each quietly returning to what they had been doing. Only then Ivana rested her head on Arthur’s shoulder while leisurely eating the grapes she had stolen from his basket.
"You should change your clothes, love."
Ivana glanced behind.
"You too, father."
After giving a smooch on her cheek, Arthur left Ivana for a moment and decided to change clothes in his room. Ronald followed behind him and did the same.
...
Wearing formal clothes, a black suit jacket over an ironed black shirt and matching black pants, Arthur left his room and walked through the hallways of the second floor, where picture frames of their monthly pictorials were displayed.
In their first few months, everything was a mess. Their pictures didn’t appear professional, but they gradually became good at it until they were very adept at these pictorials.
Even so, whether it was a failure of a monthly pictorial or a good take, they were all having fun inside all of them.
That was all that mattered for Arthur.
Eventually, he reached the ground floor, where everyone was waiting for him.
"Hmm, what is this? Aldrin?"
Arthur asked while slightly tilting his head, seeing Ivana sitting down on a grand chair with Ronald waiting just slightly behind her.
"Sir, occupy the other side of the chair and take a picture," Aldrin answered while readying the camera.
"You guys are not coming with us?"
The other people behind the camera all shake their heads.
A woman named Beca answered them with a small smile. "We members thought you guys never had a picture with only the three of you on it."
Ivana swiftly complained, but her face never matched that tone due to how the tip of her lips was curling up.
"I keep telling them that it’s enough. We have a picture frame in our house with only the three of us on the wedding day. And—"
Ivana continued to yap even though she liked the idea. Arthur could only give his guild members a thumbs-up, and in response, all of them gave him a thumbs-up as well.
Arthur approached her and immediately touched Ivana’s shoulder.
"Let them have their way for now. I don’t mind it."
Ronald interjected while smiling brightly.
"I don’t mind it as well. So come on, young ins. Take us a picture."
For a while, Ivana remained silent. But after giving a nod and delivering her final verdict once the two had agreed, both Ronald and Arthur looked at each other and gave a thumbs-up.
"What do we do?"
Arthur asked, now that the three of them are ready to take a picture.
"Uhm, just stay there for a moment and try to keep your posture straight while I fix this camera... damn it, how come this is freaking broken? I’m going to sue that store owner..." Aldrich cursed underneath while making the newly bought camera work.
Still, the three readied themselves.
"Hahaha, hey Arthur, doesn’t this scenario remind you of something? Like being bossed by my cute daughter?"
Ronald suddenly started a conversation while chuckling. He was asking Arthur if he remembered the time they met at their house during that one particular morning when he discovered he was Ivana’s father.
Arthur smiled.
"How could I forget it? I thought it was you who had set all this up just to get my company and make it as ’our’ guild. Talk about being a father."
"Rephrasing that."
Ronald paused.
"I only told Ivana that you’re her type. After all, she’s already in her mid-twenties with no boyfriend since she was little. All her suitors were afraid of her because she always beat them up, and I’m afraid that my cute daughter would grow up with no one to love, so I gave her to you. I told her to watch you for a week, and if you’re up to her standards, get her to marry you. I mean, your face is not that bad."
Ronald paused and confessed while letting out a small cough.
"Well, I did think that if you married my daughter, then the Happy Guild could move here. However, it seems that thinking about my plans is useless now when you two are madly in love. You see, if you ever hurt my daughter, I would’ve definitely killed you."
Arthur shivered before giving Ronald an awkward smile.
"Don’t worry about that, I will never hurt your daughter."
Ronald returned the same awkward smile.
"I know that, but you know, theoretically, if you did hurt her, I should’ve owned this place!"
"Hey!!"
The two who were exchanging conversation immediately looked towards Ivana, whose face was looking at both of them with a deadpan expression.
"I will be the one to kill you two if you mess this picture."
’Aren’t you the one who opposed this in the first place?’
Both Ronald and Arthur mused inwardly while watching Ivana with the same deadpan expression.
Then, the three of them laughed.
/It was the best of times./
"Hey, the camera is working!" Aldrich called out before continuing. "Smile, guys."
/I wish I could go back to that time./
The three of them looked towards the camera before giving out their brightest and most genuine smiles they could muster at this moment.
Then the camera clicked.
"Great! The smile, the tone, the faces! Perfect!"
Arthur laughed his heart out.
His heart was so full.
’I want to stay here.’
/I want to stay there forever./
"Hey, you guys!"
Arthur called out to them.
"Put a timer in that camera and gather around here. We’re going to have another monthly pictorial, special edition."
Aldrich immediately set it up. Beca and the others began dashing around the pictorial platform and gathered around Ivana, who was still seated on the grand chair.
"Aldrich!"
"Yes, sir! Ten seconds!"
Everyone began to ready themselves while doing different actions. Aldrich immediately went beside Beca, secretly putting his arm around her.
"Say, happy guild!"
Arthur shouted and smiled brightly.
/Happy.../
"...Guild!
All twelve members smiled brightly and watched as the camera’s countdown rolled down to one second.
Then, the camera clicked.
/The camera flashing before my eyes was the only thing that I could remember before my whole world turned upside down./
"Hahh..."
Arthur breathed raggedly as he watched the corpses of few members lying dead on the floor, their heads blown away by an unknown source from the Runic Gate.
And there was a blinking screen from the Runic Gate that Arthur kept seeing, yet this time, it was no different from an epiphany. Not to himself, but to the death members of the Happy Guild.
[Congratulations for clearing the gate, Maintain The Ritual.]
"Hahh..."
[You received the Half-Possessive Piece [Eight], Manipulator.]
Under the screen above was a set of words that appeared after clearing the gate.
[Do you want to destroy or remain the Runic Gate?]
/Where did things had gone wrong?/