CHAPTER 287: VISITORS

Gabriel’s body relaxed, head tilting against the stone.

Sophie stepped closer and checked his pulse. "Stable. He’s really just... sleeping."

Ragnarok peered at him. "Should I draw a mustache on his face?"

Anna looked at him like he was an idiot. "Do you want to die?"

"Joking, joking," he coughed.

Sophie stepped away and raised her hands, and green vines started to rise from the ground, forming small barriers around Gabriel.

Samantha kept her skeletons spread in a rough semicircle.

The gunlingers were also spread out so it would be easier to detect any monster.

On paper, it was a solid camp.

They really could handle a random monster wave.

The problem was — their next visitors were not random.

---

Some floors above and a few corridors over...

Andrew, Garth, and Yumi walked slowly down a bloodlit hallway.

They had taken a different route from the Adventurer Guild, using shortcuts only they knew. Their minimap wasn’t the same as normal players’ — it had an extra layer of data, glowing lines showing anomalies.

Yumi checked the translucent grid floating before her.

"Signal is clearer now," she said in a small voice. "The anomaly we’ve been tracking... it’s below us."

"Same branch?" Garth asked.

"Same branch," she nodded. "Floor 10 area, based on the mana density."

Andrew yawned. "So he made it this far, even in this run. Guy really doesn’t know how to stay low."

Garth cracked his knuckles, his eyes filled with excitement. "We going straight down to him?"

"Not straight," Andrew said. "We’re in a public trial. We can’t just delete people in front of big guilds without leaving traces. But a ’mysterious party wipe’ in a castle corner? That’s acceptable."

Yumi bit her lip. "But there’ll definitely be eyes. He’s with his guild, and from the report from HQ, it seems none of them have lost a life so far."

"Then we get rid of all eyes." Andrew shrugged nonchalantly.

"We’re supposed to delete anomalies," Yumi said quietly. "Not everyone around them."

"It’s a package deal," Garth replied. "If his existence is really a threat to the game, HQ won’t care who else dies around him."

Yumi didn’t argue.

Andrew glanced at her and then back at the glowing paths.

"Besides," he said, "it’s not like they’ll really disappear. Their accounts will just get rolled back. I mean, the players. As for the Natives of this world — they’ll be gone for good. We’ll be out of this world, and no one will trace anything to us. Even if they do, it’s not like they can come to ours."

The way he said it — like they were just files to be cleaned up — was casual.

Almost too casual.

With this settled, they continued moving and soon reached a stairway leading down.

[Stairway to Floor 10]

Andrew smiled slightly. "There we go."

Garth cracked his neck. "Been a while since we had a proper fight."

Yumi whispered, "Just... don’t overdo it."

"No promises," Garth smirked as they descended.

---

Back at Broken Dawn’s temporary camp.

Ten minutes passed.

Nothing happened.

Ragnarok got bored. "So quiet..."

"Good," Cassie said. "Quiet is safe."

Samantha sat cross-legged, eyes on her skeletons. For her current level, keeping the skeletons this long was mana-draining. However, she promised herself to keep them up as long as she could.

Sir Broken’s safety was a top priority after all!

Sophie glanced at Gabriel’s sleeping figure.

’You better wake up with something useful,’ she thought with a soft, warm gaze.

Twenty minutes.

Still nothing.

Cassie started humming softly while maintaining the buffs on standby. Even though there were no monsters in sight, she kept her magic active — just in case.

Anna remained on standby beside Gabriel. She stood there like a statue, not even moving.

Sophie had tried convincing her to take a rest, as it was Gabriel’s initial plan, but she refused and remained standing like a log of wood.

Suddenly, footsteps echoed.

Everyone stood up at the same time.

Sophie narrowed her eyes. "Ready yourselves... we have company."

Anna retrieved her pair of daggers, thinking it was yet another horde of vampires. Samantha’s skeletons drew into a tighter line. Ragnarok unsheathed his sword, eyes sharpening. The gunlingers also began channeling mana into their guns.

Moments later—

A voice echoed from the courtyard entrance.

"Found you."

Everyone turned.

Three figures walked in through the collapsed archway.

No Tower monsters followed them.

They weren’t tired. They didn’t react to the environment like regular otherworlders. Neither was their skin pale nor their eyes red like the vampires.

Andrew walked in front with his hands in his pockets, a calm expression on his face. Garth stood at his right — broad-shouldered, strange gauntlets covering his arms. Yumi stayed a little behind, clutching a spell focus that flickered with shifting symbols.

Sophie’s face hardened. "Who are you?"

It was the first time she had seen these people — same for the others.

"Sharp," Andrew said. "We’re part of the Adventurer Guild... on paper."

Ragnarok frowned. "Adventurer Guild? Then why are you here?"

Garth flexed his fingers. The metal on his gauntlets shifted like liquid.

"We’re here for him," he said, jerking his chin toward Gabriel.

Samantha immediately stepped in front of Gabriel, her skeleton knights clicking into position.

"Leader is resting," she said quickly. "If you have business with him, come back later."

"Cute." Andrew tilted his head. "But we’re here for a hunt, and since our target is fast asleep, it makes our job much easier."

"We don’t have any conflict with the Adventurer Guild," Cassie said cautiously. "There’s no reason to—"

Andrew cut her off with a simple wave.

"You’re thinking too small," he said. "We’re not here as otherworlders. We’re here as cleaners."

Garth’s lips curled slightly as he added in a dark tone, "Deleters."

The word meant nothing to most of Broken Dawn.

But Sophie felt something off. "Cleaners...?"

Ragnarok took a step forward, sword on his shoulder. "I don’t care who you are. You picked the wrong guild to walk into."

Andrew’s eyes finally sharpened a bit.

"That tone," he said, "is exactly what I hear from people who die first."

He lifted his hand and—