Mrs. Hamilton looked out the window and watched Donny in the clearing below rub his temples as he tried his best to suppress his growing headache. It had become quite the problem recently that forced him to spend a few hours each day sleeping. The combination of business, image training, and stress from political issues was slowly gnawing at his sanity.

But very quickly one of the laborers that was laying the foundations for the competition grounds walked over to Donny and he was forced to raise his head and reveal a smile. They spoke for several minutes, Donny solving whatever problem the laborer presented and sending him on his way.

Shaking her head, Mrs. Hamilton turned away from the window and walked back to her desk. Although he always knew that would be his role… to see things get to this point...

To be fair, they were all quite exhausted currently. Despite everyone’s boosted Vitality, the leaders of Donnyton had been working tirelessly for the past month to prepare for the twice a year Donnyton Trials. In the two years since they were instituted, the original four competitions, combat, tactics, knowledge, and production, had been expanded to seven. One of the new inclusions was a more formal split and expansion of the two original production competition: process and piece. Another was a formal performance and entertainment competition.

The final inclusion was the one that had given Donnyton’s leadership the communal headache. It was effectively an all-star competition that would occur on the last day, featuring the individuals with the top 32 point totals from the previous competitions. There would be five rounds of randomized events and making sure no particular competition winner would have an unfair advantage was a nightmare.

Mrs. Hamilton opened her eyes. Still, most of our work is done. Meanwhile, Donny…

Mrs. Hamilton sat down at her desk and picked up the pea-green porcelain teacup that Regina Northwind had given Mrs. Hamilton for her birthday last year. She took a sip and sighed in pleasure; truly, the coffee farms Southwest of Franksburg were really coming in nicely.

Yet just like Donny, as soon as she felt a shred of peace of mind, there was a knock at the door. After taking another sip of coffee, Mrs. Hamilton called out, “Come in.”

The door pivoted inward and revealed Daniel’s disheveled form. He walked briskly forward, carrying a thick clipboard. His fingers were stained with ink and he too looked rather the worse for wear. Mrs. Hamilton’s eyes narrowed slightly; there was something else at play here. Something was bothering Daniel.

As she predicted, Daniel didn’t immediately offer Mrs. Hamilton any information or ask a question. Instead, Daniel regarded Mrs. Hamilton nervously for several seconds before he opened his mouth. “Who did it? Was it one of ours?”

Really, it is about this? Some part of Mrs. Hamilton wanted to chide Daniel for how easily spooked he was, but she also knew that he was one of the people that functioned best when everyone around him ignored his flaws. So she held her tongue and steepled her fingers. “It was not us. If I’m not mistaken… it should have been Lucifer and his group from Franksburg that cleared the Danger Zone.”

Daniel’s face flushed, his face red and sweaty with worry. Mrs. Hamilton took another sip of the smoky coffee to channel her emotions in an ambiguous enough way that Daniel wouldn’t spend the rest of their meeting overwhelmed with anxiety. Then she set her pea-green teacup down on her desk and let her eyes close for a few moments.

At least I won’t need to give twenty speeches over the next week. Mrs. Hamilton consoled herself. Then she flexed her fingers and prepared herself to deal with Daniel.

As the face of Donnyton, Donny’s work had really only begun. And when she had looked out the window at Donny, he looked more zombie than human. Still, he was young. Mrs. Hamilton didn’t doubt that he would use the excitement and festivities as a means to rally himself.

“Is this okay? We’ve only cleared one Danger Zone ourselves.” Daniel spoke hesitantly. “If the perception of the Squads of Donnyton as the strongest on Earth starts to slip-”

“It won’t,” Mrs. Hamilton smiled sweetly at Daniel to placate him. “You have to remember Franksburg is our ally; this is a good thing. In addition, you saw the notification; Lucifer’s group chose to split the experience benefit with everyone. That’s another boost to Donnyton’s growth. Don’t worry needlessly.”

Mrs. Hamilton’s gaze fell back to the three reports on her desk. It was the second was the one that had Daniel all riled up, and in Mrs. Hamilton’s mind, it was the least important of the news that arrived today. It was a transcript of the notification that had appeared before everyone on Earth along with a few of Mrs. Hamilton’s thoughts on what it meant. Idly, Mrs. Hamilton looked over the notification once more.

Congratulations people of New Earth! The Danger Zone, “Acid Volcano” has been cleared! The clearer has elected to share the benefit with the entire world! All individuals of New Earth will experience a slight boost in gathering experience!

Congratulations! This is the third Danger Zone where the clearer selected the worldwide award! Clearing two more Danger Zones and selecting the worldwide reward before the arrival of the First Calamity will result in the New Earth receiving a special bonus.

The first Danger Zone cleared had been the Ogre Gorge. After that was the World Crater, and then Zone Seven’s Brass Dollhouse. Perhaps the real reason that Daniel was so nervous was that the details of the second Danger Zone remained mysterious to this day and the third Danger Zone was only accomplished after Zone Seven allied with several of Donnyton’s Squads to clear it.

But this fourth Danger Zone had not involved in Donnyton at all; Franksburg had done it all on its own. Which, in Mrs. Hamilton’s mind, only proved that Lucifer hadn’t been slacking off while avoiding any attention-grabbing activities in the past year.

The issue of Donnyton’s pride is a small thing. Mrs. Hamilton stretched her right pointer finger out and tapped the secondary message. But the fact that it is dangling a special bonus in front of us… After all, when has the System given us presents that weren’t lined with fish hooks?

Because it wasn’t that Donnyton didn’t possess the requisite power to clear Danger Zones that it hadn’t accomplished anything in the past year. And with the Order Valorum taking over more and more of the patrols in the borderlands to handle Raid Bosses, Donnyton actually had a surplus of manpower at the moment.

Yet the reason that Mrs. Hamilton, Donny, and Regina agreed to wait to challenge more Danger Zones was because much of their strongest individuals were currently deployed to cap the already cleared Danger Zones. Because each clear resulted in another world that had been starved of Aether being connected to Earth.

Daniel squirmed uncomfortably, but he didn’t say anything more. Shaking her head, Mrs. Hamilton glanced at the third report she had made today. It was definitely the strangest. It was a letter that they had received from the sister village of Donnyton. Whatever force had previously cut off communication between the two worlds was now gone. The letter informed Donnyton that a delegation would come through in three days to discuss the resuscitation of trade between the villages.

Resuscitation… such a word choice… Perhaps a fluke of the System translation…?

It was likely an opportunity, but this report also gave Mrs.Hamilton pause. Never before had the communication between the villages been so formal. Had the previous owners of Donnyton’s sister Village been defeated and replaced with another force…?

Drawing as though by magnetism, Mrs. Hamilton’s eyes went to the first report, detailing the happenings in Orchard earlier that day. Knowing that the combined forces of Alana and Hank could only defeat the giant avatar and force the culprit to retreat was disturbing, to say the least. As was the report that the giant blood beast had brought up the taboo term of the ‘Red Revival’ while attacking President and Chairperson of the World Council Theodora Greyman.

Perhaps sensing that Mrs. Hamilton’s gaze shifted, Daniel asked, “Has Decklan really betrayed us?”

This time, Mrs. Hamilton didn’t attempt to hide her sharp annoyance. “Daniel, I’m quite shocked that I should have to warn you of all people to speak more conscientiously. And even if Decklan was involved, I’m not going to paint him as a villain until I understand the situation.”

“It obviously reflects badly on us.” Daniel insisted. “Everyone knows that Donnyton was against the Hero Initiative. What if they assume that we were involved-”

Mrs. Hamilton shook her head slightly and then allowed her nascent image to manifest in the vaulted ceilings of her office. The corners became heavy with wedding and several heavy shadows seemed to watch down on the discussion happening below. As the webbing gently fluttered above, Daniel froze below.

A single grey spider the size of a quarter slowly spun a long thread to allow itself to settle onto Daniel’s shoulder. It crawled across his shoulder until it rested one of its thin threads against the delicate flesh of his neck.

“Is something wrong, Daniel?” Mrs. Hamilton’s voice was ice. Even to her own ears, her words sounded strange and distant. As though it wasn’t her human mouth that spoke, but the spiders above that whispered with manipulating her human body. “You are quite high in the hierarchy of us here at Donnyton, but your status as head librarian comes with a certain set of responsibilities. Your current behavior is… disturbing. Did something happen?”

For a second, Daniel bit his lip. Then he nodded slowly. Mrs. Hamilton felt a flash of relief. Regardless of whether it was a sufficient justification, Mrs. Hamilton was at least willing to listen to his explanation.

Daniel kept his voice low, but his shoulders were still frozen as the grey spider rested a foot against his neck. “Yes. It’s not that something happened, but… Well… rather you… you were right; the expansion of the Wildlands couldn’t continue like this. We received word that the second theory that you had turned out to be accurate. The term that people are using is bubble cities.”

Immediately, Mrs. Hamilton’s gaze sharpened. She pulled open the drawer to her desk and retrieved several pieces of paper and a pen. When it rains, it pours… Looks like I’ll be writing four reports today. “I assume Kharon encountered one?”

“...or if they weren’t the first to find one, they were the first one to survive.” Daniel licked his lips nervously. “It was apparently the entire southside of Chicago. We aren’t sure of the details, but that area wasn’t put as part of a Zone but operated in isolation for a similar amount of time to us. Periodically monsters would attack the isolated area, but it was a relatively safe existence. So when Kharon encountered them, there was already an established political entity in operation.

“Whatever the population originally was, it had been reduced to half. And about nine-tenths of those people were forced to wear iron collars and support the ‘Chosen’ who had obtained Classes. The leader… the reports are gruesome of the state of the… compound where the Chosen stayed. It was so bad that Helen took it upon herself to eradicate the rot.”

Daniel spread his arms wide. “This is why I’m worried! Our main advantage was that we were one of the first to connect to New Earth, and definitely the most advanced in System knowledge,” Daniel continued. “But our population has always held us back. Without the constant influx of population from the Wildlands… if most of the population now remains in these bubble cities-”

Feeling profoundly tired, Mrs. Hamilton let her image fall away. Sensing the change in the air, Daniel’s nervous rant stumbled to a stop. It wasn’t that Daniel was wrong, just that he couldn’t really conceptualize how small of a threat these bubble cities were in the short term. In a week that was supposed to be a celebration, there were several more imminent existential threats looming on the horizon.

Mrs. Hamilton picked up her pea-green cup and took another sip; she winced when her coffee had gone cold. Then she lightly said, “Daniel, if you don’t believe in Donnyton, please leave. But while you make that decision, please leave my office; I have work to do.”