Chapter 49 – The Weight That Remains
Chapter 49 – The Weight That Remains
The mansion stood quiet.
Once, it had been filled with life—with banter, laughter, footsteps that ran up and down its wooden halls, the sound of brushes scraping canvas, and occasional bickering over whose turn it was to cook. But now, it echoed only silence.
Tyler lay curled on Milo’s old bed, its frame half-burnt and half-rebuilt in a fit of indecision. He hadn’t spoken in days. The fireplace had long since gone cold, and the food left on the table had begun to rot. Dishes piled up. Dust gathered in corners Milo would have swept clean.
He stared at the ceiling, watching shadows move with the shifting light. One hand clutched a tattered pillow—Milo’s pillow—like it was the only tether keeping him from falling into some endless abyss.
“Why did it have to be you?” he whispered hoarsely. “Why not me?”
He remembered every moment. Hivemind Cockroach. The Timber camp. Shindeon’s tail.
Every time, Milo had been there. Fighting, laughing, lecturing. Every time, he had survived.
And yet…
It had been his [Poison Mist]. His decision. His choice. He hadn’t listened.
Tyler sat up slowly, eyes red-rimmed. He turned his gaze to the far corner of the room, where the painting set Milo had begged for still sat, untouched since that day. The brushes were stiff with dried paint. One canvas had been half-started. A crude sketch of a mountain landscape. Maybe Milo had planned to paint the Windy Mountains.
He picked up the canvas, stared at it.
“You told me not to rely on that skill,” he murmured. “You told me… again and again… and I didn’t listen.”
He felt the guilt rising again like bile in his throat.
What kind of brother couldn’t even protect the one person who trusted him the most?
He buried his face in his hands. Then, slowly, he stood and walked to the main hall. Every step was heavy.
He looked at the bookshelf where Milo kept his sketchbooks. He flipped through them, each page filled with silly drawings and ambitious landscapes. Then he opened a drawer and pulled out the letter Milo had once drafted but never sent: a birthday card addressed to Tyler. He couldn’t finish reading it. He tore it apart.
He collapsed to his knees beside the family portrait. “I failed you all…”
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Outside the mansion, Cupcake Crab stood at the door for the fifth time that week. He knocked, tentatively.
No answer.
He placed a row of small seashells neatly on the welcome mat—each a different colour, one with a smiley face painted on.
“Hey… um… I brought gifts! Pretty shells today. I named one after you. It’s the grumpy-looking one,” he said softly.
Nothing.
He sighed and sat beside the door.
“I know you’re in there, [Player]. I even got some quests! Real low-level ones. You can beat them in your sleep. C’mon… just open the door…”
Still nothing.
He stayed for a while, talking to the door like it might grow ears. Eventually, he stood up, brushing sand off his shell. “Alright… maybe next time.”
Cupcake Crab had just reached the teleportation platform outside Yandi when he heard the familiar bleating.
The little alpaca-goat’s voice was unusually frantic. “Hey! Hey! Cupcake Crab! Is [Player] around? I really need to talk to him. It’s urgent.”
Cupcake Crab hesitated. “Uh… he’s home. But I’ll be real with you, Shooba. He hasn’t been himself lately. He’s not accepting quests. Not talking to anyone.”
“Please,” Shooba said. “Just tell me where he is. I have to try.”
---
Shooba stood awkwardly inside the mansion’s open doorway. Tyler hadn’t acknowledged him at first, simply staring into the fireplace like it might answer the questions that haunted him.
“Tyler,” Shooba said gently. “The Windy Mountains… they’ve changed.”
A flicker of movement in Tyler’s eyes. Nothing more.
Shooba continued, “For weeks, they were silent. No storm, no monsters. So some of my friends went climbing. But now… there’s a blizzard. Stronger than any we’ve seen before. They’re trapped.”
Tyler didn’t speak.
Shooba stepped forward, placing a gloved hand on the armrest of the nearby chair. “I climbed it not long ago. There wasn’t a single breeze. Now it’s a death storm. They’ll die if no one helps. I thought… maybe you could…”
Tyler turned away. His voice was hollow. “You’ve got the wrong guy. I can’t protect anyone. I let the one person who trusted me most die. What makes you think I won’t mess this up too?”
Shooba opened his mouth, but said nothing. He looked down, then turned.
As he reached the door, Cupcake Crab called out behind him, loud enough to be heard even through the quiet gloom of the house.
“You know, sometimes when deities are angered… they send storms like this.”
He let the words linger.
“Maybe someone did something to make one very mad. And now others are paying the price.”
Shooba stopped in his tracks.
Inside, Tyler’s fists clenched.
The memories of Zephryn’s pleading. The towering windstorms. Milo’s words about divine beasts.
And suddenly, his grief found a new shape: responsibility.
A chair creaked.
Footsteps.
“Wait,” Tyler said hoarsely.
Shooba turned.
Tyler stood, unshaven and exhausted, but upright. “I… I need to make this right.”
He walked past the half-destroyed easel, past the cracked window that Milo once decorated with flowers. He opened his inventory and began to equip his armour slowly.
Piece by piece.
Gauntlets.
Greaves.
Chestplate.
Then his sword.
He walked to the wall where their family portrait still hung. His fingers brushed over Milo’s smiling face.
“You told me not to mess up. That if you weren’t there… I’d have to keep myself in check. I hear you now, Milo.”
He looked Shooba dead in the eyes. “I’m going to fix this. Even if I have to climb to the top of that cursed mountain myself.”
[Quest Accepted: Into the Howling Gale]
[Objective: Reach the summit of the Windy Mountains and rescue the trapped climbers.]
[Reward: ????]
As the teleportation glyph lit up, Tyler took one final look at the mansion.
And whispered, “This time… I won’t fail.”
He vanished in a swirl of white light, the snow already beginning to fall where he was headed.