Time Loop System

The guild headquarters was in the basement of a restaurant and there were only 3 rooms: The interrogation room, which I found out would have been the 'Cell' they put me in; the bathroom which was just a toilet and a sink in a room the size of a cupboard and the main room which was about 10 feet by 10 feet. I couldn't believe it when I walked out of the interrogation room, it was filthy and bare there was one sofa and a coffee table. There was a very small wall mounted TV and a crummy old laptop on the coffee table. Other than that the room was filled with either rubbish or random monster items.

I briefly considered running past the doorway (Which had half a door missing), up the stairs and wherever they would take me. But sadly Clarisse had gotten me to sign a contract.

Karson had gone, maybe to the restaurant we were below, so it was just me and Clarisse. 

"Look I know it doesn't look like much but with you on the team this place should get a lot better." She said trying to give me a smile that was supposed to make me feel better, it did not work.

"How many guild members is there?"

"Well there's you," she gave me a laugh to try and brighten me up, it did not work. "Then there's me," She gave up halfway through the smile and laugh this time. "There's Karson, our paladin, and then there's Skinny, our janitor and porter."

I looked around at all the mess and the curious stains on every wall before saying, "you should tell Skinny to do his job."

"You can tell him yourself once he comes back from work."

"Ok I have to ask is there a story behind this place? I mean Karson has Excalibur so he's probably great at his job and I'm sure your not too bad at being a witch."

She took in the question and then fell onto the sofa and seemed almost nervous to tell me something.

"We are a guild of rejects."

I was going to ask what she meant but to be honest I just wanted to see if she would tell me herself.

"Me and Karson were kicked out of guilds for different reasons."

"And Skinny? Or did you make him up?"

"Skinny was kicked out of the Association, which is like a government organization. We all got told we needed to leave but Karson and Excalibur were very important to his guild 'Templar' so they ended up making an offshoot guild to put him until they had need of him again."

"What did Karson do?" 

It was then I heard the sound of metal greaves coming down the stairs. With the shackles off I could finally use my skills like focus again.

Karson stared at both us for a second in the doorway before he came and sat down next to Clarisse.

"I should have protected someone."

"Karson I could have told him you don't have to."

"No it's fine it's better I tell him, just like I told you and Skinny."

"There was a young swordsman who I had trained that had come out with me and my dungeon raiding party. It was a massive waterpark that had turned into a dungeon. I saw a shimmering in the pool and a woman came to me from inside it and gave me this." He gestured to Excalibur that he placed on the table.

I could see his face had aged quite a bit as he told this story clearly it had done a number on him.

"Turns out I had been in some kind of trance for a day, they said, but whilst I was out the other guys on the party had forced themselves onto the swordsman thinking I may have died in the water. When I saw what they were doing to her I tried to kill all of them, but I only got 2 out of 3. She died the second we left the dungeon like it had been keeping her alive and the guild didn't want me ruining their reputation." I could see his eyes watering he was clearly still affected by all this.

"I'm sorry man I feel like I've been a massive dick."

"Nah its ok." He said wiping his eyes and forcing his face into a smile, "you one of us now?"

"Yup I'm a guild member alright. How long has this guild been going?"

"About 2 years. Clarisse only joined last year and Skinny was only about 10 months ago."

"Wait you had to run this guild on your own for a year?"

"Yup and to make it worse we only have the rights to one dungeon."

"Mine."

"That's right so we need to figure out a way to get ourselves out of debt and buy the rights to a new one. Thanks by the way." Karson joked with me.

"Wait when I stepped out of the hospital there were loads of you guys?"

"We called in backup from Templar because we didn't know what would come out."

I told them I needed to go get fresh air and went up the stairs and out the back door of the restaurants kitchen. It might have been night time and it might have been 60 years later than I thought it was but I'm alive.

Then I started to think about what I did to get here and I felt really bad for these guys. I could tell that they were struggling financially and I took away their one source of income.

sitting down right there in that back alley I opened my inventory and grabbed my wine and drank…

I got a swift kick to my side and Karson was standing over me, it was almost hard to make him out because of how bright the sun seemed but I guess that was just the hangover talking.

"Come on you drunk! We need to get you registered so we can make use of you."

Turns out to get registered we needed to go to the association where they would demand payment, take a note of my skills and issue me an ID card (which also gave me discounts to quite a few stores).

I clambered onto the bus after Karson who was now in a red t-shirt and blue jeans, I guess he can't always dress for monster killing. 

"So how do we afford to get me registered?" I asked to anyone else it might seem rude but having seen where I now worked and lived I didn't think it would be a problem.

"Skinny has a contact there he's blackmailing. Something about an affair I think."

Turns out it wasn't just one bus we had to take this bus to a train station and then from that train to another bus before we could even see the Association. I guessed we were really on the outskirts of the city.

Whilst on the train a thought came to me, "how did I get to the guild in the first place? I mean it's not like you took me unconscious on the bus."

"Clarisse gave me a teleport scroll she had been saving to go on holiday to Hawaii."

"Wow I owe you guys quite a lot. Sorry about that."

"It's no problem as long as you can pay us back," he flashed me quite an impressive smile as he saw how downtrodden I'd become. "Orion's belt."

"What?" I said failing to see how talking about either a belt belonging to our guild or constellations had come up in conversation.

"That's my skill, it's a sword skill that had 3 levels to it. I'm only on the first though which is just a powerful thrust forwards. I know you were dying to know." I was indeed dying to know, I got the feeling Karson had a soft spot for me.

"You can't tell anyone ok? This is only because you're my guild leader and I feel bad ok? My skill allows me to go back 5 seconds in time." This might be a colossal mistake but I felt like I had to tell him.

"Oh good to know. Have we had this conversation before?"

"Haha no I need to activate it don't worry."

We laughed together for a bit after that and then it was time to hop on another bus.

The association was a colossal sky scraper with golden foundations that stretched very high up but I could see there was a balcony way near the top somewhere.

Inside was even more impressive a marble floor with the association's emblem in the middle, the earth being overlapped by 3 other worlds. Massive reception desks with people working all over them like an airport and an awesome looking glass elevator directly in the middle of the building. There were also grand looking modern marble stair cases with glass railings that went up to other floors.

I had to just follow Karson's lead like a child following a parent as he approached one of the free people working behind the desks.

"Hello we're here to get my guild member registered."

"Yes and the name of the guild and member are?" She spoke in a robotic voice as she simultaneously typed furiously on her keyboard.

"His name is Zane Mack and the guild's name is Orion."

I could see the worker crack into a smile and really put an effort into trying not to laugh.

"Ah yes it says here you need to go to the second floor room 26." Thankfully she managed to control her snickers until we were on our way but as soon as we'd got far enough away I could hear her laughing.

I went to walk to the elevator excited to try a completely see-through elevator for the first time in my life but was yanked towards the stairs by Karson instead.

"Why aren't we taking the elevator?"

"Never trust something that promises to take you to great heights." He said to me with a completely serious face.

"Well that's very sagely of you."

"The real reason is because you wouldn't want me to throw up all over you."

We took the stairs up which still gave a nice view and we found our way to room 26. A tanned middle-aged man approached us but at the mention of 'Skinny' his face soured and he said, "Just get in the damn booth."

The "Damn Booth" was egg shaped and on the inside there was just a chair with a table that had a plug socket. I guessed if you wanted to charge your phone but since I didn't have one I just had to sit there for 5 minutes and stare at the grey metallic shiny walls around me.

It was in there that I had an idea, surely we could negotiate our way into earning some money from the association for dungeon clearing. If I happened to destroy it at the end we would still get paid.

I told this idea to Karson after we were handed the ID badge and told, "to just leave already."

"I mean sure but you saw how the association thinks of us do you really think we're going to be able to sweet talk a job out of them."

"Remember that skill I told you to keep a secret?"

"Oh! Ok let's go get ourselves a meeting."

We hurried down to the desks and ran back into Ms. Robot who after not controlling her laughter this time sent us up to the fourth floor for guild jobs.

I was completely exhausted by the time we reached the fourth floor, I think I would have rather been vomited on. We entered into a room and again a bunch of desks.

{Get a job for your guild}

{Reward: +1 second of time}

Ok if I wasn't motivated before this OTO quest has definitely motivated me now. Time loop activate!

 [Time Loop]

"Hi we were wondering if we could have a job?" Karson asked.

"Guild name?" This guy wasn't just robotic but he also sounded permanently tired and depressed.

"Orion"

He began to laugh and…

[~~~]

"Hey what's your name?" I asked cutting off Karson.

"Steven Field."

"Great and how old are you?"

"36"

"Amazing and any interesting hobbies?"

"I like to paint models."

Huh interesting guy.

[~~~]

"Hi if I can guess your name, age and hobby, you have to give my guild Orion a job." I said again cutting off Karson.

"Ok deal."

"Your name is Steven Field, you're 36 and you like to paint models"

"Fine guild name?"

"Orion. Remember you lost."

[Time Loop Off]

{+1 second of time}

"Yes I can't believe we got a job! It's all thanks to you as well! This calls for a celebration when we get back." Karson said positively giddy with how much of a good mood he was in.

I pulled out the minotaur nose ring I'd had my inventory since I defeated and asked if we could sell it somewhere here, I mean it did have some nice rubies and stuff on it.

"Are you kidding me?! This day just keeps getting better! Yeah third floor come on!" Karson yelled already sprinting to the stairs.

As I had to sprint down the stairs to just keep up with him I thought I must be creating a monster…