Back in the Bureau, Lilac finished reading the updates the System had foisted upon them, her head leaned back as she nursed a mild headache.
The abrupt downward shift of her ranking from A to C hit her like a truck.
Ever since she'd taken control of her now obliterated team, Lilac had taken immense pride in her ranking, considering herself among the elite, only a single rank lower than the legends known as S rank Walkers; now B rank.
The change in ranks would carry tremendous changes in power structures and destroy morale among the many Walkers who championed humanity.
To her surprise, the System had assessed them and found Humanity as a whole…lacking. Worse still, it had considered the overall impact of the Gate Walker community to be an actively harmful influence, though this hadn't overly surprised her.
Part of the benefit of working with the Bureau was knowing her work and missions directly benefitted humanity in the long run. Clandestine missions in the darkness by teams specializing in power to be used outside of the boundaries of the Gates. Thousands upon thousands of mercenaries funded to fight in shadow wars and assault Gates that nobody else would ever clear.
The Bureau's overarching mission to safeguard humanity and empower it as a whole suffused its every action, making the hard choices Walkers refused to make as though it had been prepared for the simultaneous greed and cowardice the community heralded with pride.
Only a fool, or the willfully ignorant, would claim that humanity was safe in any capacity worth mentioning.
That said, the idea of raising up the entirety of humanity to the level of closing gates had never even occurred to her. Keep them safe in the wake of a Crash; of course that was a goal, lofty and unlikely though it may be.
Seeing Tutorial Towers opening was surprising as they'd been deemed unhelpful by the vast majority of the Walker society, though now it seemed that rejection likely stemmed from ill intent.
All in all, Lilac thought, very little changed for her or the Bureau.
The average level among the staff was in the twenties, with most choosing classes that served both combat and non-combat purposes.
Video games, aided with the significant technological increases in the post Gate society, served almost as much recruitment advertising as entertainment. Tremendous effort went into recreating the near infinite range of options that the System provided on one's route to power, from generalized archetypes to extremely nuanced hidden classes that almost seemed to cater to personal capabilities.
Though it was not flaunted as publicly as it could have been, the Bureau had discovered that literally any class could be used in a combat scenario, and vice versa.
Watching a career politician literally argue a werewolf to death was one of the most unique experiences Lilac had experienced, even now several years after the fact.
Rumor had it there were new branches of magic being discovered at a rapid pace, abrupt expansions to the functions of currently known magic.
Perhaps acknowledgement comes too late for most to profit from, but in the wake of the system and the mysterious Gates she'd found in the temple, perhaps everything was more connected than she'd realized.
Well, hindsight is 20/20, as they say.
The Gate she'd only barely escaped brushed against her mind, though something kept her from fully remembering what she'd seen within.
It was well known, within the Bureau at least, that the System somehow protected the human mind from the overwhelming trauma many experienced from the horrors perpetrated by Gates…and Walkers.
That said, she'd never heard of someone simply…forgetting a Gate, just reacting more healthily to the experience than one might expect.
After all, how many of the earliest Walkers would have kept fighting if they irrevocably broke every time their party and friends had their skin removed by a shadow creature or were eviscerated by Steel Wolves.
It didn't elude her that even the cavalier tone of her thoughts were probably a result of the smoothing the System was responsible for, but even with that awareness, she wasn't disturbed in the slightest.
Even with her position focusing on Gates, she'd been required to kill other people more than once. Whether it be legitimate reasons like finding Walkers experimenting on civilians inside of a Stable Gate or more dubious 'greater good' tasks, she knew she couldn't do her job without a hefty dose of System assistance, and so accepted it happily.
Returning to the thoughts of the Gate, one thing did stand out in her mind with utter clarity.
The 'coffin'.
It completely sidestepped her ability to understand, almost like it stood outside of reality.
She could remember its appearance, its feeling in her hand, and even its intense pressure against her mind, but none of it clicked within her mind.
It was as if she was looking at a magic so far beyond her comprehension that it seemed more fantasy than real, a strange concept to her considering she'd once seen reports of a mage so powerful they'd reduced a World Hydra to dust with a single spell.
Once she was out of the Temple and back within the safety of the Bureau, she'd been able to give it to Marcus, who took it with such reverence that it almost seemed to be something religious. While Lilac had never taken him for a man of faith, she supposed anything was possible.
Sitting up and stretching, Lilac stripped off her pajamas and started getting ready for her day. After a week of recovery, the dread of giving her report and standing responsible for the loss of almost her entire team had made her drag her feet in starting up, but you can only delay for so long before someone comes along and makes you get going.
This was a fact she could conclusively attest to, considering her current motivation was the hourly reminders her second-in-command Jennifer had been sending her. Apparently she'd already given her report and was waiting patiently in their team ops center, gathering information on potential missions appropriate for the rare team of two.
These almost exclusively consisted of Gate related assassinations, political integrations, Guild support and the like.
It was without shame that Lilac admitted the upcoming missions were hellish and definitely contributed to her delay.
However, it was with tremendous shame that she prepared for the hardest part of the report she had to give.
The families of her team would be present, as was standard procedure in the occasion of a loss related to a mission. The task had already been declassified and a general outline and reparations had already been provided at the expense of the Bureau, also standard practice, but it was up to her to provide context and details.
It was common for a team member to be unsure of details when things went wrong, but it also wasn't their responsibility to keep notes mid combat. That fell to the team leader.
Lilac.
The woman responsible for her team's safety…and thus their deaths.
When this kind of team wipe happened, it was pretty common for team leaders to talk about the mission.
Saving humanity, the pride of sacrificing for a greater good.
It was a known risk for anyone on the field teams, predictable that eventually your luck would run out. That was the entire reason for the extensive medical and death benefits provided, fully subsidized by the Bureau. Mysterious shadow organization or not, the organization took care of their own, and most considered each other an extended family member.
Having been raised within its ranks, Lilac considered every member outside of the Mercenary Division brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, and cousins to be protected.
Her morning preparations concluded, she stalked the halls trying her best to be as small as possible, to escape the notice of what she knew were the judgemental glares of people who'd lost their friends to the incompetence of a team leader still considered fresh out of the program.
Her self-loathing doubled as she tried to figure out what to say, how to turn what would undoubtedly be an emotional cataclysm into motivation and morale.
Every mission was supposed to be of the utmost importance, every life a step forward for humanity; their sacrifices building a stairway to better heights for humanity itself.
What had her failures wrought?
A family shattered, and for what?
A mysterious black stone the system insisted was a coffin?
Information nobody would ever know because the entire team had been dragged into a Gate by claws like something out of a nightmare?
No, this was all nothing in comparison to the most terrifying result of disastrous mission she'd heralded.
Her abject mishandling of what was supposed to be an investigation had actively worsened things for humanity as a whole.
Lilac choked back a sob when considering the millions who might die because of her intrusion into the black space that barely registered as a location in her mind; flickering white spaces in the darkness almost eclipsing the internalized guilt with fear so intense, it almost surpassed the System's efforts to protect her.
In her heart, she knew there was no way to spin this.
She was completely incapable of turning her travesty of leadership into honorable sacrifice. Her team had trusted in her, fought alongside her against shocking odds…only to fall at the last moment, pushing forward when she'd known they should have turned back for additional support.
Jennifer stood beside the door to the meeting room, her face an impenetrable mask as usual, her emotions shielded from the world's piercing judgement.
In that moment, for the first time, Lilac deeply envied that guise.
Her own face was a mess, her eyes red from crying and face clearly tear streaked.
The stoic woman moved to say something, but Lilac cut her off and said, "I need to do this alone. You don't deserve what's about to happen."
Before she could push to intervene again, Lilac pushed past her into the room to find near total darkness.
More than darkness, there was total silence.
No crying families or furious spouses, weeping children asking where their parents were or when they'd be coming home.
The accusations she'd only barely prepared to accept and admit to never came, and she felt immediately worse for her relief, though she knew it would only be a temporary reprieve.
This was new, but considering the immensity of the situation, leadership might not want the families sitting in the room waiting for her.
The thought terrified her to no end.
Was she going to have to talk to the families one at a time?
She'd only barely been able to work up the strength to deliver such horrific news all at once to a group. Having to do it almost twenty times to separate people, to bear their justified hatred of her, would break her.
Fumbling for a chair near where she thought the front of the room would be, her body shook with sobs, barely kept under control as she felt the urge to vomit pushing up her chest.
A voice rang out in the darkness, barely louder than she was being.
"Lilac. You are to be held responsible for the mission to the Temple of the Gods."
Through a sheer force of will she hadn't known she possessed, Lilac forced herself into silence, brutally aware this was not a report…this was a reckoning.
A notification popped up, but she touched it to minimize it without reading what it had to say. After all, she'd have plenty of time to read it while serving whatever punishment she'd receive.
The voice continued, "From time to time, very rarely, we come across someone like you. A person whose actions lead to an unchangeable conclusion that exceeds even our darkest projections."
The lights in the room flashed so bright she was momentarily blinded, her anxiety climaxing as cheers and music began playing.
"What?"
Her voice was so quiet it went unnoticed by the incomprehensible sight before her.
Unaware, or uncaring, about her emotional state, Marcus stood opposite her with a wide and genuinely proud smile on his face.
"When I sent you to Central Park, I expected the area to be obliterated."
The thought rang out inside her again.
"What?"
Gesturing to the team of upper management behind him, he said, "Under circumstances so unpredictable, you bore an enduring victory from near guaranteed defeat. You are solely responsible for humanity getting the chance to break through the next threshold."
Millions would die in the Gates, Lilac thought, not even wanting to consider what damage the Tutorial Towers would wreak upon her race.
The man she considered a father continued for several minutes, turning every point of her misery into a grand success she would never consider true.
Dozens of people stood further back behind management, the families of her victims, clapping and cheering, pride for their loved ones' pointless deaths clear on their faces.
"Greater good," was the first words she heard that broke the trance she'd been trapped in.
"Their lives, precious and irreplaceable, have been given willingly for the greatest opportunity we have ever seen, and we all have our very own Lilac to thank for that," Marcus gushed, gesturing grandly in her direction.
She almost looked behind her to see if someone with her name was hiding in the narrow space between her chair and the wall.
"In a department that is characterized by sacrifice and prides itself on minimizing the loss of its members, losing one for every million saved, Lilac has shown herself a glittering example of what the Bureau holds as its most important tenet."
This isn't right.
"With less than two years in command, Lilac has lead multiple difficult missions to Gates that normal Walkers could only fantasize of surviving, let alone clearing with a zero percent casualty rate."
The air shimmered around him as he spoke, the world holding its breath as he finished.
"With all of this considered, it is with tremendous pride that I confer upon you, Lilac, the position of Mercenary Division Liaison. You'll be working with our largest division to continue your work and grow your pedigree of excellence to new heights in the rapidly changing days to come."
Though spoken with exuberance and pride, his next words filled Lilac with apprehension, "The Bureau is relying on you for what's to come."