It started with a whisper. One tavern telling another. One bard passing a tale. A merchant returning from the capital speaking of a "guild of misfits" who'd defied every expectation and won the Guild War Trials not through raw power or prestige — but through a baffling, hilarious, and strangely inspiring combination of chaos, clumsiness, and heart.
By the next sunrise, that whisper had become a chorus. "Linked Hearts" was on everyone's lips. In the market stalls, children ran around reenacting the final battle, arguing over who got to pretend to be "that guy with the squirrel army." Nobles sipped their wine with raised eyebrows, wondering how a no-name group had managed to upstage elite guilds. Veterans scoffed at first, but curiosity got the better of them. Reporters from the Adventurer's Herald knocked on their crumbling guildhall door before the team had even unpacked.
MC stood in the middle of it all, blinking in disbelief as a woman with magical recording crystals tried to fix his hair for a front-page portrait. "I'm sorry," he muttered, "are you sure you have the right guild? You mean us? Linked Hearts? Like... with the pink heart logo we definitely didn't agree on?"
"Yes, that one," she said with a smile. "The entire kingdom is talking about how you beat the Blazing Tyrants with a water balloon spell and a misplaced teleport."
"That was strategy," Lina insisted from behind a half-closed door, brushing her hair while pretending not to care. "Accidental strategy."
"I sneezed and activated that spell," MC whispered.
"Details," she replied.
Kaela, ever the skeptic, stood guard near the guild's entrance, eyeing every new visitor like they were an invasive species. Her boar snorted at reporters and chased away an overly enthusiastic poet who tried to compare MC's courage to a phoenix's cry.
Iris, calm and elegant as always, simply sipped tea in the corner and quietly froze time for five seconds every time someone asked if she and the guild leader were romantically involved.
But beneath the celebration, the fanfare, the bizarre interview questions ("How does it feel to be the most unintentionally popular adventurer in the realm?"), something else was stirring. The attention was not all good.
From the upper city towers, rival guilds looked down with narrowed eyes, fuming over their defeat. Some dismissed it as a fluke — a one-time spectacle, nothing to worry about. Others weren't so sure. Because behind the laughter and the unorthodox tactics, there was something undeniably dangerous about Linked Hearts. Not in the traditional sense — they weren't especially skilled or strategically sound — but they had something rare.
They had momentum.
They had loyalty.
And they had a leader whose System no one could quite explain.
Whispers turned darker. The term "Harem King" became less of a joke and more of a subject of genuine concern in certain circles. Cult operatives in cloaks began slipping into towns MC had never visited. Informants were paid handsomely for scraps of information. Every ability he copied, every battle he won, every person he charmed — it was all being documented.
And yet, MC remained blissfully unaware, reading a fan letter from a six-year-old who drew a crayon version of him holding a flaming squirrel.
"This is amazing," he said with a big smile. "We're really famous now!"
"We're also probably on a few watchlists," muttered Kira, who had been sharpening her daggers while peeking through the window blinds for spies. "Fame paints a target, genius."
Luna said nothing. She sat at the guild table, pretending to flip through a healing tome. In truth, she was scanning the magical imprint of the letter she had just received — from the System Cult. A simple message burned into her memory.
Observe. Report. Prepare.
She looked up, seeing her guildmates gathered around a cake Iris had somehow conjured to celebrate their fame. MC was trying to light candles with a spell he barely understood. Kaela groaned as he singed his own eyebrows. Jax played a drunken song about how they "accidentally beat everyone."
And Luna, once again, felt the impossible tension in her chest.
The world was watching now. Not just allies or fans, but enemies with resources. Organizations with agendas. Powers that believed this guild should not exist, that their System-defying bonds were unnatural, uncontrollable, maybe even a threat to the balance of power.
Linked Hearts was no longer a joke.
They were a symbol.
And symbols, Luna knew, often attracted the sharpest blades.
Still, she didn't send a full report that night.
Instead, she sat at the table as the guild sang off-key around their mismatched cake, and for one more day, let herself believe that maybe — just maybe — they could laugh their way through whatever came next.
END OF CHAPTER 49