Monday’s Relentless Grind - A Past That Won’t Stay Buried

Monday morning is a phrase that people generally dislike. This is no different for Liora. Despite being frequently labeled as a “genius” at school, Monday remains her least favorite day of the week. Especially today, as she has been assigned the morning shift.

Of course, she still wakes up early and quickly heads to work. Even though the cafe opens at 7 a.m., employees usually arrive at 6 a.m. or earlier. There are many tasks to be done.

Setting up tables, cleaning equipment, checking the stock of goods, and various other tasks. Additionally, there are those responsible for cooking in the kitchen.

Not many employees complain about the earlier working hours compared to most places. The cafe owner is a fairly lenient person; he will tolerate many things if you are honest and the salary ain’t that low either.

The soft sound of the doorbell rang again, signaling a new customer had arrived. Liora walked from the table to table to the kitchen and than to table again, delivering orders to the customers sitting and enjoying the cool morning.

She moves swiftly and politely, almost silently. There isn’t much conversation; most customers are busy with their laptops and phones.

Nevertheless, some customers greet Liora and praise her diligence. They are new customers Liora has never seen before. Since this happens often, Liora doesn't try to waste her time and just nods silently.

“A cup of black coffee and a sandwich,” Liora says flatly and politely as she places the tray in her hands on the table. Then she moves what's on the tray onto the table. She does all this smoothly and gently.

“Enjoy your meal. Is there anything else I can help you with?” Liora smoothly recited the standard procedure. Though her face was expressionless, her tone was soft and sounded friendly.

“In that case, how about I borrow you for a moment?” A familiar voice flowed into Liora’s ears. Not sounding as condescending as usual, Lisa grinned widely while stirring her black coffee.

“There’s something I want to discuss,” Lisa sipped her black coffee after blowing on it a few times. Her face wrinkled slightly as the black liquid touched her tongue.

“Can I ask for some extra cream?”

“You should have ordered something sweeter.” The words came out of Liora’s mouth bluntly, without a hint of hesitation.

“I didn’t expect it to be this bitter!” Lisa tried her best to protect her dignity; as a young lady, she had a reputation to uphold.

“It’s coffee,” Liora sighed, clearly trying to hold back from raising her voice. “It’s supposed to be bitter.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I still need more cream,” Lisa insisted, unconcerned with how coffee was supposed to taste.

Liora sighed. ‘Another person who doesn’t understand the aesthetics of coffee.’

“We’ll charge extra for that,” Liora said, as if repeating something she had memorized. “Are you sure?”

“Just do it,” Lisa replied casually; she had never been short of money.

“I’ll also borrow you for a moment, okay? Lioriie.” Lisa rested her chin on her hands, which rested on the table, a meaningful smile etched on her face.

“...I’ll ask the cafe owner about that.” Liora’s voice sounded even less enthusiastic than before.

Without paying attention to Liora's flatter-than-usual expression, the cafe owner happily let Lisa borrow Liora for a moment. At some point, Lisa had placed the Guide Rise play-mat on the table where she was sitting.

“Are you serious about asking me to play during work hours?” Liora stared in disbelief; she did have her deck with her at the moment. But it felt very rude to play while others were working.

“Chatting while playing is more fun,” Lisa opened her deck box and began shuffling the cards in her deck. Reluctantly, Liora sat facing Lisa and pulled her deck of cards from under her skirt.

“Guide, Stand By!” they both shouted, holding their Guide cards in hand.

“So, what do you want to talk about?” Liora cut straight to the point, as Lisa might get too engrossed in the game.

“As I said before,” Lisa drew a card, Liora let her go first. “I want us to work together,” Lisa clicked her tongue, looking at the cards in her hand.

“Bad hand?” Liora asked.

“I’m brick…” Lisa’s voice sounded resigned.

“I’ll just Guide Call Ashendoom and end my turn.” Lisa placed Ashendoom in the center of the play-mat.

“Why me?” Liora began her turn.

After Guide Calling Dorothy to the center of the play-mat, she activated Dorothy’s first skill by paying 1 OP and activated Omnigenerator directly from the deck.

She continued by generating 1 OP with Omnigenerator after discarding two cards from her hand. After placing two cards face down in the support zone, Liora ended her turn with one card in her hand.

“Draw,” Lisa appears to select one card from her hand with her index finger and places it on the right space.

“I summon Silpharz using its skill to summon the second Silpharz from the deck.”

“That’s because, aside from Silence Holder, only you have a connection to the Virtual Death Game tragedy,”

“Battle!”

“Ashendoom, attack Dorothy!”

“Reveal!” Liora flipped one of her face-down cards. “I pay 2 OP and activate Defense Barrier.”

“Ashendoom’s attack is stopped.”

“Why not just ask for her cooperation instead?”

Lisa sighed, looking at the unfavorable situation in the arena.

“Turn end,”

“She doesn’t care about the behind-the-scenes scheme. In fact, you two have completely opposing goals.”

Liora, without realizing it, looked at Lisa. She seemed disbelieving of what she heard.

“Opposing?” Furrowing her brows, Liora didn’t like the conclusion forming in her mind.

A triumphant grin appeared on Lisa’s face; she had finally managed to pique Liora’s interest.

“Remember when I said the government was involved in the development of the game ‘Neo Utopia Online,’ the game where the Virtual Death Game tragedy occurred?”

“You also told me that the tragedy was actually sabotage by the developers to ensure that whatever the government tried to do would fail,”

“That’s correct,” Liora confirmed. “That’s what the game’s lead developer told me at NUO.”

“It wasn’t just the government that was harmed by the NUO developer sabotage…”

“Silence Holder…”

“What that girl wants is for the Virtual Death Game to never have happened, to erase that tragedy from history.”