Zachary had just used his skill [Observation] on the game console, and the information that appeared made his jaw drop.

[Zachary’s Game Console (Admin Terminal), Rarity U. Access: Denied]

He closed his mouth and studied the information, however, it was pretty self-explanatory. His game console was an admin terminal. Rarity U must mean that it was a unique item. Furthermore, he was denied access to this particular item.

Of course, there was nothing he could do about it at the moment, so he stopped hitting it against the cement and brought it back up to his room.

Soon, he was furiously typing and clicking through various fandom websites while trying to save the world (obviously).

In his search he found a lot of information on the mysterious game titled Dungeons and Towers II: Snovideniye.

‘I already know this, but maybe there’s something useful in here.’ He double-clicked into a website with general information.

The game was developed and mass produced worldwide by a company by the name of Iridescent Tech with brilliant success. It was praised for its originality, music score, and graphics quality, not to mention it was especially resilient against pirating because it was written in a new computing language called Dragonfly. Despite some obvious glitches and exploits which were quickly discovered by the community, copies flew off the shelves.

This part caught Zachary’s eye.

He already knew about the success of this game, which is why he bought it in the first place, however glitches and exploits sounded especially helpful. He clicked through a few articles and took some notes. Unfortunately he would need a few materials before he could try any of them.

It was at this time that he remembered he still hadn’t emailed Saya Park.

He opened his emailing system in another window and started a thread. A few minutes later, Saya responded. It was going quite well (in his opinion) when suddenly he heard a knock at the door.

He looked out his bedroom window and down to the front door, wondering curiously who would want to visit him. Maybe his mother had returned home a day early? He frowned. It was Jacob.

He hastily typed a goodbye message to Saya and walked down the stairs, opening the front door.

“What do you want?” Zachary asked in a deadpan voice.

“Zach, look, I’m having a hard time processing everything that happened yesterday, so I came by to ask a few questions. Do you have a moment?”

“No. I’m actually really busy right now. So, bye.”

Zachary began to close the door, but Jacob stopped it with his foot, like an annoying business salesman.

“Now h-hang on!” Jacob stammered. “Even after that drive last night you still haven’t told me anything! I deserve to know what’s going on! You have no right to keep it from me! I can’t get the sight of that portal thing out of my head! So just tell me!”

“Look, Jacob. It’s too complicated for a meathead like you to understand. Now can you just forget what happened yesterday and leave me alone? Thanks.”

Again he tried to close the door, but Jacob was resilient.

“Forget about it? Forget about it?!” He said in an increasingly incredulous tone. “Are you kidding me? How can I forget that so easily? Did you forget? We went on a two hour drive afterwards to deliver that package. TWO. HOURS. Speaking of which, what was even in there? You won’t even tell me about that?”

“Like I said in the car, you don’t want to know.”

“Dude.” Jacob’s voice lowered to a menacing whisper, “Do you even know what I had to tell my parents when I got home? It wasn’t easy lying to them, you know. I had to tell them I was at Michael’s, not in the next town over doing God knows what-”

“Okay!” Zachary opened the door, and looked up into Jacob’s eyes. “You wanna hear something? I’ll tell you a little something.” He gestured for him to come closer while lowering his voice to a harsh whisper. “Something strange is going on, and even if I wanted your help, you wouldn’t be able to do anything.” There was no way Zachary was going to let Jacob bully him too. “Now goodbye.” Then he shoved Jacob and slammed the front door.

Pam pam pam pam.

The thumping of Jacob’s fists on the front door and muffled voice yelled, “Hey! What the actual heck, dude! Come back out here! Why are you being so unreasonable with me? I’m not done talking to you yet! GAH. Jerk! Pinprick! Shrimp! Are all Californians as stupid as you are-”

Zachary ignored the insults and walked back upstairs to his room.

“Ah… Now what was I doing before this? That’s right! Magic practice!”

The day (or rather, the night) before, Lydia had taught him how to switch from using the fire element to the water element. The fire element was apparently super destructive, and even though he had a better affinity for it, all beginners should learn with the water element.

Once again, Zach had been confused as to what an affinity meant. He could use both elements, so didn’t that mean he had an affinity for the water element too? He asked Lydia. Apparently, an affinity didn’t mean you were restricted to one element. It was just a term used to describe which one a mage should focus on, and it was based on whichever element they could create the most dot manifestations with. For Zach, Lydia assumed this was the fire element. But was this actually true?

Zachary held up his fingers and ‘desired’ for the fire element to come forth. A brilliant orb of orange-colored light appeared at the tips. With a smug grin, he released control and let the dot fly away and crash into his wall, where it dissipated harmlessly.

Next he ‘desired’ the water element to manifest. A blue orb appeared, which he promptly shot away.

“Now let’s try the others.”

One by one, Zachary ‘desired’ for the other elements to come forward. The ground element had a deep green color, like thriving grass. The air element was bright white, like the stars in the sky, or a snowflake. And the light element was a mesmerizing gold color.

“So they don’t exactly match the concepts of physics,” he observed. “But I guess that is only natural. Now on to the darkness element… wait one minute.” Zachary frowned when he noticed a major discrepancy between his teachings and his stat window. “Neither Snowy or Lydia told me about the darkness element, yet…”

[Stats:]

{Litheness: 29: Denotes the player’s speed of movement. Elemental connotation: water}

{Constitution: 27: Denotes the player’s general toughness. Elemental connotation: ground}

{Power: 36: Denotes the player’s influence on the world around them. Elemental connotation: fire}

{Will: 28: Denotes the player’s presence and presence detection. Elemental connotation: air}

{Intelligence: 27: Denotes the player’s speed of thought and maximum mana. Elemental connotation: light}

{Consumption: 26: Denotes the player’s energy use and energy tolerance. Elemental connotation: darkness}

“Damn. No wonder I’m so hungry right now. My consumption stat is twenty-six already.”

He slapped himself, trying to stay focused.

‘Okay. So all of my stats have this thing called an elemental connotation. And each one is paired with an element I’ve already learned about, but then there’s the last one. Clearly my consumption stat shows there’s a darkness element.’

Looking at his hands questioningly, Zachary ‘desired’ to switch to the darkness element and bring it forth.

This time, a black orb appeared, a black so dark and deep that it seemed like he had manifested a void. It’s eerie appearance reminded him of an instance dungeon, so he quickly let it go. However, manifesting this particular element didn’t ease his confusion.

‘Why didn’t anyone tell me about the darkness element?’ He scratched his chin in thought. ‘Is it a bad thing if I’m able to use it?’

Zachary brought the to-do-list out of his inventory, scribbled a note, and put it back.

Suddenly, he shot out a bunch of fire element dot manifestations while keeping an eye on his mana stat. When it dropped to the next digit, he started counting.

‘Hmm. For the fire element, I can draw ten dots per one point of mana. How about the water element?’

He switched elements and counted, stopping when his mana dropped by another whole point.

‘Ten dots again! It seems I have an affinity for both fire and water! How about air?’

Zachary proceeded to summon ten dot manifestations of each subsequent element.

Ten dots for air. Ten dots for ground. Ten dots for light. Ten dots for darkness.

‘Well, that’s... anticlimactic. It seems I can create manifestations of each element with equal efficiency, which means I have an affinity for all the elements,’ he thought.

‘Okay. Now I’m done. What else should I do?’

Obviously, he wouldn’t be casting real spells in his house, for obvious reasons. But then he really thought about it. He would never be able to practice magic when he was on Earth, since there were no suitable places far enough away from other people. For now, dot and line manifestations were all he could really do.

But that didn’t mean he had to stop studying magic.

‘As far as I can tell,’ he thought while recalling his magic lessons from yesterday, ‘casting magic is pretty much the same as graphing math functions on paper. You draw a circle or a quare first and then your function inside of it. I don’t know what quadratic functions do, since all Lydia had me practice were linear ones, but I can at least pull out my old algebra notes!’

Thus, Zachary Trenner began studying his old math notes. Middle school, homeschool, tutoring, he looked through everything. Of course, he didn’t want to destroy his house. So after a few hours of not being able to apply his knowledge, he was understandably getting bored (and ridiculously hungry).

“Time to go shopping,” he groaned, and grabbed his wallet.

Jacob was banging his head on the steering wheel of his car. He was outside of Zachary's house still and he was trying to decide what to do.

After Zachary had refused to talk to him, he kept knocking and yelling at the door until his fists hurt and the neighbors started looking at him funny. So he went back to his car and sat in thought.

‘Should I just do as he says?’ He wondered. ‘Should I just forget about it and leave him alone? It would be so much easier.’

Suddenly the door to Zachary's house swung open. Jacob ducked his head.

‘No way! Awwwww. Now what should I do?’

He lifted his head up and saw Zachary already moving away on a bicycle. Jacob cursed and started his car.

‘He’s getting away!’

So Jacob started following Zachary down the street in the direction of Old Town, Burlington.

(Stalkers 101: Do not follow a person closely. Stay far enough away where you can barely keep track of them. This way it will be harder for them to notice you.)

Fortunately for Jacob, Zachary was moving very quickly and it was easy for him to maintain a long following distance, even while driving.

Zachary made a few turns and eventually parked his bike outside a fast food restaurant. After chaining the bike, he went inside. Jacob continued driving and parked along the street.

‘What the hell am I doing?’ he asked himself while sighing deeply.

Jacob caught a few glances of Zachary eating at a table inside the restaurant. Twenty minutes later, he picked up his trash and walked out of the building to his bike. Jacob was getting ready to tail him again, when suddenly Zachary came to a screeching halt. He looked up thoughtfully at a sign to a jewelry store. He parked his bike again and went inside.

‘Now that’s unexpected. Why would he go in there? He doesn’t have a girlfriend. A gift for his mom, maybe?’

A minute later, Zachary came back out. He had a somewhat disappointed look on his face, like a salesman that had been rejected, and got back on his bike once again.

This time, he went further down the street, stopping in front of another building. Although Jacob couldn’t see his face, Zachary seemed to move with an excited energy as he went inside.

Jacob parked his car again and massaged his temples. ‘Seriously, what am I doing?’ He opened the car door. ‘I don’t care if I’m caught following him. At least out here he can’t cause a big commotion and hide in his house again, and to keep him from running away, I’ll corner him by his bike.’

Walking up to the store, Jacob caught sight of the sign “Cooper’s Pawn Shop.” Suddenly, he came to a stop in front of the window and gawked at the objects displayed.

“Holy swiss cheese from saint nick!” he said with wide eyes.

Standing proudly in the window was a full suit of silver armor, complete with a helmet, gauntlets, and all the other accessories.

‘Since when did we have a medieval European enthusiast in Burlington?!’

Jacob’s gaze drifted past the armor and to Zachary, who was talking with great interest to the store clerk while pointing at a display case.

“You mean I can actually buy that?” his muffled voice carried through the glass. “Aren’t there age restrictions?”

Jacob curiously cupped his hands over his eyes and tried to see what they were talking about. His expression became even more shocked when he saw the full-blown medieval sword.

“Nope,” the store clerk, Cooper, responded a little too cheerily. “Gun control laws are very interesting that way. A sword counts as a long blade. I can sell it to you and I can also carry it. The only restriction is that I don’t conceal it, which is pretty cool.”

“How much is it?”

“I’m willing to part with it for 1,250 dollars… but for my own reasons, I’m gonna need it paid in cash,” Cooper suddenly had a shady look on his face.

“Well, I don’t have that much on me,” Zachary responded with a sigh, not seeming to notice the sketchy deal he’d just been offered. “Sorry I can’t buy it from you. Do you have any baseball bats, or any other low leveled- ehem, I mean- any sports gear?”

“Let me think…”

Jacob ended up not going inside to talk to Zachary. He had been so entranced with the objects being sold in a humble pawn shop that, by the time he snapped out of it, he hid himself from embarrassment. If Zachary had seen him just then, what would he say? He had forgotten.

A few minutes later, Zachary came out empty handed. Cooper did not have any sports gear in his store, only the odds-and-ends items that normal pawn shops had and the stuff he collected as a new hobby.

He got back on his bike and continued peddling.

Embarrassed, Jacob followed him again to a small sporting goods store.

After a moment of hesitation, Jacob clambered out of his car and walked right up to the door, not stopping this time. Surprisingly, Zachary was already at the checkout counter, holding a comically large baseball bat.

The store clerk had a concerned expression. “Sir, if you are playing ball, I recommend a smaller bat more suitable for your size and weight.”

“No thanks. I would like this one.”

“But if it’s too heavy for you, you won’t be able to hit anything consistently.”

“It’s for training my swing. Can I buy it already?”

“S-sure.” The poor clerk punched the item number into the register. “That will be fifty-one sixty-two. Would you like a receipt?”

“No thanks.”

Zachary hefted his new baseball bat over his shoulder. It was cherry red and made of stainless steel, and it was huge. Even a novice at baseball would think he had bitten off more than he could chew. Yet Zachary stood there nonchalantly, like he had made a carefully calculated investment.

Jacob cleared his throat as he blocked the doorway. “Zach! I need to talk to you.”

“Jacob? How did you know I was here? Wait,” Zachary came to a realization. “Have you been following me?”

“Well… yeah, kinda… but only because you won’t talk to me!”

“I don’t want to talk to you, so stop trying.”

Jacob had been indirectly blocking the doorway, so he forcefully pushed him out of the way and walked to his bike. Jacob fell down to the ground. He didn’t even stand up, just watched Zachary unchaining the bike with a sigh.

Coincidentally, a group of girls from the same school saw the commotion. They had been out shopping together, their arms full of groceries, when they recognized Jacob from the football team being pushed down by another boy.

“Hey, isn’t that Jacob Langer? What’s happening over there?”

“I don’t know. It looks like they’re fighting.”

“Who’s the other boy?”

“I don’t know. What should we do?”

“Let’s go see what’s happening and help Jacob.”

“Wait! That other boy is getting away!”

Zachary laid the enormous bat across his handlebars and started pedaling. Soon, he was out of sight.

The trio of five girls came over to Jacob, who was back on his feet again.

“Jacob, are you alright?” the first one asked.

“What was that all about?” another asked worriedly.

Suddenly surrounded by girls with worried expressions, Jacob became bashful. “It was nothing. I’ve just been trying to talk to that guy. He’s in the same class as me, you see…”

“Are you okay?”

“Is there anything we can do?”

After a short moment to collect himself, a smirk appeared on his face. “Well, there’s no need to worry, I’ve been trying to get my phone number to him for some time... so we can work on our group project, but he’s just been so mean to me lately. Perhaps one of you ladies can give it to him?”

Realizing the sudden, obvious flirting, a few of the girls giggled.

“If it’s okay with you, I have a pen and paper.” A girl said and locked her arm around Jacob’s. “But we have a mission for you first.” Jacob made a quizzical expression. “We are from the culinary club, but we need a taste tester who isn’t biased. What do you say?”

The unexpected response baffled him.

The other girls cheered.

“Wow, Rachel. Bold as ever!”

“That’s such a good idea! This way we can settle our argument on who has the best cooking skills.”

“You go, girl!”

“So what will I be taste-testing?” Jacob raised an eyebrow.

“Food, of course,” The girl named Rachel responded.

“Rachel, what is this?” Saya Park said flatly as she counted one extra person among the culinary club members.

“What do you mean? What took you so long?” Rachel shot back as she let Saya into the house.

“I got a little distracted. That’s why I’m late. Did you pick up everything for the recipe?”

“Sure did, although it would have been nice if you were there with us.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Saya apologized. “But... Why is Jacob here?”

Jacob perked up, when he saw Saya walk into the kitchen. “Oh, hey, Saya. How’s it going?” he waved.

Rachel jabbed her thumb in his direction. “We saw him fighting with another kid, so we thought we should cheer him up!”

“...and also we need him to judge our dishes,” another girl added.

Saya tilted her head curiously at Jacob.

“Anyway,” Rachel interrupted before the conversation could get out of hand. “Let’s start the cook-off! First up is chopping skills! The fastest person to chop all the vegetales, without cutting themselves of course, wins!”

“Alright!” The girls agreed.

Since Jacob wasn’t part of the culinary club, he sat on the side and watched, giving out compliments on their cooking skills and engaging in their conversations.

While Saya was preparing her own dish, she occasionally glanced at Jacob.

‘Could it be?’ she wondered. ‘Zach said something about Jacob when he emailed me this morning.’

The dishes quickly finished up and were thrown in the oven.

The recipe was for a kind of vegetable casserole, which was easy enough for the six girls to prepare and cook at the same time. Plus, they weren’t creating full blown meals, just smaller dishes to refine their skills and techniques.

The oven timer chimed.

The casseroles were soon pulled out of the oven and Rachel boldly placed her entire dish in front of Jacob.

“Wow. This looks amazing,” he said matter-of-factly. “But I’ll only be taking a small piece so the rest of you can try.”

“Careful! It’s hot.”

After waiting for it to cool a little, Jacob took a bite. His eyes widened. “Mmm. Mhmm. I don’t know the culinary terms, but I’d say it is very good. The texture is just right, and it seems to be salted perfectly.”

Rachel nodded with a pleased expression and gave the rest of the dish to the other girls. Meanwhile Jacob was trying the next one.

“Seriously, you guys are great at this. I’m sorry Rachel, but I think this is better than yours.”

“Aw.”

“Yes!”

Jacob tried the next dish. Then the next dish. Then the next dish. Giving out respectful compliments and critiquing them the best he could.

Finally it was Saya’s turn. For some reason, the room turned silent and gloomy. Jacob looked around curiously as he took a bite from her dish.

His eyebrows shot to the skies. “Oh my gosh! Is this the same recipe? I can taste all of the vegetables equally. This is markedly better than the other ones.”

A girl sighed. “Well you don’t have to rub it in.”

The group laughed.

“This is to be expected,” Rachel said. “That’s Saya for you. She’s just too good at this.”

Saya smiled, “I have been cooking since I was very little, so I have more experience. You ladies have only been cooking for a year and yet you are already this amazing. Be proud of yourselves.”

The hours passed by quickly. Soon, the cooking party was over.

Jacob was walking out the door to his car when he felt a tug from behind. It was Saya.

“Hey, Jacob, I heard you were fighting someone earlier? Was it Zach?”

He nodded, “Yeah.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Let’s just say that I was trying to get his help, but for whatever reason, he won’t even talk to me. Now, we both might have been a bit unreasonable, which led to things happening, but I felt like I was in the right this time.”

“Aw. Do you know why he’s being so closed off?”

“No, I don’t know why,” He sighed. “I tried very hard to become friends with everyone this year, that’s why I hang out with Frank and Michael, even with their antics, but Zach is harder to approach than anyone I know. I’ve tried starting up conversations before, but they don’t really go anywhere, and whenever I have the other guys with me it’s like he retreats into a shell. He doesn’t respond in the same way the other guys would, to jokes or anything. I think we have different senses of humor or something. But that still doesn’t explain why he won’t help me, even when I… uh… asked him today. What did I do to make him hate me?”

Saya shook her head. “I don’t think he hates you for anything you did. I think he just really doesn’t like Frank. I saw them get into a heated conversation after English this week. And since you always hang out with Frank, you’re automatically guilty by association.”

“Oh,” Jacob made a confused look. “I’m guilty by association? Why? I really don’t see what’s wrong with him. Frank has his own issues, and it shows in his behavior at school, but at heart he’s a good guy. And Zach… well… I just don’t know him very well, but he seems talented and I’m sure he’s very nice.”

“Zach is nice,” Saya agreed. “And you are also a nice guy, Jacob. That’s why it’s hard to imagine him fighting with you.”

‘Jeez. What happened between those two,’ she thought.

“Maybe you need to find a way to get him to trust you,” she continued. “Then take the first step by apologizing to him.”

“Me apologize? For what?”

“I don’t know. Just apologize. Obviously Zach feels like you have wronged him in some way. Apologize. Ask him what you did wrong, then talk about it.”

“Hmm. Men aren’t very good about talking about their feelings.”

“Then what do you call this?” Saya retorted. “This is how diplomacy works. The girls and I do it all the time, but men can too. I’m sure you can do it.”

“Mhmm. Thanks Saya. That was actually really helpful…” Jacob made a thoughtful expression. “Look, can I ask you a favor? Do you think you can come with me?”

“Huh? Well… sure, but isn’t it sensitive?”

“Not exactly in the way you’re thinking,” Jacob said. “Could you mediate for me? Of course that means I have to tell you about what happened, get you caught up and everything. Just... promise not to freak out. Wait until the very end to ask questions and don’t tell anyone else what I said.”

Saya was confused, “Why would I freak out?”

“It’s the reason why I’m acting unreasonable too. Do you promise?” he said again with more insistence.

Saya sighed.

‘This wasn’t the way I imagined myself getting to know Zach better.’

She made a serious expression, and nodded, “Okay. I’ll listen.”

“Where do I begin?” Jacob said with careful breaths. “It happened yesterday after football practice… The most unbelievable thing...”

The first thing the FBI did when they got to the Limon coroner’s office was split in two teams, one to examine the victim’s head, and the other to examine the package along with the letters, which were still unopened. They wasted no time and got to work. Surely, some maniac was playing a sick prank with human anatomy.

“Did you collect enough samples for DNA testing?” an agent asked the coroner.

The coroner nodded. “Yes, I did everything you told me while you were still airborne.”

“Thank you. In that case, can I get a statement on your thoughts while you show us the deceased.”

“Absolutely,” the coroner agreed. “It was almost eight o’clock when I was called over. When I got here, I came in and saw it. Already I was stunned. Nothing like this has ever happened in our small town, so I went about it gingerly.

“I started with the mouth,” he swallowed audibly. “Dental records can be very handy for quick identification and I was going to take a simple mold and be done with it. But then… I was startled.”

He continued to explain his morbid experience with the gorgon head while the agent struggled to write everything on his clipboard. The truth was, he was just having a hard time believing the coroner’s story.

“Alright. That’s enough for now. Please just show me the subject.”

The coroner trembled for a moment, realizing the agent didn’t believe him. He frowned and brought it out, inwardly prepared to savor the agent’s look of surprise.

The head looked normal on the outside. Like it once belonged to a normal human girl. The agent examined it with an almost casual look. He was used to seeing dead bodies on a regular basis.

He pulled on a pair of rubber gloves with a snap and opened the mouth, wanting to see why the coroner was so shocked and why this case had been elevated to such a high priority. He promptly jumped backwards.

‘Hmph. I told you so,’ the coroner thought smugly.

In another room, an agent wearing gloves was picking through the letters, carefully swabbing for DNA and fingerprints while someone else photographed everything with a color camera.

“Several prints from this one,” he said while pointing at Jamela’s report.

After the superficial inspections were done, the man looked over the arranged documents. There were three in all. The first was written in an unknown language on rough parchment (which was rather odd), another was clearly a translation of the first into English, and the last was a short letter.

“Anyone know what language that is?” an agent said while pointing at the parchment.

“Nope.”

“Not a clue.”

“Then I’ll read the letter first,” the agent cleared his throat, preparing to read aloud.

“Dear Limon PD, attached to this letter are two articles of proof. One is the head of a Glabian Gorgon, while the other is an official report that I have translated into English. The report goes into greater detail on the point I wish to make clear, so please don’t dilly dally. Every police station in every country needs to know what I have to say next.

“Monsters and magic have appeared on Earth, and both are coming from the little black orbs I will call Instance Dungeons. Once again, the attached report describes everything, including how to beat them.”

The agent finished reading. Someone (without gloves) sighed and massaged their temple.

“What kind of nut-job did we find this time?”

There was a collective shaking of heads.

One of the FBI agents felt his cell phone buzz. He flipped it open and held it to his ear.

“Sir,” a voice said through the speaker, “It’s exactly as reported. This is messed up! There are no indications of surgery, bodily rejection from animal implants, or any other artificial tampering. It’s like this victim really is part snake. What the hell do those letters say?”

“Uh… Come again?”

[End Chapter 21]