[Sunday, September 13]

Zachary’s eyes fluttered open calmly and he sat up on his bed. He was finally back on Earth.

*ping

[New Title: The Wrathful]

- {Effect: gives a beneficial status effect when emotional}

- {Awarded for slaughtering 200,000 monsters within 60 seconds}

Pleasantly surprised, he looked over the information several times to make sure he wasn’t still dreaming.

‘How in the world is this my first title?’ he wondered. ‘Look at that absurd award condition! How is this fair? If I had to kill 200,000 wolves in under a minute, forget it, I would never have been able to.’

Nevertheless, he was very pleased. After a little bit of playing around with his system, he couldn’t find a way to ‘equip’ or ‘unequip’ his title, which meant the effect would always be applied to him, like a passive boost.

In other words, if he ever got in a dire situation, he could gain a boost to help him overcome it. Plus, it didn’t take mana to activate it nor did he have to think about using it.

His only worry was how “emotional” he would need to be.

Looking around his room for the most important thing in his possession, the game console, Zachary wanted to test his upgraded [Observation] skill. He wanted to see what new information would pop up and had been thinking about it all night.

‘I must have left it downstairs,’ he realized.

He made his way to the living room when movement from his couch startled him.

He summoned his metal bat and approached the sleeping figure.

Jacob rolled over, his eyes still closed as he lay on the furniture.

“Mnmmn, zzz…”

Upon seeing that it was Jacob, Zachary recalled changing worlds when he was right in the middle of talking.

You can’t blame him for forgetting, though. To Zachary, a lot of time had passed since then.

“Alright! Wake up!” Zachary said loudly while slapping Jacob’s face.

“AAAH!!” Jacob woke up with a start. “What… what’s happening? Where am I? What are you doing here?”

Zachary suppressed a rude chuckle.

“So where’s Saya? Did she stay the night too?”

After Jacob calmed down, he remembered what happened and where he was.

“Ah, Zach. After you passed out, we carried you up to your room. We didn’t know if we should take you to the hospital or not, but you seemed fine and decided to wait. Saya had to leave after that, but she was still worried about you, so I stayed here. I hope you don’t mind.”

Zachary nodded, understanding the situation. “Nah, it’s cool. My magic powers are incredibly draining and I unexpectedly fall asleep sometimes. There’s definitely no need to worry.

“And also thanks for not taking me to the hospital. I’ve already told you before, but I don’t want anyone to find out about my powers yet.”

Jacob nodded. “Got it.”

At that moment, the front door rattled. The deadlock shifted out of the way and swung open. A woman with a rolling suitcase stepped through. She was relieved to be home after the long road trip and she unceremoniously kicked off her black shoes.

“Zachary, I’m home. Eh?” She froze when she saw that there were two boys in her house, not just one. “Who’s this?”

“Uh…” Zachary worked his brain for an answer.

He didn’t expect his mother to get home and see such a situation. He hadn’t asked her permission to have friends over.

“I can explain, Mrs. Trenner,” Jacob said carefully, trying to read the situation. “Last night we were hanging out when… we didn’t realize how late it had gotten. Zach was worried that I would fall asleep at the wheel, so he offered me to stay the night. Uh. My name’s Jacob, by the way.”

Seeing that he was covering for him, Zachary kept his mouth shut and nodded at Jacob’s explanation.

“Ah, well… In that case, I suppose that was very smart of you both. It’s nice to meet you, Jacob.” Zachary’s mom frowned. “Now, If you boys would excuse me, I’ve been driving all night, so I’m going to take a nap. I’d appreciate it if you kept the noise down.”

“Okay,” they nodded in unison.

Seeing that everything was fine, Zachary's mom left for her room.

Relieved and feeling hungry, the boys went to the kitchen. Together they raided the pantry and fridge for ingredients.

While they were cooking, Jacob asked, "So… Have you told your mom yet?"

Zachary thought for a moment, then shook his head. "Nah, and now that I think about it, I shouldn't tell her until I understand what's going on a little more."

"I see. Well, I won’t butt in on your business, but I disagree. She’s your mother, after all. And she can probably help answer some questions. Like, how did you get your powers in the first place? Why you? Why not anyone else?

“Heck, I want powers of my own, too! Can I borrow some?"

They laughed. Zachary shrugged.

"Here. The eggs are ready. Yeah… I honestly don't know why I got them. And I don't know how to give them to you. Sorry."

Dungeons and Towers II was a single player game, so Zachary didn't know if it was possible for another person to have a system like him. Furthermore, he wasn't sure how the other copies of the game affected things either.

As to whether or not Jacob could unlock magic too, Zachary didn’t know that either. But then again, even the NPCs could use magic to some degree. Why not other people?

“As for telling my mom. I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he reiterated. “I don’t want to worry her about something that only I can figure out.”

Jacob shrugged. “That’s your decision, I guess.”

They ate a hearty breakfast together. Jacob even complimented him for his football-player-like appetite. When they were done, Jacob excused himself.

"Okay. Imma head out now, dude." Jacob said. "Thanks for breakfast. You'd better give Saya a call to let her know you're not dead."

"Alright, I will."

He waved and walked out the door.

Zachary realized he actually didn’t have Saya’s number, he could only resort to sending her an email. So after writing a message to assuage her worries, he found himself alone with nothing to do. It was Sunday, so he didn't have school.

'Unfortunately my game console has been overridden. So I can't pass the time like I usually would. Oh wait!'

Remembering what he was doing before, he looked around and soon found the backpack with his console. Bringing it out, he immediately activated [Observation].

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

- {Attributes: indestructible}

The information was stunning, to say the least, but it was still disappointing, neither answering any questions or revealing anything new.

He shrugged and thought inwardly, ‘I guess I can use it as a shield.’

Driven by unsatisfied curiosity, he then booted up his mom’s computer.

There were several things he could do more research on.

The first thing to come to mind was his game console, of course.

Unfortunately, Zachary couldn't find anything about admin terminals or possessed game consoles.

It was single-player, after all. It didn't require any external moderation, so those kinds of features in general weren’t needed. And “possessed game consoles” returned zero hits, so looking for more information led to an abrupt dead-end.

The second thing he wanted to check was related to the title he gained that morning. Specifically he wanted to know about other titles, how easy they were to get and how beneficial they would be to his strength. Fortunately, a page detailing a list of titles along with some helpful notes left by other gamers popped up.

{Titles that can be earned in the game for accomplishing various feats.}

{The Envious. Effect: boosts all stats by ten points when facing a higher-level foe. Awarded for defeating 200 higher-level monsters.}

{The Glutton. Effect: provides a 2% chance of gaining a skill known by an enemy when it is slain. Awarded when the player consumes meat belonging to their species.}

{The Greedy. Effect: tips market transactions in favor of the player by 10%. Awarded after 10,000 transactions are made.}

{The Lustful. Effect: provides 10 invisible infamy bonus points that improves charisma with a-morally inclined NPCs. Awarded upon the successful purchase of equipment tailored to the opposite gender.}

{The Prideful. Effect: provides a flat boost of 20 points to power and constitution. Awarded for pummelling a monster that is 10 levels higher.}

{The Sloth. Effect: awards passive xp at the start of every day, giving one level worth every week. Awarded for not leveling-up in 7 days.}

{The Wrathful. Effect: has a 30% chance to give a beneficial status effect at the start of battle. Awarded for slaughtering 200,000 monsters within 60 seconds.}

{...9 more}

{Hint: It's best to try and earn most of these titles from the nightmare dungeons. Those places offer more bizarre situations that can reward the player with a title and help level up skills, even though they don't provide any player-leveling experience.}

Zachary was delighted.

Unfortunately, because this was a page written by players, there were bound to be some missed titles that no one knew about yet… for example, titles awarded to those with %100 game completion. Besides, even if someone knew, it didn't guarantee they would update the fan page for the rest of them.

But it was more than adequate for his purposes. He copied the necessary information to a notebook, along with all the absurd award conditions, and put it in his inventory.

‘The conditions on some of these are a little ridiculous and the benefits are stupidly good. However…’ Zachary eyed the conditions for gaining {The Glutton} in particular. 'It might be okay in a game, and the reward is definitely something I can use, but I think I have to eat human flesh to gain this one…

‘Furthermore, the lust title looks a little bit sketchy too. If the reward wasn’t so good, I wouldn’t even consider trying to complete it.

‘And one more thing, the description for {The Wrathful} from the game’s wiki doesn’t match what my status window says.’

{The Wrathful. Effect: has a 30% chance to give a beneficial status effect at the start of battle. Awarded for slaughtering 200,000 monsters within 60 seconds.}

[Titles:]

{The Wrathful: gives a beneficial status effect when emotional. Awarded for slaughtering 200,000 monsters within 60 seconds.}

‘My status window says I get the effect when I become emotional, but the wiki says I get it at the start of battle. I guess titles in the game are different from real life. I wonder if anything else is like that, or maybe it’s only the titles?’

He shrugged.

He didn’t know enough about the game to start making comparisons with his system. All he could think about was gaining more titles, and if he took the advice of the game wiki, he would have to wait for another nightmare dungeon to do that. Since there were no nightmares dungeons yet, all he could do was move on.

Of course, he might be able to gain {The Lustful} and {The Glutton} right now, but he was far too hesitant to attempt either of those things yet. Eating human flesh and buying womens underwear was way out of his comfort zone.

Moving on, Vera’s history, or game lore, was proving to be a crucial component of his real life explorations. Thankfully, pages upon pages of lore had been updated by gaming enthusiasts. Zachary was frankly shocked at the level of detail and spent several hours reading and memorizing before he got tired. After a quick lunch break, he forced himself to study for a few more hours, just to be thorough.

With this, he felt he had a general idea of Vera’s history. He would have to cross check this new knowledge with Lydia later. There was no way to prove everything was correct, but for now, he was satisfied.

The last thing he was curious about were the quests themselves.

If he could look ahead at where his quests would take him, wasn't that basically the same as looking into the future?

Now that he had reached a point of safety on Vera, a point where he wasn’t running for his life and had a relatively secure footing, Zachary wasn’t quite sure what he should do next.

Learning magic was a no-brainer. He would try and fill the role as Lydia’s apprentice as best he could, all so he could learn from her and use her practical knowledge.

But other than this, what else could he do? Was the game going to force him into a quest if he made a wrong move or stagnated?

What he found shocked him.

The main quest was missing… from HIS system!

The only things to be found on his [Quests] page was the [Defender] main quest and the standard daily quest (which he still hadn’t done).

However, on the internet, the name of the main quest was {Amnesia} which was something similar to a tutorial stage.

As the story goes, or was supposed to go, the hero wakes up in the Starter Forest with no memories or recollection. After a quick walkthrough of the game’s mechanics, the player would have a “chance” meeting with the princess of the Tulipalo family, earning an invitation to Caeli’s castle and a great deal of political recognition in the process. Then he or she would finally arrive at Fernsdale, where the {Amnesia} quest would update to the next stage...

{The Histowire’s Dream}

The player would be guided to find a holy relic, a single page that had been torn out of a mystical book called The Histowire, to initiate it.

Zachary knew he had never been given this quest. Furthermore, how was he supposed to know he was supposed to initiate the quest in the town he had just left and spent two days walking away from?

He started to panic.

If he had to spend two days traveling back to Fernsdale for something he missed, he would lose a lot of time practicing magic with Lydia. Plus he had no idea what he would tell her. He had just become her apprentice and couldn’t leave her so soon after accepting her offer.

After a frantic skim of the game wiki, he sighed with relief.

Thankfully, there were multiple “pages” of the book he could read, each scattered across the continent and located in major cities. He could even find one in Caeli. In fact, there was not just a single page in Caeli, the book itself was housed there in a place called the Buforas Church.

‘Well that’s convenient,’ he thought. ‘I wonder what the rest of the quest looks like.’

He started reading again and his expression slowly darkened.

‘Oh gosh. I spoke too soon. I hope there’s a fast-travel function.’

...

Zachary spent the rest of the day planning. For a game as massive as Dungeons and Towers II, it was only necessary.

His mom woke up that evening and helped him with dinner. They caught up with each other at the table.

“By the way mom, a friend of mine asked if I would like to join the culinary club,” Zachary suddenly remembered. “Can I join it?”

“Sure. I’m assuming it’s an after school class?” she responded.

“Yeah.”

“Okay. What time does it get out? I’ll start coming later to pick you up.”

He put down his drink. “Actually, I was thinking I would get home by myself from now on.”

“Oh? So you like riding your bike now?”

Zachary scratched his head in embarrassment. “Uh, yeah… I guess I do.”

Really, he figured it would be a better opportunity to complete his daily quests without arousing too much suspicion. Plus he could look for instance dungeons on the way home, and clear them for experience points.

‘So, just to give myself some time,’ he thought. ‘I’ll say the culinary class gets out later than it actually does.’

“The class is from four to five thirty after school,” he lied. It actually ended at five. “So I’ll probably be getting home around six o’clock. Is that okay?”

She nodded without batting an eyelash. “That’s fine. I’m glad you’re finally making friends after we moved here. Does that mean you’ll be riding your bike to school too, or should I drop you off in the mornings with it?”

“I’ll ride to school too,” he decided.

“Okay,” she nodded. “In that case, if I don’t have to worry about you in the mornings, I can sleep in before work. But I think we both know I’m just going to end up leaving earlier.”

“You’re such a workaholic, mom.”

When they were done eating, his mom stood up and collected the dishes from the table.

“You sure cleaned out the fridge while I was gone,” she said. “I’ll have to pick up groceries after work. It’s getting late. Go get ready for bed.”

He nodded.

After showering and preparing his school stuff for the week, he transferred the notebook with pages of useful game info into his inventory. With that, he was ready for the “night.”

His mom rapped on his door.

Zachary opened it for her.

“Oh, you opened it,” she said, somewhat surprised. “I just wanted to wish you good night.”

They stood there awkwardly for a moment, both standing and staring at each other in silence.

“Of course I opened it,” he responded.

The moment seemed to drag on.

Then Zachary suddenly moved. He hugged her with a surprising loneliness, his perception of time not being quite the same as hers. All the stress and fear he had felt suddenly surged up in his chest. He fought back tears knowing that if they fell he would have to tell her, he would have to worry her.

How many times had he almost lost his life? Twice maybe? Either way, it was two too many for anyone’s comfort, especially his mom’s.

But he had saved lives. The lives of NPCs in a game, yes. But did it matter? If they were all like Lydia, who was indistinguishable from a human like him, so what if he saved them? And what about the dungeon full of snakes that had appeared behind the school?

He would risk his life over and over again, just like his father, to save random strangers he didn’t know or would never meet.

“Mom,” he said, suddenly quiet, “if you had the chance, would you have stopped dad from going out that day?”

She hugged him tighter, only responding a moment later when she found the right choice of words. “Even if I tried, he would’ve gone anyway. That’s why I’m proud of him.”

His eyes trembled, and for a split-second he was ready to break down and tell her everything, but then a soothing sensation washed over his consciousness, calming him down in an instant.

[Title: The Wrathful. Activated.]

- {Focussed: boosts intelligence, defense, and enemy detection for three minutes.}

‘Now’s not the time,’ he reminded himself.

He stepped back from his mother and smiled lightly before she could become concerned and start asking questions.

“I know mom. Sorry I was being so cold last week. I’m glad you’re home. I missed you.”

She smiled in return. “I missed you too, Zachary. I know how hard this move has been on you. We left behind our old memories and you left behind your friends, all so I could get this job here. I know you are strong, like your father, but if you ever want to talk, I’m here for you.”

He nodded casually, “Thanks, Mom.”

“Goodnight, sweety.”

Zachary closed the door and crawled into bed.

He mentally explored the foreign yet familiar feeling of calmness and certainty brought on by the status effect {Focussed}.

‘Huh. So that’s what it takes to activate it,’ he thought coldy.

Right on time, Zachary switched worlds at precisely ten o’clock.

Shortly after Zachary went to bed, a crowd was gathered around a floating black orb in Beijing, China.

It was daytime on this side of the world, and the spectacle drew the curious gazes of government officials and pedestrians alike.

Suddenly a ferocious wind picked up, blowing the hats off of the bystanders. A single ominous cloud appeared in the cloudless sky right above the city and started to swirl, the orb at the eye.

News reporters with bulky cameras filmed the whole thing with agape expressions.

Boom. Boom.

Two large thunderbolts struck the orb, blinding and rupturing the eardrums of anyone who was too close.

Then the space around the orb started to crack, forming a triangular opening to another world. Numerous glowing eyes peered outwards from the void.

A category two instance dungeon had opened.

[End Chapter 25]