Sean woke up far too early for his liking, gasping. He did not know what he dreamed of, but his body was covered with cold sweat and he was shivering. With groggy, but wide-open eyes, he looked around before finally settling on the window. It was just past dawn and the reddish-yellow light from the sun basked the entire world in its glory —the ghosts were gone.

He was parched and his throat felt like its back and its front was glued together. Only then did he realize that his hygiene was horrible.

It was weird how such mundane worries were easily forgotten when you were in another world, fighting with your life on the line.

Sean climbed up to a sitting position and slowly got up. He’d fallen asleep with everything he was wearing, including the cloak, pendant, and ring. There was a blanket put over him while he was asleep. Mr. Ishida was sleeping on the ground on a thin mattress.

He quietly made his way back to his backpack. He had a full water bottle if what the System told was true. His laptop should be back in action as well, hopefully, but that was the least of his worries now. Without electricity and monsters prowling through the streets during the night, Sean doubted Programming on a laptop would be of any use.

After he pulled open the zips, Sean found the snacks he’d given to Ashley in Veidrheim back in his backpack. The water bottle was also there and so was his laptop. He didn’t bother to check if it was working. There was no need for it.

“Leaving?” asked Mr. Ishida, eyes still closed.

“Yeah. I am,” said Sean and put a wry smile on his face while looking at him, and slightly nodded his head. It was a reflex more than anything. It was his way of saying thank you. He didn’t know when he picked it up, but at some point, he’d started doing it, “Thanks.”

“Not eating anything?” asked Mr. Ishida again.

“I have… no appetite,” said Sean after chugging down half the bottle. It was a metal one that he’d filled a day before the System came so the water inside tasted fishy, but he did not care.

“We’re moving to the haven after those two wake up,” said Mr. Ishida, “If no one is home… you can come with us. Or ask for your family to go there as well. That is where everyone is moving to or so I have heard. It’s far livelier outdoors nowadays during the day. Those darned computers and cellphones are gone.”

Sean did not think much of it. After all, there was no electricity and that meant no internet. It also meant that no one could call each other as the antennae or whatever made them work would be gone. He didn’t use phones all that much anyway. The internet and a mobile laptop made it obsolete, especially considering his parents didn’t even bother to call him most of the time.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” said Sean. He did not plan to move to a safe haven. He wanted answers, and if it meant visiting every single relative of his in the city until he found someone that was home even if his family wasn’t. And something told him that his family wouldn’t be in a haven, “Where is it?”

“St. Lucas’ Academy,” said Mr. Ishida. Sean knew the place. It had an entrance exam. He’d taken it and failed miserably. The real charm of a boarding school would only be felt if he was from outside the city and he wasn’t, so it didn’t hit him as badly, “It is on the other side of the city, so we have to move early.”

“I see,” said Sean. He pulled his backpack up. As if remembering something, he slid his hand into the head hole of his shirt and touched where he was stabbed by the needles of the mosquitos. There was no mark, but whether it was due to the injury healing or their delicate stingers, Sean did not know. He also managed to notice that his shirt was dirty now, especially the sides. He was lying on the ground when he came back to Earth.

The door was the kind that locked itself when it closed, so there was no need for Mr. Ishida to get up.

Sean shut it behind himself and looked at the corridor. It was dark. He hadn’t noticed it yesterday, but the lack of windows made it far darker. Usually, lights with motion sensors would light up whenever he walked under them. But again, no electricity.

He wasn’t afraid of it but lighting up the area with a Mana Ball seemed like a good idea.

So he… wouldn’t trip, yeah… That was why he created light.

It wasn’t like he was scared…

The Mana Ball came naturally, Computation making it as easy as him thinking about creating a Mana Ball. The circle wasn’t even properly imagined and it wasn’t tapped before it activated. It was almost automatic and a Mana Ball popped out. It hovered in the air without a Push component, imitating a sort of lantern. It’d go out soon in around a minute or so. Sean did not know the exact time, but he felt like it would be a minute.

He lived on the fourth floor so it wasn’t all that far away. Climbing the stairs felt tiring before, but after he’d sprinted up a mountain for hours on end without even feeling a tinge of exhaustion, it was comfortable. There were windows near the stairs so he didn’t need a Mana Ball to light up the path.

Did awakening the Heart Factor make him feel its effect more actively?

What had caused it to awaken in the first place?

Him struggling? His first kill? His despair? There were far too many maybes but nothing concrete, making him look forward to getting back home even further. He wanted the answers to all these questions floating around his head and the true identity of his parents as well as what they did.

His father was a Morris and his mother apparently had a Heart Factor, meaning she’d eaten four hearts —that wasn’t something every mother did.

At least Sean thought they didn’t.

Did they?

So with a heavy heart, Sean knocked on the door quite loudly.

There was no answer.

He banged again, but this time for almost ten seconds.

Again, there was no response.

Sean pulled off his backpack and opened the compartment at the front. There was his key, dangling from a keychain. Dangling right next to the key was a small, silver-colored bullet accessory with the word ‘Year’ etched onto it. It was something Sean’s father had given him on his 16th birthday. In the eyes of someone who actually knew a thing about guns, they’d notice the size was just about that of a 9mm round.

The door popped open after he turned the key and finally, he was home. The key was put into the left pocket of his jeans, right where his wallet was. Right… it was there. But he didn’t even care about it in Veidrheim. It had gotten lost somewhere. The laptop was far more important then.

It smelled like home.

It was like coming back from the most hellish vacation in the world and the first thing that he wanted to do was collapse on the bed in his room, but he did not have such a luxury.

Sean’s eyes widened as he looked at his home, or rather, what remained of it.

The large window of the living room was broken, the shards lying everywhere on the ground and on the sofa. There were muddy footprints on the carpet —they always took their shoes off before coming in. The TV and the various paintings that hung from the wall were lying on the ground, some of them torn apart in several pieces.

Walking further into the house proved that nothing was the same. All the drawers were pulled out and broken —the very wood and metal were broken as if they did not even matter. The table in his father’s office was thrown aside and the back of the office chair looked to have been cut in half cleanly.

The fridge was open, all the contents sprawled on the ground and the glass tables were all cracked and broken in several places. The house was definitely not a place you’d want to go barefoot in, so Sean did not even bother to take them off.

All the bedsheets were thrown off the bed, the mattresses were also torn open. It looked like they were searching for something.

Monsters?

So they were… real?

Sean knew from the fact that his mother had eaten the hearts of what he assumed to be werewolves that there were indeed monsters and that had been proven yesterday, but he did not know whether the ghosts were due to the System or not. But this? This proved that there were monsters and that they had a very good reason to turn his house upside down.

He didn’t even know if any sword known to man could tear the office chair in two as cleanly as that. It had plastic support and that did not seem to have hindered whoever, or rather, whatever had done that.

“What the hell happened here?” Sean mumbled underneath his breath as he walked through the house. It felt surreal, seeing his home be reduced to such a state. Sure enough, his bed was also destroyed. So far for lying down on his own bed after a long journey. His table was also broken apart, yet it remained standing. Upon it, he spotted a piece of paper with scribbled handwriting on it. Next to it was a sheathed knife.

He picked it up and stared at it.

“Uncle Jeremy’s,” he read out loud and let it go, not even bothering to pick it up. Was it a trap by whoever had come here? Or was it his parents? He did not know and that was the worst part of it all. He had to decide without any cues or proof.

Sean grit his teeth as he stared at the ground.

There was no choice. It was obvious. He’d go to Uncle Jeremy’s, whether it was a trap or not. If it was, then he’d just turn the whole place into rubble!

It wasn’t as if he couldn’t do it.

Sean then regarded the knife. It looked impractical, with a circular cross-guard and all. He unsheathed it and looked at it —Damascus Steel. Both colors were lighter shades of gray.

He slid the knife back into its sheath. The sound it made as it slid back made him feel as if he was back in Veidrheim and seemed to be the same size as the one that Fillmore had given him. He hadn’t used it for combat, but it was reassuring to have a dagger on his person. Like he was protected. For a moment, he thought about whether all of it was real or not, though the System hinted that it was.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have become a Legend.

But Sean pushed his stray thoughts away. He needed answers now, and thinking about the past wouldn’t help him one bit.

For that, he had to get to Uncle Jeremy’s. When his house was on the other side of the city, it didn’t sound all that pleasant without a car or buses. Maybe, just maybe, he could peek at Clara’s house to check whether she was home?

Yeah, that sounded like an excellent idea.

Then he heard something.

It sounded like a wet squelch very much like the sound of boots stepping into the mud. Was it a bird that had managed to come into the house through the window? Despite everything pointing at it being some animal, Sean cautiously unsheathed the dagger and walked out, ready to slash whatever came out. His right hand held the dagger and the sheath was lightly placed on the table. The left arm was ready to cast a spell if need be as he walked out the room.

Sean looked around, trying to pinpoint the location. It sounded like water was splashing around. There were two bathrooms. One was near the entrance and the second one in his parents’ bedroom — this sound came from the bedroom.

His breathing slightly increased its pace as Sean walked into the bedroom. The door was blown off its hinges and stepping on it made a loud noise, making him cringe.

He turned the corner and pointed his dagger at whatever was in there as if it would help —the door was closed.

It was unmistakable. The source of the sound was the bathroom.

Sean steeled his resolve. After seeing giant mosquitos flying around in the sky and having the ghost push him through a door, he wasn’t taking any chances.

“Mana Ball,” said Sean quietly, more to himself than anything. The circles appeared from his fingertips and shot forward with a Push component. It wasn’t a condensed version so it didn’t shoot through it like a bullet. Instead, it was more like a push that forced it off its hinges. Yet it remained standing after the strike, even if barely.

The sound stopped.

Sean’s eyes narrowed as he waited for whatever was inside to come out, slowly making his way forward.

Then the door snapped open with immense force, enough to force the almost-broken door to snap off its hinges and fall aside. Steam came from inside and the hot air assailed his face and nostrils. It wasn’t enough to burn, but it was hot. Then words started to be written across the steamy mirror. It was a crude sentence if it could be called that.

It said ‘HUNTER KILL’ in capital letters, the handwriting barely eligible —the ‘KILL’ was underlined.

Before he even finished reading it, with a crack, the mirror shattered and the fragments were scattered across the ground. Black smoke knocked him aside and darted right past him. It was fast, very much like a baseball zipping past him and out the window. He could see it, but he couldn’t react —he was frozen.

His body did not move, but that did not mean his mind did not think. Appraisal activated itself, the System reading his intention expertly.

Skill ‘Appraisal’ has been activated!

Name: ???

Class: Haunter Lvl 3

Title(s): Apparition, Sorcerer of the Elements

Mana: 210/340

Sean’s blood ran cold when he saw the screen.

It wasn’t a Monster.

The Appraisal Screen was like Mr. Ishida’s and it had a title but not the Status of a monster—it was a Player.

That meant all those ghosts were… the creatures that existed all along before the System. They were people that could think for themselves and they were here, in his home. It was no mere coincidence. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have drawn that message, addressing him.

Sean clenched his fist around the dagger with a white-knuckled grip, not even knowing what was happening. He thought he’d get answers, but it seemed like the number of questions he was thinking of asking was getting larger and larger.

He looked out the window and frowned.

Just what sort of life did his parents even live?

***

Mr. Ishida wasn’t lying. It had been barely an hour from dawn but the streets were full. Maybe people slept earlier. It made sense, though. It only made sense for them to sleep when there was nothing to do and ghosts haunted the apartments during the night. Sean could see some people wearing attire that would be called ‘cosplay’ not even two weeks ago, some carrying swords and wearing armor while some others had the same pendant and ring as him. Not the cloak, though. He didn’t see anyone wearing something like that.

It felt like he was in some alternate reality where fantasy elements were thrown into Earth and integrated into it. Appraisal told him that most of them were Level 1, but some were slightly higher, ranging from 2 to 4. He didn’t even look at their names, simply their classes. Physical classes were more common than magical ones, but that did not mean there was a shortage of mages —it seemed that the Spellbooks were supposed to reach the Players, proving his suspicions.

So many people couldn’t be simply lucky.

Their Mana Points ranged from 400 to 600. He was slightly better off than them but not many of them had pendants. The Mage Pendant gave him a considerable Intelligence boost and it would do the same for others. He felt small as if he was just another one of the crowd rather than anything special.

The title of hunter-mage had managed to grow on him. That, and his extra life. Now the tutorial was over and he had a single life left. It made him feel more hesitant, even more so than how he was before the System came. Death wouldn’t have come for him unless he jumped in front of a car before the System.

Now?

It was everywhere.

Sean could imagine ten scenarios in which he could die and that wasn’t even taking into account any human attacking him. The chances were slim, though. He hadn’t made many enemies. You didn’t get a chance to make any when you were too busy studying.

No one hated him… right?

The one person closest to hating him would be his geography teacher back from high school —he’d skipped one too many classes.

It was bright outside. Compared to the Northern weather of Veidrheim, it felt as if it was summer. Not as stuffy, though. If there was one weather Sean hated, it was a sunny day where there was no cloud nor wind. Days like that were too suffocating. That’s why he stayed home for the entirety of summer and also why he only really hung out with friends when school was in session.

“I killed it, I swear!” sounded out a voice from the distance. It was a girl. Sean turned his head and looked at the source. They were only ten or so meters away from him. It was a group of four kids. He used that term generously, though. They were probably in their first year of high school or the later years of middle school —three girls and a boy.

Right, friends…

All the ones he had were either abroad or had drifted away from him. He did make a few of them in university, but they all lived in the urban parts of the city. They’d have no business running into him here.

“Look at my title!” shouted the girl. All three of her friends didn’t seem to be taking her all that seriously, “It says Spirit Banisher, right? Come on. I honestly did.”

Sean raised an eyebrow and activated his Appraisal. Very much like most of the other Skills he had, the System seemed to be doing most of the heavy lifting. Research was activated even when he didn’t want it to, Computation was probably working in the background all the time and Appraisal specifically stated that it would be automatically activated.

Skill ‘Appraisal’ has been activated!

Name: Alina Wagner

Class: Elementalist Lvl 3

Title(s): Practitioner of the Arcane Arts, Spirit Banisher

Mana: 530 / 620

Sean’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the title.

Had she killed the one that came from his house?

“I just shot a fireball at the smoke and I suddenly got experience,” said the girl, “Promise. It just died like that.”

“It didn’t work last time,” said another one of the girls, rolling her eyes, “Why would it work this time?”

“Maybe I missed before,” said the first one, “Or maybe I just caught it off guard this time. But that still means we can kill them if we try!”

Sean turned away and walked toward the stairway he’d climbed up the night before. He didn’t want to look like some kind of pervert, even if that was the last of his worries. The stairway didn’t feel all that scary now in the daylight.

He still had his backpack. The food inside would help him, he guessed. But he’d pulled out the laptop from the bag and left it at home along with his textbooks and stationeries —they were useless to him now. The semester was over and he didn’t think it would be starting in September as well.

In his left hand was the dagger. Putting it in his pockets made Sean feel wrong, so he instead ended up holding it. Having one of those holsters would be a blessing now, but alas, he did not have one.

Before leaving the house, he’d looked around for some more snacks back at home. There wasn’t much of it but there was some. And needless to say, he put every chocolate bar in the drawers. They wouldn’t have much use for it. Either way, most of the food in the fridge was rotten now excluding the two cans of baked beans which he’d put into his backpack.

It was heavier now but it felt even lighter than when he used to carry it to school. Maybe because his Strength had increased, even if the increase wasn’t as astronomical. It still counted, he guessed. Now that he thought of it, though, the Strength hadn’t increased naturally —it was only thanks to his titles that it did.

Speaking of titles, he remembered something that he should have tested out a long time ago. Sean suddenly halted in his tracks —he had Mana Sight and there were lots of mages in the area. What better time to test it out than now?

He thought of activating it, much like every time he activated any Skill after closing his eyes. Then slowly, he opened them and was assailed by a sea of colors. They weren’t flowing. Rather, it looked like he was in the sea and the very world seemed to be blue.

Sean did not see anything.

Rather, nothing that he should see was visible, but everything he did not see before was laid bare before his eyes.

The stairway that he’d walked down through was not visible but the faintest outline of it was covered with spots of blue light not very different from miniature versions of his Mana Ball. It was as if the entire world and every object in it was pure blackness. The only way he could orient himself and see was via the blots of light and their placement.

Buildings weren’t visible but very much like the stairs, he could see the lights.

Then Sean noticed something. He could see the roof of the buildings clearly. There was a large amount of light atop the buildings but the sides of the buildings were barely visible. It felt as if his depth perception was flawless, easily understanding the layouts of the buildings with just that.

Slightly elevated from the ground where the ‘ground’ floor of the apartment complex was, Sean saw humanoid figures that looked deep blue. Near their solar plexuses was a bright blue light that pulsated through their body, making their entire dark blue body glow a faint blue every so often.

Further in the distance which Sean assumed was around a hundred meters away, his sight simply cut off. It looked like there was nothing beyond that point, only one-half of a building visible near the hundred-meter mark away from him.

Then Sean looked at his own body and he saw the very same dark blue body he’d seen on others. It, too, pulsated with the blue light. Up close, he could see the Magic Circuits that let the Mana travel through his body. The pendant and ring glowed a magnificent white compared to all the blue in the world.

The blue balls seemed to be moving as if carried by a phantom wind that Sean did not feel.

A sharp pain shot through Sean’s temples and he snapped his eyes shut. The next time he opened it, the miraculous world was gone. He felt the exhaustion he knew far too well come upon him, or rather, the weariness.

Sean summoned his Status Screen and looked at his Mana Points. They were below 50. Given his considerable Mana Pool of 730, it seemed that Mana Sight drained a lot of Mana. Yet it was not on the Skill’s description, as far as he noticed. Maybe it was not absolute?

He blinked several times and pulled his backpack off his back. Then from the inside, he pulled out his bottle and drunk half of what remained of it, leaving only a quarter there.

Before he visited Clara’s, maybe he could pay a visit to a shop.

***

There weren’t many open shops around if there were any. His apartment complex had two but both were empty. It had been more than a week and most of the stuff would have either rotten or would have been picked off by people. It made sense. Broica didn’t have bountiful harvests and often relied on import to feed its people —there was none of that now. Only people eating whatever was there.

Maybe a Mad Max-like world wasn’t too far off.

Sean looked at the streets. The bushes were visibly green and everything seemed to be vibrantly colored. People walked through the streets as if it was a normal day but he noticed that they weren’t moving toward the apartments. They were moving away from it. Was it toward the haven?

He could only guess.

Visiting a shop ended up being a complete and utter waste of time. It was apparent that he wouldn’t be finding anything he needed there. The route was quite simple —to Clara’s, and then to Uncle Jeremy’s. Clara’s house was near the center of the city so after he passed by that, he’d be on the shortest route to the other side of the city.

Her house was close. So close, in fact, that he was sure he could get there within ten minutes if he hurried. That wasn’t an issue now. He had time if he had anything. It was spring so he had at least the whole day to walk to the other side of the town —it’d take him half a day at most to get to Uncle Jeremy’s.

But Sean halted in his tracks as a loud buzzing sound filled his head and a notification popped up in front of him. It was akin to a headache caused by low Mana, but this one was more manageable —it could be filtered out. There was a ringing sound in his ears but most of it subsided within moments as Sean stared at the screen before him.

System Notification

Conditions for unlocking the Portal System have been fulfilled. You will be connected to 26 Planets of your Generation to join ‘Block A’. Access to interplanetary travel via Travel System will be possible. Planetary Summits may be announced.

Time Remaining: 23:59:59

The time slowly, but surely flowed. It seemed distinctly familiar as if this was exactly what had happened when the System first came to Earth. The time did not tick toward him being teleported somewhere this time, however. It seemed to be a countdown for ‘portals’ to be opened.

It wasn’t even worth being surprised about at this point.

His life had turned into some sort of game and he’d ended up choosing to fight giants like some madman. Then he’d realized that his parents were apparently not as they seemed and that monsters existed all along on Earth. Now it was aliens?

What next?

Gods?

As if that would happen.

Many things that he’d thought to be myth may have been real all along, but surely, gods did not exist. He was never religious and the only real ‘belief’ he had in them was believing that they’d let him win a debate of who the coolest god is. It was a nerdy sort of fun and Sean thought for a second.

Speaking of nerds, Sean suddenly turned his head to the left.

Wasn’t Chris’ house just around the corner? They were basically the same age and both of them were the ‘nerds’ in family reunions —that was what they’d been dubbed by the kids. In their age range were only Sean himself, Chris, and Madison. Madison was Chris’s twin sister and clearly, she’d drawn the lottery in life, easily getting accepted into Harvard with a full scholarship.

Chris was different, more of a practical guy. If Madison was that one scientist you saw developing a cure in epidemic movies, Chris was the mechanic that fixed the cars and made everything run. He wasn’t an engineer yet, but Sean had heard that he was going to attend a trade school after coming back from the military.

As for Sean… he was that one nerdy kid that died in the opening sequence of the movie or somehow miraculously managed to survive until the end by pure luck. At least that’s how he viewed himself. He was certainly not some godly hacker and regular programmers didn’t adapt well in an apocalypse movie.

Since he was a relative, maybe he was at Uncle Jeremy’s.

But he was low on water and raiding a relative’s house for drinks seemed like the most morally righteous option so far. Drinking from the river wasn’t something he wanted to resort to —it could be toxic. He heard that they weren’t safe to drink unless boiled. And certainly, breaking into a stranger’s house didn’t seem like a good idea.

And he lived alone so Sean knew that there were at least a few bottles of beer in the fridge if there was no water.

Sean was no alcoholic but if push came to shove and he had to choose between being thirsty and being drunk, he’d instantly choose the latter.

And maybe, just maybe, he needed it.

The street was mostly empty but Sean could see a few people loitering around, most of them with bags very much like him. He wasn’t going through the park. If there were so many mosquitos, then they would most likely be near the river —a part of it ran through the park.

It wasn’t even ten o’clock in the morning, he thought.

Not being cold didn’t make you ignore it altogether. You could feel how cold it was without being uncomfortable. And it certainly wasn’t too warm. At least not yet. After noon came to pass, it’d actively start getting hotter and that would be when his plight would start.

There were no cars. Rather, there were cars but they were simply left there. Some of them had broken windows and some of them had blood splattered across them. But there was no sight of the bodies.

An entire week had passed, possibly with a good amount of bloodshed every night, so why weren’t there any bodies? He couldn’t check the park where he’d killed a handful of those critters as it was too far.

Were people cleaning off the corpses? Or did they simply disappear like in a game?

Sean didn’t want to think more of it. It would be a headache.