The sun had crested across the center of the sky before Joshua completed his full circuit through the woods, arriving back at the entrance of the driveway where his father had dropped him off. “Hmmm…” Biting his lip lightly, Joshua frowned worriedly up into the sky. “It's a much smaller zone overall, than what I’d expected,” he told himself aloud. Being surrounded by the unnatural silence of the dungeon had caused him to unconsciously start speaking his thoughts out loud to break the eerie gloom of the dungeon zone.

Pulling out his cellphone from his pocket, Joshua stared back down the driveway leading towards the old house, before shivering slightly and starting to walk down the edge of the main road back towards home. Forcing himself to walk at a normal pace and not glance back over his shoulder, Joshua pressed the button to initiate a group call.

“JOSHY POO!”

“Where have..”

“We’ve been…”

“Will you guys…”

Multiple windows popping open on his phone at the same time, and with everyone clambering to talk over each other in the same instant, made Joshua stop walking and stare at his phone stupidly. From what little he could see with his screen split four distinct ways, it appeared that all four of the girls were together and they'd all been waiting to be the first to answer his call.

“Sorry,” he apologized, hanging his head lightly. “I don't mean to be a pain, but can you guys shut up for a moment? I can't make out a word you're saying, with all four of you screaming at the same time.”

“Yeah! I’m trying…”

“Those girls…”

“So what have…”

“You tell them…”

Apparently, each of the four women – Olivia, Rebecca, Natasha, and Maria – felt that he was obviously talking to the other three and not them, as they all continued to trying to drown the others out to say whatever it was they were wanting to say. All Joshua could make out from the intermixed babble was that he was quickly getting a headache.

“Okay then…” Trying to interject himself into the conversation didn’t help, as he was instantly cut off and ignored by the four girls, as they all seemed to be wanting to carry on their own distinct conversation with him all at once. From what little he could make out, it appeared as if Olivia was simply wanting to talk and fawn over to her “darling”, just to make the others jealous. Maria and Natasha appeared to be in some sort of contest to draw his attention from the other. Only Rebecca actually seemed to be trying to ask him about what he’d been doing and what he wanted – which is why Joshua decisively closed the group chat window completely and tapped to open a private video chat with her alone.

“Hey!” Laughing lightly, Rebecca’s face was centered on his phone as she quickly answered his private call. From what Joshua could see from the background image, it seemed as if she was moving quickly through a building somewhere. “One moment!” Slamming a door behind her, Rebecca was beaming brightly as she ignored the pounding coming from the other side, as she eased over and sat down atop the edge of a tub.

“Sorry,” she apologized. “The others are all crazy, and I knew they’d probably steal my phone from me once they realized I was talking to you and they couldn’t. Where have you been all day? Everyone’s been trying to get in touch with you since early this morning, and you’ve never responded to any calls or messages. We’ve been getting a little worried since it’s the weekend. We’ve all been expecting you to at least call us, even if you couldn’t come over for a ‘study session’ again this weekend!”

“Sorry,” Joshua blushed slightly in embarrassment. “I’m not used to having to report in with people, so I never even thought about calling you guys before I went hunting this morning. I’m just now on my way home,” he explained a little sheepishly.

“Where the heck were you hunting that there’s no phone service?” Rebecca asked moodily. “Siberia?”

“The old White place,” Joshua admitted, in spite of himself. He was going to say ‘nowhere special’, but apparently the system considered that to be too much of a lie to allow it. Sighing helplessly, all he could was shrug his shoulders slightly in apology.

“The dungeon zone? I thought we’d all agreed to go there together,” Rebecca snorted, glaring daggers into her phone. “You were supposed to wait on us!”

“I did! I did,” Joshua rushed to assure her. “All I did this morning is walk back and forth around the edge of the zone. I never actually went inside it!” Luckily, the system apparently didn’t see his lack of admitting that he was too freaked out to go inside as being something that it had to force out of him. Grinning weakly, Joshua was relieved that he could keep his lack of nerves to himself. No man wanted to be thought of as a coward, after all!

“All I did was scout the parameter of the place,” Joshua promised, trying to look as innocent as possible while staring into his phone. “I thought learning and shape the size of the zone might help us somehow, but now I’m not so sure. I think I actually have more questions now than what I had before I went on my little walkabout.”

“Oh? Like what?” Easing down and relaxing back in the tub, Rebecca seemed completely oblivious to the ceaseless thumping and shouting coming from the door to the bathroom behind her.

“For starters,” Joshua sighed deeply, as he slowly started walking back up the long hill towards his home, “the overall size of the dungeon zone is quite a bit smaller than I would’ve expected. If we walk down the road and in a straight line, we could probably cut straight through the center of the area in less than ten or fifteen minutes. That means we’d never actually be that far from the exit, so if things get dangerous, we could always quickly run away.”

“Well that sounds like a good thing,” Rebecca laughed happily. “Being able to stay safe, or quickly escape from danger sounds like a good thing to me!”

“Yeah,” Joshua agreed, frowning slightly. “The only problem is I don’t feel like things would be that simple. There’s a warning that the dungeon zone is dangerous before you accidently stumble into it, and it doesn’t quite make sense that the system would have to give one, if the exit was always just a quick sprint away.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Rebecca frowned, biting her lower lip slightly. “What do you thinks going on with things in there then?”

“I’m not certain,” Joshua sighed heavily again, slowly waving his hand through his hair as he walked. “In a lot of ways, this new world system seems almost game-like in the way things work. Do quests. Earn points. Buy skills and advantages. I haven’t seen any sort of indication that allows a person to ‘level up´ yet, but not all games embrace the concept of level systems – especially those that are heavily skill or talent focused!

“If this WRP is based around some sort of game concepts,” Joshua stressed, “then there’s a lot of things which I could think of to explain the small zone size.”

“Like what?” Rebecca prompted, curiously, as things finally started to quiet down somewhat on her end of the phone.

“For starters,” Joshua chuckled wryly, “we can’t be certain that physics and geometry work the way that we’re used to them working any more. After all, if a tiny little girl like Olivia can suddenly pick up half a car and carry it over her shoulder, the standard rules of life as we know them have massively changed. The outside of this zone might be a half hour walk from edge to edge, but the inside might be larger than our whole county for all we know still! Just because seems small doesn’t mean it actually is!”

“That’s true,” Rebecca agreed, sighing slightly as Joshua’s pensive and worried mood started to slowly bleed off down to her. “Just scouting the edges would be worthless in a case like that,” she pouted lightly.

“Of course,” Joshua continued, ignoring her interruption, “there’s other options as well. Since this is a ‘haunted house’, according to local legends, and since the system calls it a ‘dungeon zone’, then the real zone might not be the yard and land itself, but the interior of the house and outbuildings. Heck, it might even have a large underground area connected to the basement, or something, which would need to be explored and cleared.”

“And then there’s always the chance that it actually is a fairly straightforward, small zone, but with a rather powerful or unique boss style monster in it. Something like that would explain why there’d be a warning to the area,” Joshua shrugged uncertainly.

“I can think of another option – which would probably be the best for us, if it’s true,” Rebecca offered. “What if it’s that small because it takes time to grow and you stumbled into it early? Take for instance, if the dungeon is full of goblins or such. To start with, it might only be a small tribe of a dozen of them. Right now, it’s a tiny area…”

“But,” she warned heavily, “what if they’re left alone for the next year or so, while nobody else has access to the system to grow like us? Can you imagine how many they could breed and how far their influence might spread when they suddenly erupt out upon the world in three hundred and whatever days?”

“So all we’re left with, at the end of the day,” Joshua groaned with disappointment, “is more questions than what we even had before, with no real answers. I spent all this time walking the parameter of the zone, and I’ve really learned is that the inside is spooky as hell. Every fiber of my being was telling me to hurry up and get the hell away from the place, and my nerves are shot to hell.

“Honestly,” Joshua admitted reluctantly, “even the entrance of the dungeon zone makes me want to piss my pants and run away as fast as possible. IF – and that’s a mighty big IF, at this point – IF we’re going to try and explore or clear this place next weekend, I think we’re all going to have to buy several ranks of fear resistance between now and then.”

“Well see,” Rebecca comforted him lightly, “you did manage to learn something really important for us. You didn’t waste your time like you claimed you did,” she encouraged, smiling brightly.

“Yeah. Maybe,” Joshua smiled depreciatingly. “I’m almost back home, so I’m going to go ahead and get off from here for now,” he nodded towards his phone. “I’m going to take this weekend to catch up and get ahead on my chores, and see if there’s any extra little tasks I can pick up for some easy points. Let the others know what I’ve told you,” he commanded lightly, “and you guys discuss things a bit and see what all of you can come up with.

“Let them know I’ll contact everyone later this evening,” Joshua chuckled lightly. “IF,” Joshua stressed, “they can calm down and we can all enjoy a nice group chat together then, without everyone trying to drown each other out and bust my eardrums. Tell them,” Joshua smirked mischievously, “that if they can’t do that, I’ll just stick to only chatting with you and I’ll end up making you my official spokesperson for the group, if I have to.”

“Sounds great!” Eyes twinkling, Rebecca was obviously already relishing the idea of such a thing coming to pass. Just imagine if she was the only one who he actually talked to on the phone! The others would all be soooo jealous!!

“Then that’s it for now,” Joshua chuckled, swiping off his phone as he hung up on Rebecca. Already, he was starting to learn, the only way a guy could ever deal with something as complicated as a harem was if he ended up playing the women off against each other. Life wasn’t like an anime after all! If they all ended up turning their attention to him, he’d never be able to survive!

The only way to live in a real world situation like he was in, was if the girls spent a lot of their time focusing more on each other than on him. After all, he was just one poor guy, and there were already half a dozen women and girls! If they all ganged up against him, like earlier, then he was toast – no matter what restrictions the system might try and impose on things!