What I saw above was a nightmare for anyone with arachnophobia. Was it me, or did some of the Heroes look really uncomfortable? I swear that among the fuss people had made was someone’s scream. I really couldn’t understand such people. Couldn’t they understand how cute and graceful those eight-legged creatures were?

A tide of spiders and scorpions was the only thing that seemed to appear after I’d touched the Obelisk. And that was highly unusual, for Heroes were supposed to have two Aspects and two Elements. It didn’t seem to be the same for me, which could only mean. . .

So I’m not really a Hero, huh? I smiled wryly. Will they send me home now? Not like there’s even a way if I am to believe their words. Or will they choose to get rid of such a nuisance? Of course not now. Most likely, the emperor would act in secret from other earthlings if he ever decided to get rid of one of us.

“So I only have one Aspect?” I asked Redion, trying to keep a calm expression despite my worries. “I hope that it’s at least something good.”

“I’m not sure, Hero Jesse.” The emperor still called me a Hero. “No human, Hero or otherwise, is supposed have one Aspect and two Elements. The number should be equal.”

I raised a brow. “Two Elements?”

“Oh, it would be easy to miss, indeed.” Redion showed me his usual fake smile. “Look closely while the Manifestation still lasts. I guess it’s easy to miss for someone without enhanced senses.”

Now that I really paid careful attention to what I was seeing, I noticed that there were pieces of transparent glass flying around the tide of cuteness. So one Element found, one more to go. . .and that was when everything that was supposed to be there to show off my newly gained powers disappeared. Well, those images hadn’t lasted too long the previous few times, so there was no real reason for there to be an exception specifically for me.

“What your Manifestation represents, Hero Jesse,” Redion said, explaining to me as much as to other Heroes, “is an Arachnid Aspect, which is Uncommon, as well as one Rare and one Common Element—Glass and Air, respectively. Glass is an extremely potent and potentially deadly Element which can kill opponents without even giving them a chance. But what I’m more interested to know is what is your second Aspect, if you have any. Can you please share your Status with us? You can call it up but with a thought.”

“I thought that you were reading all this information from the runes that appeared on the Obelisk, though?” I pointed out at the nipples of the Goddess that were still censored by glowing symbols.

Redion shook his head with what could be described as a bitter smile. “Unfortunately those are Runes of the Ancients, there’s no one among us who can easily read them.”

“Tee-hee,” the princess, Christinia, giggled. Did she find my ignorance funny, or was it something that her dad said?

The emperor continued without giving any heed to his daughter, “It is possible to decipher Runes with enough time, but as they appear only for couple of minutes we have no such opportunity. And to my regret, the Gift of Tongues that is given to Chosen Heroes only gives you comprehension of spoken languages. Though if any of you do want to learn Runes, you’ll have it way easier than any of us without this Gift.”

“This Gift you keep talking about, does it allow you to understand English?” I asked, curious about this for a long time. How much sense did it make for some people from a fantasy world to speak perfect English?

“English?” the emperor raised a brow.

“English?” Merlin gave me a look.

“We all obviously speak French!” one of the girls said. I had no idea who she was and didn’t care, but she indeed had a foreign look.

“You just said that in Japanese,” pointed out the Asian assassin.

“Tee-hee,” the princess giggled again. She sure was a cheerful young lady. “It seems that your world has a lot of language diversity, Brave Heroes.”

“As someone you’ve probably already guessed,” Redion said, “The Gift of Tongues just makes you think that you hear everything in the language you understand. This works the other way around, creating a similar illusion for people like us, who have no such an ability. If you start paying attention, you’ll notice the details in our language, the difference in sounds and so on. You’ll learn more about your Gifts at the Academy. For now, let’s return to the matter at hand. Shall we, Hero Jesse?”

Everyone’s eyes gathered on me, making me a bit anxious. What exactly was supposed to happen with this Status the emperor had been talking about? And why was my Awakening different? There was only one way to find out.

I’d already guessed from how Merlin had acted that the Status command was intuitive and very game-like. So I wasn’t surprised when a transparent blue screen appeared before me as soon as I consciously made my intentions clear. It was kind of scary that something—or someone—could read my thoughts so easily. Or maybe that was some kind of brain-magic interface like in neural feedback technologies.

After inspecting my Status Screen for ten seconds or so, I said, “It seems I have two Arachnid Aspects.”

Derryx nodded in response to my words, though his face was still obfuscated by the cloak. I wondered if some kind of magic or enchantment was hiding his face from us. “Just as I thought,” he said. “Hero Jesse has a Twin Vis-Hearts, so they share their Aspect. The records said that some Heroes from the past generations had two Hearts or Cores with identical Aspects or Elements. That gave them a certain edge at the higher Stages of the Way.”

Redion patted me on the back. “We’ll be waiting for your great accomplishments, Hero Jesse!”

“Yeah. . .” I replied absentmindedly before making my way back to the group. Almost simultaneously another person approached the Obelisk, but I didn’t pay much attention to them. I was still confused about my second Aspect and a bit relieved that my lie hadn’t been seen through. Though Christinia gave me a mysterious smile while I passed her, I had no idea what it could mean. The girl was starting to creep me out a bit. Of course, I knew that someone as handsome as me was irresistible, but her interest in me felt a bit unhealthy.

While yet another Hero was Manifesting his Aspects and Elements, I reopened my Status. It still was kind of surreal how a game-like interface was appearing in a fantasy world. The most disturbing part was that it didn’t feel out of place at all.

Status Screen

Name: Jesse Roy

Age: 23

Designation: Chosen Hero (Irregular)

Aether Saturation: 3%

Vis Heart A: Bronze, Human (Unique), Level 0

Vis Heart B: Bronze, Arachnid (Uncommon), Level 0

Mana Core A: Bronze, Glass (Rare), Level 0

Mana Core B: Bronze, Air (Common), Level 0

Divine Gifts: Gift of Tongues, Gift of Knowledge, Gift of Original Sin

I definitely had more than one reason to hide the content of my Status from the emperor and Co. For one thing, I had no trust in someone who would stoop to shameless kidnapping. For another, he’d mentioned that Rare was the highest Rarity one can Awaken to, and mine was two ranks above that. Also, Human definitely sounded like a frigging strange name for an Aspect. I had no idea what it could mean to the inhabitants of this foreign world. My designation as an “irregular” and, most importantly, my third Gift had made my decision to deceive them all but set in stone. Thankfully, Derryx had been careless enough to mention Twin-Hearts—that had allowed me to put two and two together, and compose a believable lie.

Unintentionally, I also found out that I actually can get my game-screen to display some details about my Status. Too bad that those details were vague and more or less useless.

Chosen Hero (Irregular)—You’re a Chosen Hero from another dimension. The question is—who chose you?

Aether Saturation—the higher it is, the more effective your training is. Raise it to 100% and see what happens.

See what happens? Really? I hope that it isn’t the Goddess who’s responsible for the descriptions like that, otherwise her image in my mind will be ruined.

Vis Heart A Details

Stage: Bronze

Level: 0

Aspect: Human (Unique)

Power: F

Density: F

Celerity: F

Recovery: F

Vis Heart B Details

Stage: Bronze

Level: 0

Aspect: Arachnid (Uncommon)

Power: E

Density: C

Celerity: C

Recovery: E

Mana Core A Details

Stage: Bronze

Level: 0

Aspect: Glass (Rare)

Power: C

Density: C

Celerity: B

Recovery: E

Mana Core B Details

Stage: Bronze

Level: 0

Aspect: Air (Common)

Power: E

Density: F

Celerity: C

Recovery: F

I wasn’t sure what to make up of all of those rankings or whatever they were. By the video-game logic, “A” was good and “F” was bad. It also was obvious that a more rare Aspect or Element should be more powerful. My Human Aspect was an outlier here, though. Following conventional logic, it was shit and my Glass Element was the MVP. On the other hand, what exactly did those rankings mean? Power and Recover were obvious enough, but Density and Celerity sounded lame. Why not Defense and Speed? That was something to figure out later.

I postponed checking the Gifts section, as I was rather anxious about the one containing the word “Sin”. According to what the emperor had explained to us, nothing good could come from it. I was afraid that knowing too much right now would make it harder for me to keep my outward cover of calm and confidence.

While I had been busy inspecting my Status and contemplating my future plans, most of the Heroes had already Awakened their powers. I noted that Anna, the secretary girl, had Crustacean (Uncommon) and Emperor Crab (Rare) Aspects alongside Sea (Uncommon) and Ocean (Rare) Elements. She didn’t give me a sea-girl vibe, but who knew. Maybe she was actually the daughter of a seafarer or something. She also was placed second in terms of the rarity of her overall abilities—as a rule of thumb, if a Hero had one Rare Aspect or Element, then the rest of their powers were Uncommon. Another combination was two Rare, one Uncommon and one Common. Other than Anna, Merlin and I, everyone fell into those two categories. Or at least they did until the last person approached the Obelisk.

One of the Heroes I bothered to remember, the shy girl who had been making notes in her notebook, Lisa ended up being the last person who hadn’t Awakened yet. All gazes gathered on her, which I’d half expected would make her visibly uncomfortable. Unexpectedly, she seemed calm and focused. With a nod of self-encouragement she approached the Obelisk, looking straight at it, as if trying to glare a hole in the marble.

“Here we go,” Lisa muttered before placing her hand on the Obelisk.

As one, everyone raised their heads to see what the teenage girl Manifested. Honestly, I doubt that anyone had expected the result—there were two truck-sized birds and. . .both of them started to sing in accord. One, that could only be described as a totally oversized hummingbird, was chirping a catchy tune while her wings hummed a melody. Another was a parrot who started to sing in a human voice. . .actually, that was Lisa’s voice, now that I thought about it. And both the song and the voice were vaguely familiar to me.

“Hey, hey, you, you,

I do like your girlfriend

No way, no way,

I think you need a new one

Hey, you, yes, you

Give me your damn girlfriend!”

Those lyrics were kind of. . .gay, if you consider that the singer was originally a girl. That was when someone actually recognized the song.

“Hey, isn’t this that Girlfriend song from Beth Michigan aka Michi?” Keira exclaimed as she made her way towards Lisa. “Now that I look at your face more closely, it’s you! OMG, can you believe it, guys?! She’s that famous pop-rock singer! Give me your autograph, hey, don’t run!”

“Ahh, so embarrassing, please close your ears, everyone!” Lisa covered her face with her hands and trotted away from Keira, hiding herself from us behind the Obelisk. Now that the redhead mentioned it, I recalled that I’d heard this song before. I had no idea how the singer was supposed to look, though, as I’d never seen her live broadcast.

“Hey, hey, you, you

I know that she likes me

No way, no way

No, it's not a secret

Hey, you, yes, you

I want to steal your girlfriend!”

The tune was catchy and the girl’s voice cute, but the lyrics were somewhat scary. Imagine having your girlfriend stolen by another woman, what could hurt a man’s pride more than that? Not like I had anything to worry about, there was no way any girl in her right mind would choose someone else instead of me—handsome, rich, smart, and, most importantly, humble.

In any case, the music continued to play for a couple of minutes before the Manifestation disappeared. For better or worse, that amount of time wasn’t enough for the full song. I wondered if the emperor and others had understood its lyrics—after all, that was plain English and there was really no reason for the Gift of Tongues to translate it for them.

“What a beautiful song!” Redion exclaimed. “Though I can’t understand the words, I’m sure that it shows your bravery and grace, Lady Lisa!”

Oh yeah, stealing girlfriends from unsuspecting guys does require some grace and a lot of bravery, I lampooned. Talking from experience.

Lisa, though, had a more important matter at hand than the emperor’s misunderstanding. “Please stop chasing me, Ms. Keira!”

“Just gimme your autograph, Michi!” the redhead didn’t want to give up. “It’s your duty as a superstar to please your fans! Emm, not in that way, though, you know?!”

I sighed. Why was I surrounded by such hopeless individuals?