Chapter 757 - Party pooper and Grumpy

“So, how does it look here on Earth so far?” I ask. To not waste any time, I start manifesting and weaving together weapons made of manabloc that I put on the floor.

“Please make some simple square plates, cubes, and orbs, I’m selling these, and pass some to scientists I hire,” Channeler says as he sees that. “I would say it goes as well as it can in the current situation. Sure, they try to control us, but they have a smart person or two who realizes it will be near impossible soon, so they are trying to be more sneaky about it. If you want, I can tell you much more about that. About annoying senators, what the president thinks of this all, what the army plans, and more, but I think it would bore you.”

“It would,” I confirm and start making the shapes he just asked for. “Any danger to you or the people with us?”

“There is always a little bit of it, but nothing too serious other than them hinting they could do some damage if we push them too much. We mostly cooperate, but only to the point we want, meanwhile making contacts for the future. There are some smaller countries that are a mess after Normal difficulty people returned, but we all know the real trouble starts when Hard difficulty will start appearing.”

“Well, I would not rely on that,” I lean back and throw another sheet of manabloc on the floor. “I didn't return alone, there is another guy.”

“Hell difficulty?”

“You could say that, he is a Beyonder.”

“Stronger than you?”

“For now. Confirmed Champion level.”

“Well, fuck.”

“Yup, I will talk to him soon to see what his plans are. But honestly, I don’t think there is much I can do other than try having my family stay safe as well as you guys.”

“Do you think he would try to use your family against you?” Channeler asks in worry.

“Quite likely if he was left with no other choice. And there is nothing I can do other than maybe beg him on my knees if that's what he wants to see. Amusing situation, isn’t it?”

“It is fucked up,” Jessica says from the side. “Who even is that jerk? What asshole did he come out of?”

“It’s complicated, and better for you guys not to know too much. I will tell you only a bit more before I return to the tutorial,” I say and lean back just enough to see the sky through the massive ceiling window.

There, far in the distance, the moon is visible in the blue sky. Using mana to strengthen my sight, I observe the cocoon and the mana signature of the shape of a spider inside. A huge spider. I recognize it, of course, though Septa used to be much, much smaller and cuter when I saw her in the Academy.

Taking my eyes off it, I look back at Channeler. “Can you give me all the data, family locations, and that stuff?”

He nods. “Yes, I will give them to you when you decide to leave.”

“Good. There are things I want to ask you to prepare before I return to the tutorial. Snacks, laptops, solar panels, Izzy wanted a drone too for a while, a tablet, a few more smartphones, a DSLR camera, and ebooks, among them as many sciency ones as you can. You can also add things the scientists found on mana as well. Oh, and a detailed timeline of what happened on Earth while we were in the tutorial, some music tools for Maya, and plenty more. I will give you a list. There is a lot.”

“I can gather that all easily in a few hours.”

“There is also a guy named John Murray. I will give you his description, so please find out who he is and send 200,000 to his bank account. You have that much cash, right?”

“Is this some sort of mind game? Is it one of your bullies, the people from the tutorial were betting you would torture the moment you return to Earth?”

“Who do you guys take me for?”

“I refuse to answer. But yes, I can do that easily,” Channeler says.

“Great. I don’t have that much time, so I will stick around for an hour longer before I check on my mom and the families of the others. Before returning to the tutorial, I will return here for the stuff.”

“By the way, it’s eerie that you have your eye trait activated the entire time. It gives me goosebumps.”

“What a nice way of you asking me to turn it off for the normal people. Well, it’s too bad. I evolved my trait, and now I can’t turn it off.”

“Oh...”

"I think it looks cool," Jessica says from the side.

“While I'm in Beyond, it threatens to melt my brain from the sheer amount of information on mana wavelengths. Though here on Earth, it is much easier to handle.”

“Certified party pooper,” the woman smiles.

It amuses me a little. After the looks I got in the common area in the last minutes of the tournament, this feels better. There, even some people from Hell difficulty were plenty scared, that much I could sense from their heartbeats.

Channeler coughs, and I switch my attention to the screen. There, a high-resolution recording shows me entering the 4th event with two metallic cones shining in front of me. Though I don’t remember it, I’m there smiling for some reason. With interest, I watch the video that shows a blinding light and an explosion. There is Adrian, surrounded by his figure-thing, and a skeleton flying through the air around which flesh starts regenerating in bursts of golden flames.

Like some maniacal lich, that skeleton keeps clacking its teeth, and the superheated air of the explosion warps around it.

The cameraman and people around him shout in excitement and sheer shock. Someone shouts, "Go, go Mana maniac!" Another person shouts, "Is that a fucking mushroom cloud?" "Nukes? Nukes!?" and plenty more. There is even some voice screaming at the top of their lungs, "Nice bakery!" for some reason.

But after the fight ends, those words grow quieter, and although many people are shouting, some murmur hesitantly.

I watch as Channeler closes the file and then goes to YouTube, where he searches for a certain channel. There, he sorts videos by the newest, and a similar short to a video that we just saw starts playing, though this one has flashy edits added to it. There is heavy bass music and some animation. For a moment, when the video zooms in on my skeletal face, the frame freezes, the music stops, and a pop-up asks for a subscription before the music unfreezes and the video continues. All synced to the music.

“Of course, that guy already made an edit. Knowing him, in a day or two, there will be a much more heavily edited video instead of just a short one,” Channeler sighs as he looks at me, likely reading my confusion. “The tournament ended, and there were plenty of people from lower difficulties who wanted to participate before clearing their last floor. So now, a few days later, after the end of the tournament, there are plenty of them appearing, and of course, with videos, items, materials, and all that stuff.”

“That makes sense, I guess,” I say.

“Yes,” Channeler nods almost absentmindedly and clicks on the short video to play again in the background, listening to the song only. On his computer, he opens a messaging app. “I’m messaging the others to prepare the things you asked for. By the way, you might not know it, but if you come in contact with a normal human, they will be what we think is connected to the system and awakened.”

I remember the man called John I touched, and the cute dog, Vivi.

Channeler continues to explain, “The time when it shows varies, sometimes in a few minutes, sometimes in days. We have a theory that it is faster the stronger the returnee is. You being from Hell, difficulty will likely take minutes for someone you touched and maybe half an hour for people close to you. We are still not sure, but it could be an area around you, about the size of a smaller city, that gets affected.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh,” he nods. “But you couldn’t have known. Also, we think that awakening continues to spread from people who came in contact with returnees. If they meet an Easy difficulty person, they might spread awakening only a little, but meeting or touching someone like you, they might spread it to hundreds, thousands, or even have their own ‘field’ of awakening.”

I look at Jessica, who smiles at my expression, and then ask Channeler, “What does it do to people?”

Finally, he looks away from the screen, done sending messages, and turns off the video. “You see a system notification that tells you about awakening. It says: ‘Congratulations! The earliest participants of the tutorial have completed their induction, and Earth will begin its awakening. More information will follow once the tutorial concludes! Welcome!’ Then, if you know what to think or what to say, you can summon your status of level 0, and also check on your two innate skills. If you kill a monster, you level up. You can even enter a dungeon to level up. Some returnees are beginning to be hired to awaken rich people and teach them, or help them to level up.”

“I could do that too, or heal and make millions, but instead I decided to heal our precious Grumpy,” Jessica says.

I sigh. “Yes, yes. Don’t worry, I will let Lily know. And since we’re talking about it, let’s give a healing mark to Grumpy.”

As I say that, I move towards her and the cat. While I do so, I awaken the mark Lily placed onto the back of my pale left hand, where it appears.

“Are you sure?” Jessica asks. “She didn’t get to examine his body or modify her healing mana...” As if realizing what she is saying, she stops and laughs shortly. “How dumb of me. I guess even without all that, she is better than anyone else from Earth.”

I nod and touch Grumpy, who growls while glaring at me.

Grumpy is an entirely black cat with differently colored eyes. One of them is yellow, and the other is blue. His fur, though, now lacks the pitch-black shine it might have once carried, and his movements are slow and tired. He constantly keeps sniffing at the hand where the mark is placed, as if recognizing something in there, and slowly his growls turn to quiet, tired purring.

As I put my hand on his head, he presses against it and closes his eyes.

The healing mark in the mana disperses with such gentleness I almost don’t notice when all of it is emptied and gone, and when I pull my hand back, Grumpy lies there sleeping.

In a quieter voice, I say, “Lily said it would be too dangerous to try to heal him on a deeper level, so she made it to strengthen his body and do some simple healing. Would you believe that she has worked on it since Floor 1?” I almost snicker. “She also couldn’t explain how it works, though Sophie kept trying to put it in some fancy terms. Lily just said it will make Grumpy grow bigger and get a stronger body so he can take care of himself. Once she is back, she will do it properly and give him his old form back. Biscuit allowed her to study him a little, so it will be interesting.”

Jessica blinks. “How big?”

“I don’t know for sure, she said maybe like a Labrador, at worst as big as a horse. She also asked to take care of him as he might be scared and confused by the change.”

The woman mumbles something that sounds like it will be her getting scared when I pet Grumpy one more time before standing straight.

“Now, please, tell me where my mom is.”