“Where are you Eric?” Agent Parks asked.

“I'm at the rift, I just got back to Earth.” Eric answered.

“Stay there, I'm going to come to you. He killed two police officers in his escape, and it seemed intentional.”

Eric explained the situation to the soldiers, and they let him wait in the slowly improving base. After 20 minutes Parks showed up, with Jenkins to Eric's surprise. “I didn't think you liked me much.”

Jenkins answered “I don't, but Parks is my partner, and I do understand why she went through the rift. I suppose...I should too?” He addressed the question to Parks, who nodded.

“Yes, you probably should, getting a class makes you a lot stronger, I took a bullet this morning. While I owe some thanks to Eric for healing it, it wasn't nearly as bad as it would have been without a class. I'm not sure how to explain it.”

Jenkins frowned, “Fine.” He went to the guards at the rift, who shrugged and let him through. A moment later the man returned. “Parks, what the fuck is an investigator?”

“Someone who investigates?” Parks joked, “Seriously, you are asking me about your class? I barely know my own. I reached level 2 this morning, and all I've really figured out is my barrier.”

“Barrier?” Jenkins asked.

“Yeah,” Parks said, “I'm a Defender, and one of my skills is barrier, it lets me put up a magic wall between people I want to protect and any attacks.”

Jenkins said “I can see how that would be useful. Listen, when I talked to the people Cletus was with, they said he was a soul hunter, level 6, and gets power from killing. They didn't realize how far he would go though. They knew him before they all took classes but say he changed. It just goes to show we need to control who can go through these rifts.”

Parks just didn't respond to the last bit, apparently that discussion had been had several times between the agents. She just asked “Did they say anything about what a soul hunter can do?”

“Something about summoning the spirits of monsters he killed.” Jenkins answered.

“So, uh, what is your plan?” Eric asked the agents.

Parks sighed, “Honestly, to some extent we are probably going to effectively use you as bait. I don't mean we will put you out somewhere for him to find, but we will keep a few people with you all the time on the theory that if he comes after you, we can catch him.”

“Sorry to ask this, but if you catch him, can you hold him?”

“That is the question, isn't it.” Parks and Jenkins gave Eric a ride home and then stayed in their car across the street. Eric made a quiche and took it out to them, figuring they at least could eat some good food, and they ate gratefully. After a long night, they went home and other agents parked to guard Eric, and then took him to work.

For the next few weeks, the cycle repeated. Eric got used to working with the DPO folks placed under him, a group that expanded and contracted as new EPA employees entered the rift, but some left government service to become adventurers. Eric went into the orc rift a few times to help with disagreements, and scouted out a few other rifts. The other rifts they knew about in Arizona led to monster worlds, or at least Eric hadn't found intelligent life in any of them. State Department had made treaties with two Dwarven nations, three Elven nations, the one Orc nation (with Eric's help) and a nation of Gnomes. More of the US population were adventurers as well, ticking up to just under 300,000 people, despite the government posting troops around every rift they found.

There were still calls to send the entire military into the rift, but it was hotly debated. There were stories that everyone in the North Korean military were filtered through the 7 rifts in their space, and there was some evidence of this as the hermit kingdom's food consumption dropped noticeably. Whether that was because of food from the rifts or large scale deaths was unknown. Other nations were rumored to be doing the same, and there was a lot of discussion about the US 'falling behind.'

Then Eric took burgers out to the police officers guarding his home, and found them both dead. Their skin was sunken, pale, and their eyes were open, expressions of terror on their faces. Eric dropped the plate and ran inside, locking his door and calling Agent Parks. “Parks, they're dead, the police, I went out with burgers and they are both dead!”

“Slow down, the police are dead? The ones we posted to guard you?” She asked.

“Yeah, I don't know what to do, should I try to go to you? Should I...” Eric heard a crash as his patio door was shattered, the glass breaking easily. “I think he is here!”

Eric saw the large man standing in his kitchen, a shotgun in his hands. He dropped his phone and shouted “Escape.”

Agent Parks heard “Fuck, not again,” through the phone, then a crunch as the large man stomped the phone.

It took Parks and Jenkins only 15 minutes to reach Eric's home, and took the first patrol car only 5, but Cletus was long gone by the time they got there. The two police officers were very dead, and the other police were both angry and afraid. This was now four police killed by Cletus, and while the first two were killed by brute violence, the death of the other two was...unknown causes.

Parks realized after checking the scene where Eric had to have gone, and got Jenkins into the car, leaving the police to secure and investigate the crime scenes. Driving to the rift, they found Eric sitting in the command tent, shivering in a blanket.

“I was going to die, I knew it, for a moment there, I could see my death in his eyes. I didn't know what to do, so I ran. I'm sorry about the officers. They didn't have a chance. I wouldn't have had a chance.” Eric was rambling, filled with shock and fear.

Parks just stood in front of him. After Eric ran out of words, she asked him, “So what are you going to do about it?”

Eric looked up at her, his face haunted. “I don't know.”

“We need to get stronger. We need to go through a rift, get levels, and since he knows the orc rift, we are taking you to the wyvern rift.” Parks told him. Eric looked at her blankly, but didn't fight her when she pulled him into the car with her and Jenkins.

“Wait, so the solution for a crazy guy with magic is to make another crazy guy with magic stronger?” Jenkins asked, but went along with Parks' plan. Soon they reached the rift, luckily it was late enough that Captain King was duty officer, and kept Thompson from finding out Eric was there until he was through the rift.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Available quest: is there life on Ma'ars? Find evidence of intelligent life, 500 XP.

Available quest: Weaker than wyverns, kill 5 salamanders 300 XP.

Quest update, the man from asshole, become strong enough to deal with the man who tried to kill you, survival, and 500 XP.

Eric didn't like that last quest, but he felt the need to complete it. Talking with Jenkins and Parks, they had gotten that quest, but with slightly different wording, and the kill 5 salamanders quest.

Looking at the new world, Eric's first thought was to wonder if rifts tried to match the terrain on the other side. The area in Ba'ruq the rift connected to was much like the Arizona desert, and so was the area on this side of the Wyvern rift, a world he now knew was called Ma'ar. The one difference was a lot of the rock was blue. Even some of the sun baked ground was blue. The terrain was mountainous, but the mountains were piles of large rocks, rather than a solid upthrust of rock.

Looking up, there were two suns and a moon in the sky, which quickly made it clear that this world was not Earth. On Ba'ruq you could forget you were not on Earth, sure the sun was a bit more orange and the gravity seems a bit lower, but if it wasn't nighttime where you saw different stars, it was enough like Earth to not be jarring. Here you could have the sun in your eyes facing two directions, though one was a large angry red and the other was small and white.

As they looked around, wondering where they would find Salamanders, Eric jokingly thought 'I wish I had a locate animal spell or ability.'

locate animal spell gained.

Eric sighed, the system continued to mess with him. Still, may as well use it. “Locate Animal, salamander,” Eric said, and there was a giant ugly green arrow, again. Eric did not like the system.

Eric and the Agents followed the giant ugly green arrow into a valley filled with broken rocks, and discovered that some of them were melted together. “I'm starting to have a bad feeling about this, aren't Salamanders like flame lizards?” Parks said.

Eric nodded, and saw his arrow start to point down. “Under there.” He said, pointing at a small conical pile of rocks, one that showed evidence of being melted together. “I'm going to try something, Wind Slash!”

His wind blades slammed into the rocks, and caused small chips of rock to break free. “So much for greater damage,” he complained. However, some red lizards soon crawled out of gaps in the rocks, disturbed by his attack on their home. Seeing the humans, the beasts hissed in anger and then began to open their mouths.

“Get down,” Jenkins yelled, pushing Parks and Eric down, as Parks put up her barrier and flames burst against it. Even with the barrier, the flamethrower breath of the lizards was heating the area the three humans were hiding. Still, it looked like they couldn't keep it going forever. While the rocks in front of the agents was melted, the flames stopped, and Eric and the agents opened fire, the latter with pistols while Eric used wind slash again. Of the three salamanders, one was hit by both Jenkins and Eric and killed, one was hit by Parks with two bullets and seemed to just be angry, and one was missed by Eric's second slash and just opened its mouth again.

Parks didn't have another barrier, but by ducking behind rocks, the group avoided the worst of the fire. Eric popped back up as soon as there was a break, hitting both of the remaining lizards with wind slash, and the one who survived that went down in a hail of bullets.

Eric went to the corpses, all bullet riddled and cut, and put one in his magical storage, offering one each to the agents.

“What the fuck, where did it go?” Jenkins asked.

“Oh, um, if you have the system, you have a storage, didn't you notice how I just pull out my staff when I need it? Just pick something up and think of storing it.”

The two agents each took a salamander and stored it, but Jenkins looked unhappy. “How can you secure a building if anyone could just bring explosives in with this?”

Eric asked “Do you have unused ability points?”

Jenkins said “status,” then looked at Eric, “Yes, it says I have 2.”

“Ask for some sort of inventory scan ability, think about what you want, see if the system gives it to you.”

“Fuck, is it that easy?” Jenkins said. He looked at Eric, “You have a Salamander corpse and an orc staff in your inventory, plus...a bottle of ketchup?”

Eric laughed, “Turns out Orcs love Ketchup, so I keep a bottle. Stuff doesn't seem to go bad in storage either, so great for stuff you would otherwise need to refrigerate.”

Suddenly flame hit all three of them, Eric saw the Salamanders it came from, and used wind slash. All three humans were badly burned, Eric did a quick status check and saw he was at 14/27 hp. He remembered how low his HP was at level 1, and sure enough Jenkins was in bad shape. Eric moved away from the agents over the rock, hoping that since he did the only damage they would focus on him.

He was correct, but hit badly. Luckily, two sets of gunshots went off, and the fire stopped. Eric healed himself halfway, then Jenkins. “Sorry Parks, out of mana, give me a few minutes. But maybe we should move back towards the rift. You OK Jenkins?”

“Yeah, I'm, wow, I feel like I wasn't hurt at all. My clothing is fucked though. This was an expensive suit.”

Eric laughed, “Wait till we sell the salamanders, I bet the orcs will pay you at least a gold coin for one. A gold coin worth over two grand.”

“Well, ok, are we splitting any money equally?” Jenkins asked, seeming happier.

“Why wouldn't we?” They had moved a bit back towards the rift, and Eric had regained some mana, so he healed Parks. He was still in pain, but could function, and he didn't want one of his friends to die just because they were lower level.

Eric looked at his status and saw '4300/4500 XP' “Darn it, I'm only 200 XP from a level. How about you two?

Parks said “850 for me.”

Jenkins just said “450.”

“I think killing Salamanders is 50 xp each, do you want to try to kill 9 more?” Eric asked.

“Why 9?” Jenkins asked.

“To get you to level 2. I want you to have more health, if you get killed Parks will kick my ass.”

Jenkins laughed, “Yes, yes she would.”

The group killed Salamanders, and found out they could only store 3 dead bodies each in their storage. Eric was pretty sure that some parts were more valuable, but had no idea which ones. One of Eric's wind slashes did open up a Salamander stomach and reveal a treasure though.

It was the size and shape of a revolver, though with a large crystal instead of the cylinder, and no hammer. Just a trigger with a slightly larger finger guard. Parks picked it up and tried to fire it like a gun, and a beam of light shot out, burning a hole a few inches into the first rock it hit. “Wow.”

Eric looked at the two agents, “One of you two keep it, I'm having enough trouble learning to aim spells.”

Aim spell skill 0 gained

Eric just cursed the system.

Jenkins said “Parks, you keep it, I'm sticking to something I know.”

Eric tried to get the system to listen, thinking 'can I get an identify skill or spell?'

Identify ability gained.

Eric looked at the thing they had found:

Crystal beamer

Lizardfolk weapon using solar crystal to gather and then release energy, can store up to 6 shots and regains one shot per hour in Ma'ar daylight, but that is with two suns, with one sun it would regain a shot every two hours in daylight. Recharge may be faster in direct sun, slower on rainy days. Does 30% more damage than a 9mm Pistol and is handcrafted and so enchantable.

Quest complete, there is life on Ma'ars, the Crystal beamer was created by a native intelligent race, 500 XP gained.

He told Agent Parks about what he learned of the weapon, or 'beamer.' She seemed happy with it, holding it but keeping her sidearm.

Eric thought about the fact that the beamer was enchantable, and wondered 'is enchant a skill or ability?'

Enchant skill 0 gained

Enchant ability gained.

'I guess the answer was yes.' Eric grumbled to himself, annoyed that again the system had taken away his unused points based on his musing.

Finally, they killed enough Salamanders for Jenkins to level. Leaving Parks still 400 short, but it had been a long, hard day. The agents were ready to leave, and Eric agreed.