“I’ll would happy to answer all your questions and provide whatever explanations you like, but if you could please bear with me for just a bit and answer a couple of clarifying questions for me.” Gunderson asked with a very patient and kind tone to his voice.

He kept a lot of information to himself while expecting me to spill my own utterly insane-sounding secrets first. It was annoying, but perhaps he was under a similar restriction to what I am, unable to talk about certain things with people. Maybe there are specific rules about what information can be shared, and with who.

Gahh, it was frustrating. I wanted to know what he knew, but also felt like telling him anything was potentially dangerous, maybe even fatally so. On the other hand, not saying anything could just as dangerous.

I looked back up at his face to discern any insights on whether I could trust this person or not.

Agent Gunderson was still there, just sitting patiently with a pleasant and easy smile on his face, not seeming to have a care in the world and letting me take my sweet time.

So, I’m potentially fricked if I tell him or I if don’t tell him. I should just go then with the option that has the most potential benefits. And truthfully, I couldn’t help but feel a degree of trust in this strange guy, dressed in a black suit. He seemed like he genuinely wanted to help me, but I still couldn’t be sure that wasn’t all an act, not yet.

Having made my decision I decided to dive in, but only after letting out an appropriately huge sigh of resignation.

“Ask your questions, Special Agent Gunderson.” I told him while looking back down at my lap in worry.

“Thank you for indulging me, Jenni. I promise it’ll only be a couple of questions before I’ll answer whatever you like.” He paused before jumping into the heart of the matter. “First question, did you see anything strange or unusual before the actual incident.”

“Before the incident?” I asked, trying to pin down what he meant exactly.

“Before anyone was hurt or before people started to run away from what attacked them. Likely back when things still seemed peaceful and normal.”

“Um…” Here I go I guess. “I might have seen a strange blue-colored box appear in front of my face, but when I asked my friends, none of them could see it.”

Gundersn’s smile got bigger as he leaned in closer.

“Excellent, and did this blue box have any words in it.”

“Y-yes, plenty of them.”

“Good good, now here is that last big question before I have my answer, were there any welcome messages? It could have been something like ‘Welcome Jennifer’ or ‘Welcome Ms. Morrow’, something similar to that.”

“Yeah, there was a message like that, right after I had almost passed out from the pain of the world's worst muscle cramp.” I told him with a slight edge of anger at having to remember that awful experience.

“Perfect, and what else did that particular message say, be as specific as you can. It’s important.”

“Uh, it said ‘Welcome Jennifer Morrow, to the Akashic Record.’”

At the conclusion of my words, Gunderson got up and moved his chair all the way to the side of the room. This left a large space where he had once been sitting.

After returning to this empty space next to me, Gunderson knelt down on the ground right beside me in my chair.

“I, Special Agent Herbert Gunderson, pledge to advise and assist in all matters both mundane and magical so long as you keep to the spirit of the Akashic Record and its will, or until I am dismissed.”

Silence filled the room before I could gather my thoughts enough to respond.

“W-what are you doing?” My bumbling words were in contrast with the solemn tone and behavior of this very adult man kneeling less than a foot away from me.

“Making a promise.” He said simply.

“M-more like a vow, what is going on?”

“You’re right, I did promise to answer all of your questions. What would you like to know?” He asked me while remaining knelt down on the floor.

“Are you just going to stay down there on the floor now?”

Gunderson looked around a bit before looking back at me with a mischievous smile.

“It’s not so bad down here, the carpet is surprisingly soft. I guess your principal didn’t mind indulging a bit on the furnishings for her office.”

“C-could you please sit back down in the chair, this is weird.” I told him while not making eye contact.

“Absolutely, happy to do so, hardly a challenge.” He replied boisterously before retrieving his chair, returning it to its former place of residence, and sitting back down in it. “Now, is there anything else I can help you with today Jenni?”

“S-sure, why are you suddenly being so…weird.” I asked a bit petulantly.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by weird, but if you're referring to my promise and kneeling; it's because it's my job and purpose in life to help you and those like you.”

“This is too much, so what, are you like my servant now or something.” I asked with increasing discomfort.

“No, my job is to advise and assist you in matters related to whatever tasks the Akashic Record might give you. I can also, if I choose, assist you in your mundane life so that you might focus more of your time and energy on your supernatural duties.”

“Supernatural duties?” What the frick was that exactly? Could he be talking about those quests the blue boxes had been giving me?

“Ah right, you wanted to know what you are. It would probably be best to start with that.” He said as he looked off into space, seeming to gather his thoughts.

“Uh yeah, I agree, let's start there.” If he was actually willing to answer my question now, I had like a million of them floating around in my head waiting for answers.

“So, your kind has had many different names and titles throughout history. In the past, you might’ve been called one of the blessed, God’s chosen, the selected, wielders, and arbiters of Gaia’s will, there were as many different names for what you are as there are cultures and peoples throughout history. These days most would just call you a supernatural.”

“Supernatural…” I pondered the sound of the word, its meaning, and its connotations.

“That’s right, this is to differentiate you from the mundanes and other paranaturals.”

“Okay, so what would be the difference between them then?”

“Supernaturals are those selected by the Akashic Record and able to use the power it gives them access to, mundanes are those without magic and under the full effect of the veil. Paranaturals are everyone else who doesn’t fit into those two categories.”

“Frick this is just so much, I’m what, like some kind of magic superhero now or something?” I complained.

“Kind of.” Gunderson said with his same patient smile as he continued calmly answering my questions. “It’s true, your powers and responsibilities might be compared to fictional superheroes, but the superheroes you’ve read about are likely just based on repressed memories of mundanes seeing you supernaturals using your abilities too openly.”

“Also…” Gunderson started to say before his smile fell away and his mood went with it.

“Also?” I prompted

“Also, many of the villains you’ve read about in comics and other pieces of fiction.”

“Wait, are you saying supervillains are real…”

“No, but also yes…”

“That is not an answer, and extremely worrying.” I told him with a bit of a bite to my words.

“Like I said, you and other supernaturals might seem similar to superheroes and supervillains superficially, but that’s only because of the flashy powers and potentially massive damage you can leave in your wake.”

“Okay, so that's why we're somewhat similar, but in what way are we different then, you still haven’t explained the supervillain thing.”

“I’m getting there, I’m getting there.” Gunderson told me with placating hand gestures. “The difference is your purpose.”

“You mentioned something like that, our supernatural duties or something.”

“That’s right, the Akashic Record selects people primarily for the purpose of killing monsters and stopping incursions of extraterrestrial beings from coming to Earth.”

“You’re kidding, you’re talking about aliens now. This…how…”

“Look I know it's a lot, but that’s why I’m here, to help answer your questions, or at least point you in the direction of someone who can. Also, they are extraterrestrial only in that they aren’t from Earth, but extra-dimensional might be more accurate.”

“...Yes it’s so much better that the aliens are from other dimensions and not just from other planets.” I deadpanned.

“Well, I am just trying to get across that you aren’t likely to come across any little green men zipping around in flying saucers. But we’re getting off-topic, your duty is first and foremost to kill monsters that try to enter our world. You likely received a main quest for something like that already right?”

“Uh yeah, I got a quest to kill the Ghoul Hound.”

“Ah, so it was a ghoul hound, tough beasty to have for your first fight.”

“Um yeah, it was scary, but looking back on it now, my magic seemed to kill it pretty quickly.” It hurt when it scratched me, but it seemed completely incapable of dealing with my magic attacks.

“Interesting, we’ll have to talk about that more. But back to your question, the main quest you received was to kill the monster, not to save the people it was attacking. Do you see the difference?”

“I think so, you’re saying the Akashic Record or whatever doesn’t care about protecting innocents and only cares about me killing monsters.”

“It’s not that it doesn’t care, although giving it emotions might also be inaccurate, but it does care about protecting human life, it just values slaying monsters and other dangerous intruders more. Think back to the rewards for success and penalties for failure you’ve received, or could have received from the quests you’ve had so far.”

Doing what he said, I did think back to the rewards and penalties from my previous quests. The rewards for both the main quests and side quests were similar and pretty modest. I say modest because compared to the massive penalties for failure, they seemed pretty small.

Also, the side quest didn’t have any penalties listed, so I guess I can assume that there wasn’t any. However with the main quest the penalties were huge. If Gunderson was right about the Akashic Record prioritizing killing monsters, that would line up with the first main quest I had at least.

“Do you see?” Gunderson asked. “The Akashic system is largely content as long as you kill the monsters you need to. That means that as long as you killed that monster eventually, letting all the other people there die would not have had any effect on you.”

“What are you saying, of course all those people dying would affect me, some of those people were my friends, and I didn’t want to see anyone there die.”

“No, I meant from the perspective of the Akashic Record, and its system that you are now a part of, you would not have been penalized for letting those people die. In some cases letting others die might be advantageous or even necessary for your tasks.”

He was right, even if it was a disgusting thought. The second main quest I had gotten had a huge penalty and a short amount time to complete it, but the side quest I had gotten at the same time didn’t have any kind of penalty attached to it.

But thinking about these different rewards and penalties brought me to another question.

“What happens if I receive one of these massive penalties for failing a quest?”

“You’ll lose quite a lot of experience points.” He told me matter-of-factly.

“I know that, but like, I don’t think I’d received any of these experience points before I got those quests with their huge penalties. What would have happened if I had failed one of my quests and received one of those massive penalties back at the party?”

Gunderson took a moment to answer, a dark and somber expression on his face.

“You’re right, at the time you likely would have had few if any experience points. If you were hit by one of those large experience point penalties, and your total experience points went into the negatives, you would have died.”

“...Oh.”