The light floating around in his core gave John a sense of power, but he couldn’t understand it. “... What’s an enchantment?” he asked, looking at Karin.

She had gotten up from the ground where she claimed one of the wargs, looking at him with a frustrated expression. “I can’t believe you got one on your second try! I’ve killed over 50 monsters, and I only have one!”

“My condolences, but what are they?” John asked, too curious to feel bad for her.

She sighed, looking back at the gates. “I guess that should be fine to explain. They’re like additional powers that attach to your equipment, giving you more power. You can get more strength, sharper blades, tougher armor, lighter armor, all kinds of things. The power it contains depends on the beast and the rarity, but I’m assuming it’s all white. Right?”

John looked inside his core again, seeing nothing but a golden orange glow from the enchantment. “... What other rarities are there?”

She stared at him, confused. “Uh, there is white, green, blue, and purple. I think there are more, but those are the ones I know. But yours is white, right?” she asked again, sharper this time.

‘... What kind of incredible thing is yellow, then? Or is it gold?’

John didn’t want to expose whatever his luck had brought him, so he dismissed it as being a normal enchantment. “Yeah, all white.”

“Yeah, that’s the weakest type. These monsters aren’t of a high enough quality to give better enchantments, or at least it won’t happen often. Also, at our level, as breakers, each piece of equipment can only hold one enchantment at a time. And you can’t remove one once it’s inserted without breaking it. It gives you some power, but that's it.”

“... And the equipment has to be the one you keep in your core, I’m guessing?”

“Yeah, obviously. You might think it would be a huge advantage to have many equipments at once, but you can only use four at a time. And each one makes it harder to grow your essence.”

“Okay… Does it just… fly in? If I drag something into my core?”

“Yeah, so you should consider what you want to be enchanted before doing so. As long as there are no available slots, they just float around. You can get a sense of what each enchantment does, or so they’ve told me, but I can’t do that yet.”

John nodded, gaining a grasp on the workings of these powers now. Now that Lady Luck seemed to have blessed him, he needed to know how to best use it. He was still lost as to how no one had discovered all this information where he came from, but there were too many things that were more important at the moment.

‘Ahh, I already miss fighting… There’s only a few things I have to worry about during battle.’

“Thanks for explaining, Karin. I’ll head back to the underground place now. Since I got the enchantment, you can take the bargs if you want.”

She might have noticed his strange mood, letting him walk past her to the gate without a word. “... I appreciate it, John. Hey, open the gate here!”

The sounds of locks opening sounded from behind the door again before it opened slowly, letting him through. Not bothering with goodbyes, he headed straight for the elevator he had emerged from. He had been promised answers, and he planned to get them.

----------------------------------------

The doors closed behind him after he entered the elevator, and a familiar voice returned to him. “Nice to see you again, John! Captain Dirk fought the horror deep in the woods and repelled it, so it should be fine for a while now.”

“... Yeah, that’s good,” John responded, not in the mood to care. “He promised me answers once I helped. Can I ask you, Vera?”

“Yes, you’ve received access to normal breaker-level intelligence! I’ll take you to your room now so you can rest while we talk.”

John had to admit that sounded tempting after his day so far. A nice place to sit down, at the very least. “Sure, do I follow the lights?”

“Heh, that’s only for emergencies, unfortunately. You’ll have to make do with my voice guiding you,” Vera responded, sounding almost suspiciously friendly.

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

The elevator stopped and opened to reveal another corridor, different than the one he had been in earlier. “To the left here, then walk for about thirty meters. I’ll open the door once you reach it, to your right.”

John followed her instructions and soon found himself in a large white room reminiscent of a home of sorts. It had a square-looking couch, something that looked vaguely like a kitchen, and nicely lit windows showing a cozy medieval village.

His village. The view was the exact same as the view from his childhood home.

“Hey, isn’t that my village?!” John asked, running towards it to look through it. Everything was the same: the neighboring farm, the mill on the hillside, the dirt road stretching toward the other houses, all of it just like he knew it.

‘What???’

This level of confusion was far greater than the ones he had been through previously. He could not understand how this was even remotely possible. No spell, no mirror, nothing should be able to show him this view without him standing in his house.

“Calm down, John! God, I should have thought about this.”

“Calm down?! How do you explain this?” John yelled back. He was frustrated, most of all by his lack of understanding. His mind was unable to make any logical sense of his senses.

‘Am I simply insane? Is this what it feels like?’

“It all has a logical explanation, John! Consider everything you’ve seen here, the technology and advancements made. Please sit on the couch and try to calm down, at least a little bit.”

John sat on the ground where he was standing instead of on the couch. He tried to slow down his rapid breath, inhaling deeply. The sword was clenched in his now sweaty palms, making him let go before wiping them on his pants.

“... Okay, try to explain it.”

Vera’s voice turned soft and warm as if trying to calm him. “Okay, I’ll try to explain it in simple terms. The world you’ve lived in before today all exists inside this building.”

“... Huh?”

“Yes, all of it. All the candidates here, their minds are sent to your world, where they live their lives and hopefully grow stronger. Your body has been here while your mind has been in your world.”

John needed a moment to think, focusing on keeping his breath steady. ‘My world… isn’t where I was born?’

“Okay, so that explains why you said Serah is as safe as ever… But what about my mom? She only exists in my world?”

“Yes, she has only ever lived in that world. She’s a lot like me, actually. We both have no real bodies.”

“Real? You’re saying my world is fake?” Several pieces connected in his mind, starting with Captain Dirk's answer. “My entire life has been crafted by you guys for the sake of making a warrior?! I’m just a pawn in your war?!”

“... John, the brutal truth is that humanity would be dead if we never did this. The magic you’ve lived with doesn’t exist in this world normally. We can only create breakers—people breaking through the barrier—by teaching you how to use the magic first. You need to think you can use it with all your heart, because only then will it respond enough to break the barrier all humans have.”

John felt numb, looking at the floor. His fists were clenched, but his mind was elsewhere. ‘Am I real? Are the people I know real? Does anything I’ve done in my life matter? Can they make worlds like mine as often as they want? Can they change everything? Even minds?’

“... We can wait with all the explanations until you feel better. I know this is tough to wrap your head around.”

John closed his eyes tightly, trying to clear his mind. ‘Get a hold of yourself, John. This isn’t the time to be spacing out.’

“No, I’ll be fine. But… what are you even fighting? Where do all the monsters come from?”

“Well, they come here through portals, opening in what we think are random locations. They are all connected to other planets, usually so far away that we’re unable to figure out where in the universe they are.”

“... That sounds like a difficult war.”

She laughed lightly at his attempt to lighten the mood. “Heh, yes, we’re not winning. But we’re not being attacked very seriously. We might just not be worth the trouble yet. And our enemies aren’t like you might imagine.”

“How so?”

“As you’ve seen, they’re not… very clever. At least not the ones coming here. They’re like monsters, both in appearance and intellect. It’s nothing like a war you’ve ever imagined. But something is sending them here through these portals in space.”

‘This is a lot to process…’ John thought, still feeling lost.

“Is this world similar to my own? In size and nature and stuff?”

“They’re very similar in geography. Your world is modeled after ours, so you might recognize some parts. Not everything, though; our worlds are very different in other ways. The Holy Empire you lived in is now called Germany, and our city is called Berlin.

After the monsters appeared 24 years ago, we gathered in cities for protection. Our weapons have little impact, so we need people with essence to fight for us.”

‘... And, of course, we will fight because our worlds will also be destroyed if you lose. We’re dragged from our peaceful world for the sake of your war, a war that decides the fate of all of humanity…

Thinking of it like that, it sounds kind of cool…’