Chapter 4:

Ben took in the floating semi-transparent blue screen in his vision for a long moment. At least it felt like a long time as he stared. He’d been hoping to see something like this ever since he’d turned fifteen. Well, he’d been hoping for longer, but it only became possible after his fifteenth birthday.

And now, here it was.

Except, it wasn’t what he had been hoping for.

At least, not exactly. Especially since things had changed since he was fifteen. Two years of not being chosen had made him hype himself up about earning access to the System. To emulate one of his favorite Heroes. And yet, now, he was being given it without earning it.

Worse, he was being given it after he’d failed to get it himself…

Ben cursed himself internally and pressed the yes button which surprisingly gave him a bit of physical feedback.

He was being stupid. This wasn’t any different than getting lucky and being chosen by the System. And at least, despite being the only option, the one choosing him had said he was worthy of it. Even if he didn’t feel that way himself.

“Well, that’s that,” the alien—no, Zelter—said, their voice low and rough, before turning their gaze towards the monster in the distance. The Heroes were still fighting the monster, having destroyed many of its tentacles, but its main body was still in one piece as was its head for some reason. “I’ll just take care of that and I’ll probably be spent after that. Don’t worry about my body. From what I understand of the inheritance process, it won’t leave anything behind.”

Zelter continued to look off into the distance for a long moment. Ben waited in silence, periodically looking Between the alien and the fight off in the distance. Then Zelter spoke to him one last time.

“Hey kid… I’ve dropped a lot of responsibility on you. More than you probably understand. But… Since you want to be a hero. Regardless of what happens in the future. What challenges you might face. Remember one thing. There’s more to heroism than self-sacrifice. Dying heroically might seem like a good idea when you're pushed against a wall. You might feel like you have to. That it’s your duty. But remember who you will be leaving behind if you do that. And what you will be leaving unfinished. What you will no longer be able to protect.”

Ben opened his mouth to respond but nothing came out. He had no idea how to respond to that. And before he could think of something Zelter began to act.

With a slight grunt, the alien lifted their good arm and pointed at the monster. Another large gem appeared in front of his hand. It was black and hovered there in front of him while the clear one from before moved to the side. The black gem then flared with dark energy before suddenly the same energy appeared around the monster. It engulfed the whole creature, completely overwhelming the orange energy.

Then in a flare of darkness that somehow seared Ben’s eyes and caused him to wince, it was over. Where the monster had been, there was nothing left of it except for a few remaining bolts of energy that had been launched at it, passing through where it had just been.

Ben's eyes bulged at that. Sure Zelter had contained it so easily, but to be able to destroy it like that as well. That… wasn’t S-Rank power was it? He turned to ask the alien but was stopped when he saw them fall into a heap on the ground. The red energy holding together their right side disappeared and all the gems were gone.

Ben rushed to them, ignoring the horror of their right side. There wasn’t anything he could do, but he couldn’t help but feel like he should do something. Anything. Offer some words of comfort, maybe?

Except… It was already too late.

Looking into Zelter’s one remaining eye, it was clear that they’d already passed. There was no life in that eye anymore and the alien wasn’t breathing. They were dead. Just like that.

Despite wiping away a massive S-Rank monster like it was nothing, they were dead now. Just like they said they would be.

Ben sighed. Something about this just felt so wro—shit!

Blue light started to emanate out from Zelter’s body. Ben leaped back and then stared on with hope. Maybe the alien had been wrong and they were gonna be okay…

Or not.

Blue light started to encompass the entire body, but at the same time, the portions already engulfed started to break apart into motes of light. Those motes gathered into a single ball of blue-white light that hovered over the dissolving corpse.

Then, in less than a minute, nothing was left except that floating ball.

A moment later, that blue light shifted as space seemed to warp around it before it too disappeared.

Ben waited a long moment to see if anything else would happen. When it seemed like nothing else would, he started to get up, only for a bell to ring in his ear and another blue screen popped in front of his face.

Ding!

Attention! Zelter Thaperius has fallen. As their Designated Inheritor, you may pick up their Mantel.

Do You Wish to Accept?

Y/N

Warning: Due to the power disparity between the two parties, the Mantle must be integrated over time. You will begin at level one as you integrate your inherited power.

Instead of getting into his own head about it like last time, Ben quickly clicked accept. He still felt guilty and unworthy of this, but it was too late to back out now. He’d accepted before and promised to try and complete Zelter’s last wish. He could hardly back down now.

The same blue light he’d seen before seemed to glow around him for a moment then disappeared. Ben blinked and looked down at himself. He was still bloodied and looked the same as before. He also didn’t feel all that different. Though perhaps that was because Zelter had already fixed everything wrong with him and he was still level one.

Ding!

Attention! You have inherited the class: Storage Gem Adept

You are now a Level 1 Storage Gem Adept

You have now met the qualifications for being designated a System User

You now have access to all Basic System Interface Features

Would you like to go through the tutorial now?

Y/N/Later

Note: You will not be able to access System Interface Features without going through the basic tutorial.

Ben’s finger hovered over the ‘Yes’ button twitching before he sighed and pressed ‘Later’ instead.

Ding!

To access the tutorial at a later time, simply say: “System, tutorial start.” at any time.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Now was not the time to play with the System or his new powers. No matter how much he wanted to. And it wasn’t like he didn’t already have a pretty good idea of how to use the interface given how much research he’d done.

He could wait a little longer.

Looking back to where the monster had been, Ben could already see some flyers spreading out. None seemed to be headed in his direction so it seemed they hadn’t noticed him. They were probably looking for any monsters remaining and also anyone in need of help. Or perhaps who had killed the S-Rank monster in a single move.

For a moment, Ben contemplated if he should try to wave a Hero down. Right now, in the aftermath of the S-Rank, would probably be his best chance of contacting someone from the Cascade League and being taken seriously. If he could get one of them to help, then accomplishing Zelter’s last wish would be a lot easier.

But the alien's words kept coming back to him. While Zelter had said that they would trust in his judgment, they clearly thought telling anyone he didn’t know and trust about the cube was a bad idea. And Ben still didn’t even know what the cube did.

If it was really that tempting… Would even a Hero be willing to disregard the wishes of the dead? Of someone who just saved who knows how many lives by containing and then destroying an S-Rank Monster? Ben would like to think not. That Heroes—Full Heroes like those in the Cascade League at least—would be too noble for that. But did he really want to risk it?

Especially when he had so much time left?

No. He wouldn’t. Not right now. If he needed help in the future, he would try and find a Hero then. But for now, he would try and do it himself.

Best to just go hide in one of the houses and wait for things to settle down.

Ben looked down at the shiny black disk in his hand and quickly shoved it into his jeans’ pocket. Since he wasn’t going to ask for help, it would be best to avoid any extra attention.

Ben took one quick look around, then picked a house at random and rushed over to it. Thankfully this one was unlocked as well. Good to see some people were listening to those DMA PSAs. He pushed the door in and closed it behind him. Then, as he’d practiced since he was a kid, he rushed to find a central room on the ground floor. In this house, that was the kitchen.

He was moments from just flopping onto the ground before he caught himself. Looking down again, Ben took in the bloodstained nature of his clothes. His t-shirt was light blue and the dark now dried blood stains stood out very apparently. Ben winced, but then he remembered what he’d prepared.

With a small smile, Ben took off the guitar case that had been on his back this entire time… Only to freeze when he saw it. It was smashed up badly and the top neck section of it had been ripped off.

“Well shit,” Ben muttered as he grabbed the zipper that had somehow managed to survive and unzipped the tattered case. Then he let out a breath. “That’ll work.”

Originally, Ben had stored two changes of clothes along with socks and underwear. It was just in case, and he had the space after folding them really tightly like he'd seen online. Now though, there were just two things inside the guitar case. One of his shirts and a pair of shorts, both rather dirty and ragged looking. But they were free of blood. That was good enough. Better than if he just had underclothes or something. The most important part was the shirt but at least he didn’t have to worry about hoping people didn’t notice the blood stains on his jeans.

Quickly, Ben changed out of his bloodstained clothes—including his mask which was a big relief to have off—in the middle of someone else's home and stuffed them into the broken guitar case. A quick trip to the bathroom had the blood staining his skin cleaned up, and some extra time in there made sure that he didn’t leave any stains around to be noticed.

Then he was finally done. He could finally rest. Just had to wait for the all-clear.

Going back to the kitchen, Ben slumped against the counter and slid down to the floor. Then he looked up, pressing his head against the cool wood, and waited.

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Ben did not end up waiting long.

It had just gotten to the point where he was considering starting the tutorial when the all-clear siren rang out.

Both relieved and kind of annoyed, Ben had made his way out of the house with his broken case on his back. It was already evening and even the summer sun was starting to set. Only a few other people were with him as most either reached the shelters or took shelter in houses closer to the edge of the affected zone.

Listening to the instructions being repeated, they headed to the nearest of the zone’s borders and walked along the extended walls that would normally be stored underground.

As they went, occasionally they would see Heroes rushing by or more rarely flying overhead.

Normally Ben would have been eager to see who they were but he’d had enough excitement for the day. Instead, he kept his eyes down, and when they reached one of the wall's monitored openings, he went straight through it, ignoring the relief station set up to help anyone injured or in need of aid.

He’d thought he’d be able to get home right after that but he hadn’t fully considered what it meant for an S-rank monster to appear. Sure, this one hadn’t been as large as the one from that time… But it was still an S-ranker. An alert had been sent to the whole city. And even though the monster had been defeated so easily, and only the zones near the thing were still being isolated with walls, there was still a lot of chaos.

In places where the traffic was congested, people had abandoned their cars and rushed to shelters. Now, people were slowly getting back and clearing traffic was going to take a long time. Which meant Ben took a long time to walk all the way home.

About halfway there Ben had remembered his talk with Connor before everything went crazy. He tried to call his friends to prevent any panic, only to realize his phone had been smashed in the fight.

Knowing that was gonna cause all sorts of problems, Ben could only sigh in resignation and continue on his way. Hopefully, no one had quite noticed that he was unreachable. With an S-Rank monster appearance, the phone lines should have been overloaded and thus him being unreachable shouldn’t be that strange.

When Ben finally got to his home, there was good news and bad news. The good news was that Connor hadn’t wanted to worry Anna or Katie so hadn’t told them anything. He also agreed to not tell Anna about what happened until Ben was far less tired and could defend himself. The bad news was Connor hugged really hard and nearly bruised Ben’s ribs when he went over to his apartment to let his friend know he was alive.

After that, Ben had gotten home and unfortunately, for the first time in a long while, Aunt Vivian had gotten home before him. She’d been trying to call him and was worried sick. He ended up lying about what he’d been doing but told her about his phone and having to walk back to their home. After that, he had to endure her fretting over him like he was eleven again and the Incident had just happened…

Yeah… That had not been fun. For multiple reasons. The main reason was that he felt guilty for lying to her. But if he had told her what had actually happened, he probably wouldn’t be allowed to leave the house alone even after he turned eighteen.

Not that he could blame his aunt. The last S-Rank monster attack had affected them all in different ways. His aunt hadn’t been anywhere near the actual attack, but she’d lost a brother and a friend. It only made sense that a reminder of that time would leave her panicked. And if she realized she almost lost her nephew again…

It was best for her not to know and just worry about him having to walk home after a crisis.

That level of fretting was at least bearable, even with the guilt. Thankfully, he was able to get away from the worst of it by claiming to be too tired—which wasn’t even close to a lie—and he finally got to his room.

After which he promptly face-planted onto the bed and fell asleep.

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Morning came far too soon the next day in Ben’s opinion. Despite his phone still being broken and him not having an alarm, more than a year of waking up at the same time every day for training had made it hard to sleep in. Even when he was dead tired and part of him just wanted to avoid the world and the reality of it all.

But Ben couldn’t do that. He knew it, and apparently, so did his internal clock. So, at 6 am in the morning, he forced himself out of bed.

That didn’t mean he had to follow his usual routine though. He was in no mood to work out so he just went for the shower instead. After what was supposed to be a quick shower became a long shower, he wandered into the kitchen which surprisingly had the smell of bacon, eggs, and pancakes.

That was rather odd for him. Not eating bacon, eggs, or pancakes, but having them made for him. Aunt Vivian wasn’t a morning person, and she was also quite focused on her career. That meant that usually he’d be the one making breakfast, and she’d be grabbing some coffee and a bite to eat before rushing out the door.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Ben sat down at the kitchen counter and let his aunt serve him some hot breakfast. They made the usual small talk, neither alert enough to talk about anything of substance.

The only real thing of note was that his Aunt had the next couple of days off. She’d suggested they spent the day just watching old movies like they’d done when he was little with his cousins and his Uncle. The streets were still too chaotic to go and visit them, but the two of them could at least spend time together.

Ben almost said no. He had so much he needed to explore and do. But… He had eight months to contain the cube. Zelter had even said he should get used to his powers first before trying to go after the cube. And he still felt so overwhelmed. He also hadn’t spent any quality time with his Aunt in a while now. Both because of her working hours and his own training and research.

Perhaps a bit of family time would be good for him. Just a day of rest before he shouldered his responsibilities and figured out what he needed to do. A single day shouldn’t change anything. And, as he thought about it, he could also use this as a shield to keep Anna away. Tell her he needs to spend time with his aunt and explain what happened online.

That would make things a lot easier on him. At least until they met in person again.

Ben smiled a bit to himself and told his aunt he’d love to spend the day with her. He then went and sent a long message to Anna, making sure to emphasize his phone was broken and he wouldn’t be able to get back to his computer for the rest of the day.

Finally, with that done, he went into the living room and picked out a movie with his Aunt.

There may have been a lot he needed to do. But for just this one day, he could put it aside for the moment, and just enjoy some crummy movies with family.

The System, alien artifacts that needed to be recovered, and his future Hero career could wait one more day.