When he woke up in the morning, Max did his best to clean himself in the bathroom of the restaurant. There was no way he could intrude further or ask for a shower. As it turns out, a shower was offered, but Max turned it down. He bid goodbye at the door to a somewhat emotional Alfonso. Then outside in the daylight, the first thing he noticed was the caution tape and the off-limits area around the distant portal. The people guarding it looked like security or police officers. He didn't peg them as Challengers like himself.

So that's what mundane security does in a magical world with monsters, he thought. Then he walked in the opposite direction for a while, just getting the lay of the land.

It turned out that the Dark Lancers had not lied to him. Most of the area looked abandoned. Since nobody was using the buildings anyway, and Max needed some privacy to think, he helped himself to an abandoned apartment above a boutique store. He easily unlocked the door with the help of Lavinia’s spirits and scoped the place out before taking a seat on the dusty couch. If he found any other people in what otherwise looked like an empty apartment, he was going to apologize and leave. After all, it's not like there weren't others to take.

"Okay, everyone, we need to have a talk," he said. Then, visually, all of his spirits manifested: Lavinia, Saliron, Slick, and Shrill. Slick and Shrill stood together on the coffee table in front of him. Saliron lurked in the corner at the rear of the room, and Lavinia paced for a few seconds before sitting on the coffee table opposite Max.

"Okay, gang, here's what's on my mind," he said. "You all heard when the weird dagger talked to me yesterday. I haven't tried to talk to it again since, but if it was telling the truth, then the implications are pretty amazing, disturbing, and mind-blowing.

“Divine remnants. Did any of you know about this?” None of his spirits spoke so he continued. “The fact remnants exist was definitely expunged from all the Summoner Academy records, much less remnants of gods. But speaking of daggers, I also need to find out what all the daggers that I am in possession of now actually do. My understanding is that the white one sends a person from the Quartet back to their planet.

"However, all of this is based on second-hand information and assumptions. The fact is, I don't really know one hundred percent for sure if the white daggers do what I believe they do. It's possible that after I killed Gantry, Lance, and Momo back in the Quartet, they just died there and eventually respawned the same way I had before. So, pretty high on my priority list is verifying that the white dagger did what I thought it did."

"How are you going to do that?" asked Lavinia. Slick also stood and made a questioning arm motion..

"Simple," said Max. "Lance is from Earth, too, so if the white dagger worked on him and if I didn't get here before him, he should be on Earth right now."

"That's a lot of 'ifs' and 'shoulds'," said Lavinia. She paused to consider, "But it's true, and that would answer your question."

Max nodded. "Yeah, not only that, even though I don't know the rules of when people get back to their worlds, and even though there supposedly aren't any rules, I have a feeling that Lance got here before me."

"Why?" asked Lavinia.

"Because he's so much weaker than me. According to everything I read in the library back in the Quartet, it's much more common for weaker Summoners to appear back on their worlds before the more powerful Summoners. I'm here almost five years after the initial attack. I bet it would have been longer if I had achieved a more advanced mana body."

"But you don't know that," said Lavinia.

"That's true," conceded Max. "I don't know that for sure. All I can do is guess. But since I need information, I'm going to approach all this by guessing and then either verifying or disproving my assumptions."

"Very wise, Contractor," said Saliron from the corner. Then there was a snap as one of the bones that Max had placed on the floor in a plastic bag before calling out his spirts was shattered.

"I'm glad he's feeling better now," said Lavinia conversationally.

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Max whipped his head up to regard the impassive, dark specter in the corner. "He was feeling bad? He didn't say anything to me."

"Oh, he hasn’t said much about it," said Lavinia, "but he's been skulking ever since your fight with the golems.”

“Why?!”

Probably because there were no bones to break, and his powers ended up kind of useless in that fight."

"My powers are never useless," denied Salirin. "I empower and strengthen the contractor's bones."

Max was tempted to play peacekeeper and tell the spirit that he was right, that Max was always thankful for the dark spirit's help, but he decided not to. Now that he'd been living with all of his spirits in his head for a while, he knew that this was not the correct course of action to take with Saliron. Instead, he said, "I am sure that the next enemy will have many bones for you to break and devour."

"Oh yes, such sweet words," drawled Salirin. "I will look forward to it."

Lavinia rolled her eyes and asked, "So what about the National Portal Suppression Agency, or whatever it was called?"

"I think that was the name, yes" said Max. He drummed his fingers on one knee and slowly said, "Going to get tested at the Agency, getting my credentials as a Challenger might be able to solve two birds with one stone. At least, I can think of two problems it may solve. However, we're back on Earth now, not in the Quartet. And a three-star mana body isn't bad, but I'll be a lot more comfortable dealing with anything that comes my way if I'm at least a four-star mana body. Now that I'm back on Earth and surrounded by this much mana, it should go a lot faster."

"So are you going to delay going to the Agency?" asked Lavinia.

"I'm still not sure yet," admitted Max. "Part of it kind of depends on whether I can get stronger or get any loot from closing portals on my own. According to Alfonso and the newspaper I read this morning, in North America, Canada is basically a no man's land. So maybe if I ever need to kill a bunch of monsters, I can head north. It’s just an idea right now."

Lavinia nodded at that. "It sounds like there are a few areas on your world that have been heavily settled by monsters and effectively became their territory."

"That's what it sounds like," agreed Max. "If the Trifecta Guild were strong and I could just head there and see Chad, all these decisions would be a lot easier, but I don't know what the hell is going on right now. I need information more than anything. But I think I also need more power, and I really don't need anybody's help to get it now that we're back on Earth."

"You need money," pointed out Lavinia. Trill and Slick both nodded emphatically at that.

Max gave little Trill a strange look. Just like Slick, she didn't talk much, and he was starting to suspect that she was an odd one too. When he first met Lavinia, he never would have thought that she would end up being his least eccentric spirit.

“There’s also the issue of summoning Gantry and Momo,” said Max. “If they got to their world earlier than I got here, who knows how long it’s been? So I need to first figure out if they’re even back from the Quartet, then figure out how to get them here. I don’t even have a complete plan yet, but I suspect it will take a hell of a lot of power.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” said Lavinia.

Max thoughtfully tapped his fingertips on one arm as he pondered his next move. Then he said, "I think that I'm going to head towards the big city, the one Trifecta is actually based out of, but I'm going to take my time heading there. Maybe if I work hard, I can hit a four-star mana body before arriving. Then I think that while I'm there, I will take the test with the Agency and get officially recognized as a Returner and a Challenger. But before that, I definitely do need to talk to somebody who can answer my questions, so I probably need to find another Challenger. Regular people won't know all the ins and outs of the stuff Challengers need to know, I suspect.

“I need to find and visit my family, too. Maybe I should try calling them today, especially my mom.” Max made a face. "I also need to spend more time working with my abilities."

"What do you mean?" asked Lavinia.

"Well, using the power of disruption with a Blade Sorcerer attack earlier was both powerful but also unfocused. I am sure that I'm not using it to its utmost potential, but I also need to figure out how I can pair that concept with all of your powers. After all, it was borrowing Trill's power that allowed me to kill Adjudicator Swan."

Trill had been seated again, and the little spirit stood and took a bow to an imaginary audience. Max smiled in spite of himself.

"What are you going to do for money?" asked Lavinia.

"That's a good question," said Max, "but I don't even know what kind of money anybody's using right now. Maybe still dollars? At the end of the day, I am superhuman, so if I can set my morals aside for a little bit, it shouldn't be too difficult to get at least a few hundred bucks. But, I also suspect that, like every other market hat has ever existed in the world, there is probably an unofficial way to sell them if there’s enough demand in the official channels."

"You mean like a black market?" asked Lavinia.

"Something like that," said Max, "but it probably doesn't even need to be that cloak-and-dagger. I mean, think about it, if there's a group of Challengers that goes into a portal and closes it, if they could buy monster parts for half the going rate from somebody else on their way to the Agency, they'd be able to make quite a bit of profit with no extra risk. I don't care how long it's been since the first portal attacks, and I don't care what kind of technology humanity has right now, I would bet everything I own that there's no way for the Agency or the guilds to truly know for a fact what happens inside the portals."

Lavinia nodded slowly. "I suppose that's true. But you haven’t answered the question. What are you going to do now?"

"First, I think I need to secure some transportation.”

“Didn't Alfonso say that a whole bunch of cars have been scrapped or scavenged to make war machines or other alien tech?"

Max nodded. "Yeah, but I bet bicycles are still around and still work."

"Bicycles?" asked Lavinia in disbelief. "Can't you just run that fast?"

"Faster," said Max. "But I don't feel like it. And not only that, if my goal is to stay under the radar until I meet up with my friends again. Running around in a flashy way everywhere is probably not a good way to do it."

"Oh yeah, right."

"So the first thing I'm going to do," said Max, "is get a bicycle and then find somewhere or someone who can fill in the gaps about the world and what the hell is going on." He stood up. "All right, everybody. Back in the soul."

All of his spirits disappeared from his eyesight, and he felt a fullness that he otherwise couldn't explain in words. He talked a big game to Lavinia and the rest of his spirits, but he knew that the reality was, in order to get another Challenger to help him that was actually accurate and trustworthy, if he remained an unknown, it might cost a little bit of money. Maybe more than he could generate just selling a few golem parts. And that meant he was going to keep his eyes out for a way to make some money as one of his higher priorities as well.