Levi ended the call and held the phone against his thundering heart. He allowed himself another minute before reining in the indescribable blend of emotions flooding him, wiping his face and setting his expression to something approaching normal. Relief, anxiety, hope, dread, and deep longing warred with the logical plan he’d laid out for himself.
Finish the treasure hunt, then head straight for Gold Beach to rendezvous with Irene at her parents’ place. He hadn’t meant to say so much, and he still hadn’t figured out how to explain everything. But, as Gordon said, he had plenty of proof. As soon as he could show her, they could figure this out.
Something poked his shoulder, and he spun. Centoo had rested his head on the back of Levi’s seat and patted his front leg on Levi’s shoulder. Levi chuckled and patted him back. “I think I’m okay now, thanks.”
Skarm peeked up, nodded to himself, and disappeared back behind the seat.
“Always trying to solve problems, eh, Skarm?”
Skarm popped up long enough to nod.
“Well, I’ve got problems of my own to solve.” Levi returned to the laptop and the open wiki page he was editing. It would take more than a few hours to share everything he knew, more than a few days.
Despite the importance of his work, his mind kept drifting back to Irene. Should he call her back? Was he making a mistake taking the slow way back? Would the levels and minions and treasure hunt rewards really be worth more than an extra week with his family?
He wrenched his mind back to the task at hand. He prioritized general leveling principles and low-level details, though those were surprisingly sparse once he wrote them out. By the time he had been drafted into the demon war, most dungeons were in the 40s at the low end, so his personal knowledge of beginner dungeons was almost exclusively hearsay or recent experience. He’d be much better able to describe ninth-wave demon forces than level 1 dungeons.
After some internal debate about how, and if, he should broach the topic of the demon portals, Levi eventually decided to share as much as possible and disguise its source.
He started a new page for the “Demon Portal Event (Upcoming)” and detailed as many specific details as he could recall from the first wave. He didn’t mention the aftermath, or society’s decline, or the other changes to the world, just the appearance of several hundred portals across the globe. He simply described the high-level creatures that would flood out of them, and strongly urged everyone to hurry to reach level 20 within the next three months.
Reaching level 20 wouldn’t be easy, but the kind of people who thought dungeons were a game and made online forums about them seemed like they’d respond well to a challenge. Which left the bigger problem of how to inform the rest of the world.
What would Irene think of it all? She was adventurous, always wanting to explore new places. Maybe she’d like visiting dungeons.
Peter would have a blast. Levi imagined his son as a Summoner, escorted everywhere by his own custom army. He would definitely want some dinosaurs. Levi would have to take him to a Beast dungeon as soon as he’d leveled him enough.
Levi shook away the distracting thoughts. Later. First he had to decide what to do about his big announcement to the world. Or whether he should even make one. Maybe it would be enough to let word trickle down through gamers.
Stolen story; please report.
He could have just gone on TV with his minions, but mana distortions had a way of interfering with TV signals. Even the images of dungeon gear on the RL Game forum were less crisp and clear than those of pure cosplay, and equipment was much less saturated than monsters.
Unfortunately, the question of whether he’d be believed was less important than remaining free. Revealing knowledge of the future could be very risky with the wrong sort of people. Going wide with the information to help as many people as possible was one thing, outing himself as a time traveler was another.
Whatever he decided, he would have to handle the announcement carefully. This was one thing he couldn’t afford to rush into. Some things he wouldn't be able to fight his way out of.
Gordon returned before he’d reached an answer, carrying a takeout box which he proffered to Levi. “Fries?”
Levi took one, grimaced at how salty it tasted, and shook his head when Gordon offered him more. Flomper ate hers in four quick bites with admittedly rather cute rapid chewing, while Skarm nipped at his cautiously, staring at it between bites as though he expected it to fight back.
Centoo leaned forward to observe the fry consumption at close range but backed away rather than accepting the potato Gordon waggled in his face. “You sure? They’re good.”
Skarm snatched it instead and nibbled both of his by turns. Flomper looked up at Gordon pleadingly until he gave her more, too.
“You decided on our next stop yet?” Gordon asked.
“No.”
Levi checked the RL Game forum again. He had two more trade offers, but neither had the Seed Fragment. One offered a Destruction token for his weather stones, and the other wanted the wand and orb for a pair of knives. He politely rejected both, but added a “lower-priority” section of things he’d consider accepting: wands or spellbooks with tracing, specialty tokens, or elixir bases. If people wanted to make side offers, they might as well be for useful things.
It felt surreal, typing in his requests and watching others respond. Trade had gone non-digital so long ago, it felt like one of those “I remember when…” things you’d tell your kids, and having it back was weirdly nostalgic.
“Still haven’t heard back from Triple X.”
“I hope we didn’t get that kid in too much trouble,” Gordon mused.
Levi closed the laptop. “I can’t concentrate any more right now. I have to do something.”
“If you’re going to say, ‘Find another dungeon,’ I may just hit you. Can’t we go somewhere normal, like a hotel, and just... not fight horrifying monsters for one evening?”
“You’re welcome to. I can make my own way.”
Gordon groaned. “You’re going to wander around looking like that, aren’t you?”
Levi looked down at himself. Sure, the armor was a bit scratched and stained, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. He'd spent much of the past week looking much worse than this. “Why shouldn't I?”
“Because we’re not in an apocalyptic wasteland at the moment.”
Levi polished his greaves with one sleeve, then shrugged. “I don’t have the mana for a cleaning spell yet, so there’s not much I can do.”
“I’ll drive you.” Gordon sighed. “Where is it?”
Levi sent out a ping and received a faint impression from the level 2 dungeon back at Tom’s house, and nothing else. He pushed more mana into the ping, expanding its reach and pushing extra power into it, overriding the system to do it manually. This took longer to echo back and showed nothing else nearby.
“Nothing close. Maybe we should go back and talk to the kid.”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“It’s not that late.” Levi looked at the time on the dash and winced. “Okay, I lost track of time.”
“Can we please slow down, just a little?”
Something in Gordon's voice—a deeper weariness than he'd heard before—gave him a moment's pause.
He supposed he had asked a lot of the man who wasn't used to this life. As much as he wanted to keep moving fast, he knew he'd end up going much slower in the long run if Gordon decided to leave him to his own devices.
“Alright.” Levi exhaled slowly, pushing aside all his worries about timing and rushing and falling behind schedule. “Find someplace we can sleep the night.”
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