I didn’t reschedule.

During Intro to Magic Power, I struggled to pay attention to Lilith’s lecture on using magic resistors in a magic circle. Her voice failed to pierce the tired fog clouding my mind, instead merging with the hum of the air conditioner until I found myself nodding off, once, twice… ten times. I strongly considered rescheduling the meeting with Jake, but I decided against it. I couldn’t afford to risk losing my connection to the monster smugglers. For things to turn out the way that I want, I needed this whole next mini-arc to play out in a very specific way.

Stifling a yawn as I made my way out of the classroom, I checked the time on my phone.

11:15.

There was enough time to drop by and see Jake before hitting the cafeteria for lunch.

I made my way over to the counseling center. Emily was behind the desk, seemingly engrossed in a conversation on her phone. She had a completely different vibe from yesterday; her auburn hair was neatly combed and her butterfly barrette was missing. The cheerful roundness of her face seemed a little sharper, and the freckles that dotted her nose and cheeks were faded, almost non-existent.

There was an air of intensity around her that I hadn’t noticed before… as if she were an entirely different person from the receptionist I met a day ago.

She looked up as I walked in, her radiant smile in place, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Her gaze was almost calculating, and for a moment, a wave of unease washed over me.

‘Wow. I’ve heard that girls can transform themselves, but this is insane…’

Waving at Emily as I passed by, I passed right through the lobby into the hallway and knocked on the door to his office.

“Enter,” he said.

I pushed the door open and stepped inside. Jake’s office was just as I remembered it—a world away from the rest of the counseling center. Dimly lit and somber, with heavy curtains blocking out the sunlight. The bookshelves were the same as before, though there seemed to be fewer books and artifacts than before.

Jake sat behind his large desk, looking every bit like an authoritative mob boss in his high-backed, leather chair. He had on a fancy-looking suit with a red tie, and his hair was slicked back with enough gel to make a greaser from the 1950s feel underdressed. Despite the cool composure his outfit suggested, his hands betrayed a hint of nervous energy as they fidgeted with a pen, clicking it on and off in a rhythmic staccato.

His eyes were sharp and focused, scanning me like a hawk assessing its prey. It was clear that he was curious, and also very wary, about who I was and what I knew. I had to be careful here. One wrong move, just one slip of the tongue, and I could either end up mysteriously dead, or I could send him running for the hills.

As I sank into one of the plush armchairs opposite him, I decided to break the ice by cracking a joke. It was a strategy I read about once—ease the tension to make him more receptive.

“Y’know, after your invitation, I was honestly kinda expecting a timeshare presentation…”

His eyes flicked to mine, a hint of amusement showing briefly before his guarded mask fell back into place. Despite the tension in the room, a small grin tugged at the edge of my lips.

He placed the pen in his hands down on the desk, though he quickly began to drum his fingers nervously on the polished wood. He was a man who thrived in the shadows and used secrets as currency, but now he was the one in the dark.

Something about that made me feel nervous. I had the sense that I was missing something… like there was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. On the other hand, it was actually kind of liberating being in this position. I’d never been the person holding the cards before.

“Jake, I’m going to be honest with you. I have sources. Sources that have given me some information about… certain activities,” I said, keeping my tone casual yet serious. “Activities that I believe you’re involved in.”

His eyes narrowed and the rhythmic drumming of his fingers stopped abruptly. “And what makes you think I would know anything about these… activities?”

“I have my reasons,” I replied while maintaining eye contact. “And I am a hundred percent certain that I can help you.”

“...help me?” He scoffed, leaning back in his chair while folding his fingers together. “And why would you want to do that?”

“Let’s just say that I have an… unusual knack for understanding things. Things that most people wouldn’t believe, even if they saw it with their own eyes.”

“Is that so?” he asked, his voice dripping with skepticism. “You seem to know quite a bit more than I’m comfortable with.”

“Well,” I said, leaning forward to match his intensity, “there are good sides to that as well. I happen to know some things that you don’t. You’ve been in our line of work for a long time; I’m sure you know that having access to someone with the right information at the right time can make all the difference.”

He was silent for a moment, mulling over my words. Finally, he crossed his arms over his chest and said, “And why are you here?”

I shrugged nonchalantly. “Just lookin’ to take a little trip. This is the first opportunity I’ve found to visit a pocket dimension.”

He considered this for a moment, his eyes never leaving mine. “I see,” he said after a short pause. “Well, it seems like we have an understanding, then. But if you want to see the pocket dimension, I expect you to hold up on your end. I need actionable insights, not vague hints and riddles.”

“And you’ll get them,” I assured him. “I can promise you that much.”

With that, the tension in the room eased a bit. Jake still looked skeptical, but I gave him enough potential reward to balance the risks for now.

“I’m sure you can,” Jake said. “You seem to know a lot about me, but what about you? Who are you, Brick Layer? You have no birth certificate and you are not registered as an existing person in any country.”

“...huh?”

I actually didn’t exist? I knew that this character wasn’t part of this world originally, but Gramma really just put me here without any bases being covered?!

“You mentioned the importance of having the right information. I am someone who has access to a lot of information, and nobody knows anything about you. The only record of your existence is your enrollment as a cadet at Horizon Academy and the fact that you are Rank 6 among the first years. You have no family, no friends, no nationality. Your age, powers, and resources are completely unknown.”

“I…” I stuttered for a bit, floored by the reality he presented. I expected something like this, but it still hurt a little bit to realize that I truly had no place or history in this world.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I’m just a man trying to find his place in this world,” I said, dodging the question. “Let me ask you something, Jake. If you had the chance to change the world, would you take it?”

“...What do you mean?”

“Well, you have the power to mimic essence, right? Have you ever considered what you could do with that?”

Jake fell silent again. I could tell I’d piqued his interest, but he was also sizing me up. The question hung in the air, a challenge and an invitation at the same time.

“Essence Mimicry…” he murmured. “I don’t know how you found out, but you’re right; I do have that ability.”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. “You’re a mystery, Brick Layer. You appeared out of nowhere, you know things you shouldn't, and you ask questions that hint at an agenda I can’t even begin to understand. If not for my intuition, I would be long gone. Everything about you screams ‘dangerous’.”

“‘Dangerous’,” I repeated, trying out the feel of the word in my mouth. “I’ve been called worse.”

“Well,” he said, pushing himself up from his chair and moving to a large cabinet on the other side of the room. He pulled out a bottle of aged whiskey and two glasses. “If I’m going to be working with someone who’s worse than ‘dangerous’, I’m going to need a drink.”

He poured two glasses and handed one to me, a silent offer of temporary alliance. I accepted it with a nod, and we clinked our glasses together in a toast.

“To a new partnership,” Jake said, raising his glass before taking a long sip.

“To changing the game,” I said, hiding a grin behind my glass. I was firmly in uncharted territory, without a clear future in sight. Now that I’d secured a connection to Jacob Richards, I had a grip on the flow of events. I wasn’t going to be an object in this story any longer; I would be an agent, the man guiding the world into the future.

“And dealing with whatever comes our way,” I added.

This was only the first step to attaining the status and resources needed to accomplish my vision. Nothing in the world ever comes easy, and this world had some pretty dangerous times on the horizon.

***

After the meeting with Jake, I closed the door behind me and decided to head to the cafeteria to eat some lunch. We planned to meet up again in a few days to visit the pocket dimension—he needed to contact the right people and set things up properly, so I was on my own until he contacted me again.

The moment I entered the lobby of the counseling center, I was hit with a strange smell. It was sharp and bitter, like the faintest hint of almonds, mixed with the acrid scent of chlorine. I wrinkled my nose while glancing around in confusion.

The lobby was eerily silent except for Emily sitting behind the desk on her cell phone. She saw me looking and waved, her smile not quite reaching her eyes, which remained icy and detached.

I shrugged it off, assuming that she had just used some sort of cleaning product or something. As I took a few steps toward the door, the smell grew stronger, more pervasive. It hung in the air like an omen, a sense of unease threading through my nerves.

“Hey…” I was about to ask Emily about the smell, but then the world shook violently beneath me. I stumbled, bracing myself against the wall just in time to avoid falling on my face. My heart pounded in my chest, adrenaline flooding my system as I pushed away from the wall, scanning the room with a keen eye for any sign of danger.

“Emily!” I called out, projecting my voice above the sudden alarm blaring through the speakers. She lay sprawled on the floor, her cell phone skidding away from her. She looked dazed but otherwise unharmed.

Ignoring the ringing in my ears, I rushed over to Emily and helped her up. “Are you okay?” I asked, my voice barely audible over the screaming alarm.

“I-I think so,” she stuttered, her eyes wide with shock. “What just happened?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, looking around. The smell from earlier was almost overpowering and a memory flashed through my mind—a writing session where I spent several hours reading about different types of explosives on the internet. That’s when it hit me.

A chill ran down my spine as I realized the implications. Someone just set off a bomb. Here, in the counseling center, where there were only a handful of people, none of them with any kind of significance except for Jake…

Or except for me.

“Emily,” I said. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

As we made our way toward the exit, the floor beneath us shook again, but this time, it was accompanied by a deafening explosion. As the dust settled, I turned just in time to see Emily, her features hardened, her eyes cold and calculating. There was a chilling calmness about her that contrasted with the chaos around us. She snapped her fingers and the alarm immediately shut off.

“Hello, Brick,” she said, her voice deadly calm amidst the chaos.

Several pieces clicked into place and I sighed as I realized what was going on.

“You aren’t Emily,” I said.

“Correct. I am…”

“Agent-007 from the Kingdom of Science and Progress,” I interrupted, completing her introduction.

She pursed her lips. “I suppose I’m not surprised that you know who I am.”

“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow.

She shook her head. “Let’s stay on topic. I have a mission to accomplish, and I need to make sure you won’t keep getting in my way. I’ll kill you if I have to, but I’d prefer to avoid the inconvenience of killing a cadet.”

“Miss, you just blew a hole in the counseling center, and you blew up a whole wing of the school a few days ago. They’re already chasing you down.”

She waved my interjection way. “Eh, the big guys won’t bother with little ol’ me over a mere counseling center. The receptionist is still alive; I stashed her in a closet and made sure nobody died in any of the explosions. They’ll call me a terrorist but they won’t send anybody I can’t handle so long as I draw the line at structural damage and minor injuries.”

I didn’t have a retort, since I knew she was right. That was the excuse I used to justify her activities here despite the presence of some stupidly powerful Heroes on the island.

“So how did you find me?” I asked. “I didn’t think I left any traces behind.”

There wasn’t any point in pretending like I wasn’t the one who killed the Magic Bomber. She obviously knew it was me; why else would she pay me any attention at all?

“Let’s call that a trade secret,” she replied. “I’m more interested in why you involved yourself with us. If you’ll give us the name of your insider, we’ll walk away as if nothing happened between us.”

‘...Insider?’

It took me a moment to realize what she meant. I almost snorted with laughter when I figured it out.

‘They think someone from the KSP tipped me off!’

This changed a few things in my plans. I wasn’t going to mess with the KSP for a while, but they contacted me first. Well, I killed one of their operatives first, but same difference.

If I were to throw any influential people from the KSP under the bus, it had to be…

“The name you’re looking for is ‘Epsilon’,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed, carrying a hint of confusion.

“Who…?”

It was a name I shouldn’t know. Epsilon was a special figure within the kingdom, but he was also a national secret. Only the highest-level personnel in the kingdom knew what the name Epsilon meant.

Saying this name here would put me on the KSP’s watchlist, and it might even get assassins sent after me. On the other hand, it gave me a foot in the door. The Machine Father aside, there were plenty of reasonable people in the KSP, once you got past all the fanaticism.

“Thank you for cooperating,” she said, her voice icy cold. “I respect an enemy who knows when to cut his losses.”

“I’m sure you’ll have an interesting time with this investigation,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Don’t mention the name Epsilon to your bosses just yet. If you want to figure out what’s going on, I suggest you investigate for a while on your own. If you absolutely must trust a superior, then go to Sentinel. Whatever you do, do not let Titanus know that you’ve heard the name Epsilon.”

Her eyes widened with shock. “How…?” she started to ask, but she was interrupted by approaching shouting from outside the building.

“It took them way too long to respond,” I observed. “Was that your doing?”

She shrugged and then with a swift, almost inhuman movement, she launched herself toward the window. With a single punch, she shattered the glass and disappeared into the chaos outside.

“Well, then,” Jake said, breaking the silence.

I turned toward his voice, finding him in the hallway among the wreckage of the offices.

“I suppose you have a few questions?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Nah, I got the gist from your conversation. I’ll just add it to the list of mysterious things that you shouldn’t know, yet do.”

“Says a guy who also knows about Epsilon,” I shot back.

He smiled. “We should get out of here. That operative took out the cameras, and no one else knows you were here. Follow me; we need to keep it that way.”

We left the lobby and returned to his office. He shifted a few books on the shelves and retrieved a device hidden behind one of them. A sense of dread washed over me as I realized what it was.

“Jake, are you sure about this?” I questioned, my heart pounding in my chest.

“Trust me, Brick,” he said with a reassuring smile. Before I could object, he activated the device and the world around us started to blur. Just before everything went black, I heard him say, “See you on the other side, Brick.”

And then we were gone.