Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 241: Heart to Heart

The soft touch was where Isaac was seriously lacking. Anything that required a measured response left him crippled.

Chasing an enemy through the air would have been a piece of cake. Reduce his mass to functionally zero, use pyromancy to accelerate, done.

Problem was, he could hardly start spewing flames in the middle of downtown Seoul just to prevent Amy from from telling the rest of the team about his relationship status.

For obvious reasons, the vast majority of his very lethal arsenal was also out.

So he went back to the oldest trick in his book, removing his weight and using flying swords to accelerate.

Of course, the city’s administration had also thoroughly had it with people flying all over the place, risking collisions with helicopters, planes, and other people, so there were countless laws regarding proper flight paths.

In other words, there was no way in hell he could catch a [Mage] who’d cribbed spells from every magic-based [Class] she’d come across, including countless flight spells which she’d then mashed together to create something greater than the sum of its parts.

But Amy wasn’t moving at anything close to her top speed either, eventually slowing near the outskirts of Seoul, and cutting her flight spell entirely once she reached her final destination.

She dropped like a stone in the same second that Isaac made a grab for the phone, making him miss and mutter a swear word.

A split-second before she hit the ground, she cast a momentum-canceling spell and came to a dead stop. She stared up at him and gave him a jaunty little wave, but made no move to run further.

Isaac hit the pavement a split second later and looked at her quizzically.

“What exactly was the point of all that?” he asked, surprised that she wasn’t running further or making any attempt to spread the word otherwise.

In lieu of any comprehensible answer, she just started laughing so hard that she couldn’t even stand up straight “You should have seen your face!”

“You were never going to tell anyone, were you?” Isaac asked. Amy was … hard to read, even at the best of times. Mischievous, always thinking of something funny to say, though she also knew when to keep her jokes to herself. Underneath it all, though, he was rarely sure about what she was truly thinking.

But right now, he was fairly certain she’d had her fun by making him chase her all over town while highly limited in what he could do.

“No, that would have been pretty mean. But seriously, why is this such a big secret? Why all the sneaking around?”

Isaac sighed “You know, this doesn’t seem like a conversation for the middle of the street. Let’s go to eat somewhere.”

Ten minutes later, they were sitting on a random bench in a public park, a massive spread of street food piled high between them. All of it a million times better than the random stuff they’d been fed while researching.

“Whoa, hot!” Amy yelped as she ate the first piece of a particularly spicy batch of tteokbokki, then proceeded to stick her tongue out and scrub it with a cleaning spell.

“It’s all in your head.” Isaac told her, earning himself a death glare “No, I’m serious. You’re still tasting the spice, but your Fortitude is high enough that the capsaicin can’t burn you anymore. But your brain doesn’t know that tasting something spicy no longer means that the inside of your mouth is basically getting chemical burns. It’s how people still swear and hop around a bit when they bump their toes, even though they should be too tough to feel anything.”

Amy gave him a skeptical look, staring straight into his eyes as she lifted her fork to her mouth with trepidation “You know what I’m going to do to you if you lied to me, right?”

Well, he didn’t know exactly what she’d do, but he could imagine. Horrible, awful, unspeakable things that would make even demons quail in fear. But he’d told her the truth, so it should be fine … right?

“Ah, this is so much better,” Amy sighed and leaned back, grinning for a moment, before going right back to staring straight back into Isaac’s soul.

“Are there any other things you might have forgotten to tell me?” she asked, voice dangerously low.

This time, Isaac began to sweat a little. Was there something he hadn’t told her? He had told her about how you could reduce your senses back to the human baseline, and how you should do that for smell because the modern world stunk … right? If he hadn’t, she’d probably burn off his eyebrows at the very least.

“I don’t think so?” Isaac cautiously announced.

“Anyway, enough stalling, you were going to tell me about your girlfriend,” Amy teased “Why do you sneak around like that?”

“Situations like this, for one,” Isaac pointed out.

“Would it have really become such a big deal if you’d just been upfront about everything?”

“What, just announce it? Is this high school?” Isaac replied with a raised eyebrow.

“There’s a difference between announcing it and hiding it like it’s a secret on par with nuclear launch codes.” Amy pointed out “Let’s start at the beginning, when did this start?”

“First time we met, actually,” Isaac said “We got all the paperwork done, put down the foundation for all future cooperation between us and Camelot, we decided to get drinks afterwards, one thing led to another, and so on.”

“Ok, so at the time, it would look weird, I get that,” Amy said, before continuing in a surprisingly good imitation of Isaac’s voice “Well, the two of us just worked together for a whole night, in and out of the bedroom, here’s an agreement that I assure you we paid full attention to.”

Isaac had never been more glad to have an anti-eavesdropping [Skill] active in his life.

“Sure, let’s go with that,” Isaac told her.

“But why keep it up? I mean, you’re sneaking off to meet her occasionally, but by dating standards, you two basically never see each other.” Amy asked.

“Because keeping it on the down low works. We’re taking it slow, and we don’t want to deal with the usual ‘oh, when are you getting married’ nonsense, especially not from my parents.”

Amy winced “Aren’t your parents nice, though? And slow, why? The world’s ending, isn’t it?”

“Nice and annoying aren’t mutually exclusive.” Isaac shrugged “And as for why we’re taking it so slow … you said it, it might be the end of the bloody world, if we don’t do enough. If we live in the moment, we might lose the rest of eternity.”

Amy winced.

“I know relationship advice shouldn’t come from someone who routinely goes to bars just to show up and scare the shit out of the braggarts who try to pick up girls with grand lies about hunting monsters, but don’t wait too long.”

“We won’t. Ten yea- …” Isaac began, then did a double take as everything she’d said registered “You do what?”

“Oh, it’s good fun. Some guy talks about how he’s kicked a [Raid Boss] around like a football, then sidles up to me, drops some stupid line … and then I let him feel a tiny fraction of my [Aura] as I take a [Portal] to the next bar. That ‘oh shit, I fucked up’ look is absolutely priceless.”

“I’m guessing that’s part of why you want an S-Ranker badge?” Isaac guessed and Amy nodded “Can you imagine having that in my wallet, accidentally flashing that thing to someone who thinks he’s hot shit?

“Seriously though, how are you and Elena going to go? Ten years … that’s a long time to wait. Even with how aging slows with Levels and Fortitude.”

“I know.” Isaac said “But neither of us is human anymore either. I’m an Einherjar, I don’t even know how long I’ll live beyond that my lifespan is probably a bit longer than a High Human’s. And Elena is literally one of the Fae, her lifespan might as well be infinite. We don’t have the time to spend together now, but we will in the future. So we’re waiting.”

“Hm.” Was Amy’s only response.

“How about we forget about this, and in ten years, you can brag about how you figured everything out before everyone else”? Isaac suggested.

“Sure thing,” Amy shrugged, “Now, we don’t have to do anything for a few more hours, what are the chances you could arrange an S-Rank promotion exam between then and now?”

***

Magic flared in the training room, obliterating every target with extreme prejudice in a split second. All around Amy, rubble from her demonstrating an AOE spell piled high, a homage to the room’s “made to break” design.

Professor Kim stood next to Isaac in the examination room.

“This was just a formality, she’s one of the most terrifying magic wielders in the world.” She commented.

“You’re on that list too,” Isaac pointed out.

“I know,” Kim said “But the examination isn’t why I’m here, I heard you’d be here and figured this was a simple way for us to talk in private.”

“About?” Isaac asked. The room had several powerful anti-eavesdropping measures and the professor had just cast another anti-scrying spell on top of everything else.

“What do you know about the [System’s] architects?”

“Why are you talking to me about this?” Isaac asked. He and Professor Kim occasionally worked together, but he’d expected to be at the very bottom of the list of people she’d talk to about something this sensitive.

“Guildmaster Seon said I should talk to you when I asked him,” she replied.

Ah, that made more sense.

“And what did he say, exactly?”

“That I should share my hypothesis with you, and nothing more. It sounded very cryptic,” Kim said.

“I think I know where this is going,” Isaac replied “So, what did you find?”

“I think the [System] was created by multiple parties, at least two.” Kim stated “I know that sounds out there, but there’s evidence. Two different design philosophies, two different levels of transparency, two entirely different purposes.”

“A removal of the limits on how far training can take a person is benevolent, giving the entire world the option to summon highly destructive monsters seems sinister?” Isaac asked.

“Exactly,” Kim said “But there’s more to it. Have you read the entirety of the [System’s] instruction manual?”

Isaac nodded.

“It only describes the beneficial parts of the [System], not the dangerous ones,” Kim said.

“It could be part of a challenge from the [System’s] creators, a little how most video games don’t come with an inbuilt wiki that reveals all the secrets from the start,” Isaac suggested.

“Do you really believe that?” Kim asked.

Isaac shook his head “No, just trying to keep other options in mind, playing advocatus diaboli.”

“Alright. Then we have the designs of the summoning rituals. Looking at them on the surface, there are two kinds of summons. First, we have opponents, meaning monsters, as well as places that create them like Hunting Grounds, Dungeons, and other places in the ‘Realms’ section. And then we have boons, like spatial pockets for both storage and living in, spirit pets, realms that preserve endangered species.”

Isaac nodded, not sure where she was going with this.

“But in reality, there is an additional divide, creating two categories of ‘rewards’ type summons. Some are incredibly valuable but require materials that can only be gained from powerful monsters, encouraging reckless behavior. Yet some are valuable while only requiring cheap materials.

“Turning one’s animal companion into an immortal spirit pet costs a couple of chunks of cheap stone, a hand-made collar, food, and a drawing, which is basically nothing, a few hours worth of effort at most. How much would people be willing to spend, how far would they be willing to go to save their pets? How high could the [System’s] architects have raised the price if they wanted to? But they didn’t, and one of the kindest gifts of the [System] is all but free.

“It’s the same with various animal sanctuaries that can be summoned. You need samples from the animals you want to inhabit it, but no materials that require you to fight a powerful enemy to get. It’s a simple way to enrich the planet we live on, and it’s basically free.

“On the other hand, something as simple as spatial storage requires you to fight one of the most annoying and dangerous monsters in the first five Tiers. There’s a clear divide there.”

Isaac nodded once again “It’s interesting, but there’s still a chance that it’s just another trap, a sample to get people hooked on the [System’s] rewards and more willing to risk themselves. You’re onto something, but I want to make sure we keep all possibilities in mind.”

“I understand,” Kim said “But I’ve found something even more interesting. Are you aware of the difference between solar and sidereal days?”

Oh, now Isaac knew what she was building up to, something he hadn’t put two and two together before now.

“A solar day is how long it takes for the Earth to spin into the same location relative to the sun, a sidereal day is the time required for the Earth to return to the same positioning relative to the surrounding stars. Sidereal days are around four minutes shorter,” he summarized.

“Exactly. I noticed that what we’re calling the ’beneficial’ part of the System uses the twenty-four-hour solar day as the cooldown time for [Skills] that have a one-day cooldown. Meanwhile, once a day [Skills] reset at precisely midnight in the timezone where they were used.

“On the other hand, anything to do with the ‘malicious’ side of the [System] operates on the sidereal day. For example, automatic summoning doesn’t occur a full week after a monster is first summoned, but a little under twenty-eight minutes earlier. Seven sidereal days after the summoning, on the dot. With every Tier above 1, the automatic summoning cooldown is reduced by half a day, that’s common knowledge. But once again, it’s not a twelve-hour time difference, it’s eleven hours and fifty-eight minutes.”

“The two halves of the [System] use different methods of measurement,” Isaac stated “How the hell did I miss that? We found out about the sidereal measurement of the automatic summoning … I think it was years ago.”

“You believe me already?” Kim asked, “This is the part where most people start arguing and calling me crazy in spite of all evidence to the contrary.”

“I know you’re right, though I didn’t make half the connections you did. Now, can you keep a secret? Because at this point, there’s something you really should know about this world of ours …”

“Science is about sharing information so the whole world can benefit,” Kim responded “It really depends on the nature of the secret.”

“It’s something that confirms your hypothesis, but it’s not something we can act on,” Isaac explained.

“If that’s true, I’ll keep your secret. But we both know how dangerous the world has gotten, we need any edge we can get,”

It took another five minutes but eventually, Isaac managed to convince her that his secret wasn’t going to advance their preparations for the potential apocalypse beyond reaffirming the need for them to prepare.

He explained and once he was done, Kim grimaced, taking a long time to gather herself before responding.

“That … it’s worse than I ever could have expected. A divine war by proxy … shit. If you need anything, I’ll make sure you get it. And I’ll keep your secret unless it becomes common knowledge.”

“Thank you,” Isaac said.

The pair of them left the room another minute later, only to be greeted by Amy, who’d been waiting at the door for an apparently long time. The evaluator who’d been in the examination room with her was tapping her foot in annoyance.

“Whatcha doing?” Amy asked chipperly, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

“Having a confidential conversation that went long,” Kim replied cooly, then looked at the examiner “We fully support official recognition of Miss Shaw’s S-Rank.”

Isaac nodded too, so the examiner pulled the red and gold medal from empty air and handed it to Amy.

“Miss Shaw, the Republic of Korea officially recognizes you as a person of S-Rank caliber. This badge is a demonstration of this recognition, and grants you certain privileges within the borders of this nation.

“In addition, as with all S-Rankers, a generous benefits package is available, should you decide to relocate to this nation …”

The whole spiel basically boiled down to “immediate citizenship with a bare minimum of red tape, a large, gifted apartment, and a ludicrously high stipend”, but Amy declined it immediately once it was over.

Eventually, Isaac, Amy, and Kim headed over to Seoul University to discuss further action.