After a while, it seemed our watchers had finally disappeared. I kept looking around, but they never seemed to show up, so I shrugged it off and went back to paying attention to the pitiful monsters we were facing. There never seemed to be any large groups of them, so all the fights were completed without an issue. We even switched to using our melee weapons more than our spells as we no longer needed to move quickly.

When the sun was about halfway down the sky, the monsters started to thin out further, and we started seeing only orbs and the occasional warg, neither of which would go out of their way to attack us for some reason. I knew that orbs were relatively docile outside of a monster wave, but wargs had always been very aggressive, leading me to think that they had some way to sense how strong we were.

Eventually, the monsters disappeared entirely, and we could see the city in the distance, but as the sun was almost down we decided to set up camp instead of continuing on. After setting up the ward net, we cooked up the last of the ramen that I had found, and went to bed.

The next day was filled with a bit of giddiness about our return to a true gathering point for humanity, or at least the first large group of it. Our pace had picked up, and it wasn’t long until we ran into someone, a group of patrolling soldiers.

“Halt and state your business!” they shouted from a good distance away. We continued towards them, until they raised their guns, so I put my hands up and decided to just shout back, when Lily decided to do the shouting instead.

“I’m going to the city to meet my father, what reason do you have for stopping us?” She was back to using her regal tone of voice she liked so much, I idly noted.

The guy seemed to look a little bashful, and had his men put down their guns before approaching.

“Sorry about that, we just haven’t had anyone approach from this direction so we got a bit nervous. We even had a few soldiers who were sent out to scout disappear. We’ll escort you to the city. Lily and I nodded, and we were soon on our way.

“Where did you get those weapons and armor by the way?” The man asked after a bit, clearly curious about the upgrades we had gotten while we were on the other side.

“I’d tell you, but you wouldn’t believe me.” I mentioned in a joking tone of voice.

“Try me,” the guy replied.

I took a deep breath and decided to explain something that he likely wouldn’t believe. “Well, you know how the update is basically the game world invading our own?”

The man thought a bit before giving a reply. “I’ve heard that it was very similar to the game, and a lot of the people who played it believe it’s the game world invading, but I have yet to see any sort of proof, it’s all just speculation.”

I turned the corner of my mouth down, this guy probably wouldn’t believe what I was going to say, but a few of the other soldiers seemed more interested, so I continued. “Well it’s technically not an invasion from the game world. There’s three worlds at work here, there’s the world the monsters are coming from, the game world, and ours.” I took a short breath before continuing. “The monsters are invading through what I’ve started calling ‘gates’ into our world, though they also seem to be spawning too, likely a side effect of the constant mist. Anyway, there are other gates which lead to the game world, though I guess I shouldn’t be calling it a game world at this point. We got trapped over there, and only recently got back. We got our gear there.” I finished.

The man looked at me skeptically, but simply shrugged and decided to ignore my implausible tale.

“Well your gear is definitely interesting, especially that spear of yours.” He mentioned.

We’d managed to hunt another king class craw while we were on the other side, which had been much easier this time due to there being two of us, and with our higher stats than in game, and it’s claws had been made into another spear for me, and a sword for Lily. Both of which we had eventually decided to enchant with toughness runes, as keeping it from breaking seemed to be a better decision than just making it cut things more easily.

Our armor wasn’t anything special, just molt plate armor but it was enchanted with toughness, and I thought it may even be able to stop low caliber guns, though I wasn’t ready to test such a theory when I only had the one set. The rest of the walk was spent chit chatting about random things, and I got to find out that the part of the city that held the residents had power, as a nearby solar plant was up and running, and regularly patrolled.

We arrived at the city after not too long, and the soldiers gave us a farewell before heading back out. I wondered for a bit where we were going before Lily gave a short “Follow me,” and I was soon following her through the empty streets, amused by the skip she had in her step.

The empty streets soon gave way to groups of people, and I felt my shoulders sink in relaxation to finally be back someplace that had a large amount of people. I walked along after Lily, soon starting to weave through the crowds.

Eventually, the crowds started to thin out, and we soon arrived at a tall building that wasn’t big enough to be a skyscraper. It had a unique shape, looking like a less curved half moon attached to a rectangle. We soon walked up to the doors, where two guards greeted Lily.

“Miss,” they said in unison, standing up a bit straighter in their security guard uniforms.

“Carry on,” Lily replied in her haughty tone.

I shrugged, and was going to follow her in, when the guards moved to stop me, until Lily gave a short “He’s with me,” while giving a withering glare to the guards. I held in a chuckle at how they seemed to wilt a bit at her glare, and was soon inside the building with Lily.

“So where to now?” I asked.

“To the top floor of course,” Lily replied. We then headed over to the elevator, as if the city had power as the soldier had said, it should be working with no problems. After pressing the button, it lit up, and I relaxed, I wasn’t going to be stuck taking the stairs. The elevator arrived, and we both stepped in.

Lily soon took a card out of her backpack, and inserted it into a small slot under the buttons. I was curious, but assumed it allowed her to reach the top floor of the building, so gave it no further thought.

We soon arrived, and the doors opened to a small room. Lily took out her little card again and inserted it into the door, and soon after I heard the click of the lock disengaging. She turned the handle, and opened the door into a large living room, complete with widescreen TV, which was turned on.

When we entered, a tall, skinny man turned around, and I saw a very severe face, which instantly broke out into a massive smile as he saw Lily. he ran over and hugged her immediately.

“Dad, stop,” Lily said in the most childish voice I had ever heard from her. I blinked, she actually seemed cute for once in her life.

“Not yet,” he said, with a sad tone in his voice. “I’m glad you’re ok”

After maybe a minute of the touching reunion, with me feeling terribly awkward being there, he finally turned to me, getting a mischievous grin on his face as he announced “So Lily, I see you finally brought a man over to our house, how long have you been dating?”

I mentally facepalmed, and the both of us turned red as Lily shouted “We’re not like that dad!”

The grin faded a bit and he commented. “So another of your lackeys then?”

Lily seemed visibly annoyed at the fact that the group she had been with before had been referred to as lackeys, but shook her head before replying. “He’s just…” I wondered while she searched for an appropriate word, what were we really? Acquaintances? Friends? Hunting partners?

Lily eventually settled on “a friend.”

My eyes widened a bit, I hadn’t expected her to go with that, but then again I was honestly surprised she hadn’t classified me as lackey. Her father seemed to have a grin back on his face, and came over and slapped my back.

“Congratulations, I think that you’re the second person to be classified as a friend!” her dad mentioned, and I instantly felt bad, I guess Lily really was sort of trapped by being a rich girl and minor Viewtube celebrity, where everyone seemed to be after her simply for her position rather than trying to be friends with her. At the same time, I wondered who the first person was.

Lily seemed to have turned bright red, I guess for everyone parents are embarrassing, though her dad seemed to be a bit worse than most.

“I’m John, pleasure to meet you.” he held his hand out for a shake which I took, and he soon continued. “Anyway, make yourself at home. There’s food in the fridge, and a couple spare rooms if you’re going to spend the night.”

I was flabbergasted, this man seemed to have absolutely zero troubles letting a complete unknown into his house. Eventually, I shrugged, and followed Lily as she made a beeline to the surprisingly large kitchen.

She was instantly cooking up something with well practiced motions. I was honestly surprised, I hadn’t expected the rich girl to have any clue how to do mundane things such as cooking.

She seemed to notice my expression, and got a bit of an annoyed look on her face, as she deadpanned to me “Yes, I can cook. I’ll make enough for both of us, just go sit down.”

It felt weird, just waiting for her to cook us something, but I eventually thought of something, and decided to ask.

“Do you know if there would be any chargers for our phones here? I really want to see if we have any service.”

She pointed at one of the rooms, mentioning it would be in a box on the left, and I entered a small storage closet. I dug through the bins, and soon found what I was looking for, then went over and plugged my phone into the wall.

While I waited for it to charge, I sat down, and Lily soon arrived with two spinach, ham and cheese omelettes. My mouth was watering, and we both soon dug into our food. It was quite delicious, and I finished off mine in non time at all, before leaning back in satisfaction.

“That was delicious, thanks for the meal,” I off-handedly thanked her, still distracted by the feeling of having earth cooked food. The other world had eggs, but they just didn’t taste right, so I was glad to have some chicken eggs again.

Lily seemed similarly satisfied, and we just sat there for a while. Lily eventually shook off the lethargy, and mentioned. “Follow me, I’ll show you to your room.” She wrinkled her nose, then changed her mind. “Actually, you should probably go take a shower first.”

I slowly got up and lurched after her, wanting to just go into a food coma, but knowing I really did need to be cleaned, I hadn’t since my last stay in an Inn in the other world. We soon arrived, and Lily left me to my own devices. I instantly hopped in a shower, and set the water to just painful enough for me to bear it, and groaned from pleasure. Showers were another thing that had yet to be invented in the other world, at least in the portions I had been to, and taking one was heavenly.

I was out of the shower all too soon, and I dressed in one of the spare clothing sets I had lying in my backpack. I then went out to see Lily and her dad talking, and when she notice me, she mentioned something unusual.

“My dad says we’ve only been gone for around a week and a half.”

“That’s… Impossible. We were gone for over a month.”

Her dad looked between the two of us before mentioning “well it’s only been around a week and a half, I don’t know what happened with you two, but that’s how long it’s been for us.”

I wondered for a bit, then remembered an important piece of information, when playing sanity online, time ran faster by four times. I decided that had to be what was causing it. But why did the gates work without any trouble then? They had to be an area where time was distorted or something.

I mentioned my theory to Lily, and she hesitantly agreed. I then decided to drop the subject, and Lily was soon showing me to what would be my room before heading off to shower herself. I went into the room and flopped down on the bed, I needed a nap on a real bed. My eyes were closed within seconds, and I didn’t even bother working on the flow of my mana to meditate myself to sleep.

I was woken up by knocking on the door, and I opened it with disheveled hair to see Lily in a proper dress rather than the trousers she normally wore for combat. I looked her over once, thinking she looked quite adorable when she wasn't cursing out anyone.

She frowned a bit for some reason, and mentioned “It’s dinner time.” and I was soon following her, as good food would get me to follow anyone. I arrived, and was greeted with steak and potatoes, making my mouth water, I’d eaten a lot of craw meat, and mystery meat from the vendors in town, but a proper steak was something I could really get behind.

We were soon digging in, each of us focusing on the food rather than conversation, and when we all started to wind down eating, John decided to start the conversation.

“So what were a young guy and girl doing together while missing?” He said in a clearly teasing manner. I noticed Lily turning bright red again, and I may have darkened a shade as well, but I decided to just give him an overview of what had happened.

After my lengthy explanation, he leaned back. “This is a lot to take in. Is there any way you could prove it’s real?”

I looked to Lily, then went and grabbed my backpack, it would be the best example. I then continued to show him how it worked, and took out a few gold coins for him to examine, leaving him very surprised at me having real gold.

I figured that was a good enough proof, and left him with a thoughtful look on his face. I then realized I could probably have shown the backpack to the soldier, but then again, I didn’t want it ‘confiscated’ in the name of the war effort.

I then decided to ask something that had been nagging me.

“So how did the city survive the monster wave anyway?”

“The army just took down basically all of the monsters, with a few people like you helping out in the fight. Don’t tell anyone, but they’re basically out of ammunition, and when they finally run out, there’s going to be a lot of trouble. Most people are relying on the meat of those small round monsters to stay fed, and the army is the one hunting them.”

I frowned, I didn’t know these people, but I didn’t want them to starve. I could probably contribute a bit to the food effort, but what I could add would just be a drop in the bucket. And that wasn’t saying anything about when the army ran out of ammunition and the next monster wave hit. We needed to get everyone willing out hunting immediately, even just teaching everyone the force bolt spell and having them gang up to instantly kill an orb would help.

I mentioned as much to John, but he shrugged his shoulders, mentioning “people just want to be protected, they don’t want to change their way of life.”

I got an annoyed look on my face, if people planned on just sitting around, they were going to die the next monster wave if the army ran out of ammo. Eventually, I decided on a course of action, I was going to teach the army some spell patterns.

I decided to do that tomorrow though, as even with my nap I was starting to nod off, so I headed off to my room and crashed on the bed, this time staying aware enough to slowly focus the mana in my body along its path before slowly letting my mind drift away, into a state that wasn’t quite sleep.