I rose the next morning feeling quite refreshed from my rest, and got out of bed, quickly dressing up before leaving the room to take care of my morning needs. By the time I got out of the restroom, I noticed Lily exiting her room with a large yawn, so I just gave her a wave before heading to where I had left my phone charging. I grabbed it off of the counter, and turned it on, waiting a bit for the small startup animation to finish, and then ended with a sigh.

While there was a wifi connection, there was no cell service whatsoever. I had been expecting as much, but I had still been hopeful that I could make some calls to my family and friends. At this point John had come out, and was having a bowl of cereal, an awfully plain breakfast for someone who could’ve easily have afforded a personal cook.

“So it seems there’s no cell service. I’m assuming the internet is also down?” I asked.

“Yeah, the city wifi is up, but it doesn’t have any connection to the rest of the world. Someone managed to set it up so there’s access to our own copy of the wiki though, so at least we have a good deal of information.”

He handed over the ip address of the wiki, and I hopped on, but didn’t find anything new, so quickly hopped off before having my own bowl of cereal. At this point, Lily had finished her own morning ritual, and joined us at the table. We chatted for a while, and when we were done I mentioned something that I had been planning on doing before going to see the military to try and convince them to learn some spells for when they run out of ammo.

“I was planning on looking for my group today. Lily, you want to join me or try and find your own lackeys?” I say in a tone that wasn’t quite joking.

Lily sighed a bit before answering. “I guess I’ll look for my group” she said, putting emphasis on the term group.

I nodded, then decided it was about time to get going. I was soon packed up and ready to go when John decided to speak up.

“Feel free to stay here for now if you’d like, The housing situation is really packed if you stay with the communal groups. I thanked him, deciding to take him up on his offer, as it was extremely comfortable here, the bed had been amazingly soft. Why on earth he had multiple beds up here was certainly worth finding out later, but for now I was going to head out and try to find my group.

I was soon in the more crowded part of town, and I hesitated a moment before stopping a random person and asking them.

“Where would I find the militia?” assuming that my group would have joined up with the defenses.

The man guided me off in a direction I think was eastwards, and after memorizing a few street names I was off. I soon arrived at an office building looking like any other office building, but with a large stream of people heading in and out of it, all of whom had weapons of some kind, and a few sporting different types of armor.

Walking in with all my gear stored in my backpack, I looked quite out of place, but I was soon asking around to find Rachel, Elizabeth, and Lars. It takes quite some time, but eventually I get a tip from one of the people I’ve asked, and I headed upstairs to the room they mentioned.

I finally arrive at the room I was directed to, and headed on in, spotting the group, along with two others I didn’t recognize all chatting.

I waved to get their attention before heading over, and grin at seeing their surprise to be seeing me. It may be a bit dark getting amusement at them having likely thought I was dead, but I did regardless. I’m soon before them, and I give an awkward “I’m back”, when Rachel impacts my chest in a hug.

My eyes widen in surprise, I hadn’t thought that me going missing would have affected any of them quite so much, but then again, they’d probably seen a good deal of people with them die in the monster wave, and seeing one of them alive was sure to be a relief. I pat Rachel’s back and then she separates from me, rachel having turned a bit red from embarrassment at her actions.

Lars is the first to speak up. “I can’t believe you survived that, what happened?”

“Well you know the tear in the air that we found when we were out there? We went through that. Turns out the game world isn’t just a game world after all. It’s where the gate went.”

They all look at me a bit disbelievingly, so I turn around my backpack, and pull out my new spear from the backpack which it shouldn’t fit in.

“Wait, you have a game backpack!?”

I shush them and look around, the room is actually empty except for us, but I don’t want to spread the news too much. I’m willing to share the news about the game world, but I don’t want the military confiscating my backpack in the name of research, even if I’ve been doing research on how to make my own.

I look askance at the two people I don’t recognize, and decide to ask about them.

“So who are the two I don’t recognize?”

Lars grins before answering. “Well the tall girl is Sydney, and the guy is Jake. You’d know them better as Aylea and Dark though.”

“Wait, I thought they were sitting out the fighting?”

“Well we were, but then the monster wave happened. Sitting at home isn’t safe anymore with more of them possibly happening, so we decided to join up with the militia. We’re a bit behind in levels, but we plan on making them up as soon as possible,” Sydney answers.

I nod, a bit distracted, I’d thought her avatar was beautiful, but her real self is even more so. Shaking my head and very pointedly avoiding staring at her, I decide to ask about what exactly the militia is doing.

“So what’re your duties as militia anyway, just fighting off the monster waves?”

This time Liz is the one to answer. “We’re mainly hunting actually. Once the populace found out that orb meat is both edible and surprisingly healthy, it’s how we’ve been feeding the population. We’ll need to make an outpost of some farms eventually, but as is, the hunting is keeping us well enough fed.”

I think back to the tasty meal I’d had with John and Lily. John clearly had some pull with the populace, even after the update, to have normal food rather than the orb steaks I imagine everyone else eating.

“So were you going to go hunting anytime soon?” I ask after a bit of silence.

“We actually were planning on taking today off. And I’ve been meaning to ask, you said we went through the hole in the air, who joined you?” Lars asked

“Lily actually. She’s off finding her own group of lackeys at the moment.”

“Oh? So you mean you were together with a cute girl for a week? Did you have fun?” Elizabeth asks, being terribly obvious with her implications.

I give her a flat look, clearly stating that nothing happened, before mentioning something. “It wasn’t a week or so actually, it was around a month our time, the time difference from in game carries over into real life, the two worlds are going on different speeds.

“Oh? A whole month? And absolutely nothing happened?” Liz continued, clearly not having gotten the message I’d tried to send her with my earlier look. I sigh before replying, ignoring that rachel had turned a bit red again from the comments, seemingly innocent to be embarrassed from the mild teasing.

“She may be cute, but her personality is the exact opposite, you try spending a month with her.”

Liz laughs and pats me on the shoulder before continuing her teasing. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get some eventually.”

I sigh yet again, and look to the others for rescue, but only notice Lars and Jake having a similar reaction to me, with rachel simply being red, and Sydney seemingly holding in a laugh. With Lars’ and Jake’s expressions, I have to assume I’m not the only one who’s been put through this, so I simply sigh again before asking something I was wondering about.

“So has anyone tried to teach the military any spells? They’re going to run out of ammo eventually, and I doubt every single one of them is going to focus on being a close quarters fighter.”

“Well basically everyone can cast force bolt now, and a lot of the military people have learned some basic spells, but it’s on their own time, there’s been no big movement from their leaders to try and push them into learning spells.”

“Well I’ll see what I can do, Maybe I can get in contact with the people who were interested in inscriptions and try and convince them to have a decent portion of the military learn spells. Hopefully the soldiers haven’t all put all their spell points into strength and agility already. Any ideas on where I should go to do that?”

“Well the military is housed on the edge of the city, so I’d go there if you want to try and convince them. We’ve got nothing planned, everyone okay heading along with Roland?” Lars asks the group.

Everyone nods, and we all set out, hopefully to talk some sense into the military. First however, I make everyone come along with me as I drop off my backpack at the front desk of John’s building, not wanting it to get confiscated. I take out some ink I’d made, the same stuff the mage’s guild uses to make their written down patterns.

We arrive at the military’s base of operations without much trouble, and are stopped by some guards at the front. I step forward after being asked what our business is.

“I’d like to see someone about teaching spells, I can give you written copies of the spell patterns for teaching people how to write them. Tell them I’m the guy who helped them with enchantments.”

The man simply looked at me with a bland expression, but thankfully radioed in to someone higher up in the command chain. While waiting, I shifted from foot, still nervous about this even though it was my second time working with the military.

It didn’t take too long until the same woman who had led me around last time walked through the doors, seemingly to the guard’s surprise from his expression as he saluted her. I hadn’t caught her name last time, so before she greeted us, I got her last name off of her nametag.

“Hello again Roland, So what’s this about spell patterns being written down. As far as we’re aware they simply destroy any paper they’re written on.”

“Nice to see you again Mrs. Simms, and for written spell patterns, so long as you use the right ink you can write them down fine. I can do some ice spell patterns for you, but you’ll need to find someone else for other patterns.”

She nodded, curtly correcting me with a “Ms.”, and gestured for me to follow, only pausing to agree when I asked if the group could come with me. They all had to leave their weapons at the front, but they were allowed.

I was soon in a room with all the serious faces I’d seen last time, before they began their questions.

“So you say you can write down spell patterns for us.”

I nodded, and the stern faced man continued.

“And why would we even need that?”

“Well you’re sure to run out of ammo eventually, and having your troops trained with magic, or at least some of them trained in magic could help in any battle.”

The man thought for a moment before asking another question.

“What spell patterns can you write down for us?”

“Well I can only give you the spell patterns for first and second circle spells. That would be ice spear, ice shatter, frostbite, and ice wall.”

The man then nodded, before agreeing to my proposition. “Well get us as many copies of each as you can, we’re aware of how to train our troops from there.”

I relaxed a bit, apparently I was the only one who could provide spell patterns as of now, and I doubted that was going to change anytime soon, but at least the military would fare better now after they ran out of ammo.

The rest of the day was spent writing spell patterns down, while my group was escorted around what had become the military base, a few buildings which had been surrounded by fences with barbed wire running over the top of them.

Eventually I finished, right around the time the group was done sightseeing, and we notified Ms. Simms of our departure. She guided us to the gates, and we were soon headed back to the building we had met up in. Once we arrived, I mentioned it was about time for us to part ways, when Rachel piped up.

“Well if you don’t have a place to stay, you could stay here for now, I’m sure the militia wouldn’t mind having another person.”

“I actually have a place to stay for now. Thanks for the offer though.”

“Where are you staying?” she asked.

I hesitated for a while, if I mentioned where I was staying Liz was sure to pipe up with more of her teasing, but eventually I decided I should just be truthful and put up with it.

“I’m staying with Lily’s dad, he has extra space, so I’m gonna stay there for now.”

Liz looked at me, a grin slowly crawling its way across her face. “And nothing happened. Suuuuuure,” she drawled. I winced.

“Seriously, there’s nothing between us. Though I guess you could count us as friends at this point, even with her princess attitude.”

Liz just looked at me, a grin resting on her face as she looked at me. I shook my head.

“Well I’ll be off for now, I’ll see you guys tomorrow probably.” I waved goodbye and headed off, soon arriving at John’s tower. I went in the doors, not being stopped by the doormen this time, and picked up my backpack I’d left with the lady at the front desk, before I paused, how was I going to get up to the top floor without Lily’s card.

I asked the lady, and she pressed a button on her phone, calling up to John and telling him I had arrived. Once she was done, she said to just hop in the elevator and it’ll take me on up. I thanked her, and did as she said, soon arriving at the top of the building. I opened the door to see something I wasn’t too happy seeing, Lily’s posse. I hid my grimace though, even when they decided to act in a condescending manner straight from the start.

“So what’s the enchanter doing here?” One of them said, speaking down their nose.

“I was invited here,” I reply, mentally shaking my head.

“It seems standards have lowered these days,” The same person mentioned.

I didn’t bother replying, and noticed some of the others in the group being clearly uncomfortable with how he was treating me, making me feel a bit less annoyed. I stepped by him, and was soon greeted by both John and Lily, before being invited to have a late dinner. I agreed, as I’d had some MREs at the military base while I was working, but they hadn’t really been the best meals ever.

I was soon eating orb steak along with an actual salad. Unfortunately I was eating with Lily’s posse. Lily had again been the one to cook, and it was painfully obvious that all of them were trying to brown nose with their ridiculous compliments. It was a tasty meal, and I made sure to thank Lily for cooking, but the way her posse acted, it was a meal made of the nectar of the gods.

To Lily’s credit, she took the compliments gracefully, and soon her posse was trickling out. I got some odd looks as I didn’t seem to be leaving, but they probably assumed I was just staying a bit longer than them.

Lily, John and I chatted for a while after they had left, discussing what the world was going to become. Farmers suddenly seemed like they would be very important, and transportation had already been changed. Even with the monsters mostly avoiding the highways, smaller roads were often infested. We wondered if we were going to start building walls around towns, or if the world was going to revert to tech from hundreds of years ago.

Eventually, our conversation died off, and we each went to bed, With me fading oh so easily into my meditative sleep.