Saya had a hard time believing Jacob’s story. A portal? A mysterious package delivery? Who wouldn’t find it hard to believe!

But she had already promised to help Jacob make up with Zachary, so she was conflicted.

As they knocked on Zachary’s door, her mind was filled with emotions of unsureness. She was concerned for Jacob, who seemed to have made up a grand tale just to get closer to Zachary. She didn’t know what to do about him, but since she had already promised to talk to them, maybe Zachary would know why Jacob was acting so strange.

“Jacob and… Saya? What are you guys doing here,” Zachary said.

“Jacob told me a grandiose tale, and you are at the center. So we’re here to talk to you,” she responded, somewhat shyly.

Jacob stayed silent and calm, letting Saya do the talking.

Zachary’s eyes narrowed. “What did he tell you?”

“Everything he saw yesterday,” she responded. “Will you let us in?”

“And you believe him?!” He asked incredulously.

“Well. Not really. No offense, Jacob. But I did hear about your fight earlier and how you refused to talk to him, so that’s what I agreed to help Jacob smooth out. Common, won’t you at least talk to us?”

Zachary grimaced.

“Fine.”

Then he let them in.

The furniture had been moved around, leaving a large open space. Zachary had been practicing with his new bat, trying to gain a new skill without success. He moved the couch back and sat on it.

“Jacob, I told you not to tell anyone and to forget about it,” he said.

“Like I keep telling you, I can’t forget. I just want to know what I saw.”

“And like I told you, you don’t want to know!”

“Guys!” Saya interrupted. “Zach, what happened yesterday? What won’t you tell us?”

“Even if I wanted to tell this meat-head about it, he wouldn’t be able to help me.”

“Meat-head? Me?”

“All you football players are the same. The only thing you care about is being on top. As soon as someone weaker starts to get ahead, you beat him to the ground. You’re all brawn, no brains.”

“This isn’t about me! This is about you and the portal-”

“Jacob, hush.” Saya interrupted again. “Zach, what’s this about? Why do you have such a grudge towards the football team?”

Zachary hesitated before saying. “Yesterday, Frank, Michael, and Marci Doyle, took my bike behind the bleachers, and… and...”

Jacob made a shocked face, becoming quiet.

“And what?” Saya pried gently.

He sighed. “They hurt me, beat me up and stuff.”

“Oh my gosh. That’s terrible!”

“Yeah. I couldn’t get up for probably thirty minutes because of the pain.”

“Zach…” Jacob said with a hesitant expression.

“Have you told a teacher, a coach, or the principal yet? What have your parents done?”

“I couldn’t. No one else knows.” Zachary said.

“What do you mean you couldn’t?”

“I mean,” Zachary said while pulling off his shirt, “I don’t have any proof. My injuries have already healed! No one would believe me if I claimed to have gone through that. And they definitely wouldn’t believe me if Marci was there to defend herself.”

Zachary showed off his unbruised body.

Saya started to turn red, so she averted her eyes.

“Not a single bruise,” Jacob observed. “Wait. Was this before, or after the portal?”

Zachary replaced his shirt and glared silently at Jacob.

Coming back to her wits, Saya said, “Look, I know you must hate what those three did to you, but Jacob is innocent, he wasn’t a part of it. So stop hating him.”

“He’s always hanging out with them. Besides, none of them have ever been nice to me. What has he done for me? I can’t trust him.”

Jacob made an apologetic look. For the first time in a while, he swallowed his pride. “I’m sorry I didn’t do more. All those times I saw the guys joking with you and you looked uncomfortable, I only tried to distract them with something else. I should have stood up for you better.

“I hang out with them because I’ve known them for a very long time and because we are all on the football team. It’s only been recently, when Frank and Marci have started dating, that they’ve turned into jerks. I never could have imagined they would do that to you.

“But believe me when I say that I’m not like that. I want to be friends with everybody, including the jocks on the football team as well as the nerds from the computer lab. If I were to choose, I would actually join the nerds. It’s just easier to hang with the jocks because of how big I am. I’ve always been big. It’s not something I can change.”

“Jacob…” Saya muttered.

Jacob continued. “I may be the quarterback. I may be big and mean-looking, but that’s not who I am inside. So what do you say, Zach? Can you forgive me and look past my appearance? Will you talk to us?”

Zachary thought about it for a long moment.

Of course, Jacob had never been an instigator. When he recalled all the times he was around, Jacob had actually tried to be nice to him. It was always Frank and Michael who were the ones causing him trouble.

He nodded apologetically. “I’m sorry, Jacob.”

Jacob sighed. “No. I’m sorry.”

“I guess I haven’t been that fair.”

The tension in the room dissipated by a large degree. It seemed that Zachary was finally ready to open up.

Still, Saya was confused about one thing.

“Wait, Zach. How did your wounds heal so fast?”

Zachary smirked, and created a fire manifestation, the orange orb appearing brilliantly on his fingers. Saya and Jacob went speechless. Then Zachary shot it at Jacob’s chest, where it dissipated.

“What the heck was that?” Jacob patted his chest.

“Magic.”

Saya shot to her feet with wide eyes. “T-t-t-then that means! The p-p-portal?! Jacob’s story is real?!?

The boys nodded.

“WHAT?!”

“I guess I should share what that ‘portal’ really is,” Zachary said, “and what I’m trying to do about it, as well as why you guys can’t tell anyone else.”

Zachary proceeded to explain the bare basics of what was happening.

…

“So let me get this straight,” Saya said, “Yesterday, right after getting beat up by Frank and Michael, you suddenly acquired powers, found a dungeon behind the cafeteria, fought monsters inside of it before they could get out, and you won’t tell anyone about it because you don’t want to be captured like ET?”

“More or less, yeah.”

Jacob asked, “Ooh. What kind of powers?”

“Pain resistance, magic, a few skills, and a way to detect the dungeons.”

Zachary playfully shot dot manifestations at Saya and Jacob while he spoke.

“Is that why you are so strong now?” Jacob asked, remembering how he had easily dragged him across the ground.

“Y-yeah.” More or less.

‘I’ve already told them a lot. Should I tell them about my player status now too?’

But soon they overwhelmed him with a barrage of questions. What are the monsters like? How did Zachary defeat them? Things like that.

‘I guess, for now I should keep this discussion as simple as possible… Hmm. It’s getting dark out. I wonder what time it is.’

In a different part of town, the military were welcoming a team of linguistics experts.

Conveniently, the soldier, Beaumont, had just woken up after a nap, and they were ready to confront the “natives” in their care.

“Unfortunately, the one with bullet wounds is still in intensive care. But the other two are stable.” A doctor said to the team.

Lieutenant Colonel Park nodded. “That’s alright. Let’s meet this Vetrice fella, the man you vouched for.”

Beaumont cleared his throat. “Thank you sir.”

When they walked into Vetrice’ tent, they were surprised to see him moving about in an active manner. The nurse was trying to get him to stay still and not aggravate his injuries.

Vetrice’ feet slid across the ground in practiced movements as he expended the last of his chakra. A blue mist seeped off his body.

Colonel Park and Beaumont watched in fascination as Vetrice performed his fluid movements.

Finally he stopped and began to remove his bandages. The nurse was alarmed, but stared in shock at the man’s peerless skin, the injuries on his ribs, knee, and hand disappeared.

‘Heh, I won’t be able to recover my chakra in this place, but at least now I won’t have to needlessly bear the pain. And maybe they’ll trust me more if I’m all out of energy.’

Vetrice proceeded to sit on his bed with a nonchalant expression. The fussy nurse continued to examine him needlessly.

The two men’s eyes shook at the ridiculous healing speed of this man.

Beaumont coughed, “Miss, I think this man will be fine for the moment.”

The nurse excused herself.

“Hello, friend. Thank you.” Vetrice said with perfect pronunciation. “Woman was nice.”

“We’re glad you appreciate our help,” Colonel Park responded. “I know it’s hard to understand me, but I would like your help. Can you talk to my other friends and learn with them?” He gestured to the tent flap.

The linguistics experts took this opportunity to come in and introduce themselves.

“Hello, sir. My name is Wang Xiu Ying. I am a teacher.” He switched languages. “Xiānshēng, nǐ hǎo. Wǒ jiào wángxiùníng. Wǒ shì lǎoshī.”

“Hello, friends. I’m happy to learn.” Vetrice nodded. “Cobarry teld vo trojar.”

In another tent, the man from the hunter’s guild who had been knocked unconscious by Vetrice in the fight, was handcuffed to a folding chair he was sitting in.

‘Strange clothes. Strange tent. Strange… irons. Who are these people?’ he wondered as he looked at the two soldiers on either side of them.

Soon a group of people came in and sat in chairs opposite. They started trying to talk to him, even using some words he was familiar with.

He stayed silent as he tried to contemplate what he should do.

‘They are mostly un-familiar with our language. A foriegn country? What should I say? Should I just stay quiet?’ He shook his head inwardly. ‘No, that won’t help me. Even if they started torturing me, I wouldn’t know what to say or what they wanted. I won’t give away my secrets, but I should cooperate until I can speak to them.’

“Hello, my name is Slade,” he said.

“Why are we hiring civilians for this?” The Navy’s E-9 officer asked.

“Mr. Wang is fluent in Chinese and Korean, as well as knowledgeable about a few other eastern languages. He’s perfectly qualified, plus he was close by,” Carlure said.

“But why is he here?”

“We gave that native, Vetrice, a pen and he started writing in characters, not letters. Which means we needed to get some more experts. We’ve already contracted Mr. Wang into secrecy. So it’s fine.”

“Well… never mind that. What about the press? Have there been any leaks? It’s a miracle that they haven’t seen all the mobilization. The Coast Guard is here and we had the air force flying around for a while.”

“Apparently something happened in the next town over that the news station is choosing to focus their attention on. Something about an unnatural homicide.” Colonel Park added.

“That’s good for us, but I’m sure they’ll hear about us soon.”

The Air Force E-9 officer interjected. “What’s the status on the STA, Doctor Carlure?”

Carlure flipped through her notes. “There is a strange temporal phenomena happening on the other side, where time seems to pass at half the rate. So it’s been night time over there for as long as it has been day here. Basically this was the way it was before our men got trapped inside. But otherwise, there’s been no change.”

Suddenly a radio beeped on Carlure’s belt. The urgent voice of a soldier was audible to everyone in the room.

“Base, this is STA Observation, there’s been a change, the barrier went down again. Over.”

Carlure checked her wristwatch. 22:00. “What?” she said with shock. “It’s the same as last night!”

“Give me the radio,” Colonel Park said, “STA Observation, this is Base, back away from the object. Don’t let anyone near it. I repeat, don’t let anyone get near it!”

The one’s watching happily backed away. The incident from last night was fresh in their minds.

A breeze rushed out while carrying an otherworldly scent.

Saya and Jacob were happily conversing with Zachary when he suddenly collapsed!

“Zach? Zach!”

Zachary mumbled. “Sorry guys. This is because of my powers, yeah. Don’t do anything until I wake up.” Then he fell asleep.

Jacob shook him. “Zach, common man, this isn’t funny! What’s going on? Do we need to take you to the hospital?”

Saya held up her hands. “We can’t take him to the hospital.”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t you hear what he just said?”

“This is because of his powers?”

“Yeah.”

Jacob calmed himself down. “Then what should we do with him now?”

They looked at Zachary’s very awkward sleeping position. He was hanging off the couch.

Back at the STA, the military watched as the barrier returned. Wind promptly stopped rushing outward.

“Exactly ten minutes later, the STA barrier is back up.” The man reported through the radio.

On the other side of the barrier, time seemed to speed up once again as daylight broke the sky at a supernaturally rapid pace.

[End Chapter 22]