The aliens really had to work on their transition systems. One moment, Yeoman was in the small dark dimension, and in the next moment, he was sitting on a metal bench, a briefcase in his lap and a half-eaten hamburger in his left hand, his phone in his right. Across from him, Ella was leaning out of her cart, looking up at the sky. The bus of people was still behind her in the street, and Yeoman swore he recognized one of the passengers. It was one of the men he had accidentally poisoned with his nightshade berries. The man was still alive?

Yeoman looked down. His suit fit him differently, which wasn’t a surprise given his changed body. It seemed like the aliens weren’t cruel enough to send him to the second stage without giving him a break first. Out of habit, Yeoman glanced at his left wrist. There was a watch on it, and underneath it, there was the familiar display. Even though half his wrist was covered, he could still see the text through the remainder of the fleshwatch. Yeoman suspected that as long as a sliver of it was revealed, all of the content underneath could be read. There was some kind of dimensional technology built into it after all.

[Stage 2 will begin in 335:59:30]

Three hundred thirty-six hours? Yeoman did some quick math in his head. It seemed like he had two weeks to prepare for the next stage. He might not be able to bring useful things like guns into the stage, but he could still bring in some knowledge and practical skills. Yeoman tapped on his phone. He had been gone for a week, but no time had passed on earth—a classic indicator of an alien abduction. It had all felt like a very bad dream; however, the changes in his body were proof that it wasn’t.

“Yeoman!”

Yeoman put his hamburger down and put his phone in his pocket. He stood up and smiled at the approaching old lady. “Ella,” Yeoman said and spread his arms open. “We made it.”

Ella hugged Yeoman and patted his back before stepping away from him, her eyes wide. “You optimized your body? I can tell. What else did you spend your points on?”

Yeoman scratched his head. “I added a layer of chimpanzee and gorilla muscles to my body.”

Ella stared at him without saying a word. “Aren’t you an engineer? You’re supposed to be smart.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” Yeoman wasn’t quite sure what Ella meant. Was it wrong to get chimpanzee and gorilla muscles? With how he was now, he as confident in killing any infected out there.

Ella sighed. “Never mind. It’s good that you got stronger,” she said. “You’ll live much longer.”

Yeoman scratched his head again. “Did you optimize your body too?”

“Yes.” Ella nodded. “This whole thing is very interesting. I’m looking forward to the next stage. Where’s Cody? It looks like no one actually died.”

“There you guys are!” a familiar voice said. Cody jogged across the street, ignoring the fact the light was red. “What the hell happened at the end? Did you guys make it?”

“Yeoman here killed the smart infected,” Ella said, nudging Yeoman with her elbow. “You should’ve seen it. He’s a natural at acting.”

Cody stared at Yeoman with an expression of disbelief. “You? You got it? It wasn’t Ella?”

“I wouldn’t have killed it without Ella’s assistance,” Yeoman said. “She held it in place for me.”

Cody made a face. “You treat him so much better than you treat me,” he said to Ella before sighing. “Well, the good thing is I still got points for completing the bonus mission. I could only afford the optimization.” He slapped his hand on Yeoman’s shoulder. “How about you? You got three thousand five hundred points, right? What’d you spend it on?”

“I actually got four thousand points.” Yeoman let out an awkward laugh. “The Proofs of Murder gave me another five hundred.”

Cody’s mouth dropped open. “Goddamn. Am I the main character, or are you? Four thousand points? That’s four times more than me!” He glanced at the people who were clambering out of the bus. “Well, it’s still better than the people who got zero points.” Cody nodded. After comparing himself to the bus full of people who couldn’t even kill ten infected or survive seven days, he felt much better. “Oh. What about the loot? Did the last boss drop anything good?”

“The metal rods were (Rare) items, and the smart infected dropped an orb that unlocks a genus on the phylogenetic tree of life, but it turns you into a zombie if you use it.”

Cody’s eyes lit up at the first part of the sentence, but when Yeoman got to the end, Cody’s nose was wrinkled. “Turn into a zombie? Forget it. I’ll never use something like that. The web novels where the main characters aren’t human usually end with a harem of monster girls, and I’m only into humans.”

Yeoman had no idea what to say to that, so he changed the topic instead. “Let’s exchange phone numbers,” he said. “We can meet up before the second stage starts.”

“Makes sense,” Cody said. The group exchanged their numbers. Right when Cody saved his contact information on Yeoman’s phone, it rang. Cody raised an eyebrow and passed the phone back to Yeoman. “It’s your mom.”

Yeoman frowned and grabbed the phone, pressing the green button while bringing his hand up to his face. “Hello?”

“Yeoman! Honey, are you alright? Do you remember that movie we watched on Halloween? I don’t know how, but I was taken into that world. It was so strange! Oh, listen to me; I must sound crazy. You—”

“No, I get it,” Yeoman said. “I was abducted by aliens too. Where are you? Are you at home?”

“You experienced it too? I thought it was all just a bad dream. Oh, what’s going on in the world? If only your father were still here, he’d know what to do.”

“Mom, calm down. Where are you?”

There was a sharp inhalation on the other end of the phone. “I’m at home. I’m on my computer right now, and the gardening group I’m in is going crazy. I think everyone was—what did you call it? Abducted? I think everyone in the world was abducted at the same time.”

“That’s him!”

Cody thumped Yeoman’s shoulder. “Hey, there’s an issue.”

Yeoman frowned. “I’ll call you back later. Something came up.”

“What? Yeoman—”

Yeoman ended the call and placed his phone in his pocket. Three people, the unfortunate men who were accidentally poisoned to death, came up to Yeoman’s group. “You’re the bastard who poisoned us.”

Yeoman cleared his throat. “I apologize,” he said and lowered his head. “I didn’t know they were poisonous. If the three of you weren’t there, I would’ve died that very day. Thank you.”

The three men exchanged glances with each other. They seemed to be at a loss. Yeoman was confused as well. Even if he poisoned these people on accident, he would’ve been hit by manslaughter charges, but they were alive and well in front of him. That meant they truly hadn’t died, so he was off the hook, right? If his mom was correct about everyone being abducted, lawyers and judges were going to have a really tough time making calls on these cases. Would it even be possible to prosecute in the first place? Who had any proof? Murder weapons remained on the alien spaceship, and it was impossible to record things too.

“We’re not really hurt though, are we?”

“No, but think about what we lost. All those rewards we missed out on.”

The three discussed things, and Yeoman let them take their time. He was still thinking about things. It turns out they returned to earth at the same exact moment as him despite dying earlier. The aliens really were good with space and time technology. That reminded him, since no time had passed since he returned to earth, he was still on his lunchbreak. He glanced at his watch. There was still another half hour before his break was over, but after experiencing seven days in a forest, all he wanted to do was go home and take a hot shower. He took his phone out and sent a text to his boss, stating he was clocking out for the day.

“Do we call the cops on him for killing us?”

“We’re not dead. How does that make sense?”

Yeoman raised his head. It looked like they still hadn’t decided what to do to him. Yeoman wasn’t a young man anymore. He had experienced lots of things in life, but he never had to apologize to someone for killing them before. He wasn’t quite sure how to do it, and he hadn’t read any books where a situation like this came up either. However, he did know how to smooth things over between his subordinates at work. “Look, how about I buy you guys some drinks and we call it even?”

The three men stared at Yeoman. Before they could say anything, someone in the crowd shouted, “That’s them! Those three are the ones I saw bringing the infected herd to the camp.”

Yeoman turned his head towards the voice. A wiry man, with a group of people standing behind him, was pointing at Yeoman. Yeoman had never seen the wiry man before in his life, but he recognized the person beside him: Gordan. “Who are you?” Yeoman asked, raising an eyebrow. The first thing to do when facing such a large accusation was to not admit anything and find ways to discredit the accuser. It was also a skill he learned at work; it saved him from being fired once.

“I was in a tree, scouting, and I saw you guys run towards the camp before going another way. Then, when you guys were out of sight, the infected herd appeared next,” the wiry man said. “They’re the ones, Gordan.”

Gordan stepped forward. “You three got a lot of people killed with your actions.”

“Bullshit,” Cody said before Yeoman could respond. “Are you dead? Huh? You look alive and well to me. Why don’t you call the cops and explain what’s going on to them? You think they’ll believe you?” Cody raised his left hand up, indicating for Gordan to give him a second, and whipped out his phone with his right. “In fact, I’ll do it for you.” He pressed three numbers on his phone and raised it to his head. “Huh, that’s odd. I thought 911 was supposed to pick up right away. Why’s there a busy tone?”

“I don’t care if I go to jail,” a man from the group said and pushed past Gordan. He was a skinny man with tattoos on his neck and arms. “You’re telling me these three were responsible for us being eaten alive by zombies? I’ll send them to the hospital.”

Cody snorted and put his phone away. He spread his arms out and walked up to the man. “What? You’re going to hit me?”

The skinny man leaned back, tilted his chin up, and cocked his head to one side. “Nah.”

Cody raised an eyebrow, not backing down. “Oh? Then—”

Without warning, the skinny man threw a punch at Cody’s face. Cody leaned back, dodging the swipe. He grinned. “This is self-defense now,” he said and kicked the man’s leg. There was a painful-sounding thud, and the man dropped onto one knee, howling while clutching his thigh. Cody raised his hand, balling his fingers into a fist, but upon seeing the man wail in pain, he let out a sigh and shook his head. “Too weak. No wonder why you lost to zombies.”

Gordan’s expression darkened. “I just want to know something,” he said, stepping in front of the wailing man. “Did you clear out a cabin and leave when the stage started?”

“We did,” Cody said, placing his hands on his hips. “Got a problem with that?”

Yeoman cleared his throat. They really did seem to be the ones in the wrong. They took equipment from the cabins and left by themselves. They dragged a herd of infected towards the camp, overrunning it. They accidentally killed the scouts who had located water for the group. Seeing Cody act so belligerent made Yeoman feel a little ashamed. “Sorry, sorry. Why don’t we all just head to a bar and get some drinks? We can clear the bad air between us. After all, it’s not like you lost anything by dying.”

“Didn’t lose anything by dying,” Gordan said. He half turned around, asking the people behind him, “Can you believe this guy? We didn’t lose anything by dying.” He chuckled before facing Yeoman, the false smile on the blond man’s face freezing. “Evidently, we lost quite a lot—five hundred points for the each of us. How do you plan on recompensating us?”

Yeoman frowned. “What do you want? Money?”

“You think our lives can be bought out with money?” Gordan asked. “You think paying us will make us forget the feeling of being eaten alive?”

Yeoman shook his head. “Forget it. If you won’t tell me what you want, I can’t help you.”

“What I want is very simple,” Gordan said. “I want the three of you to help us pass the next stage with flying colors. It’s your faults we couldn’t purchase any upgrades. Now you have to take responsibility.”

“I don’t want a bunch of noobs dragging us down,” Cody said and let out a cold laugh. “It’s your own faults for dying. We were chased by the herd and lived. Why couldn’t you do the same?”

“Cody,” Yeoman said and sighed. “Aren’t main characters supposed to be nice? Why do you keep provoking them?” He nodded at Gordan. “I’ll do my best to help you all during the next stage.”

Gordan exhaled and nodded back. “At least one of you can be reasoned with. Give me your contact information.”

After exchanging contact details with Yeoman, Gordan took his group and left. Yeoman turned towards Ella and Cody. Cody didn’t look very happy, but Ella patted the Asian man’s shoulder. “When the time comes, we can just feed them some nightshade berries.” She gave Yeoman a thumbs up. “Aiming for the Proofs of Murder, I approve.”

Yeoman’s expression darkened. He wasn’t aiming for anything. All he wanted to do was alleviate the guilt in his heart. Why were his companions so belligerent? There was an expression, birds of a feather flock together. If it were true, then what did that make him? Was he also a belligerent person? Yeoman thought of himself as a pretty amiable fellow. He glanced at his watch to check the time, but a line of text displayed behind it caught his attention.

[Murder Ranking: 1st Place]

That line of text wasn’t there earlier. Were the aliens poking fun at him? Just how exactly were they monitoring him?