Three years passed by in a blink of an eye. The world now seemingly stills after the huge change blew up and shook its entirety in one go. Somber atmosphere seem to still mingle on most of the survivor's settlements, however, they are slowly but surely raising back to their feet. This is the human nature. They simply couldn't stay down after falling. They would even crawl all their way to their destination even after getting cut into pieces.
Terrifying creatures are now in the norm that might pop up from any place at any time. Cities and towns are now isolated and its safety fortified by huge walls separating them from the dangerous world.
Unlike before, acquiring meat is several times more challenging and people could actually die in an attempt for it.
The technology and advancement regarding husbandry, or the livestock agriculture in general is now useless as every single animal mutated into large and terrifying beast that they couldn't possibly be raised as livestock.
Unfortunately, the expanse of farmlands that aren't as populated couldn't be protected in the initial stage of the apocalypse and has now became magical beast's breeding grounds that they ravaged and monopolized for themselves.
Humans couldn't just let this continue. If this goes on, their new opponent to surpass and defeat would be hunger and famine itself. They built from ground up isolated farmlands and prioritize research and developments to rapidly produce fruits and vegetables, and protect them from the magical beasts that covets their sweet scents.
After somehow solving that problem, human kind also badly needs to traverse the dangerous lands to explore and travel between cities to transport the goods and supplies for the trade to keep on going. That is because there are a lot of Cities, towns, and villages that don't have farms and couldn't produce crops independently, or they failed to raise their crops in their isolated farms because of the inappropriate weather or other factors.
The government and entrepreneurs became united to take up the challenging task of safely transporting people and goods. They invested large amounts of funds to design and manufacture stronger and tougher ones that could survive the journey.
With that, new ways of transportation are being invented one after another, trying to get their shot in the highly sought out and current time's most competitive industry.
The new education system produced professionals onto the world and the few talented ones are being recruited by the GEPCA while it is now the most significant authority there is.
The old encyclopedia, map, and laws of physics were ripped apart and burned to ashes as the new ones are slowly being filled up. Scientists now have new focus in their studies.
Will and his peers are now fifteen years old and are considered as adult that could work to provide for themselves. Many orphans finds this change vital for their new lives of being independent from the sudden loss of their parents during the 'apocalypse'.
Those that are left are engrossing themselves so much in exploring and conquering the new 'world' with no signs of resting. Probably burying themselves in other endeavors to forget those dreadful times and those that are lost.
A new popular organization aroused under the jurisdiction of the GEPCA. This new organization is responsible for exploration, research and discovery, and hunts that are mainly done by independent single or groups of ability users. This was because the so called 'superheroes' or 'heroes of justice' are quite uncontrollable and could cause unpredictable consequences if they're left unchecked.
Of course there's still some surviving groups of superheroes who stubbornly separates themselves from the new organization. However, a lot of them died by doing their missions without proper plans or intelligence.
This new organization provides information and hands them to the appropriate 'explorers' who could have a high chance of accomplishing the specific tasks. While also monitor their abilities and give them exactly the extent, strength and weaknesses of them. Thus, lessening the chance of hasty or wrong decisions and might kill themselves in the process.
Variety of short or long term jobs are available for any ability users as long as they're not under fifteen. While to prevent reckless actions from these hot bloodied youths, the jobs available are divided into the severity and they that couldn't handle the severity are strictly prohibited in attempting them.
Now, it may seem strangely familiar to that of a particular job one could find in childish games and books, however, a member of the GEPCA highly fought others who are against the absurdity of this idea and reasoned them until they turned soft.
This one GEPCA member now became the famed mysterious founder of the 'explorer's' organization. He proved to everyone that was against his idea that it could be successful as it is today.
Superheroes slowly converted themselves into 'explorers' helping others and getting a proper jobs instead of staying as masked vigilantes. The organization solved a lot of cases and mysteries while also save a lot of lives in that short amount of time.
This organization spread all over the country and even other countries are adopting it, seeing the statistics of the results of the high success mission rate with their own eyes.
Everything this organization has and it's technologies is solely handled and produced by that one mysterious founder.
"Mr. Merlin… as you have said. The dark mountain is hiding something very strong. It might wreck havoc to our world soon! But what should we do? The dark energies surrounding it is like a natural fortress protecting it from our reach. There are countless dark creatures that are very hard to deal with, as well as the thick dark energy the could mutate ability users into mindless and berserking beasts!... How could we possibly slay it before it awakens?" Laurine Dementres cries her concerns.
Will, connected to Brain2.0 have been constantly monitoring the dark mountain for three years.
Three years ago, Will's decision for what the GEPCA offered him was as expected, the one that could work his way up the ladder the fastest.
Considering that Will could know absolutely anything could waste his time studying in that three years. He showed his worth and did his best to finally arrive to where he is now.
Will's main purpose in creating the explorers organization is because of what he knows regarding that 'thing' lurking within the dark mountain. Human couldn't simply get close to it, much less, traverse it to kill that thing before it awakens.
For the dark mountain to be explored, something that doesn't have a mind must do it as that it wouldn't be influenced by the dark energy. Although human now have the abilities, but unless their abilities are centered and protects their brains, they would still be influence by the dark energy to some extent no matter how strong they raised their immunity in it.
Will's drones aren't strong enough, he tried sending as much as he can one day three years ago but something bad happened. As if he poke a hornet's nest, the beast lurking in the dark mountain consecutively spread their outrage trying to find who's trying to disturb their queen.
It almost caused irretrievable and dreadful consequence. That time still lingers in Will's mind causing him to wake up shivering after having a nightmare for what could have been the worst case scenario.
Then, Will realized that instead of slowly exploring or killing those beast, he should destroy the whole mountain in one go. That's how Will thought up a plan to amass as much 'energy gems' and build strong weapons as much as he could against it.
Will's explorer's organization buys the energy crystal from the explorers who got them, but couldn't fully make use of their possibilities.
Using these 'energy gems', will build his automatic factory that could create the weapons as well as the gadgets that are being used in his organization.
He's also building 'that' ultimate weapon that could be used for that ultimate time that 'thing' sleeping inside the dark mountain awakens.
This intelligence have been exposed to the authorities by Will himself, that's why, they couldn't help but agree to Will's proposals. Now it is proven that Will's decisions and plans have brought along good fruits rather than what they initially thought that made them skeptical.
However, the public couldn't get to know that something terrifying is hiding in that mountain or it might cause mass panic. The citizens has just experience the most terrible days of their lives, the authorities don't know what would happen if they're provoked by fear once again. Also, any information regarding who the great founder is was sealed and kept between the higher officials because, at that time, he was just a twelve years old child.
Will's enchantment ability have upgraded to new heights as he manage the organization and built it from ground up while also creating various countermeasures for that dark mountain.
His technologies are being used every single day in all branches of the organization as well as other countries. This amassed Will a considerable amount of wealth and power.
Will who seemingly be thinking for himself opens his eyes and looks at Laurine Dementres, the person who personally came and recruited him that day three years ago.
"My satellite is keeping a close eye on it and keeps recording its movements and the rate of its absorption of the dark energy. There's approximately less than a year we have left. If we try to kill it now and happens to fail, we wouldn't be able to predict the destruction and damage we'll receive. We will proceed as planned… my weapon still have a lot of flaws, I could only really hope the get a helping and from my friend…"
"But sir, he's still undergoing his education…" Laurine replies.
"You guys have been unreasonably been against this idea for a long time and look at the slow phase of the process of my plans… as expected. Those old folks couldn't trust to give me that kind of weapon and are stalling time… How could they still not understand the urgency of our situation?" Will rubs his forehead feeling the headache from the stubborn high officials.
Laurine Dementres couldn't say anything. It was the president of the country himself who is reluctant to give that kind of power to a young child. Naturally, even the thought of that child handling and making an organization stronger and stronger causes them to feel absurd and fear for the worst. Instead of fearing that thing lurking in the dark mountain, they fear Will even more.
They keep creating various hiccups and obstacles for him.
"Mrs. Demetres, you've been coming to my office a lot these days and keeps saying the same concern. You know exactly what I want. You all could only feel reassured once I defeat it but you're too afraid to give me that kind of power… what exactly do you want to make me do?..." Will's eyes sharpen. He really looks like he's ending the thin line of his patience soon.
With that, Laurine couldn't say anything anymore and dismissed after saying that she will tell her superiors his intent.
Will sighs in exhaustion and slump his back on his chair.
"Cat.5 please handle the matters of the organization again for me…." Will says.
A cat AI appears out of nowhere on the table and says "Of course… are you going to the VR world again?"
"Yes…" Will could send his consciousness in the VR world while his body sleeps. This day has been truly tiring.
"Just remember. In the contract, the violation of leaking the intelligence could cause for the organization's management seizure… all of your hard work would all go to waste"
Will sighs once again and reply "I know that…"
Will's friends and family only thinks that Will is still working as a simple research and recruitment staff. Not knowing that he's one of the higher authority in the GEPCA and have his own organization. Not only that, he's the founder of that famous explorer's organization.
Other authorities or powerful people keeps making unreasonable things to obstruct Will from amassing even more power. Including this part of the contract.
The government has someone with ability that could tell if a person is lying or not. With that, even if Will could somehow manage to counter that ability, it doesn't mean his family can… That ability is so mysterious and the authorities have been keeping their hold and protect any information regarding how that ability user's power works. Although that could just be a lie to keep Will at the edge constantly. But Will can't risk in testing that. Not only will he lose all that three years of hard work, but their only ways to kill that thing lurking in the dark mountain will be taken off his hands.
Will login to the VR world and finds that nobody else is logged in. Sean and Tom are studying in school. While Sean would finally graduate this year, the school still haven't ended yet. Not yet until three months later. Then the graduation will commence and announce him as an adult ready for the world.
Will's parents have new jobs now and are busying themselves. Sean replaced Will's job in taking constant care for Tom. But when the day ends, they all meet up in the VR world and bond as if they never separated in the first place.
Will enjoys himself by immersing in the 'fun rooms' to separate his mind from those troublesome things to think about in work.
Soon, the usual children, Tom, Rick, Jess, and Sean started logging in one after another. They all look like teenagers now. Their heights now surpass most adults while they lose their baby fats on their face and turned from cute to beautiful and handsome. Well, except for Tom, he'll still turn nine this year. He'll stay as cute and adorable for more years.
"Will, we'll finally catch up to you soon! We'll be graduating soon and start working too! We're planning of finding jobs at GEPCA too. But if it wouldn't work, we'll start as explorers in the organization first…" Rick excitedly says their plans to Will.
"How's the working life Will? We're so excited to be working soon too" Jess hugs Will's arms. She's more heads over heels to Will now that he seem so cool, going out in the world to work, leaving the other's in his peers behind.
"Well, its tiring as expected, but its also quite rewarding… there's a lot of hardworking older adults too. They will help you whenever they can. They still couldn't adopt in thinking that our age is considered as adults already so they'll think of us as younger brothers and sisters, or even children…" Will says. He's been cooking up lies after lies for three years and his acting ability sprung to new heights.
"Is that so?... I'm glad then. I couldn't help but feel nervous… a few years ago, I still imagined how the university life would be and start working in my mid-twenties after all" Jess heaves a sigh of relief
"Will, we haven't been into any match these days… are you that tired?...." Sean asks apprehensively.
"Well, you guys know how I have to conserve my energy so that I could last longer at my job… I have to move here and there to recruit ability users to cooperate in our research… While our research are highly dependent in abilities like mine" Will says and sighs. "I'm sorry I couldn't play with you guys lately…"
"I… understand. But does than mean that when we become adults too we also wouldn't be able to do our daily matches?" Sean ask.
"Well, it depends… we could still do it during days off" Will says and wish that only if he could get a day off too. He show a self-deprecating smile.
"Well, lets just enjoy ourselves to the fullest since these three months is the only time we'll have left!" Rick says, filled with motivation.
"Yeah!" everybody replies. Except Tom and Will.
A warm smile appears on Will's face. A lot of things diverted from Will's life plan but his friends and family is still there to be seen everyday. It doesn't completely feel like he went fast forward in life but still as pleasurable and even truly rewarding. Will now possess power however, the government could still bent decisions for him. But it doesn't mean he hasn't achieved greater things for his family's and everyone's sake. These thoughts are the fuel for Will to keep on going.
Will wonders if it's still isn't too late to become independent from the GEPCA. That contract applies as long as Will holds the highest authority within the explorer's organization. Soon after eliminating that thing hiding in the dark mountain, Will swears to resign and hand over his job to someone else. There are more than enough capable people that craves it.
But Will isn't sure if the higher-ups would want that to happen. He needs to cook up a concrete plan to make this work.
Will watch at the teenagers and a kid is having a match. Tom is still the all time champion even after all those matches. Sean, Rick, and Jess are teaming up to defeat him.
However, Tom unlocked a new feature with his clairvoyance ability and now could somehow see Jess by finding the location where nothing seem to ever emit anything at all. Even will himself, couldn't believe it.
Tom could now utilize all of the ten shuriken and could somehow hit everybody whether they're protected by summons, moving complicated and rapid movements, or being invisible and couldn't even be detected by the five senses.
Will watch as the match somehow turned into something like an obstacle course as the three teenagers at trying their best to avoid or block the shuriken.
Inevitably, Tom wins once again.
"Tom… how about we have another match. Without your shuriken this time…" Rick says frustratingly.
Tom thinks for a bit and finally agrees.
Round two, still three versus one. Tom don't have the ten shuriken this time, could only fully depend on his own abilities.
The three seems to have a higher chance this time since there's no longer any of those fast moving sharp objects filling up the isolated match space.
However, without needing to focus all his consciousness with the ten shuriken, Tom could now easily move the other threes bodies against their will. They suffered more horribly than being cut up into pieces. This time, they raised in the air, spun and twist like ragdolls, splatter and break after hitting each other and finally trashed on the ground.
The match ends still Tom as the all time champion.
"How could this be?!" Rick falls on the floor and starts crying.
Everyone else present couldn't believe that Tom could still win this time, even with a handicap. In fact, it doesn't even seem like he was handicapped, but released his full potential instead.
"You did a good job… you halved Tom's energy than the previous battle…" Will claps and praise them for their hard work.
Everybody looks at Will and seems to blame him about something.
"And I thought that Sean has become so insanely strong… Tom is impossible to be defeated!" Jess exclaims.
Sean's summons have upgraded several times after absorbing the energy gems. However, controlling them becomes harder too. If Sean couldn't 'imagine' the growth of his summons properly as they absorb the energies from the energy gem, there's a chance that it might spill and becomes cause an unpredictable effect. Such as that one time Sean fed Black the dragon too much and couldn't properly put in place a function for the new energy, it caused an explosion.
Sean now knows that he should first get used and analyze the strength of his summons and plan what factors would he want to increase in them before he could feed them with new energy gems.
Black is now as big as a horse. Like a true mighty dragon, his strength and firepower is also now considerably more powerful than ever. If Sean isn't careful and mistakes in imagining Black's current power, the energies might seep from him and cause an even bigger explosion. This resembles him as a walking, ticking time bomb. Sean couldn't afford to be careless.
Sean also upgraded the little fairy, Green and added him more magical abilities. Size and weight manipulation is only a few of his new abilities. His healing and enchanting ability is now considerably more effective. But, if even a tiny bit divergence in Sean's imagination, these magical abilities might spill all at once.
The slime Blue is relatively milder in comparison than the two. However, his size has now increased while his viscosity and stretching ability is now more potent. The consequence of Sean's out of control of Blue, is at worst, they might all drown under the viscous and sticky body and die a horrible death.
Sean is reluctant to add more summons beside these three.
Sean is the top of his class and everyone looks forward to his contribution in the future. However, if his parents gets to know of this, they might take a turn and get him back with them.
Sean don't ever want this to happen. His family ditched and abandoned him for all those years. They didn't even check him out at the start of the apocalypse. Sean's real family now is the Merlins and his friends, Rick and Jess, as well as his new classmates and teachers.
Sean begged Claire a lot of times not to let his parents get to know this or he might get taken away. Claire who works directly for Sean's parents that time didn't even hear anything from them since that one time they seemingly handed him to her hands. She could only depend in Sean's decisions.
The only reason their match could last that long is because of Sean's troublesome and powerful summons. Whenever Tom and Sean clashes, the battle would prolong for almost an hour.
However, with the fight just now, Tom personally used the summons's large bodies to splatter the three and defeat them even faster.
"Will… your brother… how can he be defeated? No one could even gets close to him. He has an invisible force field constantly covering him during our matches?" Sean asks.
He thought that he could now have the upper hand after his summons upgraded, but Tom seems to know this too and focus most his attacks at him. With that, his summons have no choice but to protect their user.
"maybe if you mimic his fighting style? For that to happen, you need to loose your current summons though…" Will couldn't think of anything. Even Will couldn't see himself defeating Tom without using up all of his current weapons.
"I couldn't possibly let that happen. Maybe I should just give up trying my luck in defeating him…" Sean says so downcast.
"Big bro! I won again! When are you going to recruit me so that we could work together?" Tom asks Will with expectation in his eyes.
"I'm sorry Tommy but it's against the law. You'll have to wait for seven more years… how about you just keep practicing until then and once that time comes, surprise everyone by being the strongest ability user there is?" Will rubs his brother's hair.
"That's so cool!" Tom readily agrees.
"Tom is the most powerful ability user there is even at the current time…" Sean says so and imagines what kind of future would that be if he still grows even more powerful than he is right now. Perhaps he could control the very rotation of the world itself right then.
With that, they logout to have dinner for the time being.
"What kind of rubbish is this? Are we playing Dungeons and dragons now? Why have these… L-labyrinths has been popping up all over the world?" General officer Raymond couldn't believe the absurdity of the reports written in the documents on his hands. "General, tell me the importance of these labyrinths… Could we leave these for the explorers to handle?" He looks up at the lieutenant general sitting on the chair in front of his table.
"General. We should also send our men in them and check the lethality first before we could let those explorers traverse them…" Lieutenant general David Sampson nervously replies.
"Just like what I thought… I'm finally reaching my retirement age soon. But I can't believe I still get to handle this… these matters right before I could finally take a rest" The general sighs. His wrinkled eyes are almost being covered by his thick gray eyebrows. He looks at the relatively young lieutenant general and could only sigh for him. His future will be full of demanding undertakings and would need to make hard decisions as his successor. He himself has only been through few wars and battles, but the world ahead that this Lieutenant general will face is filled with monsters and mysterious dangers that they might never see coming.
"Sealing the dark mountain from the outside world has been putting so much weight in our hands… only send the best special corps to explore the labyrinth first before letting the public knows. Assign the severity of it for the explorers organization and let them handle it to them after that… ask the explorer's organization to seal off the mouth of the explorer that discovered where the labyrinth is in our country. You should head to the explorer's organization yourself to let them realize the importance of keeping this secret safe" The general orders the lieutenant general.
"You've been too holed up in the dark mountain for three years. It's time for you to see the world and see for yourself how it changed… you haven't used your paid leave and left it piling up for three years. Maybe it's time for you to use some after accomplishing this mission. At this rate, I would feel too bad and others might think I've been over working my good direct subordinate. Go!"
Lieutenant David silenced for a while but ultimately said, "Yes, general!" and salute to finally head to his mission.
The Lieutenant went outside the military base of the enclosure surrounding the dark mountain and heads to the town.
It's the first time in a long while that he get to go and see the world. A lot of trees and wild plants have grown along the way where they were absent before.
Up ahead, a large wall that's only a little bit smaller than the one around the dark mountain appears.
David did not bring along any men since the mission this time is relatively easy. His rank and authority is enough to accomplish the mission easily and let the explorers organization shut their mouths regarding the labyrinth.
Also, men are considered scarce and should focus in sealing off the dark mountain from stray dark beast from being released on the outside world.
The town nearby is David's hometown. He plans to greet his wife and daughter and inform them that he finally get to have a break for sixty days before heading to the city and finally accomplish his mission.
It's funny to think that although he has been through far away missions before, this years took him all this while to finally get home despite the relatively close by location.
Three years ago, nobody knows what triggered the dark mountain to resemble a hornet's nest being poked as it suddenly released its swarm of armies of dark beasts.
The base nearby almost got annihilated but fortunately, Will, his family and friends, even the townspeople all helped along with the military to stop them from spreading more through the world. After that, David spent each day to kill any beast lingering around the area. After a year, the whole mountain is finally isolated by the wall and an array of barriers produced by their Catalysis troops and a mysterious helper.
David drives his car slowly as he gets closer to the town's wall. This wall must have been created by the groups of ability users.
He looks at the premise of the large gate but couldn't see anyone guarding it. He skeptically drives closer to it.
Soon, a levitating ball-like thing gets closer to him through the car's window. David looks at it in marvel and don't know what to do. It doesn't seem to be a magical beast or a dark creature so his vigilance is quite low for now.
"ID please, officer" The ball seems to be a robot to guard the gate.
David grab his ID without moving his eyes from the robot like thing. He couldn't imagine that through the apocalypse and in the midst of magical things, the humans advanced enough to innovate and produce things like these. In only a matter of three years too. It must have been done by an ability user.
David recollects the figure of an intelligent boy that he met three years ago.
"Lieutenant General David Sampson. You haven't been in the system before. But as a military personnel, you have access to any gates and establishments except for the ones restricted above your rank. Please be careful on the way" As the robot was explaining, the gate raise and open up.
David couldn't reply to it and only returns his ID back and proceed inside the town.
Inside, David witness the town have changed too much that he even thought he went in the wrong town.
Seeing the outdated military vehicle, the guards nearby shows their respect to the hero who sacrificed their years to seal off the dark mountain by taking off their caps and bow deeply at him. They only raised their heads after the military vehicle passed by them and drives far forward.
The townspeople that he pass by also couldn't take their eyes off the vehicle as it pass by, they stop their tracks and clear the road for him.
David just looks at this phenomenon silently in awe.
He tries calling his wife using his outdated smartphone but it doesn't seem to connect. David grab the notebook where the address of his family's new residence is located and heads there slowly. Unfortunately, the town's structure has changed too much and couldn't seem to find it.
"Excuse me young man. Can you help me find this location for a bit?" David opens the car window and beckons a young man passing by. The young man bows and immediately come over.
"Of course mister officer… this? Please wait a second" the youth press his bracelet and a holographic screen appears. He typed something in it and then a map opens up. He shows it to David.
David looks at the floating screen utterly flabbergasted. A childhood dream of his is in the possession of this youth. A holographic technology.
The youth realizes the officers gaze and empathize him.
"This technology is available for mid-ranked explorers. It has a lot of functions in it such as monster catalog, map, physical and ability statistics. This is for the higher chance of the mission's success… oh, an explorer is another organization set up by the GECPA…" The youth tries explaining but David nods and tells him he knows the existence of the organization.
The technologies are strictly prohibited in the dark mountain. The dark energy around it affects human emotion. They couldn't afford to possess items that might incur nostalgia or head outside unless their advancement in their abilities reached a certain height. David's reason of not being able to head out is because his morph ability is immune to the dark beast's poisonous bodies and his prowess is indispensable in the contribution in keeping the base safe.
David's ability is famous within the military and they call him the 'dire wolf'. He seemingly belongs to the dark beast as he could fight endless amount of them for long periods of time. His fur is thick and couldn't be easily penetrated while his large body is a whole weapon itself. He could leap taller than the base building and catch flying dark beasts that wants to destroy the barrier.
His large sharp claws and fangs are harder than steel while the dark energy doesn't even seem to affect him any longer.
He only get to go outside now that the situation in the dark mountains seem to have calmed down.
David took note of the map and heads to his new residence. He couldn't wait to reunite with his family after three years of not seeing or hearing anything from each other.
"I hope Sarah remembers me…" David's deep voice reverberate in the military vehicle as he murmurs.
End of chapter.