Chapter 6: Chapter 6: A fork in the path.

Meeting Miss Wittersham’s steely gaze, I gulped, the intensity of her stare making me more than a little nervous. As much as I wanted to sit here and admonish myself for making such a simple but foolish mistake, I could tell that the longer I took to come up with a satisfactory answer, the worse things would get.

Growing up in an environment conducive to raising decent liars, I.e., with strict parents, certainly came in handy. In mere moments I had built a story I felt was believable enough to get out of my troubles, a mostly true tale of computer whiz lover turned stalker spurned, followed by a mostly false campaign of revenge.

The tale never left my lips, however, as it was at that exact moment that I felt a pulse of something I couldn’t explain pass through me. Something deep down inside me resonated with that pulse, a ripple deep inside that screamed a warning of impending doom, leaving me feeling both incredibly weak and insignificant.

I held the arms of the chair in a death grip, my heart hammering in my chest as I fought down the wave of panic that threatened to consume me. Breathing deeply, I slipped back into the comforting serenity of meditation, taking the few moments I needed to centre myself before re-opening my eyes. Miss Wittersham was still staring at me, a measure of concern now leaking through a crack in her stern mask.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice a little shaky in my thoroughly rattled state, “please give me a moment.”

Not waiting for her response, I instead focused on opening my notifications, which had been blinking at me with a hitherto unseen urgency.

My face set in a firm mask as I read through the options, a spark of stubborn outrage forming deep inside.

‘Save myself?! And leave an entire world of people to die? Not. Fucking. Likely.’

The spark caught, turning my outrage into a smouldering flame of resolve. Decision made, I closed the notification, blinking as I found myself mere inches away from the face of an intensely curious Cameron. My eyes met hers, her face pinking slightly as she slowly pulled back, studying me intensely.

“What was that, just then? Your eyes were flitting from side to side like you were reading, but I can’t see any contacts? What was that? What is going on? You either have the world’s best poker face, or something was definitely blocking your vision. I checked…” She said, breaking eye contact.

“Well, Miss Cameron,” I replied, noting how her eyes snapped right back to mine when I revealed I knew her name, “the short answer is interdimensional silly buggers.”

Grinning as she gave me a slightly affronted look, I reached forward and began tugging cables out of the back of her monitor, ignoring her spluttered protest as I explained further.

“You’ve seen my calendar, right? So you should have seen that it only goes so far, ending with an entry simply labelled ‘Truck-Kun, round 2’? That was the date I got to last time before getting hit by a truck. Shortly after, I woke up in this world, several months in the past with shiny new powers and all.”

Grinning cheekily at Cameron’s rapidly growing expression of consternation, I tugged the final wire out of her monitor. She shot to her feet with hands balled into fists, glaring at me in outrage as she breathed in sharply, presumably about to tear me a new asshole. It was in that exact moment, with tension at its highest, that I tapped the top of her monitor, and the device simply vanished.

“You see,” I said, a small part of me treasuring her look of utter shock, “I’ve been given something akin to video game powers. Something that includes an inventory system.” With a flash, the monitor was back, along with the four textbooks that I’d purchased.

Cameron slowly sat back down in her chair, watching me with a guarded expression as I explained why I was rushing things and generally being an ass, the impending disaster forcing me to summarise my experiences from this morning quicker than I would have liked. Still, she humoured me, not interrupting until my explanation had caught up to current events.

“Ok.” Cameron said, looking deep into my eyes as she studied me. “This is obviously a lot to take in. You’ve done something I can’t explain with the help of this so called ‘inventory’, so I’m not going to dismiss what you say out of hand.”

But!” she added, raising a finger to cut off what I’d been about to say, “I have some questions that need answering.”

I nodded, waving for her to ask away.

“Ok, first. These video game ‘notifications’ of yours, are you able to share them? Let other people see them? That would be the fastest way to verify all of this.”

I blinked, not having thought about it before. Internally shrugging, I spent the single mana I needed for analyse, then, happily noting that her relationship score had increased all the way back to 2 and had even increased slightly beyond that point to 6, tried to mentally ‘push’ the subsequent notification towards her.

Sadly, it didn’t work, and instead I received an error message telling me I needed to ‘initialise’ the target before I could perform such an action. Making note of that little titbit for future reference, I looked at Cameron and shook my head.

“Darn. That would’ve been too easy, I guess.” She said, pouting prettily. “Anyway, next question. You said that something bad is coming? Something that will endanger the students and faculty?”

“I do,” I nodded, “but I am not sure what. The quest implies that getting stronger will help me face whatever it is, so I’m leaning more towards monsters popping out of the woodwork rather than a potential natural or magical disaster.”

She regarded me, then nodded. “Ok. So, if I’m working on the belief that what I saw you do with my monitor wasn’t some kind of collective delusion, then not believing in this threat would be foolish. As I see it, there is no upside for you if that part of this is all a lie.” She rubbed her temples, getting her thoughts in order before she continued to speak.

“Right. If I understood you correctly, you are currently not equipped to deal with anything that crops up before you do whatever it is you’re supposed to do to empower yourself? Is that correct?”

I gave her a sheepish look. “I, um, have a knife?”

“A knife?” She asked flatly, giving me a level look before letting out a sigh. “I really should chew you out for that, but the fact you’re even willing to admit to it says a lot.” She shook her head, covering her face with a hand, before asking in a voice full of weariness, “I can’t believe I’m asking you this, but do you even know how to use a knife?”

“…No?”

She sighed explosively, rubbing her eyes. “Alright. If something's about to happen, and you do have the powers you claim, then it falls to you to defend yourself or any other students or faculty who wind up in danger until the police or army can get here. Is that going to be a problem?” She looked at me sternly, her expression softening as I shook my head, a determined look on my face.

Looking down at her desk, she tapped the textbooks I’d left there. “You said these were skillbooks? Then I need you to use one now.” She could tell I really wanted to protest, as she softly added, “There’s no point saving them until a better moment if you get your ass kicked because you can barely defend yourself, is there?”

Sighing, I shook my head. “Alright, fine. It makes sense. It just feels like throwing future potential down the drain.” I continued to grumble to myself as looked at each book in turn, stowing everything but the chemistry book back in my inventory.

It was time to learn some magic.

…Hopefully.

---

Breathing deeply, I placed a hand on the skillbook, bringing up the item description with a mental nudge. I’d stacked the odds as much as I could in my favour by picking the book that gave me the greatest chance of picking up magic, and now it was all up to a roll of the dice.

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Focusing, I selected the mental prompt to use the skillbook, holding my breath for what came next. Only, nothing happened.

“Well? Did it work?” Asked Cameron, looking hopefully between the book and I.

Withdrawing my hand as I looked back up towards her, I was about to respond when her sudden wide-eyed look of disbelief drew my attention back to the skillbook, my expression almost perfectly matching hers when I saw how it floated off the surface of the desk.

We watched, our mouths agape, as the book floated up to eye level, shifting around to my right and the pages rustling as the book opened at the midpoint. The open book tilted forwards, and instead of lines of text, within the boundary of the pages I was instead met with a shimmering black distortion.

Feeling no threat from the book, I tentatively reached forwards, Cameron letting out a little gasp as my arm sunk up to the elbow inside the glimmering portal. Felling something form in my hand, I withdrew my arm and looked down at the object, a die. More accurately, it was an honest to god D100, a surprisingly weighty golf ball-like orb with 100 flat sides, each with a number from 1 to 100.

Sharing a look with Cameron, who looked utterly fascinated by the whole thing, I then tilted my hand, letting the die spill onto the table. Both of us watched like hawks as the die clattered against the wooden desktop, rolling across the surface until it finally came to a stop, the number ‘38’ displayed on the top.

The die rested inert for a moment, then shook, dissolving into a billowing cloud of smoke. I recoiled in reflex as the smoke shot towards me, my gasp of surprise dragging the substance deep inside my mouth.

An icy cold sensation began to spread throughout my lungs and into my chest, moving steadily upwards until it reached my brain. There was the briefest moment of intense pain, and then I suddenly knew a whole bunch about chemicals.

New skill unlocked: Knowledge (Chemistry) Lvl 1.

This skill acts as a cheat sheet of sorts for information in a certain field of study (in this case, chemistry). By gaining this skill, your mind has been filled with knowledge equivalent to that of a B grade in chemistry at A-LevelEquivalent of the US 12th grade… I think..

As you have studied up to this level in this subject previously, we have benevolently upgraded this skill to the next level, equivalent to that of a 2.1 bachelor’s degree!

You are welcome!

Current Skill level: Lvl 2.

Blinking, I rubbed my eyes, groaning a little. “Chemistry? Am I gunna throw acid at the monsters or something? And did it really have to hurt so much?” I grumbled, looking up in surprise as I heard Cameron swear softly. The poor woman looked dejected, and was eyeing to door with an increasing level of nervousness.

Reaching out, I took her hand, stroking the smooth skin of the back of her hand with my thumb. “Hey, it’s ok,” I said soothingly, a reassuring smile on my face, “we have another shot at this.”

Cameron nodded, letting out a sigh and giving my hand a squeeze before letting it go. Scooting forward in her chair, she nervously nibbled on her lip as she waited for me to try again.

Pushing away the highly distracting thoughts such an image conjured in my mind, I reached out, retrieving the second D100 from inside the book. Pulling my hand back, I couldn’t help the tiny yelp that escaped my lips as the book slammed shut with a sense of finality the moment my fingers were clear.

Seemingly finished in its task, the book dropped to the ground with a thunk, splaying open to reveal totally blank pages.

Looking back at the second die that sat on my palm, I reached forward, intending to roll it once again on the table, only to pause as the memory of a certain superstition came to mind. Looking into Cameron’s eyes, I raised the die slightly.

“A kiss for luck?” I asked, winning smile in place.

Cameron huffed, rolling her eyes as her cheeks pinked. “Fine,” she mumbled, “but only because this is important.”

Wetting her lips, Cameron’s eyes flicked from me to the die in my hand as she slowly leaned forward. A notification tried then of all times to open, attempting to tell me something about a threshold reached, but I was having none of it, not wanting to miss what was bound to be a glorious moment.

Watching her approach with a grin on my face, I was entirely unprepared as her hand shot out and grabbed my tie, her eyes fluttering closed as I was yanked towards her.

Soft, plump lips pressed against my own, her kiss tender yet a little tentative despite the aggressive manner she’d dragged me closer. Getting over my momentary shock, I let my eyes drift closed, hand reaching to cup the side of Cameron’s face as I lightly kissed her back.

She whimpered softly, the press of our lips gaining in heat as she responded to my touch. Letting go of my tie, she ran her hand down my chest, fingertips exploring the hint of muscle under my shirt.

My body tingled as my heart thundered in my chest. My entire world reduced the sensation of her fingertips running against my skin through my shirt, the subtle yet intoxicating scent of her perfume, and the slightest hint of cherry lip gloss I could taste, all making me want more.

My mouth opened, the tip of my tongue brushing against her lower lip as I gave into my desires. Cameron moaned, her fingers bunching the front of my shirt and pulling me closer as her lips eagerly parted, just as desperate to deepen the kiss.

Our tongues danced in fiery passion, the collective spark of desire building into a great conflagration of mutual need. What was once soft and tender transformed into something ardent, but just as beautiful.

We were both wrenched out of our collective bout of passionate insanity as something loudly clattered onto the table, the die having slipped from my hand whilst we’d been otherwise occupied.

Springing away from each other, we sat back in our seats, faces burning as we looked anywhere other than at each other.

My eyes found the die where it rested on the surface of the desk, an ‘82’ proudly displayed on its uppermost face. I blinked dumbly, something inside my frazzled mind recognising the significance of the high roll and yet totally unable to pass the message higher up, my brain having shut down for a well needed reboot after what had been one hell of a kiss.

I breathed in deeply, the scent of passing storms filling my nose as a seemingly impossible breeze ruffled my hair, the sides of the die splitting into 100 flat pieces, drifting away like leaves carried on the wind.

And then I knew.

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