System Change

“Hey! Are you Silvi?” the beast asked again. The voice was so… cute and childlike. Silvi didn’t know what to say or how to answer. But she was staring at the beast in its eyes, and she felt that it was becoming annoyed. So, finally, she answered.

“Y-yes…” she managed to say. ‘Get ready, I’m blinking it away, then you all away,’ she sent telepathically to her team. She then made a small motion with her hand to use Command Blink on the beast… but nothing happened. There was no daze… no confusion… just… nothing.

“Stop that!” the childlike voice sounded out again. “That tickled!”

Silvi’s lips trembled, and her body began shaking. We’re finished. So strong. She knew that there would be no escaping the beast floating in front of her on a purple platform… she glanced down… A… lid? Absolutely nothing made sense. Everything was so odd that she couldn’t help but think she was dreaming.

But then, all of a sudden, the dreadful feeling and the pressure that came with it… just… disappeared. Silvi glanced back up at the beast floating in front of her, then looked just a bit over it, where the rip in space had been. It was now gone, and in its place was a figure with its back turned. The figure looked to be wearing a black t-shirt and a pair of worn-out denim jeans. No… Silvi shook her head. There was only one person who wore that same thing over and over when he wasn’t wearing his armor, and it couldn’t be him.

But the figure was standing next to the dungeon portal, examining it. Finally, the figure turned around, and Silvi’s breath caught for an entirely different reason.

“D-Derek?” she whispered. The figure had to have heard her because he flashed a smile, then took a step toward Silvi and her team.

Silvi had wanted to leave the portal first, so Derek let her. She wanted to meet the other Silvi before Derek made himself known. His companion wanted to see how strong she was when she didn’t know what was going on, and who was Derek to say no to that? He was also curious about that, too.

However, it didn’t seem like Silvi Jaccobs had impressed his companion. The woman was shaking in her boots—actually, everyone who was there was either shaking in their boots or on the ground. Derek winced, then turned around and closed his portal. It didn’t exactly make for a very friendly first impression, after all.

Once the portal disappeared, he saw something that he hadn’t seen in a very long time… a dungeon portal. It was the Universal System’s way of exiting its dungeons instead of the dungeon orb that the Davenresh System used. Derek honestly couldn’t say which he liked better, but he was leaning toward the portal instead of the orb. At least it didn’t need to wait for everyone to ready up to use. A person could just walk right through once the dungeon was finished.Derek took a step toward the portal and touched the side. Then, he touched the center of it, and it seemed to resist him. Interesting! he thought. I bet it won’t let me through since I’m not technically part of the… oh… shit. Derek turned around, smiled at Silvi when their eyes met, then quickly sent her a message through Telepathy. ‘Meet me outside the dungeon in two minutes.’

‘Silvi, we have to go! This dungeon isn’t strong enough to hold us, and I don’t want to find out what will happen,’ he sent to his companion, then ripped the space in front of him open, covered himself and Silvi in a thin layer of void, and jumped in, quickly closing it behind him.

“Silvi…” Gerard said as he canceled his skill and dropped his shield. “Silvi!” he shouted.

“Huh? Wha…” Silvi shook her head in confusion.

“Was that… Derek?” he asked.

“I… yes,” Silvi said. “It… it must have been. He… told me to meet him outside the dungeon in two minutes.”

“Are you going to?” Gerard asked. “And you really are sure it was him?”

“I am!” Silvi answered both questions. She turned to her team. “You all finish dismantling the wolf. I’ll see you outside.” After that, and before giving anyone a chance to respond, Silvi Blinked forward and jumped through the dungeon portal.

Once outside, Silvi exited the cave that the dungeon had been part of, then looked around. Where is he? she asked herself. He said two minutes… right… It had only been about a minute and a half.

“Is he here?” Gerard’s voice sounded from behind her as he left the cave, too.

“Not yet,” Silvi said. “It hasn’t been two minutes.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Just as the two-minute mark passed, the dreadful aura appeared once again, and a portal was ripped open in the space in front of them. This time, both Derek and the… bunny stepped out quickly, and he shut the portal behind him—causing the aura to disappear.

Derek stepped towards Silvi after closing the portal and smiled. Her eyes were glued to his, and she was staring at him like she’d just seen a ghost. “So, have you trapped any other heroes in the void lately?” he asked with a big grin.

Instead of answering, the woman threw herself at him and enveloped him in a massive hug. He felt his shoulder dampen as tears flowed from her eyes and dripped down onto him. Derek chuckled, then grabbed the woman by both shoulders. He picked her up and set her down at arm’s length from him. After that, he looked the woman up and down.

“Looks like you’ve been doing pretty well for yourself since you got rid of me,” Derek said.

“No… I… but…” Silvi stammered but couldn’t get a sentence to form.

Derek laughed again and put his hand on her head, ruffling her hair just as he would do to Brandi or Thomas. It probably wasn’t the appropriate thing to do in that situation, as Silvi was only a few years younger than he was—if one wasn’t counting the time he spent trapped inside the void.

As Silvi stood there trying to figure out what to do or say, Derek glanced past her and saw Gerard. “Gerard, it’s been a while. How are you doing?”

“D-Derek…” The man nodded. “I can’t complain. Better now than a year or two ago.” It didn’t take long for the older man to gain control over his emotions and talk.

“That’s good,” Derek said. He could imagine why it would have been harder on them a year or two ago, so he didn’t ask.

“Stop that!” Silvi finally seemed to get her bearings, and she slapped his hand away from her head. “What are you doing? How are you here?” she asked.

“Well… that’s a long story,” Derek said as he looked around. “Where is the rest of your team?”

“They’re collecting the rewards and materials,” Gerard answered.

“I see,” Derek said. “Well… is there somewhere you’d like to go to talk, or is here good?”

“I have a bar in Charlotte,” Silvi said. “We can go there.”

“A bar? Sounds good to me,” Derek said. After that, he heard footsteps and saw the rest of Silvi’s team coming out of a cave entrance. He couldn’t help but look at the cave and wonder, What would have happened if we had stayed in there longer than we did? Maybe we were okay because the entire thing, other than the boss, was already cleared? “What level was that dungeon?” he finally asked.

“180,” Silvi answered.

Whew… Derek sighed. Yeah… that could have been bad. And just after I talked to Dave about it. I wonder if keeping the portal open for as long as I did, or if the dungeon portal being opened helped keep it from blowing up. Or maybe we were just being overly cautious? Derek shrugged. Everyone was alive and well, so there wasn’t any point in him worrying about it now.

“This is…” the woman who looked like a support class or healer began after looking at Derek. She had blond hair in a ponytail and wore a white robe with gold trim.

“This is my old friend, Derek,” Silvi introduced. She then went ahead and introduced her entire team to him. “We’re going to head to the bar to talk. It’s been a while, and we have a lot of catching up to do.”

Derek could see that she was doing her best to keep her emotions in check in front of her team, but it was not easy for her. He noticed every time her breath caught, or she stumbled on a word, but he didn’t say anything.

“Derek? Derek Hunt?” a man dressed in lighter, most likely leather armor, asked. His name was Tanner. He had short brown hair and two swords hanging from his waist. He looked very similar to the woman standing next to him. “As in… the Tutorial Leaderboard’s Derek Hunt? The Derek who you…” he started, but caught himself and stopped.

“Yes,” Silvi answered. “The Derek whom I trapped inside my Portal before knowing how terrible of a skill it was, then lived as a pariah for months afterward. That Derek Hunt.”

Ah… so that’s what happened, Derek thought. He could only imagine what everyone else would think of her after something like that happened. Even though he stuck to himself, he was a pretty well-known person after the system invaded.

“Oh…” Tanner said. “Well… nice to meet you.” He held out his hand, and Derek shook it. But the man really never looked Derek in the eyes. Instead, his eyes were glued to his companion, who was sitting on Derek’s shoulder, lording herself over everyone.

“Okay, well, we’re going to go to the bar. Everyone else can head to the System Store and figure out what to do with the loot. I trust that you will all make the right decisions,” Silvi said. “Does that sound good?”

“Yes!” her team replied in unison.

“Great!” Silvi then brought out a scroll and unraveled it. A blue circle appeared underneath everyone, but when it got to Derek, it tried to form, then failed over and over. “Um… It’s not letting me select you for teleportation,” she said.

“Oh,” Derek replied with a shrug. “I’ll just meet you in the bar. How does that sound? Just make sure that it’s empty and that you’re standing directly in the center.”

“I can do that. Give me ten minutes,” Silvi said. “See you then, don’t disappear!”

Derek nodded, then the group vanished.

“She’s weak,” Silvi said.

“She’s had a hard time,” Derek replied. “But she’s doing better than I thought she would be.”

“She has a funny skill,” Silvi replied.

“Funny how?” Derek asked.

“It tickles,” Silvi said.

“I see…”

“Maybe she tickles things to death,” Silvi said.

“I doubt that,” Derek replied with a chuckle.

“Aren’t those scrolls rare?” Silvi asked, changing the subject from tickles.

“Not as rare here as in Cydaria,” Derek said. “You can get most things from the System Store, and the things you can’t just buy with System Credits, you can order to be specifically made. That was a cheap one, though. It only works in a certain range, and it can’t be used until you’ve been out of combat for at least five minutes.”

“Oh…” Silvi said. “Can we use store? They have ingredients?”

“I’m sure they do,” Derek said. “I never really looked, but I don’t think it will let us use it. I don’t have that interface, and I’m not sure I want to risk connecting to something that’s so connected to the Universal System.”

“Oh…” Silvi replied. “Kay…”

Derek and Silvi then waited ten minutes, and then waited a few more just to be safe. So far, it didn’t look like any of Silvi’s team had tried to use Identify on him, but he knew that as soon as he was in a populated area, it would happen. At that point, he was sure they’d get a message that he wasn’t part of the system. At least, that was Dave’s theory, and Derek couldn’t find any fault in it.

“Okay, it’s been fifteen minutes,” Derek said. “Let’s go see what Silvi’s been up to lately.”