Weapons of Mass Destruction

Chapter 180: The hole

Days have passed and the night has come. This time all of us are awake and staring up at the clear sky, at the debris that orbits the planet, reflecting the light of the moon. Some pieces are giant, probably much bigger than we think as they are so far away; other ones are much smaller and look more like dust shining when direct light lands on it in an otherwise dark room.

Itʼs pretty, and there are so many questions that come to mind that, in my eyes, make it even more alluring as I stare up there.

”Tess, you can see really far, can you tell what it is?” Min-Jae steps closer to the blonde woman he has a crush on. I have noticed that he is calmer than before in the mansion as we are once again surrounded by unknown dangers, yet sometimes he tries to find an opportunity to talk with her.

”They are too far away even for me, but itʼs probably debris, as Nathaniel said. Some shapes are too perfect to be just some random rock orbiting the planet. Maybe it used to be some construction that orbited the planet long ago? Looking at the name of this floor, Waning Realm, we might end up dealing with some post-apocalyptic planet.”

”The second floor was close to being destroyed in a world war, the third floor was a dying world, and the fourth one again. The system sure has some interesting ideas,” Hadwin says.

”Do you think these floors are places that really exist?” This time itʼs Dennis who joins the conversation as we slowly move from the entrance and sit inside the cave, surrounding my orb that is as big as an orange and radiating nice heat.

Iʼm getting better and better at it, and they last much longer and are more stable so I can make them bigger. At first, I thought that infusing my mana with thermal or kinetic energy might be useless, but there seem to be some interesting uses for it.

”There are multiple options. The floors can be made from scratch by the system, whatever the system actually is,” Hadwin turns to me. ”Nathaniel, on the other hand, always thought that the floors are copies of worlds that existed millennia, maybe even millions of years ago, and the system keeps reusing them. They could even be copies of worlds that currently exist,” Hadwinʼs voice becomes unsure. ”We could spend hours theorizing, but in the end, it doesnʼt matter that much.”

Dennis frowns, ”But couldnʼt they be real worlds that the system sends us to?”

To that, his brother, Aaron, gently slaps the back of his head, ”Donʼt be dumb, every group got the same world, the same floor.”

”I know that, you dumbass,” Dennis also pokes his brother. ”I meant as if parallel universes and such stuff. It would surely be easier to just move us somewhere than create the world for each group.”

Then they continue to throw multiple theories around, and I listen to them while not joining the conversation. Some of them are straight-up dumb, some are thrown there jokingly, and some of them are depressing as hell.

”I know we did talk about it on the first floor already, but I wanted to ask again. What did you hear about the disappearances back on Earth? Before the tutorial?” Hadwin changes the theme when the conversation stops getting anywhere, and I start to listen a bit more.

Even Isabella, who is sitting next to me and petting Biscuit, perks up. ”Dad said itʼs all bullshit. Same stuff like UFOs!” she says.

”Izzy!” Sophie quickly says, ”No cursing, I told you!”

”But thatʼs what Dad said...” the little girl pouts, to which Biscuit licks her hand and she quickly forgets about that and starts to pet the doggo.

”I have mostly ignored it. Sometimes they blamed it on accidents or just threw some conspiracies around,” Maya shrugs. ”People always come up with some explanation.”

”I have heard about it too, but it always felt like clickbait titles or something to get you to watch the news. Stuff like ʼPlane disappeared in Bermuda Triangleʼ or ʼGroup of tourists lost in the mountains, you could be the next.ʼ” Sophie pauses, opens her mouth, and then just shakes her head and doesnʼt say anything else.

”We didnʼt hear about it at all,” Dennis says and Aaron nods. ”News is for old people,” he continues, and Aaron nods again, what makes Min-jae laugh a bit.

Still smiling, Min-Jae also says something. ”I only heard from a friend that some colleagues of his brother disappeared from the office. Around twenty people and a big chunk of the building with them. They blamed it on an explosion, but there was no debris, no bodies. Now that I think about it, itʼs the same as the entire bus disappeared with us.”

After that, silence ensues as everyone thinks on their own.

”The biggest question is what happened to other rounds? If itʼs as we and other community members think, and as the system hinted, it means that four rounds of the tutorial already ended. Meaning there are already probably hundreds of people with powers, some of them probably from Hell as well, and itʼs hard to imagine how strong they got after 5 years in Hell difficulty.”

Hadwin looks around, his eyes staying on me a bit longer than on others. ”I know about disappearances a bit more than you, as they are things I usually notice or had to notice when I worked as a policeman. The first disappearance started happening around four to five weeks ago. If each round of the tutorial is the same, it means there are 10 groups for each difficulty. Easy starts with 2 thousand people, normal with a thousand, hard with 500, and hell with 250. Thatʼs 3,750 people for each round, times four—as we are the fifth round—around 15,000 people disappeared before we even got into the tutorial.”

The wind now blows even louder than before, and I even start absorbing some kinetic energy so it doesnʼt reach inside the cave, and turn that energy into heat. Itʼs nice practice and it also makes the cave more comfortable. I even add [Resonance] to the mix and block some sound of the blowing wind, making it a bit quieter.

Hadwin continues, ”To be honest, it might sound like a lot, but in the context of the entire planet, it isnʼt much, especially if most of these disappearances probably didnʼt even get mentioned in our news as they happened somewhere in smaller countries. I did talk with Lissandra,” as he says her name there is a hint of some emotion in it. Maybe anger? Hate? Disappointment? Anger at himself and not her? ”It could be that all the groups get back on Earth at once because of time dilation. Itʼs all based on the fact that the tutorial wonʼt start a new round before the one before it has ended. There is also the possibility that each week the round starts and the system doesnʼt have a problem running all the rounds at once, and people will return to Earth after 5 years of Earth time and within tutorial time.”

At this point, I stop listening and focus more on practicing my Mana Cycling and examining my healing passive working.

Iʼm obviously curious about all these questions, but itʼs not like they matter too much right now. I wonʼt let them distract me from getting stronger and from the floors themselves.

I will deal with it when I get there, and meanwhile, I will hope that my sister and mom are fine. Unfortunately, Victoria is… at a place from where itʼs hard to take care of mom, but she is smart; she will come up with something.

So I hope for the best, but if I come back to Earth and something happens to either of them, then Lissandra will be the least of the systemʼs problems.

I slide into [Focus] and feel these worries get pushed away, and not needing to sleep that much, I stay awake for the rest of the night, keeping watch and practicing.

”Itʼs a hole,” Min-Jae says.

”No shit. Do you know how deep it is?” Dennis answers him.

”I can see through some darkness, but this one seems to be much deeper than I can see.” Tess examines the hole before taking a small step back.

”Wow,” MIj-Jae, ends the short conversation the three of them have.

Currently, most of us stand around it, leaving Hadwin and Aaron in the cave with Lily. The twins are constantly keeping up [Connection] in case something happens. The rest of us are here, even little Isabella and Sophie, and we stand close to the hole.

Itʼs perfectly circular, and its diameter is as long as a small swimming pool. The sides of the hole are somewhat smooth but not to the point of feeling like they were made by a machine; there is some roughness to them. We can see a bit into it, and then there is perfect darkness.

We canʼt even see to the bottom. So Min-Jae throws in a stone as big as his head.

”Kim! Do not do such stuff on your own,” Tess tells him, but then even she listens, and we donʼt hear anything. The stone doesnʼt hit the wall, nor does it hit the bottom we could hear.

Dennis throws in another stone, this time even bigger than the one Min-Jae threw. He throws it at an angle so we hear it hitting the walls, the sound echoing from the side and falling down.

”Fool of a Took!” Min-Jae shouts at Dennis, and both of them giggle, and even Maya seems to be smiling while Tess rolls her eyes, probably giving up on them.

”Nat, Nat, throw in one of your glowing orbs,” Min-Jae pauses, ”or a bomb! The one made from tricolored mana!” The boy is excited as he says it and continues to poke me. At that, even Dennis perks up and joins in, trying to make me do so.

”Min-Jae,” I start, ”Do you not know all the clichés? The moment I throw in something, we will awaken some ancient evil.”

”Itʼs nice that you say that, Nat, but why are you already creating one of your orbs?” Tessʼs tone is flat as she says so.

”You wouldnʼt understand that, Tess. If you are a boy and you see a hole, you either try to make it deeper or throw something inside!” Min-Jae comes to my defense.

”Exactly,” Dennis says while throwing in another stone, ”itʼs in our genes.”

Seeing us do that, even little Isabella starts throwing in some smaller stones. ”You too, Biscuit!” she shouts happily, and the dog, just creates a single tentacle and pushes a smaller stone over the edge into the hole. That makes Isabella even happier.

I listen to their bickering while I push more and more thermal energy into the orb. Itʼs exactly as Min-Jae said. A need to throw stuff into any deep hole you find feels like a reflex you need to have if you want to call yourself a man.

Itʼs a must! Itʼs not childish! And I will pretend I do not see Tess rolling her eyes. At least Maya seems to partially understand, and Sophie is supporting any silly thing Isabella does if it means it will make the little girl happy.

Soon, I am done and throw the orb that is as big as an orange into the hole. The orb is glowing as it starts falling down and lighting its surroundings.

In the darkness of the hole, it shines especially brightly and continues to fall.

One minute.

Two minutes, and the orb starts hitting the walls and still continues to fall.

A bit longer, and only Tess sees it, and I notice some members stepping away from the edge of the hole.

One minute later, it disappears even for Tess.

”Kim, youʼre good at math; calculate it,” Dennis nudges the other boy.

He does just that and It takes a few minutes for him to do the calculations. He asks us how long we think the object was falling and a few more questions before attempting to recalculate. In the end, he appears shocked and tries the calculations once more.

He does it a few times and then just gives up, ”I think this hole is deeper than the height of Mount Everest,” he says.