Liam returned to his rented apartment.
The tiny studio, less than twenty square meters, was his home in Boston.
It had just a bathroom and a bedroom, with nearly every household appliance crammed together in the limited space.
The place had only one real advantage.
It was cheap.
After closing the door, Liam eagerly set about testing his newly acquired abilities.
First was his enhanced hearing.
He closed his eyes, held his breath, and listened carefully to the sounds around him.
The first thing he heard was the steady, powerful thump of his own heartbeat.
Then came the ticking of the clock in the room.
He focused harder.
Gradually, he began to pick up faint noises from somewhere outside his apartment.
As he concentrated, those indistinct sounds became clear.
It was his landlord’s voice.
The man seemed to be arguing with his grandson.
The landlord lived downstairs, with two floors and several walls between them.
There was no way an ordinary person could hear that far.
The improvement to Liam’s hearing was remarkable.
It would be perfect for listening through walls and gathering information.
Next came his improved knife handling.
Liam rummaged through a cabinet for a while before finding a bread knife.
The moment he gripped it, a strange sensation came over him.
It was as though he had spent years training with knives.
He instantly understood the weapon’s length, weight, and center of gravity.
With a light flick of his wrist, he could effortlessly spin the knife around his fingers.
More importantly, the ability eliminated the instinctive fear most people felt toward a sharp blade.
It was an extremely practical skill, and the first ability Liam had acquired that wasn’t simply a physical enhancement.
He thought back to the serial killer he had subdued.
When Liam had pinned the scrawny man to the floor, the killer had kept staring toward the kitchen.
Looking back on it now, the guy had been trying to get to a knife.
Liam considered this for a moment.
It seemed that once an Event reached D rank or higher, the Reward was no longer limited to straightforward physical enhancements.
Instead, it could grant skills related to the Event itself.
That made him even more curious about what mysterious events he might encounter in the future.
After returning the knife to its place, he walked over to his desk, which was buried beneath a mountain of letters.
They had all been sent in by his young viewers.
The stationery came in every imaginable style, and the questions were just as varied.
Most were simply children asking about things in everyday life that puzzled them.
Liam tried to answer every interesting letter he could.
It wasn’t only for the ratings.
He also hoped the children who watched his show would learn to form their own views of the world.
Then there was one unusual letter.
There was no name on the envelope.
Inside, crooked words written in crayon described a firsthand sighting of Bigfoot in Freetown Forest Park.
Liam could tell at a glance that the handwriting didn’t belong to a child.
The letter was obviously a prank.
Even so, he stared at the page for a long time.
When the letter had arrived a few days earlier, a new entry had appeared in the Events Logbook.
[Unknown Creatures in the Forest]
[Event Level: C]
[Exploration Progress: 3%]
The letter was fake, but the clue about Bigfoot was real.
Liam carefully tucked the letter away inside his clothes.
Just as he was about to continue reading the others, a rapid series of knocks sounded at his door.
“Knock!
Knock!
Knock!”
He opened the door to find his landlord glaring at him furiously.
“Liam, what kind of nonsense have you been telling my grandson?
Now he flat-out refuses to eat oatmeal.
He says oats are a conspiracy by the agricultural companies, and he keeps insisting there’s a door to another world hidden in his closet!”
The landlord was a stuffy old white man, and the moment he saw Liam, he launched straight into his complaints.
“And what the hell are you doing in this room, anyway?
Why are there always strange noises coming from here?”
Instead of rushing to defend himself, Liam stuck his head into the hallway and glanced around cautiously.
Then he leaned closer to the landlord and lowered his voice.
“Sir, keep your voice down.
Don’t let the people who’ve been watching me hear any of this.
If they find out I already know the truth, it’ll be bad for both of us.”
The bizarre response left the landlord so confused that he momentarily forgot what else he had been planning to complain about.
Seeing this, Liam patted him on the shoulder and continued.
“Your grandson understands things much better than you do.
You have to stay alert for signals from another world at all times.
Otherwise, he could disappear from here without warning.
Trust me.
Whatever I say is definitely true.”
The landlord stared at Liam in stunned silence.
After a long moment, he finally managed to speak.
“You’re a fucking lunatic!”
“Sir, you really shouldn’t swear in front of children.
Santa Claus might stop bringing him presents.”
“You’re moving out next month.
You belong in an asylum.”
Still cursing under his breath, the old man turned and headed downstairs.
Liam merely shrugged at the baseless accusations.
Just as he was about to close the door, the landlord’s grandson, who had been peeking around the corner for quite some time, hurried over and spoke to Liam somewhat shyly.
“Mr.
Liam, I’m really sorry about what Grandpa said.”
Liam ruffled the boy’s hair and smiled.
“It’s nothing important, Peter.
Just remember, you always have to think for yourself.
That’s the only way you’ll ever see the truth.”
Liam was always trying to share these truths with the ignorant masses, but most of the time all he got in return were eye-rolls or outright insults.
By now, he was used to it.
The next day, Liam pulled out a map and found Freetown Forest Park.
The park lay roughly forty kilometers southeast of Boston.
It covered a vast area of genuine wilderness.
This was clearly going to be a major undertaking.
Liam drove to a secondhand store specializing in outdoor equipment.
Outdoor enthusiasts replaced their gear so frequently that there was little reason to buy anything new.
The store even had plenty of secondhand equipment that had never been opened.
Even so, Liam only rented the essentials.
He was short on money, so he had to save wherever he could.
By the time he reached the park, it was already noon.
The sunlight was perfect for filming.
Liam spotted the park sign from a distance and immediately pulled out the video camera he carried with him to record the beginning of his exploration.
The JVC GR-C1 was a recently released home video camera.
Station Director James didn’t think a children’s program needed expensive professional equipment.
Something simple was good enough for kids.
Liam had no complaints.
A compact camera like this suited him perfectly and spared him the trouble of wrestling with complicated equipment.
“Can you see it, kids?
This is Freetown Forest Park.
I’ve received an exclusive, top-secret tip that the mysterious Bigfoot is hiding deep inside these woods.”
“Next, I’m going to take you on an expedition to uncover the mystery surrounding this unknown creature.
And remember, everything you’re about to see is absolutely real.”
Liam placed the camera on the roof of his car, then walked over to the park sign and posed beside it for the shot.
Once he had finished recording the opening, he gathered his equipment and headed toward the ranger station.
According to the rules, filming in a place like this required official permission.