Evan straightened in bed. He had never met Marcus's cousin, but the boy's reputation had reached him. At just ten years old, he had already awakened as a C-rank, an unusually early achievement that made him the darling of their extended family.
"Your cousin got kidnapped? Have you called the police?"
"I did!" Marcus cried. "They're investigating it, but... but I think it's my fault."
Marcus's sobbing carried over the line, and Evan frowned. "Calm down. Start from the beginning. What happened?"
Marcus blew his nose. "So... you know my cousin has a pet cat, right?"
"Captain Whiskers," Evan said. Marcus had shown him countless photos of the black cat at school.
"He went missing recently. It was technically my cousin's fault. He felt bad that Captain Whiskers was always cooped up inside, so he'd secretly let him out whenever his parents weren't home. But a few days ago, the cat never came back. He was scared his parents would get mad, so he lied and said Captain Whiskers was staying at my place to play with my cat."
Evan had several things to say about that lie, but he kept them to himself. "And?"
"I helped him make missing cat posters and spent all day yesterday searching for Captain Whiskers," Marcus continued. "We knew the lie wouldn't last forever. His parents could've asked mine whether the cat was really at our house, so I kept telling everyone he was staying in my room. Then, not long after school ended today, my cousin sent me a message. He said someone had approached him and claimed to have seen Captain Whiskers while he was out looking."
His voice cracked. "He... he never replied after that. I can't contact him anymore, and... and the police think someone took him..."
Evan grimaced, at a loss. He had never been good at comforting people, and no one had ever called him with something this heavy. "Okay, I get it. It was stupid for you and your cousin to hide that Captain Whiskers was missing, but it's not your fault he disappeared. Got it?"
Marcus answered with a wet sniffle.
"So just... don't do anything stupid trying to find him yourself, okay? Leave that to the authorities," Evan said.
The next half hour slipped by as Evan struggled to comfort his friend. When the call finally ended, he dropped back onto the bed with a heavy sigh and rubbed a hand over his face. "Gosh... what a mess."
He had done nothing but talk, yet he felt drained. There was nothing he could do anyway. A missing child was a matter for the authorities, and all anyone could do now was wait for the investigation to progress.
Evan brushed his teeth, then tested the front door and checked each window lock. The last thing he needed was to get kidnapped himself and have Reid rush all the way back from District 1 to rescue him.
The next morning, Marcus looked miserable. His eyes were red and puffy, and Evan guessed he had spent half the night crying. Yuyan seemed to know what had happened as well, so neither of them tried to bother him, and the school day dragged by with their group unusually quiet.
When the final bell rang, Marcus hurried out of the classroom. Evan and Yuyan trailed him at a distance, keeping out of his sight. Marcus usually spent a few hours at the sports field after school, but today he headed straight for the gates.
"You're thinking what I'm thinking," Yuyan said.
"He's about to do something stupid," Evan replied.
Marcus hailed a taxi, and Yuyan wasted no time flagging down another.
"Follow that car!" she said as they climbed into the back seat.
Evan fought the urge to roll his eyes at the line straight out of a spy movie. The driver raised an eyebrow but humored them anyway, pulling away from the curb and keeping Marcus's taxi in sight.
The ride ended at a small neighborhood park. Marcus paid the driver and got out, and Evan and Yuyan followed a short distance behind, though he was too preoccupied to notice them. He wandered the park, scanning the surroundings.
Was this where his cousin had been kidnapped?
Marcus searched every corner of the park, but there was nothing to find. Children played on the swings while parents watched from nearby benches, and others lounged beneath the trees with books and snacks. Everything seemed perfectly ordinary. His shoulders slowly slumped.
Evan wasn't surprised. Even if there had been clues, the police had most likely collected them already.
After lingering a minute longer, Marcus left the park. Evan and Yuyan followed him down a series of narrow alleys that ended beside a row of abandoned warehouses. Marcus bent to squeeze through a hole in the fence, and that was when they made their presence known.
"Ahem!"
Marcus stiffened and spun around, only to meet the flat stares of his two friends.
"What do you think you're doing?" Evan asked.
"Um... nothing?"
Their expressions grew even less impressed.
"That's the best you can come up with?" Yuyan asked.
"Didn't I tell you not to do anything stupid?" Evan said.
Marcus shuffled his feet. "I just wanted to check..."
"You do know there's no way they'd still be here, right?" Yuyan said.
"The police have probably already checked this place, considering how close it is to the park," Evan said. "Come on, these warehouses practically scream 'first place to search.' No criminal with half a brain would hide someone here."
"...Even so, I still want to inspect the place," Marcus said.
Evan read the stubborn resolve in Marcus's face and knew there was no changing his mind. Marcus was the type who would never forgive himself for doing nothing while his cousin remained missing.
"Okay, fine. We'll check the warehouses," Evan said. "But we're coming with you."
"We are?!" Yuyan asked, staring at him in disbelief.
"You will?" Marcus asked, hope lighting his face.
Evan nodded. "Better the three of us go together. If you head in alone, you might end up getting kidnapped too. At least this way we can watch each other's backs, and anyone thinking of causing trouble might hesitate when they see three people instead of one."
Yuyan frowned and drew breath to argue, but after a moment, she only sighed. With that settled, the three squeezed through the hole in the rusted chain-link fence and stepped onto the warehouse grounds.
They circled the outside first, checking the warehouses one by one. Most of the large roller doors were chained shut, and the side entrances had been secured with heavy padlocks. Broken windows lined the upper floors, though none offered a clear view inside.
At last they found a side door hanging ajar and slipped in after a brief hesitation. The air was cool and carried the stale scent of dust and rust. Sunlight slanted down from cracked skylights and broken windows onto rows of storage racks.
Marcus scanned the space anxiously while Evan searched for anything out of place. Yuyan kept a tight grip on her phone, ready to call the emergency number if anything went wrong.
"Seems like there's nothing here," Evan said.
"What did I tell you?" Yuyan said. She planted a hand on her hip and glared at Marcus, whose face fell even further.
"It can't be helped," Evan said, patting him on the back. "You've tried your best. Let's—"
He stopped mid-sentence when something glinting caught his eye. He turned and saw a crack in the air. It winked out and returned a moment later, but Evan was certain it was there. A Rift?
"Hey, guys. Are you seeing this?" he asked, pointing at the unusual fissure.
"What?" Yuyan turned to look where he was pointing.
"I don't see anything," Marcus said, squinting into the darkness.
Yuyan switched on her phone's flashlight and aimed it at the shadowy corner. "Did you spot a mouse or something?"
"It's not a mouse..." Evan muttered. When the two of them looked at the wrong spot, he gave up. "Maybe I was just imagining things."
She slapped him on the arm. "Are you trying to mess with us? Let me tell you, I'm not afraid of ghosts!"
Evan scoffed. He might have believed her if she hadn't crowded so close to him and Marcus that she kept stumbling into them.
[New Quest!]
[Objective: Investigate the Rift]
[Time Limit: 24:00:00]
[Reward: ■■■■■■]
Evan blinked at the unexpected System window. So his suspicion had been right. It really was a Rift. Had he seen it because of his You're Not Supposed To See This skill?
He examined the crack again, wondering whether he should simply report it to the RCB. If this was a budding Rift about to manifest inside the barrier, that was all the more reason to leave it to the RCB. He didn't even know his own rank yet, and he had no combat abilities. There was no way he could clear a Rift of unknown difficulty.
The moment the thought crossed his mind, the Quest window appeared again.
Was the System insisting that he accept? Knowing it, there was no way it would let him refuse so easily. If he ignored the Quest, it would probably activate the curse again and drag him into an even bigger mess.
Fine. I'll do it... but not now, Evan thought, knowing full well the System could hear him.
The Quest window disappeared.
The three students left the warehouses and returned to the park, where Marcus soon received a call from his worried father, who berated him for ignoring his messages. Evan and Yuyan gave him an I-told-you-so look. After buying ice cream from a nearby vendor, they found a bench and waited for his father to arrive.
"You idiot brat! Do you know how worried you made us?" Marcus's father shouted, tugging Marcus's right ear.
"Ow, ow, ow! I'm sorry!" Marcus yelped, wincing.
"Oh? So you think saying sorry is easier than asking for permission?" his father snapped. "You should've known better than to leave school and come here after what happened to your cousin! Do you want to get kidnapped too?"
Marcus shot his friends a pleading glance, but they kept eating their ice cream and watched him get chewed out. He was scolded to hell and back, and then his father gave all three of them a ride home. Evan waved as the car pulled away and went into his apartment.
He still needed to investigate the Rift, but it was only early evening and there was no reason to rush. He finished his homework and went to the kitchen to make a simple dinner of stir-fried noodles coated in a light soy-based sauce and tossed with thin slices of beef, cabbage, onions, and carrots.
The noodles still fell short of Reid's cooking, but Evan was pleased with how far his skills had come. Before he transmigrated, his meals had been instant ramen or whatever convenience store food happened to be marked down, and on the rare nights he cooked, the cheapest ingredients left him with a dish that tasted exactly as cheap as it was. Now, for the first time, he could try the kinds of dishes he had only ever watched people prepare on social media.
After dinner, Evan showered and changed into practical clothes: a dark hoodie over a charcoal T-shirt, cargo pants, comfortable running shoes, and lightweight gloves. A compact crossbody bag rested against his back, holding a few essentials.
He checked that every window was closed and the front door locked, then hailed a taxi and gave the driver the address of the park. By the time he arrived, the area had quieted considerably. The lively sounds of the afternoon had faded, leaving only the occasional footsteps of passersby heading home. A few others lingered on benches, enjoying the cool night air.
Evan headed toward the warehouses and activated his stealth ability as he drew near. Fully invisible, he made for the building where he had found the strange Rift. The anomaly was still there, phasing in and out of sight. He approached, half-expecting it to split open and drag him into whatever lay beyond, but it never changed.
"What am I supposed to do here? It's not like I have access to RCB monitoring equipment," Evan muttered.
He hovered a hand over the Rift, then pulled it back. Whatever lay on the other side, touching an unstable Rift without proper equipment seemed like a terrible idea.
Skrrrrt!
The Rift split open, and a man stepped out of it.
Evan froze.