Chapter 817: Fear

Benjamin couldn"t believe his eyes. Was he hallucinating? He thought he would be fine after a short break, but maybe what he was doing in the other world did a lot more damage to him here than he expected. Especially mentally; after all, it was a very stressful endeavor. There was no way he would see a system window here on earth. The system didn"t exist here.

Not to mention, it was jumbled, with random characters messing up the words.

But even through the jumbled mess, he recognized the layout of this window. It was a skill-acquisition message, but the Skill"s name was... redacted? Not to mention, he didn"t feel as though anything was different now that he got this skill. But somehow, he knew that it was real. The sharp pain that he felt before it popped up must have been because of this.

"Dad?" there was a knock on the door. It was Tony. He must have heard the commotion that Benjamin made when getting out of the capsule.

"I"m... I"m fine..." Benjamin replied, though his tone clearly wasn"t convincing enough. Tony pushed the door open immediately, jumping toward his father the moment he saw the puddle of b.l.o.o.d.y vomit on the ground and the blood dripping off Benjamin"s face, "What the h.e.l.l happened? What did you do- Did someone-"

"Tony, don"t worry. I"m alright," the old man said with a slight smile, "There"s just... a lot going on over there right now. I don"t know exactly why, but looks like it wasn"t good for me over here either."

Tony"s face was pale. Despite what Benjamin was saying, he had started holding onto his father"s arm in case he fell. Benjamin didn"t look particularly stable on his feet right now, "Are you sure you"re alright? I know your body is... different now, but... you"re not as strong here than you are there, right?"

Benjamin smiled, "I promise, I"ll be fine. It was a bit of a shock when I woke up, but I"m already feeling a bit better. I guess I feel a bit dizzy, but that"s probably just blood loss, I"m not really in any pain anyway."

"...That doesn"t particularly calm me down... Do you think you can get yourself cleaned up, or do you need help?"

"Hah, I"m not the type of old man who"d need you to wipe his a.s.s, son. At least not yet," Benjamin laughed, patting Tony on the back. Before Benjamin could say anything else, Tony sighed and nodded, "Fine. Go take a shower, I"ll clean up here in the meantime."

"Thank you. And I"m sorry for worrying you," Benjamin smiled, stepping out through the door into the bathroom across the hallway. He felt bad for what he was doing to his children with his behaviour. Tony in particular, who was still here to take care of his father, ended up powerless against everything that was happening right now.

At least Benjamin himself felt a certain sense of normalcy, no matter how crazy things got. It was most likely a subconscious understanding of what was happening, that he consciously couldn"t access right away. But Tony didn"t have that. He didn"t understand any of this, he just had to... watch.

Benjamin cloesd and locked the bathroom door behind him. He looked into the mirror and sighed. The system window was still floating beside him, flickering like an old tv screen with some loose wires. This was the only thing that was an exception to even Benjamin. He doubted that this was something that Eisen had knowledge of. Those things felt...

different. There, no matter how crazy, Benjamin felt a sense of curiosity and a subtle sense of familiarity. Sometimes, it got so far that it felt practically nostalgic, which was when he would recover some of his past memories. But here, right now, Benjamin was completely lost. There was nothing familiar here. It was a new experience.

Sure, maybe if he had all his memories of when he was "the" Eisen, then he could make more sense of this situation, but that didn"t really change the situation he was in now.

Benjamin concentrated, trying to open his status window. Nothing happened, "So it"s not the whole system..? Is this just some... error?" the old man wondered. Maybe what he did over there caused him to get a skill, and then due to the amount of mana that he was expending, to the point that it affected his body on earth, the system window was pushed through as well?

But then, why the delay? It took a good minute or two for Benjamin to properly get out of the capsule after waking up. Not to mention... he had a feeling that the Skill"s name wasn"t distorted like the rest. It was simply redacted. He might figure something out when he logged back in, but right now, he couldn"t do anything at all.

Right now, Benjamin couldn"t do much. Actually, he couldn"t even wave the window away. It was just stuck there. At least he could move it out of sight, but he knew that it was still there.

For now, Benjamin took off his clothes and turned on the shower. He waited for the water to turn hot, and then stepped inside. Since the blood was still fresh, he was able to clean himself up quite quickly, revealing what was hidden underneath the red stream, "More scars, again?"

While Haruo and Andre"s bodies were changing much more extremely, due to the difference between their forms here and Jyuuk and Brody"s bodies, Benjamin also changed. His hair that had started thinning with age became thicker again. His muscles felt tighter. He gained weight.

And the thing that he noticed more and more whenever he woke back up was that there were more scars covering him basically every time he checked. And it wasn"t any different now. If he concentrated enough, then maybe he could even spot them forming on his skin. He nearly laughed at the thought, continuing to clean himself up. But even when he was done, for a while, Benjamin just stood there.

He wasn"t religious, and he knew that the G.o.ds in the other world wouldn"t be able to do anything to help, but somehow... Benjamin had the urge to pray for the success of the others. He wasn"t able to do anything. Even though he trusted the others, and knew that they were just as capable as he was... Benjamin was scared. What if they couldn"t do it?

Everyone there would die. He knew that Evalia had done as much as she could to get everyone to evacuate, but just because they wanted to, didn"t mean that it was easy. The capital was a ma.s.sive city, after all. And there wasn"t much time left.

What was he supposed to do if thigns failed? How was he supposed to live with himself? Samuel had come and undone the curse on Silber. And he only did that to mess with Eisen. To make him angry. To make him slip up.

It was something that Samuel knew wouldn"t permantently hurt Eisen directly. He would either be able to get out of there on his own, or just resp.a.w.n after dying. Sure, it would give Samuel some time to do things without Eisen being able to interfere, but... that was it. A couple of days. All of this was a petty act.

It was supposed to upset Eisen. Samuel would kill millions just to teach Eisen a lesson.

Benjamin closed his eyes, and then finally shut off the water. He stepped out of the shower, starting to dry himself off before getting dressed in the change of clothes that he kept in the bathroom. Benjamin walked out of the bathroom and made his way to the livingroom, sitting down on his armchair and leaning back. Benjamin placed his hand onto his eyes and waited. That was all he could do.

At some point, Tony had finished cleaning up, and joined him. But he as well could tell that something was off. So he just sat down on the couch near his father and waited together with him.

It wasn"t even that much later that Benjamin got even more anxious. He stepped out of the capsule about thirty minutes before. By now, over there, everything should be over, right?

Benjamin could feel his heart beating so strongly the tension reached up to his throat.

The clock on the other side of the room ticked loudly. So, so loudly.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

A quiet creaking.

Footsteps.

They came closer, and then stopped.

"It"s over," Andrew said. Benjamin moved his hand away. He was scared to look at Andrew"s face. What if they couldn"t do it? What if things went south? What if-

Benjamin forced his own hand away.

Through still blurry sight, he looked at Andrew.

He was smiling.