Marcus would be lying if he said that he wasn't expecting something to go wrong while they were dropping the islanders, but surprisingly, none of that happened. Even the trip back to the cruise ship was peaceful, with no monster trying to see if the tender was an easy meal.

  The drop itself went smoothly. Corgan kept his people calm and none of them caused any trouble. After a casual farewell, they got back into the tender and made their way to the Voyager.

  There was a thought at the back of Marcus's mind that maybe, the reason these people were that nonchalant about leaving the ship, was because they too left something behind. He sighed as he considered just how many new things he would have to look out for from now on, but the fact that Voyager could now feel those and deal with them put an end to that thought. Or at the very least, made it easier to ignore for now. He felt that literal spies would likely be way more competent than a self-entitled noble.

  He knew that at that moment, Dan was awaiting their return before having the Voyager do a sweep for any marks. It was Old Raily who suggested that. They didn't know if the islanders would be able to sense that their mark was removed or how they would react to that. So, they decided to hold off on that till the guards were back on the ship to lower the chances of trouble. The tenders they used were also going to be swept to see if anything suspicious could be found.

  It might seem excessive, but things like that had to be done to make sure their people remain safe.

  ***

  And another day ends… Dan thought to himself as he lay in bed in his empty room. Their second day in that world brought with it quite a few surprises, unfortunately, many of them were unpleasant...

  Dan decided to go through his mental checklist to take his mind off that, even though he knew that it wasn't healthy. The first thing they needed to look into was the matter of the guards. The Voyager needed those, people who kept things safe and could step up when the situation called for it, but that didn't mean he was going to force it on people.

  At that time, he had told Marcus to see if he could find anyone willing to step up and help with the protection when they got sent here. Everyone had been confused and frightened after the Behemoth appeared, he had nothing but respect for those who saw something like that, and still decided to stand up and take their position as guards.

  He didn't have a long-term mission for it and didn't consider how those guards who might have never faced a situation like this would react after a while. They needed to look into that and see how to fix it.

  The second thing was to take care of people's mental health. It kinda linked to the first, as the people who might be most in need of that were probably some of the guards. Especially Old Raily. He felt that he was the person he had to give the most attention to. The old veteran hadn't been the same ever since all this mess started. He could maybe start by approaching Mrs Raily to see what to do about the matter.

  And that was just Old Raily, he was almost sure that others too weren't in their right state of mind. It was just that he dealt with Old Raily a lot, and had time to notice the differences between how he usually was, and how he became after getting to this world.

  The third thing that came to mind was the Voyager's skills. He wondered if those too had tiers, and if they did how would that work? A hypothesis he had was that they would get their tier up when he made it past level 10 and into the tier 2 territory. That was just an idea though, he didn't have any way to prove it.

  As his mind drifted to sleep, he hoped that the next day would be better.

  ***

  Robert would be lying to say that he wasn't getting overwhelmed. Anyone who said he wasn't in the situation they were in would either be lying, an idiot or a psychopath.

  Another reason he was getting overwhelmed was that he could see things getting out of control eventually. They were basically always one step away from falling into the grasp of someone. And the easiest way for that to happen was for their fuel to end. Once that happened they would find themselves a sitting duck at the mercy of whoever got to them first.

  He sighed again as he remembered his conversation with Dan that morning. From how his old friend reacted, he knew he was too hasty and came in too strong. What he was saying might have been the right thing to do, but that didn't mean that everyone else would accept it easily. He should have gone about it more subtly, maybe even hitting Marcus and Old Raily first. Those two seemed like levelheaded people who would consider his proposal rationally. Maybe with their help, he might have been able to get his point across to Dan.

  "Couldn't sleep?" A voice came from behind him. He actually knew who the person was before she even spoke, he was that familiar with the sound of her footsteps after all.

  "A bit," he answered his wife, gazing at the dark night, "My mind's not stopping."

  "Let's go back," his wife said as she patted him lightly, then added jokingly, "I might be able to sing you to sleep, an Otherworldly Siren should be able to do that at least."

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  "Okay."

  The next morning, Robert would feel that he had had the best sleep of his life.

  ***

  William was starting to feel frustrated, frustrated but not mad, he was the opposite of mad actually, a part of him that he considered dead was quite fond of this feeling. It has been years since the last time he felt as if he was banging his head against a problem that showed no signs of being solved, yet, at the same time, also felt as if it was just one step away from being cracked.

  That was why he chose Magical Engineer as his Class, he wanted to add some novelty to his life and inject some excitement into it, he was just starting to feel that he might have got more than he bargained for, not that he was complaining.

  The first skill he got from his class was called Branching Upgrades. It worked by showing him how a device could be strengthened, or more precisely, upgraded magically. Then using mana, he would be able to follow those directions and upgrade it in that way.

  When he got his Class, the system said that as a magical Class, he would get a resource known as mana to help cast spells, or in his case, achieve a desired outcome.

  The problem he was having was that the directions Branching Upgrades was giving weren't really that clear. They only told you what to do, not how to do it. Part of him felt that he was missing some pretty significant spells as a Magical Engineer.

  With the Class, he had been given instinctive knowledge of how to control mana, and some rudimentary knowledge about some magical concepts, but it felt somehow lacking. It probably had to do with how elementary his mana control and manipulation were.

  Tossing the old spare phone he had been holding aside, he stood up and went to bed. The system truly felt as if it was helping with his health, but he was still an old man who needed his sleep.

  ***

  Darkness, pure nothingness. That was when her earliest thought was born. She even instinctively knew that what existed before that first thought was also darkness, a huge void with nothing around.

  It took ages for that first thought to grow to be something that amounted to anything, not that she knew the meaning of time then.

  Even as she awoke more and more, that first thought still echoed through her newly awakening soul, protectiveness. The protectiveness pointed within, inside her. Following that feeling, she found where it pointed, it was toward a few lives within her. She felt a connection with them, a closeness and protectiveness towards them that was as much a part of her as her whole body.

  Especially one of them, he felt so familiar, a closeness that went beyond what she felt towards the others.

  A part of her still-developing consciousness felt that they weren't normal though, there was something wrong with them. No matter how much she observed them and for how long, they remained frozen, unmoving.

  A panic started filling her barely functioning mind as she tried her best to make them normal, even though she herself didn't know what that was.

  Her consciousness felt her body in her state of panic. It took ages before she noticed something, something was enveloping her, keeping her from coming into contact with the outside nothingness. When her mind linked the fact that she was awake and functioning within the envelope, a long long time had passed.

  She knew better than to mess with that barrier, even her barely conscious self felt that, but the part that was worried about the people within her felt that she needed to do something. After all, if it was helping her function, why wouldn't it help them too?

  The barrier was scary, just the thought of getting close to it made her newly formed consciousness quiver, but when she thought of her people, she couldn't help but push herself.

  The envelope was really scary, it made her feel an instinctive fear that came from the deepest parts of her soul, it felt as if it could consume her whole.

  The first time she tried to touch it, it hurt her so much that she blacked out for a long time. The second time was the same, the third too. Just as she was starting to develop a deep-seated fear of the envelope, she noticed something, its resistance was weakening. She didn't know why or how, but it was!

  With that realization, she went back at it. Noticing how easy it was becoming to bring the dark aura-like power that made the barrier under her control, it was as if it itself was eager to join her, as if it had lost contact with something that made it what it was, making it do its best to survive too.

  She then tried to take control of it. It was hard at first, but the more she brought that dark aura under her control the more of it decided to join her without resistance. Finally, after who knows how long, it was all under her.

  With the first step done, she tried to go with her instincts, sending a tiny part of the dark aura to her people, just a tiny part given to all of them, to see if it would hurt them or not. The pain she felt once she touched it the first time was still vivid in her simple mind.

  Before she could see a reaction, her situation changed, she was no longer in a dark void with nothing all around her, but in an environment that felt strangely familiar.

  She felt warmth from far above, wind all around and water below her. Even though she never saw those things ever since she came to life, she knew what they were, it was where she belonged.

  Her happiness grew even more when she noticed how her people were actually moving! They weren't stuck in that weird state she knew wasn't normal.

  After a short time, so soo soooo short in comparison to what she went through before, something weird appeared in front of her, something she understood instinctively,

  Dan Reeds wants to bond with you, Do you accept?