Chapter 54: Another Warning

Keane remained outside the vanished gate for several minutes, checking the surrounding area twice before doing it a third more intently.

There really was nothing left, no trace of the entrance, no strange energy and no sign of any of the creatures he had killed inside. More importantly, there was no sign of the figure either.

’Just what the fuck was that?’ Keane thought to himself while standing where the gate had been.

He had cleared enough gates by now to at least understand the basic pattern they followed. Even the Flux Gate, with everything that had been wrong with it, still followed certain rules.

The figure however bothered Keane more than any of that.

’Why did it feel familiar?’ He thought to himself, looking down at his hands.

The feeling hadn’t completely disappeared even after leaving the gate.

Keane couldn’t remember ever seeing the person before, and there hadn’t even been enough detail in the silhouette for him to recognise a face, clothes or anything else useful.

Yet something had reacted in him when he saw it. It was like looking at someone he should have known, except his mind couldn’t find anything to explain why.

Keeping in mind he hadn’t been in this new world that long to become so familiar with anyone, it could only be someone from modern day earth... He didn’t want to think too wildly yet.

Keane eventually turned toward Valewind.

There wasn’t anything else he could learn by standing around here.

He needed records.

...

Daniel noticed something was off almost immediately when Keane returned.

"You’re early." Daniel said while looking at him.

Keane walked past him without stopping.

"Contract finished faster than expected?"

"No."

Daniel raised a brow, confused, since it wasn’t like Keane to be incompetent, at least for the the time he had worked with him, he could say that.

"I found another gate on the way back." Keane said, stopping after a few steps.

"Another contract?"

"No, it must have been unregistered."

That immediately got Daniel’s attention.

"You entered an unregistered gate?" He asked, staring at Keane.

"Yes."

"Without telling anyone?"

"There wasn’t anyone there."

"That isn’t the part I’m questioning." Daniel said with a sigh.

Keane looked at him.

"Never mind. What happened?"

"It disappeared."

"After you closed it?"

"Something like that."

Daniel clearly wanted more information, but he could tell that Keane wasn’t interested in explaining anything.

"I need access to the Guild’s records." Keane said.

"You already have access to most of the Gold section."

"I need older records."

"How old are we talking?"

"Anything involving abnormal gates."

Daniel thought about it for a moment.

"You won’t find that with your normal level of clearance, but I can arrange that with Marcus."

Keane nodded.

When he spoke of guild records, he was referring to the library, not the top secrets of the guild.

...

After a short while, he had gained access to higher records.

The Guild library was much larger than Keane expected.

He had only passed by there and only briefly, since most adventurers didn’t have much reason to spend time there unless they needed maps, monster information or some old expedition report.

Keane however ended up spending hours inside.

He started with gates, looking at unstable gates, mutated gates, unclassified gates, gates that changed after discovery and even gates that vanished unexpectedly.

There happened to be records for all of them.

At first, Keane thought that was promising, until he started reading properly before finding out most of them were useless.

There were things like a gate that had collapsed after remaining open for too long, while another had changed environments between expeditions, something he had experiencd himself. There were also several cases where monsters became stronger than the gate’s original classification suggested, which he also had experienced officialy; and even some gates that disappeared before the Guild could properly explore them.

They were strange enough, but none of them matched what Keane had just experienced.

He kept searching until he found a report from several decades ago mentioning a gate whose entrance had changed colour after being discovered.

Keane stopped at that one. It didn’t seem like a lot at first, but it quickly got interesting.

The report was short.

The first page explained how the gate was discovered, while the second contained a few basic measurements.

Then it ended.

There was no expedition report, no monster classification and nothing explaining how the gate eventually closed.

’Where’s the rest?’ Keane thought to himself, checking the index again.

The file was listed as complete.

Keane found another report not too long after, this one describing an unusual atmospheric reaction around the entrance of a gate.

Once again, the report stopped before anything useful appeared.

Then he found another one that included something about malformed monsters, which got his attention immediately.

Keane pulled the document closer and started reading.

According to the report, the expedition had encountered creatures showing characteristics that didn’t match any known species.

Unfortunately, there were no drawings or proper descriptions of the monsters.

The next section should have contained the expedition leader’s full report, but instead, it jumped directly to a short notice saying the gate was no longer active.

’That’s convenient.’ Keane thought to himself while staring at the page.

He searched for any connected reports but found nothing.

Then he checked the adventurers involved.

Several of their names appeared elsewhere in the Guild archives, so it wasn’t like their records had disappeared completely, but none of those records mentioned the strange gate.

One missing report could easily be bad recordkeeping.

Two could still be a coincidence... But after several hours however, Keane had found enough incomplete entries for it to start bothering him.

It wasn’t proof of anything, but there was enough for him to become suspicious.

The records were almost too clean in certain places.

’Maybe I’m looking for something that isn’t there.’ Keane thought to himself as he leaned back in the chair.

That was also possible.

He had no intention of becoming the kind of person that saw some hidden conspiracy every time a report went missing.

The Guild records were maintained by people after all. People lost things, documents got damaged, records were moved around, and old information was sometimes considered useless and forgotten.

There were plenty of normal explanations.

The problem was that the same kind of information kept disappearing.

’Altered?’ Keane thought to himself, tapping one finger against the table.

’Or destroyed.’

He had no way to prove either one, and that was the problem.

Keane returned the records and changed what he was looking for.

.

.

.

People like himself...

There was obviously no section in the Guild library labelled People With Video Game Systems, so he had to approach the matter indirectly and search for people with strange invisible abilities, those who claimed to see messages nobody else could see, individuals whose strength increased at abnormal speeds and anyone with unexplained interfaces, voices, blessings, contracts or powers that didn’t belong to any recognised school.

There were actually plenty of strange cases.

Prophets, cursed people, those who claimed gods spoke directly to them, rare bloodlines, unique magical conditions and more frauds than Keane expected to find.

None of it clearly resembled what he had.

By the time the light coming through the windows started fading, Keane was sitting at one of the tables surrounded by books and reports.

He opened his interface and the familiar screen appeared immediately, clean and mechanical, exactly like the system he had spent years helping develop back on Earth.

’Why?’ Keane thought to himself while staring at it.

That had always been the biggest question. Why this system, why him, and more importantly, why did something based on a game he was involved in from Earth even exist in this world?

Keane simply hadn’t spent much time thinking about it since arriving because there had always been more immediate problems. Food, shelter, money, information and strength all mattered far more when he was still trying to survive.

The strange gate however had brought the question back, along with another possibility.

’What if I’m not the only one?’ He thought to himself before closing the interface.

The idea sounded ridiculous, but so did his own existence. He had gone to sleep inside an office on Earth and somehow woken up in another world with a system based on a game he was helping create, so at some point, dismissing something simply because it sounded ridiculous stopped being useful.

If it happened to him, there was no real reason it couldn’t have happened to someone else.

Maybe another person had a system.

Maybe there were several.

Maybe some of them had even arrived before him.

Maybe the silhouette—

’No.’ Keane stopped himself.

That was taking things too far.

There was nothing connecting the figure inside the gate to another system user. The familiarity wasn’t proof, neither were the missing reports, and the strange gate itself only proved that something unusual had happened there.

Keane could create a hundred theories from what he had and still be wrong about every one of them.

’Can’t I just live a peaceful life?’ Keane thought to himself, rubbing his forehead.

"Useless." Keane said as he closed the final book.

The librarian who happened to be passing by looked in his direction after hearing him, but Keane ignored the look.

He had spent most of the day searching through records and somehow ended up with more questions than when he started.

There wasn’t much else he could do for now. He would keep looking whenever he had the opportunity, and if another abnormal gate appeared, he definitely wasn’t going to let it disappear as easily as the first one.

With nothing left to see there, he decided to wrap it up and leave.

...

To his surprise, Joren contacted him later that evening, which was unusual enough on its own.

Keane hadn’t spoken to the innkeeper much since everything involving Lina, and while their relationship hadn’t ended badly, there simply wasn’t much left for them to talk about. Joren had his own problems, and Keane had his.

The message was short.

..

Come to the inn.

Alone.

..

Keane hesitated before heading over.

The inn looked exactly how he remembered it. People were drinking downstairs, and workers moved between the kitchen and tables carrying food, but Joren wasn’t behind the counter, as usual.

One of the workers noticed Keane and quietly pointed toward the stairs, so he headed up and found Joren waiting inside one of the private rooms with the door already open.

"Welcome, Keane. Please, close it." Joren said as soon as Keane entered.

Keane shut the door and took the seat opposite him.

Joren looked worse than usual, not exactly frightened, but tense enough that Keane could tell this wasn’t a casual conversation.

"You contacted me." Keane said.

"I did."

Joren hesitated before answering.

"You might be in danger."

"That’s becoming a common thing to tell me." Keane replied while looking at him, not particularly moved.

"I’m serious. I heard something today."

That sounded a little more useful.

"What did you hear?" Keane asked, leaning back in the chair.

"Questions are being asked."

"About me?"

"Yes."

"What kind?" Keane asked, a bit more interested.

"Where you’re staying. Who you’re working with. What contracts you’re taking. How often you leave Valewind."

Keane remained calm after hearing that, but several things immediately came to mind.

Elara and the adventurer he had spoken to.

They’ll come for you whether you help me or not.

"Who is asking?" Keane asked.

Joren didn’t answer immediately, and Keane already had a suspicion before the man finally looked toward the closed door and lowered his voice.

"The Veil."

Keane went quiet.

"The Veil of Shadows has taken an interest in you." Joren continued.

Keane didn’t say anything after that.

At least there was one question he no longer needed to ask himself.

Elara had been telling the truth.