Today's Earth date: June 17, 1992

I don't want to admit this to Rathain and Wilmond, but I'm really worried about taking this boat trip without Horcus. Rathain and Wilmond have some ranged attack options. I have one or two, but I'm really meant for melee and tanking.

We all know that Horcus is our real damage-dealer, and he does it at range. How the hell am I going to melee a sea monster?

At the same time, the demons in the Fire Temple are only getting stronger. If we put this trip off too long, they might escape and ravage the Free Continent. I don't want to die from drowning, and I also don't want to be the one responsible for thousands of innocent deaths.

Man, I just want to go home.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

Smoke still rose from the crash site, but enough of it had been extinguished or burned out that the wreckage was mostly visible.

Wayne's HUD had never shown blue dots when the plane first emerged from the glitch puddle, but ever since the explosion, he hadn't seen any that weren't Barry or his bodyguards. That made him certain there were no survivors to be found, but he felt it prudent to look anyway.

He found part of a cabin door and activated Resource Values on it.

Boeing 777-2H6ER (Ruined), Average Value of $119,500,000.

That sounded like a lot of money for a crashed aircraft, but his ability didn't give him any justification for or insight into how the average value was calculated. Confirming that he did indeed see a modern jetliner enter this world was useful enough.

For one, it assured Wayne that he was, in fact, not hallucinating. For two, he could now say definitively that glitch puddles connected this world to Earth. The graveyard of planes and boats in the Dead Zone suggested as much already, but no one had seen any of those enter this world to definitively confirm the connection. Wayne didn't enter the world through a glitch puddle after all, so there was a possibility that was the case for stuff in the Dead Zone as well.

Now he knew.

What to do with that information was another question entirely.

The wreckage was no longer obscured by toxic smoke, but Wayne found no survivors. The crash had been violent and the flames substantial, so not much of anything was salvageable. He found a few scraps of clothing and the odd suitcase, but none of the items were identifiable in any meaningful way.

Seeing the suitcases, however, gave Wayne an idea. There was a chance that a few survived, blown free of the crash and landing in the forest somewhere. That happened to some of the bags on Lost, right? Clearly that was a great reference source for what to realistically expect in the event of a plane crash.

Wayne rolled his eyes at himself. When his mana topped off again, he dumped more Fire Extinguisher on the remaining sources of smoke, a process he repeated well into the night. By the time help arrived late the next morning, the smoke had become a less menacing gray. Every horse and rider looked haggard from the hard journey and slightly relieved that they weren't entering an active warzone.

Armond had kept Wayne informed of their progress throughout the response effort, so the Zero Hero knew that a rider was sent to Bata, alerting the leadership there of the development, and he knew that Barry and the bodyguards were officially safe. After that update, Armond's messages slowed to periodically giving estimates of how far the response party had traveled.

When the response party neared, Armond informed all of them to be wary of glitch puddles and to avoid touching one under any circumstances. As soon as the very tired group of riders arrived, they split into several teams to assess the site.

Fergus immediately dumped his mana pool by summoning multiple water elementals, directing them to extinguish the remaining fires. Armond kept an eye on the new arrivals, ready to intervene in the event of an injury or smoke poisoning. Margo and Hector joined the groups scouring the forest around the crash.

Once the water elementals were set on their duties, Fergus found Wayne.

"I know you're tired, but if you don't mind starting from the beginning," Fergus said, handing Wayne a fresh waterskin.

He gulped it. "There was a big glitch puddle inside one of the ruins, and then an airplane from Earth came through it. There were people on board, but none of them survived. The ones with enough pieces intact became zombies. That's all I know."

Fergus thought. "You mentioned previously the plane was modern by Earth standards."

"Yes," Wayne replied. "It definitely looked like a plane I would have ridden, and the name Resource Values gave me sounded modern. I don't know shit about airplanes, though, so there's a chance I'm off."

"I can say with certainty that the glitch puddle here is new," Fergus said. "This site has been well-researched, and based on your description, the puddle wasn't particularly hard to find. I doubt a few dozen researchers over multiple decades would have overlooked something like that."

"Agreed."

"So the glitch puddles are spreading. We don't know how or why, but we do know the consequences are dire, both for the people of this world and for the people of Earth."

"It's worth pointing out that most of the items we've found came from the last hundred years or so. I know the time calculation between worlds is muddy, but that gives us a potential timeline."

Fergus nodded. "If glitch puddles don't warp that time connection somehow."

"I haven't seen anything to suggest that it does," Wayne replied. "Everything has been my era or older, all stuff I recognized."

"Interesting point. If time was significantly disrupted by a glitch, we would potentially see futuristic items from Earth, objects that would perplex you."

"Exactly."

"I have to admit that I have no ideas for where we go from here." Fergus looked around. "Barring artifacts that survived the incident, I don't know how we'd begin to study glitch puddles. Saying that out loud, however, reminds me that basic observations would be a logical starting point. If nothing else, we could track how quickly a puddle expands, if they expand at all."

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

"Is that a project you're excited about?" Wayne asked.

"Gods no, especially not when the alternative is to stay with the party and delve dungeons. The rider to Bata had a message for the Royal Scholars with them. They should be mobilizing a research team."

"Smart idea letting them know right away."

"I know."

The Zeroes remained at the site until the first group of Bata soldiers arrived late in the afternoon the next day. While searching the forest did uncover more debris from the crash, there were no intact suitcases like Wayne had hoped. The few of those that they found were melted and burned by the intense fires of the crash.

Three Royal Scholars eventually rode in with the soldiers ahead of a larger research team. Wayne and Fergus debriefed them on the incident as well as what they had already learned about the glitch puddles. Much of what they had to share was already known to Royal Scholars, however. Fergus had included their observations from the Dead Zone and the symptoms of glitch sickness in one of his many update letters.

Technically, he and Wayne were still on a sanctioned research trip, and with the potential for glitch sickness to spread, Fergus hadn't been precious about that information or anything related to it.

With the scene secured, the Zeroes borrowed horses to accompany Wayne and Outlawson back to Gitna the next morning. They stopped to camp for the night, still a few miles from exiting the Gentle Forest.

"I'm confused," Armond said as the party settled in around the fire. "I had the impression that your world's technology was sophisticated, but there are that many unexplained mysteries?"

"Less so with where the tech is today, but most of what we've seen came from before we had that tech. A few shipwrecks and crashed planes have been discovered on Earth, but I'd say that's a rarity. The ocean is a big place, it's already full of trash, and anything you lose in it becomes a moving target. The however many square miles you searched from the air yesterday could be where the ocean moves the wreckage next. Then there are fishing techniques that trawl the bottom of the ocean, and those can destroy any remains that might have settled."

"What do you mean when you say the ocean is full of trash?"

"There's a cluster of floating trash that's something like 500,000 square miles, and that's just the stuff that has clumped together."

Armond whistled.

"So yeah, big stuff can go missing."

"How concerned are you two about this glitch business?" Margo asked Wayne and Fergus.

Fergus answered for the both of them. "Glitches are clearly dangerous, and now that we're certain they are spreading, that's concerning. There's a possibility that they naturally heal over time, but the age of items in the Dead Zone suggests that's not likely."

"Are you saying the puddles themselves are some kind of plague?"

Wayne said, "Potentially, but that would be more like a virus, which can spread rapidly. If that were the case, I would expect the Cuts to be in way worse shape. That's totally a guess though, with a dash of wishful thinking too."

"So the world's not ending?"

"No, no," Fergus replied. "The problem is serious, but I wouldn't raise that alarm yet."

Margo seemed to relax.

"Was babysitting worth it?" Hector asked.

Wayne laughed. "I knew I shouldn't have made that trade, but I got greedy."

"Then again," Fergus added, "had you not been greedy, the Gentle Forest would be crawling with zombies right now."

"That's an interesting glass-half-full observation," Margo added.

Fergus laughed. "I wouldn't say the glass is that full."

Soon, the party turned in for the night. Wayne felt restless, and he had gotten to rest the previous night, so while Hector was on watch, he went exploring.

When he was escorting Barry, Wayne watched his map for signs of a spawner. Though he saw none, he hadn't actually searched for them. All he knew was that there were no spawners visible from the road. To pass the time now, he Blitzed over the Gentle Forest on the side of the road closest to the ocean. There was a good bit of land and a small mountain range that didn't see regular traffic.

He passed over stray red dots that were likely goblins or giant rats. On the return trip, Wayne smiled. He saw red dots surrounding yellow dots, a tell-tale sign that there was a spawner with some loot.

Wayne knew what they were doing tomorrow.

The spawner wasn't visible from the air due to the tree canopy, and Wayne couldn't risk scouting too close lest he trigger the encounter. He was certain, however, that this was going to be a pain in the ass. Fighting in the forest meant visibility between party members would be crap, but the Zeroes unanimously agreed that they wanted the XP as well as the potential treasure, though they knew there was a chance that the chest or chests could be empty.

The plan they decided on was fairly simple: They would approach the spawner as a party, triggering it as a group to set their Homerow position as far from the spawner as possible. Then Wayne would take to the air, bring out his summons, and assess the encounter. From there, Fergus would either join him in aerial attacks or stay on the ground with the rest of the Zeroes. The former was in the case of something gargantuan or flying, and the latter was for any encounter that would take place entirely on the ground.

So the party traveled through the forest as a group, doing their best to maintain a semblance of a formation while navigating around trees and other woodland obstacles.

Roughly where Wayne expected it to happen, the red dots on the spawner scattered, and Flag Girl activated, briefly pausing time.

Bursting through the canopy when the pause expired, Wayne blitzed toward the spawner. Five health bars appeared on his screen:

-spirit badger

-spirit badger

-spirit badger

-guardian mushroom

-guardian mushroom

Below, Wayne could see two sets of canopy ripples, trees shaking from something large passing by. He caught glimpses of red caps with yellow spots here and there, suggesting that the guardian mushrooms were big but not colossal. The spirit badgers ran ahead of the slower mushrooms, but Wayne could only see their dots on his radar. They were small enough to not disturb the forest as they raced toward the rest of the party.

"Three spirit badgers coming at you fast," he warned the Zeroes. "There are two giant mushrooms. They're big enough that I can bomb them from up here."

The world shook. In the air, Wayne didn't feel it, but he saw every tree in the gentle forest wobble, and stones broke free of the mountains beyond the spawner, sending massive boulders bouncing down the mountainside.

One of the guardian mushrooms had activated a special ability. An explosion of yellow spores expanded outward, the force of the release so strong that the forest immediately surrounding the mushroom was blown flat. From the air, they looked like crop circles.

"Spores incoming. SmartSuit should protect you guys, but don't make assumptions until you're sure."

"Roger," Armond replied.

With a massive open area in the forest, Wayne got a better look at the guardian mushroom.

Instead of a stem running up the middle like an umbrella handle, the inner edges of the red cap met halfway down the monster's body to form the shape of a rounded cone. Two eyes sat directly beneath the red cap, and a drooling mouth was at the bottom of the cone. The monster's body was bulbous, shaped like a giant egg, and it had two cartoony arms and two cartoony legs.

As the spores enveloped Wayne, he was happy to confirm he was unaffected by the attack, so he summoned his Skycats and moved in to bomb a giant mushroom with Dynamite.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.