Late in the afternoon as evening approached, once they had all returned to the villa, Dennis lay in the bedroom to rest from exhaustion. He turned to see Daisy—now back to Daisy Number One—reading sothing on her smartphone. She still looked a bit pale from the injuries she sustained when Dennis crashed into her.
"Honey, are you really okay?" Dennis asked.
"I’m fine, stop feeling so guilty," Daisy replied, turning toward him with a smile.
"I’m just worried you’re still in pain, sorry," Dennis muttered as he turned and pulled Daisy into a hug.
"I already told you I forgive you. None of that was your fault; I was also in the wrong for suddenly jumping out. So... let’s just consider yesterday an accident," Daisy Number One said.
Dennis remained silent and kissed the forehead of Daisy, who seed busy reading her smartphone screen. After hearing and seeing the recordings of Daisy’s life, Dennis felt reluctant to ask about her past because it was better for her to forget it. However, he still intended to find a way to help Daisy beco whole again, even if the consequence might be that Daisy and all her other personalities would end up hating him.
After that, Dennis released his hug and lay back on his spine, staring up at the ceiling.
"Sami, why did this world beco like this? In the ga, this world was supposed to be a world of swords and magic, right? With the usual monsters you find in a ga world," Dennis said.
[That is correct, Master. As I ntioned, this world is a parallel Earth existing in another dinsion. An Earth shrouded in darkness due to the collision of two Earths from different dinsions. Please observe this footage, the final recording from the year 2019.]
***
Earth, December 31, 2019. On the International Space Station, "tridid... tridit... tridit... cklunk," a hand switched off an analog alarm clock on a desk.
"Ugh."
An astronaut woke up, sat on his bunk, and looked outside. He saw the view of the blue planet that felt so close to him, then shifted his gaze to the alarm clock he had just silenced.
"Ah, it’s morning," he said.
He climbed out of bed, his feet floating without touching the floor. He grabbed his shoes from the deck and put them on; "csss," his feet imdiately hit the floor once his gravity shoes were engaged. Then, he unbuckled the belt that kept him secured while he slept. The astronaut stood up and stretched his body.
After that, he walked casually out of the room, moving through the rotating corridor toward the cockpit. Once there, he sat down imdiately, picked up a tablet, and began tapping the screen. Before him lay the view of planet Earth and the sun in the distance.
"Another typical morning," he said while typing.
But then, "grrrk... greeek," he felt the space station vibrate. The astronaut imdiately set down his tablet and stared ahead. His eyes widened as a white dot, spinning like an opening whirlpool, appeared in the vacuum of space right in front of the Earth.
"Huh, what is that?" he asked.
He leaned down to kick off his shoes, then floated closer to the cockpit’s front window. The shaking inside grew more violent, nearly making the astronaut fall as he lost his balance; the space station felt like it was being hit by an earthquake.
"I have to contact central," the astronaut muttered.
He jumped, floating toward the communications console behind the pilot’s seat. Without delay, he sat down, punched the buttons, and pulled the mic close.
"Houston, copy... Houston... co in, Houston."
"Beep... beep... beep." Alarms blared and the shaking intensified. The astronaut looked ahead, his eyes widening again because the small dot he had seen before was now a white hole spinning like a vortex. "Thud!" He dropped his mic, stunned by the strange phenonon before him.
Slowly, a round object—a planet that looked remarkably like Earth and was roughly the sa size—erged from within the white hole. The vibrations grew so violent that the astronaut had to grip the seat to keep from being thrown. He turned back and grabbed his mic.
"Houston... co in, Houston!" he shouted in a panic.
The planet finally erged completely. The white hole vanished, but the planet continued moving toward Earth—specifically, toward the space station orbiting it.
"Oh no... that planet is going to hit this station, and then the Earth."
The astronaut’s fears were confird. The space station shuddered violently, caught in the gravitational pull of the newly erged planet. The astronaut’s eyes went wide as the planet drew closer; flas began to ignite as the station touched the blue planet’s atmosphere. Panicking, the astronaut kept trying to contact central, but there was no response. Finally, the entire space station caught fire, and everything turned white-hot.
"Aaaaaaaaaaah!"
"Blam!" The space station instantly shattered into pieces, entering the blue planet’s atmosphere as a teor shower. That planet kept hurtling straight toward Earth, but sothing unique happened. Instead of a collision, the planet seed to rge and fuse with the Earth, causing the Earth to suddenly emit a brilliant light that illuminated all of space and released a ring-like wave of radiation that sliced through the dark vacuum.
After the light faded, things returned to how they were. However, everything looked dark. A thick, dark mist enveloped the entire world, swallowing all the light in existence starting from Antarctica, turning Earth into a dark planet as if all the lights on Earth had been extinguished.
***
The projection ended, leaving Dennis gasping in shock. He blinked rapidly, his face a mask of disbelief at what he’d just witnessed. The presentation continued, explaining that as the world plunged into shadow, living organisms began to shift and mutate, fusing with their counterparts from other realms. Crawlers were mutated insects contaminated by the DNA of creatures from a parallel Earth—a dinsion inhabited solely by insects, devoid of humans.
"Wait a second... the year this darkness hit was 2019? December 31st? That’s exactly when New Year’s and the COVID-19 outbreak started in my previous dinsion," Dennis asked in his head.
[Precisely, Master. We are currently in the year 2055.]
"Huh... so this isn’t 2025?" Dennis asked.
[No, Master. In this world, the year 2025 was when every nation collapsed under the Crawler onslaught within the darkness. Crawlers can open dinsional rifts and relocate instantly, leaving humanity no chance. Their hives are still out there sowhere in the dark. The survivors hid in underground bunkers from the mont the darkness fell until every country was destroyed.]
"So I didn’t just hop worlds, I hopped through ti into this world’s future?" Dennis asked.
[That is correct, Master.]
"No wonder the tech here feels so much more advanced than my old world. I’m literally in the future," Dennis muttered.
[True, Master. Under extre pressure, scientists developed a global energy system similar to the one once proposed by Nikola Tesla, using the atmosphere as a power source. Thanks to that, five massive do cities capable of traveling the world were created to hunt for the source of the darkness and eradicate it.]
"This world really is nothing like the Earth I knew," Dennis thought to himself.
[Of course not, Master. Everything that happened here never occurred in your previous dinsion. However, souls have no dinsional boundaries; they can migrate here through the dium of the ga developed in your dinsion.]
"What you’re saying... is a little nonsensical... and it’s giving a headache," Dennis replied.
[That is simply the nature of things, Master.]
"Whatever, let’s drop it... even if I’m asked to save this world from the darkness, I have no intention of doing it... turns out humans get pretty impressive when they’re cornered," Dennis replied, clearly too lazy to discuss it further. "Anyway, how many more levels until I get a new manager skill?"
[I will show you the list, Master.]
An interface appeared before Dennis’s face, and he imdiately scanned the contents. It was a list of manager skills he hadn’t obtained yet, all currently locked.
*************************************************
Locked Manager Skills:
1. Telepathy with rooster (level 30).
2. Dinsional training room (level 38).
3. Dinsional storage (level 43).
4. Teleport to previously visited locations (level 48).
5. Create rooster clone (level 58).
*************************************************
"Hmm... interesting," Dennis muttered.
"What’s interesting, honey? What are you doing?" Daisy asked.
Dennis turned to see Daisy had rolled over to face him, sliding her body right up against his. It was obvious she was glancing at the space in front of him, which looked empty to her even though a holographic interface was right there.
"Nothing, honey," Dennis replied, putting his arm around her.
"Don’t go talking to yourself like that, it’s starting to creep out," Daisy said.
"Yeah, sorry," Dennis said. "You’re more terrifying than , honey," he muttered in his heart.
"Finally, after a week, I’m out here with you again. I missed you, you know, hehe," Daisy said.
"Oh, right. You guys usually take turns, don’t you?" Dennis replied.
"Yeah. Co on, let’s start," Daisy replied, shedding her clothes and pressing herself even closer to Dennis.
"Uh... again? Don’t you get tired of doing this every day?" Dennis asked.
"Oh... you don’t want to?" Daisy answered with a pout, her hands freezing on her buttons.
Seeing his wife pout, Dennis imdiately took off Daisy’s glasses and pulled her into a close embrace, then kissed her.
"Okay, let’s go, honey," Dennis said while helping her undress. "Man, even though this is fun and exciting, I’m gonna end up a husk if I keep getting bombarded like this every day," Dennis muttered in his heart.
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