A few people bustled around the room, setting up cameras, microphones, and lighting.

“Lighting? Are we shooting a movie or something?” James thought to himself. However, as this was something not too big, he stopped thinking, saving him unnecessary time and headaches.

“Alright then. All you need to do is answer the question. However, only if you want to. It’s alright if you don’t want to answer. And, it’s okay to mess up, we can take things again. This will not be going live, we will be editing it. Okay?” The news anchor, Paul Anderson, treaded his words very carefully.

James suddenly had a bad feeling about this interview. But before he had time to react, Paul started speaking.

“Can you tell me what happened yesterday?”

James kept in his mind that although there were two bears, everybody was convinced that there had only been one. Adopting a more formal way of speaking, he answered.

“So, we were coming back from our hike, when we started hearing noises. And the cause of those noises was, we found out a little later, a bear. For some reason, it had gone wild.”

James delivered his words without missing a beat. He had prepared his alibi.

“It slammed into a giant tree, and knocked it down. The tree barely missed the others, and ended up knocking everybody out except me when it fell.”

“Everybody except you.”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any idea why you were the only one left awake?” Paul asked the questions, while the assistant woman stood to the side, typing things quietly into her computer.

“I think it was the sound or a shockwave or something. I was still awake, but I was still affected. I was disoriented afterwards.”

“So, you think it’s possible for the sound of a tree falling to knock someone out?”

“Yes. I believe it was an extraordinary stroke of luck, but it is possible for sound waves to affect people in that manner.”

“Oh really? Could you tell us a little more, if you can?”

Paul leaned forward as if he was really interested in this topic. James didn’t exactly know why this was relevant to the topic, but he decided to answer anyways, making his explanation seem as believable as possible.

“Well, if we take a regular flash bang grenade, which is designed to stun people, they produce a sound of somewhere from 160 to 170 decibels, I think. That sounds like a lot, but a balloon popping can actually reach 170 decibels as well. The tree that fell was pretty large, so I think it’s possible that it could have produced a sound louder than that, which knocked everybody out. As for why I was the only one still awake, I have no explanation. Maybe because of where I was standing.”

“Alright, thank you. Next, James, what was going through your mind when you decided to fight the bear?”

“I didn’t really fight it, I just led it away from the others.”

“Led the bear away? Well, our sources tell us that the bear’s corpse had multiple stab wounds. They must have been caused by you.”

“…”

Shit! How was James supposed to explain the remains of Ayla’s goddamn Earth magic? She’d put a tree down on the corpse, but didn’t do anything about the holes in the corpse caused by the spikes. Then again, how would you fix a corpse? James panicked and gave terrible response.

“Uhhhhhh, I…. I um, may have, erm, persuaded it to follow me. Y-you see, I think what I did was a, um, very effective way of drawing the bear’s attention. So, in the end, I led the bear away, without intending to fight it.”

“Ah!” Paul nodded as if he’d understood perfectly. “You’re saying it’s the thought that matters, right?”

“Yeahhh…”

At this moment, both Paul and the woman typing seemed to be. Paul sat even more upright, and a fire lit up in his eyes, while the woman’s typing speed increased and the tapping of her keyboard was now audible. This made James rather nervous. He’d expected someone to point out the obvious inconsistencies in his story, but instead, he appeared to have captivated his interviewer.

“Okay! Tell me more about how you distracted the bear! What did you use to create these ‘attention drawing’ injuries on the bear?”

James couldn’t believe that Paul Anderson was buying his story. However, he had already committed himself, so he forged onwards.

“Oh, I used a tent stake to stab the bear.”

“A tent stake?

“Yes. Multiple times.”

“How’d you feel about that?

There was no way someone with his strength could have pierced the bear all the way with a stake, but James ignored that.

James and Paul continued the interview. It slowly went downhill, but Paul continued with overflowing enthusiasm, and James couldn’t extricate himself from the mess. Eventually, after covering his injuries, and some details about himself, the interview came to an end.

“Thank you for setting aside the time for this interview.

“No, thank you very much. I enjoyed it.”

“Would you be open for another interview, maybe later, after you’ve recuperated a bit?”

James didn’t know how to say no, so he said: “Oh, I’d love to do it again.”

Paul Anderson and his crew left the room.

Holy shit, he thought to himself. That was terrible. People are going to suspect! They’ll question if what I said was the truth or not. And since I don’t have an answer, they’ll get even more suspicious. Hopefully this doesn’t attract too much attention.

However, James didn’t know he was worrying for nothing. Paul Anderson, and his editing team, had it covered. When he flipped on the TV later than evening, he saw himself on the news. Paul Anderson was reporting outside

“Garret, I got a chance to speak with James Lu as he was receiving treatment in this hospital right here. We got his own impression about his struggle with the bear: ”

Then, a series of obviously cut out and clipped, combined with snippets of Paul Anderson’s commentary, played on the TV.

<It slammed into a giant tree, and knocked it down>

….

<Yes, everybody except me>

….

James sat through the report, cringing at his own face talking earnestly on the screen. For a moment, he felt relieved that even though being on TV was embarrassing, he had created a story that was believable. He didn’t want more attention. However, this was shattered in the next moment:

“When asked about exactly what happened with the bear, James was actually enthusiastic, showing interest in fighting the bear and delivering pain to it.”

<Oh, I used a tent stake to stab the bear>

<Multiple times>

<I think what I did was a, um, very effective way of drawing the bear’s attention>

<Oh, I’d love to do it again>

“In accordance to his interest in fighting the bear in hand to hand combat, James is also an expert on non-lethal military weapons.”

<Well, if we take a regular flash bang grenade, which is designed to stun people, they produce a sound of somewhere from 160 to 170 decibels.>

James didn’t hear the rest of the report. He sat there, stunned.

“WHAT!?!”