"It has to be a dragon, doesn't it?" replied the guy standing next to Emmanuel, still staring at the sky. "This whole thing is so freaking cool."

He beamed, showing perfect white teeth, and turned to Emm.

Emm felt uncomfortable as he realized he was mostly ignoring the people around him: he didn't spare them a second glance. Well, to be fair, his attention was on the bucket of water, the super-powered knight, the monster, and of course the fact that he was alive again.

The other man was slightly shorter than Emm, slim, and had a mop of dark, curly hair. He wore casual black jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers. Similar age or slightly younger than Emm; about 25?

"I'm Emm," he said, holding out his hand. The man shook it.

That's one strong grip.

"M? Is that a nickname? I'm Michael, nice to—"

"I'll take ten questions, then we're off," interrupted Miss Simmons, "Put your hands up. Stupid questions count as two, and I won't answer those," she said. She'd climbed onto the platform and was standing where the commander had been standing.

"Wow, rude," Michael said under his breath.

Immediately, many hands were raised. A girl even started jumping like a chihuahua.

"You!" Miss Simmons pointed in the direction opposite to the bouncing girl.

"How did you know we'd be here? Did you summon us?" the man asked. He was wearing a thick ski suit. Emm was jealous of it because his work clothes were still wet and cold and stuck uncomfortably to his skin. The sun wasn't doing a very good job of drying him out. Or warming him up, either.

"This is the area with the lowest magic density in the whole world, currently. New [Heroes] are always spawned in places like this. And no, the summonings are automatic, it's been that way since the beginning." She smirked at them and tilted her head. The smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "Eight more questions. Next."

She had counted that as two. They would have to be more careful of the wording they used in the future.

Emm saw many of them take out their cellphones, but it appeared they couldn't turn them on. A guy even took the back cover off his phone, inspecting and reslotting the battery. Didn't help. And Emm's cellphone was back in his now-wrecked car. A world away.

"Hey, why does that count as a stupid question? We should have nine left!" someone else complained.

"It didn't," replied Miss Simmons, "but this one does. He asked two. So now you're down to six."

Idiot. We need all the information we can get.

The new person earned ugly looks from much of the group. Emm was still thinking about what to ask, and then raised his hand on a whim. It was frustrating how little he could do in this situation except stand around and watch.

"Next. You." She pointed in his direction.

For a moment Emm got his hopes up, and almost yelled out his question. But no, it turned out the Guide had picked Michael.

"If we get killed, can we respawn?" he asked, loud enough for everyone to hear.

Emm looked at him. It was a good question to pose, and Emm had thought about asking it, too. Using skills to fight monsters and level up, this whole situation was a lot like a video game. It felt totally real, but it was definitely possible that they had multiple lives or could get respawned at the local cathedral or something.

"Obviously not. When you die, just like on Earth, you're gone for good. So don't die," she said. She was treating them like children and looked bored. "Five left."

Not even a minute had passed, and they'd already wasted half of their available questions for almost no information at all. They needed better ones. Much better ones.

"Guys, this doesn't look good. We've gotta get our acts together. Think before you speak," Emm said and put his hand up.

The rest of them were on the same page as him. There was discussion going on all around them. People were exchanging ideas for their next questions? A pair of guys were even playing rock-paper-scissors. Others looked like zombies, staring dead ahead of themselves, eyes unfocused. More hands went down than up.

"You have any other ideas?" Emm asked Michael, who shook his head.

"Nothing good."

"We could go with something sneaky like 'What's the question you think we should ask the most, in order to maximise our chances of getting back to Earth?'. Or chances of survival, something like that."

Michael looked at Emm like he way speaking in Chinese.

"Right," Emm replied. "Bad question. She'd skip that one and count it as two."

Miss Simmons looked over the crowd, searching for the next person.

"Me, me, me!" squealed the girl from before, still jumping and now waving both of her arms. Emm frowned.

Please, please don't be another bad one.

"Ask," the Guide said.

"Oh, this is going to be good," Michael whispered.

"How long until we reach [Level] 100 and this is all over with and we can wake up again and go back home?" she asked. Her tongue worked so fast, Emm wasn't sure he'd ever heard anyone speak so quickly. It was like an explosion of words had gone off. Still, a solid question to ask.

The Guide paused for a few seconds, thinking.

"On average, two to three years. If you're exceptional, about a single year. But if you try very hard and are lucky enough, you could make it in less."

With those words, she ended all the idle chatter and quiet discussions that arose whenever Miss Simmons wasn't speaking. The group was shocked.

A single, quiet "What the hell?" could be heard.

They were stuck here for the next several years, it seemed. Emm let that sink in.

"For the first thirty days you'll be in my care. We'll camp here," she said.

Somehow, he couldn't find it in himself to be angry. After all, he'd almost died, only to miraculously awaken in this strange forest. It gave him a chance to continue living. Even a slim chance of making it back to Earth was fantastic, logically thinking. And the way Miss Simmons made it sound, they'd have far more than just a slim chance. And for what, two or three years?

He'd sacrificed six full years of his life for college, not to mention the college loan, and gotten next to nothing in return. Two more years at his first "real" job, were ultimately just as wasted. It went nowhere.

Surviving for a few years was nothing compared to that suffering! Emm would definitely make it back to Earth no matter what, he decided. And he wouldn't rush it, he wouldn't risk it. His friends and family would be fine without him for a while. Even his little sister wasn't so little anymore. And he'd lose his job, but so what? He was happy to be alive.

When Michael looked at him strangely, Emm realized that he'd been smiling and quickly stopped.

"It's inconvenient and all," Emm said, "but I'm glad we can make it back. Not what I would expect, really, if we were actually teleported to another universe."

Michael was still looking at him weirdly. "Not what you'd expect, is it? What, you got teleported like this before?" he asked, then shook his head slightly and chuckled.

Miss Simmons raised her left hand and held out four fingers. "Four more. You." She chose another random person, a young man with glasses. He'd apparently agreed on a question with some of the people around him.

"Uhm, could you explain how the [System] works? I can see my [Status] screen, but some things aren't clear. There are no tooltips."

Everybody shut up. She nodded once and began explaining.