Dragon's Wrath: The Cursed Returnee

"We can't talk about this using these dispositive," John said after he calmed down. "I'm going to teleport you here."

Ethan waited for a while to hear an answer, but he didn't expect to hear such a positive one. It seemed way too convenient… was John planning to teleport and then kill him? Ethan enraged him quite a bit, so that wouldn't be surprising. However, Ethan concluded that wasn't the case considering the tone of his voice.

"I'm going out for a bit," Ethan said while checking his inventory. "I will return once I confirm that big sis is all right."

"Be careful out there," Michael said while massaging his forehead.

"Don't push yourself too hard, Ethan," Evelyn said, visibly worried. "You just returned. Don't go disappearing on me again."

Ethan smiled after hearing that. As expected, there was no place like home, and there was no way he would let himself get stuck in another world like before and spend one year away. If something happens, he will do everything in his power to return home to the point where his last title, the cursed hero, would look like a cute nickname.

Suddenly, Ethan was engulfed by light, and in the next moment, he appeared in a dark room filled with monitors. Right in front of him, he saw a huge white, bald man. It was John. Since his arms were crossed, he looked, even more, imposing up close. In any case, Ethan paid him no mind.

After he looked around, he saw many people keeping their eyes on the monitors. It looked more like a room that would belong to the military than to a diplomatic group. The vast majority of the people there were watching him.

"Where is my sister?" Ethan asked.

"Is that the first thing you have to say?" John asked while furrowing his eyebrows.

"You had it coming from ignoring my call," Ethan shrugged. "Well, sorry for calling you… you know. I assume these monitors are being used to monitor some possible threats… all over the universe?"

Ethan frowned when he saw a group of mermen on those screens. Obviously, they were underwater, so it had to be another world. Somehow, the government managed to develop spells that granted them the power to monitor some people in real time. Still, after looking around, Ethan didn't find Hannah in those screams. Still, he saw some humans being monitored, humans that were talking with people in other worlds. However, he found a certain monitor that was turned off.

"She is here," John said, pointing to that monitor. "A Planet called Meizibio. The details of the mission are classified, but I can tell that something happened. The whole world began to tremble, and after a while, all spells that we were using to keep track of her stopped working."

"Assuming what you said is true, it is likely that the tremor was caused by a large amount of mana," Ethan said. "That would explain why your spells stopped working. If the whole world trembled, all active spells must have been disrupted. When that happened?"

"Yesterday, at noon," John replied.

"More than thirty hours had passed, and you didn't plan a mission to rescue her?" Ethan frowned.

"Currently, your sister is the only person in our country who can open portals to distant worlds," John replied. "Stable portals, that is it. We can't ask other nations for help since that would put us in a bad position. Hannah is pretty famous, after all."

Ethan sighed. Politics… he should have known that he would have to deal with that sooner or later. Still, by the look of things, John had a plan B, but since it was risky, he probably didn't obtain authorization to pull it off.

"I forgot to mention that time there passes ten times faster," John said as if it was a matter of fact. "So, Hannah has experienced two weeks there."

Ethan didn't like where that conversation was heading. Even though it was convenient to him, John was being way too open about things. He didn't like the idea of playing right into someone else's hand, but right at that moment, Ethan didn't have any other choice.

"Send me to that world," Ethan said. "I will help her and bring my sister back."

Truth be told, Ethan was a bit hesitant about going to another world so soon. Not even a single week had passed since he returned, and he was already facing the problems caused by the connection between worlds. Still, he couldn't just sit back and relax, and even though he could somehow feel that his sister was alive and well.

"That was what I was thinking," John rubbed his chin. "However, you don't have permission to leave this world. Although you are a summoned hero, and some of them participate in missions like this from time to time, this isn't something that can be decided by you and me alone."

"I wasn't asking, though," Ethan said. "I was telling you to do it. Now, stop wasting my time because I'm going anyway, even if I have to use brute force."

"You think you can force me to do this?" John smirked.

"From this close, I can tell that you are strong, and you have a few tricks up your sleeve," Ethan said. "But only that much won't be enough. Anyway, just treat this as if I forced you. Neither you nor I have time for bureaucracy. I'm sure that you know the consequences of losing someone like my sister. Other countries will keep improving their technology by using the knowledge of other worlds while our nation will be stagnated. Do you really want that?"

For some reason, John's grim turned into a normal smile, and after that, he laughed a little. It looked like he heard some amusing jokes. Regardless, after laughing for a few minutes, he didn't look on the edge anymore. If anything, he looked pretty refreshed.

"Well, given how much you say all that so nonchalantly, I'm sure you will be able to endure the consequences of 'forcing me to do what you want,'" John said. "Come with me, and I will guide you to the place where she made the portal."

Ethan didn't know where he actually was, but eventually, he learned that he was in some secret facility since he and John took an elevator downward, and he didn't find a single window. Most likely, that was one underground facility. That being said, despite that, it had several floors.

"Let me guess," Ethan said, looking around. "Each floor has portals connecting them to several worlds. Or, at the very least, some trails that connect them."

"That information is classified, so I can't confirm it," John said without flinching his gaze. "All that I can say is that your sister's power isn't absolute like dungeons."

That goes without saying. It would be weird if a human could create a portal that could maintain itself for long periods of time. Even the power of heroes has limits… even though Ethan never reached the limits of his own power. Regardless, Ethan and John found themselves in an almost complete white room after reaching the lower floor. There were some gravures around the walls, floor, and ceiling. All of them had been drawn in a light blue tone. After looking around for a while, Ethan finally recognized that the entire room was a magic circle.