Janus, the Key!

The brightness receded and revealed a plain white room with a tiled floor.

It had a single bed and a desk against the white wall. There was a semi-transparent door that Wei Lan was sure led to the bathroom to the left, a red door that surely led to the long corridor to the right and a window that showed darkness towards the front.

Wei Lan walked up to the window pane and peered out.

Infinite darkness greeted him. Darkness that made his heart quiver as he felt something watching him from it. It familiar to the darkness he first encountered in this world.

With the knowledge of where he was, Wei Lan had a name for the Darkness – Erebus. The Monster system that was waiting to kill all the souls that tried to break the rules of the game. The personification of fear and death for the players and the ghosts alike.

He stepped back.

There was no need to stare at it more or the thing might consider his gaze a challenge or something. The last thing he needed right now was becoming food to Darkness of all things.

He felt a vibration in his fist.

He looked down at the cold silver metal that lay in his palm.

He smirked. Right. He had something more intriguing than Erebus right now. "There there, Little Key. I won't eat you. Yet."

That led to the creature shivering even more. "Boss! You promised you would keep me safe!"

"So, I did," Wei Lan muttered, his eyes considering the silver key.

It looked so normal and yet it turned out to be a Key Spirit, creatures who created portals to different ghost dimensions, leading unsuspecting victims to their doom, always following one powerful creature or the other. When reading the story, he had likened the Key Spirits to the yellow creatures obsessed with bananas and serving the greatest villains of the era, and he wasn't the only one. Many in the fandom felt the same.

There was one thing about Key Spirits that made them so uniquely capable as minions. As long as they kept evolving, they could access any ghost that was below or one level higher than their own.

But the level of the ghost dimension depended on not just the key spirit but also that victim. And considering the scared key spirit in his hand, Wei Lan suspected his own presence was the reason the "Hair spirit" came to that instance, not that he was going to say that to the Key Spirit.

No need to scare him more than he already was.

"You and I are going to have a great adventure together," he promised the thing.

"Can I say no to that?"

"No."

If keys could bend their head in disappointment, the key spirit in his hand would have already done so.

"So what is your name?" Wei Lan asked the creature. He remembered from the lore of the novel that the name of the Key spirit represented the first Master they ever had.

The key stayed silent.

Wei Lan frowned. "Why are you not saying anything?"

"I don't have a name," the key muttered.

Wei Lan was surprised. "No name? Doesn't that mean you had no master before me? How is that possible?"

The key turned a light shade of pink.

Wei Lan raised an eyebrow. He was not aware that the thing could change colours.

"I did have a master before!" the thing said in an indignant voice.

"But?"

There was silence.

Wei Lan rolled his eyes. "And? We don't have all day, Little guy."

"You can name me master!" the key said instead.

Wei Lan considered forcing the answer out of the creature for a moment but decided against it in the end. He might have become a ghost now, but that did not mean his ideas had changed much. He still believed that people, whoever they were, were entitled to have their secrets. The same moral value applied here.

"Fine then, don't tell me…how about I name you Janus, the Roman god of Portals?"

"It is too old a name master," said the creature.

Wei Lan raised his eyebrows. "How about Tin?"

"I am made of silver!"

"What does that have to do with your name?"

"Silver is a nice name!"

Wei Lan frowned. "Okay then, Little Silver it is."

"No! Why add the word Little!"

Wei Lan smirked. "Now, where do I put you, Little Silver?"

"Janus is a wonderful name master!"

"Nonsense," Wei Lan said. He looked around the room. "But seriously, where to put you?"

Wei Lan roamed around but could not find a satisfying place.

"You can just keep in a drawer master."

Wei Lan looked at the metallic creature with amusement. "A drawer has a keyhole and I know for a fact that you Key spirits can move around if you are desperate enough and that you can turn the drawer door into a Portal if you could."

The key shivered. "I will wait for you on top of your pillow then."

Wei Lan hmmed. It was a good suggestion but he knew that as a quest item, one of the rules of the instance might be that you had to keep the quest item on your person. He could not act arbitrarily.

His eyes fell on the hem of his blood-stained shirt.

A glint of determination entered his eyes. He tore off the hem of his shirt from one end to the other, twisted it into a long piece of rope and threaded the cloth-rope through the small loop of the key-head and secured it in place with a knot. He then looped it over his neck and tied it.

The key fell, nestled against his chest.

He gave the key a tiny pat. "There! Now you won't get lost, and you can't complain that I don't dare about you! I am keeping you right next to my heart!"

"Thank you master," the key said in a dull voice. Inside its little metallic heart, the creature cried. What a spiteful human ghost its new master was!

"You are welcome," Wei Lan said and walked towards the drawer.

Opening it, he found a towel, a pale pink shirt and a pair of jeans. Surprisingly, they all seemed to be his size. He tried not to get bothered by that fact. After rummaging through the other drawers of the desk and not finding anything else except a notepad and a pen, Wei Lan concluded that there was no underwear in sight. He was not sure if he should feel relieved or disappointed.

***