For most adventurers, their careers of monster hunting begin with a grand quest. A test of might as they save a small village from a ravenous monster, a trial of courage as they stare down evil and stand with their sword pointed forward, or even just something as simple as helping the neighbours out.

Mine started with a glimpse of the fridge.

I wandered lazily into the kitchen, wiping the rheum from my eyes as I yawned. No amount of sleep ever seemed like enough during a never-ending night. Beyond the windows, I could see the pitch-black skies looming menacingly overhead - dark maroon clouds hovering ominously like hyenas stalking the human race. Apparently, those clouds were where the daemons formed. I'd never gotten the chance to see a daemon myself, but that was probably for the best; I got the feeling that most Level 3 people that run into a daemon probably don't live to tell the tale anyway.

My own face was reflected back at me in the cold reflection of the window. My blue-grey eyes were black-bagged, my dark olive skin was beginning to look plastered and lifeless, and my scraggly brunette helmet hair was looking worse for wear. I guess this is what happens to you when you don’t need to get dressed all that often.

"Morning Oscar," a feminine voice said from across the room. "You look like you woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

I turned around. Jenny was sitting at the table, wearing a nighshirt and little else as she drank a cup of alcoffee. Her skin was golden-beige, cheeks glowing a soft shade of amaranth, and her black matte hair was styled into a bob-cut. She wore a smirk across her face as she looked at my appearance.

"Probably because I woke up on the couch again," I replied. "Anyway, am I the only person in this apartment who puts on clothes in the morning?"

"Come on, Oscar," Jenny replied. "The only reason you're wearing clothes is because you forgot to take them off before you passed out drunk on the couch."

I didn't remember much of last night, save for some vague flashes of dancing and waking up in the lounge room covered in empty beer cans. Something tells me it probably wasn't a night I'd have particularly good memories of, anyway.

I sighed, grabbing some bread from the freezer, dumping two slices of bread into the old metal toaster, and set it to max-toastiness as I pushed down the lever on the side. The toaster whirred to life, an arcane azure light pulsating with energy inside.

"Where's Leo gone?" I asked her. "Has he left already?"

"Long gone," she said. "You realise it's nearly midday, right?"

I looked down at my phone. "Missed Call: Mum (2)", it read. I ignored that as I looked up at the time in the top-left corner of the screen.

"Huh, it is too," I replied. "Shit."

"Yeah, Leo's been leaving pretty early every morning," Jenny noted. "Whatever that new job of his is, he's been starting early for it. I doubt you'd catch him with your sleep schedule."

As I sat there, I heard the toaster pop. I stood up and walked over to it.

"Mind grabbing the milk while you're up?" Jenny asked.

"You can literally reach the fridge from where you're sitting," I replied.

"Yeah, but I don't get to boss you around that way," she replied with a smile.

I sighed, getting up and grabbing the freshly-burnt toast from the toaster. I spread some Peorberry Jam across it, before walking over and opening the fridge. As I looked into the fridge, a notification appeared right in front of my face.

Quest Added: Got Milk?

It appears you’ve run out of milk. Without it, you will be unable to prepare many foodstuffs, and you will be forced to drink your alcoffee black. Maybe you should go to Amby’s and buy some?

Quest Objectives: Purchase a Milk Carton from the Supermarket (0/1)

Rewards: 1 Copper, 0 EXP

“Son of a..." I muttered to myself. “What the fuck do you expect me to do with one copper? I couldn’t even buy a fucking lollipop with that.”

The quest system had always been a little stupid like that. When I was studying, it was always nice netting a little spare pocket money from finishing an assignment on time, or getting a good score on the beep test, but now - as a jobless arts graduate - I guess I wasn’t exactly accomplishing anything worth more than a copper and a pat on the back.

"It looks like we're out of milk," I said to Jenny.

"Bummer," Jenny said. "Could you go out and get some for us?"

"I guess I can swing by the Amby's and get some," I said, grabbing the Peorberry toast as I sat back down. "For now though, I guess you're having your alcoffee black."

I closed the antiquated fridge, the old lightbulb inside flickering faintly. Somewhere, I also had a quest to fix that fridge light, but I’d never gotten around to it. I couldn’t be assed.

As I sat down, I wolfed down my toast. The bitter hint of the burnt toast melded with the sweet taste of the Peorberry, a piquant flavour that always seemed striking to the tongue. I chewed softly, the jam and ash cresting across my tongue, blessing it with that peculiar sensation.

“Hey,” I said, my mouth still full of food. “Speaking of which, do you know what Leo's new job is? They seem to be paying pretty good, and I wouldn't mind trying to submit an application there while I'm looking."

"Honestly, I have no idea what he's doing," Jenny sighed. "The only thing he's told me about the job is that it wasn't worth the money. He's pretty tight-lipped about it to me - so if you think you'll have better luck finding out than his girlfriend, then be my guest."

I finished up my toast, putting my plate in the sink.

I sighed, "Well, it was worth a shot, I guess. Anyway, I'm going to head out."

"Take a shower before you leave," Jenny said. "You smell like vomit."

I grabbed the front of my hoodie and took a sniff, before recoiling from the harsh smell.

"On second thoughts, I might have a shower first..." I said reluctantly.

***

I stepped outside the apartment, locking the door behind me. My teeth chattered as I stepped out into the cold night air, and I quickly shoved my hands into my pockets. It was dark, eerily so, and the streetlights out here were probably the closest thing to sunlight we still had left. I pulled up the menu, and rummaged through my inventory. It was apparently quite full.

Inventory

12/30 Weight Used

Items

1x Phone (0.5)

1x Keys (0.2)

1x Flashlight (1)

1x Wallet (0.3)

1x Metal Bat (1)

30x Empty Beer Cans (7.5)

3x Beer Cans (1.5)

Funds

43 Gold, 7 Silver (Total)

"Fuck, I must've had a fun night last night," I said, as I stared at the literal pile of empty beer cans in my inventory.

I reached in, grabbed my old flashlight, and flicked it on. It wasn't particularly good, but it was better than darkness - since most of the building's outdoor lights had blown long before the permanight. I wandered down from the second storey, stepping over the cigarette butts that littered the stairwell as I descended. Most of them had probably been here for a while.

I wasn't sure how frequently this place got cleaned, but from memory - it wasn't very often. The walls were still stained from the time Leo accidentally blew up a bottle of Merlot with his arcane powers. That was about a year and a half ago.

As I stepped down into the parking lot, I approached a washed-out beige sedan parked near the entrance. It was an old vehicle, with scratched paint and a large dent against the right passenger side door. Frankly, it was a dump. There was garbage strewn through the back of the car, and the grey upholstery was stained with everything from cola to more... vulgar fluids. For that reason, I tried to avoid thinking about the sort of substances that had soaked into the car seats. I got inside, jammed my key into the ignition, and turned it hard.

The old mechanism whirred to life. The car loudly groaned, the engine chugging with intensity as I reversed the vehicle out of its parking space. As I began to steer the car down the driveway, the radio announcer's voice crescendoed, rising in volume as I drove out of the lot.

"In local news, two more adventurers have now disappeared in the Albersar Ranges, bringing the total number of missing adventurers last seen in the area to seven. The Adventurers Guild has confirmed that Cole Parsons and Athena Falthorne have..."

"Who cares," I groaned as I shut the radio off.

I wasn't a big fan of listening to the radio in the car, since most of the good music stations sounded like shit through the old car's stereo anyway, and listening to the news during the apocalypse kind of felt like self-flagellation. The silence was probably better anyway.

As I drove down the main road, I stared out the window. Tonnick was a small town between Delion and Roscott, and with the people from the big cities not moving as much now - the town's once thriving main strip was slowly dwindling. I could only see four or five people out there, and one of them was an old vagrant who'd made his home beneath the alcove of a business with a "For Sale" sign. The old bookstore that I used to work at had closed down, like many of the smaller shops that lined the main road. Those that survived had either cut their opening hours to nearly zero or cut their staff.

In most cases, they'd done both.

The only business still doing "business as usual" was the local gas station, and the brightly lit Amby's supermarket at the end of the block. Sometimes, I wondered whether the apocalypse would even be a setback for the Amby's at all.

"Probably not," I said to myself. "Hell, knowing them, they'd probably find a way to turn a profit from it."

I drove into the parking lot of the supermarket, guiding the car into one of the neatly drawn parking spaces. I pulled the handbrake, and sat there a moment, as I stared out the windscreen at the brightly-lit supermarket. As I stared out at the abyssal darkness, the maroon clouds swirling above, I thought back to the world before: to the beautiful flaxen gold expanse of the old Meccian sky, the gentle white sun piercing softly through it, and the ivory silken clouds - that drifted effortlessly across a golden canvas. It was a far cry from these horrid skies.

They said the hero would come twenty years after the fall. We were only three months in.

As I stepped out of the car and into the suffocating night, I wondered if I would even live long enough to see the sunlight again.

Probably not, I thought to myself.