[Objective.]

1. Survive for the next twenty minutes.

2. Remaining time: 00:19:59:59

It was like he landed in the in-game Krakenfiere island, except this felt far too real now. There was no headset this time around.

But Zack was far too angry to think about anything extraneous at the moment. Those loan sharks were probably on their way at this very moment to kidnap his sister and force her into a life of underaged prostitution. He needed to get out of here as soon as possible, doing his best to ignore the absurdity of the situation and concentrating entirely on the remaining time counter.

He took a deep breath, his eyes narrowing in concentration. Time to get to work. All he needed to do was survive for twenty minutes.

Kreeeeeeeee!

That wasn’t going to be so easy, as a giant scorpion charged straight towards him.

The first thing that Zack learned when he arrived on Fire Pit Islands during his tenure as a currency mining slave was to not fuck with the giant scorpions that populated the island.

In his first week alone, he had died to the scorpions more than a hundred times. He cursed them and threw unmentionable profanities at them through his headset, those damn scorpions always getting in the way of his mining and debt relief. They were vicious and unrelenting, always on the hunt for him no matter where he went.

Right now the stakes were even higher. He was facing down a real eight foot tall scorpion, on a fire-spitting volcanic island, and unlike before where he could just spawn back on the island, any mistake here would cause him to end up with his arms and legs chewed off his body as a human jerky snack for this scorpion and its disgusting salivating pincer mouth.

Zack felt his heart beating harder in his chest as the giant black chitinous monster approached, its curled stinger raised far above its head like a bad omen. Any other person would be in a complete panic right now, but Zack was one stubborn bastard. If this was just like the game, he was one of the few people who knew what he had to do– he just had to wait for the right opportunity.

Zack cracked a smile. As strange as this situation was, it felt all too familiar for him.

[You have engaged Memoirs of Zero]

—-----

Currency Mining Slave Diary Part I

Zack worked as a currency mining slave, sometimes playing until he was near cardiac arrest just to dig out a particularly rare crystal. He was the only person in the entire world who knew the Fire Pit Islands so well, and nobody else’s knowledge of the islands even came close.

He had seen other people try to attempt what he had done. Some of them called themselves Zero-fans, and tried to emulate his insane playstyle out of appreciation or boredom. Others were online streamers with inflated egos who prided themselves as the best at the game and couldn’t bear to think that some no-name idiot named Zero could possibly beat them in any respect.

But try as they might, from the most humble of Zero-fans to the most die-hard professional online streamer alike, nobody could match the speed of his routine.

“It’s these damn scorpions!” shouted Arten, a famous gamer streamer. “How does Zero kill them so quickly?”

Well, it was because Arten was thinking of it all wrong. Killing the scorpions was an endless task that took far too long. For every one you killed, another would spawn not so long after.

In order to get the most amount of mana crystals in the shortest amount of time, Zack had a secret. “Just dodge them.”

When he revealed his secret to other players, everyone thought that he was joking. What kind of person can just dodge all the attacks that came when your back was turned mining mana crystals? And if those scorpion tails managed to connect, it would spell quite a disaster for the crystal mining session, with their deadly paralytic effect.

Some high-level players tried a tactic of bringing along multiple anti-paralysis potions in an effort to just tank through the paralysis, but there were so many scorpions hurling so many stingers that the effects would only last temporarily.

In the end, everyone collectively made the judgement that farming mana crystals was downright impossible without clearing out the scorpions first.

Those idiots, Zack thought to himself at the time. He told them his secret, and they still didn’t get it?

“Just dodge them.”

That was the technique he discovered during his grueling grinding routine.

Every time a scorpion would go for a stinger lunge, it would pause for a moment and raise its tail ever so slightly. That was the most basic principle to Zack, and the first pattern he recognized, but it was treated as some kind of forbidden knowledge for other players, with players writing entire guides on how to recognize the cue.

Dodging that stinger jab was the first step to a good mining session. With each jab he dodged, he could get in a few more swings of his pickaxe before getting interrupted again.

—-------

When the scorpion was just a few feet away from him, it lunged forward towards its human prey with its stinger in a lightning fast piercing attack designed to plunge the tip of its stinger into his heart.

That was what he was waiting for. He had seen this exact attack thousands of times in the past.

It was time to dodge…

Now!

*CRASH*

By the skin of his teeth, Zack barely managed to dodge the massive stinger, its thickness and force like that of a tree trunk, which lodged itself with such impact into the red clay dirt that it left a crater. The scorpion pulled hard on its stuck tail, trying to dislodge it from the dry clay, but it was not budging.

And then he saw it.

The scorpion’s left claw twitched.

—-------

Currency Mining Slave Diary Part II

About a week into his monotonous slave mining routine on Royal Road, Zack began to notice another pattern.

The scorpions would twitch their claw before swinging with that claw. It didn’t happen every time, but it was often enough that Zack could get in the habit of dodging in the opposite direction when he saw that twitch.

The problem was seeing it. So in his second week of playing, Zack had to look over his shoulder constantly to watch for the indication of jabs and claw swings.

By the third week, Zack made another improvement in his routine. It happened by accident. When he struck a piece of crystal off of a crystal ore deposit, the falling shard acted as a mirror that reflected a scorpion approaching him from behind.

From that point onward, he always carried a crystal shard with him when he mined. He didn’t have to turn around anymore, only lift the shard to glance behind him, using the reflective sheen of the mana crystal to create eyes behind his back.

Zack’s iterations of his routine continuously improved from then on, and his pattern recognition became transcendent. A third party looking on at him at work would probably think that he was hacking or had some kind of impossible god-like extrasensory ability. He didn’t. All he had was hard work and diligence, and a knack for spotting patterns.

—-------

Zack recognized and dodged the left claw swing that would have killed just about anyone else.

Grabbing a stone from nearby, he leapt onto the struggling giant scorpion’s back before it could free itself and slammed the stone onto its chitinous back armor with all his might.

But the chitinous armor was too tough, and he could see that with each jerk, the scorpion was beginning to free its tail from the red clay ground. Shit.

A normal person would have run away by now, but Zack was stubborn to a fault and wouldn’t leave such a free meal like this to waste. He was the kind of person who would pick up a discarded, smelly scratch card that won the minimum prize out of a trash can and walk half an hour to the nearest gas station to trade it in for the monetary equivalent of a half eaten moldy baloney sandwich. He was a miser, a scrooge, and nobody would come between him and his prize.

As the scorpion freed another half of its tail, Zack held on for dear life, searching its armored back for a weak point. If he remembered correctly, the sides of the giant scorpions’ heads were where their armor was weakest, but it was hard to find the right spot when it was jerking around so vigorously.

“Take this!” Zack shouted, slamming the pointed stone in his hand at the side of the scorpion’s head with a wild swing. He missed, hitting its head armor instead, and the giant scorpion hissed with anger in a sound that was as alien and unpleasant as a pit filled with ten thousand snakes.

Such an unearthly hiss would make even the hardiest outdoorsman piss his pants, but Zack was conditioned over so many years of barely scraping by to focus entirely on his objective.

It would take a lot more than a bone-chilling alien hiss to deter him from his objective. And there was a lot of pent up hatred in his heart that he would gladly take out on this scorpion.

Holding on as the scorpion’s tail broke free, Zack continuously pummeled the side of the giant scorpion’s head without fail, not stopping even when the scorpion tried to throw it off with a wild bucking move.

This caveman versus scorpion battle for supremacy continued on for minutes that felt like eternity, both sides wearing each other out to the extreme trying to get the slightest edge. But finally, after the two hundredth hit, the stone in Zack’s hand connected with some kind of nerve that sent a shudder through the scorpion.

He had found its weak point!

Taking full advantage of the strike, Zack battered the side of the scorpion’s head at the same spot until his hands were getting bloodied.

A normal person, even an athlete, would not be able to tolerate this kind of painful chafing without letting out a single sound. But Zack was used to this kind of pain, having worked on a drill in the mines for an entire year. All those hours of backbreaking work and bloody chafed hands had molded his spirit into one that had inhuman resilience and persistence.

With the hundredth strike, he finally felt some give on the side of the scorpion’s head armor.

The giant eight-foot tall scorpion slumped forward, and then shuddered for the last time, before its pincers and tail fell to the ground. It was dead. Stuck in its left claw was a tiny piece of gold no bigger than Zack’s thumb, which he quickly took and pocketed. Maybe he could bring it back home with him. He had gotten so used to collecting valuables.

At that moment, a strange floating text box appeared in front of him.

You have defeated a Giant Scorpion of the Fire Pit Islands.

Objective Completed. Returning to home world.

1. Survive for one hour. – No Mark

2. Encounter a scorpion. – Bronze Mark

3. Damage a scorpion’s armor. – Silver Mark

4. Kill a scorpion. – Gold Mark

5. Kill a scorpion within ten minutes. – Hidden objective

All objectives complete.

You have qualified for a Gold Mark.

You have qualified for a hidden reward.

Remaining time: 00:12:47:51

You will now be transported back to your home world.

Next examination will begin shortly.

Zack smiled. Something about achieving the gold mark felt satisfying in a way that seemed like a lifelong yearning fulfilled. He didn’t quite understand it, but it was as if Zero was pleased with him.

Something about Zero felt oddly familiar to him. But enough with those thoughts, as a swirling dark portal appeared before him once more. It was time to save his sister. He stepped towards the portal, feeling that familiar icy sensation of being warped through space-time.