Congratulations, you have been assigned a quest - Survive Quest Objective I: Claim a place that has suitable living conditions for a human. 0/1 Quest Objective II: Defend the claimed place from a horde of monsters, with randomly determined difficulty. 0/1 Quest Rewards: A starters kit containing a long sword and some food. (Received) Access to the system shop, class acquirement slip, and appopriate rewards based on the user's performance. Quest Penalty: Death. Do you accept? Y/N

“Sounds exhilarating. System can I claim this building?” Ambros asks after reading through the quest.

Affirmative, the building called "Pentagon" can be claimed.

“Alright, I accept the quest, and I want to claim this building.”

Affirmative, quest accepted. You have accomplished the first part of the quest, ‘Claim a place with suitable living conditions.’ Starting a countdown for the monster horde’s arrival. 4:59

“Oh? Inventory.” Ambros says as a 15x15 square screen opens up in front of him. He sees five slices of bread and a long sword inside it.

“System, how do I get access to items inside my inventory?”

To access the user's inventory, the user must open it and think about which item you wish to retrieve from it.

Ambros thinks about retrieving the long sword from his fancy new inventory, as he does that, the long sword icon disappears from the inventory and a sword appears in his right hand.

“Well, this doesn’t look special like I expected it to,” he says while inspecting the bland sword. ‘Guess it will work, not that I have ever used a sword before.’ he thinks as he exits the building and approaches the parking lot his car is parked in.

“System, how long until the horde’s arrival?”

1:12

0:43

0:21

...

As Ambros patiently waits outside, he starts hearing noises that resemble horses galloping. Soon the sounds get louder as Ambros begins to notice animals running on the streets, tightly packed together.

“Aren’t those rats at the front?” he asks himself as he watches multiple grey-furred animals that are at least a foot tall near his location.

Ambros picks up a jog as he quickly gets close to the rats that were at the front and quickly slices through one of theirs necks using the sword. ‘Seems like not knowing any proper sword techniques can be made up by having enough strength.’ he thinks as obliterates the nearby creatures with wild, overhead strikes.

Congratulations, you have killed a mutated rat. Congratulations, you have received 1 essence point. Congratulations, you have killed a mutated rat. Congratulations, you have received 1 essence point. Congratulations, you have... Congratulations, you have...

“These things give comparably fewer points relative to the cat.” he thinks as he looks at the monsters that are still running towards his locations. “Well, time to get to work.” he thinks as he comes to face with a giant spider, at least twice the size of the rat.

“You’re creepy, ew,” he says while driving the sword through its head, as green oozy liquid sprays from its corpse. When he pulls out his sword, he finds a seagull flying straight at his face and a dog-like creature ready to bite at his feet.

As some time has gone by, the sun has started to rise. Looking around, the ground is littered with corpses of different animals and insects. Ambros himself is standing in the middle of the field, covered in green liquid. A very dark yellow colored giraffe is standing opposite to Ambros

Congratulations, you have killed a mutated dog. Congratulations, you have received 7 essence points. Congratulations, you have discovered a hidden sub-quest - Eliminate Quest Assignment: Eliminate the creature that has advanced its mutation. ★ Quest Reward: A Shop Coupon.

“System, could you tell me what… that star means?” Ambros asks while panting heavily and looking down to his right hand where he is holding the hilt of the long sword he received earlier.

‘Note to self, use a bludgeoning weapon that doesn’t break as easily.’ he thinks while waiting for the system’s answer.

Affirmative, mutations can evolve. As they evolve, their strength increases, and stars are used to assign them a way to assume their strength. Currently, on “Earth,” only 4 mutations with a single star exist.

Ambros nodded. “So they are ranked from one star to three stars like the bloodborne system?”

Negative, the system is not aware of “the bloodborne system.” The ranks are classified from 1 star to 5 stars.

“Sure. Now to deal with that ugly bimbo there.” Ambros utters as he brings his gaze towards the giraffe, standing about 5 meters from him.

“Since, as you can see, I don’t have a weapon to cut your long-ass neck off with; I will have to rely on my trusty hands to do it for me.” he declares as he rushes towards the giraffe.

The giraffe, seeing Ambros quickly approaching him, slams its leg down into the ground, creating a small shockwave and rupturing the concrete, which hinders Ambros’s sprint.

Ambros quickly catches himself as he continues running towards the giraffe, although with noticeably less speed, he quickly gets close to the giraffe and tries to grab its neck but instead the giraffe punches Ambros with its leg that is moving at substantially quick speeds.

Ambros barely parries the leg away from his stomach and gets hit at his left shoulder as a loud crack could be heard, and he groans out in pain.

The giraffe quickly tries to bite Ambros, but he dodges and hits the giraffe’s neck, stunning it for a second.

He tries to follow up a good kick at the same spot he just hit him at, but the giraffe recovers and instead bites his leg.

“Damn!” Ambros curses as he sloppily gets up from the ground. “Alright, I don’t like you, like at all.”

Ambros rushes forth as he throws the long sword’s hilt at the giraffe’s face as a distraction, while using as much momentum he can to leap at the giraffe’s long neck and snap it in half.

As he snaps its neck, he falls to the ground along with the giraffe. Laying next to the giraffe’s corpse, covered in the green liquid and the blood that the giraffe spilled, his vision fills with blue screens. He smiles a little and closes his eyes for a quick nap.

Congratulations, you have completed the quest, - Survive. As you have completed the quest survive, access to the shop feature has been granted. As you have completed the quest - Survive, you have been issued a quest - Class Change. The quest will begin on January 2nd at midnight. Quest Objective I: Defend your claimed area from the second horde of monsters. 0/1 Quest Objective II: Eliminate 5 mutations that have been marked with a ★. 1/5 Quest Rewards: Issued a class that fits your shown fighting style and appropriate rewards based on the user’s performance. As you have completed the quest - Survive, and you have completed the quest with a rating of 99, you have been awarded 48 coins. Congratulations, you have killed a mutated giraffe. ★ Congratulations, you have received 25 essence points. Congratulations, you are the first to kill an evolved mutation in the world. Congratulations, you have received 30 essence points. Congratulations, you have completed the sub-quest - Eliminate. As you have completed the quest - Eliminate, a shop coupon has been deposited into the user’s inventory.

A couple of hours later, Ambros opens his eyes to find himself in the middle of a corpse-filled battleground. He sees that there are many new system messages, but decides to first get back inside the pentagon in case there is another monster lurking.

“Jeez, I underestimated how strong the damn giraffe would be. My leg hurts like hell. At least it seems like I got a ton of rewards. Status.”

Status of Ambros Imperim Class: N/A Health: 100 Essence Force: 50 Vitality: New! 10 Strength: New! 20 Dexterity: 5 Focus: New! 10 Skill List Inventory EP: New! 152 Coins: New! 73

“That’s a lot of essence points and coins. Oh, yeah! I also got that store thingy. System, could you open up the shop please?” Ambros asks as a broad grin forms on his face.

The store doesn’t have a form. Should you want to buy something, you simply ask and if something is matching your description, you will be shown.

“Alright, that is a bit of a disappointment. Could I see the coupon?”

System Shop Coupon. Lets you claim a single free item or skill that originates from the system shop and it doesn’t have requirements.

“This sounds overpowered as hell. System, what do you mean by requirements?”

Some items and skills have a race, stat, or class-exclusive requirements.

“I still have no idea what that means, but cool. Can you show me some bludgeoning weapons I could afford with my current coins?”

Searching for bludgeoning weapons with the price tag of 73 or less… 1763 results found, filtering out ones unusable to the user... 1342 results found, organizing from the best to the worst… A bat with slight magic. Description: Increase the user’s dexterity by 2 and lets the user use the ability [Heavy]. 65 Coins. A common blacksmith’s hammer. Description: Increase the user’s vitality by 3 and increases resistance to fire by 5%. 55 Coins. A heavy sledgehammer. Description: Increases user’s strength by 3 and grants the user the passive ability called [Weight Increase] Requirement: 40 Strength. 70 Coins.

“Magical items, cool. System, what are these abilities you mention?”

Ability [Heavy]: Increase the caster’s strength and vitality score by 2% for 10 minutes. 15-minute cooldown. Ability [Weight Increase]: Increase the weapon’s weight by 10KG*Strength score (1000KG max.). The caster is unaffected by the weight.

“Woah, system, I would like to purchase the heavy sledgehammer.”

Affirmative, a heavy sledgehammer has been deposited into the user’s inventory.

“Cool,” Ambros utters as he reaches his hand into his back pocket to take out his phone.

“Shit, it broke.” he curses as he looks at the screen of his phone, which is completely cracked and covered in the green liquid.

“Oh yeah, System, do you sell clothes?” Ambros asks as his eyes unfocus, and he spaces out. “And food. Do you sell food? Can you also tell the time?”

The shop has different kinds of equipment. Buying rations is a possibility. The system is able to tell the time.

“Alright, that’s great news. Can you tell me the time and show me any clothes I could buy currently with the three coins I have left? I think I should have some bread in my inventory…”

It is currently 7:34 according to the pacific daylight time. Searching for equipment with the price tag of 3 or below… 2 options found, displaying them now. Women’s clothing. Description: Common clothes for women. 2 Coins. Men’s clothing. Description: Common clothes for men. 2 Coins.

“Please give me men’s clothing, system. And any food you can get me for a single coin, thank you.” requests Ambros as he gets dressed in a new pair of clean clothes and sits in a chair to eat.

“Time to distribute my essence points!” he exclaims with a mouth full of bread as his eyes glitter in excitement.