When I selected the button, many things happened at once. First, ahead of me, a house appeared out of nowhere. It was a large house, not a mansion, but large enough for six people to live in comfortably. It was two stories tall, with windows all around it. A bit surprised, Daniel and I both fell backwards, and into a puddle of mud. Niels and Sara tried to enter the house, but when they stepped in, they were thrown back, flying through the air until they too were on the ground. I checked my notifications.

House Built

House options unlocked

Level Up!

You have levelled up to level 4. You may now put a point into any stat.

+Strength

+Speed

+Endurance

+Magic

Backpack destroyed

Your backpack has run out of durability

My banner fell out of the backpack before the backpack disappeared. I didn’t notice as I was trying to keep track of all the things that were popping into my vision. Without hesitation, I put my point into magic. When I got through all of the notifications, I searched for the banner and found it almost immediately. I rushed over to Sara to make sure that she was okay, purposefully ignoring Niels. I then opened the house options.

House options

Allowed persons:

Alex Reid

+Add others

Rooms:

Bedroom(x3)

Kitchen

Living room(x2)

+Add rooms

Needed upgrade materials:

Banner

$1000

All house upgrades

Looking over the options, I first added the rest of my group. Next, I looked at the rooms I could add. There were three bathrooms, one bedroom, one living room, and one bathroom to be added. All of them for $100 each. Knowing I had enough money, I bought two bathrooms as we didn’t have any. The house slowly expanded for a few seconds and then stopped. I looked back at the rest of the group and motioned for them to follow me. They approached the house slowly. I had already entered the house and enjoyed seeing Niels so scared. Niels and Sara pushed Daniel forwards. Slowly he entered the house and appeared on the other side unharmed. That gave Sara the confidence to enter. Niels still stood at the entrance, I considered removing him from the allowed persons list, but decided against it. He entered the house and gave a sigh of relief.

Looking around, the first thing that stood out to us was the colour scheme. The entire house was only white or black. It was very unsettling. I ran to the bathroom and was happy to see a shower. I had not taken a shower since the beginning of the apocalypse. Without power, nothing worked.

“We need to put money into the house account!” I heard Sara scream from the other bathroom. Confused, I tried to turn on the shower.

No money in your house account

To use water, money is taken out of your house account. Any member of the house can put money into the house account.

I sighed because I had no money. I was about to leave the bathroom when the shower turned on. Someone had put money into the account. I smiled and took a long shower.

When everyone was finished showering, we all met in the downstairs living room. It was starting to get dark, and I wanted to get the meeting done before we all got too tired to think.

“Everyone,” I said, “We need to get this house upgraded and level up, I mean… I don’t see anything else to do,” I looked around at them, and they all agreed except Niels.

“I don’t think so. Our first priority should be helping anyone who hasn’t figured out the system yet. You have the ability to save hundreds of people, but you are so caught up in your own little world that you want to upgrade a house! You are so self-” By the last sentence I was already up in his face.

“You are such an idiot. If we don’t upgrade to a kingdom, we will only be able to help one or two people. We need to upgrade, then we will have more space for more people. Just because you can’t see the whole picture doesn’t mean that other people can’t! Oh, I forgot. You just want them to get a bit injured so they learn a lesson like you did with Emily!” Niels punched me. I looked at him for a second before I tried to punch him back. He stopped my attack and held on to my arm. Just then, Sara and Daniel pulled us apart. I found a small rock outside and moved it so that Niels tripped over it. Niels glared at me when he got up, so I knew that he knew I did it, but he wouldn’t be able to prove it. I gave what felt like my first smile of the day and went to a bedroom to sleep. It had been a long day.