"Better not to think... Better not to think... Here even the administrators don't seem to take it seriously anyway." Said Roberto some time later, holding his forehead with his hand while a strong feeling of discomfort and bitterness almost made him lose the desire to see the next day.

It wasn't just the fact that he had become a subspecies of a character in some bullshit worthy of an webnovel, neither the not inconsiderable possibility that from then on he would have to deal with Monsters and Magic Skills and, not even, the not insignificant possibility of a violent death just past the first alley. No, all the proposals listed above certainly contained extremely true elements, but for him, what was really making him fall into an abyss of despair was the fact that even the creators of that place didn't seem to have the slightest idea of how to stage such an event.

Who in the hell had hired imbeciles who hadn't even bothered to explain the basics of the game to the players? In fact, they hadn't even paid beta testers to listen to their impressions?Or were they themselves the beta testers?Or were they themselves the beta testers? I'm basically doing free work for someone else. How annoying...

Well, it would be hard to blame him on that, but even if he had spent hours worrying about it, nothing would have changed. Aware of this fact in fact, Roberto let his irritation slip away and, while the rest of the group still looked like a bunch of catatonic children, he leaned over to the 'magic crate' and unceremoniously uncovered it.

"Ah, well. Such gentle assholes." He commented immediately after observing its contents, cursing the administrators with a poorly hinted smile. After all, even if it wasn't what he wanted, which was a shitty explanation and maybe some advice on how to go on from there on out, at least that gang of assholes had given him enough food and water for a day or two.

"Supp... Supplies? Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?" Camilla asked as she shifted her gaze in Roberto's direction, peering at the contents of the crate from a distance. Half a dozen one-liter bottles of water caught her attention first, followed by the various cans of meat, vegetables and fish stacked on top of each other.

None of those food items had any well-made labels or recognizable markings. At the most, placed either in the middle or in the top, had been printed a banal writing that said: [Natural water], [Meat] or even [Fish]. They hadn't even bothered to put the calories on it, not that they could care about such subtlety now that they were separated from civilization; but the priorities of a girl or a jock often differed from those of a normal person. Nothing that would interest Roberto, anyway.

"Oh... Something nice at last." He said then, acting all too nonchalant despite the fact that the rest of his group no longer had eyes for anything but the fucking crate. "Oh, well," he muttered as he pulled out two very different objects, one in each hand. "Some sort of knife and a book. At the very least it's a start."

He particularly liked the knife. He was by no means an expert on the subject, but one only had to look at the blade to see how sharp its edge must be. Such a weapon would certainly have helped, little doubt. It was just a pity that the blade barely reached a twenty or twenty-five centimeters, otherwise he could have used it from a greater distance, which would have lessened his fear a lot.It handled pretty well too, and the fact that the handle looked like a single block of machined wood appealed to him.

The book, on the other hand, at first glance looked like an ordinary old-fashioned tome: large, heavy and covered with a very thick hard cover and a myriad of pages whose exterior had yellowed over the years. But when he tried to open it, a notification appeared in front of the book in the form of a blue hologram. There were written the same words that the System's voice said directly in his mind.

[Does the Player wish to learn the Active Skill: Supergravity?]

"Ah... Now I understand. These guys didn't even have an original idea. No. The Player does not wish to learn anything at the moment." Replied the boy very loudly, causing the notification to disappear from his sight, but raising several doubts in the minds of the youths around him.

"Hey... What are you doing?" Alex approached him, a bit fearful, speaking just beside his ears. The blessing that had fallen from the sky had solved one of the main problems floating in his mind. Food and drink, preferably even a beer or two, were essential for survival. Not even knowing where they were or how long they were supposed to stay, starving or thirsting became a serious concern.

"Why do I get the impression that in your spare time you masturbate to survival shows? I mean, but watching a movie, no? Even banging your girlfriend would be less wasted time in my opinion." Roberto, however, told him in a frighteningly serious manner, only moving his neck to the side. Alex, who could only refuse the accusation of autoerotism and not the rest, took a step back and stood up again with an offended attitude.

Roberto followed him, pushing himself upwards with his legs after looking away from the other guy who, however, wanted to try some verbal revenge. "Oh," he started to say, taking his new friend under his arm and bringing his mouth close to his ears again, trying to avoid as much as possible the others hearing him. A mostly ineffective attempt, given how close they all were, but necessary to protect his own pride.

"And what would be wrong with looking at that stuff? I know, too, that it's not like they turn you into a survival expert, but it's a useful pastime, right? At least you learn something useful. Just in case you end up in a similar situation, like right now. Knowing something is better than nothing, right? Isn't it useful? Besides, who's supposed to be my girlfriend? No, wait. No, no, no... No..."

Roberto honestly didn't expect such a sermon. His criticism regarding those kind of shows was trivially based on the fact that he personally found them boring. He didn't imagine that Alex had such a complex about it. Oh, well, that's what he deserved for watching crap. As for the girlfriend stuff on the other hand... Maybe he had just found a fun toy to pull out in times of boredom.

"Mm." He answered without a real affirmation or word, pointing with a very short movement to the dear Camilla who had heard everything. After that, in the middle of a restored good mood on Roberto's side, the two of them suddenly became agitated and she snapped forward to grab him by the neck. Alex was also particularly quick to deny the abuse with a continuous and vigorous sideways movement of the head accompanied by a: "No, no, no, no!" repeated several times.

Camilla for her part arrived flushed in the face and, perhaps, embarrassed, but her mood quickly changed to anger for some mysterious reason. Luckily for Roberto, even though he found himself halfway between two asteroids about to crash, he was able to find in that risky situation a reason for cheerfulness that allowed him to finally move on from the question of the administrators.

"Hey! Hey! This is no time to argue! Hey!" Seeing the mess, Mario dashed into the middle of the three as quickly as possible, forcibly separating them and acting as a divider and positioning himself right or wrong in the center of the triangle in which the vertices were the three golden monkey.His Herculean physique made that kind of effort so easy for him that it was almost frightening, a most likely natural talent for the bouncer's job.

"Actually, it's not a good moment to waste time," Roberto exclaimed as if nothing had just happened, bringing forward the left hand with which he was holding the magic book. "Finally we have the first couple of clues about our current situation. It would be best to sit down and discuss our next move. We also have food and drink, so for a couple of days there should be no problem." Finishing his speech, he didn't even waste a second before setting a good example and finding a relatively comfortable piece of concrete to sit on.

Alex and Camilla stared at each other hoping the other would have a little something to say but, at that precise moment, two didn't make a whole brain. Mario, on the contrary, didn't even try to reply and, smiling happy that the quarrel was over, went to sit next to Roberto. For that, not knowing what else to do, also the other two put their souls in peace and sat down on the ground, closing the small circle.

"You're too quiet for my taste... Do you know anything about it? You know something about what happened to us, don't you?" Broke the silence Camilla before Roberto could open his mouth again, staring at him with a gaze that tried to show herself as little afraid as possible, while she covered her belly with her right arm, laying her hand on the opposite arm. "Maybe," the boy replied to her though, somewhat disappointed in his own words, highlighting the book he was still moving through the air.

"I'm going by hypothesis, since they seem to have copied ideas here and there. Starting with these," he said, continuing the speech and making the Terminal reappear in a flash of light from the tattoo on his hand, leading his companions to look at their own tattoo.

"Oh... that's cool. Wait till I try it too... Oh! Oh, oh, oh! That's so cool!" Mario chimed in, enjoying making the device appear and disappear and becoming more and more familiar with the process. Alex and Camilla did the same thing a couple of times, excluding screams, while the other girl, still unnamed, held the Terminal tightly in her hands without doing anything else with it.

"Look at the screen, your statistics should appear. Try to take a look."

Invited by Roberto, slowly the others also used their Terminals to generate the holograms containing their account information. They had no idea what they were actually doing, but the person who had asked them to do it had such a neutral expression on his face as to generate even confidence.

[Name: Camilla Mattina. Lv 0. Mana: 10. Energy: 12. Personal Abilities: Energy Bullet (+0). Active Skills: None. Passive Skills: None. Combat Potential: 26. Combat Potential (Simulated): 12].

[Name: Alex Baggio. Mana: 12. Energy: 8. Personal Skills: Quick Recovery (+0). Active Skills: None. Passive Skills: None. Combat Potential: 6. Combat Potential (Simulated): 12].

[Name: Mario Rossi. Lv 0. Mana: 4. Energy: 16. Personal Abilities: Massive Physique (+0). Active Skills: None. Passive Skills: None. Combat Potential: 32. Combat Potential (Simulated): 32].

[Name: Sabrina Luna. Mana: 8. Energy: 10. Personal Skills: Warm Hug (+0). Active Skills: None. Passive Skills: None. Combat Potential: 2. Combat Potential (Simulated): 1]

Moments later, an expanse of blue screens filled their view. However, even though they were all at a very short distance from each other, only the owner of the Terminal was able to read the information projected by his device. An inconvenience that, had it remained that way, would have forced them to read each string of text aloud to the others. However, at least on this aspect, the administrators seemed to have taken five minutes to think it through.

[Does the Mona-Prescelti team wish to share the contents of the Terminals?]

"Ah... Finally, something useful. Share. Share now!" Roberto exploded with a mixture of surprise and sincere wonder, finding for once a glimmer of game design worth developing. Camilla actually would have had something to say about it, but apparently the System worked by vote and only she and the other girl were against sharing.

[Roberto Maggi, Alex Baggio and Mario Rossi voted in favor of sharing. Camilla Mattina and Sabrina Luna voted against sharing. Calculation in progress... Sharing accepted. Startup in progress...]