Shoulder pain aside, Roberto finally felt that he was getting more and more comfortable with the use of cold weapons. For a matter of his own, more from the fact that in Italy, where he came from, it was better not to have a knife in your pocket when the police came on the scene, the boy had always chosen to use his hands in times of need. Then, in reality, even stools, glass jugs, folding chairs... In the event of a brawl anything that wasn't strictly a weapon was always fine, the important thing was to take the first blow in order to be able to claim self-defense and pick up the equipment on the spot.

However, since he had obtained a System Object and there were no courts or cops around, the need to hold back disappeared. Now, for better or worse, it was all valid.

"And that settles it," Roberto said through gritted teeth, right after a not too graceful but effective slash. At the moment there were only two Fuffas left in front of him and both of them were already in a very bad shape. One in particular, the one who ironically started charging again first, had his left knee turned by a good sixty or seventy degrees from the position it should have been in. The bastard, nevertheless, seemed to barely notice, walking only a little crookedly compared to the other.

"These disgust me more than the fat fuck." Commented the boy when he saw the thing walking around like a drunk on a Saturday night, finding the resemblance those soulless dummies held to human beings rather repulsive. It was a very different feeling of disgust than one might feel when confronted with a hideous looking creature. Still, or maybe it was just his impression, a nasty looking creature in name and in fact might have been more pleasing to the eye than those anonymous dolls.

In any case, fortunately, the Fuffas were really nothing more than training puppets once he figured out how and where to hit them; so the few survivors ended up evaporating into light clouds very quickly.

Even Alex managed to get by and clean up the enemies on his side, getting much more tired than necessary as a result of the agitation. Mario, on the contrary, went of simple violence without worrying in the least about retaliation, tearing arms or legs when necessary or knocking them down by force if it was easier. After all, the punches and scratches of those Monsters barely left any red marks on his skin, while their only moderately effective attack, the bite, wasn't enough to rip off pieces of flesh.

In short, it was a bit like they were trying to damage a tank with a baseball bat or a crowbar.

When he too was finished with his spring cleaning, the giant turned to his comrades and asked, "Are we done?", showing off a slight wheeze and a nice, excited expression. A tiny bit inappropriate, certainly; but, oh, men are still men.

"I would say so," Roberto replied with an inexplicable feeling of pleasure that, starting from the pit of his stomach, materialized to the world through a regal burp, sign of an already started digestion. He had to be honest, leaving aside the physical pain and mental stress, at the moment he was interested in waking up the next day with an eagerness he hadn't felt in years.

"Ah... Ah... Ah... Good thing it's over..." Then an Alex came into the conversation with nice big drops of sweat falling from his forehead and the tips of his hair. Clever as he was, he had not yet let go of the cement block that had accompanied him on his adventure, realizing his mental delay only after he had turned towards his girlfriend and asked: "Camilla, everything okay? And you Sabrina? Everything okay?" When he got to that point, however, probably because of the girls' stares that he could feel on his skin, Alex thought he would look like a fool if he threw away what he had been holding in his hand the entire time.

So, despite the fact that his arms were slowly beginning to demand unconditional surrender, he held on to that fucking concrete block like it was his new favorite sex doll; an object taken as a comparison because, to rest as much as he could, he had leaned back a little and rested the block at the height of his penis.

But thanks to some generous deity, the two of them took no notice and, instead, replied with a more intelligent: "We're fine," stated at the same time. Of course, in the end only Camilla's could be heard due to audio problems, but let's forget about that.

"Good," Roberto spoke again, also avoiding to perceive the existential problems of the other imbecile. Instead, referring to the dear Assistant, he resumed almost immediately saying: "Information. Now. Anything you can tell us." Adding nothing more even after the silence the poor little being let pass to make sure the boy had nothing else to say, having heard him speak in such a dry, bullshit-free manner, that it made him question what to do.

However, once the attention of the rest of the gang was also focused on his round, hairy body, XK22 realized that this would be his time to shine and fly free in the sky like an eagle. [Hold on just a moment, Players,] he then said as he did his best to curb his excitement; communicating with the System at the same time in order to double check what kind of information he could access.

Actually, if you want to stop for a few moments on how the process worked, that little modification procedure was very interesting from a technical point of view. None of the happy gang obviously had any idea what was going on behind the scenes, but I guess we won't waste time talking about it either.

Although it was a System-generated Instance Assistant, XK22 was not connected to the application's databases all the time. In short, a continuous connection would have been both needlessly resource intensive and unnecessary. Instead, when it wanted to get new data from the System, the little being had to run a simple command to start a check, or synchronization and, in case of discrepancies, a subsequent download of information.

The command it generally used was: 'sudo pacman -Syu', which combined several functions in a single string and allowed the update. At that moment, however, too little time had passed since the previous time he had used it and so the control part would generally be automatically excluded for reasons of efficiency. That was the only part he cared about, so he tried a more... well, let's say 'forced' data synchronization, to avoid more complex terminology.

The command he ended up typing in his Terminal emulator, a translucent window visible only to him, was: 'sudo pacman -Syy'; whose only purpose was to force the System to attempt a synchronization between the data available to him locally and those of the System.

If Roberto had known this he would probably have said a half blasphemy, since the developers of that strange shack must have had fun mixing stuff taken from different distributions of the dear penguin. But let's move on, it's not worth wrapping our heads around these details anyway. And anyway, until an emerge would have come out, this crap could still be accepted; just to beat an already dead horse.

Once the ordeal ended, XK22 flashed a smile at his dear Players, having found additional information available even without the consumption of Credits. A very quick download later, the little being was ready and snappy to explain as much as he could to the rest of the gang.

[The System has officially entered its Second Phase. The Chest obtained thanks to the defeat of the Boss will be the last one given to the Players within the perimeter of the shopping center. From now on, once a day, the location of the Chest that can be obtained on that day will be shown on the internal map of your Terminal. Do not waste time searching for supplies of any kind within the instance, only the Chests contain food and drink that can be consumed by Players].

His speech continued from beginning to end without anyone else opening their mouths. The stakes were too high to play around, even for our dearest smoker with a new victory cigarette already lit in his mouth. "So we're being blackmailed, good to know," he commented under his breath anyway once XK22 finished speaking, painting his own words with a thick new grayish smoke.

"Now it explains why the first crate only had enough food and water for a little over two days. Those assholes have been generous too," Mario then entered the conversation, finding much more annoyance in the idea of being always with his ass on fire than in having to explore the outside. Only Alex had nothing to add, but he took advantage of the moment when Camilla intervened to put down, as careful as a thief, the boulder he still had in his hand.

"What about the Monsters? What are we supposed to do with them?" The girl asked with some concern in her voice, not finding it fair to have to risk so much just for a meal. She then searched, without much success, for the moral support of the little Sabrina, but she didn't want to say anything, even if encouraged.

[In this phase, only a finite number of Fuffas will be summoned by the System. Their level will always be low but their number could become dangerous for the Players if not eliminated before the next day's summoning. More powerful monsters will start appearing not earlier than a couple of days, reaching the most dangerous summonses once the seventh day from today is reached. In fact, I apologize for not explaining this correctly. The seventh day from today with the current day considered as 'day one'. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be confusing].

XK22 responded to the best of his ability, even trying to anticipate what might be communications problems and specifying to the best of his ability what he was talking about. To tell the truth, that fur ball almost ended up becoming quite adorable towards the end of his monologue, crawling his feet on the ground and looking from one side to the other a couple of times. Some sort of show of embarrassment I guess, I'm not too interested in seriously investigating that. Sabrina, on the contrary, seemed to find him lovely and, leaving Camilla's side, went to give him a pat on the little head saying in the meantime: "How cute..." Realizing only later what she was doing.

"So basically we're forced to go around the map to fill our stomachs?" Roberto asked without the slightest interest in little Sabrina who, almost like a cat would have, had just run back with both cheeks red. XK22 actually would have liked a few more caresses, but he answered anyway with all the professionalism he had, moving his head upwards again. [Exactly Mr. Roberto. The Players will have to try to get the Chests in order to eat,] awaiting further questions.

"Um, excuse me..." Entered Alex, not too confidently, into the ongoing match, still getting the furry little being's full attention. In his eyes after all, Players were all Players; no matter how saggy they might be in appearance or character. Getting back to business however, Alex used those seconds of nothingness to moisten his lips and say, "And... we're not going to get anything by eliminating Monsters? With the Mini Boss, we got Experience Points and Credits... No? Don't we have a chance to get stronger by taking care of the weaker Monsters?"

Clever question... It was the first thing Roberto thought upon hearing his companion's speech, then blinking a couple of times wondering if he'd gotten senile all of a sudden since, at least at the moment, it hadn't even occurred to him to ask a question like that.

[What do you mean, Mr. Alex? Obviously you will get both Experience Points and Credits, although in a much lower amount than those obtained by killing the Mini Boss]. XK22 replied, tilting his little head to the side, not quite understanding where that strange doubt was coming from.

"But I don't think we gained anything... Or am I wrong?" Reinforced the bossy bride, seeking the approval of the rest of the band members. Mario and Roberto nodded, adding a few short sentences that basically reiterated the same concept. Sabrina watched them from the corner, but pulled out her Terminal to check if anything had actually changed. And, no, she didn't find any changes either.

[Wait... Wait a minute Players...] XK22 found himself forced to say to try to find common ground, understanding them less and less. His attention went to focus on the vicinity of Alex, lowering his gaze to the ground. The poor little thing had noticed from the beginning that one Fuffa still alive that Alex thought he had already killed.

Oh dear, considering that only the Monster's right hand was now left and it had partially been buried under the same fucking boulder the boy had secretly laid on the ground... Well, let's just say that the bullshit added up to an avoidable tipping point.

"Wait, don't tell me that..." Mario sensed something and, driven by curiosity, walked with quick steps towards Alex, stopping once he got to his side and taking a quick look at the ground. Having then more than two neurons inside his skull, he saw with relative ease the Addams family's hand locked in place by the concrete block.

"Chief!" He quickly raised his voice, referring to the kindly Roberto, declaring with a sigh, "I found the problem," shaking his head with a hint of a craving for a drink in his heart.