“Skip my mission.” Kevin commanded the blue screen, since now he had the ability to skip a mission.

[Your first mission is unskippable. Subsequent bomb missions, even if they are the same ones, are skippable.]

“Ah fuck.” Wait. “The missions repeat?”

[Management is in the process of expanding the selection of missions. New missions and additional missions will be added in later expansions.]

“Come on! Why do you guys even roll it out if it’s not complete?”

[Every system is a continuous work-in-progress]

“That’s bullshit. That’s the kind of faux-philosophical shit my boss’s boss would say.” Out in the library, Jack had disappeared. He didn’t know where he went, but he messaged Ashley and Sam to let them know about the Ancient Shield.

Ashley: Oh you found it, great! I’ll work on it once I get the time. Thanks!

He decided to take a break, because the sheer silliness of the shield dungeon made him feel exceptionally drained.

It reminded him of that time his previous boss gave him a stack of invoices and insisted that he key-in the details by hand instead of using some OCR technology. It was just sheer exhaustion from monotony.

He sipped his overpriced piccolo latte, and wondered why they gave this ‘skippable’ function to individuals. Or why the system was so easy. It’s only been two days, so, maybe the difficulty would ramp up in a few weeks and he would regret his words and he'd have to spit his piccolo latte back out.

After a while, he checked the map of the ‘bomb defusers’. It just marked a long stretch from the Central Business District that headed southeast all the way to the Southeastern suburbs. This, apparently, was the usual path of the bomb defusers, and Kevin immediately realised, well, it wasn’t the answer, but he’d have to make that trip. Or at least, walk along that path.

Then, he checked the forums again, and noticed that his account has since been approved, and his question about bomb defusers had finally been accepted and posted. But the responses sucked.

Everyone just asked whether it’s a fake mission, since, well, there's no proof.

No one else seemed to have gotten the bomb mission.

Yet, his mission wasn’t the only unique one. He noticed that the forum now had more posts, and some of them had really really weird missions too. One had a parasite literally on their body and needed to figure out how to get rid of it. Another had to sneak into a particular high-security building and get hold of a certain item.

These missions were spammed to hell, by the same bunch that thought it was all bullshit.

It was pure shit, and he sympathised with how difficult it was. Even his stupid bomb mission couldn’t be skipped, which was retarded. Why didn’t they let them skip their first mission?

What if some of them were blind? What if some of them couldn’t read? What if some of them had disabilities? Surely these missions accounted for such unfairness?

Kevin decided to private-message the other guys that got these difficult missions. If anything, people like him should band together.

Then Ashley texted him.

Ashley: Hey. Can you help me with the Ancient Shield quest? My friends got to go, so I’ve got some free time. I’ll head over to Market Street if you’re there.

Kevin paused, and decided to agree. Ashley came about 30 minutes later, and Kevin had to pause for a moment. Ashley was dressed nicely, in a tight fitting top and knee length skirt, and Kevin waited. “Uh, you look great, but are you sure this is appropriate attire for a dungeon?”

“Oh .” Ashley paused and smiled sheepishly. “I forgot. This was what I wore and I didn’t go home and change.”

“Ah, never mind, it’s right here.” Kevin led her to the library, and then pointed her to the dungeon. “It’s pretty easy.”

“Uh, can we do it together? I’ve never done a dungeon before, and I’m not sure what to expect.”

Kevin mentally flinched at the thought of doing that baby-tier dungeon again, and wanted to tell her it’s easy and she should do it herself. But, Ashley gave him that puppy-eyed look that he then sighed. “Alright.”

[You’ve done this dungeon before. You will not earn a perk point from this attempt]

They entered, and Kevin found it was the exact same dungeon. Once again, it was a pure waste of time, and Ashley smiled.

“Hey, looks like I don’t even actually need to change. I could do this in a long dress!” She said after she hit 10 points. “Alright, exit mission-”

Kevin smiled awkwardly. “Wait, don't you want the shield?”

“For? Why do I want a shield?”

“You could use it for future dungeons?”

“But it’s heavy, and-”

“It’s not. It’s magical and summonable.”

“Oh. Okay. I suppose there’s no harm.” As the two kept blocking the balls, the two started to chat. “Are all dungeons this easy?”

Kevin shrugged. He didn’t want to give the idea it was going to be so easy. “No idea.”

Ashley gave Kevin a glance. “You’ve got no idea, or you don’t want to tell me?”

“I’ve got no idea, honest! So far it’s been easy, but I saw this preview that said everything is going to be bad. But I really don’t know how ‘bad’ is bad.” Kevin sighed and answered. Two more balls popped up and they blocked it easily. “The preview showed monsters and all that in our real world.”

“You think the world’s going to end?” Ashley asked.

“Most likely. Or at least, it’s going to significantly change things.”

Ashley blocked another ball, and she grinned. “Well, I suppose if the world does end, I wouldn’t have to work in this stupid job anymore.”

“Yeah. Instead you have to constantly do this ball-blocking stuff which feels worse than a job.”

“Eh. I quite like this ‘casual-gaming’ style of shit. It’s relaxing, like the casual games I play on my mobile phone.” Ashley responded.

The connection to casual gaming made Kevin pause, and he realised he had neglected to consider how most of the world played some kind of game casually.

Was the entire system designed off casual games?

The pair eventually reached 50 points, and they were sent out of the dungeon. By then, it was almost late in the evening. “That’s pretty fun.” Ashley stretched, and looked at her phone. The time had adjusted itself once she regained cellular connection, and she felt her stomach growl. “You want to have dinner together?”

“Oh. Okay sure. Let’s go to one of the cafes?”

“Yeah. That’ll be nice. I’ve always wanted to try the cafes here.”

Dinner was a fairly quiet affair, with Ashley doing most of the talking. Kevin was naturally reserved and preferred to focus on his ideas of interest, that was games, comics, and well, work. He actually liked finance and investments, but talking about work after work hours felt wrong. He did nod and make a funny remark or two, but he generally kept his interests close to him.

They parted ways and headed home after splitting the bill.

In today’s news, the Presidential Office announces that Lord President has suffered a serious injury from a Blue-Screen related incident, and will be temporarily unable to carry on his duties. Accordingly, Deputy Lord President Arnold Smashdigger will assume the Lord Presidency.

Kevin shrugged. Even the powerful are not spared from the blue screen, and he felt a sense of schadenfreude from their suffering.

Sam: Hey, wanna let you know I’m headed to Market Street tomorrow to get that mission chain. You wanna join me?

Kevin rolled his eyes. Did he really have to do that baby-difficulty mission three freaking times?