Absolute Shopping Addict

"I"m tired."

In a pool of his blood… mostly.

"It"s tough."

He could barely lift up his head.

"How long have I been doing this?"

Slowly but surely, though, he did.

"Let me close my eyes for a moment."

The man raised his head slowly, painfully, and as his head tilted upward, tiny gouts of blood appeared around his neck and shoulders.

"Just give me a moment."

But despite his state, a glow of determination still shone from his eyes.

Because each time the monsters and Jake Smithson"s own fatigue and negative thoughts brought him down, he just had to look at one thing.

"Amazing."

His eyes greedily drank in the sight of the diamond mounted on the ring on his finger.

"Okay, moment over."

Merely looking at the ring caused Jake to get his mind back together, smiling as he gradually and agonizingly hauled himself up to his feet.

It was like seeing a marionette with its strings cut in reverse.

The small gouts of blood going out of him, the bloodstains on his clothes and his wounds all made for quite an eerie sight, compounded by the smile of pure joy he was wearing.

"At this point I"ve hit the wall… everything I earn, I immediately spend."

"Am I doomed to this salaryman like existence once more?" Jake asked himself, considering the facts of his situation.

"First, I bought a turtle ship and a diamond ring: grand total, twenty-two thousand points.

After that though… the expenses started piling up.

Consumable healing items.

Guess you could say I"m running on hopes, dreams, and the infinitely refilling stocks of the Awakening Store right now.

And my point accrual has slowed to a freaking crawl.

How long will it take until I purchase the Cherry Blossom manual?

A week? A month? A year?

But… every time I see this ring, all of that goes away."

Shopping addicts had a way of lying to themselves: they fixate on the latest trinket they buy and ignore all other concerns.

Jake Smithson was a lot like those people.

"I"m no girl but this diamond is proving to be my best friend on this island," he added, noting that the increased magic defense it gave him empowered him enough to withstand the Banshee Bovine"s cries, and in turn hunt them down for minimal injury.

He had pa.s.sed the meadow the Banshee Bovines called home and into what looked like a desert, where more wonderful surprises awaited him.

Jake barely made it ten steps into the desert when a stinging pain suddenly flared up on his shoulder.

He turned his head to see a snake wriggling as it tried to find a purchase on his neck.

"Would have hurt if I didn"t buy those tomes for Physical Defense," he thought. "Shame I have to put this one down – looks exotic."

The sudden appearance of the snake was no big deal to him, as he calmly snapped the snake"s neck with his free hand and threw it back into the hole in the sand where it came from.

Another couple of steps later, Jake realized that the sand viper clinging to his neck had some sort of skill where it could hide from prey and then pounce.

One cracked sand viper neck later, he was once again on his way, thanking his physical defense and the fact that the sand viper used this camouflage ability to contend with other presumably venomous snakes in the desert.

To his relief, the only other sand viper attacks on him came few and far between after that.

It did look a little disturbing that whenever Jake pulled out the sand viper clinging to his neck, a small gout of blood would burst from where the sand viper sank its teeth into him.

"These critters may not be venomous, but they sure have a h.e.l.l of a bite to them. What a pain in the neck," Jake thought as he nonchalantly cracked the neck of yet another sand viper before tossing its dead body away.

Normally, people would react in a panic from a snake attacking like that or leaving gaping wounds like that.

But then again, Jake wasn"t quite normal, because due to his improved stats, he could just grab the snake biting onto his neck, and with a simple bend of the wrist, break the sand viper"s neck and discard it like no one"s business.

He had gone for about fifteen minutes without any sand viper attacks, until he realized that he could make a lot of points by just letting the sand vipers attack him and dispose of them after he retaliated.

"I"m making a good rate of points gained compared to the consumables I use now, Jake thought.

Sand vipers don"t give as much points as I like, but they"re easy enough to bait and kill, so that"s good.

The wounds they leave behind are kind of gross, though, but no arrangement is perfect.

Compared to when I first got here, I"m now getting the hang of this place – speaking of which, I"m sure I"m at the middle of the island – where"s the Cherry-Sh.e.l.l Snapper?"

Unbeknownst to Jake, he had already spent the good chunk of several hours heading to the heart of the Island of Delusion, with the monster he was targeting still nowhere in sight.

"Maybe I should start wandering randomly?"

The forest bordering the desert looked ominous, and Jake made his way there, thinking he"d have a heck of a time cutting down the underbrush and the smaller trees nearby to move around easier…

But that was when the scenery changed before his eyes.

Not even fifty feet in, the underbrush thinned out, revealing a clearing with a gigantic tree in the middle, surrounded by roots that were as thick as tree trunks and as numerous as its leaves.

Jake"s awe quickly changed to determination when he knew that this place was the center of the Island of Delusion.

"Okay, if this is the center… where"s the boss monster? Where"s the Cherry-Sh.e.l.l Snapper?

I"m pretty sure it"s supposed to be here, wandering around and looking for monsters to attack.

You know, like in those online games.

No Snapper here. No monsters, either.

Okay. If the Snapper isn"t here… it might be near the sh.o.r.es if it"s not smack dab in the middle of the island.

The river will most likely be my next destination."

His disappointment written on his face, Jake turned away and was about to take his journey to the other half of the island, when something very interesting caught his eye.

"Wait…" Jake said to n.o.body as he was looking at the tree in the clearing, when he noticed a familiar flash of pink. "Isn"t that a cherry blossom?"

He turned back to the clearing and quickly made his way to the tree to see if that was the tree he was looking for.

"Maybe the turtle guarding this tree went somewhere. This could probably be my lucky day!

Those luck manuals sure helped a lot. Another victory for the Awakening Store and its bargains!"

Upon his return to the clearing, he could easily make out the pink flowers, and he let out a whoop of joy.

"It"s the cherry blossom!"

He reached out for the flower… and the tree roots began to move.

Like tentacles, they flashed towards the interloper who would dare to desecrate the beauty of their work, only to fail as all the roots were turned into shavings, their attack stopped short by a flash of brilliant black.

"Well, they say that nothing worthwhile comes easy, I guess," Jake thought as his grip on the Swiftstone tightened, his reflexes allowing him to defend brilliantly against the would-be surprise attack.

It was clear that despite him not gaining any experience for gaining levels from fighting monsters upon his arrival on this island up to this point, he gained something far more valuable: actual fighting experience.

If anyone else was in Jake"s place, they would have become skewered badly by the tree roots.

After deflecting the initial attack of the tree roots, Jake backpedaled in an attempt to widen the gap between the tree and himself.

"Okay, time to check if this tree just freaking attacked me."

Unfortunately, the tree wouldn"t give Jake any time to think, as it pressed the attack, bringing in new roots just as fast as Jake slashed them to bits.

Though Jake could easily keep up his sword swings against the onslaught of the tree roots, he was still slowly being overwhelmed as time went by.

"I"m going to be weighed down here if I stay here like a sitting duck!

Time to take some calculated risks."

He then took a leap off the crag where the tree was located, the roots stabbing him as he pa.s.sed them by.

It was after a very undignified landing that Jake got up, and realized that one of the tree roots had bored a hole in his side.

"Didn"t expect to get out of there unscathed.

Time to make a tactical retreat."

The pain of the wound was supposed to be unbearable, and the root"s attack had ignored Jake"s physical defense, but this situation was different.

Each time Jake felt his side scream out in pain from the wound, it only made him swing faster as he continued to escape the roots of the cherry tree.

Just need to get to safety, use some consumables, and I"ll be okay.

He decided to think of nothing but fighting and retreat as the roots kept at him constantly.

And with a strange cry, the land where Jake was standing slowly began to rise…

***

People normally think of how appearance matches demeanor.

As bad as that may sound, prejudice is one of those things that helped people survive long ago – long before civilization, written history, and shopping on the Internet.

It exists in more places than people normally expect.

People tend to think a skinny person will be weak.

Likewise, people also tend to think that people who look unfriendly will also have an unfriendly personality.

Furthermore, people also tend to think that the expensive coffee bought from those franchise coffee bars must be more delicious than the usual coffee mix you buy in a sachet.

Which is well and good, because more times than not, they are proven right.

However, this is not that type of world.

And Jake is not the type of person who would think that a ship is something to be used on water.

He took another leap, and in the apex of his jump, summoned the turtle ship from his inventory, and dropped it onto the roots waiting for his descent.

"Admiral Yi would definitely like my out-of-the-box thinking!" Jake thought, grinning as the roots were crushed before making a more dignified landing on the deck.

The turtle ship was as large as the Cherry-Sh.e.l.l Snapper, and as soon as Jake landed, he wasted no time and entered the ship"s main deck to quickly patch himself up.

With the blood loss beginning to make him dizzy, Jake knew he had to hurry. Ignoring the Cherry-Sh.e.l.l Snapper wailing on his turtle ship, he quickly brought out the shortcut to where the Awakening Store purchased healing items, and began chugging down potions to replenish his blood and heal the nastier-looking wounds on him.

Jake looked up and saw cracks beginning to appear on the deck, and immediately set the turtle ship to retreat.

"There goes my hope of this ship moving even if it"s not on water," Jake thought, the ship not responding as the healing potions began to take effect on him, his wounds closing up and his complexion returning to its normal hue.

"I have to get away…"

Bits and pieces of wood from the pounding his turtle ship was taking began to fall on Jake"s head as he thought about the problem.

"How am I going to get away?"

The wood began to groan from the a.s.sault.

"I could just run down to the lower decks and cut open a hole furthest from this thing, then make my escape…"

His thoughts turned to how thankful he was that he bought a turtle ship instead of a flimsy sailboat that would probably be just bits of firewood by now, to say nothing about his fate should he have purchased that item…

"I"d like to say it"s foresight, but it"s just me wanting to buy the top quality product, even in a world like this."

The potions were almost done healing him, but the sounds of smashing grew more and more intense.

"I could just make a break for it and leave my ship behind…

NO."

To Jake, his possessions were sacred.

He would never consider an opinion like that.

"Besides, I would make a pretty s.h.i.tty Admiral if I let my turtle ship get totaled by this dumb monster."

Jake let out a breath as the potions finished their work, and all the while, the monster continued to attack his boat.

"Not to mention Admiral Yi would probably not like me sinking one of his treasured turtle ships… on land."

He could feel some of the roots move around the turtle ship, trying to encircle and crush it.

"Let"s face it, Jake. You just bought a minute to recover. Sooner or later, though…"

But as the smashing grew and grew, Jake"s resignation was beginning to be replaced with raw, unbridled fury.

"f.u.c.k me. This is like one of those "chop your own arm off to save your life" decisions!"

Another crack, and Jake could see splinters come from the roof of the deck.

"And to think that when I get back home, I planned on driving this baby up the river with a crew consisting of nothing but beautiful girls."

He could hear the hardened wood beginning to give way.

"Fine! I"m writing off this boat! But I"m going to make you pay for it!"

Bits of daylight were beginning to peek out from the roof of the main deck of his turtle ship, and Jake"s anger and frustration began to reach its limit.

"Enough is enough! I swear, I am going to f.u.c.king dine on giant turtle soup if you keep f.u.c.king with my boat!" Jake yelled, and as soon as he did, something appeared out of the corner of his eye.

"What the h.e.l.l is that tree doing here?"
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Jake could see the cherry tree proper through a porthole on the ship.

It was closer than Jake thought – the tree itself was touching the ship!

"No wonder you mad – my ship landed near your tree! Keep going, you son of a gun, I"m going to give you a real reason to get mad here!"

The cherry tree the Cherry-Sh.e.l.l Snapper was named for was very much within reach through the porthole.

Jake stepped back and grinned a death"s head as he fully understood how his plan would work.

It was the kind of grin he sported when he received something extra whenever ordering something online, usually due to a packaging or delivery error.

And wouldn"t you know it, Jake wasn"t the kind of person who would look a gift horse like that in the mouth and voluntarily return those items.