As soon as Jake"s good feeling subsided, he was suddenly overcome with the urge to kick himself. "Why didn"t I use this feature sooner?"1:1 Customer Service was a tremendous feature; a gift that could only be enjoyed by those who had access to the Awakening Store – namely, him.
"I"ll give asking them a question about this place a try," Jake thought, as his inquiry regarding point sources was answered easily, decided to try asking a question about the setting next.
He penned in his question quickly.
"What is Nohas?"
Like clockwork, after ten minutes, he received an answer.
[Thanks for contacting us! Our service is currently limited to questions regarding purchases, item stock, point acquisition and other matters regarding the Awakening Store. However, since your inquiry is a very basic question about the world you are in, we are able to answer it. Nohas is a world that prevents monsters from other dimensions from reaching Earth.]
"I see," Jake thought, the answer to his inquiry taking up a valuable spot in the few important things he needed to know in his new life.
"Is Nohas such a world? Then we Awakeners are basically Earth"s last line of defense. I need some time to think about this… but I have one more question to ask."
It was obvious that Jake had to change the way he asked his questions to get them properly answered – and he thus asked a very relevant second question to the Customer Service.
"I do not see any reviews in the shopping mall. Am I the only customer here right now?"
Jake posted the question in the feedback section, and in five minutes, he got his answer.
[Thanks for your inquiry! Please understand that we do not have that much feedback compared to other stores, because we currently operate for a very small number of customers. If it"s the quality of our products you"re asking about, worry not – we only sell the highest quality product, it"s what our brand is built on! To answer your inquiry, we have one customer currently using our service in Nohas, but other dimensions have other customers currently browsing our catalog.]
"Just as expected," Jake thought as the Awakening Store"s thorough answer came through on what he was really after – valuable information.
"Only customer in Nohas? Wait a minute, then that means I"m the only one using this shop!"
The feeling that he had something n.o.body else in Nohas did quickly faded away, as he remembered that he was on a time limit: orcs to hunt, points to gain, and most importantly, stuff to buy.
It was a simple plan, really.
***
[Hardened bat: 1000 points]
He took a curious look at the item for sale and checked out the details.
[Minimum Level: 1]
[Recommended Level: 4]
He conveniently disregarded "Recommended Level", as he saw through his goblin-killing frenzy not too long ago, he never gained experience – he was perennially stuck at Level 1.
[Do you want to purchase this item? Yes/No]
Jake ignored the recommended level for hunting orcs.
He didn"t have time to worry about that, because at that moment, time was pa.s.sing by, and the time remaining for the sale was decreasing.
"Two packages already? Honestly – I don"t mind," Jake thought, "it"s like when you go to the department store the weekend before your new job starts – buy something to get yourself looking ready for work. Same thing, here."
"With 1200 points left, and paying 1000 for this bat, well…
…I don"t know, other Awakeners were given equipment from the get-go."
"But I"d still buy the bat without a moment"s notice," Jake added as he clicked on Yes, and the sound of a package appearing signaled his successful purchase. It"s the thrill of the purchase that matters to me most, after all.
As soon as he opened up the package and saw the black wood finish and the leather grip, he knew he didn"t make a mistake.
"Well then, shall we be off hunting orcs today?"
By the standards of role-playing game towns, Brino was a perfectly ordinary "town to start Awakeners in". To those Awakeners who weren"t savvy to the ways of those kinds of games, Brino was a very strange place.
The Awakeners first cottoned onto the fact when the fatigue they had accrued over the course of their first battle with the goblins had subsided quicker than usual.
A cursory checking of injuries sustained during the fight showed that a lot of them were already healed completely.
But even then, there was a universal need that even a village for Awakeners like Brino couldn"t resolve so easily.
When the first hungry stomach rumbled, the rest of the Awakeners in Brino quickly followed suit.
"Forget about the Orcs for now;" Jake thought, "I need something to eat!"
Jake wasn"t the type of person who got into shape, got into a fight, got into shape for a fight, or got into a fight to get in shape, and smacking around those goblins with rocks had given him quite an appet.i.te – but there were no restaurants in town.
"Do I have to go out of town to find something to eat?"
Just as Jake – and many others – were thinking about how to solve this hunger problem, the voice that welcomed them to this town spoke.
[A feast will be readied soon in the center of the village. This is the first and last meal Nohas will provide you. In the future, you will be required to become self-sufficient when it comes to food and water. Please enjoy your meal.]
At that very moment, whether this was the last meal or not, Jake did not care – what was important was that he take care of his hunger.
"I should eat quickly – precious time is being wasted. That sale won"t buy itself."
As soon as he heard the voice, Jake quickly made his way to the center of Brino, still clutching the box that contained his newest purchase.
As he walked along the street, he could hear people talking, presumably about the announcement and the requirement for them to survive in this world.
"How do you suppose we"d get food here in the future?"
"Are there farms or ranches outside? With chickens, cattle or pigs?"
"I do not know. Those who came to town do not talk to us unless it"s a cla.s.s related question…"
"Please tell me we won"t have to eat monsters. Those goblins stunk."
"What do you say that after we eat, we go out on patrol and look for a source of food? "
The closer Jake got to the town center of Brino, he heard more conversations taking place, all around the same subject.
"They seem more friendly to each other than I thought," Jake observed. And when he arrived at the center of the village, he saw several groups of more experienced Awakeners gathered together, also talking about the announcement.
Jake"s interest in those Awakeners vanished as soon as he turned towards the corner of his eye and saw the time ticking away.
[Limited Sale Time Remaining: 44 hours, 2 minutes, 34 seconds]
As soon as he saw the time left, it was as if his demeanor changed completely – he started to carry himself like a spring wound too tightly, the worry about not being able to make it to the deadline beginning to affect him.
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And it was in this state of mind that he brushed past one of the groups and made towards one of the tables with a lavish spread of food upon it.
"Excuse me," he said, pointing to the table closest to him, "I would like to eat."
In his state, Jake didn"t notice how the Awakeners were worrying about how the food was going to be distributed, because they simply didn"t know if it was enough for everyone.
Of course, Jake paid that no mind, and moved towards a spot on the table he picked out.
"I don"t have time to worry about this. My time is important," Jake told himself as he took up a seat and started looking through the spread on the table corner he had picked out.
"There should be enough of this to feed a hundred people," he figured, "so taking one person"s worth of food should be okay."
"Oh, we are currently going over how the food should be split up. Would you please wait a minute?" a man asked, looming over Jake as he was about to grab one of the serving spoons.
The stress and hunger he was in, combined with this happening, gave Jake a noticeable tic under his eye.
"Is this group making decisions for everyone else?" Jake thought, the state he was in him think the question was some kind of test only the group knew the right answer to.
Going over his head and being forced to dance to this group"s tune was making Jake chafe at the bit.
"Looks like the cliques are starting to form here," he thought as he willed away the tic under his eye. "Not even a day gone by and some people are already starting with this Lord of the Flies-type s.h.i.t."
Jake recognized the man – a member of a group of Awakeners who had taken out more than their fair share of goblins during the initial battle, and since he deduced that other Awakeners who witnessed their battle were made to follow their lead, he decided to explain himself.
"I have places to be shortly after this," Jake added, being careful to remove the hostility in his voice as he replied, "and it"s not like I"m going to take a large chunk of this spread – not that big an eater myself, actually."
Without waiting for a reply, Jake just grabbed a few slices of bread and a small bowl of stew and went back to his corner. He did not want to cause any trouble if possible, but given that there was a timer in the corner of his eye telling him not to delay any longer.
Because he didn"t know how long it would take to hunt an orc, and how long to get there, Jake decided to take the actions that would save as much time as possible.
As soon as he took his seat, right before he began eating, Jake saw the knight"s eyebrows inch ever so slightly upward.
"I could stop him by jamming my fork in a joint. Worst case scenario, go for the eye."
But instead of attacking, the knight just laughed off his bad mood.
"Well then, please do so," he replied with a laugh. "You must be quite hungry after that battle, after all."
Somehow Jake felt a bit more off balance now than if the man got angry and confronted him.
"Now I remember," he thought, recalling the many people he met, a lot of them similar to this guy.
Back when I was working, there was a guy like this who would muck up my ratings every time there was a performance a.s.sessment. These are the types of people smile in front of you and then start trouble from behind your back."
As the guy stood up and left, Jake leveled a hard stare at him, doing his utmost to remembering his look: his face, his outfit, even the way he walked around like he owned the town.
It would be useful in the future if he would deal with other two-faced Awakeners like him.
In a way, Jake was thankful for the stress of the 48-hour special sale. He wouldn"t be functional enough to eat in public like this, otherwise. And as soon as he was halfway done, he took up the plate still carrying some food, and walked towards the main gate of Brino, eating along the way and getting the attention of the more gossipy Awakeners in his wake.
"Who"s that person?"
"Never seen him before. Is he not part of a group right now?"
"Well, you can chalk that up to hunger. He also looks like he"s busy. Let"s leave him be."
Jake continued to walk on, finishing his meal and generally not giving a whit of attention to the people talking about him. Working in a company like he did taught him a few lessons in that regard.
"If you care about something, don"t look like you do. People pick up on that and can manipulate you because of it.
Don"t pay too much attention to what people say around the water cooler. It"s usually never worth it.
Keep an even keel.
You"re a duck. Calm on the surface and paddling like mad under the water."
The lessons that Jake learned, he used well enough to lie low as an employee.
"Don"t rock the boat, don"t start drama, just go in, do your job, and leave. You"re working for your shopping. That"s it. You"re here so you won"t get fired.
Getting fired means no more money to shop with."
But in his line of work, someone without an internship or prior experience would have some difficulty getting the job Jake had.
Apparently, his Human Resources department saw in him something other companies didn"t, and that was Jake"s distinctive skill in sensing people.
Not in the psychic sense, but rather, most of the time Jake could determine a co-worker"s mood, stress level, that sort of thing.
That wasn"t Jake"s priority as of this moment.
Because dangling over his head was the 48-hour time limit (now down to 43 hours and 45 minutes) to buy the limited package he so very wanted.
And the people around him – Awakeners or otherwise? He just didn"t care. Not even a day in this new world called Nohas, and the young man called Jake Smithson now decided to take a long walk to an orc lair armed only with a baseball bat.
"The only way I"ll be able to do things in this world is to make money.
And if killing monsters gets me money, so be it."
For Jake? Orcs were just part of work to be done and money to be made each time he took one down.
***
Jake had to hand it to the Awakening Store"s customer service department. The answer they gave him about the nearest orc lair was accurate down to the last couple of seconds.
Exactly 20 minutes after Jake walked out of Brino due west, he took a side trail, traveled a minute or two, and found a cave with spears outside looming over him.
"This is just like a dungeon in those games," he thought, feeling that there would be orcs within, as soon as he saw it.
Without further ado, he stepped into the cave, the humid air within immediately flowing outward.
He expected it to be dark and dreary within, but he saw that torches were mounted on sconces every couple meters, and there were stones on the walls that glowed because of the moss growing on them.
"I hope the item I buy is worth all this trouble," Jake thought as he took the cave"s lighted path cautiously.
After about three minutes worth of darting through the shadows and keeping a low profile as he trudged through the caves, Jake noticed that the sconces were growing more and more frequent, as were the stones with glowing moss on them.
His heart rate started to pick up, and he gripped the handle on his bat a bit harder in antic.i.p.ation.
The path led towards a bright light ahead, and Jake knew instantly that it was time for him to start fighting orcs and earning his keep.
He emerged into a larger chamber within the cave itself, with more stones with glowing moss and more torches lighting up the room.
And just as expected, he was met by the roars and screams of the orcs gathered within the chamber.
"Game time, Jake. Time to cash in."
***
Before all of this, if you took a glance at the young man known as Jake Smithson, you would see him as a perfectly ordinary young, working-cla.s.s man, living a perfectly ordinary working-cla.s.s life, with a perfectly normal nine-to-five job.
Except for the shopping addiction, of course. Jake thought that he was a pretty ordinary person, if he didn"t count his addiction to buying things online.
But that was if you didn"t actually know him, like his friends and family.
According to them, his obsession with shopping was almost legendary.
It got to the point where his parents thought about giving him some time off at a sanitarium to get over his shopping addiction.
And as Jake rushed towards one of the orcs at the edge of the chamber, he thought that it was this shopping addiction of his that caused him to end up here, in a damp cave with only some torches and rocks for lighting, cracking the jaw of a rather ugly and muscular orc with a baseball bat.