"I have food!" Alex said walking into the room with all the corpses, it was well lit, the windows were locked and in the centre of the room was Bromy, hunched forward in his chair.

In the corner of the room sat the kid, curled into a ball with a sack as a blanket.

"They really grew a liking to Bromy!" thought Alex walking up to the silent Bromy.

"Hey, I brought food!" Alex said in a hushed tone.

Upon closer inspection, he noticed Bromy was asleep.

He was sleeping with his arms crossed, massive bags lay under his eyes.

"Looks like he's finally asleep!" Alex thought.

"He's been up for over fifty hours at this point..." Thal remarked.

Alex placed the box of snacks on the table next to the corpse.

"Guess he can have them for breakfast!" Alex decided as he turned to leave.

Meanwhile... In Bromy's dream...

"Isn't that kind of depressing?" Malagmus asked, his character was sitting cross-legged on the cart Bromy was sitting on.

They were travelling through Ajuan in search of the sky-croissant.

"What do you mean?" asked Bromy.

"I mean, not doing anything..." Malagmus replied with a shrug.

Bromy rolled his eyes.

"Don't give me that, there's nothing wrong with sitting around passively..."

"Hey man, it's your life, though I'd still recommend finding something to do, don't you need money?" Malagmus asked.

"I don't need much to survive..." Bromy shrugged.

Bromy sat on the ground in his empty room, he had a laptop and a wardrobe.

It was the middle of the night, though the curtains would block out all the light anyway.

"What about you?" Bromy asked.

"Hmmm... that's a tough question..." Malagmus replied.

"So you're a lazy bum too?" he commented.

"No! I'll have you know I worked many jobs for many years!" Malagmus replied with folded arms.

"Like?"

"I was a doctor, a teacher, a king, I worked in a convenience store, I was an alchemist..." Malagmus listed off some jobs.

"I'm talking about the real world."

"Same,"

"...so you're a full-time roleplayer?" asked Bromy.

"No, I'm..."

"Y'know what, nevermind that!"

"My backstory isn't relevant!"

"Tch!"

"Go find a hobby, do a course or something, you're good at in-game medicine, why not try out-of-game medicine?" Malagmus offered.

"This isn't 1880 England, I can't just 'try' medicine!" Bromy exclaimed.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Still, this world would benefit from fun people in positions like that, it's so... boring..." Malagmus complained.

"You say it like you're some f#*king dimension-hopping alien!"

"Whaaaaat~~~~!?" Malagmus gasped.

"How could you accuse me of such a thing!?" he demanded.

"..."

"Don't even pretend to be some edgy weird s#*t!" Bromy sighed.

"Hey, a little edge would make this world way more fun!" Malagmus exclaimed.

Eventually, the cart reached the middle of nowhere.

The desert, in the distance an ogre temple stood, in it a few skeleton NPCs.

"Anyway, I'll get going for today! Do think about what I told ya' though, kay?" Malagmus grinned before hitting alt f-4 and ending his game.

"...but we just got here!" Bromy exclaimed, but it was already too late.

He closed his laptop and leaned back, his head hitting the wall.

"Ow!"

"Me? Medicine? What a joke..." he scoffed before pulling out a cigarette and lighting it.

Even so, he opened his laptop once more and opened up Gowogle.

He searched-up 'Shitty-unnamed-country medicine jobs'

He looked over some statistics, disasters killing off people, poor people not being able to afford doctor visits, nothing out of the norm.

Then he spotted one search result.

"As of the 18th of March, emergency first aid training will be offered for those willing to help ease the damage of the recent earthquakes..."

"Participants will be able to request further training at the state's expense,"

That night, Bromy thought over a lot of things, would he really be happy living life as a shut-in?

"Yes." was his answer, if he could live as a shut-in for the rest of his days he couldn't complain.

"Though, doing some doctoring here and there might not be a bad life."

The next day he left his one-room apartment and headed out to the training camp.

It wasn't anything special.

Don't pick up people if they seem hurt since you could worsen the damage...

What blood types are...

Some of the common issues in the ruined city.

That was when Bromy first received it, a clean, white lab coat as well as a kit of first aid-materials.

He attended the training every day for weeks, assisting doctors with menial tasks in return.

Once he got his first-aid licence, he requested further training.

He had to sit a test giving various moral and medical questions and scenarios.

He failed it the first time and the second time, but every day he read of pirated PDFs medicine books used by propper, real doctors and university students.

After a few years of hard work and godly-dedication, he became an actual doctor.

He did doctor stuff and got paid for it.

He could wear a lab coat around town.

He could get up in the morning, walk up into his office and talk to people, argue with his patients and generally live a unique life.

He went to practice abroad, getting a job as a school nurse in a school in a more well-off country.

That's how he first met Bonifacius, back when he worked as a teacher.

"Aren't you being a bit... rough with the students?" Bonifacius asked,

"Oh, sorry, no speak English!" Bromy said apologetically.

"I talked to you yesterday!" Bonifacius exclaimed.

"Oh... it's you..." Bromy sighed.

"Well, they were faking being sick to get out of gym class..." Bromy shrugged.

"How do you know they were faking?" he asked.

"Because when they came here, I asked if they're really sick,"

"They said yes so I said I could fix them with a quick injection..."

Bromy pulled out an obviously fake syringe filled with green bubbling liquid.

"Then they came clean and said they didn't want to go work-out," Bromy explained.

"I... see..." Bonifacius scratched his head.

"So I wrote them a doctor's note and told them to go study or something," Bromy shrugged.

Bromy lit a cigarette.

"Relax, I'm just here for another two months," Bromy assured him.

"That's not the problem here! You're being a poor role model!" Bonifacius argued.

"I am a poor role model, working as a school nurse doesn't exactly pay well," he shrugged.

"In any case, I have to leave now... please reconsider your approach!"

"Sure thing, teach!" Bromy said sarcastically as he went back to his spinny-chair.

"Now then..."

After Bonifacius left, Bromy opened his laptop and booted up the game.

Before him stood a massive human with a shield, light blond almost white hair and beard that clung to his chin.

"I'm back!" Bromy said.

"Hey, I had to deal with this one co-worker," Bonifacius replied.

"Didn't you say you were on break?" asked Bromy.

"Well... I can't confront him during class..." Bonifacius replied with a laugh.

"I getcha..."

After a few moments of awkward silence, Bonifacius knocked on Bromy's office door.

"..."

"Come in..." he said keeping a straight face.

"You're Bromy, right?" he asked.

"..."

"No..."

Bromy closed his laptop.

A notification sound came from Bonifacius' laptop.

"Your party member, Bromy, logged out!"

Bromy's eyes shot open as he jolted from his chair and found himself in the mortuary once more.

"AHHH! THAT WAS AWKWARD!" He exclaimed.

He looked around.

Moments later he realised that it was just a dream.

"Fucking hell... I hate dream expositions... they're always so... cringy..." Bromy said breathing a sigh of relief.

He looked around as saw the terrified violet-haired woman looking at him like the screaming lunatic he was a second ago.

"Oh, purple-hair chick, sup..." Bromy said with a yawn.

"I... eh... heard a thing... and came to see if somebody broke in..." she replied.

"Hm? Nah, I probably just knocked something over in my sleep..." he replied dismissively.

"I... see..." she replied.

Bromy walked over to his bag and pulled out another stamina potion before downing it.

He turned back and saw that she was still standing there.

"What is it? The bathroom is the first door on the left," he replied.

"No... I just wanted to apologise... for earlier,"

"Eh, don't worry about it," he replied dismissively as he walked back over to the corpse.

"So... what are you still doing here?" she asked.

"I just finished looking over all the bodies... I guess my celebration nap was longer than expected..." he explained.

"I see..."

After a few seconds, he turned back to the woman.

"Don't take this the wrong way... but why are you still here?" he asked.

"Eh? Well... what if someone broke into my room, shouldn't you guys set up a guard or something?" she asked.

"Are you implying the murderer knows you're here?" Bromy asked.

His eyes landed on the now cold box of snacks Alex brought him earlier.

He took out a cigarette and lit it.

He turned towards the violet haired woman and extended the box of food towards her.

"You hungry?" he asked.

"This room is filled with corpses..." she remarked.

"I know, right? But society really frowns on us eating those," Bromy shrugged.

The woman couldn't help but give a weak smile.

"Couldn't you at least try and be serious?" she asked.

"I'm very serious, in the event of a zombie apocalypse I'm screwed," Bromy gestured to the dozens of corpses around him.

"I see!" she replied.

"Aren't you creeped out by them, though?" she asked.

"Hm? No, not really... why should I be freaked out?" he retorted.

"Well... I mean... they're bodies!"

"Mmm, bodies of players hunted down by some killer, If ghosts were a thing, I bet they'd be on our side," Bromy chuckled.

"Maybe you're right..." she remarked.

They sat there in awkward silence for a bit.

"Mind if I keep you company?" she asked.

"Why did I know it was going to end up like this?..." Bromy thought.

"Sure..."