Jake tried to roll himself out of the instance, but he couldn't muster the strength.
STUNNED!
The status effect alert was still being displayed to him.
He could hear the remnant stomping over from inside the store, as he struggled.
"Ugh!" he grunted, "Five points to vitality."
Stats Allocated!
Vitality Increased!
15 → 20
Total HP Increased!
300 → 400
Ding!
The sudden rush of vitality cleared his stunned status. He could feel his energy returning to him as the remnant stepped out of the store.
He rolled over like he'd planned, but the remnant caught his ankle just before he could manage to get it out of the instance. It pulled him back in and flung back into the store through another window.
HEAVY DAMAGE!
Warning!
HEALTH IN CRITICAL CONDITION
Heads Up!
Breaking through windows does not add a bonus to your quest rewards.
Oh, thank goodness, Jake thought, breathing heavy and forgetting the words of the message as soon as he read them. There was no chance of escape now, he had to fight, but the damage in the instance wasn't permanent. It most likely would have been if he'd been thrown into one of the gas pumps instead.
Jake sat up. It might have been the damage threshold increase or it might have been him getting used to being thrown around like a sack of potatoes, but the impact hadn't been bad enough to fully paralyze him this time.
Ding!
He ported in a can of wasp spray and the flare gun from his Inventory, then turned his head towards the remnant . Its breath was heavy now and it had chosen to walk instead of run. The part of its arm below where Jake had cut was now missing and blood was pouring out from the stub that remained.
There was no question that the monster had the strength to kill him, but it had made a great sacrifice in rushing to do so.
“What’s the matter?” he asked the frowning monster as it approached. “Not having fun?” When there was only three feet left between them, he raised his flare gun and aimed it straight at its face. “Smile you son of a—”
The flare’s ignition and the remnant 's scream that followed after punctuated the phrase.
[I.P Weaponization] Proficiency has increased!
Bless that skill strengthening his aim. Jake had fired the flare right into one of the remnant ’s crimson eyes.
"Dismiss," he said, raising the bear spray. He fired it at the tail end of the flare and the concoction set ablaze as it collided with the remnant’s skin. The remnant tried protecting its face from the stream of flames, but its head was already on fire and now its remaining arm was too.
Jake threw the can of wasp spray at the burning monster's head and got up sprinting towards the clerk's booth and his chainsaw. The remnant kicked the air where Jake had been laying and fell forward swinging its fist at the ground instead of following him.
Kneeling down next to his chainsaw, Jake gave it a quick look over. It didn’t look like the drop had done much damage, thankfully. He revved it up one more time and lifted it up.
The remnant stopped swinging recklessly around itself when it heard the roar of the chainsaw. It covered its remaining eye with its hand to protect it from the flames, then looked at Jake through the cracks between its fingers.
With building rage and a deep growl, it scraped away the burning skin around its eye, then charged at Jake with haggard breath.
Holding that chainsaw in his hands, Jake remembered what his grandfather had once told him. A man needs the strength to hold onto what’s important to him. Jake agreed. “Ten points to Strength,” he said.
Stats Allocated!
Strength Increased!
10 → 20
Total HP Increased!
400 → 450
He felt power.
Jake lifted the chainsaw above his head, but the burning remnant continued towards him without caution. It still had one eye, but its rage was blinding it. It was confident in its strength as much as Jake had been unconfident in his own.
Jake waited, watching and let the monster have the first swing. And swing its fist it did, straight into the crude portal Jake opened between it and his face.
[Dimensional Manipulation]
Portal Generation Proficiency has increased slightly!
[Dimensional Manipulation]
Dimension Generation Proficiency has increased!
The fist that would have smashed through his face was sunk elbow deep through a portal as Jake brought his chainsaw down on the remnant. Its gurgled screams were muffled by the sound of his chainsaw tearing through its shoulder down through its heart and ribcage.
You have slain Manager Remnant at night!
Enemy: Level 8
Level Up!
The system has granted you five stat points to freely allocate as you see fit. The maximum size of an area you can gamify has also increased.
Jake pulled his chainsaw back out of the remnant’s corpse and held it at the ready as the monster fell to the ground.
“Who’s next?” he muttered. The System had surprised him with the night shift manager, so who did it plan to send next? A corporate representative or the gas station owner’s brother?
Quest Completed!
The tension left Jake’s shoulders as he let out a hard breath.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“Hold off on the rest,” he told his wrist brain. He still needed to calm down a bit from the near death experience he had just gone through. The mana dulled trauma and kept it from sticking, but it didn’t get rid of negative emotions completely. Otherwise he’d just be a drugged up zombie.
After turning his chainsaw off, Jake walked out of the instance and put it away in his car’s trunk. The remnant’s blood had already faded from it by then. Once he had himself sat down in the driver’s seat, he rested for about a quarter of an hour before telling his wrist brain he was ready and to show him the rest.
Quest Completed!
The store location has been cleared of monsters and leftover junk. As such a Gamify USA owned convenience store will be coming to the cleared location.
Be there for the grand opening on September 6th.
Note
Monsters may need to be cleared leading up to September 6th in order to prevent delays to the location's opening day.
In other words, “Monsters will definitely need to be cleared before the opening day,” Jake thought. “That’s nice and all,” he said, “But what about my money?”
Rewards for Quest Completion
Progress towards Level Up
1,200 Game Tokens Rewarded in Total
+200 Tokens for Quest Completion!
+200 Tokens for Same Day Quest Completion Streak!
+100 Tokens for Early Beta Tester Bonus!
+500 Tokens for Clearing Out Old Store Furniture!
+200 Tokens for Slaying Remnant after Sunset!
$1,200 U.S Dollars Rewarded in Total
+$200 Dollars for Quest Completion!
+$200 Dollars for Same Day Quest Completion Streak!
+$100 Dollars for Early Beta Tester Bonus!
+$500 Dollars for Clearing Out Old Store Furniture!
+$200 Dollars for Slaying Remnant after Sunset!
Current Non-Token Funds in Holding
$2,200 U.S Dollars
Heads Up!
A Gamify connected store will be opening in your local neighborhood on September 6th. Non-token fund withdrawals will be available upon store’s opening.
“Okay? What about the other stores Gamify already has open? Can I go to one of those now?”
A founder must attend their founded store first before attending any other store in the Gamify Connected Store Network.
Jake slammed the back of his head against his seat’s headrest and took a deep, angry breath. Two more bloody weeks of waiting before he could use any of the rewards he’d earned from fighting for his life and it was all thanks to some dumb bureaucracy.
“Whatever. What’s the next quest?”
New Quest
Founder's Quest 4 - Prelude
Choice
Since you haven't invited anyone else to the Gamify Beta Test yet, there are two options available to you for continuing this quest.
You can choose to continue solo gamifying and receive a quest fit for a loner or decide to party up and receive a quest for building a team.
Are you a loner or are you a team player?
“I’m a team player,” Jake replied. He very much preferred the scenario where he’d have someone standing in the way of the surprise backroom super zombies after said super zombies had thrown him out a window rather than what he had just experienced.
Founder's Quest 4 - Party Up!
Your Founder's Kit came with three extra user sets. Use one or multiple of them to recruit new members to your party. Take one or more of them through a newly generated instance and complete the quest that comes with it to complete this one.
Reward
1x Scanner Sets for Party Founder
1x Scanner Sets for Recruited Members
No money or tokens for the reward this time, but Jake knew he was probably going to get that from the quest the instance generated instead. He definitely needed the scanners right now since he only had one left in his Founder’s kit.
Remember
Anyone who joins the Gamify Beta Test is contractually obligated to not report about it to non-involved parties. Make sure to choose people you can trust to do this.
Note
Replacement wrist brains and display shades may be obtained for founder’s and existing party members if misplaced.
However
Extra display shade and wrist brain sets will not normally be distributed to founders for the purposes of recruiting extra members, so choose your initial party members wisely.
Fully positive that he wasn’t going to be handling any more quests today, Jake unloaded his Inventory into his trunk. After that was done he pulled out his cellphone and sent a message to Will.
“Aye, can I come over to your house to hang out after I finish work tomorrow?” he asked. He promptly received a message back asking if hell had finally frozen over.
After exchanging a few more messages like that, they agreed to meet up the next day. Jake drove off from the abandoned part of his neighborhood back to his grandparent’s part where there was still a bit of life left. His granddad’s words stuck with him along the way.
The strength to hold on to what’s important.
Often, when he drove back to their house, he wondered how many more years that spark of life in his part of the neighborhood would last. Tonight, he didn’t wonder at all.
Jake
Level 8
Mana Capacity: 10
Strength: 20
Agility: 10
Vitality: 20
Unallocated Stat Points: 15
===
8:30 PM
Gamify Golding Branch Headquarters
After the last day and a half’s events, Alpha-10 was sure that Jake was firmly set on a path towards getting him killed. A world ender tier affinity awakening, two impromptu meetings with an Overseer who wouldn’t hesitate to kill him, getting him tied into what was basically a suicide pact with three other local executives, and now this.
Alert!
User Stranded in Another Dimension Report to High Command Immediately!
Another event worth reporting to High Command? It hadn’t even been two days!
No, he wasn’t reporting anything to High Command! He didn’t want to die. Though, it seemed that Beta-42 definitely did. Checking the health reports he’d gotten along with the alert, it looked like he had gone down into critical health tonight.
As for the notification, it made plenty of sense to Alpha-10 why High Command would be interested in a user stranded alert. The transfer system built into Gamify products was extremely reliable for bringing people in and out of instances. Users getting stuck in foreign dimensions wasn’t something that was supposed to happen.
When it did happen, it was usually a case of an unsavory member of High Command disappearing someone for their own purposes. Naturally, with High Command being the self-sabotaging organization that it was, it was of great interest to High Command to investigate such an occurrence and the parties involved.
Thankfully, this alert had been a false alarm. They weren’t allowed to just comb through user data thanks to the restraints The System had put on High Command, but they were able to get some relevant information related to alerts like this.
As far as Alpha-10 could tell, it looked like Beta-42 had somehow triggered the alert and safety protocols accidently when using his dimensional powers.
He managed to get himself out of whatever situation he created—and still almost managed to get himself killed short of five minutes after—so it looked like Alpha-10 wasn’t going to have to do anything more on his end other than get Alpha-Gamma to delete the alert. If he hadn’t, they’d have had to try to launch a covert rescue operation.
Alpha-10 would have never believed he’d ever considered himself lucky to be involved with a head of System and Event Management, but this was the world he was living now thanks to Beta-42.
With Beta-42’s safety confirmed, Alpha-10 could move onto the next alert he’d gotten.
Alert!
Extreme Levels of Mana Leakage
He didn’t even bother looking at the source location and just pulled up the mana readings for the area around Beta-42’s latest instance. As expected, that was the source. What he wasn’t expecting was how bad it could possibly be.
“Woah!” Alpha-10 leaned in towards the data projection. Alpha-Gamma was going to have to hide these numbers along with the dimensional stranding alert.
Yes, he’d known that dimensional skills were supposed to leak more mana, but these numbers were crazy for early system integration. Rather than being a benefit for their operation, this could put the beta test out in the open.
Maybe I should get 10-Epsilon to say something to him, Alpha-10 thought, considering his options.
If he wasn’t careful, Beta-42 could already be summoning monsters.