“Ah, you found them,” Jack said with a smirk as Logan came into the kitchen. “Our guests had commented on your clothes on the way up to the cabin and I thought it would be a shame to deprive them of the sight. Mom had a whole drawer of those things for guests, you know?” He winked.
“Yeah, thanks,” said Logan with a grimace.
“On a more serious note, I’m looking at these sparse cupboards and wondering how we’ll possibly feed ten people every day. The food I picked up from Martin’s Convenience won’t last long.”
With just Lara and the kids, food would have been easier. But Jack was right. That was a lot of mouths to feed. “I think we’ll have to stop thinking about resupplying from a store and look elsewhere.”
Matt wandered into the kitchen, his mouth pursed, but Logan didn’t see any reason to stop. The guests needed to know the reality of the situation. It was better to be upfront right away. “Think of what’s happening in Hope’s End. Hell, in the major cities in the world. How are people going to restock? Groceries can’t be sent the regular route, and I’d be surprised producers can continue without transportation. There’ll be no way to ship the raw ingredients. I think what’s left in the store is it. It’s done.”
“We ship raw material through rail. That’s not going to stop.”
“Isn’t it? Maybe a few areas will get it together, but everyone’s scrounging. Just like us. They won’t be thinking big picture.”
Jack darted a glance at Matt. “What are you saying?”
“We’ll have to grow our food, catch our food. Whatever we can do to survive. Supplies won’t be coming any other way.” Unless he could buy something through the tree fridge, but Logan didn’t want to bring it up until he knew what was possible. He couldn’t have them relying on him. Everyone needed to become self-sufficient.
Matt tapped his finger against the kitchen counter. “I have that spear gun.”
For a second, Logan’s thoughts brightened. “You can fish.”
“Well… no. But I could try.”
Logan deflated. He had no idea how to fish, let alone with a spear gun, but it might be an option. “I have a skill. From the System. An underwater breathing skill. I haven’t tested it yet, but it might work with that spear gun.” The other reason he hadn’t mentioned it or tested it was that he hated the water. The lake was fine for a brief swim, but the Okanagan Lake was a fjord lake, deep, so deep that light didn’t reach the bottom. Logan wasn’t looking forward to swimming in water that was likely infested with mutated marine life.
Matt's expression became mulish. “But it’s mine. It’s what I used to kill those minions.”
Jack crossed his arms. “We’ll get you a different weapon. Do you want to starve? Or eat?”
“Well, when you put it that way,” he drawled, but there was a dark look in his eyes that caused a fission of unease to pass over Logan.
“It’ll still be yours,” he affirmed. “But I might need to borrow it occasionally.”
“Good, that’s settled,” said Jack, a hollowness to his face. Whatever amusement he’d gotten out of teasing Logan was long gone. “In the meantime, I’ll start rationing. What we have should last a week if everyone sticks to their portions. And we also have those vegetable seeds we picked up at the store. Mom and I were horrible at gardening. Are you both any good?”
Logan shook his head and Matt still seemed upset about his spear gun, looking down at his feet and avoiding their eyes. Jack closed the cupboard door. “Maybe someone else does.”
The rest of the tourists including Tasha were in the living room in front of the TV. Other than Sam and her friend, there was a couple that looked to be in their 50s, a shiny Versace watch on the man’s arm and gold bracelets on the woman. They looked as if they came from money, their clothes screaming designer. A woman in her early thirties or late twenties was curled up on an armchair, her face resting against her knees, hair a mess, her legs covered in leggings full of rips and stains. Lastly, a woman who had to be barely out of her teens was sitting on the floor at the foot of the torn-leggings woman, gnawing her fingernails, a hoodie pulled over her head.
Jack asked around about gardening skills, but Logan was too distracted by the screen. A 24-hour news channel was showing a clip of Times Square. The shops were littered with shattered windows and broken doors. It had to be close to rush hour in that time zone, but the streets were empty of people and cars. Black garbage bags piled up on street corners, scattered paper tumbling down the sidewalks. Sirens and alarms sounded in the background, smoke flickering far off.
The reporter walked down the street, two personal security guards on either side of him with their guns drawn. He approached a slender man in black clothes, flagging him down. “As I mentioned, we’re having to resort to the younger generation for tips. Sir, what can you tell our viewers? What tips do you have?”
The kid looked barely past high school, face full of acne. His face lit up into a smile. “What tips? Don’t stress, that’s my tip. The world is like a video game. We can level up! Have you ever played a video game?”
The reporter gave him a blank look. “My children are fond of them.”
The kid snorted and then looked directly into the camera. “If you die, you’ll just respawn. Go after those rats! They’re easy kills. And even if they get you, you’ll come back.”
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
The reporter swung the camera away from the man and shifted his microphone. “As a reminder, we are not endorsing these views. The people here are not experts.”
Next to Logan, Matt snorted. “I’ll say,” he drawled.
The reporter flagged down another man walking past who was in army fatigues and black boots. He was older, tints of grey in his hair. “What about you, sir? What tips do you have for our viewers?”
As the man turned towards the camera, behind them, a furry rodent-like face peered around a street corner, it’s red eyes full of devious calculation. It had black fur, a drooling mouth, and pointy ears with fur-tuffs. A black-taloned hand curled around the corner of the building as it stared.
Logan blinked, and just like that, it was gone.
What the hell? It had to be the size of a black bear, at least.
The army-fatigue man blinked uncertainty at the camera and then straightened. “Put everything into strength. They can’t get you if you’re stronger than them.”
“Anything else?”
The man turned his head, looking in the direction of the street corner. “Don’t underestimate the rats.” Then he turned on his heel and ran down the street.
The reporter cleared his throat and the camera panned back onto him. “There you have it, folks. Tips from those in the know.” The man paused and held a hand up to his ear. “Hold on, my producers are telling me that we have another source. Let’s play the clip.”
They switched to a video that had obviously come from social media, since it only covered a quarter of the screen. In it, an older woman was sitting in a lotus position, staring down at her lap in concentration. In her lap, there was an object. Slowly, it rose into the air, hovering in front of her like something out of a magic show. It looked like a meat tenderizer. The women furrowed her brow as she concentrated. The object rotated in the air, completely unsupported. End over end, it picked up speed, until with a flash of the woman’s eyes, she slammed the meat tenderizer into the wall.
She looked into the camera. “I did this with a skill, but for it to work, I needed fifty wisdom points. Throw everything into wisdom. All the other attributes are meaningless. You don’t need strength or agility when you can use your mind instead.”
The news channel cut back to the reporter, but Logan had stopped paying attention. That clip was a reality check. He couldn’t help being jealous. Yeah, he had magic, but other than growing trees for money, how would that help him fight? He could see a ton of fighting offensive capabilities for a telekinesis ability. Still, he didn’t agree with the woman’s assessment. Eventually, she’d run out of karma points, and then what would she do in a fight? Strength had its uses, the same for constitution. That woman could still be injured, even with that skill. Where would she be then without an accelerated healing factor?
Plus, it was irresponsible to tell everyone to level up their wisdom attribute without mentioning that they’d need to activate their karma pool. Bad advice all around.
For all the tips, no one knew anything of value. He’d only seen a small selection on the news, and maybe there were more reliable experts online, but Logan needed to make better use of his time. Until he knew what the tree fridge offered, he wouldn’t know how screwed their food situation truly was, or whether he’d need to dive into the depths of the lake. Logan also needed to allocate his new points, but there was a reason he’d held back. If the tree fridge was a viable resource, then he’d need all the wisdom he could get.
Logan grabbed his baseball bat on the way out the door. The sun was already bright in the sky, so he rolled up the sleeves of his new dress shirt as he started powering over to his family’s cabin. His daily cheat exercises had almost become routine, and sure enough, he soon received System notifications.
[You have earned one Endurance point! Endurance daily limit capped for the next 24 hours.]
[You have earned one Agility point! Agility daily limit capped for the next 24 hours.]
[You have earned one Strength point! Strength daily limit capped for the next 24 hours.]
But even after, a feeling of dissatisfaction dampened the rush he normally felt after an upgrade. There had to be a way to increase his dexterity and perception. It was only logical that if he could increase the others, he could increase those as well.
Logan pulled up his stat sheet as he made his way back to the willow tree. A comprehensive review of all his stats was in order, so he went into his settings mainframe and temporarily changed the view option.
Name: Logan Hart [Hidden Name: Idiot]
Rank: 98,893 out of 7,422,259,522
Level: 10
Class: None
Grade: F1
Species: Human
Skills:
* Deepwater Idiot Lv. 1
* Idiot’s Paradox Lv. 9
* Idiot’s Inspect Lv. 2
* Life Cycle Lv. 1
Titles: Eager Beaver
XP Progress: 3,300/20,000
Karma: 246/246
Intelligence: 41
Constitution: 26
Strength: 24
Agility: 16
Dexterity: 13
Endurance: 14
Perception: 17
Wisdom: 29
Luck: 35
Free Attribute Points: 5
KarmaCoin: 250
There was a lot of information he was expecting, but also some odd changes. For the first time, his grade had changed from F0 to F1. The only thing that made sense was that reaching level ten had been some kind of threshold. Equally surprising, [Idiot’s Inspect] had upgraded to level two. There had been something in the description of that skill. Logan concentrated, mentally focusing on the skill and expanding it.
[This uncommon skill is granted to idiots who stare at insects expecting something interesting to happen. This skill is hard-capped to your Grade level.]
Logan grimaced. He’d forgotten how he’d received the skill in the first place. Still, following that logic, at each tenth level, he’d upgrade his grade which would also level [Idiot’s Inspect]. But what did that mean for the skill? Logan scanned his surroundings for something he could test it on, finally narrowing in on a stinkbug on the ground.
[Western Conifer Seed Bug: Level 0. A low-level smelly pest. It feeds on the seeds of pinecones, so you better smash it, tree-hugger.]
Huh. The skill now gave him a description, not just the level and name. It wasn’t that useful for a bug, but he could see how that could give him a leg up on the competition, especially if the skill continued to improve as he leveled.
As far as the rest of his stats, it was what he’d expected, although he noticed that his luck attribute had gone up again. That made sense, especially after he’d survived the boat explosion by the skin of his teeth. Yet, there was something odd. What the hell was a [Class]? It had been [Class: None] since this whole thing started. Either there was a threshold he hadn’t yet reached, or a hidden requirement he needed to learn.
Logan came to a stop.
He’d reached the tree fridge.