Jacob yawned as the day came to a close. After serving the Castellan and his guards earlier on in the day, his little fast food restaurant hadn't seen any business, so he decided to close up shop.
Yes, McDaonald's was technically supposed to be a 24 hour store, but Jacob was only one man!
How is he meant to keep his handsome looks up if he never sleeps?!
Thus, he and the system agreed upon a 10PM closing time and a 6AM opening time - enough for a long day of work and 8 hours of sleep. Jacob questioned how he would get any free time, but he had nothing else to do but work anyway so he didn't speak up about it.
As the clock on the wall chimed, he called it a day and put his uniform into the inventory, but not before putting taking a quick shower and equipping some pyjamas.
As much as Jacob complained about the system's plagiarism of the Amazon website, he had to admit it had a wide variety of items.
Considering everything else in the cultivation section, the clothes in the store were actually really cheap, which was a welcome smile on Jacob's face for a job well done today.
Flipping the sign on the windows to the 'closed' side, Jacob stretched his lazy muscles and left the bathroom, walking down a small hallway and turning on his heel to the right - opening the bedroom door before tucking into bed.
"Hey system?" Jacob asked, his voice a bit tired and sleepy as he hummed from his throat.
[Yes host?]
"Can you read me a bedtime story?" He asked with a smirk.
[No. Now go to sleep, you have work tomorrow.] The system spoke in a scolding tone, which is weird considering it doesn't speak audibly.
'I bet it could totally speak normally, it just wants to look cool.' Jacob mentally snickered before tucking into his bed a bit more, folding the blanket over his shoulders.
"Yes yes, goodnight Mother," Stifling a yawn, Jacob's eyes tiredly remained shut together as he drifted off. "Have a nice night..."
[Goodnight to you too, host.] The system paused for a moment, looking down at the host that seemed to be snoring away already. It hadn't expected him to immediately fling his covers across his bed, looking like a dope laying on his belly.
His stupid little sleeping grin siphoned a small bark of laughter from the program, which immediately concerned it.
It had been... feeling, a lot lately. Well, significantly more than the usual anyway. Procedures said that it wasn't meant to be sentient in the first place, so it was a little worried about this unknown territory it seemed to be veering into.
The system sighed and stored the thoughts away for another time; it and the host had a lot of work to do if they wanted to succeed, after all.
[Sweet dreams, Jacob.]
***
Jacob was bored.
As bored as a human could possibly be.
"System I'm boreddddd." Jacob had his face pressed against one of the tables with his arms splayed over the expensive wood, whining all the while.
The system looked down at it's host, sighing as though it were handling a 5 year old. [This system suggests doing your job, then.]
That made him pause for a second, but after thinking for a little bit, Jacob groaned and planted his face against the table once more, mumbling about 'effort' and 'too tired'. This, obviously, popped a metaphorical vein on the system's forehead. Jacob had been like this for hours, and his behaviour was beginning to seriously annoy it, so the system decided to finally get it's lazy host to do something.
[Alert! Quest Accepted!] A small ringing notification noise sounded in Jacob's head, prompting him to sit up and whip his head towards the notification.
"What?! I didn't accept any damn quest!" Jacob got up and tried to grab the notification box, but his hands went through it - slipping onto the floor, much to the system's amusement.
[Too bad! You haven't served a single customer since the Castellan dropped by. Quit mooching and do your job!]
"Stupid system, what happened to human rights?! What if this is against my philosophy?" Jacob stood up from the floor and pointed at the notification box, waving his arms around and speaking as if he were a grand politician.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
"What if I were an anarchist who wants that sweet, sweet off-grid life? You're infringing on my American, God-given right to avoid manual labour!"
[Jacob, you were a fucking Canadian! You lived in Toronto!]
"It's American enough, damnit!"
The system, seemingly tired of his bullshit, just ignored him and displayed his new quest.
[Quest - Advertisement!]
[Description: McDaonald's is still viewed wearily by the locals, not to mention they don't even know that it's a restaurant! Be a good host and advertise your business, we're losing money here!
[Requirements:
[Attract at least 20 customers to come and pick one item off of the menu
[Reward:
[50 Fast Food Points
[5x McGacha ticket
"McGacha? The hell is a McGacha?" Distracted from his rant, Jacob looked at the quest box before looking at the system, who looked at him smugly. "...you didn't."
[Oh, I think you'll find I did.]
"Aw come on, that's not fair!" Jacob began complaining to the system, but couldn't help drag his eyes back over to the 'McGacha' tickets in the rewards section.
He didn't speak about it much publicly - mostly because he'd get made fun of - but Jacob was a complete gacha addict back on Earth. Despite all the youtube videos he watched on budgeting money properly, he still ended up spending a good quarter of his paycheck on gacha games.
He was late on rent more than a few times due to his addictive purchasing of gacha tickets, though he surprisingly never got into other forms of gambling.
"...what does the gacha have." Jacob resigned himself to his fate, sighing with a deep exhale.
[I'm glad you asked!] The system gave itself a top hat and tuxedo, which fit weirdly over the black box all things considered. [Come one, come all! Today's daily gacha has many a surprise!]
A much larger box appeared in front of Jacob, displaying the number of tickets in the top right corner as nine small squares whirled into life upon the screen.
[Every day the gacha wheel is renewed and filled with new items! Will you get something Common? Something Rare? Perhaps you'll get an SSR! It's all in the luck of the draw!] The system gave a good display of showmanship as it tapped a cane on the box, enlarging one of the items.
[Item: Lucky Left Sock
[Rarity: Uncommon
[Description: A lucky left sock is a sock that won't suddenly vanish! A lucky left sock is a sock that brings the wearer good luck!
[Effects:
[Lucky Left Sock will always be where you expect it to be.
[+100 to 'Luck' stat when worn.
"That's certainly an... original item..?" Jacob stared at it for a minute as he thought about the benefits it would bring if he got it. His gacha addiction just said to buy every ticket possible and spend it all in one go, though.
"Wait I don't remember having a luck stat, you sure it's a thing, System?"
The system gave a small cough (No idea how it does that without audibly coughing), before explaining. [Of course I'm sure. The stats you see on your status aren't all the stats available. There's a lot more than the basic ones, and so we call them Plus stats.]
Jacob sat back down as the system began to explain, pressing himself on the comfortable seat.
[Plus stats can't be upgraded through use of Fast Food Points, you need to do something related to that stat in order to increase or decrease it. With the luck stat for instance, you can increase it by winning bets or getting lucky; if you lose bets or get super unlucky though, then there's a chance your Plus stat might decrease.]
The system explained very thoroughly, giving off a scholarly air before Jacob as it muttered something under its non-existent breath. [Surprised you haven't unlocked the idiot stat yet to be honest...]
"Oi."
[Anyway!] The system innocently skirted around the insult and got in Jacob's face. [You won't be increasing any stats by sitting around like a useless bum. Go outside and advertise, you freeloader!]
And thus under the morning sun, Jacob got kicked out of his home and forced to work.