Phanya heaved a dramatic sigh. Double-checking the entire store was its own battle of attrition against her exhaustion, but Phanya knew she'd collapse as soon as she stopped and leave herself open to one last surprise attack. The striped plastic beach chair that Phanya did collapse into was practically begging for the longest nap, but after a few minutes of controlled breathing she felt… fine?

Still tired, but not exhausted. The only things off were her throbbing sprained wrist, and the sensation of pressure just outside the edge of her vision. It wasn't dangerous, Phanya knew they were system messages just waiting for her attention, but knowing that felt odd. Might as well dive in, after that fight Phanya felt like not much could faze her.

Phanya frowned at the dozens of system messages, swimming past her vision at the barest acknowledgment. She wasn't fazed, but only because she simply didn't have the time. And she knew that whatever system that had invaded her skull and made weird blocky text float in her inner eye was important, too important for her to really fathom.

While Phanya could maybe explain Tapper's weird new abilities as the work of some super advanced nanite swarm, she'd never heard of one that both robots and humans could use with the same interface. And she knew she'd have to be real careful, since it was so powerful that it could rewire her own body — the only possible explanation for why she could suddenly punch a wall with all her might and not even scratch her knuckles was if this system somehow installed a subdermal layer of armor. So if that was the first thing it did automatically, then what else could it do when she actually directed it?

And yet, Fableton was in trouble. That stupid little town that Phanya thought she could never escape, turned to fear that she could never return, turned to anger that raiders would dare attack it. She couldn't warn them from here, so it was up to Phanya to head off Rethar and she had already wasted what felt like hours fighting mannequins in this store. Phanya will need to unpack later exactly why that fight felt so exhilarating, now she just needed to clear her vision from these messages and get moving.

The first system message after congratulations showed a list of three options for an upgrade, and with her mind focused on efficiency she opened and instantly balked at the first two. They were both long lists of further options she'd need to read through, but thankfully the last option to increase her attributes just showed a short list of different numbers.

Phanya took a second to ponder between raising her lowest or highest numbers, but she instead felt instinct pulling at her gut. It felt oddly foreign, like an outside instinct, maybe from whoever was running this system. But then why were they giving her a choice, after everything their system already did? In the end, the outside-instinct knew what it wanted so Phanya allowed herself to reflexively raise Dexterity to 6 and Awareness to 4.

Once she confirmed the selection a wave of energy hit her. Or from her? It passed too quickly to follow, but Phanya felt a point of light in her chest that rippled outwards and kicked up a cloud of mannequin dust, leaving her fingers tingling and her lean muscle just a little bit harder.

Phanya stood and stretched her spine, the twisting motion offering her an excellent panoramic of dusted monster remains that formed a nearly perfect circle around the fake grass clearing. Spots of bright color dotted the gray sand circle from the sporting equipment, still in surprisingly solid shape after the beatdown, and something Tapper said during their mad dash wormed its way into her conscious recollection:

What is looted from foes we claim by right.

Phanya was suddenly very aware of how long it'd been since she last had a chance to change her clothes. Despite the urgency she couldn't rush into the raiders until she finished with these messages, so Phanya had time to try on one or two things. Plus, it felt almost righteous to steal the clothes from these particular mannequins.

First up was a dose of disappointment, as the instant Phanya slipped on a solid piece of padded shoulder armor she felt unnaturally unbalanced. It should've been made from pure lead for all of the weight it put on her shoulders, and taking it off felt like removing a vice from her ribs. Why would the system improve her agility and take it away at such a whim? To her shock, this time it answered her directly with a new message:

[Primary class features:

Body Masters have a special Flex die (1d4) that gets added to all unarmed attacks. They also receive a bonus, depending on which physical attribute has the highest score:

Strength: Flex die applies to Strength saves, and bonus natural armor.

Dexterity: Flex die applies to Dexterity saves, and bonus dodge threshold.

Constitution: Flex die applies to Constitution saves, and bonus wounds.

Body Masters are only trained in simple gear, and lose the above bonuses when using weapons or armor heavier than simple.]

Most of the message went over Phanya's head, but she understood the implications and why the outside-instincts pushed for her to improve her Dexterity. But why did she have to just wear clothes? Especially when the lighter mannequin uniforms were all such weird colors...

At the end, a different system message made the decision for Phanya. Most of them scrolled past her vision like a playback of the past few fights, starting with the Mall Rat — her gawking counted as assistance and earned her a single point of XP for the fight — and marking off each monster as she defeated them. Nine Mannequin Marionettes and one Self Made Man-Nequin, the sense of humor in naming conventions an odd contrast to the danger they posed.

Spaced throughout those were status effects, notices of Phanya gaining negative debuffs outnumbering any positive notifications by far. A hunger debuff, stunned, stoned, stunned again, grappled, and so on until it ended with her gaining a wound. She could follow along with memories of the fight with the status names, but they all had short descriptions that kept referencing nonsense like rolls and checks. Why yes, mystery messages in my eyeball, my sprained wrist DOES leave me at a disadvantage. One message towards the beginning had nothing to do with monsters or status effects, but instead announced a quest:

[New quest: From Zero to Hero

Prove yourself to Zero's crew by escaping from X-Treme Sports]

Phanya did not like the looks of that. There wasn't an option to opt out of the quest and no indications of what would happen if she failed or succeeded, but it confirmed that someone or something was watching her.

A new message bowled aside all the nonsense and commanded Phanya's view when she touched an elastic band and it bit her with a static shock. She thought it was just more garbage, probably a waist band tore free from its pants, but this thing had a name: Ty's Headband. No other information, except for the taunting line that it was one half of a set.

The fuzzy, elastic headband fit her like a glove and did nothing else, but curiosity dug its claws in and Phanya dug through the clothes until she felt a second spark from a larger bundle of cloth. The stretchy fabric started with sleeveless straps and ended in shorts as one unbroken tube of a bodysuit, with the same cyan and pale pink pattern as the headband. Dubbed as Parr's Unitard, the whole getup made Phanya's eyes roll back with the power of its gaudiness, but it was just the piece she needed to complete the set. Go figure.

[Equipment: Aerobic Set

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

You are the champion! Spend 1 minute stretching and limbering up, and for the next (2) hours your Dexterity will increase by one step for athletic acts. Usable once per day.]

Phanya had no idea what a step meant in this context, but it was the first positive system response to any piece of clothing, so she donned the goofy costume. Which raised the question, how could the system interact with the weird stuff in this mall? Tapper said he's had it since long before they got stuck here. Could they share the same system as the mall, maybe one relic was controlling everything… a terrifying thought.

At least she could wear regular clothes over them, but what counted as both "regular clothes" and "not ridiculous" formed a very small pile. She settled on the golfer shorts and tennis shoes that at least gave her some modesty, but wearing a shirt was tricky. If she covered the Aerobic Set completely then Phanya could somehow feel its effects were nullified, but she straddled the line with a bowling shirt left open and unbuttoned.

With the clothing sorted Phanya gave a deeper loot pass for the mannequins out of curiosity and a few thin metal support rods zipped to her hand. There wasn't anything special about them that she could tell, but they were thin and sturdy and they sparked Phanya's scrounging instinct.

The stockings from the ballet mannequin made for a stretchy bandage, and Phanya used them to wrap the metal rods around her sprained wrist as snugly as she could manage. Once she tied off the bandage she heard a small but happy chime, the blackout circle in her first Wound bubble changed to a half circle and all the pain from the sprain vanished. So long as she was careful to not loosen the bandage, Phanya now felt just fine.

All the remaining loot formed a small pile of various sport sticks, all of which counted as weapons that she couldn't use without feeling like she had a case of vertigo. She could even sense that several weapons carried some sort of bonus effect like her Aerobic Set, but she couldn't even see what the effects were that she couldn't use! With a huff she kicked a chunk of monster and it hit a small cardboard box that Phanya knew, without a doubt, did not exist a second ago.

In the middle of the grassy clearing on a raised mannequin display platform now lay a shoebox, but somehow more than just a shoebox. The zigzag neon colors were brighter, the cardboard was thicker, and it altogether somehow looked "more real" than the other objects in the store. Phanya gingerly nudged the lid open with a stick to keep her distance, and inside she found four round cupped pieces of bright neon orange plastic with black fabric straps.

[Equipment: Safety Pads

Be careful out there! Limbs will not be targeted in sprain checks that result from attacks, but harsher wounds can still hit.]

If someone was actively watching her to decide these rewards, Phanya wondered whether they were genuinely trying to assist her or just taunting her performance. Either way she wasn't going to turn down the help and she slipped them on, looking at a mirror and instantly barking with laughter. Her outfit looked ridiculous, yet she felt confident. There was purpose to the loot she won and she wasn't exactly looking for subtlety any longer, so she may as well wear it on her sleeve. Her corny, bowling shirt sleeves.

The gate out of the store loomed, meeting Phanya's studious frown with its indifference. Now she knew how to properly stand and brace herself, but strain as she might she just barely did not have the muscle to force the jam open. Her newfound confidence dimmed but didn't go out, that strange outside intuition knew that this was an obstacle and it had made its choice with the attributes.

That left the final system prompt, asking Phanya to pick her Level 1 feat, and it followed with a long list of new choices. Hopefully this Body Mastery class she got stuck with had some decent options. She read through them as quickly as she could manage but one stuck out as the immediate answer to her problem.

[Feat: Leverage

Be the fulcrum upon which you move the world. You can now use your Dexterity to replace Strength checks regarding moving, breaking, or otherwise interacting with inanimate objects, so long as you have proper leverage.]

There was more that explained the difference between interactions and attacks, and defined what qualifies as inanimate, and other stuff that she couldn't spare time for, but this was it. The choice was so clear that it was either placed for her as a test or a trap, and Phanya was already too deep in to let that stop her now.

She focused on the feat until it blinked in confirmation and Phanya's body lurched slightly. There wasn't any pain or discomfort, but Phanya could suddenly sense where her center of gravity was. It was more accurate to call her center of gravity a new sense altogether, and with focus she could even shift it slightly. Just a nudge to her balance, but the deepened feel of control thrilled her. On a whim she stretched and popped every joint, and another happy internal sensation confirmed that she was indeed more limber.

Now going more by feel than logical planning, Phanya crouched down for another shot at the grate but her body instead leaned to the side and planted her good hand on the ground. She could feel her center of gravity shift in an unspoken need for pizazz and she let the pizazz flow, her hips twisting in sync to coiled leg muscles. Phanya launched herself into a sideways corkscrew spin kick to the grate and sent it flying open with a clang, and she couldn't help but laugh. This goofy unitard must actually work! And the added impracticality just made hitting things more fun.

[Quest: Zero to Hero complete! +1 XP]

Well, that solved the mystery of whether the quest would force her to join the raiders, and what XP meant was a question for Future Phanya.

Present Phanya stepped into the open hallway, empty save for the lone raider that was either left to guard her or unlucky enough to walk by just now. They locked eyes and it froze like any other monster, a carton of some drink held up in mid-gulp. She shook her head to clear the senses, this wasn't some dungeon monster. This was a person, an idiot with soda running down his cheeks, and he needed to be stopped. Once she broke eye contact the raider turned and fled, heading for the Maintenance double doors that they had ambushed her from.

The raider and his goal were both on the far side of the hallway intersection, but Phanya sprang and closed the gap with surprising ease. She managed to reach the doors before they closed behind the raider, bowling through and skidding to a stop in a different hallway. Just spartan white tile and lots of doors, this must've been the hallway maze that Tapper talked about. The raider was frantically pawing his bracelet at one of the doors, and it clicked open just in time for Phanya to kick him straight through.

A raider entering a room by tumbling over his face and collapsing into a jumbled mess of limbs isn't subtle, and several shouts of alarm answered his unconscious groan. What Phanya could see through the doorway was all pink tile, wafts of burning candles, and steam; the combined ambiance of relaxation hit her like a wall when she stepped through. This must be divine intervention, after the week she's had Phanya could stay here forever... if it weren't for all the raiders.

Henchmen of all sorts gathered here, wearing bathing suits or fluffy robes, and were in the middle of enjoying either a small steaming pool off to the side or raised massage beds with several robot arms dangling overhead. They already knew something was wrong but their deep relaxation slowed their movements, so in their scramble to arm themselves with candelabras and decorative stones Phanya had time to plant her foot on the unconscious raider's backside and make a proper impression.

"Hey, assholes! Uh, Zero sucks!"

Whatever, if it works then it works. The nearest raider was already winding up to swing a heavy potted plant and Phanya back peddled into the hallway, not stopping to gently open the door directly across. She shouldered through the door and Phanya found herself back into the same hallway at a different vantage point, a trippy sensation that would've fumbled Phanya's momentum if Tapper hadn't warned her. But it did let her watch a raider run in, open the same door Phanya went through, and emerge at a totally different place in the same hallway. Just like Tapper described.

The raider's head whipped around as he searched, too focused on finding Phanya when she was focused on staying mobile. She dashed into the door across the hall, got her bearings, and did it again, bouncing around as she waited for her opening. Eventually she emerged directly behind the raider and Phanya fed her momentum into her padded elbow, slamming into a point just off-center of his upper spine.

He crumpled without making a single sound, yet Phanya felt strangely confident that the raider was just unconscious. She just innately knew where the weak joints and pressure points were on a person to hit them without risking lethal damage. And she also knew all the points to guarantee lethal damage, which she tried not to think about.

Several more people poured into the hallway, wielding tools of relaxation for the opposite purpose, and Phanya leapt through another door when they all pointed at her. The rhythm began again, a delicate balancing act of staying out of their reach and keeping her orientation straight. There was zero room for error if any of them caught her, but their interrupted pampering had left them sluggish and Phanya felt like she could run forever. Despite the desperate situation, the returning grin worked itself across Phanya's face as she danced.

She could do this.