Chapter 5 - The Morning After

A new dawn, a new day. Waking up was a blessing and a curse. Being able to confirm that I had truly lived the 31st of August was a blessing but to know that The System was still here was a curse. 

Sleeping upon a beanbag is not something I wanted to do every night, my neck ached so much. The day before had been so weird that I essentially was just going from scenario to scenario and with-it taking place after work I had something to do with my day. Today, however, I had to wait until 1. Not that I disliked not having anything to do but that first hour where I was the only one awake was sobering. 

I looked out of high window and just watched London. It was crap, it always had been. To me it was the biggest representation of Britain's attempt to become a giant in business by cramming as much as they could into a small area without considering design elements, travel, or beauty. No matter how much I disliked London it was terrible to see that within one-night riots had caused multiple buildings to smoulder. The sky was dark, not that it needed to rain but the usual greyness of England took on the additional smoke form the arson. Whilst watching I was also trying to convince myself to do the same as whilst I appreciated the gym clothes I had received, I wanted a change of clothes and given that no shops would be open I'd have to take some at some point. 

After about an hour of just staring out at my prison I pulled out my phone to check the news. Though most would have thought that the news would have stopped producing after these events it may surprise those that think that how many people still worked as journalists not because of their jobs but due to their nature. American journalists still worked round the clock because the mega corporations assured them, they were safe and cracked the whip. 

It wasn't all that surprising to see the casualty rates round the world; those with high population density or overconfidence in the average citizen were victims with a higher casualty rate: China, India, Brazil, United States, and Nigeria had the highest proportion of deaths per 1,000 from that first trial. 

I obviously felt bad for what had happened to them, the loss of life is something horrific and on such a mass scale, with some deity-like figure forcing them to die. It was this line of thinking that made me think about those religions that had a single god, how did they feel about our myths, many of which contain a multitude of gods. Were we making these myths real by believing them? Had The System hijacked our beliefs for easy enemies or powers that be? Or had these gods existed before and what we thought were made up legends passed down to us through text and song based on real stories, well more than they had? It was a nice little loop I lost myself in with a for bit. It kept me sane, but it also begged the question if I was the only questioning our new overlords how had decided to test us or if the rest had been forced to accept The System like we had been told before. Which reminded me of what we had been told and I thought it strange, so I tested it out. 

"Kor" I said aloud. 

There was a crack of lightning in front of me as the being that I had witnessed on the monitor conjured by The System was now forming before me. That corgi in a suit appeared, he had electricity coursing through his fur and shooting off for a few moments after being summoned, but he was real, he was here. "Hello player Jin Han, how may I help you?" He was cordial, polite in fact. He carried himself in a regal manner, but his voice sounded like that of a news broadcaster. I stared at him for a moment which caused a classic dog behaviour, when curious, he tilted his head in confusion waiting for me to ask him for something. 

"Erm, sorry. I just thought that it would work to summon you. I wanted to try it out, sorry for that." 

"Do you have any requests or questions, or may I be dismissed?" The annoyance in his voice was barely masked by the formal speech and manner. 

"Actually, I do have one question; why is everyone so chill about The System?" 

"I assume you are asking about the reason people have very quickly come to accept the new status quo? Well, that's part of The Architect's design for The System, as to not cause panic from the implementation of it within the initial quests there is a safety feature built into The System that allows the user to more readily accept it and its benefits so they can focus on the quests at hand instead of panicking. An issue which was discovered quite early on and has since been patched out." The sentence made a lot of sense and allowed me to accept what was going on around me, which certainly was helped by that safety featured I was just told about, no way I would have accepted that explanation so easily on my own even if I was as familiar with games as I was hearing the same jargon that I read on patch notes used to describe as situation I am currently trying to survive in is insane, was insane, should be insane, but is fine. 

"Thank you Kor. How do I dismiss you?"

"Simply say, you are dismissed." 

"You are dismissed." And as quickly as he appeared he disappeared in a flash, lightning learning electricity where he was. It was surreal. He was gone. I had my answers and yet no one had woken up. But lightning came with thunder, and it definitely made a sound. Was I the crazy one here? Surely not. 

It took another thirty minutes before people started to come around but once Matt, the biggest and loudest lug I'd ever met, got up he managed to accidentally wake everyone else up. It had gone 10 when they all got up and were groggy. Unluckily for them I had a mission for us to do, though I hadn't discussed it with them it made the most sense as we all had 1 p.m. on our minds. I got myself into the middle of the room to make the announcement, still in my very revealing gym outfit that showed off my many days doing squats; "Okay everyone, before 1 O'clock I wanna go out and get us some supplies from the shops to last, we'll need some lunch stuff and toothbrushes because I don't want us to be speaking with garbage breath. So, I'd appreciate one or two people coming with me and anyone who wants to stay please make orders for lunch and we'll get as close to that as possible. Also, I wanna raid clothes if we can." 

"Jin, are you going to steal?" Becca asked, stern as ever. 

"Yeah, why?" I looked at her confused. 

"Good but be careful and don't hurt anyone."

I could have sworn I was about to get a lesson in morality, but it turns out she was just worried. 

Matt and Chloe signed up to help me out, which was good because even though me and Matt had previously been in relationships our ability to help the girls with clothes was slim to none; we weren't necessarily unaware of women's sizes it was more the fact that we hadn't bought any in a decent while so it was good to have someone who got it. 

We had a few plastic carrier bags in the office which should have sufficed for food and utility items but in terms of extras we had to make do with the work bags lying around. We empty all our stuff onto tables just to make sure we had space in the bags but also weren't doubling up on things people had. In an effort to tackle what I had said about bad breath we all shared a tub of chewing gum between us to combat its effects. But with that the three of us got in the lift and headed to the streets below. 

The streets of London were a mess, they reminded me of the worst parts of England and the English: Scunthorpe, Slough, Reading, and Milton Keynes. The shops around us had yet to be touched to much but most every window on the streets beyond us had been smashed in. Everything from expensive brands to your high street hallmarks down to family run corner shops. It was disgraceful, I thought to myself as I walked into a supermarket chain with the intent of stealing. 

We only took what we needed, and wanted, a lot of tinned food and a lot of frozen meals. Fresh was great but I had no idea how long we were going to be in this situation so having things that could keep was at the front of my mind. We didn't speak much throughout the situation, and all grabbed what we could. Me and Matt were on food, whilst Chloe was on toiletries and other essentials. We kept our ears peeled for anyone or anything that crossed by our store, just in case we needed to defend ourselves. We were lucky that a majority of people were in the centre of the city causing havoc with the riots and looting. 

On our way back to our building, we managed to find a clothing store that did both sexes. Whilst there were a host of summer clothes on the ground floor for women the men's clothes were barely a section, shoved with the kids and the reduced upstairs. I helped Chloe load up the ladies' clothes into our bags whilst Matt remained at the front of the store looking out for us. We still had not seen anyone but that did not mean we were alone. Eventually after what felt like an age of deciding what clothes to get, we switched out, so Chloe guarded the entrance whilst me and Matt went upstairs to get the three of us lads clothes. By clothes I obviously meant three pairs of jeans and then whatever t-shirts were in our size. We were so preoccupied with getting in and getting out we completely forgot about underwear and socks until we got to the bottom of the stairs and Chloe reminded us with a disapproving tsk. 

We returned our goods to our group who were waiting patiently and bored. We all quickly changed, and I was so glad to just be in clothes that felt like my own again. My jeans were loose, whilst they were practical as lower body wear, I knew I needed freedom to use my legs if need be and that shop had no tracksuit or looser fits. They rolled up at the ankle which meant that my boots were swallowed by the big cuffs. I had a black muscle fit t-shirt on that was able to stretch with my flexibility which was a great benefit to me. From there we quickly all ate as it was approaching time for our next quest. 

We all twiddled our thumbs and got in a few laughs as the clock slowly dragged from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.. We watched the final few seconds together, waiting for that pop-up that we had all come to dread. 

Main Quest 2 

Objective 1: Form or join a clan 

Objective 2: Your clan must claim a base. 

Objective 3 will be revealed after 15 minutes have passed. 

*Failure to join a clan will result in solo participation in Objective 3 and reduced rewards. 

It seemed simple enough, if the ability to start a clan had been communicated to use prior to this very moment, which of course it hadn't. Yet we kinda knew how to do it, I hated this system. But before we could begin another pop-up came in: 

The Administrators have deemed guns that have been acquired outside of The System too powerful and thus guns can no longer be used in scenarios. They will have 100% failure rate, unless made by The System. 

Which was essentially just nerfing the US and the military in most countries. I was surprised by it, but the clock was ticking. I'm sure we'd have something to do with it later and could discuss it then.