Chapter 7. Second day

Afterward, he checked the whole building, making sure there was nothing out of the ordinary. He couldn't let down his guard despite the radar not showing any nearby hostiles. After making sure he was at least relatively safe, he rearranged a couple of sofas on the second floor to form a makeshift bed. With a curtain as a blanket, he laid down to rest.

He was tired, but couldn't close his eyes for a long while. His brain wouldn't rest. He couldn't dispel the worry that something might happen while he was asleep and he couldn't stop wondering about the changes to his world.

Now that he had stopped running around, he could think about the events of the day. It was unbelievable how everything had changed so fast. Today he was expecting to enjoy a new game that had been hyped by every part of the gaming industry. Well, in a way, he was indeed playing it now, but he wouldn't say that he was enjoying it. Not with the fear of death hanging over him. Will dying in this world be real death? Temporary? Or maybe it was even the ticket back to the real world? There was no sure way to find out other than dying, but he was not brave enough to use that method.

'Let's treat it as a real thing and just try to get stronger in order to survive,' he once again decided.

On his radar he saw several red dots appearing and disappearing on the streets outside, but none came near his place. After a good long while, he finally managed to force himself to close his eyes and sleep.

*

When he woke up, it was still dark. He looked around and, for a moment, was at a loss to know where he was. His disorientation had only lasted a moment when seeing the screen on his monocle reminded him of everything that had happened yesterday. There were several red dots on his radar.

"And here I was hoping that all of this was a dream," he mumbled to himself.

He stretched out and studied the radar again; the red dots were moving around but didn't seem to be aware of his presence.

'Oh? My health is full!' he thought when he saw the HP bar on the screen. Yesterday before he slept he still had some health missing. The one loaf of bread he had eaten had not fully filled up his HP bar. So sleeping could recover health? He took note of this point so he could reduce the number of consumables he used. After all, they were a limited resource.

'What time is it? Must be early, it's still dark outside." He fished out his phone from the storage bag:

04.20 AM.

His phone's clock was still working despite being a junk item, which was reassuring. At least he didn't need to throw away his phone.  Junk items, he was now sure, were not necessarily useless; just not part of the game system.

It was way earlier in the morning than he usually awoke, but it made sense as he had gone to bed very early the night before. It was also good to have an early start; he would have a long walk to reach the outskirts of town.

He took out a loaf of bread to have as breakfast, but stopped himself. It was a waste to eat this normal consumable bread when his HP was full. He put it back again. He would just go looking for another bakery or marketplace to get some consumable junk to satisfy his hunger.

He did some exercises to loosen his body. He was taught martial arts by his grandfather when he was young, but he was no expert.  He was just keeping up with it as a hobby. This hobby proved to be very helpful when he played VR games. He knew that the top VR gamers were mostly highly-skilled martial experts. Almost every game workshop employed martial arts instructors to develop their players. Jack had considered joining these workshops once but he decided against it. There were too many requirements and restrictions: he played games for fun.

Finished with his exercise, he stored all his clothes, armor, and weapons inside his virtual storage bag and took a bath in the surprisingly complete bathroom. The second floor must have been living quarters in the past.  Thankfully, the water supply system was still working.  Was this a game mechanic or a left over function of the real world?  With no way of knowing, Jack got on with his preparations for the day.

He finished his bath and dried off with a junk towel he found in a closet. He re-equipped all his equipment and threw the towel inside his storage bag, not knowing when he might find another one. He'd need a towel next time he managed to clean up, so he thought he might just as well keep it. After all, he had an extra-large bag that had a lot of space, so he could afford to put all these junk items inside.

He looked at the radar. There were three red dots around. One was nearby his position while the other two were grouped together further to the north where he was planning to go.

'Let's take out this solo straggler,' he thought, 'and maybe the other two after that. Extra experience is always good.' He opened the rolling door and unsheathed his weapons.

He proceeded to kill off the three zombies as planned, then continued grinding away at monsters while making his way north. In addition to the normal level 1 Zombies, he met another two level 2 Skeleton Thugs on the way. He took them out as well; one of them dropped 1 copper coin, which increased the total of his coin collection to 3. He didn't know whether he should be happy about it or not, since he had no idea if they were valuable and there was no merchant to trade these coins with anyway.

He was pleased to find a supermarket after he had walked a few kilometers. He found one additional Energy drink and three loaves of normal consumable bread and three snacks that were described as junk food.  Unlike yesterday's junk consumable bread, the junk food snacks had game effects.  They recovered 3 HP every second for 10 seconds, which made the total recovered points the same as normal consumable bread, only the recovery took a longer time.

He ate one of the loaves of bread to recover the HP he had lost along the way and to satisfy his hunger, then put the rest of the consumables into his storage bag.

He spent the entire morning and afternoon killing monsters and walking northward. He made it to level 3 for his Fighter class, while his Magician was 89% of the way to level 2. He got the usual free attribute and skill point for reaching level 3, which he kept for later use, but didn't get a new skill.

Although he didn't feel physically tired, as his stamina bar refilled after a short rest, he still felt mentally fatigued from the long walk and constant battles.  In previous VR games, he could spend an entire day and night grinding, but that was him using his digitalized persona in the VR world, while his real body was immobile in the real world.

Now with his real body in this game world, he felt the need for a long rest after a whole day of journeying. It was also getting dark and he would have some difficulty fighting monsters without sufficient lighting.  Jack decided it was time to look for a safe place to spend the night.

As he was searching for an area with a low monster population, he noticed a two-story house which had its lights on. All of the buildings he had passed so far had their lights off despite still having power, so this house really stood out. He approached the house carefully and observed it with his radar. There were a few red dots in the surrounding area and a blue dot where the house was.

'What's a blue dot? That's a new one,' he wondered.

He stopped in front of a window and monitored the inside of the house discreetly. The window was boarded up from the inside and its glass was blurry. He peeked through the glass where there were gaps between the boards.  There was movement inside and he saw what he thought was probably a human shape.

Could it be another person? Red dots represented the monsters that attacked on sight. Blue or green should represent friendlies, right? At least, that's how it worked in classic games. After considering for a bit, he decided to take the risk. He went up to the door and knocked on it.