For the Rewards (1)

Is surviving meant to be exciting?

Would excitement bring more worth to my life now?

*

"Ah, uh, Nathan. I think I need to go to the restroom. Tell Miss Anna that I suddenly had a stomach ache."

Liam slowly stood up from the bench and spoke to Nathan.

"I got you. Maybe your common sense will come back after taking a shit. Take care."

Nathan said again with a straight face.

'...Is he mocking me or is he just oblivious of the words he's saying?'

That he didn't know.

Liam sighed before bidding his short farewell as he walked away from the bench.

*****

While wandering around the school hallways, he noticed that the campus have become larger.

It was so vast that he had yet to even see a glimpse of another student.

'Or maybe they have manners and follow school rules.'

He chuckled at the thought. But it seemed possible.

Wouldn't it be good if all people lives in peace and unity since monsters existed?

'But the devil of a teacher is there to contradict that.'

"...About this school."

Liam recalled what Nathan have told him earlier.

"Cider, Scarlet, Amber, Azure. Classes are divided into 4 with each having 10 sections. And, if I'm guessing correctly, I'm a first-year here."

It did not seem like a high school anymore.

Before, he was still just a high school student but now it looked like he jumped and was now in a university. Though his age would fit in if he really did become a university student.

Eventually, Liam found the men's restroom.

He went straight inside the nearest cubicle and sat on the toilet lid.

"This thing is supposed to help me, huh," Liam muttered as he pulled out the phone from his pocket.

The text from before was still there.

— The Heaven's App will provide aid by sharing all the common sense and the basic information of the user's new world.

"So basically, this Heaven's App will be acting as my golden finger in this world."

'I would have considered this app useless, no, a curse since it's the reason I was transported here without any power-ups.'

Smirk.

"But I guess you're not that bad since you'll provide me information. You're at least one percent useful."

Ding!

As if the app wanted to reply to Liam, it made a new notification.

— After the user finishes understanding all the information given by the Heaven's App, the user will be given a [Random Gift Box]!

Liam's face brightened as he saw this message.

It was almost like the app was trying to change his impression of itself.

"Ah, how generous of you."

The term 'gift box' sounded straight out of a game but he was sure that it would be something advantageous in this world lived by dangerous monsters.

— Is the user prepared?

With a smile, Liam replied.

"Yes, I'm ready."

Seconds later, he started hearing the voice.

— The world where the host was transported is called Earth.

"I see. That's a very original name."

— 32 years ago was the time a meteor landed on one of what used to be 7 continents. The 'Great Cataclysm', as the people call it, was the event that caused every worst possible incident that was happening in the world even now.

"...What used to be? Then how many–"

— In the vicinity of the meteor that suddenly appeared out of thin air and struck the Earth, new elements and minerals stronger than diamonds and more efficient than any metals began to appear and spread like a disease throughout the entire planet.

— However, the price of having them was the existence of dangerous entities, simply known as, monsters.

"Ah, wait a second, proceed slower."

Liam couldn't even listen to the voice anymore.

Another message appeared on top of the other before he could even finish reading the other one, and as he complained another one appeared.

— The monsters first appeared in caves and unpopulated areas, but they soon began to spread out in urban cities, using mediums like 'Monster Caves' and 'Dungeons'. After the month-long massacre of over a billion people, despair started fading from humans when two windows appeared before their eyes. The first window was to show their objective while the other one was to show their stats and such.

— Humanity began to fight back since then.

"Wait, hold on, this is too much at once!"

The voice spoke so fast, that it started overlapping with the new messages.

"This is a bad feature!"

— Inside what people call the 'system', are their level, stats, and skills. From when you gain the system (at 14 years old) the system would choose whether a person is bound to be a 'Worker' or a 'Hunter'. The Hunters are the ones whose objective was to ensure the safety of innocent humans and eradicate the monsters that come from the 'Monster Lairs'. The Workers, although given a specific name and purpose, are still ordinary people. However, just like the Hunters, they have imparted a system so they can easily adapt to the new environment they were going to live through from then on. Their purpose is to live an ordinary life and do day-to-day labor, while not worrying about the dangers of the monsters since there are those who will protect them.

"...Uhm."

— 10 years after the Great Cataclysm, Fissures, a monster lair that gives prestigious rewards after clearance, began to appear at the same time people with extraordinary powers, called Special Skills, appeared. The Fissures appeared one or two times every week and the so-called 'Exemplars', the heroes among heroes, are known to only emerge once every 3 to 5 years in each country.

— Monster Lairs are spaces where monsters appear or reside. Monster Caves, Fissures, Fields, and Dungeons are all examples of Monster Lairs. In the present time, some of them are called Hunting Grounds since many hunters occasionally go there to increase their stats and gain levels.

— Monsters leave elements with a spherical body called 'Power Cores' when they are killed, and by absorbing these cores, hunters will gain a slight permanent increase in one of their stats.

"..."

— Regarding the stats, a person starts at being level 1 and has an average of around 50 points for each of their stats. If the hunter's Hunter Level or their Age goes up by 1, each stat would also increase by one. A person's initial stats vary depending on their aptitude or talent.

— Temples can increase your Hunter Level and can upgrade certain skills.

— Going back today, there are also changes in the normal way people lived. Normal schools give students the necessary skills for their major while Hunter schools impart students a total of 6 skills including Sprint, Resist, Blunt Weapons Mastery, Hard Strike, Mana Sense, and a Mastery Skill of a weapon they choose such as Basic Sword Mastery.

— These are all the common sense and basic information that one should know in this world.

"Is... Is it over now?"

Liam asked seeing his phone which calmed down from being filled with loads of texts one after another.

"No patience at all."

He decided to read it again from the start.

And eventually, he finished reading.

"Jeez, all of this is too much for me to swallow."

It was easy to understand but it was hard to accept it as a common fact.

"Phew. Okay, I'll gather my thoughts and understandings of this somehow... or maybe later?"

As he was about to remember something, his phone rang with a new notification.

Ding!

— Although the user has yet to have the necessary intellect and motivation to completely grasp the given information of this new world–

'Did this damned app just tell me that I'm dumb and lazy?'

— The Heaven's App will still give the user the [Random Gift Box] he needs.

— Will the user accept the [Random Gift Box]?

Without having a second thought, Liam decided to accept it.

"I accept."

A smile crept on his face as he spoke.

— Opening the [Random Gift Box]...

— The [Otherworldly Basic Necessities User-Friendly Starter Pack Extra] was given to the user.

— New app content was loaded.

— [Inventory]

— The [Otherworldly Basic Necessities User-Friendly Starter Pack Extra] was placed in the Heaven's App's [Inventory.]

Notifications started pouring in. Groups of text went atop of each other one after another and the voice started overlapping.

— The [Inventory] was automatically opened.

With how the app was going by itself, it was almost like it was doing things for Liam.

"...Which is somehow good and I'm not complaining at all."

— The [Otherworldly Basic Necessities User-Friendly Starter Pack Extra] was opened.

— Each stat of the user was increased by 10 points!

— The proficiency of each of the user's skills was increased by 15%!

— The user gained 1 random skill for each skill type (excluding the Special Type.)

— The user gained 500 coins which can be used to buy things from the [Store].

The notifications finally stopped.

"Ooh... Isn't this amazing?"

Since there were 5 stats, he earned a total of 50 stat points! He even gained 3 skills in one go.

If this wasn't nice, what was?!

'Won't the app give me more rewards if I praise it? Huhu...'

He was about to let out the many different flatteries in his mind but decided to do so later since his butt started to get stiff from sitting in the toilet lid for so long.

"Ow. I can't believe I'm still weak in this world... Hm?"

As soon as he left the cubicle, Liam saw his own body when his eyes landed on the restroom's wide mirror. His appearance didn't look any different from himself in his original world.

He was wearing a neat dark-blue uniform above a white shirt.

A different type of clothing than what the students normally wore in his original world. Though he was covered with decent-looking clothes, he still looked pretty damn average.

Black hair, fair skin, and normal physique.

The only thing worth looking at in him was his deep sky-blue eyes.

Or at least, that's what he thought.

"Wait, hold on. T-The disgusting thing in my face is gone! Wow. This feels weird."

Liam caressed his left cheek. The scar he had for a long time could not be seen on his face.

His mind began to wander around his past.

"Ah, no."

He quickly shook his head at the thought of having to remember the cause of his scar.

"Now that I think of it, I actually look kinda good without the scars, huh. Haha, good job, Liam Keene of this world. You avoided getting beaten up."

Liam laughed as he complimented himself... or his other self. Or past self of him?

"Wait a minute. I seemed to have lived a different life in this world. Does that mean trash doesn't exist in here? Wow. I guess the unity and peace I was thinking of earlier isn't too far-fetched. Mhm mhm, indeed, that may be it."

He nodded at himself for thinking so "smartly," when the door suddenly opened with a loud bang.

"Ah, damn. Why can't you just give us a little bit of your cash so that we can let this go already, you dumbass!"

"B-But I told you, I don't have money today! I swear!"

Liam turned around to look at the sudden commotion.

Three students came inside the bathroom. Two standing upright and one whose butt was on the floor.

The one pushed to the ground had bruises on his face.

It was an obvious act of bullying.

"Huh, I guess trash still exists in this world?"

One of the two students seemed to have noticed Liam and his mumbling as he stared right at him intimidatingly.

"What? Did you say something?" The bully gave a pestering look to Liam.

Hearing the bully, Liam did not reply and simply turned away.

"Hah. That's what I thought."

Liam's face showed no expression.

He had experienced a similar situation a long time ago, but instead of being the witness, he was the victim.

'Even in the world resided by monsters, there are still people like this?'

He couldn't understand what these kinds of people were thinking. If he could, he would've liked to crush them by himself, but...

'...This is an entirely different world. I wouldn't want to be involved just to get myself in danger.'

Ding!

Liam was a bit surprised when the phone rang at the worst time.

'What now...'

He hesitantly looked at the new notification.

— A [Forced Quest] was made.

[Forced Quest]

Objective: Subdue the two bullies.

Reward(s): 150 coins, 1 point increase for each stat, 5% proficiency increase for each skill

Penalty: -Unavailable on forced quests-

— Accept / Deny

Click.

Liam put his phone in his pocket, turned around, looked at the bullies with a sharp gaze, and pointed his finger at them.

"You assholes annoy me so much!"