Chapter 2 What A Damned World
Duke had no idea how he'd survived the last 14 days.
He had transmigrated to this body. His memory was dim, partly due to the man being dead. All he knew was that he was Duke Vega, a spy who tried to infiltrate the dungeon.
Why did he come? What did he want? Duke had no energy to sort out those lousy memories.
Because for 14 days he'd been flogged, caned and whipped...
It was a soft whip, Duke didn't know what it was made of. Every day a jailer would bring it to him with a bucket of saltwater, and whip him with it soaked in saltwater!
10 lashes per day.
There're no words for that kind of pain. The whip soaked in saltwater cut through his flesh and the pain increased as the saltwater seeped into the wounds.
"Where's your partner?" That's what the jailer would ask him every day before the whipping.
"Yeah, where's my partner? I don't fucking know that!"
The jailer evidently didn't buy it and whipped him even harder.
Duke really didn't know that.
If surrender would work, Duke would have done so a long time ago. He didn't know how much longer he could hold out. Fortunately, there was a bit of a silver lining.
From the first day here, he had a holo window floating in front of his eyes. That was an unnamed "system" embedded in his mind. Yet, he hadn't figured out its full functions.
No instructions, no tips.
The only function, other than getting the quests on the first day, was that he could connect to his social accounts on Earth and contact "players" as required by the quests.
Duke even suspected he was abducted by aliens or something and tried to contact his sister Olivia via Facebook, but he just got a load of bollocks back from her.
Olivia lashed out at the hacker for stealing her dead brother's account.
So, he was really dead back on earth!
Loss, despair, hate... He was overwhelmed by such feelings a week earlier. Duke couldn't tell what mood he was in anymore.
He looked outside the cell at the fading torches and silently counted the hours.
Starting a week ago, he had been counting the frequency of the jailer changing the torches. With that, he could predict when he would be tortured.
As he counted, faint voices began to sound in the silent corridor outside his cell, and the orange glow grew closer and closer.
Soon two jailers came, a middle-aged man with a shitty face, and a young man who jumped around like a grasshopper.
Duke called them Shit and Grasshopper!
Shit took the burnt-out torch from the wall and put it on the ground to smolder. Then he filled it with fresh cotton thread and oil. Grasshopper went up to Duke's cell and grinned, and shone his torch at him.
"Hey, big star, how are you feeling today? Guess what? Everybody at Redwood knows we've got a tough guy here. Fourteen days of whipping and you still haven't confessed.
Duke just looked him in the eyes.
His bright blue eyes reflected fire and glowed eerily orange, like the pupils of beasts lurking in the dark.
Grasshopper's heart skipped a beat. Somehow, he felt frightened, and then, ashamed of his reaction, and kicked at the door.
"What are you looking at? Tough guy, huh? We whipped you for fear of beating you to death. Tomorrow, you will know the taste of despair!"
"Enough."
After lighting the torch, Shit reached over to pull Grasshopper away who was still kicking the door and impatiently said, "I don't know where you get all that energy. It stinks in here. It's wet and cold. Do you fancy sleeping one night here?"
Grasshopper shut up and stared at Duke before following Shit out of the room.
Silence returned to the cell. Duke blinked, sorting through Grasshopper's inadvertent leaks.
"Tomorrow, my penalty will probably be upgraded. No wonder they kept me hanging all day and didn't bring me any food. I'm on a clock now!"
He was in constant pain and hungry, but he could endure it if only he could get out!
Duke called up the system interface again and immediately went to the inventory as he thought. There were a lot of empty spaces with only two occupied.
[Game Helmet] and [Player Resurrection Coins]
[Game Helmet: After connecting to this device and completing the binding process, players shall enter the world through this device. Binding cannot be removed, but the host can prohibit players from logging in with administrator rights. Note: Should be quietly sent to the player's real address.]
[Player Resurrection Coins: The body of the player in this world is shaped by the system. After the player dies, the host can consume the resurrection coin to resurrect the player in place without a rebirth waiting period. Note: The host cannot use this item. If the player's body is destroyed, it cannot be resurrected immediately. It takes 12 hours to be reshaped by the system.]
Duke read the introduction of the Resurrection Coins carefully. Although he was mentally prepared, the notes still disappointed him.
"Forget it." If you can't use it, you can't use it.
Relieving himself of his disappointment, Duke looked at the "Quests". New Quests had already been created.
[Main Quest: Prepare to Escape]
[Description: The crisis is still present, but a ray of hope on the horizon. Allocate your resources wisely and find ways to save yourself.]
[Requirement: Please send game helmets to players who have successfully made reservations]
[Progress: Send game helmets 0/6]
[Bonus: Escape map x1]
From the experience of his last mission, Duke had already figured out the basic logic for the system publishing a quest. For the time being, quests were arranged according to what he was going through.
Bonuses should be based around this principle as well, and would most likely be related to his next main quest.
Duke thought no more about it. He decided to wait till after he had escaped to think about the system.
He reopened "Inventory", selected [Game Helmet], and quietly said "Use".
The floating holographic window flashed in front of his eyes, popping up what looked like the background of a website. A row of 6 IDs and corresponding shipping addresses appeared.
Super Brennan
Alfred Loves Chicken
Lady Killer
Cool Ass
Carsick Car
Dragon's Toenail
These familiar and unfamiliar IDs were the ones who, for whatever reason, were willing to fill in their real shipping address in his last quest.
They were the only ones who could help him.
He ticked all six IDs and clicked ship.
Watching the 6-hour delivery countdown, Duke, tormented by the pain and hunger, closed his eyes. The torch was replaced just now for the last time tonight, and the rest of the night was peaceful but difficult for him.
Tomorrow would be another day of despair, or maybe hope.