Item EXP: 1089
Equipment EXP: 382
Skill EXP: 1057
Trait EXP: 1454
Waifu EXP: 1214
World EXP: 2472
DYNAMIC ATTRIBUTES
Hit Points: 59/100
Energy: 0/100
STATUS ATTRIBUTES
Strength: 10
+Endurance: 10
Agility: 10
Mind: 10
Spirit: 10
Luck: 10
TRAITS
Cool Under Pressure
SKILLS
Itemization [0]
Identification
Edged Weapon Mastery [0][Ready]
It was certainly a solid boost. Every point total had increased by a few hundred points, with his world exp increasing by over a thousand. He had taken a beating, however. His body was crisscrossed with minor lacerations and bruises. His clothing was also a bloody tattered mess.
Next to his endurance attribute was a plus sign, which indicated that it would receive bonus exp from combat victories. Sadly, it was not retroactive. He would receive nothing extra for the earlier battle.
Interestingly, there was a new tag next to Edged Weapon Mastery. Scott clicked on it and a new menu appeared.
Skill Update Ready
Your diligence has been rewarded. You may now upgrade your Edged Weapon Mastery skill.
- You now have [5] development points. Please use them wisely.
“Oh, that’s pretty cool!” exclaimed Scott as he absent-mindedly followed the group. They were heading into the store to get supplies.
“What happened?” asked Otakun. He sidled up to Scott and tried to see what he was looking at.
“All this fighting caused me to increase my edged weapon mastery. I thought it would take a lot longer,” said Scott in a more cheerful tone.
“Oh. That does sound cool,” agreed Otakun. “What does that do for you, though?”
Scott tilted his head sideways a little and tapped at the message screen. “I was given development points for the skill. Still not sure what that does yet, but I’m going to find out.”
Edged Weapon Mastery
The ability to slash, pierce, and cleave with efficiency and skill when you have equipped an edged melee weapon. This skill grants you the basic knowledge needed to fight proficiently with any edged weapon. Prolonged and frequent use of this skill will develop your understanding of edged weapons and how to use them effectively in a fight.
Level 1/20: 0/100
Training Acceleration: 0.00
Developmental Boost Cost: 4
[New]Development Points: 5
Damage: x3
Slash: 0
Cleave: 0
Pierce: 0
Damage Reduction: x3
Slash: 0
Cleave: 0
Pierce: 0
A new bit of information had appeared in his skill menu. He tapped the development point section and the information below it lit up. Rather, damage and damage reduction did not light up. Their associated sub-abilities did.
Scott touched slash, under the damage section, and it increased to one. “Ah. I see…”
“What? What do you see?” asked Otakun. He did his best to see what Scott was looking at.
“Hey, masochist and tubby! We’re burning daylight, here!” exclaimed Momoko in her customary biting manner.
“Right,” said Scott. The points weren’t spent permanently until he confirmed them, so he undid his selection and went into the store.
Once inside, they quickly began searching for useful items. The appearance of the massive zombie from earlier had rattled everyone. The undead were bad enough, but super zombies were just a death sentence for the world.
Scott touched the cash register, and several other things but no prompt appeared to him which would allow him to turn the place into a store. Eventually, he simply put his hand on the store counter and asked the empty air how he could make this place into a system shop.
Shop Conversion Menu
This location can be converted into a basic system general store [Level 1] for the cost of [3500] world exp.
Do you wish to proceed with the conversion?
Yes | No
“Well, that sucks,” said Scott cheerfully.
“What sucks?” asked Tosh.
“This place costs more to turn into a store than I have to spend, so that won’t be happening,” said Scott. “We can still buy plenty of fuel though.”
“That’s something, I guess,” said Tosh.
While everyone hunted around for tasty snacks, or useful tools, Scott went to the energy drink section. He had a theory. Things tended to get super charged when the system was brought into play. Would an energy drink converted into the system regenerate his energy points? He really wanted to itemize the big bastard outside. Who knew what he could get out of the deal!
He picked up one of the energy drinks and eyed it briefly. After a moment of concentration, the window appeared which would let him convert the object.
“Only one item exp to change it?” Scott shrugged and converted it into a system item. He changed the item name to Energy Drink, then checked what it offered.
Energy Drink
A common beverage loaded with energetic and refreshing taste.
- Restores 1 Hit point
- Restores 2 Energy Points
Uses: 1 serving
“Ah, so all I have to do is drink ten of these and it’d be the same as one Mella Fella?” Scott chuckled then put the drink into his bag. It was certainly cheaper than purchasing the drinks that had actual potency, but the boosts were miniscule. He couldn’t drink ten of those things at once.
He tried to convert a few other food items. Most of the eligible items required only one point of item exp to convert, but nearly all of them provided no benefit beyond miniscule health restoration.
It wasn’t until he meandered into the over-the-counter medication section that he saw a sharp increase in costs. “Whoa, now this is more like it…”
He spent seventy points to convert a bottle of acetaminophen into an item he chose to call ‘Pain Killers’.
Pain Killers
Relieve stress and pain with glorious pharmaceutical might.
- Restores 30 Hit Points
- Restores 5 Energy Points
Uses: 1
“Uses… One?” How the hell did that work?
A loud crashing sound caught his attention. He looked over to see that Otakun had stumbled into a stack of convenience store toys. Little action figures were scattered all over the place, and he held a sheepish expression.
“Honestly,” groused Momoko. She turned away from Otakun with a huff, then went back to looking over the candy bar aisle.
Scott chuckled to himself then opened the lid on the pain killers he had just purchased. The bottle felt extremely light and made a rattling sound then a single pill spilled out into his hand. He looked at it for a moment, then made a new quick save. He was not the brightest guy around, but he was also not stupid enough to eat medication he had just magicked into existence without a bit of a backup plan.
He popped the pill into his mouth and swallowed it down. Less than a second later, a soft green light began to shine from the center of his being. His bruises and cuts began to heal at an incredible rate. In the matter of a few seconds he had gone from half dead to slightly dinged up.
“Now that’s not bad…” muttered Scott.
The store was well lit, so most of the group had not noticed him as they were still looking at Otakun. Summer, however, gasped softly and trotted over to him. She had seen one of the lacerations on his face seemingly disappear along with the blood that had trickled down his cheek.
“What did you do?” she asked quietly.
Scott pointed at the medication aisle. “Can’t turn this place into a store, but I can spend points to convert individual items. Not as good as a store purchase, it seems, but they work.”
“
Will that stuff work for someone other than you?” she asked him curiously.
“I believe so. It turns the whole bottle into one pill, for seventy points.
He converted two more pain kills for the future, though as it turned out the cost changed each time. One bottle was sixty-six points. The other was seventy-two points. Noticing the difference, he checked each of the five bottles that remained and realized that once the system labeled a cost, the cost remained the same for that specific item. If pressed, he would need to buy them all, but if he had the time, he could bargain shop when items were available in bulk.
The stuff he purchased through the system before was all extremely low cost. So, that variability wasn’t in effect. Something would cost at least one point no matter what it was that he wanted to convert.
“That’s expensive for you. Isn’t it?” she asked him.
“Item points are the easiest to get, but I need energy to get them. I’m constantly exhausted,” said Scott.
Summer nodded her head thoughtfully, then spied something on the bottom shelf. She dropped to her knees then leaned in against him, her breasts pressing against his calf in the process. It was a bit of blessed heaven to Scott in a day filled with nothing but hell.
She turned to look up at him, prize in hand. Scott looked down at her and nearly blushed. She was looking up at him with wide expressive eyes seemingly filled with innocence. Those damned eyes practically sparkled. Of course, he could also see right down her shirt top and for the life of him he didn’t think that was by accident.
She smiled at him and waved her prize around. “Hello?”
“Oh!” he said excitedly, then tried to hide his embarrassment behind an attempt at a laugh. He looked at what she had in her hand, then grinned. That could be extremely useful!
Summer held aloft the little emergency medical kit that she discovered. While she did have her own bag of supplies, it was always nice to have more.
Scott grinned at her and took the medical kit in hand. Not long after, he released a slow whistle. “Now this is something great.”
“What does it say?” asked Summer. She tilted her head to the side while gazing up at him with a curious expression. She had forgotten that she was kneeling down in front of him.
“It’ll cost me four hundred item points, to find out. So, it should be good.” Scott was still in discovery mode, as far as he was concerned. Instead of hoarding points for some nebulous potential purchase, he found that currently it was best to spend them like normal money. Buy what he needed. Test the waters. It was an expensive purchase for him, but once made he gave the item the name ‘Med kit’.
Med Kit
A personal health and wellness item capable of healing wounds, restoring health, and treating various status afflictions. The efficacy of the treatment will be based on a percentage of the Mind attribute.
The amount of hit points restored is a static number unrelated to the Mind attribute.
Attribute: Mind
- Treat Bleeding Status [160]
- Treat Burned Status [124]
- Treat Diseased Status [137]
- Restore Hit Points | [280]
“Seems like it can help to restore hit points, and treat certain status afflictions,” said Scott. “Whoever has the highest Mind stat should probably use it, though.”
“How high are my stats?” asked Summer curiously.
Scott looked at her for a moment then shook his head. “Sorry. I can’t see that sort of thing, still. Maybe if you were my waifu, or I have more practice with that skill…”
“Your waifu, huh?” Summer’s cheeks reddened slightly and she brushed a bit of hair away from her face.
She started to say something else, but Saiko wandered over right before she could speak. She made her presence known then glanced down at Summer and back up at Scott. “Am I interrupting?”
“Feel free to join in if you are,” said Scott lightly. “Won’t hurt my feelings.”
She blew out an amused snort then shook her head. “You’re in good spirits for a guy who died over half a dozen times today.”
“More like a dozen if you include all the dying I did early on,” he replied. “I’m surprised none of you did throughout it all. Though, I suppose you are all higher level than me.”
“We are?” asked Saiko curiously.
“Really? You said that you couldn’t see our status, though?” asked Summer.
“I can see some things, like whether you’re generally warm or cold toward me. I can also see your name and level,” said Scott. “I think I mentioned it earlier, but your level is a combination of your attribute scores. So, it’s really more for reference than something to be relied on.”
“Is that so?” asked Summer.
Saiko leaned in and asked quietly enough that only the three of them might hear, “Who has the highest level?”
“You do…” Scott could have sworn that he told her that before, but then he had no idea what was and wasn’t true about the past. Dying repeatedly didn’t help that issue at all.
When pressed, he told them their levels. Summer puffed out her and cheeks then pouted a bit. “Why is mine so low?”
He shrugged then threw his hands out to the side. “It’s nearly double mine.”
“Wow…” replied Summer.
“Yeah… So, it’s no wonder I die frequently. Living in this world seems to have made you all stronger than average people from where I originally came from,” said Scott. “I mean, my stats were normalized so maybe you’re all just above average? It would explain why most folks didn’t make it out of the school. They were probably like me.”
Saiko lightly gripped her chin between her index finger and thumb then made a slightly curious and thoughtful noise. “Hmm.”
Before Scott could ask her for her thoughts, the sounds of an argument erupted across the store. It was Jade and Tosh.
“Well, excuse me for not being a bullshit anime protagonist!” shouted Tosh.
“Don’t hand me that!” exclaimed Jade. “You could have done something!”
“We’re back to it being my fault that Sushi died?” Tosh threw down the bag of chips in his hand then he pointed menacingly at Jade. “We’re not all like that guy over there. We don’t get to have fucking do-overs.”
Jade suddenly froze up. Her eyes took on a hollow expression, as though she stared at something far away. “W-what did you say?”
“You heard me!” growled Tosh.
Momoko threw her hands up then sighed in exasperation. “Oh my god!”
Jade ignored her, but instead suddenly turned toward Scott. Her face flush, she raised her hand and started to speak.
“No,” said Scott. “Don’t ask me to do that…”
“You…” began Jade. Suddenly, she hopped forward and cut her hand through the air sideways dramatically. “You can save him! You can save all of them!”
Scott sighed loudly. It was happening, a thing he had dreaded. One of the reasons he had been against telling them anything initially was because this moment would inevitably come to pass. “If I go back to the beginning, everything I’ve accomplished so far gets erased, and I start over at a point where I’m barely able to survive.”
“You can, though!” Jade ran toward him tears in her eyes. “Please! At least Sushi. Please!”
Scott looked into those tear-stained eyes. “How many times will I get torn apart trying? How many times will someone else die? This entire conversation won’t have happened…”
Jade glared hotly at him. “Oh… I see how it is…”
“Do you?” he asked her quietly. “Do you really?”
“Yeah. I do…” Jade pushed him back but stared up into his eyes. “Fine… I know what you want.”
“Don’t offer something you’re not willing to give,” he said softly.
“It doesn’t matter… I just can’t stand him being dead like that!” cried Jade. “I’m not happy he’s gone! Ok! I’m not! I loved him…”
&nbs
p; She hugged herself and began to tremble, but Scott refused to reach out to her in that moment. It could just be an act for all he knew. She was asking him far too much.
“Sushi…” she said with a soft little sob. Slowly, she looked up into his eyes once more. “I’ll do anything…”
“Jade! What are you saying?” asked Tosh angrily. He stormed over to get involved in the conversation, but he was far too late to intervene.
Scott reached out and placed his hands onto Jade’s shoulders. “I can’t turn back the clock as easily as you think, and can’t see myself being able to accomplish what you’re asking… but…”
“But…?” she asked, a hint of hope creeping into her voice.
“Given how my life is going, there may come a day when I can give you what you’re asking for in a different way,” he said. “I’m not god, Jade. I can’t even resurrect myself yet. Something else does that for me.”
“What do you mean a different way?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know what paths my road will take me down. I will eventually leave this world, though apparently I’ll be able to return.” Scott squeezed her shoulders gently. “There might not be a way to bring him back in this world right now, but who knows what I’ll find out there.”
Power Fantasy Page 13
