“Y-you promise?” she asked with an overly dramatic and tearful hiccup.
She was a bit manipulative and spiteful in the anime, but to be honest she had good reason. The guy who stood by her in her worst year of life had died and the only one she had to rely on was a selfish dick who made her trouble be all about him and what he wanted.
Originally, the apocalypse had begun to rekindle some of those old feelings, but it was obvious that she just wanted to survive. She cared about the guy, but if given the chance she would rather have chosen Hisashi, even with him being called sushi on this world
There was a brief instance where the name, Sushi, rolled around inside his head. Why was the guy named Sushi? Was it racism? Was it a stupid gag? Did he have a real name and that was a nickname?
The only thing that Scott could come up with in that moment was that the poor guy was basically just a dead fish who was never allowed to see the world outside of his aquarium. His entire story arc had been to be a brief romantic obstacle then die for the sake of Takashi getting his girl back, despite not really having earned the right to call her that given how he had acted before.
Sushi had been cuckolded in front of the entire class, followed his girlfriend and the supposed best friend who performed the cucking, and ultimately had to die for the sake of drama and apocalyptic romance.
In that moment, Scott sighed and drew her in for a hug. He had not wanted to try to get Jade to be part of his waifu crew because of what he assumed was her devotion to Tosh. Yet, here she was crying into his manly blood and gore encrusted chest while the man who claimed to love her looked on and trembled in barely restrained anger.
That moment would be frozen forever in time… the image of a former protagonist, Lord Slap-a-Ho cucked by the manly arms of Mr. Steal-Yo’-Girl. Some might think it strange to discover that a lady would respond better to an attempt to help them that did not involve slapping the taste out of her mouth. Life was indeed a learning experience.
Chapter Five
The stop over at the convenience store ended not long after the little scene between Scott and Jade. Truth be told, Scott was not certain about what to do at the moment. Skills and abilities were one thing, but Jade was a problem.
Takashi in the anime would have taken it badly that Rei wanted to get Hisashi back at any cost when presented the possibility. Tosh in this world was akin to a seething powder keg.
Jade didn’t make it any easier. She practically ignored the guy now that there was a chance that she could get her actual boyfriend back in the future. Survival thot mode, activate.
“So, what’s my score say now?” asked Jade curiously.
“Why? I’m not going to make you my waifu,” said Scott for probably the fifth time since they left the store.
“Whatever. You’ll do it eventually… You’re a guy after all,” she said with a sexy little giggle that made Scott roll his eyes a little but made Tosh’s nostrils flare and his teeth to begin to grind.
“Call me crazy, but I’d rather spend that time and effort on ladies who actually want to spend their time with me,” said Scott. “When I eventually find a way to bring Sushi back, what would you do? Waifudom is permanent. Hell if we took I that far you might not even want him back.”
“You… You think that would actually happen?” asked Jade, slightly nervous now that such a thing had been said.
Scott nodded to her. “Could be waifu is just a cute name for female friends, but I’m fairly certain it goes to a more intimate stage. Would you really want to break Sushi’s heart like that? What would even be the point of bringing him back to this hellhole, if he’s going to be alone?”
Jade started to speak, but Tosh threw himself up out of his seat and started to shout. “Stop the bus!”
“What’s wrong?” asked Summer suddenly.
“Stop the bus, dammit!” snapped Tosh.
Summer quickly pulled the bus to a halt. Tosh immediately turned around and pointed at Jade. “That’s enough of that shit! We’re leaving, Jade.”
Jade started to speak once again, but Scott cut her off and spoke in her place. While she was more than willing to speak for herself, he didn’t think she needed to give this guy that much credit.
“No,” said Scott casually.
“Shut the fuck up!” snarled Tosh. “Ever since you showed up you’ve been acting like you’re in charge of the fucking world!”
Scott said nothing, and merely continued to stare at Tosh. The enraged teen began to spout more hateful vitriol. “There’s no way in hell we can both keep riding on this bus together. Not with the shit you’re doing to their brains!”
“What shit?” asked Scott. “What exactly are you accusing me of right now?”
Tosh glowered darkly at him. “You know damned well, what! You even admitted it before.”
Scott rose from his seat languidly, like a cat. “Remind me,” he said coolly.
“Those powers of yours! You admitted that they’ll play with their heads,” snapped Tosh. “The way they’re all acting, it’s obvious that they’ve been brainwashed.”
“I said I don’t know if they will, and even then, I haven’t been able to use that ability,” replied Scott calmly.
“Bullshit! Ms. Oppai, and Saiko—” began Tosh.
“Are we on a first name basis now?” asked Saiko darkly.
“Bustiko…” said Tosh through clenched teeth. “There’s no way they’d go for a guy like you! You’re not even Japanese!”
The bus became deathly quiet as those words echoed for a moment. No one knew what to say.
What Scott said to break that tension caused all eyes to go to him. “How can you even tell?”
Tosh slipped out of his anger long enough to ask, “What do you mean?”
“None of you look all that Japanese to me,” said Scott. “I mean… You have Japanese sounding names, but you pretty much look mixed Caucasian...”
It was time for everyone to stare at him now. Jade asked him if he was blind. Clearly, they were Japanese.
Scott shrugged at her. “I don’t know what to tell you. Half of the people I’ve seen here look like some sort of Hispanic to me. The rest look like white, with maybe a dash of Asian in there.”
Momoko took off her glasses and offered them to him. Though, she took them back when he reached out to receive them.
The awkward nature of the conversation deflated some of the heat in Tosh’s demeanor. It was simply a ridiculous thing to get upset over.
“You really think we don’t look Japanese?” asked Otakun.
“I come from a different world. Remember? What seems obviously Japanese to you, looks like anime to me,” said Scott. “Admittedly, I don’t know what I look like here.”
“You don’t know what you look like?” asked Momoko. “Really?”
“Haven’t had a chance to look in a mirror, yet,” he replied. “Been busy trying to not die as often as I have.”
Scott was reminded of something well known among the online bullshitting community as it relates to anime. Anime characters looked like whatever nationality the viewer happened to be. The word for it escaped him at the moment, but it was perfectly in keeping with his current life that live-action anime characters living in Japan would think they look Japanese. In this world, they were probably what Japanese people looked like.
He patted his face carefully then grabbed his nose and twisted it from side-to-side. “What nationality do I look like?”
“French,” said Jade.
“German,” said Saiko.
“An asshole,” mumbled Tosh with a sigh. Once again, the topic had become that guy. Why did it always have to be about him?
“You’re from the UK, right?” asked Otakun. “I mean, you don’t sound like you’re from there, but…”
“Idiot!” exclaimed Momoko. “He’s obviously Canadian.”
Summer chimed in before Scott could answer, “Isn’t he American? He’s big and he says the ‘F’ word a lot.”
> Momoko snorted at her. “American’s are just Canadians who curse more and play less hockey.”
Saiko laughed Momoko’s phrasing, managing a simple, “Eh?” When she was pressed about what was funny.
In the end, Tosh sat back down and leaned against the window. There was no point in making a grand declaration if no one cared. The moment was lost. Now he had to bide his time.
The conversation eventually died down, and everyone returned to their regularly scheduled brooding. A toll had been taken due to the events of the day, but it had been a delayed payment. Summer needed to drive slowly due to the cars abandoned in the road, and other hazards. Now that the immediate area was not filled with the swarming dead, or the yammering of a random foreign weirdo, there was plenty of time to think.
Some thought of their families. Some thought of their future. Others thought about how much they wanted an actual bath.
Scott finally decided to check his skills properly. First, he noted that he now knew what that number next to his skills meant. On his status page the skills listed always had a zero next to them. As it turned out, that zero referenced his current development points for that skill. He threw all five points into producing a bonus to his cleaving damage.
Defensive boosts might have been nice, but his strength attribute was so low currently that it would be a waste. This held especially true given the fact that those defensive boosts only came in the form of better defense against edged weapon attacks. His overall defense would not increase. Meanwhile raw attack skill would help him attack more accurately and take down zombies quicker.
He was not immune to becoming a zombie, unless one counted his reload to a previous temporal locale. A five percent bonus to blocking, parrying, and deflecting one type of edged weapon strike really didn’t matter much when most of his enemies did not even use edged weapons and a single bite would kill him. Sure, he could have spread those points around but that would just lessen their overall impact even more.
Edged weapon mastery taken care of; Scott decided to take a look at his itemization skill. It was his hope that he could do something about it soon.
Itemization
Convert objects into item experience points. In some instances, the converted item will also provide other types of experience points.
Level 1/20: 97/100
Training Acceleration: 0.00
Developmental Boost Cost: 25
Energy Cost: 100%
Itemization Speed: Normal
Range: 0.01
Radius: 0.01
Point Gain Bonus: 0
“Damn… that big guy was worth something after all,” said Scott quietly.
A few curious glances were sent his way, but no one spoke. Prior to leaving the convenience store, Scott had gorged himself in order to regain enough of his lost energy to itemize the big zombie. He expected many things from that corpse, but in the end all he got out of taking the big bastard down was a few dozen item points. It seemed like a total rip-off at the time. Admittedly, that was a significant amount of item exp when compared to the other things he itemized, but it wasn’t much.
The big guy had still done something worth acknowledging, though. Itemizing its corpse jumped his itemization experience by twenty-three points. He was close to raising its level!
He pulled out one of the snacks in his bag. He had spent item points to turn this bag of chips into a system item. They provided nothing but a single point of hit point restoration. Yet, they granted him an opportunity. He had not checked earlier, but did he get skill exp for itemizing them?
He itemized the chips at a negligible cost to his slightly restored energy then checked his skill’s blurb. “An entire energy point… really?”
It was just a shitty snack item that had cost him four item points to make. Itemizing it gave him back two of those points, but that was no guarantee that he would always get back half value. Yet, this little experiment allowed him to see that itemizing cheap system items would be a short cut to leveling this skill.
There was plenty of food on the bus, so he had no issue with itemizing a few more of his snack items. The drink he itemized next, was slightly better than the chips. It provided hit points and energy. It also put him over the limit. He watched as his skill’s information changed before his eyes. He now had five points to spend!
He looked over his options once more then decided to test them out. A single point reduced energy cost by ten percent. That was a great sign! He put them all into reducing energy cost and that ten percent reduction remained the standard. He undid that change and testes the other options.
Itemization speed did not change. Instead, a pop-up window appeared that told him he would need to spend twenty points, or reach skill level five, to upgrade it to Fast. Basically, if he poured everything that he earned into it, he could get it one level early.
Itemization range and radius would go up a quarter point if he dumped all five points into it, but with no idea of what that meant he decided not to do that. However, increasing those options also increased his energy cost. So, that was the tradeoff for whatever bonus that would give him.
Point gain bonus merely increased to five, which he considered to be five percent. It was not a bad thing to upgrade, but it also increased energy cost.
In the end, he cut his energy cost in half. Perhaps the next level would make the cost almost negligible or even negate it altogether. He could finally earn some real points.
Unfortunately, his identification skill had no points to allot. Its various functions were level based. When his skill level reached certain intervals, it would upgrade one of its aspects. This included providing more information, working at a greater range, and the speed in which the identification would work.
“Hey! People,” said Summer excitedly. She had just turned onto one of the main roads into the city and discovered more of the living.
Everyone immediately looked up to see what she was talking about. The sound of honking horns and the voices of annoyed motorists reached them not long after that. Soon, they drove up to a long line of vehicles and were greeted by a police officer.
Summer opened the door and greeted the officer. “Hi! Is this somewhere we can get help?”
“This is just everyone in the area all trying to go down this road, to get to another part of the city,” the officer replied. “The current shelters are past full, as it is. We’re trying to secure survivors while the people in charge find more places for people.”
“Is there anywhere to go right now?” Saiko asked.
“The city… is dangerous,” replied the officer. “Not just from the infected. Right now, we’ve placed several suburbs and other areas under quarantine.”
“You’re saying, we should stay here?” asked Scott incredulously. Sure, the bus was fine for the moment, but it would not be a long-term solution. Especially if it was stuck between other vehicles. They might as well welcome their zombie overlords at that point.
The officer took a breath and then leaned forward. “Officially, I am to tell you that you are to pull forward and wait in line.”
“That implies that you have something unofficial to say,” said Momoko.
“None of us want to be here, but it’s our duty. We have families, friends, and want to go home to them… Some are even doing that,” said the officer. “What I’m about to tell you, I’m only telling you because you seem to have a pretty good setup compared to most.”
He nodded to them, “There are not enough of us to protect the majority of the populace. Some of us have abandoned our posts already. The rest are going to be withdrawn to a consolidated location soon.”
“Is this really something a police officer should be telling the public?” asked Saiko.
“What he’s saying is that all these people are going to be meals on wheels if they stay here much longer,” said Scott.
“That’s horrible,” said Jade. “Do you have to talk about them like that?”
“No,” said S
cott. “I’d rather not have the same be said about us, though.”
“Your foreign friend is right,” said the officer. “We’ve been spreading the word to people who seem to be in a situation where they can help themselves. God knows we can’t do much for you.”
“This road… It leads to the bridge, doesn’t it?” asked Scott.
“Uh, yes…” said the officer. “That’s why there’s a line like this here.”
Scott nodded to him then shook his head. “I take it, the police have it blocked off and are refusing to allow people to cross?”
“Yes. That is the case. It’s supposed to be an anti-riot protocol…” said the officer. “We all know this isn’t a riot and it won’t work.”
He started to say something else, but quickly drew his sidearm instead. Three quick shots rang out and two former zombies slumped to the ground.
The officer scanned the area briefly then holstered his firearm once more. “More of them keep popping up… Poor souls.”
“You were given orders to fire on them?” asked Momoko.
The officer glanced at her then looked to several boxes of stuff piled up high enough that they could be seen through their bus windows. “Did you pay for all of that?”
A nervous sentiment passed among the bus passengers, but the officer merely waved them off. “This is no riot. There are people who refuse to believe what they are seeing with their own eyes, but those of us who want to live act accordingly.”
“How long will you be stationed out here?” asked Momoko.
“We’re scheduled to leave sometime after sundown. We don’t have the numbers to protect several thousand people in the dark,” said the officer. “I suggest you be somewhere safer than here by then.”
Power Fantasy Page 14
