by Way Woo
Absolute Shopping Addict
Volume 1
Copyright © 2019 by Global Aline
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the e-mail address below.
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Episode 1
"Okay, let me see: a special sale, 30% off the tag price?" Jake asked the computer screen he was staring at, as he carefully considered the pros and cons of purchasing the item he was looking at.
“No strings attached, huh,” he continued to think aloud as he read through the fine print of the sale – he had been burned one time too many to not go through every piece of documentation with a fine-tooth comb before letting his inner shopaholic run wild.
And when he found the phrase “unconditional purchase” in the site’s terms and conditions regarding sale items, it was like a missile locking onto its target.
“This month's bill will be no joke, but you know what they say, you only live once,” he muttered as he clicked on the ‘purchase button’.
The notification that his purchase was successful appears on the corner of his eye, along with a picture of a standing hanger, his newest acquisition.
Will it be useful? He does not know.
The only thing that matters is that it was on sale.
And the delivery was free.
Just like all the other things he had never used or opened, piling up in his house.
Jake enunciated the words as he opened the e-mail confirming the receipt, not believing his good fortune.
“Free delivery… within twenty-four hours.”
He tingled with anticipation, his shopper’s instincts taking over as he began to rock back and forth with excitement.
It had been a long time since he made his first online purchase.
But the feeling of opening a package fresh from the courier… even now, the thrill of putting your hands on it, carefully opening the box, packing tape and bubble wrap to see your purchase…
…It was a high that was unmatched by nearly anything.
“These look interesting… ‘Summer Sale’?”
His shoulders fell.
“Sold out, though. What a shame.”
Mere minutes after purchasing the hanger, Jake Smithson was once again on the lookout for the next bargain, the next sale, the next item up for bid.
Welcome to the daily life of a shopping addict.
***
When you’re addicted to shopping, you cease buying things because they’re useful or beautiful.
You buy them because they’re cheap.
Or if you’ll get a bargain by buying them in bulk.
Or if they come with extras.
Or if they come with 24-hour next-day at-your-doorstep delivery.
Every part of this process, from prowling online stores to scheduling sales, all the way to making the perfect online purchase… for someone like Jake, this is the essence and meaning of joy.
If Jake was born in another place and trained to hunt for sport, this would be more or less the same joy he would feel.
From the ‘thrill of the hunt’ long ago, to the ‘thrill of the bargain’ now.
It’s gotten to the point where nearly everything Jake purchases is either discounted, wholesale, or comes with extras.
With the fervor of a man of faith, Jake even thinks that buying things from a catalog without seeing if they’re on sale is somewhat of a heresy.
You’d see him make a face at the department store when this happened… if he could actually be bothered to go to the department store.
He even went so far as to bastardize a movie quote to validate his habit.
Just like today, where we find Jake squinting at the screen after a perfectly ordinary and normal workday.
“...and the eighth, and final rule, if this is your first night at shopping club, you have to buy...” he muttered at the screen as the online shopping store loaded up on his home computer.
A few clicks in, his finely-honed shopping instincts activated, and he spun the mouse wheel down, hoping to find a rare item or bargain...
…and then, one item caught his eyes.
With our revolutionary new embossing technique, it not only absorbs more, but it also glides off your skin! You’ve never had a wiping experience like this before! Buy two, take one! Stocks are low, so purchase now!
Huh.
Toilet paper rolls.
Jake’s mind started whirring with the possibilities.
Buy two packs, get one free – so it’s a 33% discount, 30 rolls in a pack, 3 packs, that’s 90 rolls.
“Now why would I want to buy 90 rolls of toilet paper?”
He grinned.
You never ran out of uses for toilet paper.
He pushed the ‘purchase’ button.
As soon as he did, though, out popped a most peculiar window from the computer.
[You have been summoned by Nohas.]
[You are awakened as “Bargain Hunter”.]
As soon as he clicked on ‘ok’, Jake’s computer’s screen flashed in a brilliant white, and he passed out.
***
It felt like he was trapped in a bog pit.
Everything was shrouded in blackness, and he could not force his way out of it, as his limbs seemed to be immersed in a sticky, dark morass.
Even his mind seemed like it was filled with tar.
Images of what had been his life passed through his vision like a parade of mirages.
He could feel a bitter aftertaste in his mouth, and as he exhaled, he could almost smell his own dank breath.
It was around that time that the fireflies started coming. They started out a few, and then they started multiplying. More and more they fluttered around him…
...and then he finally remembered how to open his eyes.
It took him a moment to try and blink away the film around them and looked at where he lay.
Well, it looks like the earth was last night’s bed for him.
“Okay, can I have the license number of the car that hit me?” he asked no one in particular.
Someone should have come to me and help me up after that sweet one-liner, he thought. But he didn’t bother and just pulled himself up…
“Well,” he said, looking around to see that he had awakened in some sort of Middle Age town, and decided to punctuate his situation with the word best appropriate for it, “...shit.”
Stopping for awhile to make sure he was decent enough (and sneaking in a few scratches on his behind in the process), Jake began to slowly walk through the town, gradually seeing people running about in various outfits, some from his era, others from this one.
Pretty sure I haven’t been sucked into a portal or run over by a truck or van, because that’s typically how you end up in another world, he thought, remembering the types of novels he read back in middle school.
He had barely gone a hundred meters or so when the announcement stunned everyone close by.
“Welcome to Brino, also known as the 11th tutorial area for Nohas. For all of you
who have awakened here, you have been chosen to serve and protect Nohas from the hordes of monsters seeking to destroy it. While this is considered a tutorial area, be warned that outside the tutorial area is not friendly to beginners, and those with the hubris to venture forth without sufficient preparation can and will pay for it with their lives.”
“Fuck me,” Jake whispered.
“Oh, and after a certain amount of time, Brino will be marked as a target by the monster horde. So not only must you get stronger, you also have to keep Brino safe, as this is one of several safe spots in this region. Should Brino fall, your safe haven is gone!”
“While you may think this is the next great adventure to embark on, know that it is not only the fate of this world that depends on your actions, but the fate of the world from which you came from. Because, when the last citadel on Nohas falls, the monster horde will devour this world, and then move onto the next one: Earth.”
People around Jake were beginning to panic.
“One more thing, use the status window to check your stats, equipment, and other valuable information you may need in this brave new world.”
More panic.
“Because this is a one-way ticket, and there’s no turning back from here.”
Even more panic.
“Good luck – you’ll need it.”
Pandemonium erupted.
“Send us back!”
“What the hell are you saying?”
“I didn’t ask to be sent here!”
In the midst of all the chaos and everyone yelling and running around, Jake was standing there like an idiot, trying to process what just happened.
“So I guess I’m in some kind of game or something?”
His thoughts turned towards just how run-down the town called Brino looked like – as he looked around, he saw the standard trappings of your average town in any RPG, except most of them were decrepit and left unused for quite some time, caked with dust and grime due to decades of lying fallow. Item shop, blacksmith, inn, wait, that one’s still working…
He let out a small smile as his experience playing video games as a kid started to pay off. “Well that’s just nice. I got summoned into RPG Land. Sucks that I outgrew video games after my stint in the army... now all I have to do is log off and then I can go back to...”
His knees go weak.
He starts trembling.
And then he breaks out in a cold sweat.
“90 rolls,” he whispered in a panic. “Ninety rolls of high-quality, embossed, toilet paper.”
It wasn’t the absurdity of the situation that unraveled Jake.
He did spend several years in the military service, after all, going after foes both foreign and domestic.
He tries to reassure himself that everything will be all right.
But the last image in his head is that of the sweet, sweet 33% discount he’d get if he bought two 8-roll packs of that wonderful toilet paper.
I can’t buy toilet paper online anymore.
I can’t buy online anymore.
I can’t buy.
Anymore.
Jake screamed.
***
He didn’t know how long he was screaming, whether it was five seconds or five minutes.
But damn it, he thought, screaming my lungs out helped out an awful lot.
I’m calm now, he told himself as he went back to the town square, taking a seat on a nearby bench and ignoring the other panicking people running here and there as they realize just how deep a pile of crap they just found themselves in. Well, as much as calm as the next guy, he added wryly.
“Now that I’m all good and okay,” he told himself, “let’s have an accounting of just what’s going on here. What’s the last thing I remember? Oh yeah, toilet paper. Then I wake up here.”
Before he continued, he took several deep breaths to put away the thought of shopping and toilet paper for the meantime.
“All right, Jake. Try to remember... other than the fact that you seem to be stuck in RPG Land right now.”
A few more deep breaths to center himself later, he pressed onward.
“This is a city, there are monsters, monsters will attack this city after some time, must get stronger before then.”
As he paced back and forth, Jake continued his train of thought. “What happened before I got here? I KNOW I was shopping for toilet paper. Then something showed up and... yeah, I remember now. The dialog box said I was some sort of ‘bargain hunter’.”
He nodded.
“Wait a sec, what did that thing say to do? Check out status? All right, let’s try that.”
He pointed forwards.
“Status?”
Nothing happened.
“Display status?”
He did a ridiculously fabulous pose.
“Show status?”
Still no result.
***
Five fruitless minutes later, Jake just about had it and was ready to throw in the towel.
“For goodness’ sake, it’s not like this is RPG land where everything will show up like in some high tech anime or something when you say ‘status window’,” he muttered angrily on the bench...
…and then a square lit up on the corner of his eye.
“That figures,” he grumbled as he looked over his status screen, and what he found was interesting.
[Name: Jake]
Level: 1
Class: Bargain Hunter
Basic Stats
Strength: 10
Agility: 10
Intelligence: 10
Class Active Skill: Shopping (Hero Shop currently in beta)
***
As soon as the screen pops up, Jake looked around – most of the people around him also found out the status window and are looking at their own classes with surprise.
Nearly everyone did – it’s part and parcel of what happens when you wake up in a different world that also happens to be working on role playing game logic.
However, Jake’s reaction was completely different from everyone else’s.
No distress, no surprise, no anger – all emotions have been swept away by a single word he happened to fixate on in his own status window.
That word was “shopping”, and it happened to be his class skill.
The blank expression on his face slowly transitioned into that of someone who struck gold.
“Excellent,” Jake said out loud before going into a deep and very disturbing laugh.
One thing is clear. His mind is set.
As he laughed and laughed, he finally realized that maybe being stranded in role-playing game land isn’t such a bad deal after all.
Because, after all, he lives to shop.
He brazenly disregarded the onlookers beginning to edge away from him, whispering to their fellows about the creepy man laughing in the town square as soon as he opened his status window.
It was these very eyes and whispers that drove Jake to a nearly reclusive lifestyle, but at this moment, he does not care at all – not one whit – about the stares and gossip.
While he laughed outside, inside, he was pleading.
Please let me shop.
Please.
If you want me to defend this city, I’ll defend this city.
If you want me to fight monsters, I’ll fight monsters.
Monsters, demons, witches, warlocks, whatever.
For the need to shop... I’ll gladly kill anyone you point me at.
He stopped laughing.
He wanted to kick himself.
“Okay, if the store is available... how do I access it?”
He knelt, put his hands together and prayed like he never prayed before.
“If there is God, if there is any justice in this world… connect me to the Hero Shop!”
[Connect to Hero Shop (currently in beta)?]
“YES!”
He spread his arms wide and welcomed his personal heaven, as he could almost hear a choir of angels singing as
they ushered in his home away from home – the online marketplace.
[Hero Shop (Beta)
CATEGORY
1. Basic Items.
2. To be updated, please check back later.
3. To be updated, please check back later.
CURRENT EVENTS:
KNIGHT PACKAGE
3 Strength Up, 3 Constitution Up, 3 Dexterity Up currently on sale!
Original Retail Price is 2700 points, but we’re selling this to you for the low, low price of 1900 points!
Don’t wait, this sale is only valid for 72 hours!]
As he browsed through the shop’s catalog, the onlookers noticed that Jake’s expression had changed to something positively beatific.
The closed eyes and the calm yet happy smile he carried outside matched well with what he was telling himself inside.
Yes, indeed, Jake Smithson thought as he continued to browse the sparse Hero Shop, this is heaven.
Episode 2
***
As soon as Jake’s high wore off, and as he was checking and double-checking the Hero Shop to see that it was still there, a few questions began to emerge: questions like ‘who in the world made this’, ‘who is running this thing’, ‘are there any others shopping here’, ‘how do you get to open this shop’, and many others started popping up in his mind.
However, Jake could not answer any of those questions – there was little to no information he could work on.
Thus, nearly every question he asked himself was immediately discarded. Also, it wasn’t like he cared about those questions more than the fact that he could shop.
“I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it,” he told himself as he began to focus on the Hero Shop’s front page, nodding at its familiarity to the internet site where he regularly bought things from.
What intrigued him about the Hero Shop was that it had a site layout that looked a lot like an online shopping mall – the very site he was a card-carrying regular in.
From the banner on top advertising the ongoing event up to the single items below it, the Hero Shop was a dead ringer for his favorite online store.
However, he noticed that only the most basic items were on sale, kind of like if a huge online clothing store only sold plain t-shirts.
