Systematic Survival

7 - Late

Matt slowly woke up again as his alarm rang and the sun came through the blinds. He stretched and yawned as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. It was a nice sunny Monday morning.

As he looked around the room, he glanced at the clock which, once again, made him fall backward off the bed.

[8:43 AM]

'Damn alarm clock! I'm late!'

He threw on his work clothes as fast as he could and ran out the door. The bookstore he worked at was within walking distance from his apartment but it would still take him at least 10 minutes to get there, even running. He made his way through the streets that led to his work dodging people as he ran as fast as he could.

The owner of the bookstore glared at Matt as he arrived at work. She stood at the entrance, tapping her foot impatiently. She was a shorter lady, always wearing reading glasses. She must've been in here late thirties, but Matt never asked.

"You should have told me if you didn't want the job anymore," she said.

"I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to be late," Matt replied.

"Don't apologize, just get to work," the owner said, before walking back into the store without giving Matt another look.

Matt followed her into the bookstore, taking a moment to look around. The store had an ancient feel, with a distinct old book smell despite being stocked with new books. There were only a few people browsing the aisles at this early hour.

As Matt entered the storage room, the owner turned to him and handed him a large box of books.

"The mystery section needs to be restocked with these," she said. "All the other boxes here have labels with their genre. Don't forget to stock them alphabetically like last time. Once you're done with all of these, see me again."

With that, she left Matt alone in the storage room with a heavy box of books in his arms. Just as he was about to get started, a ding sounded in the room.

__________

[New Quest]

Stock the Shelves [0/12 Boxes] [Reward: +1 Strength, +12xp, ]

__________

'Another stat point! Strength this time. I was already going to carry the boxes, but it created a quest anyway.'

Matt looked from the box in his hand and back to the quest.

'So quests seem to show up based on what I'm doing or plan on doing? Normally quests are just static in RPGs.'

He found it funny how a feature game developers have been trying to crack for decades was just built into his system, seemingly with no effort.

Box in hand, he made his way back into the main section of the store and found the mystery section. The box was heavy enough for him to break a sweat but it wasn't too much for his current strength. It seemed like his boss knew his limits based on how scrawny his arms looked and wouldn't give him too unreasonable of a task.

'This is already a lot easier than the pushups and running quests. I'm surprised it's giving me a stat point. Well, I guess it makes sense since this involves strength.'

He finished carrying the box to the mystery section and quickly sorted the books onto the shelf. It only took a few minutes and when he was done, he grabbed another box from the storage room and brought it to its section.

He did this for a while and eventually checked the quest to see his progress.

[10/12 Boxes]

'Okay, almost there.'