Systematic Survival

12 - Revelation

The digital fairy floated in front of him, still crossing her arms. Matt already had enough of her insults and was very close to stopping the skill and never using it again. But he managed to calm down and think logically about the situation.

'This must be the system's info dumper, but why is she so annoying!?'

He decided it was best to just try to ignore [Help]'s crude remarks and try to use this skill as was intended. It might be hard, but he was determined to make it through this. He decided to ask the question that had been on his mind since he received the system.

"Why me? How did I even qualify for this? I'm just a failure who had nothing better to do than play games all day and watch anime for hours."

[Help] looked at him, seeming satisfied that he finally asked a question. But her answer was brief.

"Random."

Matt stared at her blankly for a few seconds.

"Random? Seriously? That seems stupid though. What if this got into the wrong hands?"

"The system doesn't care who gets it. But, that's all I know. It doesn't tell me much."

She looked a bit frustrated as she said the last part.

Matt was trying to digest this new bit of info. If it was truly random, then he really hit the system jackpot. Out of over 10 billion people, he was the one chosen. After that realization though, he remembered another question that had been on his mind for a while.

"So, how is this possible? Are we in like a simulation or something?"

The fairy looked amused as if she expected this question. And her face became even brighter like she couldn't wait to say the punchline of a joke.

"No idea."

'OK, she's useless.'

He had thought that he could get some real answers from the system now that he had this new skill, but so far, it seemed like trash. Not only did she not know anything, but she also had a bad personality. This skill really couldn't get any worse.

'Oh, I forgot, this skill also had a level next to it. Wait, how would that even work? Would she just know more or something if it leveled up?'

All of the other skills had pretty obvious outcomes for their level-up. [Storage] would probably get bigger, [Inspect] would give more detailed info, [Map] would be more map, but [Help] was a strange one. The only logical answer is it would get more helpful, but that was a vague concept.

He looked back at her and noticed she had an ugly look on her face like she was getting irritated that he ignored her for an entire minute while he was thinking. So he decided to ask one more question for now.

"Do you know anything about the mystery reward? What's that all about?"

She seemed surprised by this question for a second before looking smug again and answering.

"They're called mystery rewards for a reason, idiot."

He was done. She had called him stupid two times now and that was two times too many. He quickly imagined the [Help] skill deactivating and she quickly vanished to a point with a loud pop. But just a microsecond before she vanished, he could make out two words.

"Smooth brain!"

'What's her problem?! I'm never using that damn skill again!'

Calming down from his irritated state, he decided he had been hanging out around this apartment building for long enough. He checked his phone once more and quickly accepted another delivery job. He hoped to do a few more before heading home.

But after he accepted the job, nothing happened.

"Isn't there supposed to be a quest?"

He waited for a good 5 minutes, but still nothing. He realized something that made his stomach turn. He was going to use [Help] again.

He sighed before yelling [Help] in his mind.

She materialized again and floated in front of him. She looked at him like she was looking at a peasant.

"Well that didn't take you long," she said with a smirk.

"Yeah, yeah. So why didn't I a get quest for this job that gave me a quest earlier?

"Uh, because you can't just do it over and over for free XP. There's a cool down. If it was a repeatable quest, then you could."

He realized that he probably should have expected this. It wouldn't make sense to be able to grind a level in only an hour on the same quest. A lot of quests in games also either never reappeared or had cool-down periods.

"Wait there are repeatable quests?"

He just noticed her mentioning this.

"Yeah, but they aren't available until public release. But that's all I know."

He stared at her in shock. She said something so casually that shook his whole world.

"Public release?"

He looked amused again, his negative reactions seemed to fuel her joy.

"Oh, yeah. You didn't ask so I didn't mention it. This system is a world system. You're a beta tester. Actually, it should have been mentioned in the welcome message. Or were you too dumb to notice that too?"

'Damn, I did remember reading something about a beta. But I was half asleep! Not to mention, I didn't even think it was real!'

He took a second to calm down. If the system was going to be released to everyone, that meant that it was going to be chaos. Well, it could turn out fine, but there was really no way to know. At least, the world and society would change a lot.

What's money when there's XP? When stats make you physically and mentally more powerful? He was freaking out a bit since he never really thought about these implications.

'I was just treating it like some sort of game. Why didn't I question it?'

He realized that he was going to have to prepare. It was time to stop playing games.

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||Stats||

Name: Matt Peterson

Age: 18

LVL: 2 [XP 3/120]

HP | 20/20

MP | 0/0

Status Effects: (Physical Strain) [Moderate]

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||Attributes||

[Str] - 10

[Con] - 10

[Agi] - 11

[Dex] - 12

[Int] - 14

[Luk] - 11

[Stat Points]: 0

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||Skills||

Inspect [Lv.1], Map [Lv.2], Help [Lv.1], Storage [Lv.1]

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||Quests||

-General-

Do Pushups [36/100] [Reward: +2 Strength, +20xp]

Pay the Rent [$43/800] [Reward: +Mystery Reward, +30xp]

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-Daily-

*Daily quests not available in beta*

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