Chapter 5

  Jake thhly searched the remaining rooms of the oory house. In one of them, he found a handgun lying on a small table. He didn’t reize the on, but it kind of looked like a Beretta M9. He picked up the handgun and was surprised to find it lighter than he’d expected. Maybe it wasn’t loaded? He slightly pulled ba the slide to see if there was a round in the chamber. There was. He then dropped the mag and took a look at it, holding it in his left hand. The mag was filled pletely, taining twenty rounds in total. He slid the magazine bato the pistol and gave the on another look-over. He noticed that the safety lever was on.

  Jake then shifted his attention back to the small table. There were a few more items lying on it—a drop-leg holster and a few extra magazines. He put the pistol away for now and checked each mag. All of them were loaded to the full. He shoved them into his jacket pockets and then strapped the drop-leg holster around his right thigh. He picked up the handgun again and was about to slide it into the holster when a sudden idea came to his mind.

  He pced the pistol ba the table and took out his PDA. He unlocked the devid activated the camera app. Pointing the device’s camera at the oapped the S button. The on’s stats immediately popped up on the s. He learhat the handgun was called Beri, it was of on rarity, and its level was 1. It also had some stats like Damage, Fire Rate, Magazine Size, and so on. The handgun’s stats were nothing to write home about, but it wasn’t surprising at all. After all, the on was only level 1 and of on rarity. Still, it was better than nothing. In this new world, everything seemed to work like in a video game, so he should be able to find a better on at some point.

  When Jake tapped on the s to dismiss the info about the oiced that aab had been unlocked. It was called Iory, and when Jake ope, he saw the list of items he had on him—a few pistol magazines. Holding the PDA in his left hand, he picked up the pistol with his right and shoved the handgun into the drop-leg holster. As soon as he did so, a ry appeared in the Iory—the Beri pistol. Except for the Iory, the PDA tained no more new info, so Jake slid the device bato the inner pocket of his jacket.

  In one of the other rooms of the house, he found a rucksack lying on the floor in one er. It was a good find. The rucksack was empty, but Jake was sure he would put it to good use pretty soon. He now was a survivor in a post-apocalyptic world, so sging would py a big role in his survival. He would have to carry a lot of things on him, of that he was sure. After putting the rucksa, he tio search through the house.

  In another room, he discovered some kind of vintage radio sitting on a table. At first, he didn’t pay much attention to it, thinking it was broken and useless. However, when he was walking past the radio, it suddenly came alive.

  “Brave survivors are needed,” Jake heard a voiing from the radio. “A gathering of ex-human walkers led by a shambler was discovered in the area. Anyone who deals with them will be rewarded handsomely. This is a recorded message that is repeated every few minutes until somebody accepts the mission.”

  After the voice finished speaking, Jake’s PDA beeped a notification sound. He took out the devid g the s. A piece of text hovered in the middle of the s.

  New mission.

  Objective: Kill 15 ex-human walkers within a particur area.

  Additional objective: Kill 1 ex-human shambler for ara reward.

  Reward: 1,000 XP, 10,000 credits

  Extra reward: Supply drop (x1) (on)

  Accept mission: Y/N

  Jake tapped Yes, and the text disappeared. He saw that three more tabs had just been unlocked: Missions, Map, and Diary. He opehe first one. Sure enough, the mission he’d just accepted was listed in there. It didn’t give him any new information, so he switched to the ab. The yout of the house filled the s. Above it hovered two buttons, LOCAL and GLOBAL, and the former one was highlighted. He pressed the other button, and the yout of the house was repced by the global map. But the only thing that was visible was the house he was in while the rest of the map was currently hidden by clouds of gray mist.

  With his brow furrowed, Jake stared at the map for a moment. He was w if the world remained as it once was. Sure, Earth had been turned into a post-apocalyptic wastend, but what about the underlying geography of the p? Had the teic ptes been shifted to reshape Earth’s ndscape to form new tis? Did the world still look as it had before or had it been turned into something pletely different? He didn’t know what exactly had happeo the world, but from the very first system message, he’d learhat Earth was going te into the Gameverse—whatever the hell it was. Did it mean that Earth had bee a part of a much rger world? Jake didn’t know the ao this question, but he hoped he would find out at some point and decided not to give the matter any more thought for now.

  A little way north of his current position, he spotted a marker in the area hidden by the gray mist. It had to be the location where he o plete his mission. There was nothing else on the map, so he closed it and switched to the st of the three retly unlocked tabs, which was called Diary. There was ory in there—Day 1: The Awakening. He tapped on it, and a piece of info appeared on the s.

  Day 1: The Awakening

  It’s been six years sihe event known as the Colpse turh into a post-apocalyptic wastend. I was fortunate enough to live through the Colpse, but now I have to learn to survive in this dangerous new world.

  As Jake read the text, he furrowed his brow in thought. The text didn’t offer any expnations as to what was going on, and it didn’t tain aions of the mysterious System that had ged the world and ied it into something called the Gameverse. The System had put him in stasis for six years and then teleported him to a random spot in some devastated city. However, the text didn’t mention any of that either. Overall, the text felt like it was written by a character who was unaware of being inside a video game instead of the real world.

  Jake tried to write in his Diary only to realize he couldn’t input anything manually. The interface had no options for creating a ry—there weren’t any buttons or a keyboard to use. He assumed ries would appear in his Diary of their own volition from time to time. He didn’t know how often it would happen, but he figured he would find out soon enough. After closing the Diary, he saw there were still a few more tabs. Although they were currently locked, he was sure they would be unlocked iime.

  There was nothing else of i in the house. Jake walked to the frorand opehe door a crack to peek outside. After firming there were no mutants nearby, he opehe door fully and stepped out of the house.