Selflessness, a word to describe an incredible selfishness that feels its thoughts superior to any other line of reasoning. The teacher Mr. Labodius evoked loudly, “If we have an opportunity there is a duty to help those in need”. A senior who was dozing off jerked up at the loud comment. Slowly, he picked up his pencil and began jotting down notes.
Despite being the only upperclassman in advanced European History, he did not lead by example because his thoughts were focused far into the future. He was busy thinking about what he would do after graduating instead of learning about religion.
“Mr. Daniel, see me after class as we need to speak about your recent performance.” Daniel was confused because although his grades were poor he did not believe them low enough to need a conference with a teacher.
As the bell rang he began to hear a large amount of notifications from his phone. “Heed my warning descendants of the devil, my champions shall move forth to strike out your covetousness. Fear the Lord of Lords and my grace shall be with you.” An unknown number had sent the ominous note, so Daniel ran to the teacher’s desk.
He looked up at the teacher and told him of what was going on, but the teacher merely smirked. Daniel flipped his phone around to force the teacher to believe him, and they decided that they should gain more information about the situation now plaguing them. Mr. Labodius mentioned that “it is likely that this is the Christian God speaking considering he mentions the devil, but the Bible only speaks of a few descendants of the devil. It does describe those not believing Christ as being of the devil so they thought maybe it was describing satanists and cult followers. It could be the police trying to lure out criminal cults?” Daniel was about to respond when another notification appeared on his phone.
[Task One: The Path]
[Survive for 6 Hours]
[Devil’s shortcut: Kill One Living Being (Automatic Survival for the remainder of the Task)]
The World trembled as outside of the school thousands of gigantic mythical beasts began spreading disaster. Blaring car sirens from giants making their way, dozens of gigantic insects splitting bodies in two, and dragons cremating anyone in sight. People saw the notifications on their phones and began to panic, others who were not checking also listened to their survival instincts and ran from the screams. Others began reading the last message and out of sheer desperation from the beasts approaching, some started to ask “is the shortcut real?” Eyes darted wondering who would be the first to go, hoping someone would test the viability of the method. “Sorry Mrs. Harrison but you're 90% in the grave already!” A young man snapped the old lady’s neck and a dark title appeared above him.
[Deal Accepted: Immortality Granted for the remaining time]
At that moment a gigantic wolf stepped away from the young man and began chasing other prey. “AAAAagh! GET AWAY FROM ME! PLEASE DON’T KILL ME!” a sound of a girl screaming rang through the halls and into the European History room. “See babe EVEN HELL is telling me not to forgive YOU CHEATING ON ME!” A struggle was apparent with the lady attempting anything to escape the grasp of the athlete, but the girl’s voice eventually faded away.
[Deal Accepted: Immortality Granted for the remaining time]
A psychotic laugh rang through the school building and every few seconds another heavy hit fell onto the defiled corpse. A chain of panic erupted throughout the school so Daniel and the teacher frantically came to barricade the door. The noise muffled as he examined his surroundings trying to think of a plan moving forward. 6 hours was not a significant length of time, but an ounce of complacency could result in death. He pulled out his laptop and the two sat in a corner of the classroom adjacent to the door to prevent any watchful eyes checking for living humans. After trying to search on the web he saw a mysterious message again reading “Updating User Interface…System Now Reloading? What does that mean?”
Suddenly a 2D black box appeared in front of him that read:
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
[Welcome Back, User 124]
[Restoring Previous Data]
[Date Access Error]
[Date Access Error]
[Attempting to Restore Save Data]
[Attempt Failed]
[Restoring Status]
[Gift Restored: The Book of Knowledge {Status: Locked}]
“What is this gift thing, some sort of ability, like in a game?” Daniel tried to analyze the Status Window that had appeared in front of him.
Mr. Labodius spoke up “Art does imitate Life, what if this was all intended to prepare us for now? Furthermore, it would seem as if the man above is playing a game with humans at stake. This is why management is always blamed for everything.” Daniel was confused by the remark because he knew the teacher was not part of management, but maybe he was speaking in general and he had no reason to question the statement.
The discussion ended abruptly with the banging on the door with a loud cry for help, “Please someone help…I don’t want to die, please anyone!”
Daniel stood up preparing to unlock the door and save the person crying, but a hand tugged at his shirt.
“Are you stupid!? What if they’re trying to get an easy kill? The world is all about living for yourself, individualism, not collectivism.”
[5 Hours and 30 Minutes Remaining for the first Task]
Daniel ignored his remarks and went outside anyway to find a girl on her knees being approached by a man with a shard of glass in his hand. Daniel with only his notebook stared at the man running at him. He successfully read his movement and blocked the stab towards his left abdomen with the book throwing the glass away from him to the ground. Daniel also used the thrusting motion to his advantage striking the back of his knee to send him into the floor.
“What the hell? Don’t you see what's happening outside it's kill or be killed and I for one refuse to die! That girl is not worth anything. Just let her di-“ A loud snap is heard which came from a full-force kick to the head from the young woman. “Hey, he's not worth it, don't kill him!” Daniel tries to stop her, but she yells “he said it himself kill or be killed, he earned it.” Unable to argue anymore he pulls her away whispering “then let the monsters take care of him we’ve already made too much noise.” She shoves him off her “nothing can kill me if I accept the agreement.”
“That may be true, but how do you know it won’t cost anything more in the future, if this is the same devil in the Bible that is evil itself then what if there’s another condition? Just stay with us you’ll be safe that way and there won’t be more risks” Daniel with a soft voice using his last attempt at convincing her otherwise.
[Deal Accepted: Immortality Granted for the remaining time]
“Good luck you wimp, the name’s Eve” she throws a smirk at Daniel before walking off with her immortality.
Daniel walks back into the room and replaces the barricade where he asks the teacher why did he let him back in instead of letting him die for his inability to listen and for his failure in saving her even though it was the reason he left.
Mr. Diabolus answered “Daniel you’re a smart kid and now I’m certain you’ve learned your lesson from this, helping out others is a waste of time. We need to compile the information we have.”
Daniel asks “Mr. Diabolus did you also get the screen?”
“Yeah that screen, have you noticed anything off about it, especially the gift thing?” he replies.
“No, it just seems to be like any other 2D Status Window you've seen in games,” I ask wondering if there’s any difference between our screens.
Mr. Diabolus asks “can you draw a diagram of what you see and I’ll compare it to mine?”
Although it was weird that he needed a diagram it made sense that they should make sure there was no differences in their screens.
After looking at Daniel’s diagram Mr. Diabolus tells him “there doesn’t seem to be anything different for me, and would you mind telling me your gift, Daniel?”
“Mine’s weird it’s called []#[]]}##%.” said Daniel feeling a sharp pain inside him when he tried to state his gift, “I’m sorry teach but I don’t think this system wants me to tell you but it feels useless as of right now because it is locked. What was your gift Mr. Labodius?”
“Oh, I’ll tell you some other time because it seems that we are unable to discuss our gifts,” he explained.
As they try to do more research and analysis on their new screens, Daniel discovers a spider crawling on his computer and asks "Hey Mr. Labodius the devil is cunning right?"
Mr. Labodius replies "Yeah he is known as the most cunning, why do you ask?"
"I might be able to outsmart him," Daniel says with a cheeky grin.
[5 Hours and 30 Minutes Remaining for the first Task]
