Chapter 6

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Floor 1 – Day 10

[Status]

Name: John

Attributes

Class: None – Skills: 1/6

Titles: None

Perks:

Strength:

11

-

[Domicile] – 1st floor

Dexterity:

10

-

Constitution:

10

Resist Poison 1

Intelligence:

10

-

Wisdom:

10

-

Charisma:

10

-

It was the oddest feeling.

I had increased my [Strength] and reaped the rewards. There were no tricks, no fancy secrets, nothing like that. It worked exactly how they said: Exercising was enough to make it happen.

Several days in a row of pushing the limits of my little workout routine to the fullest, and something "clicked." All it took were the free-weights I kept in my bedroom, the pushups and sit-ups, followed by a long run in a long loop around the field my house had appeared in. Just normal workouts, wondering if anything was going to happen, and then… poof.

The number went up.

And I felt it.

I was stronger. It was the strangest, most abnormal, thing. Clearly, after having been living and exercising for as long as I had, I understood: This was not how the human body normally worked.

Gym memberships were expensive, and so I had never been much for the traditional routines many people seemed to make a part of their everyday life. Yet, I had been someone who took his health relatively seriously. When it came to basic exercises with weights, or cardio- you name it, I probably did it. My body had been enough trouble without letting other problems accumulate, and I made sure to try and keep up with what I could. So, I could say with relative certainty, that I had never once felt the way I did when that number increased.

I could easily tell something was up.

It was strength, but in a way that didn’t make traditional sense. The only description for which I could rationalize how it felt, was that it was a layer. An extra layer. That is to say that there are normal results from exercise. There is the slow progress, limited to the physical muscles and tendons and bones, and then there was… “this.” Like another kind of responsive tissue, woven into my flesh, that I’d never once noticed before the [Trial] had Selected me.

My entire body felt improved. The exercises I had been doing were mostly meant to be conditioning. Just hopefully focused on the parts of the body that I would need to be using the most when I might one day try to take on the mountain. But the result was doing more than that. It was a step up, and all at once. I was stronger. Not by much, but it was almost as if something invisible had been woven into my muscles. All over my body, I felt just a little more responsive. My flesh and bone and muscles could all do just a little bit more. The workout that had been pushing me, seemed a little easier.

Honestly speaking, I had let myself go a little bit during the few years leading up to this. I could blame the stress of everything that had been happening. The pandemic, and then the sudden events which lead right into the world ending. But those were probably excuses.

Safe to say, I was certainly not starting off in the best shape of my life. Which made the experience of this improvement all the more euphoric.

It was a bit like a drug, this amazing feeling.

Not only to be outside again, walking around without being scared or worried about dangers, I was strong! Even as the heady feeling that came with the increase faded, I felt that I was so much more alive. I was pushing my body like I did when I was younger. Like the teenage me, who had run miles and miles for fun. Or biked around town for lack of a car, just to get where I needed to go.

Back then, I remembered, that it hadn’t mattered if the exercise was tough. When I was younger, if I wanted to visit someone, or get somewhere, I had to do so on my own. That was simply the way it was. There were no shortcuts. If I didn’t have a bike, I had to walk, or run. That's simply the way it was.

It made me wonder why I’d gotten so used to not doing these things.

Obviously, the world ending was a bit of a hinderance to outdoor activities, but even before that, I’d been neglecting myself. I’d felt I couldn’t. Be that reason fear, to avoid people watching me, or to avoid the perception of danger... or maybe just because of my own problems.

That was modern day life in a nutshell.

Even without everything going to shit, for years I had been sinking in. It was as if I were being pulled back inside, watching as the world kept getting worse. The news would always push the horror stories. The neighbors on my street would always watch from their blinds, silently staring at whoever walked by. It was almost as if we’d all been waiting for the day it all came crashing down.

But all that negative pressure was gone. It was a great day, and I was outside. And, for that matter: It was always a great day. The sun never moved, the weather never changed, and I’d gotten a taste of what was waiting for me.

Just one measly status point, one increased Attribute, and I was hooked.

Addicted.

If there really were no more limits, I was already rushing towards the next one, excited to know what the improvement might bring me. The only restraint was the tiny little tug of cynicism, clinging to me. Barely present, but trailing along all the same. I could ignore it, but it was always there, and it told me that the clock was ticking.

Three days earlier, another Global announcement had gone out.

Just like the first one I had read, it was sent by the same user who identified themselves as "RunnerGunner" and it was almost word for word the same as the original, although I noticed some slight variation. A few words seemed mispelled this time, which made me feel as though they probably had to recreate the message from scratch in order to send it.

Which, lead me to have a new puzzle to try and dwell on, as I continued my work-outs.

I could actually hazard a guess at a few things, from this.

First, it spoke to their character. The mysterious "RunnerGunner" was doing this of their own free will. If they had to recreate this message every time there was a new round, and send it out as a broadcast, that meant they actually had to stop and take the time. Plus, considering the variations, there might not be a copy and paste function within in the Trial’s messaging system, so when the new wave of Selected arrived, they probably had to go word by word and resend the entire message by hand.

It seemed tedious enough when I considered they would have to do so quickly at the start of each week. I had my doubts this was something that just any random person would bother to do, or even feel the responsibility to do. Not for bunch of total strangers. Not for another 1,000 people they didn't know.

Second, it seemed to suggest that originally there was no message. All the information it had provided me, had probably not been provided to the first people to wind up here. In fact, they'd probably gotten nothing but the menu, and had nothing else to go on. So, in that sense, I'd been lucky. I was getting a benefit, coming in with a very rough idea of what this all was about, and I could at least connect a few dots and have a halfway decent understanding. But I struggled to imagine what would have happened without that.

For people dumped in here, forced to choose a perk at random, landing in the middle of a field with no food, no water, and no idea what was happening. Then, no explanation at all. No message providing any help, or guidance... I couldn't help but think that it would have been a bit much.

Third, though: I had begun to recognize that the message was a reminder.

Perhaps, other people wouldn't see it this way, but I certainly did. It was like an alarm, letting me know that over a week had passed. It was my only way to really recognize that time was passing, apart from the digital clock in my home. In a place where nothing ever seemed to shift, and the sun was always up, it was easy to lose track of the fact that days were counting down, and I really seemed consider what I had to show for it.

Which was a single point.

I was starting to feel the pressure. Time was passing. In fact, it felt as though it was passing rather quickly. Slowly but surely, I was burning through my food, my water, and my medical supplies. I was eating more, now that I was exercising. My insulin was shuffled into the coldest area of my home, kept in a cooler in a rough half-cellar area that was really only intended for access to pipes. I knew this wasn't quite like being kept in a fridge, but it was a little colder down there, and the house had warmed up sitting under a never moving sun. I knew my only choice was to hope it could hold out for me at slightly lower than room temperature.

By my best guess, considering it might be getting less and less effective, I had maybe a little over two months left. Which didn't feel like much, considering that I’d only gained a single point of [Strength] but I felt like it would have to do.

But with just one point, from seven days of pushing myself, I could do the napkin math. At this pace, I was not going to become a super human before I ran out of medicine. In fact, I wouldn't even get close.

Had it been worth it to earn that point?

Yes, I had to logically look at the bigger picture and say that yes, of course it had. Beyond a doubt, the increase in the Strength Attribute represented many things, hope being the most important, an additional benefit to when I took on the mountain being a close second. But that came hand in hand with the fact that many people could have easily started with fifteen points worth of extra strength.

Fifteen, instantly.

I’d earned one, after a week. As it was, I couldn’t even properly imagine the difference between someone who’d picked that, and myself. A week, and now three days later, and I hadn’t come up with a way to make the process move any faster. All I could do was hope the next increase in Strength didn’t take eight days instead. All I could do was push myself even harder, and hope it paid off.

Still, there was at least one additional benefit to the time spent:

[Resist Poison 1]

That had appeared on its own one day. I didn’t even notice until I checked my menu. When I focused on the Skill within the Status menu, it provided a brief description.

[Resist Poison 1]

Allows the user additional resistance against poison.

Presumably, it was the system recognizing my troublesome health condition.

Objectively, it made sense. My body was in the habit of enduring low-levels of what might be objectively considered a poison. Ideally, when treated and managed well, that wasn’t the case, but for the sake of trying to survive as long as possible, I was intentionally taking a little less than my normal doses of medication, while trying to fill the gap by exercising heavily after meals in an effort to make what I did take more effective.

Basically, I was trying to ration and stretch out the over-all amount of time I could last. Which would have doctors everywhere looking at me with concern, but the stakes were high. And it was working, somewhat. Doing this certainly wasn’t good for me in the long run, it wasn’t going to kill me immediately, either. So, the Skill had likely come up, perhaps in reaction to this.

I wasn't sure if it was doing very much. If I focused on my body, I liked to imagine it almost seemed to be doing something. Or, it felt like maybe it was. But I had no way to find any true understanding.

What was the discernable difference between feeling shitty, and a little less shitty?

Pretty vague, would be the answer.

All in all, I didn’t know how useful [Resist Poison] was really going to be, and I really hadn’t noticed much of a difference in the day to day, but the number beside the Skill indicated it was going to be increasing with time. Presumably getting stronger as that happened, which I felt was good.

Though it was wishful thinking, I felt that if I was going to be without medicine soon, the Skill might just be a lifeline in the near future. Or, at least something that could buy me time I might need.

I wasn’t sure.

I just knew I had to keep at it.