While gods schemed and a befuddled hatchling dragon stalked the land, the normal people of Earth were busy with the ever-changing nature of reality. Outside of Archers, three people in what could only be called riot gear ushered shoppers into the store.

Who were these stalwart defenders? They were none other than Bee, Tyrone, and Big Willie. During the last few weeks, Ashton had begun to make changes to the store with or without the consent of her corporate overlords. The lines of communication grew weaker on a daily basis, even as the possibility of store closure became more probably. In the grand scheme of things, this was merely one store in a small town. Given the end of the current world order looming on the horizon, the corporate office had ceased to run a tight ship.

Shipments arrived late or did not come at all. They had even been three days late with payroll once already. Having seen the writing on the wall, Ashton began recruiting. Her first draft picks were, of course, the three most notable figures in the store.

The armored guards at the front of the store had been a curiosity at first, and then off-putting. However, as more and more people realized that this meant that someone would be responsible for looking after their safety while they shopped the shopping traffic had increased slightly.

Tyrone looked out over the sparsely crowded parking lot then sighed. “Man, I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

“Feet hurt?” asked Willie with a smile.

“Nah. It’s not that,” said Tyrone. “It’s this pretending this is OK, thing.”

Bee nodded to him then said, “Makes sense. The world’s slowly going crazy and we’re still working at this dump.”

“What else would you be doing? Besides, we just have to hold out a little longer,” said Willie.

“What? Scott’s still laid up at home, right? What if he never recovers,” said Tyrone.

“I don’t know what to tell you. A man’s gotta eat,” said Willie.

While Scott was lost in the woods, Ashton had done her best to cover for him. At the store everyone thought he had been attacked by a monster and needed to rest. She had even engaged in a bit of creative book-keeping to make certain corporate did not get wind of any shenanigans. A bit of under the table payroll manipulation handled the problem of the sole remaining HR team member. Illegal? Certainly. Unethical? It was hard to say. Someone doing the work of three or more people receiving pay commensurate to that workload seemed somewhat ethical, even if they had to be paid in a shady manner.

Bee stopped paying attention to the conversation and started exercising once more. Squats, lunges, and the occasional unarmed combat maneuver came quickly to his limbs. If he had to stand around, the least he could do is train his skills!

“Aw, hell no. You ain’t getting ahead of me, fam.” Tyrone hopped over and started doing squats as well.

Willie eyed them curiously for a moment then chuckled. The two long-time friends continued to work out and try to up each other’s game for quite some time.

Ever since Status One had hit the world, things had begun to change. There was a revelation that some people were no longer human, but those who remained human would receive certain bonuses to make up for their lack of diversity in racial ability.

Otherwise, nothing much was different than before. Monsters spawned a little more often, and even invaded houses at night on occasion. People could train skills, but not gain level experience. Humans could learn skills by eating the heart of someone who had forsaken humanity, though as it turned out that could happen even if they just killed and ate the heart of a normal monster as well. Some people just had sick hobbies, it seemed. There was no guarantee of a skill acquisition. It would be lackluster in comparison to the original owner, and they could only increase its potency with skill points for the foreseeable future. So, it was a limited superpower. Still, there were a lot of cool monster skills to try to learn.

The nonhuman Earth natives were considered to be compensated enough just by having racial powers, so they essentially got nothing out of the deal that was unique to them that they did not already have. Even so, they could train their skills just like anyone else.

“I’m gonna get it, bro,” called out Bee. He began doing high speed sit-ups despite wearing his make shit riot gear. Really, their armor was little more than the motorcycle armor people might wear when doing extreme moto-cross events. They had painted it black though, because of course they did.

“Hell no, fam! I’m gettin’ it!” shouted Tyrone. He started doing sit ups as well and did his best to out-do his long-time platonic heterosexual life partner.

Willie chuckled at them some more then offered a salute to a couple of old ladies who walked up right about that time. They eyed the shouting weirdoes briefly, smiled politely at Willie, and then scurried into the store.

Just like that the day wore on. For once no monsters attacked the store. Usually there was at least one attack each day, but it really had been a slow day for everyone.

“It’s gonna be closing time, soon. You two ready?” asked Willie.

“Sure thing,” said Bee. “Maybe there will be a few monster spawns.”

“Let’s hope not. The last thing we need is for someone to get attacked, try to sue the store again, and have so jackass from corporate come out here to snoop around,” said Willie.

“Like they even care at this point,” said Tyrone. “Bet half of them rich assholes have an island fortress somewhere.”

“Yeah. They’re just sitting there with their super model girl friends raking in the money,” said Bee.

“Maybe you’re right, but we got an alright thing going here. Wouldn’t call it good, but it’s a lot better than it was before,” said Willie.

Tyrone and Bee nodded to him. They were receiving hazardous duty pay, again through shady means. Most of the store was getting extra pay in one way or another, and it was bound to blow up in their faces at some point. Until then, however, the world would keep right on spinning.