Sara was awake by the time they came back to her. She claimed to feel fine except for a tenderness in her shoulder.

They spent a few minutes getting her up to speed. That included Yunah introducing Mike as their new team leader.

If Sara had any problems with the arrangement she didn’t say anything. Although her eyebrows did raise a few times over how talkative Yunah was in front of him. It seemed she noticed her usually shy best friend’s change as well.

With a promise to stay at the back Sara convinced Mike to let her join their floor clearing slash rescue efforts. Mike had been about to veto her request when Yunah helpfully reminded him that Sara was a people person.

They weren’t bringing Troy. Mike still looked monsterous to anyone that didn’t know the system. They needed a Public Relations person. A face, so to speak. He’d started to suggest Yunah could handle that when the look of determination on her face stopped him cold.

He gave in almost immediately. It just wasn’t worth arguing. If the girls didn’t want to stay safe he couldn’t make them. The world no longer had room for coddling.

As Mike was about to call himself ready, Yunah gave a last minute suggestion.

“Should we check the mission screen while we’re in the safe zone?”

“U-uh, yeah, obviously. I was just about to suggest we do that.” Mike stammered.

It was obvious he hadn’t had any such thought. Yunah had the grace to ignore his lame cover up.

Sara couldn’t help giggling a little. It was a cute sound, almost like a chipmunk on helium. Cute or not it made Mike’s neck turn bright red from embarrassment.

He took a deep breath. Getting mad was pointless. He was the one who told such a bad lie. If they were in the field and he told a lie that made her laugh it might be lead to terrible consequences. In the safe zone it didn’t matter.

Opening the Mission menu brought up a sort of job posting board. At the very top was a search box and a filter submenu for weeding down the listed jobs. Mike applied both looking for easy missions in the immediate area.

There were a total of seven. All part of the same chain mission. The first six were for liberating floors of the apartment building. The last for defeating the apartment building’s BOSS – Randy the Janitor. Randy had a office in the basement which is where the listing indicated he could be found.

The fact there were BOSSes was news to Mike. Unwelcome news. But as he checked the mission rewards he saw each floor would give him five hundred credits. Killing the BOSS and liberating the entire building would turn it into a safe zone and give him a D rank reward.

Mike had to check the store to see what ranked rewards were, but it didn’t take long. Basically the really good items required more than just credits. They required rewards. Rewards ranged from D to S – D, C, B, A, S to be exact – and each higher rank was equivalent to five lower rank rewards. In other words an S was worth 5 As, 25 Bs, 125 Cs or 625 Ds.

This was in addition to level restrictions on items. Level restrictions were broad and only seemed to apply in specific instances. But they did exist.

Mike was a bit intimidated when he spotted a sword requiring three A ranked rewards and a level of seventy five. What kind of power would something like that have?

He could only imagine it splitting buildings in half. Zombies would never need such extreme counter measures.

Which was a sobering thought. What else was out there besides zombies and BOSSes?

Mike closed the store. Back in the mission menu he accepted the seven mission chain. Immediately he got a surprise as an exclaimstion mark appeared to the side of his HUD.

Concentrating on it he opened the system message.

Mission Accomplished!

Congratulations! You have liberated the [4th Floor of the Hanging Garden Apartments]

Achievement: You have successfully completed your first misson.

Calculating Reward…

Reward: 500 Credits

Calculating [First Mission] Bonus Reward…

Bonus Reward: [Skill: Challenging Roar]

Accept Reward: [Yes] / [No]

Mike accepted without a second thought. The familiar blue brick appeared and he took the skill book. He then examined it closer to find its effects.

[Skill: Challenging Roar]

Effect: Attracts target’s undivided attention to the skill user.

Duration: 30 Seconds

Cooldown: 5 Minutes

The skill was a standard “tank” skill, further reinforcing the ‘world is now a game’ vibe. Mike didn’t need to think about whether or not he should learn it. He was currently acting like a tank anyway.

Furthermore there were no restrictions on the number of skills or magics he could learn. The only restrictions were class, level and ranked reward based. Even if he never again acted like a tank the skill was not a loss.

As he closed out the menus he noticed Yunah and Sara were both staring at him.

“What?” He asked.

Yunah answered with her own question, “What did you just do?”

“What do you mean? I registered the missions for liberating this apartment building.”

“And that gave you a skill?”

“Not directly. But I had already cleared the fourth floor. That gave me the skill.” He admitted.

“You do realize we weren’t set as a party yet?”

Mike hadn’t even thought to look if players could become parties. It was such a basic concept in games and he’d overlooked it completely.

Before he could apologize Yunah grumbled something in Korean, probably a curse. Then a box appeared asking Mike if he wanted to join her party.

Already in the doghouse Mike didn’t bother trying to get her to let him create the party. He just accepted the invite. Yunah checked something in her menu then made an annoyed sound.

“Sara and I will both get credit for your clearing the fourth floor but we won’t get the reward now. You’ve already claimed it. Six people could have shared it. That’s twenty five hundred credits and five skill books wasted.”

Mike was feeling defensive. Yunah had every right to be miffed. Credits were a lifeline in this new world.

A zombie only gave ten credits and only then if the player picked up their brain crystal. Five hundred credits was fifty zombies in one go.

He knew he’d messed up. That didn’t mean he was going to let the cute little spitfire bully him over it.

“Fine I screwed up. I’m sorry. But I call bullshit. Five people didn’t miss out. Two did. There are no other members on our team yet. And don’t try to tell me otherwise.”

Yunah stood frozen for a moment then like a lightbulb had gone off inside her head she said, “What if we did take three extra members?”

Mike was about to protest when Sara said, “Hear her out. She’s thought of something good. I can tell.”

“I have,” Yunah said confidently, “I admit it might not work. But like I said, why don’t we register a full team. If the other three get rewards when we do then we take those too, giving them a few credits for their trouble. It might be a way to play the system that’s playing us.”

Her voice was almost desperate by the end. Mike was already smiling. It probably wouldn’t work. But if it did…

“I’ll take this to Troy. I’ll use it to cement our relationship with him so to speak. You two find two others we can use. As soon as Sara is in the system and on the team we’ll have our six members and can start clearing floors.”

Troy was onboard instantly. He wanted half the credits and an equal share of any non credit rewards to keep his edge over Rajesh.

Mike thought it was a bit too greedy. Troy was basically demanding more from charity.

He held his tongue. Troy would eventually be managing the apartment safe zone and protecting the rescued survivors. He deserved a bit of compensation for that effort. Mike had zero desire to take over if Troy changed his mind.

Sara and Yunah’s party member choices only wanted fifty credits a piece. That was enough for quite a few meals from the store or a very low end weapon.

He was impressed by their bargaining. He told them as much before he admitted how much he’d given in to Troy.

Neither of them blamed him. They knew Troy was ambitious and held a certain amount of power. Having him as an ally was a good thing, even if it cost a little extra.

Feeling somewhat appeased Mike took Sara down a floor and quickly beheaded a zombie for her.

She picked the crystal up and after the standard reaction over being blind, handled the transition well. A few minutes later she was holding her system reward, a shield.

Seeing it, Mike had thought she would be disappointed in the reward. He’d been wrong.

Sara practically caressed the shiny metal disk as she slipped it on her arm.

Again Mike wondered over the randomness of the rewards. Maybe Sara wasn’t quite over her fear from getting hit by the jackass with the hockey stick. The shield offered protection which is what she wanted most right now.

His theory needed work. He for one had never imagined being an orc. But it seemes to hold true on a basic level.

Adding Sara to the party officially brought them up to six members – a full group. They were ready to start killing zombies. Mike fully intended to practice various methods like he was writing a how to book. It might prove useful later to have more than one quick kill technique.

Level restrictions and ranked rewards were as good as guaranteeing whatever was happening with the world wouldn’t stop with Hollywood zombies. Mike wanted tonraise a few levels in badass before the next wave hit.