The voice also said it initiated incursions . It seemed reasonable that the huge pillar in the distance was the incursion , which would mean he probably wasn’t too far off with his demon portal theory . And when it spawned in the forest , the demons came with it .
But that meant that the monsters wouldn’t necessarily spawn next to it , as one was already in the camp when he came back . It was hard to tell the distance to the huge pillar , but it should take hours on foot to get there . And something called a herald spawned right on top of Zac , resulting in the largest emotional roller-coaster in his life .
Finally , he had gotten stronger for some reason with all these changes . Both his speed and power saw noticeable improvements from whatever the weird voice did . It almost felt like he had gotten a power-up like in some video game , which made sense after having seen the floating windows in the dark dimension . He still didn’t understand why the prompts were designed to look like some old-school RPG . Was it his mind desperately trying to make sense of an insane situation and adjusted reality for him?
Fantasy monsters , magical portals , and game-like elements . If some parts of the world were turned into an RPG , did other elements get introduced as well? At least there was no health bar , and the demon had no description or text above its head either . In fact , the only time he had seen any true game elements was when he was in the black space the voice brought him to .
He tried to notice anything in the periphery of his vision , but it was nothing there apart from the vision of the now somewhat bloody and grimy trailer . Tyler’s parents would probably be pretty pissed off when they saw the state of their camper he thought with a smirk .
If they’re even still alive , he then realized somberly . If the world was turned to shit at his location , what about the rest of the planet? Would it be safer , or even more messed up? What about his home town?
Thoughts of his father and younger sister surfaced , and a sense of urgency appeared . If this was a global problem , nowhere was safe . Zac had no idea what was going on , but he would have to figure that out on the way .
He needed to get back home .
Chapter 5 - Stranded
Driven by a newfound sense of purpose , Zac immediately started packing a backpack with food which wouldn’t spoil easily and some other necessities , and then immediately made a beeline for the SUV . If a slow shuffle where every step felt like walking on fire could be called a beeline .
He opened the door , relieved that no one had been paranoid enough to lock the car in the middle of nowhere . The electric keys were lying on the driver’s seat . With no time to spare , he placed the backpack on the front passenger seat and pressed the button to start the car . A spectacular absence of sound greeted him . The car had no reaction , even after pressing the key increasingly hard accompanied by angry swearing . The focused power of his will had no impact either , the dashboard unlit and the motor didn’t give as much as a whimper in response .
So the car was broken as well . Or not broken , rather out of batteries he surmised after noticing a black smartphone being plugged into the outlet in the car . The car had been on when the world turned to shit , and by now the batteries had died out . Freaking Tyler .
It was a weird feeling walking back to the camper with his backpack . He felt somehow robbed of his momentum . If the car battery was broken he was pretty much stuck in the middle of nowhere , at least for now . Either he had to somehow fix the car with his non-existing knowledge of cars or he had to get back to the nearest town by foot , which was about 80 kilometers away .
Eighty kilometers would take the better part of a day when conditions were good , but with hurt legs and monsters likely lurking in the woods it was suicide . There was no way he would try that with his current condition . His only option was to wait where he was in order to heal up , and maybe someone would even come and rescue him . Like the military or the police .
To be honest , he didn’t hold high hopes of a rescue . First of all , no one really knew he was here , and even if someone did he was afraid that these changes would have disrupted law and order to the point they couldn’t be bothered about a single straggler stuck deep in a demon forest .
He would have to save himself , and for that he needed to recover and figure out a way to get back to civilization .
If this stupid system could help out a little and tell me what to do , that would be great . - Zac mumbled , lost as what to do from now .
Active Quests :
Unlimited Potential (Normal) : Reach level 25 . Reward : Unlock class system . (16/25)
Dynamic Quests :
Demon Slayer I (Normal) : Kill 10 denizens with demonic alignment . Reward : +1 All Stats when fighting enemies of demonic alignment . (2/10)
Off with their heads (Unique) : Kill the four heralds and the general of incursion within 3 months . Reward : 10 E-Grade Nexus Crystals , E-Grade equipment , unique building depending on performance . (1/5)
Incursion Master (Unique) : Close or conquer incursion and protect base from denizens of other alignments for 3 months . Reward : 5 E-Grade Nexus Crystals , outpost upgraded to town , status upgraded to Lord . (0/3)
A screen flashed in his view just like when he was transported to the blackness earlier . Zac froze for a second before even registering what was happening . So there was more to this system and multi-verse as he suspected .
The screen slowly hovered in front of him and even moved with him when he turned his head and looked around .
It seemed the system could give out quests which would grant different advantages and power-ups . What Zac first took note of was that there were two types of quests , active quests , and dynamic quests . From looking at the contents it seemed that active quests were normal quests that you either automatically got or got from quest givers or something .
Wait , would there spawn NPC’s around the world with yellow exclamation points above their heads giving out quests? Zac’s gut feeling said no .
The other type of quest was dynamic quests . All the quests were related to the demons and the red pillar . By now he was pretty certain the red pillar in the distance was , in fact , the Incursion mentioned by the system .
He also noticed that there were some rarity or difficulty in front of each quest . He currently had two types , Normal and unique . Normal was pretty straight forward , and seemed like normal grinding quests in video games , - kill x number of y . . . - or - collect 10 ores - , which would reward some experience and gold .
In this case , there was no gold , but the unique quests did reward him with something called Nexus Crystals , which might be a currency . The other rewards were a bit more unclear .
The Class System he could somewhat guess what it would mean . He would probably get to choose warrior , magician (if magic was now real , which actually felt like a very real possibility) or something , and get buffs pertinent to that class .
The demon-slaying quest's reward was also somewhat straight forward , although +1 stats did not seem very strong . However , it said Demon slayer I , meaning there might be follow-ups . What if he killed a thousand demons , would he get +100 all stats against demons? He would be a one-man army by then .
The last rewards he had no idea of what they meant . Upgrade outpost to town? What outpost? And why would he want a town in the middle of nowhere surrounded by monsters? As that quest somehow seemed the hardest to complete , he felt there was something more to it , but couldn’t figure out what . As for the benefits of being a Lord of Monstertown or a unique building , he did not have the slightest idea .
Why is there no explanations of things? - Zac grumbled . - There should be a tutorial or something . -