"Death, please come and take me away already…"
Jia Xinyue was not in a good mood.
She had looked through the whole shop, and everything was expensive that made you think- am I being scammed? Although, if you think that in real life, chances are that you are being scammed.
Seriously, even if they were life-saving, Jia Xinyue and Kian weren't from the world in the end, so what if they died? Wouldn't they just move onto the next world? Why waste all this effort and glory to buy some one-use item?
She let out another big sigh, and flopped straight onto the ground.
"Ow-ow-ow-ow I should NOT have done that-" Jia Xinyue said, grimacing in pain. Her bones ached and her tailbone felt like it was going to bruise.
The more Jia Xinyue thought about the price, the more she got angry- why are they that expensive? What, are they coated in 24k gold? Encrusted with diamonds and sapphires?
Then she remembered about the first 'Quest' in the quest menu.
Jia Xinyue stood up angrily, stomping around in a circle and tearing at her hair. The ever-growing amount of screens obediently followed her around.
It was quite a sight to see, Jia Xinyue looking much like the Mad Hatter- just, without the hat. Kian would've paid to see this scene, but he was still busy trying to nourish Lan Wei's body.
She didn't understand at the time, but after finding the shop menu she finally did! The quest was making fun of her! For being broke!
What, like you can't even afford anything in this economy? Well, sucks to be you! Maybe if you worked harder for that degree, if you actually got some job experience instead of spending it all on avocado toast and staring at that phone of yours, you'd be rich by now!
A quest like that, shouldn't it at least be nicer to them? If this quest was already this difficult, with so little pay, how could she survive?
Please up the minimum wage, thank you!
After a while, Jia Xinyue finally managed to calm down, taking deep breaths to clear her mind. If that one quest only gave 20 glory, then she'd need to complete… 1000 quests?!
Nevermind, this little one will go jump off a cliff now.
But that was only hypothetically! Technically, quests should give more and more as they go on...and as they increase in difficulty…
Jia Xinyue seemed to have a dark cloud looming over her head as she slumped down, slowly, to the floor. She held one of the screens near her, and with a tear-stricken face, she cried out-
"Please, just have mercy on meeee!"
After lying down lifelessly for about an hour, Jia Xinyue got up, stretching her limbs as she rose.
Life still had to go on. There was no point in wallowing in self-despair.
She dragged her heavy limbs to the wall of screens, or the Great Wall of Despair, as she lovingly called it. Her mind felt a little fuzzy and she swore her fingertips were tingling. She breathed in slowly, her heart pounding inside her head. Looking up, she felt something pull her upwards. There must be something up there that was important.
Jia Xinyue steeled herself for the climb. As she climbed up, the urge got stronger and stronger, until she finally reached a blue screen with a massive wall of text. Her hands were sweaty and she was out of breath from the climb.
[Note to self: don't look down]
She ignored her pounding heart that seemed to be racing against Usain Bolt himself, and focused on the screen in front of her.
It seemed to be a website?
None of the other screens she had seen before had a website! With a website, it was possible that she could use Baidu or Google to search up-
[F*ck.]
She was in a fantasy world! That wouldn't work! Plus, she didn't even have wifi, so what internet could she even connect into? She would just play the Google dinosaur game for the rest of her life!
She should still try it out though.
With a trembling finger, she hovered over the '+' button on the top of the screen, and hesitated.
[What are you waiting for?]
If she had internet, what could she even do with it? Tweet her situation out to everyone else?
Maybe write the events like a novel, and then see if she could exchange RMB to glory… then she can use cheats and complete all the quests-
She took a deep breath, and tapped on the button, the sound of her nail on the screen painfully loud in her ears.
Suddenly, the screen turns darker, and a notification popped up with a small 'ding'! Upon reading the notification, Jia Xinyue felt her hopes turn to ash…
{You do not have access to this command, please contact HQ for access.}
[Nani??]
She hesitantly closed the notification and focused on the page. To her surprise, the words moved from a massive block of text into a rotating globe, with a search bar in the middle. Right above it, it said {DATABASE OF JIANG ACADEMY}.
Isn't Jiang Academy where they were planning on going to? It was also where the quests had told them to go.
Shrugging, Jia Xinyue decided that it would probably be important sometime sooner or later, and quickly shoved it along with the screens hovering behind her. The screen quickly moved to where the rest of the screens were, and another screen about how to create decent quality wine and make sacrifices to a God appeared in its place.
That title quickly caught Jia Xinyue's interest, but before she could scroll down and read more, her vision wavered and turned blurry, and she lost her grip.
Jia Xinyue could barely register what was happening. For a moment, time seemed to stop, and she could hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears as she watched herself fall. Her head was dizzy and black spots seemed to float across her vision.
Right before she hit the ground, she heard a distinctive voice say-
"Please don't break my heart again. I can't-"
Then all went black.