BANG!
The glass of the window shattered, allowing Mathew inside the building. Yet, as he fell down on the floor, the shards of the broken glass… did absolutely nothing against his skin reinforced by all the stats leveling he went through so far.
‘I need to hurry,’ he thought, scraping his feet against the floor as he rushed ahead, bursting through the closed doors of the classroom as if it was nothing only to run down the corridor.
A short hike later, Mathew arrived at the usual spot only to slide inside the hole in the wall. His movements were so rapid that he actually failed to grab the rails of the ladder, falling down a good meter before his hands finally managed to grip the support.
‘Faster,’ he thought, climbing up the ladder. ‘Faster,’ he urged himself, sneaking through the upper opening in the tunnel only to roll down on the floor of the topmost floor of the building. ‘FASTER!’ he internally screamed out, rushing ahead and reaching out for the darkness coiling underneath the merchant’s cape.
The shadows surged around him, separating him from the reality that he knew and immersing him in the subspace he was already familiar with.
“Do you, by any chance, have any antidote for the zombie virus?” Mathew asked right away, even though there was no further need for him to be in any hurry.
After all, within the merchant’s shadowy realm, time flew in a different way than it did in the outside world.
“The first level of the zombie cure can be purchased for fifty cores,” the metallic, emotionless voice of the merchant filled the shadowy realm just as it filled Mathew’s soul with relief.
‘So it exists,’ he thought, taking a deep breath and slumping down to the shadowy floor.
“Do you wish to purchase it?” the merchant asked, not showing any signs of empathy even though Mathew’s shoulders were trembling.
“Yes,” Mathew replied almost instantly. “Yes, I wish to purchase it,” he then repeated only for his vision to start blurring as a notification window popped up right in front of him.
*Do you wish to buy Zombie Cure [1] for 50 cores? Y/N*
‘Huh?’ Mathew shook in his place. ‘What the hell?’ he then asked himself, confused to the end of his wits.
It was the first time for the merchant to actually use the system features to propose a purchase!
‘Does that mean…’ Mathew took a moment to think only to then raise his eyes and look towards the usual spot where he imagined the core of the merchant to reside. “Is it possible to find this particular item anywhere on the shelves I can see?” he then asked, unwilling to just accept his own guess for this particular topic.
Because in the situation he was in right now, the value of the zombie cure was of massive significance.
“Zombie Cure belongs to a special grade of items and as such cannot be displayed for the customer to see,” the merchant then replied, finally giving Mathew the one thing that he constantly lacked in this new, changer world.
A proper confirmation for his guess.
“Then, I wish to…” Mathew started to speak, only to cut his sentence short.
‘Isn’t it going a bit too easy?’ he asked himself as a feeling of suspicion roused at the bottom of his soul. He then gulped down his saliva before taking a deep breath and opening his mouth again. “Does this zombie cure one… No, how does this zombie cure one works?”
This time, the merchant didn’t reply right away.
Mathew felt a cold sweat trickle down his spine, even though due to his tight clothing it wasn’t something physically possible.
Seconds extended into minutes. Minutes appeared to turn into hours…
“The zombie cure one stops the growth of symptoms of the zombification.”
Mathew closed his eyes and lowered his head. He then took a few breaths, doing his best to calm himself down. Then, he once again pried his eyes open and looked up toward the merchant’s core.
“Then, how much does zombie cure two costs, and how does it work?” he asked.
The merchant was an entity that Mathew considered to be more or less objective and fair. And unless he himself wasn’t trying to cheat it out of the cores it desired, the merchant didn’t appear to have any will toward making things hard for the young man.
And yet, right at this moment, Mathew realized just how shrewd it actually was.
“The information is currently blocked. You need to advance your general level to unlock it,” the merchant then informed, saving Mathew the long wait he had to endure before.
“I see…” Mathew then replied, standing up from the floor and stretching his body out. “Then, I wish to purchase the zombie cure one,” he informed, only for a wicked smile to appear on his lips as he opened them up again. “What’s more, do you by any chance have a long rope in stock?”
“You can purchase a ten-meter-long rope for the price of five cores,” the merchant replied. “As you could see by actually checking out the stock displayed on the shelves,” it then added in a voice containing a slight hint of annoyance.
‘I guess I’m pushing my luck by asking about everything,’ Mathew realized. And then, just like the merchant pointed out, he actually moved towards the shelves present within the realm, combing through them for a moment before finally figuring out the location of the item in question. “Is it possible to deduct the cores directly from my storage?” he then asked, raising his eyes from the rope in his hands towards the merchant’s core.
“It can be done.”
“Then, I want to purchase this rope using the cores left within my storage,” Mathew said.
The rope that acted like a somehow interactable hologram in his hands suddenly materialized properly.
‘I have everything I need,’ Mathew thought as a small smile crept up on his lips. ‘Now all that’s left is to hope that it will work,’ he thought, taking his time to wrap one end of the rope around his hips before securing it with a simple yet quite unbreakable knot. Yet, before leaving, Mathew reached out with his hand towards the merchant’s core… and just waited.
This time, the merchant didn’t waste its words on its customer. Instead, it somehow invoked the usual play of blinding light that then receded only to reveal a small syringe lying flat on the top of Mathew’s palm.
“I wish to leave,” Mathew then announced, bending on his knees as he turned around and oriented himself towards where he expected the nearest window to be back in the original world.
The shadows surged and coiled and then the entire realm fell apart, throwing the young man back to the real world.
Yet, rather than taking his time to calm down, Mathew instantly rushed ahead. He ran forward, bolting towards the nearest window. Yet, rather than jumping out of it right away, he used the momentum of his run to smash his elbow into the glass, shattering it in nearly the same way as he did to the window on the second floor. Then, using the frame of the window as support, Mathew wrapped the other end of his rope around it. A few movements of his hands later, another knot made its appearance, securing the point of contact between the rope and the school’s building.
‘Now, all that’s left is to hope the window won’t break,’ Mathew thought, saying a prayer in his thoughts right as he stepped up on the window’s edge before jumping right down into the abyss below.
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