As Kevin and Mallow tore through the diary, an Omnispace alert hummed in their skulls:
“Worldhopper 4444 and 4445, you have activated the legendary-tier hidden main storyline mission: The Cause of the Apocalypse. This mission reveals the world’s ultimate secret and is central to the narrative. It is a singular event—completion by your team prevents further activation.
Warning: This mission is mandatory once initiated. Its difficulty is variable and may exceed your team’s current capabilities, resulting in unpredictable outcomes.
Note: The maximum reward potential includes a divine artifact shard.”
Kevin and Mallow’s jaws dropped, eyes bugging out. Melk and T-Bone, stuck as NPCs, didn’t catch the Omnispace ping—they just figured these two punks finally cracked after rotting in this cursed dump.
Mallow’s voice shook, half-laughing, half-choking. “B-Boss, we’re fucking loaded! Haha, we hit the damn jackpot—a divine artifact shard!”
Kevin winced, froze a sec, then nodded slow. “This mission’s got a long name—legendary and hidden jammed in there. Sounds epic as hell, I’ll give it that. Divine artifact shard? Sweet as shit. But we oughta draft our wills. This time next year, we’re toasting our own graves, you feel me?”
“Why?”
“Real talk—how tough are we?”
“Straight up? We’re weak as piss. Ten walkers at once, and we’re gone faster than a damn bullet.”
“High reward, high risk—duh. But why the fuck are we greenhorns stuck with a legendary mission and a divine shard on the line? And a mandatory legendary gig in the newbie trial? This ain’t a test—it’s fuckin’ slaughter!” Kevin snarled, pissed off.
Mallow’s heart slammed as he scanned the mission fine print, spotting a sneaky line buried at the bottom:
“Locate the correct door for the key and enter the mission zone within one hour. Failure results in elimination.”
Picture this: Your phone rings, and it’s some mafia big shot. “Yo, listen up!” he barks. “Congrats, you’ve just scored 200 million bucks! Yeah, 200 million! Odds are nuttier than a penguin hustling pool. But to grab your cash, there’s a tiny fee—just 2 million bucks. Wire it to account 555-xxx-6789 in the next hour. Screw us over, and you’re in deep shit—family-wiped-out kinda trouble. Capisce?”
Mallow snapped outta his daze and smacked himself hard. “So this ain’t no hero’s lucky break; it’s a damn death trap! Why’d I have to be such a fucking moron? Shit, I’m too young to croak! Damn you, Omnispace! This has gotta be illegal, right? What scam tops this?!”
Kevin and Mallow were losing it, cursing up a storm. They were so pissed they could’ve choked Omnispace barehanded—if they knew where the hell it was hiding.
Melk and T-Bone just stared, watching these two clowns lose their shit in this screwed-up world, shaking their heads like they’d seen it all.
But maybe all that swearing paid off. Guess what? Omnispace chimed in again:
“Considering Worldhopper 4444 and 4445 are newcomers with limited power levels, the system calculates your probability of death on this mission at over 99.999999%.” (Kevin muttered under his breath, “Why not just say we’re fucked six ways to Sunday? Thanks for sparing our feelings, you prick!”)
“Due to regulations prohibiting missions with death rates exceeding 95%, combined with the newcomer protection policy, this legendary-level mission is downgraded to nightmare-level, with rewards adjusted accordingly. After adjustment, your death rate is reduced to 97.6%.” (Kevin spat, “Bullshit! Still a death sentence? You’re screwing us twice now, you assholes!”)
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Given the difficulty remains excessive, a temporary item and medicine exchange is activated for 5 minutes. Worldhoppers may enhance survival odds by trading for medicines and supplies. The mission begins when the estimated death rate falls below 95%. If the Worldhoppers die, survival points are nonrefundable.”
Omnispace stuck to its “no discussion, no protection, no responsibility” line, sending the two rookies into a fresh freak-out. (Kevin snarled low, “If we don’t dump everything on meds, we’re dead meat for sure.”)
Scared shitless but cornered, they had no choice but to roll with it.
Kevin bellowed, “Fuck it! Stack hay while the sun’s blazing!”
Mallow, teetering on the edge, hollered, “Living’s like getting screwed—if you can’t stop it, might as well lean in!”
“Right on, brother!” The two locked hands in a fierce grip.
Melk and T-Bone’s faces twisted, clocking their prized apprentices going from head cases to busted-up wrecks.
Sporting black eyes and smashed noses, Kevin and Mallow grinned like idiots, limping side by side. Melk and T-Bone, too beat to bitch, trudged behind. The crew shuffled toward the hydraulic door from the diary.
Earlier, Kevin had the brains to burn all their team points on real gear. Lucky for them, the squad was stacked to clear walkers—guns and ammo piled high.
With 30 team points, Kevin snagged a Navy Knife from Melk. Nothing flashy, just a plain white-tier blade, but it carved walkers for 15-20 damage—miles better than his weak-ass 5-point sticker. He tossed the last 9 points to Mallow. Mallow blew his 50-plus points on a slick M16 rifle and a fat stack of ammo.
Grabbing the 5-minute window, Kevin and Mallow went nuts, trading all their survival points for potions and meds—shit to keep ‘em alive now. Kevin’s rule was live large, die broke—no point left unspent.
Kevin sat on 5,600 survival points, Mallow over 3,000. Solid haul, but staring death in the face, they got why Omnispace tagged their cash as survival points.
A bottle of Hyper Serum refills your health for 5 seconds in a scrap, but it runs you a brutal 2,000 survival points and 1 skill point.
A bottle of Speed Potion, juicing your movement speed 30% for 3 minutes, hits you for 500 survival points.
A bottle of Stone Skin Potion, pumping your toughness 30% for 3 minutes, also clocks in at 500 survival points.
Those gut-punch prices nearly broke the two stingy bastards—they’d rather sit on points and gut it out than blow ‘em on meds. One shot cost more than two main missions; that cash bleed stung worse than a thousand slashes.
After the spree, Kevin’s eyes were red, chest heaving. He glared at the measly bottles in his grip—2 Hyper Serums, 1 Speed Potion, 1 Stone Skin Potion, and 1 Mamba Venom, a nasty corrosive poison. Five vials, all he had after five brutal days in this screwed-up hellhole.
Mallow, meanwhile, nabbed just one Hyper Serum, three chunks of Energy Toast, and an Adrenaline Shot, juicing his shooting power 30% for 3 minutes. But his real brainwave was snagging a steep Sheep Potion—500 survival points down the drain.
Sheep Potion: Turns you—not your enemy—into a chubby Alpine sheep for 200 seconds. Can’t swing a fist, but you score 5 Agility points to bolt like hell. Every hit shaves off 1 HP, no dodging that. As a sheep, you’re the enemy’s prime meat. When you snap back human, you’re clinging to a thread.
This batshit potion’s a lunatic’s lifeline.
So Kevin laid into timid Mallow with a hard-ass beatdown.
These two dumbasses finally learned the score: cash runs this joint. Now they’re dirt broke—zero team points, under 100 survival points—worse off than when they first crashed this screwed-up dump.
Kevin had 9 skill points and 7 attribute points left. He sucked in a deep breath and figured he’d burn ‘em too.
He checked the rules: stats under 5, 1 attribute point buys 1 stat point; 5 to 10, it’s 3 attribute points per stat; over 10, 5 points a pop.
Kevin dropped 2 attribute points on Agility, jacking it to 5. With Feather Boots +2 and Beginner Bonus +1, he hit 8 Agility—finally not lagging behind those mutant walkers. Then he sunk 3 points into Stamina for one more notch.
He held off on the last 2 attribute points for now. Skill points? Kept ‘em cold—not ‘cause he didn’t wanna level up, but upgrading skills ate survival points, and he was tapped out.
Compared to skills, potions were the play here—quick juice, bigger hits. Who needs fancy-ass tricks if you’re dead meat?
