“That will be $5.21.” I said, my voice as flat as the counter.

  …

  “Thank you.”

  Closing the register, I started greeting another customer next in line.

  Beep. Beep.

  “That will be $12.”

  “Thank you.”

  A cycle of hello and goodbye formed. Over and over again.

  I must say, I like this kind of monotony. Boring yet predictable. Others might not like it, but I must say I’m the exception.

  After sending all the customers away, I started restocking the missing items. Scanning the list… “pringles cans, sponges, dish washing gloves… hmm? Six each? That’s crazy. Hey Jill…”

  Reading the list made me realize that someone has been making a very specific, very lonely DIY prototype.

  May the Goddess of Love help with building your ‘friend’ tonight, brother.

  Bzzt.

  But hearing no reply from my coworker, I went to the inventory space to pick up those items.

  “What else… soap, baby oil, and lube? Why are the people around me perverts? Hey Jill. Can you get me these items from the back?”

  “Stay away from me, you pervert!”

  “It’s for the store!”

  Lamenting my fate, I was wondering if I’m getting infected by the “Dowe” virus. Quickly, I managed to get them restocked before a few customers arrived.

  “Good morning!”

  “Good morning.”

  Bzzt.

  “That will be $24.67.”

  Bzzt.

  “Thank you. Have a great day!”

  Bzzt.

  “Alright.” Picking my phone that keeps ringing. Even though I already said I will finish work early, he keeps on insisting.

  “I’m almost done. Damn. Can’t you wait a few minutes?”

  Hehehe. There’s no need, I’m already here.

  I raised my left brow in confusion. Then I heard the bell chiming. Turning my head left, I saw Ilhan walking towards me, smirking like he’d already won a bet I hadn’t agreed to yet.

  “Why is this guy too excited?” I muttered to myself, sighing.

  Approximately one hour later, I gradually became clear-headed as I woke up.

  Remembering yesterday’s events, I grabbed the phone. Expanding the chat program to see the messages from the ‘Idle Sovereign’ Group’s early grinders, Dowe and Lemon has left behind in the morning. Of course, it wasn’t just them…

  Dowe: @Lemon, I’ve updated the custom walking script. I added a ‘clumsiness’ variable. Every few random steps, the bot stops to ‘adjust its equipment’, walks into a wall for two seconds, or spins around to emulate a player casually running around the map. There’s no way the admins guess it’s a bot now haha.

  Lemon: Only two seconds? Make it five. Real players get distracted by snacks. Also, the name generator is bugged (helpless face emoji)

  Dowe: Don’t worry I’ve been making a new random name generator. Now it uses the data from ‘Qizong’s Silly Ex-Girlfriends’ and ‘Crabbieboo’s Certified 10/10 Red Flag Boyfriends’ databases. First names, last names, their three generations are included as well their nicknames! (smug face emoji)

  Qizong: Hehehe

  Crabbieboo: Hehehe

  As expected. The other lurkers showed up. Dowe must be sweating hard right now. I laughed, closing the chat.

  Me, Dowe, and Lemon were the certified gold farmers of the group. We had originally met on an online forum for Wandering Waves, only to realize we were practically neighbors from East and West sides of the city. The rest of the gang—like the siblings Qizong and North River, we met them on a local game club event.

  While Shiny Pebble and Crabbieboo joined as our resident e-girls, courtesy of North River’s steady posture.

  This dog pretends to be a father figure, but in actuality he’s just shameless as we are.

  Lastly, the newest member joining is invited by Qizong. For this dog to invite a girl…

  Tsktsk.

  This new miss seems to be like another xianxia aficionado like these two brothers.

  Shaking my head, and closing the chat. I saw Ilhan’s text message last night.

  Ilhan: You said you needed proof. Good. Meet me at 7AM before your work. I’ll show you something good.

  I had declined, telling him I had a shift and we could talk later before the hospital. But Ilhan wouldn't stop. He started sending suspicious predictions—telling me that a specific bird on my balcony would drop dead. He kept insisting I sign off work early, which is why he was currently smirking at me across the counter.

  At the register, Ilhan leaned over.

  “Did you check the bird on the balcony?”

  “A pigeon dying in this city isn’t a freak incident. It’s just a coincidence. And science can explain that with a so-called shift in the magnetic field. This messes with the bird’s navigation system.”

  “Hehe. But I told you it would happen and it did.”

  I rolled my eyes at him before saying, “what other predictions do you have?”

  Ilhan pondered over for a moment before speaking.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Remember your last startup? The one with the moths?”

  Hearing this, I perked up before leaning backward. That moth incident refers to my second company.

  After failing my first business, I built a server room for gold farming. Basically, using bots and scripts to automate material farming for several MMORPG games. It was supposed to be a surefire way to earn money since I only had to create, manage, and delete accounts when they’re leveling up, trading, or banned by the moderators.

  But through some twisted miracle, an entire species of signal-eating moths were discovered feeding on my server racks, paralyzing my business.

  Then, EPA quarantined the site as a “pre-historic biological discovery of the century”, leaving me with zero say.

  Of course, I did try to get my assets back by going to the city hall.

  You know what they said? That I couldn’t get back my assets since the business isn’t registered to the company bureau, and the assets don’t exist since I didn’t bring the receipts.

  They did compensate with some money after I insisted to sue them, but it wasn’t enough to recuperate my losses.

  Disappointed, I was walking home when I heard a woman’s scream...

  When I remembered that inhumane times as if the world was tormenting me for being a simple, unadorned man, only possessing heroic thoughts. My eyes turned a bit moist.

  “What about that?” I asked, then I leaned in panic. Slightly horrified, I said to him, “don’t tell me another one of those is gonna happen anytime soon?”

  “Hahaha. No,” Ilhan laughed, shaking his head. “What I meant to say is that do you think that’s just a coincidence? Let me tell you, those moths were actually from an ancient civilization!”

  “Alright. I’m not going to argue with you.” I flatly said. Remembering our past conversation, I said: “Ice age, right? Since you think you’re a regressor, what happens to me in the future?”

  Seo Ilhan gave me a strange look, before sighing. “Do you really want to know?”

  I nodded.

  “Fine. You die. You die in the most horrific way.”

  Let me guess,” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I went down in a blaze of glory, holding back the monsters of the ancient civilizations so you could escape?”

  Ilhan’s expression remained entirely deadpan. “No. You died in the second week. You didn’t even see a single monster.”

  I blinked. “Then what killed me? Hypothermia? Was the electricity down for the whole city?”

  Ilhan smiled.

  “You’re not gonna believe this…”

  Minutes later…

  A bitter smile appeared on my face.

  “Fuck. You’re telling me I didn’t even survive the ice storm, and was even lynched by the community for hoarding food?”

  Ilhan nodded.

  “Damn.”

  “What happened to our friends?”

  Ilhan shook his head. “Even most of the group chat didn’t survive. But, they all starved or froze unlike you.”

  “Wow.” I gasped. “I can’t believe you’d even kill us just to make a good story.”

  Ilhan rolled his eyes and then sneered. “Alright. It was a good prank. Don’t you think?”

  “Sure,” I said, tilting my head. “But let’s say you’re a regressor, can you give me next week’s lottery numbers?”

  Ilhan chuckled. “If I really know them, I’ll even give you two weeks worth of winnings.”

  “Wao. What a selfish guy.”

  “Come on. We gotta go to the hospital.”

  This fake regressor and I spent the rest of the afternoon at the hospital waiting room.

  After another hour of redundant, mind-numbing lab tests, the results were identical to yesterday.

  As clean as a white lotus in a mountain ridge, Ilhan was perfectly healthy, leaving the medical staff bewildered. As we walked out, I caught the same nurse glaring at us from behind her desk. She was practically cursing us if you believe me.

  Nothing to do now, I proposed to play some co-op games for tonight’s session. Ilhan checked his phone and turned me down, saying he’s busy.

  “Right. Have fun buying those winning lottery tickets.” I begrudgingly muttered.

  We parted ways, and I headed back to my apartment.

  “Vacations almost here. Seems like I should prepare already.”

  Since, I had nothing to do for the rest of the night and even tomorrow. I started planning my vacation to my parents in California.

  Being raised from a family whose success came with tech stock and first mover investments, I am used to planning my future steps. Where to go, how to make this, or what should I eat; so naturally, I planned over my vacation.

  My family generally talk beforehand about what we’re doing when we have free time. If not, my parents will chide me and my sister to come for vacation.

  We agree most of the time but this one instance is more important. Since I have to go home to talk about what I want to do next.

  This is the current problem you see.

  I know what to do with my life essentially. To the point that I was almost able to create a functioning company with my skill and wits. Almost!

  But then something happens that would cause my startups to turn into thin bubbles.

  First company: a community-focused shop.

  Simply enough, it’s a store selling locally made products such as maker items, then collaborating with local pop-ups for advertisement.

  Knowing the local market, I was poised to earn enough capital to start another venture, but then an unexpected situation occurred.

  The city accidentally demolished the store to make way for a bypass.

  How could you make this mistake?!

  Anyways, they admitted the error and rebuilt the shop, but the momentum was dead, and it was already replaced by another community-focused store just like mine.

  After that is the moth accident. Well… you already know that story.

  I could only say that I have created two decent companies, and that the events that caused their failures are not within my capacity to handle as a human.

  Even if they say it’s due to my lack of information and incomplete research, I will ignore them.

  Back to the matter, I opened my chat program and messaged my plans to the ‘Merderers’ chat group—I swear I didn’t name it, it was my sister.

  Then, I ate my dinner and played a few games before heading to bed.

  It’s during summer and the night had arrived, so the temperature dramatically decreased. Head to toe, I was covered in my blanket, but the cold still permeated. I only wore a pair of undies before I slept, so when the sun rose, my nose became stuffy.

  One swallow is enough to tell me I’m going to get sick the next few days. Groaning, I got out of bed to start the day.

  Since today is bound to be slow, I decided to relax and recuperate.

  My parent taught me to play no games, and to focus only on eating and sleeping.

  But I digress. After I ate, I turned on the TV to browse the news while sipping my coffee.

  Gradually, I became muddleheaded listening to the words spoken by the host when something caught my eye.

  A headline made me take a look again at the screen.

  Afterward, I pulled out my phone and opened the chat window.

  Neil: I saw the news. Don’t tell me you…