Chapter 13: Stereotypical (6)

“Sweet baby Jesus and the donkey of legend.”  Jain swore, staring at the screen before him.

If he had understood it correctly, these [Hidden] classes were rare and powerful.  Anyone would be lucky to stumble upon even one of them.

But two?

For the first time this whole thing started, Jain had hit the jackpot.

He suddenly jerked, feeling like something hot pricked him in the groin area.  But the only thing there was the P38, safely tucked into the waistband of his underwear.

“What the… fuck?”

He put a careful hand on the gun.  It was cool to the touch.  Like the whole thing had just been in his head.

“Ok.  Not creepy at all.”  Jain shook his head, turning back to the status screen.

Name: Jain Templar

Race: Human (Base)

Level: 5

—

Mage Initiate

Cult Initiate (Hidden)

Spirit Gambler (Hidden)

—

There was no doubt in Jain’s mind that he had to choose one of the [Hidden] classes.  He was sure of it.  The issue was that there wasn’t just one, but two of them.

“I just don’t know anything about these.”  Jain pursed his lips, thinking.

In a sudden spark of inspiration, Jain focused and the tingling sensation of [Identify] came and went.  But nothing happened.  Even a day earlier, Jain might have tried again, thinking he had done something wrong.  But there was no denying the familiar sensation of [Identify] triggering.  Jain was confident that the skill had worked, it just wasn’t meant to work on the character sheet.

So he did something without thinking.

All Jain wanted to do was find out more about the Class: Shaman.  It intrigued him.  That was it, a simple curiosity.  And what that curiosity made him do was almost second-nature, considering how modern computers, smartphones and tablets worked.  The invention of the ‘back button’ as well as the ability to drill down into a more detailed view with a single click, gave Jain a false sense of security.

He pressed on [Spirit Gambler].

[You have chosen the Spirit Gambler Class]

“...Huh?”

A wall of text addressed him followed.

[You have unlocked the Spirit Gambler Class]

[You have earned 1 SP]

[You have unlocked Spirit Gambler Skill Tree]

[You have learned Spirit Gacha]

[You have learned Spirit Contract]

[You have unlocked Rankings]

“...The fuck?”

Jain stared blankly at the screen.

“No.”

It was that jaw-dropping, gravity-defying sensation of a bottomless pit in his stomach swallowing everything from the waist up. Jain swallowed, reaching out with a trembling finger and flicked at the screen.  Maybe, just maybe, it’ll work just like a computer and he could ‘undo’ it.

The screen bounced and snapped back into space.

“You’re kidding me, right?”  Jain motioned at the screen, pretending he was slapping the side of a TV.

The words in front of him were hauntingly still.

[You have chosen the Spirit Gambler Class]

Jain took a deep breath, closing his eyes.  Nothing had gone right since this whole apocalypse thingie began.  But just maybe, just maybe… just this time maybe…

He opened his eyes again.

[You have chosen the Spirit Gambler Class]

It was still there.

“FUCK!”  Jain’s fist sailed through the translucent screen and straight into the center console.  If it had been a monitor, he would have punched through it.  

“Ok, ok.  It’s not that bad.  It’s not.”

He took more breaths, trying every trick he knew to curb his anger.  Some of them, his dad had taught him.  Counting backwards from ten, counting sheep, closing his eyes and focusing on a fond memory.  It worked, sort of.  It was with this clarity of mind that Jain realized something that he had known all along.

This Tower Interface wasn’t friendly at all.

The fact that his character sheet had new options every time he discovered something meant that whoever didn’t discover those would go through their entire lives without knowing about them.  If he had never gotten a quest, then the [Quest] tab would never have opened up for him.  The same could be said for these hidden [Classes] and [Quests].

That same logic applied to his [Class] selection.  He was a fool to think that he could just press it and get a nice friendly preview about what the [Class] entailed.  He should have been more careful, smarter and just better.  This System or Interface or whatever people ended up calling it in the future, it looked easy to utilize at a first glance.  But it was just a testament to how everything else would go.

There was no hand-holding here.  Only trial and error.

And it was only a matter of time until Jain’s mistakes caught up to him.

“It’s ok.”  Jain cheered himself up, “It’s not like you were going for the [Cult Initiate] class… walking around with a nazi gun and belonging to a cult is just a step away from shaving myself bald and shouting ethnic slurs at minorities.”

All jokes aside, Jain had calmed himself somewhat.  He returned to the main page.

Name: Jain Templar

Race: Human (Base)

Class: Spirit Gambler

Level: 5

—

• Class

• Stats (New!)

• Abilities (New!)

• Quests

• Rankings (New!)

• Help

“First things first,”  Jain quickly looked at his [Stats] and made note of the two stat points.  Again, he held off on investing in them.  Atleast, not until he figured out which of his stats were most useful for him.  Of course, the answer was obvious but he was loath to make any decisions until he was 100% sure.

“Stupid Tower… Stupid Apocalypse… Stupid traps built for humans… It’s like saying whoever answers the question is going to be shot, and you throw a question like ‘what time is it’ into a group.  Someone’s going to fall for it.”  He pushed on [Abilities], noting that the screen looked different.

Name: Jain Templar

Race: Human (Base)

Class: Spirit Gambler

Level: 5

—

[Innate]

Saju (P)

Identify (A)

[Class]

Spirit Gacha (A)

Spirit Contract (A)

Jain’s expression brightened, seeing the options in the [Class] section.

If he was reading this correctly, then Jain could summon a spirit through this ‘Spirit Gacha’, make a ‘Contract’ with it and then call upon it later.

Fantastical images brushed Jain’s mind.  He imagined himself soaring into the sky, riding on the back of a great dragon.  Or surfing on the back of a dolphin-spirit.  Perhaps he’d get one of those cute familiars, the ones on saturday morning cartoons.

Then another, more horrifying image: the time when he and his mother had been called over to Japan to exorcise a Haunting.

The memory of his mother frothing at the mouth, pointing at a dried up Scarecrow.  Jain rushed over, trying to help her up and caught a glimpse of someone’s naked feet right beside him.  The sound of a woman’s laughter, both a cackle and shriek all at once.  But when he looked back, there was no woman without shoes.  Only the Scarecrow.

Later on, Jain told himself that it had been in his head.  Just his silly little imagination.  His mother had agreed.

But she never took him to Japan ever again.

Jain gulped, unable to forget the haunting laughter.  “Hopefully not… right?”

He closed the [Abilities] section.  It’s not like he could use it in this cramped car.  Atleast, that’s what he told himself.  He quickly transversed to [Rankings].

Name: Jain Templar

Race: Human (Base)

Class: Spirit Gambler

Level: 5

—

Rankings

Earth: UNAVAILABLE

North America: UNAVAILABLE

United States: 239,032,115 / 239,982,435

Jain frowned, trying to make sense of the numbers.

For once, Jain didn’t care that he was so near the bottom.  It’s not like it was anything new.  Even before this whole apocalypse thing, Jain knew that he wasn’t anything special.  He was a conman trying to go straight.  Nothing else about it.

It was the last number that caught his eye.

If Jain remembered correctly, there were roughly three-hundred-fifty million people in the United States.  Atleast, there was supposed to be.

“Hundred million people dead…”  Jain muttered.

His head couldn’t wrap around the reality that these numbers posed to him.  It was simply too big for him.  For someone like him who’d never seen real violence.  He’d never seen people killed, never lived in a war-torn country.

It was one thing to see it on the news.  Another thing to be in the thick of it.

It wasn’t just New York, Jain realized.  Every major city, every state, every single country in the world had been hit by this event.  People had died everywhere.  And here was Jain, afraid to use his newfound ability because he was scared of ghosts.

That was hubris.  That he was special.  Or somehow better than others.  But that wasn’t it at all.

The fact that he was in the majority of the populace that had survived the first twenty-four hours wasn’t because of anything he did.  But it was because he was in a place where there weren’t many people, so there wasn’t as much panic.  If these monsters behaved like animals, they’d be attracted to places where people crowded.  Like the park, or the subway or apartment buildings.  Not a museum near closing hours.

There was no guarantee that he would survive another day.

Everyone was struggling to survive.

And they were still failing.

Dying.

Jain brought his knees close to his chest, hugging them.

He wished he could stay here, in the back of this sedan, curl up into a ball and go to sleep, never to wake again.

What the hell was he supposed to even do?  What the hell was the point of having these abilities if the world was in turmoil?  Having magical powers seemed like a fun idea, until the prerequisite became the freaking apocalypse.

He felt small.

And lost.

He didn’t know what to do.

Jain’s eyes slowly closed as he drifted away into sleep.

***

When Jain awoke, it was night.

The sun had set once more.

For a moment, Jain remained still, basking in the silence of it all.  It was a moonless sky so the interior of the car was pitch dark.  Even after his eyes got used to the dark, he could only vaguely make out shapes.  Jain stretched, feeling the ache in his arms and back loosen somewhat.

Jain stopped, hearing the unmistakable sound of windows being broken.

Something was out there.

The comforting darkness instantly transformed into wired tension wrought with horror.

Jain suddenly wanted to do nothing more than get out of this place.

But how?

Realistically, there wasn’t much he could do.  He had a new ability, but every fiber of his being told him that the skill was named ‘Gacha’ for a reason.  He just couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever spirit the ability spat out, not all of them would be willing to hold hands and make friends.

Jain heard other car windows being shattered outside.

Right now he was a sitting duck.

Making up his mind, Jain sat up a little, making sure to hide most of his body behind the car seat.  He peeked through the window, trying to look at what was causing this commotion.  Whatever the thing was, it was too far for Jain to make out what it was.  Which meant that he couldn’t use [Identify] on it either.  While Jain was watching, it turned and cracked open the window of another car.

It was now or never.

Jain flexed his fingers, forcing out the last of sleep from his joints.  He looked one last time at the car, frustrated at the prospect of leaving safety.  If possible, he didn’t want to travel at night.

“No choice.”  He whispered and held his breath, working the door handle and sneaking out.

Click

The door opened a fraction of an inch and Jain peeked through the window, seeing if the interloper had noticed.

It was nowhere to be seen.

The fact that something was out there with him and that Jain no longer had any idea where or what the thing might be doing sent a sliver of fear so pure that he instantly broke out in sweat.

The temptation to lock the door, lay down on the floor and hope for the best was tantalizing.

‘Hundred million people.  Dead.’  

Jain slipped out.

He stayed low to the asphalt, dragging his feet along the ground and trying not to make a sound.  Without the moon and the absence of street lamps, the streets were pitch black.  Jain kept one hand on the car, using it to guide his steps.  He almost hissed as something sharp pierced his feet, glass.  Realizing that he left his shoes in the car, Jain almost turned back.

Almost.

Ding!

This time, the quest screen didn’t pop up.  The image lay in the back of Jain’s brain like an old memory, ready to be recalled at any time.

—

Quest: Hunter becomes the Hunted

Difficulty: B

Description: You are being Hunted.  You may not see it, but it sees you.

Success: Slay the monster that is hunting you.

Failure: Death

Reward: Achievement Section Unlocked, 100 Coins

Penalty: N/A

UNABLE TO REFUSE

—

Jain’s hand slowly reached for the P38.

There was a woman’s scream.

And his vision turned black.