by Way Woo
He sighed the sigh of the long-suffering and made the proper adjustments to his plan.
“You’re right,” he said, his voice sounding defeated. “Notify Corporate, we’re taking the week after this one off.”
“What kind of notification should we place in the Hero Shop then, boss?”
“Just follow the format Corporate uses when making company memos. You can easily fill in the blanks.“
“Roger that!” and with that announcement, the Nohas branch of the Hero Shop returned to its usual working environment, a plan to take a vacation just to slow down their beloved customer’s purchasing obsession already under way.
But as he returned to his office to take a long-deserved power nap, he had the distinct feeling that he had forgotten something important, but his eyes closed the moment he put his head on his desk, right before he could start figuring it out.
[Hero Stop customer list:
Name: Jake Smithson
Membership Status: General Membership, Black Label
Points Left Before Membership Upgrade: 36,000]
***
It was just before Jake took the ship back to Brino that he realized that he had gained a significant amount of power.
Before the Island of Delusion, Jake could say that he was a cut above most of the other adventurers, but now?
It was a whole different story.
Status window, he thought, and the window appeared before him.
[Name: Jake Smithson
Level: 1
Class: Shopaholic
Basic stats
Power: 45
Agility: 35
Intelligence: 14
Magic Points: 2
Physical Defense: 4
Magic Defense: 6
Luck: 2
Skills:
Shopping (Hero Shop currently in open beta)
Great Sword Mastery Lv. 2
Cherry Blossom Weapon Skill Lv. 1
Even Flow (Energy) Lv. 1 ]
He let out a low whistle as he saw his stats and skills.
But as he stepped off the turtle ship, still walking on sunshine, something happened to him that would be best described as ridiculous.
One of the adventurers approached him cautiously, weapon out.
“Where have you been?”
“Do I answer to you, sir? I was hunting.”
“Did you run away?”
“What did I run away from?”
The adventurer quickly lost patience. “What I’m saying is, you ran away because you’re the prime suspect in the death of Seamus and his party!”
“No, I didn’t,“ Jake said as his smile slowly changed into a frown. “I returned here, didn’t I?”
“If you’re not the killer, why did you hide for two weeks?”
“I didn’t hide,” Jake said as his joy quickly died away at the hostile looks and sudden inquisition brought upon him.
Didn’t actually have time to think about this while at the Island, Jake thought. Too busy fighting to think about the killer.
“What were you doing during those two weeks, then?”
“I. Was. Hunting. Monsters,” Jake replied slowly, as if he was talking to a toddler.
You’ve already pre-judged me, so any explanation I make, you’re not going to consider.
I’ve run into my fair share of people like you.
So I’m not going to bother going into the details – you’re not going to listen, anyway, Jake thought, his experience with people serving him well at this point.
“You’re not going to admit to your crimes, huh?” the knight said, and took up a fighting stance. “I guess the time for talking has finished.”
As soon as the knight said that, the tension in the riverbank ratcheted up, and Jake was able to understand what they were really intending to do, even as his hands hovered around the hilt of his weapon.
Predictable.
Jake could see that he was right as he saw them beginning to ready their weapons for a fight.
That was when a chime prompted Jake to look at the corner of his eye, because a notification came, deflating all the tension out of him.
[IMPORTANT NOTICE:
Good morning, dear customer!
We would like to inform you in advance that the Hero Shop staff will be taking a week off for various teambuilding and job enrichment activities starting next week.
Please note that we will not be able to ship any items you purchase for the duration of our time off.
Please keep that in mind while you shop with us, and thank you for your continued patronage!]
As soon as Jake read a notice that he never wanted to see, his face paled and his pupils shrank to pinpricks.
“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!” he roared almost reflexively after the shock of the announcement passed through him, unaware of his present situation.
“No,” the knight replied, incorrectly assuming that Jake was asking them that question, “it would be easier for everyone if you come at us like that.”
As Jake continued to grapple with the news, the other adventurers slowly began to surround him.
Fuck me with a face full of facefuck, these jokers are going off the grid for a week? I get the fucking shakes if a day passes by without me buying anything!
How the fuck am I going to survive one fucking week?!
“He’s snapped,” one of the adventurers said as a trickle of cold sweat began to flow down Jake’s face as he stood stock-still at the disastrous notification sent his way.
What do I? How do I...?
As Jake began to think of ways to address this situation, the team slowly made their way towards him.
Think, Jake, think!
“That’s it. We’ll move to capture him now.”
Hmm. Okay, I’ll buy a week’s worth of items in advance, keep them in the inventory…
“We tried to talk him out of this but he resisted,” the knight said, and the rest of the search team nodded along.
…and ration it so I open one package a day. That’s it. That’s it!
Jake’s back shuddered with satisfaction at his ingenuity.
I can last the week if I buy seven items. Which means I need to earn points – now!
“This is your last warning! Come with us or be prepared to have blood spilled – yours!” one of the team yelled.
The malicious intent of the search team permeated the banks of the river, and Jake knew they wouldn’t be content with just capturing him.
And then the tension broke as Jake’s clouded eyes returned back to its piercing shine.
“Vacation!” Jake roared. “They said they were going on a vacation!”
His sudden burst of anger stopped the search team in its tracks.
“Will you guys get the hell off my back? The next week will be the most important seven days for me!” Jake yelled, and furiously rushed towards the adventurers.
Episode 20
***
“Y’all going to make me lose my mind!”
“Use your skill!”
“Up in here, up in here!”
“Hit him with the fireball!”
“Y’all going to make me go all out!”
“He’s not even fazed! What’s going on?”
“Up in here, up in here!”
Back in school, in whatever school Jake went to, there was always this one nickname that followed him.
But to be fair to Jake, there was no other nickname that better fit him than Jake “Mad Dog” Smithson.
There were many reasons why he gained the nickname wherever he went: first was one of the rules Jake lived by, namely: “you can only push a person so far until he starts pushing back”.
And when he started pushing back, people tended to notice.
He would let being picked on and talked about behind his back slide most of the time, because he thought it was cute.
However, past a certain point, if crossed, you would see the pupils on Jake’s eyes narrow to
pinpricks.
It wasn’t the overtly visible madness some had, like the bulging eyes and the exaggerated gestures.
The aura about Jake changed completely, too. Normally, he’d want to be left alone. But when he was in that zone… it felt like being near him thickened the air, making it hard to breathe. And you could feel him coming, even from a distance away.
Even when he was in high school: the first batch of bullies who wanted to pick on him for no discernible reason were the first to face his full and unbridled rage.
One of them still has a steel plate in his jaw from where Jake crushed it. Another has his hands ache horribly whenever it’s raining. All of this was done in self-defense, of course.
An explosion rocked the outskirts of the river as one of the pursuit team’s fireballs hit Jake straight and true, and out of the flames, Jake Smithson stepped out, singed in a few places and smelling of brimstone, but otherwise unharmed.
And by now, he had stopped singing.
“You think the rules back in the real world are the same out here?” he asked quietly, but his voice eerily carried through the meadow, stopping the other adventurers in their tracks. “There are no cops and no courts here… and nothing you can do to stop me.”
The answer to that question was this: if the adventurers tasked to apprehend Jake weren’t bound by the norms of their society before arriving here now, why were they expecting Jake to be different?
And Jake had also kept his potential for brutality in check once he left high school and stepped onto college and the world of work.
A punch thrown in a moment of anger could change his life for the worst, and the truth of that was hammered into him back in high school.
Now, though, in a world of magic and monsters like Nohas?
It was like a set of shackles keeping Jake’s true self at bay had finally been broken.
As soon as Jake stepped forward out of the massive fireball, the glow of his eyes, and the smile on his face had the adventurer in front take a step back.
“Retreat...!”
“Oh no,” Jake replied, pulling the hardened bat out of his inventory, “this party won’t end until someone’s on the floor.”
There were ten adventurers on the pursuit team: each of them with very good equipment and skills, but the way he was moving towards them and shrugging off magic attacks like nothing made him look like a walking nightmare.
It was at this point that the pursuit team finally saw just how large the gap was between them and the force of nature standing opposite.
They should have seen the signs the moment he whipped out the bat, but by then, it was too late.
The sheer impossibility of someone with a bat defeating ten fully-equipped adventurers?
But everything changed when they saw that one of them was already in a groaning, crumpled heap on the ground from a simple poke to the solar plexus.
“Next one who moves gets beat to shit. Any takers?”
And then Jake turned to them, his expression completely flat as he pulled the bat back and hefted it over his shoulders.
“And off you guys go, back to Brino with your tails between your legs,” Jake said as the adventurer giving the orders tried to get up from where he was curled up in a pained ball, only to get knocked back down as a simple tap from the bat sent him back into the dirt, this time gripping his lower back.
When the adventurer tried to make signs, Jake started working on the adventurer’s arms like one would take dust off a blanket, all the while not taking his eyes off the others.
One of them tensed and made a move to rescue their companion, but was instantly skewered by the intensity of Jake’s glare.
“Like I said, next one who moves ends up like this guy,” Jake growled out, and the sheer malice from his voice stopped the other adventurers in their tracks. “Anyone feeling… lucky?”
Everyone hesitated, as they all imagined themselves on the floor and in horrible pain, and began exchanging panicked glances among themselves.
What should we do?
How do we handle this?
And almost to a man, eight other adventurers all looked to their fellow with the same expression.
Jake could easily note that with the way the adventurers were looking at one of them, he was the leader of this group.
This was a gross miscalculation, the man heading the pursuit team thought, shocked. We’re in way deeper than I thought!
As Jake started to lightly tap the prone adventurer, causing him to whimper, Emmanuel was beginning to formulate plans on how to escape this predicament, the whole sequence of events beginning with Jake’s arrival not even close to what his expectations were, when he and the team he was leading saw him at the prow of his very own boat.
He was already thinking about escaping on his own when the pink blossoms began to appear, fluttering in the breeze and bringing with it its fragrance along the banks of the river south of Brino.
The adventurers were bewildered at the sudden scent of cherry blossoms fluttering in the wind, and the absurdity of their situation.
A group of ten adventurers coming into their power and using their skills in hunting monsters efficiently, all brought down by a bat-wielding, perfume-wearing man.
What a humiliating defeat.
“After all this is said and done,” Jake announced, his tone still eerily flat, “you’re all going to learn one thing.”
The fragrance spread, and the adventurers realized who was responsible for that phenomenon.
“When you smell the cherries? It means I’m coming,”
***
In the banks of the river south of Brino, ten adventurers who had numerous monster kills and teamed up to defeat a ten-foot-tall Werecrocodile were currently kneeling on the sand, trying not to cry out in pain from the beating they just took.
Were there other teams of adventurers placed in this situation?
Very unlikely.
And in front of them, a man was pacing to and fro, spinning a black bat with the scent of dried blood on it, no doubt from the countless monsters he also took down.
He stopped and turned to the adventurers before him.
“Okay, I’ll spell it out for you in three simple words: leave me alone. Anyone who gets in my way for no good reason or will give me grief? The beating I’ll give will make this one feel like kisses from a girl.”
He smacked his bat on his open palm.
“We clear?” he asked, and ten frightened kneeling adventurers were nodding their heads as fast as they could, subconsciously following the order of the strongest person around.
That person was Jake, who was now deep in thought as he resumed pacing to and fro.
From this point onward, anyone who gets between me and the things I need to buy will be cut down. No exceptions, no mercy, no quarter.
“First fool who does gets five minutes alone with me,” Jake mused, and the adventurers on the riverbank straightened up just a little bit.
And as he continued pacing, Jake began to sneak glances at the adventurers kneeling before him, trying to read their body language for any tells.
It would make sense to strike while the iron was hot, so to speak, and start doing some interrogation work.
Who would be dumb enough to murder their fellow adventurers and try to cover it up? Jake thought, the interrogation he was planning to do focusing on who killed Seamus and his teammates.
Now that the situation has gone to the point where even hunting for points from monsters to fuel his shopping addiction was affected, Jake needed to know.
Well, aside from the fact that it’s obvious that someone is using me to cover up for their actions.
As Jake mentally catalogued the events that led to this, he deduced that whoever did this was trying to put all the blame on him.
Premeditation and deliberation.
This wasn’t just a killing: it was murder.
So… Jake thought, you want to use me to get away with it, huh? Not going to
happen.
He spun on his heel as he made his decision: his secondary priority was now to catch the killer.
Normally, he wouldn’t give a crap as to who the killer was, but now that the killer’s machinations were getting in the way of his shopping addiction?
In his own words, “I like to shop, but now, it’s about justice”.
With the plan already set in his mind, implementing it was easy – but then again, there was another problem he had to face.
He had a week to amass as many points as possible and buy as many items as possible from the Hero Shop so he wouldn’t be useless due to the withdrawal symptoms.
But for now, he had a killer to catch, and set his plan in motion: first, interrogate people one by one and see what they know.
I’ll start here, then move onto the village. That’s when I start comparing their stories to find out who’s lying… and why.
He began thinking things through as he paced back and forth about the details on how to make sure this plan of his to find the killer would be successful – it was his way of getting things done, even from the beginning.
Naturally, he gained the practice due to going through multiple outlets and sites to find the best possible value for his money.
And as he was putting the finishing touches onto his idea of interrogating adventurers to find the killer, the aura he was radiating turned the scent of cherries into something cloying and sickly sweet, to the point where some of the adventurers were beginning to have trouble breathing.
The feeling subsided quickly, and Jake turned to the adventurers kneeling in front of him.
“But we’re going to start things with me asking you some questions… one by one.”
To the kneeling adventurers, the atmosphere around the riverbank felt like it went down several degrees.
“You’re going to interrogate us?”
“That’s right. So, we’re going back to town. Get your asses off the ground,” Jake said as he turned back on the adventurers and began to head back to Brino, where he was anticipating a good night’s sleep and his injuries finally getting tended to properly because of how the village worked.