System Architect

The next morning, I woke to a raging storm outside. It was still too early in the year for a thunderstorm, but it sounded like someone in the sky thought it was a good idea to barrage the land with thousands of firehoses. Though I could use many words to describe the weather being absolutely terrible, it meant only one thing: completing the day’s quests was going to be a pain in the ass.

I looked over the quests to see what would be attainable. The one with running, walking, and climbing was out. It was easy, too, which frustrated me. I could do the walking and the climbing, but I had nowhere to run until the rain abated. Conceivably I could get soaked to do it, but I had some rather unfortunate memories from around my current age that made me very against it.

To make a long story short, I was forced outside in the rain to look for another kid at a day care after just getting inside and pulling off my boots. Walking outside in the rain without my boots! Somewhat irrational, I knew, but so what. I was allowed to be illogical from time to time. That’s what made me human and not a robot. I shook my head and looked at the other quests.

There was no quest including puzzles, which meant the rest were doable in the time I had. There was a reading and writing one worth 20 exp; a push-up, sit-up, and squat one worth 30 exp; and a math related one worth 10 exp. Once complete, I’d have just enough to get the bonus experience unlocked.

Unfortunately, spending the hundred experience meant for certain that the monster level would increase, but there was no way I was going to get around that. I needed the extra experience in order to afford things that would enable humanity to fight back against those very same monsters. As it stood, everyone was fucked. There were no two ways about it.

I pulled up the now-helpful description of the feature as explained by the unlocked System Help function.

Feature: Daily Bonus Experience

Unlock Personal Use: 100 Exp

Unlock For Universal Use: N/A

Description: Exclusive to the System Store Feature. Gives a random amount of experience daily.

50 exp: 5%

20 exp: 15%

10 exp: 30%

5 exp: 50%

I did the math in my head, and it worked out to an average of 11 experience per day. Not great, not terrible. The N/A made sense given it was exclusive to me. The System Store feature was not something I could buy for universal use—I’d checked.

With my goal firmly in mind, I went downstairs for a rather uninspiring breakfast before beginning to work on the quests. By lunch, my body was tired and I’d gotten through all the physical stuff as well as most of the mental tasks. All that remained—after a nap—were the two writing tasks. The writing tasks didn’t take too long and I found myself in possession of just above 100 experience.

Feature Unlocked: Daily Bonus Experience

Current Exp: 26

I smiled at the notification and dismissed it. I pulled up the monster strength in order to get an idea for what that progression would look like.

Average Monster Level: 3

Monster Strength Tier: 1

Exp To Next Tier: 390

Time Until Apocalypse: 14 years, 7 months, 9 days, 7 hours, 18 minutes, 56 seconds

Cumulative Monster Strength Bonuses: Average Monster Level +2

Next Tier: Average Monster Level +1

To my relief, the monster level seemed to require an exponentially increasing amount of experience before incrementing. It was going to go up a few more times when I unlocked other ways to gain experience, but that was the shit sandwich I had to eat for a chance to mitigate the disaster I’d caused.

After finishing my daily quests, I noticed Dad reading through the books he’d borrowed from the library. I didn’t want to bother him as he read, so I entertained myself by watching TV in another room until it was time for dinner.

Dinner was leftovers—still delicious, of course—that we ate without talking much. Dad had a subdued presence about him, like something was weighing him down.

“You ok?” I asked.

“Uh… yeah,” he said hesitantly. He thoughtfully looked at me for a moment as if finding the right words before continuing. “I’ve read through some of the stuff the librarian recommended, and when putting that together with what you hinted at the other day, well, it’s got me shakin’.”

I nodded.

“As it should. It scares the hell—“ I saw his look and quickly corrected “—heck out of me. So you have an idea of what magical monsters are now, right?”

“Yeah. The books had things like goblins, orcs, elves, and several others I can’t remember.”

“Well, best as I can tell, there’ll be a bunch of monsters popping into existence the day I turn 20.”

“The best you can tell?”

“Mm-hm. I don’t have a ton of details, sadly. A lot of what I know is based on a genre of books that doesn’t exist yet. That being said, I can surmise that magic is coming to Earth—or is already here—and that monsters will be coming at the same time.”

Dad stared at me, not really knowing what to say.

“So I have this thing called ‘the System’ in those novels—really original naming, I know—that gives me a way to fight back against those monsters… well, it will when the time comes.”

“What does this ‘System’ do?”

“At the moment? Not much. You’ve probably seen me running around the past few days doing weird sh—uh, stuff.” He nodded. “Well, I’ve been completing quests for experience. I can then use this experience to purchase upgrades to the System to make it better and do more with the ultimate goal of creating a System for everyone on Earth to use when the time comes.”

“I… see… And what kind of upgrades have you taken?”

“Stuff that’ll give me more experience. It takes money to make money, after all.” I smiled then got serious. “There are two ways to spend it. The first is to upgrade the System for everyone. The second is to only upgrade it for myself. This is the cheaper option since it only affects me, but there’s also consequences for doing it that way. All the experience I spend on myself also makes those monsters stronger.”

“Why would you do that? Besides it being cheaper, of course.”

“Because I can’t afford enough experience to buy upgrades for everyone yet. As it stands, I’ve earned maybe 500 so far. The cheapest thing I’ve found that I could unlock for everyone—the ability to move the damned information windows around—costs 1,000. All the useful ones are at least 100,000!”

“So what do you have unlocked now?”

“Let’s see… “ I said, pulling up the window. “System Store, Milestones I—those two were active when I woke up back in time—Notifications I, Quests I, Daily Bonus Experience, and System Help.”

“And all of those are just for you?”

“Aside from Milestones I, yeah. For now, at least. They’re things I want to get for everyone when I can afford it, but it’s difficult. I’ve run the numbers based on what I have available now, and it doesn’t look good. I figure I can get around 50 from quests and 10 from Daily Experience every day. Milestones I, maybe a few thousand over the next fifteen years. When you add all of that up, it’s only around 350,000. I need to find ways to get more experience so I can build something usable. Humanity is completely fucked if I don’t!”

Dad glared at me.

“I'm not going to apologize for saying it like that. I’m deadly serious. We’re fucked.”

He shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“I get it, kid,” he answered. “Well, maybe not fully, but I understand the sentiment. How strong are these monsters now?”

“After the upgrades I’ve done?”

“Yeah.”

“Level 3—whatever that actually means. That’s also an average, so who really knows. What I can say is that monsters are stronger than they would have been if I’d done nothing… and if I’d done nothing, humans would have gone extinct on account of there being monsters everywhere that were stronger than all of us put together.”

“Do you know how many of these monsters there will be?”

“No clue. I didn’t want to talk about this until I’d unlocked System Help—yeah, it’s been fun—so that I had more information for you. Even with that, I don’t have much to go on.”

“And the options you have to upgrade the System?”

I went through the ones I’d found and explained what each did according to System Help.

“So let me get this straight. This System thing came with practically nothing and you need to get Search before you can actually do any real planning?”

“Yup.”

“How do you know the System isn’t evil and the whole thing is bull?”

“I don’t. What would I do if it’s evil… nothing? If it’s evil and I do nothing, maybe nothing happens. If it’s true and I do nothing, everyone dies.”

“It’s a gamble then.”

“Exactly. I’d rather try and fail than not try. At least if I do something, there’s hope that even if it’s not perfect, it’s close enough to be a positive outcome. It’s—apparently—my fault this is happening at all.”

“Really?” He cocked an eyebrow.

“Yep. I got super drunk with friends and woke up to some kind of—god maybe? Not sure—anyway it said that I’d made a wish and that the wish had consequences.”

Dad slapped his forehead.

“Yeah, I know. I feel the same way and I’m the one that did it.”

“Well, you can’t cry over spilled milk,” he said, shaking his head. “What’s the plan?”

“Generally? Get more ways to generate experience and make a functioning System before the doody hits the fan.”

“What about other kinds of preparations like money, food, toilet paper, and all of that kinda stuff?”

“I haven’t gotten that far,” I admitted.

“So there’s definitely room for improvement.”

“Agreed. I’ll need to talk to Mom about this, too. For as much as you two can be oil and water, you’re both smart—if experienced in different areas. If I want to know how to grow food or build a cabin, I can ask you or Grandpa Milton… Mom’s better when it comes to money.”

“True.”

“Not only that, but whatever I do, I need a way to not get noticed, and Grandpa Joe’ll be a great resource for that—even if I have to go through Mom to get that information.”

“I’ll get in touch with your mother and set something up for next week,” Dad sighed in resignation. I knew he wasn’t happy about interacting with her, but I also knew he’d put me first just as Mom did.

“Thanks for understanding,” I said.

“That’s what I’m here for. Thanks for letting me know what’s been on your mind.”

I nodded and helped Dad clean up after dinner. The rest of the evening was spent thinking about what Dad had said. I’d need to secure equipment, a location, and other supplies before the apocalypse came. That would require money. I cursed at myself for not paying more attention to the stock market or sports or anything else that could make me a quick buck—at least not this far back in time. I could make some, but that was a decade away. I closed my eyes and eventually fell asleep.

The chime of a notification woke me up at midnight.

“Fuck!” I cursed at the interruption to my sleep and blearily looked at the message.

Daily Experience Awarded: 5 Exp