Chapter 21

  Jake squeezed the trigger just as another ex-human mutant lurched at him. The load of buckshot sent the creature flying to the other end of the corridor. One of the doors lining the wall on his right swung open, a another ex-human walker showed up. Jake wheeled to face it, pointing his on at the hreat. As the walker jumped toward him, Jake blew a hole out of its chest, sending the mutant’s body flying bato the room it’d just emerged from. The devastating power of his shotgun at cle proved to be highly effective in dispatg the mutants.

  From the er of his eye, he spotted a flicker of movement to his left. He spun to face that way and saw an ex-human leaper crawl out of an air vent. These mutants were way mile and faster than the walkers were. Just as Jake lined up his iron sights on the new enemy, it leaped toward him. He hastily squeezed the trigger, hitting the monster in midair and sending it flying back. Its body crashed into the wall and crumpled to the floor in a heap of twisted and broken limbs.

  Jake tio make his way through the corridors and rooms of the hospital, dealing with ex-human mutants as they showed up. There were quite a lot of mutants in the hospital. They emerged from various rooms, attracted to the sounds of the gunfire. So far, they hadn’t caused him too much trouble, though. He was quickly getting quite profit at fighting ex-humans.

  At some point, when he was jumped by a few obnoxious creatures at once, he had to switch to the submae gun because he’d just fired the st shell and didn’t have time to reload his shotgu loose a spray of bullets, hitting the approag mutants in various parts of their bodies. However, they kept advang at him, uhat gun wasn’t all that effective against them, that was for damn sure. Grinding his teeth, he aimed for the head of the mutant and fired a short burst of bullets. While some of them missed their target, the others struck true, drilling into the creature’s skull. Even before the mutant dropped to the floor, Jake was already firing at the other mutant in line, dealing with it before it could reach him.

  When he pletely ran out of ammo for the submae gun, he decided to discard the on altogether. Dropping the depleted gun to the floor, he unslung his trusty semiautomatic shotgun and reloaded it. He tinued his exploration of the hospital, taking care of every muta on his way. During moments of respite from bat, he sed the dead bodies with his PDA for valuable loot. In this woverned by video game meics, some of the deceased mutants yielded ammunition hidden in the pockets of their dirty, tattered clothing. Had it not been the case, Jake would have run out of ammo a long time ago.

  After successfully eliminating every st mutant iing the hospital, Jake finally had the opportunity to thhly search the building for valuable loot. During his intense frontation with the mutants, there had been little time to focus on sging for supplies. Over the half hour, he methodically retraced his steps, iing ea for any useful items. Within the ets and drawers scattered throughout the hospital, he found healing autoiors, which he carefully stored in his rucksack for future use in this perilous world.

  In the final room of the hospital, he found something iing. On a dusty table o one wall, illuminated by a shaft of dim light filtering through a cra the curtains, y what looked like an old roll of paper. Its edges were frayed and curling slightly, and the surface was weathered and yellowed. Jake looked at the roll of paper for a sed, but he dismissed it as a useless piece of trash. What y beside the paper roll, resting on the worn wooden surface, looked way more captivating. It was a round piece of gss softly glistening in the dim light. It was about an inch around or maybe a little bit bigger than that. Within its transparehs, a mysterious bluish glow danced and pulsed, castihereal patterns across the tabletop.

  “Wow,” Jake muttered as he stepped closer to the table for a better look. Whatever the round piece of gss was, it was beautiful. It seemed strahat such a wonderful item could exist in this devastated dead world.

  He took out his PDA and sed the item. MANA BEAD: 100 MP (ON). Mana, huh? Jake then remembered something. Holding the devi one hand, he tapped on the very first tab, which was called Statistics, and the s with his general stats appeared. It tained some basiformation like his name, level, XP, and whatnot. There was another line in there. Mana: 0. The term “Mana” triggered a recolle from his past—memories of fantasy video games he pyed during his teenage years flooded ba. In those games, mana was depicted as a form of magical energy essential for casting spells, typically replenishing itself over time. trary to his gaming experience, mana in this unfamiliar world appeared to fun very differently.

  Jake sed the mana bead one more time to make sure he didn’t overlook any critical details about the enigmatic item. He thehe devi the table and picked up the mana bead. He brought it closer to his eyes, peering into its depths. He could see some kind of bluish mist with dang tendrils swirling about ihe sphere. If he wasn’t mistaken, the beautiful bluish mist ihe bead was mana, and he o somehow extract that magical energy. But how to do it? His PDA hadn’t provided him with the answer when he sed the magical item. Maybe he o break the bead? He decided to give it a try.

  He ched it in his fist only to find it was as hard as a rock. He then struck it forcefully against the wall, but it didn’t damage the mana bead at all. He repeated the process a few more times, achieving the same zero result. At some point, Jake resorted to more drastic measures, deg to use his shotgun in a desperate bid to crack the resistant object. He put the mana bead on the floor in one of the ers of the room and shot it with his shotgun. The resounding bst from his powerful on hit the mana bead, propelling it to the ceiling before it rebouo the opposite wall. To his astonishment, uporieving the mana bead and iing it closely, Jake discovered that not a single scratch marred its transparent surface. The bst from the shotgun had failed to make even the slightest dent on the enigmatic item.

  What the heck? Is this thing actually unbreakable?

  It didn’t seem likely. There should be a way to extract the mana from the bead—he was sure of that.

  Think, Jake, think. If you were pying an actual video game, what would you do?

  The answer was simple. He would simply press a button to extract the magical energy from the mana bead. In this world, however, the only way to glean information about an item was by sing it with his PDA. He’d already sed the mana bead, but the device hadn’t provided any guidan utilizing the magical item.

  For a few seds, Jake was gazing into the bead, watg the mesmerizing dance of the bluish mist within. Then, in a sudden burst of inspiration, he simply ahe mana to be extracted from the bead, and—voilà!—to his great surprise, this basital and worked like a charm. The magical energy flowed out of the bead as if it were intangible, drifting through the air toward his hand before being absorbed into his skin. The item he held in his hand was just ay gss bauble now. To make sure he couldn’t use it anymore, Jake returo the table and picked up his PDA. On the s was a notification. YOU HAVE JUST RECEIVED 100 MANA POINTS. He aowledged the message with a tap, then sed the empty mana bead once more. As he’d expected, the device told him that the mana bead was just a useless gss tri now. He dropped it to the floor, and it shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces.

  So now you break so easily, huh, he thought.

  His attention shifted to the aged part in front of him. Now aware of the existenana in this world, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the a-looking scroll held more significe than he had initially believed. With a sense of anticipation, he used his PDA to s the part. The s dispyed: MAGICAL SCROLL: PUSH (ON) (COST: 100 MANA POINTS). He carefully returhe PDA to his jacket pocket and picked up the a scroll, unrolling it to reveal unfamiliar symbols that shimmered with a mysterious golden luminesce. Then he remembered how he’d used the mana bead and did the same, anding the scroll to impart its knowledge to him. There was a brief fsh of light that blinded him for a sed. When his vision cleared, he found the text had vanished. Like the mana bead before it, the scroll now held no value for him, so he let it fall from his grasp.

  Okay. Now what?

  He took out his PDA. Sure enough, there was another message dispyed across the s. YOU HAVE ACQUIRED A PUSH SPELL (ON) (X1). He aowledged the message with a tap. It should keep a record of how many spells I currently have. He opehe very first tab and there it was—at the very end of his stats was a line of text saying PUSH SPELL (ON) (X1) (COST: 100 MANA POINTS). Does it mean I only use it o certainly seemed that way. He g another line in his stats. MANA: 100. The mana bead had provided him with precisely enough magical energy to cast the spell.

  One use or not, he wao use the spell right away simply to learn how magic worked in this world. Pocketing his device, he sed the room before deg on a decrepit chair as his target. He crossed the room to where the chair was and dragged it to the ter of the room. He then took a few steps bad turo face the chair.

  As it turned out, using magic was simple. He didn’t know if he had to extend a hand toward his target or not, but he did it anyway. He then gave a mental and to use his Push spell on the chair. Immediately after that, he felt a surge of energy burst from within him, propelling forward with a swift whoosh. The invisible force collided with the chair, ung it forcefully backward across the room until it crashed into the wall, shattering into multiple wooden fragments upon impact.

  “That’s awesome,” Jake excimed.

  He took out his PDA again. First of all, he checked the battle log.

  You have cast a Push spell for 100 mana points.

  He then switched to the very first tab—Statistics. His mana had depleted back to zero, and the Push spell had disappeared as well. So he was back to square one—he had no mana and no spells again. Still, he had gleaned a new piece of useful information about this world. Spells learned from scrolls could be used only oime. As for mana, it could be extracted from mana beads—and maybe some other simir items. Whether there was another way to replenish his mana was unknown to him yet.

  Anyway, he now knew for sure magic existed in this game-like world, and this discovery excited him a great deal. He was surely going to be on the lookout for more magical scrolls and mana ables from now on. He didn’t know where he could find them, though. Perhaps, they just spawned in random pces.

  After that, Jake exited the hospital, eager to uhe other secrets hidden in this new world, waiting to be revealed.