Chapter 30

  Jake remained rooted to the spot, his gaze fixed on the anomaly above the fountain. The magic of the spell he’d just cast was slowly but gradually closing the anomaly. Despite the progress, he could perceive a hint of defiance emanating from the anomaly, trying to resist his attempts to seal it shut. He kept his gaze fixed solely oity h above the fountain, refusing to look away even for a moment. Every ounce of his tration was dedicated to the deadly phenomenon before him, leaving no room for any other thoughts or distras at that crucial moment. Jake was well aware that any distra could result in the anomaly breaking free from the spell’s grasp. So he kept fog the magical energy on the anomaly, keeping the link intad sensing the anomaly slowly succumbing to the power of the spell.

  About sixty seds ter, it finally ceased to exist. The shimmering and ing air above the fountain dissipated, leaving behind ay space where the anomaly once was. It was gone food, and Jake finally allowed himself to rex. His PDA beeped with a notification, prompting him to take out the device. For pleting the mission to close the anomaly, he received quite a lot of credits and a good amount of experience points.

  Curious about his total earnings, he checked his at bance.

  Credits: 94,500

  With just a small amouo accumute, Jake would soon have enough funds to purchase anrade for his PDA, priced at a whopping 100,000 credits. The upgrade for the device would unlo app called AskMeAnything, which supposedly could answer any questioed to the Gameverse, the System, or anything else that had to do with this game-like world. The app was expected to be incredibly useful, so Jake couldn’t wait to colleough money for the PDA upgrade.

  Now that the anomaly was gone, he didn’t o worry about how muoise he made. Jake walked around the atrium, looking for loot. Little remained of the dead survivors and mutants, just pulpy pieces of flesh. Most of the items had beeroyed or rendered useless. However, he did discover a few things that had withstood the anomaly’s destructive force. Scattered about were mana marbles and shards, which Jake knew from experieo be iructible. Nothing seemed capable of damaging them. Colleg all the mana ables, he immediately used them, abs the magical energy they tained.

  He then stumbled upon a magic scroll. Simir to mana ables, magic scrolls were remarkably resilient. Despite their a and decrepit appearahey could not be torn or burhe scroll he had discovered tained another spell for sealing an anomaly. So the group of survivors actually had the means to seal the anomaly. If they had detected it in time, they could potentially have survived.

  Jake picked up the scroll and unrolled it. He looked at the mysterious symbols ahem. In a quick burst of light, the runes vanished, and the spell tained within was now his to wield. He could seal one more future anomaly he would surely enter at some point. It was a good thing because closing an anomaly rewarded him with a substantial amount of XP.

  The handheld puters belonging to the survivors had also survived. Jake had discovered over the past few days that thed devices were built to operate in harsh usage enviros and could withstand almost anything. So he wasn’t surprised to discover that all the devices were still in w order. He collected them all, including the ohat beloo the stranger he’d killed. Sitting on a nearby bench, he stacked the devices beside him.

  One of the previous upgrades that he had acquired for his PDA granted him access to an app that allowed him to hato other people’s portable puters. The hag was carried out by pying a mini-game. In order to hato someone else’s PDA, he had to solve a puzzle on his own device. The puzzle was challenging, and he had a limited amount of time to solve it. And he only had oempt. If he failed to hato another person’s PDA on the first try, the device got locked forever.

  Jake opehe hag app on his PDA, and within seds, a list of nearby portable devices popped up on the s. He ected to each devie by one and attempted to solve the hag puzzles. For the en minutes or so, he was fully engrossed in hag into the stolen handheld puters. Unfortunately, he was only able to unloe out of all the devices. He brushed the rest off the bench, causing them to drop to the floor.

  Pig up the device he had successfully unlocked using the hag app, he examihe s. It appeared to have beloo the leader of the group of survivors. Jake began by transferring all the money from the guy’s at to his own. Unfortunately, the leader only had a couple of thousand credits on him. Still, it was better than nothing. He was now just shy of 100,000 credits. He then checked the map to see if the owner of the device had marked any points of i. And indeed, he had. Jake noticed a pin beled Hideout/Stash on the map, indig a location on the opposite side of the city. This must be the group’s secret hideout where they rested and stored their supplies. Jake pihe same spot on the map on his own devid beled it as To-Check.

  He then accessed the leader’s Diary. As he knew from his own experienew entries appeared in a survivor’s Diary once or twice a day, describing notable events that took p those particur days. Every entry was cise, usually sisting of just a few sentences. If nothing worth mentioning occurred, ries were made for that day. The process was entirely automatie couldn’t add, edit, or delete entries manually.

  So Jake was aware that everything written in the gang leader’s Diary was authentic. From the entries, he learhat the group of survivors who had retly perished due to the anomaly had been really bad guys. The owner of the device had established a gang a few days earlier, and sihen, they had ambushed and killed plenty of other people. Their targets were always loners or smaller groups of survivors. So yeah, those assholes totally deserved what had happeo them. They had died a terrible death, but they had it ing. The grim fate they had met could be seen as a form of retribution for their evil deeds. Finding nothing else of i on the leader’s PDA, he dropped the device.

  He proceeded to search the body of the stranger he had killed. Because the anomaly was dormant at the time of the killing, all the items the stranger carried remained undamaged. Jake gathered all the supplies and ammunition from the dead guy before iing the assault rifle that he had been armed with. Unsurprisingly, his own rare assault rifle was much better, so he chose to leave the stranger’s on untouched. He also found a revolver oranger but opted not to take it either, as he didn’t want to unnecessarily burden himself with additional firearms. He was already equipped with a heavy-caliber pistol that retty reliable and powerful.

  After that, Jake finally left the mall. Exiting the building, he made his way back to his pickup truck. As he settled in behind the steering wheel, the radio suddenly crackled to life, broadcastiails of a mission to seal shut another anomaly. As he was aware, missions were usually straightforward aitive, so entering another simir mission didn’t surprise him. Jake retrieved his PDA and promptly accepted the new mission.

  The anomaly he had to close now was level 10, making it more dangerous than the one he had just dealt with. Despite the increased risk, he was fident that he could ha. Once he pleted the mission, he would have the funds o upgrade his PDA and unlock the AskMeAnything app. He usually pleted one or two missions in a day. So after pleting the seission, he would visit the survivors’ pce to search through their stash. After that, he would head back to one of his own hideouts to this eventful day.

  After sulting the map for the mission location, Jake shifted the truto drive and pulled out of the mall’s parking lot, unaware that his life was about to take another ued turn.