Just when you think things can't get worse, your job can always call.

  A small notification popped up right about the time Brom started wondering if he could chew through his wrist to remove the whistle.

  [Quest: Clock in for your shift 13:55:34]

  Brom suddenly recalled that poor kid in the grocery store. When he'd talked about getting a quest that made him go to work somehow Brom had glossed over the fact that he too, had a job. For the past year, he'd worked security at the local dump. You'd be surprised how many people wanted to break in and go through the trash. Was it a glamorous job? Not in the least. But at least it had a 401K and dental. Plus free access to the trash pile, which sometimes did have some pretty good stuff. Especially when builders would come in with their dumpsters. How else was Brom affording his home repairs?

  But somehow, with everything, the fact he'd have to spend his entire night walking the perimeter of the local trash heap had just slipped his mind.

  "Well, at least with Enhanced Physique I'm not going to be dying of exhaustion." Because he hadn't reset his sleep schedule after the whole 'sky-clock' and the end of the world. As one does. The little things had gone a bit by the wayside in all this.

  There was nothing to do for it now, instead he chose to open his Skills menu. He needed to pick his second active before he forgot. The System had mentioned Rage when he'd been fighting in the belly of Yacht Sothoth, and he knew enough about Barbarians to know it was something of an iconic skill of theirs. But any skill he was allowed to pick at level 5 was going to be crap, right?

  - Heinous Blow (Legendary)

  You land a hit on a foe laden with so much destructive force that it leaves them broken and reeling. This blow will always inflict the 'Stunned' condition regardless of how much damage is dealt. If this blow pushes an opponent below 50% health, they will gain the 'Weakened' status. If this blow pushes them below 25% health, they will also become 'Horrified'. Heinous Blow can always be used as the first hit on an opponent. It can be used once every five hits after.

  He stood corrected. Stunned, caused an opponent to drop their guard and stop attacking, leaving them wide open to a follow-up attack. Weakened meant they dealt half-damage against Brom, their injuries so severe they could no longer bring their full force down on him. Horrified, made them turn around and attempt to run away, effectively ending the combat. One blow, three useful abilities. One way or another, Heinous Blow would end things for him. It was both an opener and a finisher, the ultimate sucker punch!

  Eventually, to kill time before he had to head to work, Brom re-watched the dungeon highlight reel to see what TJ and his friends had gone through. It turned out that, had Brom been just a little bit smarter, he could have avoided half his troubles. There were plenty of ways to persuade the Cult into giving up those 'free passes' that they'd handed to the kids. Any plausible excuse would have worked. Just any version of 'it's very tempting but...' would have prompted Benjamin to show off the mighty power of Yacht Sothoth.

  When TJ and the others had been escorted out of the dining room, they'd ended up in a boathouse nearby where the lamprey things had attacked them. They'd ended up setting that boathouse on fire and, in desperation, activated the coins and ended up inside Yacht Sothoth. They'd teleported straight onto his deck, and that had been the big blast of energy that had knocked Brom down the stairwell. While he'd been down there punching through walls and causing the ship-shark to roil in pain, the kids had been travelling all over the ship to reach certain 'viewpoints'. There had been moments where they'd fought the Innards and these odd rust-ooze people, but it wasn't until they linked back up with Brom that they'd seen anything too hot to handle.

  It looked like it had done a number on them. Brom could catch it in certain frames, even though the highlight reel had done its best to only show them at their most heroic and problem-solving. Highlighting courage, ingenuity, and intelligence. But when Rudy was pointing out traps you could see the mounting tension on his face.

  Brom resolved to get a hold of TJ at some point in the near future, although he wasn't sure when that would be. After all, if people still had to go to work, maybe TJ would still have to go to school. If that was the case, then with Brom's schedule, he'd have to wake up extra early to talk to the other before work tomorrow. "Wait, it's Thursday..." The world had ended on a Tuesday. On Wednesday, he'd spent most of it in a dungeon. So today was Thursday, right? But TJ had asked to spend the weekend the day the world ended. He checked the system date. It was definitely Thursday. So time had passed in the Tutorial but not the Event Dungeon?

  Had the System given them a holiday? Or was it some national or state holiday he was totally forgetting?

  Marble gave him the stink-eye when Brom put him down, but the dishes waited for no man. Plus, he had to meal-prep and set up the auto water to make sure that the cats had access to hydration while he was away. Food, they could wait till morning for that, but he didn't want them going without water.

  The afternoon passed in blissful mundanity. Brom could be forgiven for pretending that everything from the past two days was some fever dream. Maybe he'd been exposed to illicit substances, except he knew what it was like to be flying on party candy and this wasn't it, chief. Or if it was, he was never taking a hit of it again. It had been the worst trip ever. It made the boring shit like dishes and vacuuming look like peak relaxation. Funny how, as a child, he'd hated chores, and now as an adult, he was craving them for their basic life comfort.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  [Quest: Clock in for your shift 01:23:45]

  He shut notifications off, wanting just a little more peace. A little more quiet. A little more time to process.

  Slowly he convinced himself that going to work was the same thing as that. That it too was a little slice of pie in this strange new pre-workout world. He thought of the coins in his bank account, all those zeroes. Could he just quit? If he did, how long would that money last? He didn't yet have a full evaluation of the economy and what things persisted from the world as he'd known it. His head was full of pondering property taxes when he arrived at work.

  He waved to colleagues and ducked into the locker room, starting to change into his uniform.

  "...I didn't think the Hero of Cold Bay would be showing up today. Heard the Mayor wanted to give you some kind of award."

  He leaned around his locker door and looked at the other man in the room. Chase Peeler was a few years younger than Brom was. The kind of guy who had plenty of student loan debt but couldn't find a job in his field to pay it off, so here he was. A trash guardian. Brom had never quite figured out how he'd pissed in Chase's Cheerios, but he had at some point because the other man had flirted with the line of 'antagonistic' ever since.

  Now that Brom had a reputation for heroics, Chase's already poor mood was downright sour.

  "Green is absolutely your color." Brom shut his locker, the metal vibrating from the accidental application of too much force. "Look, I had one good dungeon run. I looked pretty cool. I'm sure anyone could have done the same given the right circumstances. I just happened to get there first. I don't think that's worth being interviewed by the paper and honored by the Mayor over."

  Chase narrowed his eyes. "So you're going to do the humble-brag bullshit?"

  "Uh, no. I'm pretty sure I just took credit for my actions and also denied being a special snowflake. Look, Chase, I get you're really looking to start some shit, but my good sir, you are pissing up the wrong tree." He checked the batteries in his flashlight, pointedly ignoring the man.

  "Jones, I have never wanted to start shit with you, especially not now that you're some fuckhemoth of a man. I've just hated your attitude since day one. Your mother got you this job, and you've always had-"

  "What did you just say?" His head snapped around, eyes narrowing as he zeroed in. "Say that again."

  Chase seemed to swallow a bit hard. "I said your mother-"

  "No, I know my mother asked Mister Metcalfe to give me special consideration. Before that."

  "That you're a fuckhemoth?" Chase seemed very confused by Brom's sudden fixation.

  Brom felt like he'd been hit with lightning, something that hadn't happened yet, but give the world time. TJ hadn't noticed the changes in Brom. JJ hadn't noticed the changes in Brom. Chase fucking Peeler did, though.

  "Why?"

  "Huh? Dude, you want an apology? Fine, sorry I called you a fuckhemoth."

  "No, fuck, I don't need an insincere apology from your twat ass. I want to know why you, of all people, noticed."

  Now it was Chase's turn to look like he'd been hit by lightning. "So wait, nobody's noticed? How? You're like seven fucking feet of walking creatine ad. You don't eat, sleep, and breathe the gym, you ate the gym! Your gains don't just have gains, they're internet influencers pitching gains. You didn't just do cardio, you wore cardio out. You-"

  "Dude, I get it. I'm living it. But no, seriously, nobody else has batted an eye. The entire world is treating me like I've always been like this."

  "I mean, you've always been good-looking, but you definitely haven't been this." Chase folded his arms in front of his chest, animosity gone for a moment. "If you didn't look like a caveman discovering fire, I'd believe you were shitting me about this Jones."

  Brom snorted, shaking his head and moving toward the time clock, still puzzled as hell. "Why you? What's different and special about you that you noticed the differences?" Was it because Chase hadn't liked him? No, nobody hated Brom more than JJ, and his brother had been stupid enough to grab him by the lapels. Or maybe it was because JJ hated him too much. That he just didn't care, and he would have made that decision either way. With Chase, maybe the animosity hadn't crossed that line yet, so the System was letting him 'see' that difference for self-preservation.

  Because if Chase Peeler wanted to start shit, Brom wouldn't hesitate to finish it. He would snap him like a Slim-Jim.

  But for all the crap Chase had talked over the past few months, he'd never actually done anything. He was that sort of guy, talked mad shit but never actually sat on the toilet. He'd never written a formal complaint despite threatening Brom numerous times during his probationary period. He'd never gotten in Brom's way or sabotaged his work. If it hadn't been for his attitude, Brom wouldn't have had an opinion of him at all.

  "Hey, Hero. Take Section A, yeah? There was a bear report earlier, and I think you can handle it better than I can."

  Brom turned and stared at Chase for a second before realizing that the fear was genuine. A bear was a pretty serious threat now that guns and tasers didn't work. He assumed the bear spray did, though. "Yeah, but you fucking owe me. Just because I'm a big tough guy now doesn't mean I want to fucking wrestle a bear for the fun and amusement of all. The job doesn't pay me enough to do dumb shit like that."

  If Brom had realized how prophetic those words were, he would have swallowed them down and never let them hear the light of day.