Chapter 124

  First of all, Jake tapped on the Missions tab, and the guy’s list of active and pleted missions filled the s. The Demon currently had only oive mission, positio the top of the list. Jake checked it out.

  Objective: Use a ser to locate and eliminate an ex-human morphus. plete the mission within 24 hours to earn an additional reward.

  Difficulty: Hard

  Reward: 250,000 XP, 750,000 credits

  Extra reward: Supply drop (x1) (Legendary)

  Status: In Progress

  The me painfully familiar. During his time as a regur survivor, Jake had pleted plenty of missions in exge for rewards such as XP, credits, and supply drops, each filled with useful items.

  For a moment, he stared at the information dispyed on the s. So, the guy squirmih him actually had a mission to track him down and kill him. He and his now-dead panion weren’t hunting him just for the hell of it. Instead, they wao plete their mission to earn impressive rewards: 250,000 XP and 750,000 credits were signifit amounts of experiend currency, even for survivors at their level. Also, if they succeeded in finding and eliminating him within a day, they could even request a supply airdrop filled with legendary gear.

  What the hell, Jake thought.

  He just couldn’t his head around it. How e these guys were given a mission to kill him? The answer came to him quickly: the System regarded him merely as a monster for survivors to hunt. He actually wasn’t all that surprised by that. Deep down, he had already suspected the truth, which recisely why he checked the guy’s Missions list first. He just couldn’t bring himself to admit that he was viewed by the System as nothing more than a mere moo kill.

  One small sotion was that this mission had the highest difficulty. So at least the System did him justice, reizing just how dangerous he truly was.

  Then ahought came to his mind. Maybe his transformation into a mutant was some kind of glitch. Maybe he hadn’t been supposed to turn into a se mutant with unique skills and abilities when he was sucked into the Dark Void anomaly. So there were two expnations for what was happeniher the System simply categorized him as a mutant and assigned high-level survivors the mission to eliminate him, or he truly was a glitch, and therefore the System wanted him gone food.

  If it was the former, that was fine because it would only mean he could occasionally expect survivors to hunt him. But if it was the tter, it was really bad news because it would mean that the System was making an iional effort to get rid of him and likely wouldn’t give up until he was gone.

  A small piece of good news was that, at least, it seemed the System couldn’t just “erase” him out of existence. If it could do that, it wouldn’t have bothered to gh all the trouble of giving survivors the mission to hunt him down. So, it o use survivors to get the job done. He could handle survivors, even those whose levels greatly outmatched his. However, dealing with high-level survivors wasn’t all that easy, so he had to level up even faster than he had.

  He could’ve pohe implications of his situation further but decided not to for the time being. Before delving deeper into the matter, he first wao check the guy’s Diary. He kries appeared in a survivor’s Diary automatically—the owner of a device couldn’t add, edit, or remove them manually. On average, ries appeared once or twice a day, describing notable events that occurred during that day. This ehat everything found in the bandit’s Diary would be true.

  For the few minutes, he sed through the entries in the guy’s journal. He learhat his name was Jovan. During the first days after the Colpse, he had met a guy named Arnaud, and sihen, they had survived together. Jake wasn’t particurly ied in that, so he skipped most ehat described their initial days of survival. He did notice, however, that both of them were quite the pieces of work. Together, they ambushed and attacked other survivors, but they always targeted loners and only when they had some sort of advantage over their victims.

  At some point, they were captured by gangsters from Los Demonios. They were given a choice that all the gang’s captives were giveher be forced to do bor for the gang or join their ranks. However, those who chose to join would have to prove their loyalty first. Unsurprisingly, Jovan and Arnaud opted to join and, for a time, they worked for Los Demonios, hunting down, capturing, t, and killing any other survivors the gang’s leaders directed them to. This wasn’t particurly challenging for Jovan and Arnaud, sidering they weren’t the greatest people in the world to begin with.

  Finally, they mao prove their worth, seg their p the gang. After officially being Demons, they were given long pieces of red fabric to wear at all times, like scarves, symbolizing their affiliation with Los Demonios. They also received a good vehicle and top-notch gear. On top of that, they were given spells that multiplied all the XP they earned, which expined why they had been able to level up so quickly.

  Ory in Jovan’s diary detailed what he knew about Los Demonios. Which wasn’t much. At some point, he and Arnaud spoke with other Demons and learned a little about the gang’s ins. Nobody knew for sure, but there was a rumor that Los Demonios hadn’t inally formed in this city. The gang leaders were high-level survivors who had arrived via helicopters from somewhere else. That was essentially all Jovan, Arnaud, and ur Demons knew about the gang’s leadership. Those who refused to join Los Demonios basically became sves, forced to work for the gang. However, not all of the captured survivors were allowed to do bor for the gang. Some of them were taken somewhere, but nobody except for the gang’s leaders knew where exactly they were sent or what happeo them afterward.

  This m, Jovan and Arnaud were tacted by one of the gang leaders, who went by the name Skullface. He informed them that he would assign them a mission, which they o plete within a day. They could keep the cash reward but had to hand over the legendary reward to one of the gang leaders. So, as it turned out, it wasn’t Jovan who was initially assighe mission to kill Jake, but one of the gang leaders niamed Skullface. It meant that survivors could pass missions on to others, a fact Jake hadn’t been aware of during his time as a survivor.

  Jovan and Arnaud spent the first half of the day driving through the city, trying to track Jake down. They khat failing this mission would not be accepted. Skullface had warhem that if they failed to plete the mission within 24 hours and secure the legendary reward, they would face severe punishment. Los Demonios was aremely violent gang with harsh rules. Unfortunately for Jovan and Arnaud, they were unaware of how fast Jake moved, and the mission’s description hadn’t mentiohat Jake often traveled across the city using rooftops. By the time they arrived at his st known location, he was already long gone, and they had to track him again.

  This expined why Jovan and Arnaud were so infuriated with Jake—not for any personal grudge, as he had previously assumed. The lohey searched the city, the more frustrated they became. They khat if they didn’t locate and eliminate Jake before the day ehey would be in serious trouble. And that was the firy in Jovan’s diary, written just a few hours earlier.

  While there were still some unanswered questions, Jake had definitely learned a few hings—both about how the System viewed him and about Los Demonios. He now realized that he had to remain stantly alert for other survivors who might be hunting him down. One of the leaders of Los Demonios, Skullface, would most likely pass the mission to kill him on to someone else once he learned about Jovan and Arnaud’s failure. Without uanding the System’s motives regarding him, Jake couldn’t guess how long this mission would be active or how often it would resurfad be assigo other survivors. As a result, he would have to remain vigint and always keep his head on a swivel for trouble.

  Jake wao open the Map app to check ces of i Jovan might have pinned, but before he could do so, the s suddenly went bck. At first, he didn’t realize what had just happened, but theiced that the guy beh him had stopped squirming and was now pletely motionless. Jovan had finally bled to death.

  With the guy now dead, the device couldn’t be unlocked anymore. Even though Jake khat, he picked up the dead guy’s hand and pressed its thumb against the s again. Immediately, a message appeared across the dispy.

  The device ot be unlocked because its owner is dead.

  For a moment, Jake sidered taking the device with him. He still hoped that he would eventually learn some skill or unlo upgrade for Enhanced Intelligehat would allow him to hato survivors’ PDAs. Carrying Jovan’s PDA all the time would be inve, but he could always stash it on a rooftop and e back for it ter if he actually mao learn how to hack it.

  However, a new message suddenly appeared on the s.

  The device will revert to its default settings in 59 seds.

  So, there was no point in taking the PDA with him. Now that Jovan was dead, the device was set to perform a factory reset and erase all its data. This would allow a survivor who had lost their own PDA to use it if they stumbled upon it since all the progress a survivor made in this game-like world was backed up in the System itself while PDAs were merely used to access and view that information.

  After Jovan’s PDA pleted its factory reset, Jake attempted tister as a new user, but no response came wheapped the s. It was expected, sidering the System regarded him as a monster rather than a survivor. With no reason to keep the device, Jake dropped it and got to his feet. Without gng back at Jovan’s lifeless body, he turned and leaped from the truck bed to the road.

  He assessed his wounds. The two fingers he had lost were already beginning to grow back, which came as no surprise. After all, during the tower-climb challenge, he had lost two fingers in a fight with a ssher—his first enter with this type of mutant—and they had regrowy quickly. Now that he was much stronger and possessed useful skills like Enhanced Regeion, he was fident that the fingers Arnaud had shot off would regrow even faster.

  He touched the ragged hole on the left side of his head and found that some of his flesh had already regrown. He was fairly certain that the eye he had lost would likely grow back as well, though he couldn’t tell how long it would take. So for now, all he wao do was find a quiet pce to rest and allow his body to recover. He quickly sed his surroundings and broke into a brisk jog away from the pickup trud the two dead Demons.