Chương 8: Hidden Quest! And…Three Eggs?

And…Three Eggs?

The girl was a basic bitch. That was Ben's first read on her, scanning her face-up in the middle of the village square with his lungs still trying to figure out what to do with the sprint. Blonde. Pretty in the assembly-line way pretty girls were pretty on Instagram. Blue tinted sunglasses pushed up on her head. Crop top, denim shorts approaching crime, white Air Force 1s, no socks, or way too fucking small socks. Mascara cried out in two clean streaks down her face. Hands holding two… things.

The two things were: A glass test tube full of something green. A knife that looked exactly like the wrong end of a sex toy. He looked at the knife. He looked at his own hip. He had a wax pen turned into a knife. He was in no position to judge.

She was still mid-scream, mouth open, the syllables of MOTHERFUCKING CLANKER dying in her throat as her brain caught up with her eyes and registered him as not-an-NPC, and her face did the thing—the thing where a face that has been alone is suddenly not alone—and the rage drained out of her in one clean wave and something else flooded in to replace it. She lit up. She actually lit up.

"Are you from Earth?" It came out of his mouth before he had thought about it. She nodded, very fast. Very very fast.

"Yes. Yes. Yes oh my god yes are you—""Yeah."

"OH MY GOD."

"Yeah."

"Oh my god oh my god oh my god—""Yeah." She was talking. She was already talking and she had not stopped talking and the talking was just one continuous breath that had words riding on top of it. He realized, in real time, that this girl was a yapper. This girl had been alone for some unspecified number of hours in a field with no one to talk to and she had been saving it up, and now the dam was open and he was the field downstream.

"I don't know how I got here, I died, I think, I'm pretty sure I died, there was a…

thing, a car, I don't know, it came through my wall, I live on the second floor of an apartment in—anyway, and I woke up on pink grass that smelled like a Sephora, and there was a screen, and I was holding my dildo, like literally I was holding it because I'd bent down to pick it up off the floor, and then this guy came up with a camel-elephant-thing, like a winged camel with an elephant face, his name is Lefant, the camel I mean, the man didn't tell me his name, and then a slime attacked us, like a hentai slime, like a literal tentacle anime slime, and I—I threw my dildo at it.

I threw my dildo at it and I threw my Monster can at it and it just like. Died? It just died. And then my dildo became this." She held up the knife.

"And my Monster can became this." She held up the test tube.

"And the dude ran. The merchant. Like a pussy. Lefant stayed though. Anyway he came back and was like oh my god my lady like he was reading a fucking script. So we walked to here. And the screen keeps telling me to choose a class and I—""Wait."

"What."

"You threw your…dildo?"

"Yes."

"At a slime."

"Yes."

"And the dildo killed it."

"And the Monster can. Both."

"You threw a Monster can at it."

"Yes."

"What flavor."

"Ultra Paradise."

"The green one."

"Yeah."

"That's the worst Monster flavor."

"That is genuinely a controversial take and I don't have the mental strength to fight you on it right now but I'm bookmarking it. Somewhere." He stared at her. She stared back at him. She blinked, quickly, four times.

"Can I—can I touch your wrist."

"…What?"

"Your wrist. Can I."

"Why?"

"I just need to know."

"Know what."

"If you're real or if you're like. The system. Like an NPC. Like one of the—""Yeah okay." He held out his wrist. She grabbed it. Her fingers were cold. She pressed three fingers into the underside of his wrist and held them there for a second, doing what he realized was a real pulse check, like she had a nursing course she had taken or had watched a lot of Grey's Anatomy. Her eyes went slightly unfocused while she counted, and after a few seconds her shoulders dropped about an inch and she let him go.

"Okay. You have a pulse."

"Real surprise."

"I think it's a real one."

"... yeah?"

"NPCs don't have pulses."

"How do you know."

"I…don't. I'm assuming. The merchant felt fake. I didn't check his pulse but if I had I bet it would have been like, exactly eighty, like a metronome. Or just like. Fucking nothing maybe."

"That's... actually a good test."

"Right?"

"Yeah." She wiped her face with the back of her wrist and a smear of mascara came off and went on her wrist instead and she didn't care because she had already moved on. Her screen: pink, soft pink, with cursive loopy script, was floating beside her head, and his: blue, with serif text that looked like a fucking startup deck, was floating beside his. She squinted at his.

"Wait."

"What."

"I can see yours."

"My what."

"Your screen. The blue one. Why is it blue. Mine is pink." He looked at her screen. He could see it. He could read it. It said You're glowing! Sparkle in cursive script with a fucking sparkling emoji because this world was a sparkling emoji in every single aspect and also full of cum and—"Is the system fucking gendering us," she said.

"Yeah."

"It's actually fucking gendering us."

"Your text is barely fucking readable."

"YOUR TEXT IS IN A FUCKING COMIC SANS BULLSHIT GARBAGE."

"Yeah."

"What does yours say?"

"It says, um. Currently it says Please choose your class." Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"Mine says that too. But mine said You're glowing before. And Glow-Up Activated."

"Glow-Up Activated."

"Yeah. Glow-Up Activated."

"As like…a reward."

"As a reward."

"For killing a slime."

"With my dildo."

"Yeah."

"I fucking hate this system."

"Yeah." There was a beat. His brain caught up with his eyes and started reading her screen properly, and the panels were partially overlapping, and her stat sheet was visible, and— INT 17. Seventeen.

"You have seventeen INT." She looked at her screen.

"I have seventeen INT."

"I have fourteen INT."

"Cool."

"... how do you have seventeen INT."

"How do you have fourteen INT."

"I have a literature major." She stared at him. A small laugh came out of her, the first real laugh he had heard from her, a sharp single ha that surprised her in the act of producing it.

"Oh my god."

"What."

"You're a lit major. With fourteen INT."

"What."

"Nothing. Nothing. Continue."

"What."

"I just feel like that's a lot of student debt for a fourteen."

"FUCK YOU DUDE."

"I'M JUST SAYING."

"Oh you're going to be like this huh."

"I have a mechanical engineering major with a computer minor."

"... what."

"What."

"You're a mech-engineer."

"Yes."

"You're not a mech-engineer."

"What did you just say to me." He had said it before he could think about it and he saw, in real time, the precise moment her face went from animated-and-yapping to something colder and more dangerous, and she straightened her spine by about an inch and a half and lifted her chin and put her hands on her hips because the dildo-knife and the test tube were still in her hands and she planted them on her hips like a fucking gunslinger.

"FUCK YOU DUDE."

"I just meant—""I KNOW I'M DRESSED LIKE A DUMB BRAINLESS SLUT."

"I didn't—""IF I HAD KNOWN I WAS GOING TO BE FUCKING ISEKAID BY A CYBERTRUCK I WOULD HAVE PICKED A DIFFERENT OUTFIT." He stopped. He blinked.

"Wait."

"WHAT."

"A Cybertruck."

"Yes."

"Killed you."

"Yes."

"A Cybertruck killed me too." She stopped. The hands came off the hips.

"What."

"Tech bro. Hat with an AI logo. Came around the corner. I was high as balls. And I stepped off the curb. Yeah."

"Mine—mine came through the wall. I had bent over."

"Bent over?"

"To pick up my dildo. Off the floor. Because if I died I didn't want them to find—""Right. Yeah."

"Yeah."

"... the same Cybertruck?" Ben asked.

"I don't know."

"There can't be that many Cybertrucks killing people on the same day."

"They're not great drivers as a demographic."

"That's true."

"Yeah."

"It might have been the same one."

"It might." They both stood there for a second. The pink grass moved around their ankles. Her screen floated. His screen floated. Somewhere in the village a real chicken made a real chicken sound, except real was a word that had to be in quotes now. She took the potion with her other hand and held her free one out.

"I'm Maddy."

"Ben." He shook her hand. Her grip was firm. Engineer grip. Confirmed.

"Maddy what?" he said.

"Maddy." She frowned.

"That's. Maddy. Just Maddy." She looked at her screen. He looked at his. He had been clocking it on his sheet for a while now.

"My last name isn't there," she said.

"Mine either."

"It's just Maddy."

"Just Ben."

"Smith is gone."

"Smith?"

"That's mine. Was mine."

"You've got the most cliché family name ever." She stared at him.

"... what."

"Yeah."

"Shut up dude. How is that even relevant."

"Well. I don't know. Mine's Robinson."

"Robinson guy talking to me about cliché names."

"Dude. It's not that common."

"Top ten last name in the US easily."

"No."

"Yeah."

"No."

"Fuck you gonna do. Go on your cellphone to fact check it."

"No. I…can't."

"I know. It's sarcasm dude. Aren't you a lit major." There was a creak. A cart creak. Wait no. He was tweaking. He turned and Gerald was coming around the inn with his basket of eggs and no creak and Gerald arrived at Ben's elbow and presented him with three brown speckled eggs cradled in a folded square of cloth.

"For you, traveler."

"What."

"For thanks. I've should have given them earlier. And for your friend."

"Gerald."

"Yes traveler?"

"You just walked away. You weren't here a minute ago."

"I have been in the inn, traveler. I came out when I heard the lady."

"I didn't see you go into the inn."

"I went into the inn, traveler."

"Why are you giving me eggs."

"It is a gift."

"Why."

"Because you are my friend." He stared at Gerald. Gerald stared back. Gerald's eyes did the crinkly thing. Maddy was watching this exchange like a person watching a magic trick that was almost working. Ben took the eggs.

"Thanks Gerald."

"You are most welcome, traveler. I shall return to the inn. The ale is most excellent and they have begun to play music. Please find me before you depart Mossgrove. I should like to know that you are well." Gerald walked back toward the inn. The door closed behind him. Maddy looked at Ben.

"Who the fuck was that."

"Gerald."

"Who's Gerald."

"He had a cart. And he gave me a ride, but like a slime shit thing ate his horse-wolf-pony thing. Well I don't think it actually ate it but. Yeah. Who cares."

"He gave you a ride?"

"Yeah."

"And then…eggs."

"The eggs heal you."

"... what?"

"Yeah. You eat the egg. It heals you. I had a shoulder wound from the slime cum—""The what?"

"The slime shoots cum orbs. Mine. The slime in my fight."

"Mine had tentacles."

"Mine had cum."

"Thematic."

"Yeah."

"Cum-coded versus tentacle-coded."

"Yeah." She looked at the eggs. She looked at Gerald's back as Gerald disappeared into the inn.

"Did he. Like. Did he know I was coming? Did he know you'd need three?"

"He gave me three."

"Yeah."

"For my friend."

"He said that."

"Yeah."

"But he hasn't met me."

"I know."

"He said my friend like he was waiting for me to be here."

"I know."

"That's a fucking plot beat."

"I KNOW." She put her hands in her hair. The dildo-knife was still in one of them so she ended up with her hair partially wrapped around the handle of her dildo-knife, which she didn't notice and which Ben did not point out because he was already on processing overload.

"Okay," she said.

"Okay okay okay. Let me think." She paced. She actually paced. She walked three steps one way and three steps back, holding her dildo-knife and her test tube and her hair was up in the dildo, and he watched her engineer-pace for about twenty seconds and waited.

"Okay," she said.

"So. What do we do now."

"I don't know."

"Like. Why are we here."

"I don't know."

"It's a system. It's a game. It's a video game. It has stats, it has classes, it has a UI. Right?"

"Right."

"So games have win conditions."

"... right?"

"There has to be a way to win. Or like. A way out."

"Or this is hell."

"Or this is hell. But the system doesn't act like hell. Hell would not give us quests. Hell would not have a Glow-Up bar."

"Or hell is just very on-brand right now."

"Or hell is on-brand. Sure."

"Yeah."

"Probably not hell."

"Probably."

"Probably a system. Probably a game."

"Probably." She stopped pacing.

"What do you want to do." He didn't think about it.

"I want to burn this fucking AI slop down to the ground." She looked at him.

"... AI slop?"

"Yeah."

"You're a big hater."

"I'm a literature major." She laughed. The same sharp single ha, but with more juice in it this time.

"Damn dude. Right. Save some jobs for the rest of us."

"Shut up dude."

"You hate AI slop and you're stuck in an AI slop."

"Yes."

"That's funny actually."

"It's not funny it's horrible."

"It's both."

"It…is both." A beat.

"So what class are you picking," she said. He looked at his screen. The screen had not moved on from Please choose your class. He had been ignoring it. He pulled it up—well, he didn't pull it up, he just thought show me the classes and the panel slid in. Five icons. A question mark.

"I'm picking the question mark," he said.

"The three question marks thing?"

"Yeah."

"... same."

"Why."

"It's what they do in those shitty LitRPG books." He looked at her.

"You read LitRPG."

"Don't."

"You read LitRPG?"

"DON'T. DON'T START WITH ME. FUCK YOU DUDE STOP JUDGING."

"I'm not judging."

"YOU ARE."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"How many."

"What."

"How many LitRPG books did you read."

"... a number."

"A number."

"I had a Kindle folder."

"You had a Kindle folder of LitRPG books."

"Well. Just when I was bored. Not often-often. Like. Just a little."

"Sure."

"Yeah." He smiled. He did not mean to but he smiled.

"Anyway," she said.

"I don't know. But yeah, the question mark is like. The most cliché possible bait in those books. It's always the hidden class. It's always the OP class. It's always the class the protagonist picks. The system putting it on the menu like an actual option is so stupid."

"It's so fucking stupid."

"It's like a job application that has a job called secret job listed. Well you wouldn't know about job applications."

"It's like the system was designed by a fucking intern who fed *generate a LitRPG system' into ChatGPT and didn't change the first suggestion." She froze. She looked at him with her whole face.

"What did you just say."

"What."

"Say it again."

"It's like the system was designed by an intern—""Who fed generate a LitRPG system into ChatGPT—""And didn't change the first suggestion." She lit up again. Different glow this time. The Sephora-pink-grass glow of a person who had been ALONE in a problem and was now NOT ALONE in a problem.

"That's what I've been thinking. That's exactly what I've been thinking. The system has all these tells, you know? The font. The fucking sparkle emojis. The way it talks. The phrasing. Take a deep breath. Ground yourself. That's a prompt-induced cadence. The system was either built on top of an LLM or built by someone who couldn't write copy without one."

"Yeah."

"And the question mark class. That's literally the laziest possible mystery design. That's here is a thing the player has not unlocked, indicated by a question mark. That's MMO design from 2004. That's exactly what the model would generate if you asked it for hidden class slot."

"Yeah."

"The model is in the code, Ben. Or someone using the model is in the code. The system is downstream of an LLM."

"Yeah." He was nodding. He couldn't stop nodding. He had never agreed with anything in his life as much as he agreed with this.

Maddy was vibrating slightly with a type of energy he had only seen on his philosophy TAs when they finally cracked an argument they had been circling around for an hour, and Ben — Ben, who had hated this world from the second the first sparkle emoji had hit his retinas, Ben, who had spent the last several hours alone with no one to hate it with—Ben felt, briefly, the unfamiliar warm sensation of being correctly perceived.

"So let's pick the fucking question marks," she said.

"Yeah. Fuck it." They both said select at the same time, which was a thing they had both figured out without telling each other, which was its own small data point, and they tapped the question mark together. The system chimed. [Class Selected:???] [Confirming...] The panel sparkled. They waited. The panel kept sparkling. A new line of text appeared. [Special condition required!] Then a second line. [New Quest!] [Clear the dungeon to unlock your hidden class!] [Reward: Hidden class unlocked!] Ben stared at it. Maddy stared at it. The villagers kept doing their village tasks. The chicken kept being a chicken. Somewhere in the inn, Gerald was probably drinking ale and watching them through a window. Or fucking not actually since Gerald was a fucking bot and bots didn't do anything because bots didn't actually exist.

"…Are you fucking kidding me," Maddy said.

"You called it. You called it eight seconds ago. Generate a hidden class quest reward. That's literally what it generated."

"FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING STUPID CLANKER," Maddy yelled at her screen. A villager turned to look. Turned back. Mossgrove had really stopped caring about the foreigners. Ben looked at her. She looked at him. Her Monster can was in one hand. His wax knife was on his hip. Her hair was wrapped around her dildo. He had three eggs in a piece of cloth in his other hand from a man who shouldn't have known she was coming. There were two suns. The grass was pink. There was a dungeon now, apparently.

"Wanna go to a dungeon," he said.

"Not even a little bit."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."