After packing the clothes, Jimmy and Piers left the Higgins household. Martha promised that she would visit the X-mall from time to time to meet Jimmy, even though he clearly didn't want her to do so. However, upon further insistence, he agreed to that.
Their walk back to Piers house wasn't that long, but since they took it slowly, it seemed longer than necessary. During this time, they took it upon themselves to understand a bit about each other. That's when Jimmy learned that the two of them had quite similar tastes in many things like sports teams and stuff. He felt that this talk was certainly fruitful.
Amidst this walk, their systems lit up with an alert.
[System alert:
Save the old lady
Mission rewards: 100 stat points; 500 EXP; +1 fame
Mission failure: Death of the old lady
Accept the mission?
Y/N]
"What the!" Both of them were surprised by this sudden pop-up of their system.
While Piers was still awed by the stuff before him, Jimmy was the one to think sensibly first. "Hmm, seems like I'll get the same stat points for most of the missions. Although, the EXP just decreased for this mission. I guess this is of a lesser severity than the mission to protect you." Jimmy looked towards Piers and spoke.
Piers stared back at Jimmy in disbelief. "How is this less severe? Didn't you just see what the mission failure is? The old lady is gonna die! We gotta help her and help her soon!" He spoke.
Jimmy sighed. "Calm down, Piers. You getting super hyper won't help us when we don't even know where this old lady is. Well, since it popped up all of a sudden in a random place, that means the random place is the location, right? So, get looking. She's near." He ordered.
Piers listened to Jimmy's orders and looked around for a certain old lady. After searching for her for about a minute or two, they found the old lady around at about a hundred meters away from their initial location.
"There she is!" Piers didn't waste any time and hurried towards the old lady. "What are you doing here, old lady?" He asked the lady standing near the road. She didn't look that old. For the most part, she looked about sixty or seventy, but the cane in her hand made her look even older.
Instead of receiving a reply, he received a hit with her cane instead. "Who are you calling old, you freaking idiot?" She asked.
"Oww!" Piers cried a little in pain.
Jimmy shook his head as he pushed Piers to his back. "We called you old. Aren't you an old hag?" He asked as he glared towards the woman.
Jimmy's remarks flared up the old lady. "You!" She swung her cane towards Jimmy's head, but the average speed of the swing made it easy for him to catch the shot with his bare hands.
"That's not gonna hurt me. I've been with things worse than that. So, quit it and just scram if you wanna live." Jimmy replied. Even though he warned her to leave, she didn't listen and tried swinging the cane forward even in his grip.
After a few seconds of struggle, the lady got tired of it and stopped struggling. When Jimmy saw that, he was about to leave the cane, but she saw it as the apt time and swung it again. But, yet again, her struggles were stopped with his single hand. Finally, the lady actually stopped her struggle for once and retracted her can to the original position. "You are an asshole, you know that?" The lady cursed as she struggled for breath.
"Is that so? Then let me do some real asshole moves then." Jimmy spoke as he completely snatched the cane from the old lady and threw it into a considerable distance. "How about now, huh?" He asked with a smile on his face.
"Jimmy! What did you just do? Don't worry, madam. I will bring the cane to you!" Piers spoke as he ran towards the cane, but was quickly stopped by Jimmy. "What are you doing? Let me go." Piers tried shrugging away the hand that grabbed him.
"No. Let the old hag do it by herself." Jimmy spoke seriously this time, which made Piers freeze in his spot.
The old ha… lady sighed. "Fine! I'll do it myself. But, I'm gonna curse the hell out of you for it, you bunch of devils!" She cried.
"Devils, huh? It's funny that you think of us like that!" Jimmy laughed as the old lady slowly walked towards her cane. As she stepped a few good meters away from the road, the three of them felt a sudden drift of wind that passed by them. The sudden drift was followed by a loud sound and a whole lot of dust. They didn't know what happened until the dust settled down. When it eventually did, they saw a massive truck on the place that they and the old lady previously stood. The truck had decimated the streetlight near them.
Seeing this destruction, Jimmy and Piers rushed to the scene and saw that the driver was unconscious but still fine. Meanwhile, the old lady was on the ground, shocked after seeing the event that unfolded before her. A little late to move, and she would've been dead. A few minutes ago she was filled with hatred for the two kids before her, but now, the hatred turned into a thankful gesture. Had the two of them not provoked her, she wouldn't have moved away, and she would have died.
"Hey!" She shouted with all the voice that she could muster up at that moment.
"Hmm?" Piers and Jimmy turned back to her after hearing her shout. By this time, people had already started rushing to the area of accident and took the unconscious man to the hospital and all. So, they were free again.
"Thank you." She said in a very low voice.
"For what? Harassing you? Quit it, old hag." Jimmy spoke without any chill.
"I'm not saying thanks for that. But… Without that, I guess I wouldn't have moved from there… I just had a lot to think about. You see, my son…" She was about to speak of her day, when Jimmy quickly stopped her.
"Didn't I say to quit it? I don't wanna listen to your crappy backstory that led you to stand there. Just, no." Jimmy replied.
Even though Jimmy clearly said no, seeing the sad look on the lady's face, Piers jumped to the other side and was eager to listen to her story. He learned that her son and daughter, both of whom she had a lot of difficulty taking care of due to circumstances around her, abandoned her after they became somewhat reputable, stating that they don't need a mother like her. Devastated by this, she decided to leave the house where she lived with her son, daughter and their spouses as a joint family and was about to go to her brother's house where her brother lived alone. Even so, her mind was conflicted. She wanted to go back and mend her current non-existent relationship with her children, but she also didn't want to go back to a house that abandoned her. These complicated feelings were the ones that made her stop by the road and hesitate from actually crossing the road. While Jimmy acted as if he didn't care about it, Piers was in tears after the story. He asked if she wanted to come with her to his house, to which Jimmy was clearly against. He left his house because he didn't want to harm anyone due to the system he had and now Piers was about to invite someone else, putting him in the same predicament, which Jimmy didn't agree with.
In the end, her brother was called in who took her to their house. So, that was peacefully dealt with, and they continued their walk towards Piers' house.
[System:
Mission:
Save the old lady
Mission status: Success
Rewards: 100 Stat points (Transferred into the repayment of loan), 500 EXP, +1 fame]
Jimmy sighed upon seeing the stat points being transferred to the 100,000 points loan. Meanwhile, Piers looked surprised. Seeing the expression on Piers' face, Jimmy asked for the reason. Piers shared his mission screen to Jimmy.
[System:
Mission:
Save the old lady
Mission status: Success
Rewards: 100 Stat points (-75 Stat points; since it's transferred into the interest payment), 500 EXP, +1 fame, Enchanted gear]
"Twenty five extra stat points than me in technicality, Five hundred more EXP for you to get to level two and… an enchanted gear!" Jimmy exclaimed.
"Yea! I got an enchanted gear!" Piers exclaimed as well.
"Wait, is it your current costume?" Jimmy asked, since that was his case.
"Well, no… It says that the costume is in the inventory." Piers replied.
"F*ck, you got a different costume, while I had to keep on wearing the Santa suit. Hmm… He did say that my future costume is cool. Anyway, show me your costume." Jimmy spoke.
"Okay!" Piers clearly looked excited as he slowly took out his enchanted gear for theatrics.
#