Lich could visibly see the veins on all of the groups face. Before he could hear them screaming at the guy, they vanished.
Looking back at the woman working the counter, she simply stated one word. "Kicked."
'I am so glad that guy said they were going after her. I feel like she wouldn't of kicked them out of the store if it was only just me being robbed.'
...
Holding all 10 coupons, Lich expected a notification or something to happen. But he was just holding 10 coupons.
'Maybe they need to be fully spent? But do I need to go to a specific shop in the same district or can it be any?'
Knowing once he stepped out the shop he was screwed. Lich thought about going to another one of the shops he already has and then leave, but there was a chance they had all 10 shops he spent the coupons at surrounded.
Grasping at straws, Lich looked at one of the coupons more closely. The one he ended up looking at was the coupon he spent at the Gym Rat Path Shop. He knew that because the most left square had a smaller version of his flyer of the Gym Rat Path. That was when he found hope.
'There are 10 squares, with one already being used. The other 9 squares have the same texture as scratch offs. Maybe if I just-'
As Lich was scratching the square, small pieces of UV ink feel to the ground. Then when Lich was confused why nothing was behind the UV ink, a portal opened up from underneath him and he fell through.
...
Unlike the door's simple walking in and out mechanic, the portal simply opened up and dropped Lich. Though he wanted to complain, as he got a free ride, he held his thoughts.
[Auto Sign-up Via Coupon]
Lich forgot about the pain from dropping as he was ecstatic about skipping the boring paperwork.
Looking around, it was obvious that Lich was in the 2-Hand Shop. As the weapons that lined the shop's walls looked way to heavy for a person to use.
Lich expected to see Joan here, but she seemed to be somewhere else. With no one to talk to, Lich started the quest.
[G0 2-Hand Quest: Stock 1000 G0 2-Hand Swords]
Heading into the back, Lich wanted to know how heavy the swords really were. Grabbing the sword with one hand, to a passerby it looked like Lich just wanted to hold the sword and not pick it up.
However, Lich was struggling to pick up the sword. After sweating with no results, he used both hands. For some reason the sword felt lighter than when he tried with one hand. Removing a hand off the sword's handle, Lich almost dropped it onto his foot.
'It seems I don't meet the required conditions to try with one hand, so it gets heavy. A weird restriction but it is fine. I can move it with both hands. So I will just be here for a bit. Now that I think about it, didn't I struggle with the axes too? Why did I even try it with this sword?'
...
After struggling for a long time, Lich finished with setting up all the 2-hand swords for all the quests.
'I need to get the Watch Path, then maybe I would be able to tell the time and date. Also I am glad I haven't ran into a Path that forces a sleep bar to appear. I wouldn't be able to work endlessly like I am now if I had that. But I am starting to miss the feeling of sleep.'
'Well I guess it is time to do the next path.' Lich tried to scratch the same coupon that had the Gym Rat flyer and now the 2-Hand, which was a shirtless Lich swinging a 2-Handed Sword around, but failed to scratch the coupon.
Going to the next coupon it seemed to work, as after scratching the UV ink off, a portal opened up and he started to fall.
'I wonder where I am now. Huh, that is weird. Last time, I hit the ground pretty quickly.'
Looking down, Lich started to scream.
"Why the fuck am I falling from the sky!? Where is the shop!?"
Luckily a notification sounded off.
[Auto Sign-up Via Coupon]
[G0 Falcon Quest: Catch 1000 Birds In The Sky]
Lich then saw that instead of his human body, he was now in a falcon's body. Lich quickly tried to get use to flying before trying to do anything else.
'Okay, it seems like I am a bit stable now. At least this isn't another egg laying quest. I don't want to ever do that again.Wait, how am I meant to catch birds that have been flying most of their life?'
Seeing a bird nearby, Lich tried to see how hard it was to catch a bird as a falcon. Flying next to the bird, that seemed like a ...bird? There was no distinct features to tell what type of bird. Throwing his talons in front of him, Lich ended up shredding the bird to pieces and failing to catch it.
'Why am I so fast! I tried to grab its wings, not kill it like that.'
After failing multiple times, Lich finally learned to catch birds and start progressing on the quests.
From afar was a man sitting on a giant Falcon. To his side was Falcon, the girl Lich met in the Axe shop.
"I thought I was your boss, but with how you have been making me redirect all those birds to the boy, maybe you are the boss. Hey boss, can I take a few years off. I have the days saved up. If you need help maybe your boyfriend will help."
"Sir you know full well I am taking over the group once this G Rank phase is over. Also I don't even like him. I just saw how bad he was at flying and felt pity for him. If we didn't help, he would of spent weeks trying to catch just one bird without killing it."
The old man started to laugh. "Well at least that is one thing he has in common with his ancestor. They both are talented when it comes to taking lives. Also seeing how you want to show pity on him that is something his ancestor never got. We were too scared to ever think the monster had feelings."
Falcon questioned the old man with hesitation. "Sir, I thought you were in Server 85. How did you know his ancestor who is from Server 0?"
The old man started to rub the stubble on his face. "Ah, my bad you young'un's wouldn't know. When we say Server, we mean the group we can in. Server 0 was already here in this place. The Server 1 Group was the first group to be sent to this place."
...
'The last bird!'
A falcon flew at extreme speeds and dive bombed a poor bird minding its own business.
'Now that I finished the quest, how do I scratch the coupon for the next place?'
Suddenly Lich transformed back into his human body. Sadly, the one waiting to catch him was distracted and talking about the good ol times to his young charge.
Falling to his death, Lich quickly started to scratch a coupon. Luckily for Lich, the UV ink seemed to defy gravity and physics as it kept the same distance below Lich as if he was just standing still.
As he went through the portal, he realized his mistake.
'Wait, the portal always drops me! Damn, I just speed up when I died, not save myself!'
Maybe feeling pity for Lich, the portal seemed to shoot him up instead of down. So instead of becoming paste on the floor, he flew up and lost momentum. But he ended up hitting the ceiling of the store, then fell down and hit the floor.
Laying on the ground in pain, Lich's life flashed before his eyes. He began to mutter he would make up for his sins in life and become a better person.
...
Looking at his coupon, he saw it updated with a small flyer of Lich on a giant falcon. Then Lich pulled up his system screen to see where he was and what quest he had to do.
[G0 Hex Quest: Make 1000 Hex Bags]
"So I have to make Hex bags. Uh, how do I do that again?"
The shop owner of the store walked up to Lich and showed him where Lich was supposed to be working.
"You are making very simple Hex bags. Since they aren't going to be used to hurt people, you can just use your own picture to designate yourself as the target. If you are scared to do that, I have another way for you to do it. But it takes way longer."
"Fast is good."