"Rewards for Personal Mission: 1 attribute point."
"So they didn't give me the base 0.5 just for completing. My mission was far harder than other players' missions, but I only get double the standard reward. Maybe they're basing it on how difficult it is relative to the player… Whatever," Ali muttered to himself.
He looked at his interface and saw that he now had 2.5 free attribute points—more than enough to meet the requirement for levelling up in Paradise. Satisfied, he closed the interface and took one last, lingering look at the blue planet before his vision turned white again, and he felt his body fade into numbness.
When Ali opened his eyes again, he was back in his room in Paradise, standing opposite his bed. Without hesitation, he dropped everything and peeled off his clothes, stepping into the shower.
The cold water ran over his muscular frame, washing away the blood and grime from three days spent surviving in a zombie-infested wasteland.
The water flowed over his eight-pack and cascaded to the floor, stained red by the remnants of the apocalypse. Ali stood there for an hour, letting the freezing water clear his mind and body, before he finally turned it off and stepped out, dripping onto the tiled floor.
He raised his internal body temperature, allowing the remaining water to evaporate as steam. Once dry, Ali tossed his filthy clothes in the bathroom sink to rinse them, then went to the corner of his room.
A box of rations had been replenished there, along with a fresh set of grey pants and a sweater.
'They replace them every time I lose or rip them to make rations bags,' Ali thought, shrugging as he pulled on the clean clothes.
Ali left the apartment with nothing except the clothes on his back, leaving his weapons behind. Fighting was prohibited in the Slums, and he hardly needed weaponry—his own body was a weapon formidable enough to intimidate anyone.
As he walked through the streets toward the centre of the Slums, he noticed a man frantically questioning passersby, a look of confusion and despair etched on his face. Upon spotting Ali, the man hurried over.
"Please! Have you seen my baby? My little girl… where is she? She… she just disappeared. She was in my arms…" The man's voice cracked, and he stared down at his empty hands, tears streaming down his face.
"Just ignore him," a familiar voice said from behind. Ali turned to see Catherine, the diner owner he and Jacob had visited, approaching.
"He's in withdrawal," she explained, her voice tinged with sympathy. "He probably stayed in a world for a long time and had a family there. But when the world mission was completed, he was sent back here… without them. It happens sometimes. Paradise doesn't care about attachments we form in those worlds. Brutal as it sounds, there's no exception for the families we create in other dimensions."
Despite the choices they made, most players sympathised with others crushed by the merciless rules of Paradise. After all, none of them had asked to be here, and Paradise wasn't a place for the faint-hearted.
"Aren't you late for work?" Ali asked, resuming his pace down the street, Catherine falling into step beside him.
"I am my own boss, you know," she said playfully, covering her mouth to hide a mock laugh. "I open when I want and close when I want. Besides, it's not every day that a woman gets to walk with the most handsome man in the Slums."
Ali raised an eyebrow, amused. "I didn't know I had a title. You say you're your own boss, but don't you still have a quota to fill for the Slum supervisors?"
"Oh, and how do you know so much about us traders, hmm?" Catherine asked, casting a sidelong, suspicious glance.
"Just a guess, to be honest," Ali replied. "There's no way Paradise would let someone run a shop without expecting results at the end of each week. That would be way too lenient."
"You're not wrong," Catherine admitted as they walked along, with the crowd parting wherever Ali passed. "When I was accepted as a trader, they opened the shop for me and gave me the essentials free for the first month. But after that, I had to buy supplies with the credits I made. They monitor my shop's credit balance, so they know if I'm pulling my weight or slacking."
Ali considered this for a moment. "Catherine, how long have you been here?" he asked in his usual direct tone.
"Me? Eleven years now," Catherine replied, stopping at the edge of a large circular clearing. She looked up at the massive tower that loomed over the Slums.
"Have you ever considered ascending?" Ali asked, curiosity piqued.
Catherine scoffed, shaking her head. "No. After completing my fifth world, I'd seen enough. I realised that Paradise wasn't for me—the endless killing, the sacrifices to satisfy orders from above… I didn't want to keep living like that."
Ali studied her expression thoughtfully. 'Paradise must really hate people like her," he thought. "Players who have the talent and skill to gather large amounts of Origin but choose to quit the system. They probably see traders like her as a necessary concession.'
"Enough wasting time. Go open your diner so I can finally have some real food. I survived on rations in a zombie world for three days," Ali said, only half-jokingly.
"Oh, I've heard awful things about those worlds… Just give me an hour, and I'll be ready for you," Catherine replied with a smile as she headed toward her shop. As she passed, veterans in the Slums nodded at her respectfully—she was, after all, more seasoned than most of them.
"Let me check if there's anything worth spending my saved-up PC on," Ali thought, stepping into the bustling clearing at the centre of the Slums.
As he moved deeper into the crowded square, he could feel multiple eyes watching him closely. 'You're so lucky we're in Paradise,' Ali thought to himself, amused.
'If we were anywhere else, I'd split you in half.'
———————
Author here, the last couple chapters have been kinda small but don't worry the next ones are all massive so your gonna have a lot to read soon.
Please donate some of your power stones, it would help my ff massively.
Five chapters ahead of webnovel on patreon.com/Rondo312