Chapter 23: Rewards
****Unknown Location****
In a slightly dark room, Mona sat on a bed while she looked down on a man dressed in a black trench coat that covered most of his body alongside a white mask with markings to cover his face.
"Lady Mona, do we still need to initiate the procedure?" a man currently on his knees looking up at Mona said.
"Yes," Mona responded.
"We have all the reasons to do that now," she thought to herself.
"Alright, miss, it shall begin now," the man said before vanishing.
’Let’s see how you handle this.’
****Back in Morden’s Home****
[Note: Rewards provided shall be based on the actual performance and events of the trial.]
"Alright, that seems fair enough."
[Assessment result: Performance rating—A+]
[Reason: Was able to finish the task without personally causing damage to villagers, Managed to save a villager, and executed the target cleanly]
While Morden’s eyes glanced through the screen of texts, he couldn’t help but feel a bitter taste in his mouth.
"Not causing damage to Villagers uhh? They are all freaking dead.’
’What damage could I have caused?’
He didn’t want to delve deeper into that emotional state, so Morden quickly found something else to lighten his mood a little.
[Rewards]
[Mind +10(perm)]
[Other stats +5 (perm)]
[Anomaly was detected during Trial so Bearer have been given an Opportunity to make a choice]
[Choice]
[Reward 1: Epic-grade Equipment (Random)]
[Reward 2: Opportunity to ask two questions]
Reading the first part of his rewards, Morden couldn’t help but start smiling from ear to ear, but his smile gradually faded as he approached the end of the message.
’What do I choose?’
"Seeing how much that Uncommon-grade sword alone had helped me, I know how important equipment is. I would have died without it.’
’But on the other hand, there are questions that I feel are extremely important to get the answers to.’
Even if he decides to choose the second reward, how good was he to decide on the questions to ask?
Surprisingly, what was supposed to be a great dilemma ended up being concluded by Morden in less than a minute, making him feel slightly proud of himself.
"I will choose the second reward,"
"It’s more open; if used right, I can use it to get even the first things."
"Now, what do I ask?"
"There are so many things, what is an Attribute, What the one who shouldn’t be mean? How else can I get equipment? Oh my god, there are just too many things to ask."
"Calm down and analyze Morden; think about the best one," he said out loud before falling silent with a serious look on his face.
He remained sitting on the chair in the dark living room for a while, his eyebrows tensed and his gaze sharp.
"I think I have got it,"
’Alright, let’s do this. I choose Reward 2,’ he thought in his mind.
[Reward 2 successfully selected; you may now proceed with the first Question]
"My first question will be, Who is the Administrator?’
Morden chose that as his first after a lot of consideration; he had wondered about how much it would work for him and all when he made that decision.
Instead of receiving the response immediately, like he had expected, Morden was left alone in silence with nothing but blank space in front of him, just when he was slowly growing frustrated, something finally changed.
[Question: Who is the Administrator]
[Answer: The Administrator is a being th-]
Morden wasn’t done reading the long string of text that had appeared in front of him; he had barely even started before everything scrambled up and was now replaced by another string of text.
[Error!! Error!!! Information too advanced for the current level; exposure can lead to Unforeseen circumstances.
If he hadn’t expected it, he would have been extremely annoyed at this point, but he had; he only wanted to confirm if that person was actually as high-level as he had shown himself to be.
And the lack of an answer had done just that.
"My test was successful, and since my question was directly answered, I should still have my two questions."
[First Question gone; you may now proceed with the next question.]
’What? No, no, no, I should still have two questions. I have been scammed; I have been freaking scammed.’
’This is unfair,’
[You may now proceed with the next question.]
"Sigh, I guess there’s nothing I can do about it.’
"My second question is, Where can I find Golden Monkeys?’
Since he had asked Mona and she had said she had absolutely no idea where, he had decided to ask the source itself. The information was just too important.
’I need to get more Genetic shards.’
He currently had three gene shards, one from the Golden Monkey and two from killing those creepy red ghosts.
[Question: Location of the Golden Monkeys]
[Answer: The Golden Monkeys can be found where the Deaf can hear but the sightful can’t see.]
Morden slowly read through the answers with a face that was obviously hiding an extreme amount of frustration.
"What!! "Is this all I get? this is literally a scam."
"What is this even supposed to mean?"
"I need a refund; give me back my Epic-grade equipment."
All of his shouts were just for nothing; after the last message was displayed, there was no string of text appearing in front of him anymore.
There was no one to complain to.
After shouting to vent his anger a little bit more, Morden finally quieted down, and with no reward or notification to distract, he could finally focus on the fact that he was actually back in that same home.
His eyes were locked on the exact spot he had remembered his Mother and brother’s bodies to be while he remained unmoving. Despite being extremely tired, he just couldn’t summon enough courage to stand up and head to the room he shared with his brother.
’I will just sleep here tonight,’
’Tomorrow I will head back to the Bearer’s organization to register,’ he thought while he slowly drifted to sleep.