The System In My Head

The divine path of retrieval

Ben held his breath as his eyes looked down, sparkling with fear and hope.

The light faded to reveal his fate. Long ago...

A corner tear of the paper with some scribbles on it.

"Well .. good game."

Ben hugged his death tightly like a long-lost lover. In his head, he wrote a list of things to do during the next and last month.

[You have obtained the Divine Pick-Up Path (Consumption, Good) x1]

"wait. Divine? That should be a good thing. Then why does this look like a record someone would give in 3rd grade? The paper wasn't even big enough for me to write a farewell letter to my family."

After a while, Ben guessed that humans would not be able to understand the artistic meaning of any god or demon that created this system. Instead of pondering over the unthinkable, he searched for more information about the item.

[Divine Pick Up Line (Consumable, Fine) x1 - Use on any woman to quickly increase her attraction to you by a significant amount]

Ben's breathing became heavy. 'There you go...' He saw a glimmer of light above, likely to come out of the deep hole where he was trapped. This little piece of paper could be his life-saving rope.

*derak*

The door opens and a teenage boy Ben has never seen enters the dorm room. The boy's eyebrows shot up when he saw Ben was already inside. He puts down his luggage, straightens out his posture, and approaches Ben formally to shake hands. Not wanting to be disrespectful, Ben stood up and shook hands with her.

"Hello, I guess you're Benjamin? I am Fariq, from India, and we will be roommates from now on. It's nice to meet you. I didn't expect to share a room with an established businessman, which is my great honor."

Ben's death sentence had distracted him to the point that he had forgotten that his roommate was coming today. However, there was one part of Fariq's speech that left him perplexed.

"Employer?" Ben asked, narrowing his eyes.

Fariq's back became more upright. "I've seen a lot of orders on our doorstep. I was very impressed. It's only the first day and you've started a business. What is the business model? Mexican food delivery service?" He looked at Ben as if he were seeing a mentor. Fariq is in the business program, so he needs to learn from real-world start-ups like this if he wants to launch his own company in the future.

Ben's face is grimer than the Facebook page of a necromancer. "Nothing great like that. That's a misunderstanding."

Fariq nodded repeatedly in appreciation. "Courtesy is a virtue. Goody. Goody. I can see that I will learn a lot from you and hope to be friends."

'...Guys.' To Ben, the word was like an idiom in a foreign language; he knew the translation, but he did not understand the true meaning. 'When was the last time I had a friend outside of a chat room?'

[29 days and 23 hours left until eradication]

'My God, Debbie Downer lives in my head! I don't need to hear that now!'

[Do you want to turn off the alarm every hour?]

'It looks like the system is also responding to thoughts. Yeah, just turn it off. Not that I will soon forget my impending death...' His mental rant was interrupted by the sound of a savage beast.

*Switching*

Ben looked at his stomach and realized that he had not eaten all day. He got on the train in the morning, then was busy registering and arranging his dorm room all day. After cleaning up the brown droppings that covered her earlier, she decided this was a good time to get off and try the dorm cafeteria. It's getting late so he hopes it's not closed yet. Ben invites Fariq who cannot leave because he has to contact his family and dismantle. So Ben went alone.

As Ben passed through the hall, his face brightened slightly as someone had lowered a poster of his meme. 'I think there are good people in this world.' He used the elevator to reach the ground floor and walked towards the cafeteria. As he passed through the entrance, someone next to him shouted, "Hey, Burrito King!"

Ben turned his head and found Tyler, one of the people who put up posters of him everywhere. Ben's mood dropped like a rock again. He thought he had abandoned his dark past about bullying, but it didn't even take a day for people to push him down, burying him in a hole without the same light.

"You still taking orders?" Tyler and the other students laugh at Ben's face as they get a drink from the vending machine.

Ben wants to defend himself, but he's not a fighter. He made his stance once when he was young. It was then that he learned what a reality more cruel than film. The only result of his bravery was the beating of a bully who left him bedridden for two weeks. Since then, he had always lowered his head, having understood that walking in shame was better than lying in it.

As Ben prepares to leave, he catches a strong fragrance of floral perfume from behind him. When he turned around, it only took him a moment, but what he saw fascinated him.

Standing there was a beautiful girl. She has an exotic Mediterranean face like the femme fatale from the James Bond films. Olive skin complemented her black hair along the neck, which waved as she moved like a sea current under the dim moonlight. He was talking on the phone and had yet to see Ben drooling.

Ben gulps. 'How beautiful...'

*Snip* "Don't dream about it, asshole," Tyler said as he watched Ben stare at the girl, lost in trance.

Ben clenched his fists, shivering. 'I can't even dream quietly?!?'

With a breath of breath, he took out the consumable Divine Pick Up Line from his pocket and stared at it for a long time...

Is this the time? She had never seen such a beautiful girl since arriving in Manhattan, but this was her life she was playing. Failure means the possibility of death. His heartbeat quickened as he realized that this was the most important decision he had ever made. One chance. That's all he's got.

'Should I use it now?'