Second World Novel

There were other pumps. The three went and checked those other pumps, but their searches turned out fruitless. The pumps were all empty.

“Shit… Now, what should we do…?” Stefan asked.

“I’m going to head in there to take a look,” Jack said, pointing to a convenience store next to the fuel station.

“What do you expect to find in there? Chips?” Stefan asked.

“We can’t go much further without fuel. Plus, we can’t find those tools that help us survive this game if we continued traveling on wheels. That convenience store is as good a place as any to start searching.”

“I agree, let’s go in there,” Naomi said.

Stefan decided to stay outside with the car and keep watch just in case that monster truck passed by.

Inside the convenience store, everything was a mess. Most of the shelves were empty. The ones that still had few items on them were mostly broken stuff or rotten food.

“How do we recognize one of these tools Aglea mentioned?” Naomi asked. She was holding a flashlight that was displayed on one of the shelves. The flashlight was one of the items that seemed to be in good condition. However, it was not working when she tried to turn it on. “I mean, we can’t use our Inspect skill. We might pass them by without knowing that they were useful tools.”

“Well, I have seen one of these tools. It looks like a small black ball,” Jack said. “But yeah. If I haven’t seen those people use this ball before, I will also just consider it a useless thing even if I see it.”

“So? Should we just take everything that looks suspicious?” Naomi asked.

“I don’t know. Let’s just try to find one first,” Jack said.

Jack saw a first aid box that was fixed on the wall. He approached the box and opened it. Inside, there was an adhesive bandage and several medicinal bottles. He wondered if these things could be used.

He grabbed the bottles. He couldn’t take things out of his inventory system, and he also couldn’t put things in. If he wanted to bring these things with him, he had to carry them in a bag.

He opened one of the bottles. It was empty. He supposed it was useless then. There was no point in bringing it. He opened all of the bottles and found that they were all the same. He put the bottles back into the first aid box and took the adhesive bandage.

The moment his hand touched the bandage, a series of texts popped up above it.

*

Bandage

Recover one shield.𝒏𝒪𝑣𝗲𝒍𝗇𝔢xt.𝓬𝑂𝓂

*

“Whoa!” Jack cried.

Naomi came running, thinking that Jack had encountered trouble. “What’s wrong?” She asked.

“… You don’t see this?” Jack asked.

“See what?” Naomi gave Jack a confused expression.

“Try holding this,” Jack gave Naomi the adhesive bandage.

“Wow!” It was Naomi who now cried out after the bandage was in her hand.

Now that Jack was no longer holding the bandage, he also could no longer see the description texts.

“This is one of the tools,” Naomi uttered.

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Apparently, we have to touch these tools to know that they can be used. Okay, let’s go around and start touching things.”

“Why do you have to make it sound so dirty?” Naomi complained.

“Oh, one more thing. Keep that bandage for Stefan,” Jack said.

Naomi looked at the adhesive bandage in her hand. Both she and Jack had lost one shield. This bandage is useful to them. But Jack was right, Stefan had lost two shields during the fight earlier. He only had one shield left. He needed this bandage more than them.

Naomi was not a selfish person, so she nodded.

The two continued to look around the place. Now that they knew how to identify a tool, they went back to the shelves and started touching all the things there.

“Hey. These are just junk, but we can use it to store stuff,” Jack said and handed Naomi a small backpack. He himself wore a fanny pack. Both were things he picked up from the floor

Naomi accepted it and placed the adhesive bandage into the bag. He then wore the backpack on her back before continuing to examine the goods on the shelves.

Jack couldn’t find anything useful on the shelves on his side, so he went to the counter to see if he could find anything there.

He rummaged through the place. He even opened the cabinets under the counter. Most were empty. The ones that had something in them mostly contained junk. Nothing was triggered when Jack touched them.

He had given up on finding anything useful when he opened the last cabinet, then he saw the thing inside. There was only one thing inside.

‘Oh… Please be what I hope it is,’ Jack said in his mind and touched the thing.

Naomi had scoured most of the things on the remaining shelves of the convenience store, which weren’t many. She even touched the things scattered on the floor. She only found one more tool aside from the adhesive bandage Jack gave her. She was just about to show Jack the item when Jack came to her holding something in his hand.

“Is that what I think it is?” Naomi asked.

“Yeah, I got texts above this thing,” Jack said. He was holding a fuel canister. “The texts say this canister holds twenty liters of fuel that can be used on any vehicle.”

“Great! We can continue using the car then,” Naomi celebrated. “How long do you think that fuel will last us?”

“I’m not sure if the consumption rate here followed our real-world rule, but I would say at least three to five hours, I think. Do you find anything?”

“Yeah. This,” Naomi showed Jack a small shield-shaped badge.

“What does it do?” Jack asked.

“If I use it, it will protect my shields from getting broken for five seconds,” Naomi answered.

“An invulnerability item. Cool! You keep it then,” Jack said. “Let’s leave. I don’t think there are any more tools here.”

“Yeah. Seemed like these tools are rarer than we think. Do you want to go check the other buildings?”

“Nah… Now that we have the fuel. It’s better if we resume our way back. The longer it is, the more likely the others have moved away from where we split up.”

Naomi nodded. The two then walked out of the convenience store.