A Walk Across The City

Magnus then closed the Inventory and opened the Mission screen. He glanced at the Satisfaction Level bar and saw it had risen to fourteen percent, from the previously thirteen. He raised one brow and asked, "How did I gain one percent?"

[The Viewers were amused at the host's struggle with the pain during the stats transfer right after underestimating it, therefore raising the Satisfaction Level by one percent.]

His mood had just been uplifted not more than ten minutes ago, yet the system's answer dropped it back down mercilessly. 'Oh, you guys enjoyed it, yeah? Don't worry, I've got more in store for ya!' he thought sarcastically.

'How did we get thirteen percent to begin with?' asked Magnus 2.0, trying to distract his original from his current train of thoughts.

[The host's successful attempt at stealing the system from the hands of the gods was very entertaining to watch from The Viewers' perspective, therefore launching their Satisfaction Level straight to thirteen percent.]

'Damn, we really gave them one heck of a heist to watch, huh.'

Magnus agreed, but that just soured his mood even more. 'Dancing monkeys, that's what we are now.'

'Yeah, well…for what it's worth, the whole freaking Universe has always been their dancing monkeys,' Magnus 2.0 added.

---

One week and a half later, after having breakfast with his parents and seeing his father off to work and his mother off to her book club meeting, Magnus sat in his room and opened his Status Window. He scanned everything on the screen and concluded that the numbers all matched. The stats transfer had been completed.

"Damn, it took what, two weeks and a half?" Magnus asked himself.

'Sounds about right,' confirmed Magnus 2.0.

After he scanned his Status Window one more time, he dismissed it and sat staring at the wall. "Now what?"

Knowing they both were never good at planning ahead, Magnus 2.0 then proposed something. 'Weren't we gonna find Alana?'

"Right. We can do that," Magnus agreed. "System, can you guide us to where she is now?"

[Although the system can reveal a general whereabout of people and objects, it does not have a built-in function to pinpoint someone's exact location. The hosts are recommended to use the Script feature for that.]

Magnus raised his brows upon listening to the system's response. "Well then. Time to get creative, other me!"

There was a brief pause before Magnus 2.0 finally spoke up—Magnus assumed if his copy had a face, he would be rolling his eyes during this pause. 'Show me the Script then, system,' he said before getting to work.

He then took a few seconds to think of a sentence.

ʳ As Magnus wondered how to find his way to his reincarnated wife, he was suddenly teleported— ʴ

"Nope! Nuh-uh," Magnus interrupted.

His copy then stopped typing and asked, 'Why not?'

"Teleportation? Are you kidding me? It will cost us a huge chunk of AP since it's fast and still benefits us greatly. And don't even get me started on the jumpscare we'd be giving her if I suddenly just popped out of nowhere right in front of her."

'Thought you'd say that.'

Magnus cocked his head in confusion. "If you knew that, then why the hell were you writing about teleportation?"

'Do you really not know why?'

Blinking twice, Magnus took a couple of seconds to think. "Ah, you were testing our synchronization," he finally said, realizing he'd known why all along, just that his conscious mind hadn't caught up with his intuition. Every time he interacted with his copy, it'd be faster to sync their thoughts through intuition.

'Bingo!' replied Magnus 2.0 before laughing a little. 'And it seems I got my answer. We're practically always arriving at the same conclusion.'

"Kinda trippy, but okay," Magnus responded.

'Now, back on to the Script…'

ʳ As Magnus wondered how to find his way to his reincarnated wife, there was suddenly a path that lit up on the floor in front of him, leading to the door of his room. He knew immediately that the path would lead him toward his wife. ʴ

As soon as the last sentence was closed with a period and Magnus 2.0 imagined himself typing 'Enter', a line lit-up in white appeared before Magnus' feet before it made a turn toward the door. He nodded in approval. "This is better. I actually had the same idea. Though now that I think about it…"

'A footpath might not be the best idea,' Magnus 2.0 finished his original's sentence, also noticing his mistake. 'Yeah, I just now realized. Following a footpath will take forever. Should've probably narrated so that her home address appeared in your mind or something. Forgot how big Chicago was.'

"Whatever. What's done is done," said Magnus before opening his Status Window. "Oh, look! The narration only costed a hundred points. That was pretty chea—" His eyes bulged before shouting, "A hundred?! What in the world…? How the heck did it cost a hundred AP? It was basically just a GPS route HUD!"

'This is extortion!' Magnus 2.0 added, wishing he had a table to smash.

Thankfully Magnus' parents weren't home, so he could shout as loud as he wanted.

[The system has judged that finding the current vessel of the hosts' wife's soul would bring significant change in the hosts' overall life, hence the high amount of point deduction.]

The system's voice managed to calm down the two shouting young men.

"Well…" Magnus struggled to form his thoughts into a sentence. "I mean, that is fair, but…"

'But it still feels like we were robbed.'

Magnus nodded vehemently in agreement. After a minute, he finally accepted the AP loss and got up to pick up his phone and wallet. He knew the points would start recovering as he went outside, anyway. "Reaching lower west side of Chicago on foot will take hours, since I live near Lincoln Park. Half an hour if we went on our top speed, but we'll attract unnecessary attention that way. Humans at the current moment have never witnessed such walking speed before."

'Right. It's still morning, but we better not waste time.'

He then snatched the apartment key from the top of the chest of drawers at the entryway and then left straight away. He got out of the apartment building and followed the lit-up path that lined along the sidewalk. He went like this for about twenty minutes before stopping at an intersection to wait for the pedestrian signal to turn green. His breath was steady and he wasn't sweating at all—proof of his Stamina stat working its miracle.

Suddenly, an establishment door that just opened to his right pulled his attention away. His high Perception stat then allowed his nose to pick up on the familiar smell coming from there.

He beamed and whipped his head around.

There, across the street, was a small shop with glass windows showing tables full of people having a meal. His heart beat faster as nostalgia flooded his mind before it turned into excitement. He knew, inside the shop was a treasure that could only be found on Earth. He looked up and read the big LED board mounted above the entrance.

It said, "Mr. Osman's Kebab Paradise".

Kebab, his favorite food. Oh, how he'd missed the heavenly taste. "It's been so long…" he muttered.

'Too long,' Magnus 2.0 corrected.

Straying off the lit-up path, Magnus turned right and crossed the street with drools flowing out of his mouth.

---

After savoring the taste of and filling his tummy with a jumbo-sized kebab beef burrito, he resumed his walk.

After walking with about half his top speed, he arrived at his destination half an hour later. He was now standing on the sidewalk, staring up at an affordable block of flats located at a poorer area in lower west side of Chicago. The route HUD led up through the entrance of the building.

Magnus didn't hesitate as he walked up to the glass double doors and headed to the elevator. He pushed the 'up' button and waited. A minute later, the elevator dinged and the doors clunkily slid open, revealing a brunette lady and her Pomeranian. Chewing a gum with a bored expression on her face, she stepped out of the elevator with her dog trailing behind. She passed by Magnus without seemingly noticing his presence—the effect of his stealth skill, [Subtle], which was currently active. He had been using the skill to avoid attention while walking abnormally fast on the street.

Magnus quickly hopped onto the elevator and the HUD lit up the button for floor seven, the last floor of the building. He pressed the button as the doors struggled to close. When the elevator began to move, it made some creaking and grating sounds as if the gears were just too old and poorly maintained. After a few long seconds of the most horrifying elevator experience in Magnus' life, he finally reached the seventh floor. He then followed the white path before it stopped in front of a door to room number 703.

He gulped and was about to knock on the door before he heard the sound of the latch being opened and the key turning from the inside. A thought suddenly crossed his mind: he was really bad at planning ahead.

Magnus freaked out then and there.

Magnus didn't know what to say or even how to introduce himself.

Magnus started panicking.

Magnus didn't want to be labeled as a weirdo or a stalker.

Magnus was in some serious shit.

Magnus Helvig then ran as fast as inhumanly possible to the elevator and escaped.