I looked up from the book of the dead as I felt a faint ringing start, almost like tinnitus but from farther away. As I looked up I caught sight of a flickering blue pannel that kept glitching as names and words flickered in and out of existence while I could hear a voice speaking of humanity needing to 'prove their right to exist' or what ever.
The screen seemed to crack down the middle and I felt a splitting headache form as if in response.
Shaking my head and pulling on my experience ignoring pain to focus I stared at the pannel and tried to peruse what was still eligible from the shattered remains.
It looked like those game interfaces, displaying a name title and stats. Well I think so at least as the crack had left it a jumbled mess of contradictions as the name area had a bunch of words overlapping each other leaving it a completey incomprehensible mess.
And I don't mean the eldritch kind of incomprehensible, I mean that it was straight up nonsensical squiggles that meant nothing.
The one thing that was eligible was a single title I think, It wasn't one I'd earned or even one I'd ever seen use.
Personal attributes: the occultist (rare) the Anchor (E̸̻͔̟̭̺̠̭̦̔̒̓̈́̇̏̋̃͂͋͝ͅr̴̛̛̲̣͉̺͍͔̔̒̽̐͊̔͝r̶͈̻̽ợ̴̧̭͉̘̱̭̦͖̀͊̄̈́̌̓̎̊͒͜r̶͕̀̈̒̓͂̚͝)
The glitchy nature of the text seemed to spread the longer it existed so with barely any idea what I'm doing I reached out and pressed the X at the top of the screen hoping to close it.
Luckily it was that simple and when the pannel was gone I could feel my headache fading quickly, along with the nose bleed I hadn't noticed before now.
I used my arm to wipe the blood away and took a look around, I had managed to reach to entrance of the city before any of this weird(er) stuff started happening and as I looked around I noticed a pannel similar to the broken one from before.
With the noticeable difference that It wasn't breaking apart and glitching, I skimmed over the words that seemed to shift as I looked at them before they settled into English thankfully.
Now I didn't know if it was a simple mistranslation but I had spied that the text specifically didn't mention anything about killing another human, sure it did say kill a living being but I'd been around the Supernatural block enough to know when something was trying to twist simple words to get a better/worse outcome without straight up saying what they wanted.
I reread it again to make sure I had found an actual loophole and not bait, I nodded and reached down to grab a small Beatle before easily squishing it between my fingers.
[You have killed another living being]
+100 coins -50 for lack of significance
[You are the first to pass the scenario]
+100 coins
Nodding at my idea working I grabbed my knife from my coat and drew a ritual circle in the dirt near the road. I sliced my palm and placed it onto the circle which subsequently started faintly glowing a deep purple colour.
With a resounding chirping like noise an avalanche of bugs and critters started surfacing as the very dirt they draw life from became toxic to them.
I'd used a simple transmutation spell to convert the abundance of nitrogen in the soil around me into hydrogen sulfate making it actively deadly to all life.
I stood and watched as all manner of creepy critters clawed their way from the ground in an attempt to flee the deadly substance, using my boot I carved another less powerful circle into the soil. This one creating a barrier of pitiful strength that even a child could break.
[You have slaughtered innumerable living things]
+50 for each kill -25 for lack of significance
379 bugs of differing species killed
[T̵h̶e̷ ̸a̷r̶c̶h̵e̶t̷y̵p̴e̸ ̷v̵o̵i̶d̷ ̴b̶a̸r̴e̵r̵ ̷i̷s̸ ̴d̸e̸l̶i̷g̶h̶t̴e̸d̵ ̶i̷n̴ ̶t̸h̸e̴ e̵n̸d̴i̷n̷g̷ ̸o̷f̴ ̵s̸o̸ ̴m̵a̴n̷y̴ ̶s̴t̸o̶r̴i̵e̸s̷]
[Total coins collected]
9,585
I ignored the pop up and instead continued to inspect the area, the people had gone crazy in their attempt to survive but that was expected for normals. I could see a small child huddled in one of the abandoned cars clutching something to their chest and I had to curse my own bleeding heart and I reached down and plucked a half dead earthworm from the ground and made my way over.
I knocked on the window, startling the boy and causing what looked to be a second crying fit if the tear streaks on his face were any indication.
I grabbed the door handle and slowly opened the door only enough to put and hand in and place the worm on the seat next to him.
Sadly I didn't speak Korean so I wasn't able to explain why I'd done that but hopefully he'd get it before time ran out, I closed the door and turned my attention to the screen that had popped up after i'd given the boy the worm.
[The constellations associated with good are thankful for you aiding the boy]
I'm guessing it doesn't mean the actual constellations in the night sky, I swipe my hand through the pannel and move forward to the city, making sure to not get in the way of the normals that are ripping each other apart.
I make it a good distance from the toll both at the entrance of the city before I'm interrupted by the same voice that had spoke of earning the right to exist.
I looked up at the ball of puff with small horns and had to hold back a huff of laughter at its appearance. It was certainly the cutest monster I'd seen, but I know all to well to not judge by appearance.
It babbled on about something I didn't care to listen to and instead I grabbed the necronomicon to give it a quick skim to see if this being was mentioned in it.
Unfortunately it wouldn't appear so as nothing even close to the description was in the book and apparently my ignoring of it had annoyed the puff ball.
I looked up at the high pitched annoyed yell and saw the being snap it's fingers with a smug smile on its face like it expected something to happen.
Other than a brief feeling of dizziness nothing seemed to happen, even after subsequent snaps of its fingers nothing happened.
"Why isnt this working?" It screeched while snapping their fingers.
Suddenly a black and gold pannel unlike the ones I'd seen so far appeared for a moment Infront of the being before disappearing with a crack of sound.
The puff ball's face had gone from annoyed to confused all the way to pale with horror in a manner of seconds after the panels interrupted it's attempts.