Chapter 23: Gerry’s Diner
Later that evening, Gerry called them all down to the cafeteria, where he had prepared dinner.
"I know that it’s not fancy like the dinners that they usually serve at the Academy, but I think it’s pretty good. Just give it a try, the meat is exceptionally filling."
The students hesitated, but Kalli trusted her nose. This smelled good, and the big man had clearly already tried it without harm, so she took a bite of the ground meat steak. It was heavily spiced, or perhaps that’s how the monster always tasted. But it was good.
"Excellent work, Gerry. If the others want to wait and watch me eat, I have no problems demonstrating with a second serving," she joked as she continued to cut pieces from the meat patty.
As Gerry had insisted, it was actually an incredibly filling food. By the time that she was through the portion served, she was stuffed, and it was definitely a smaller meal than what was in the military’s prepacked lunches.
"Alright, I’m taking early morning shift, so I will go sleep now. If you need me, I’m in my dorm on the second floor. But I will set an alarm."
One thing that Kalli hadn’t had time to do yet was to really examine the room that she had been assigned. She slept there, but didn’t go through the belongings that were in it. None of it felt like it was hers, she had just appeared in this world.
However, it might tell her something about whoever’s body she was inhabiting, or what had been prepared for her arrival by the System.
Back in her room, Kalli inspected her surroundings, luxurious, but cold. As you would expect of a dorm that someone had just moved into and hadn’t had time to personalize.
The first stop was to open the closet. She had checked the bathroom this morning, it was just Academy issued toiletries. And the closet was the same. In fact, there were no signs of personal effects anywhere in the room.
Nothing that looked like an heirloom or personal belonging, Nothing that didn’t come from the Academy at all. Not even a suitcase, as she would assume a new student should have arrived with.
Kalli was beginning to suspect that the original either never arrived, or never existed.
It was almost like this spot was prepared for her with a bunch of default items, the things every Academy student would be provided with. But she had only arrived in this world in the student uniform, with nothing from her past life.
If she had the holographic communicator she had always worn in her past life, even the personal defence stunner that she routinely carried living in a hive city, it would be a sign that her past was real.
Now, she had nothing but memories.
Kalli flipped open the laptop on the desk, not because she wanted to study, but to see if there was anything about the life she had taken over.
{Welcome to Marimgar Academy. Please enter your student ID to finish setup.}
Yeah, that wasn’t going to tell her much. The thing hadn’t even been used yet. Maybe she hadn’t taken over someone’s life at all? If whatever force had brought her here had made arrangements for her to have somewhere to live, right before the apocalypse began, it would make so much more sense.
In a twisted way, she was still doing what she used to.
She had been doing data security, fixing things and keeping secrets for her employer. But officially, she was an administrator for their computer systems.
Now, she was a Coordinator class, and her class abilities were designed to make sure that the "Hero" classes could actually fulfill their missions.
She had been scammed into remaining a corporate slave in another world.
As Kalli lay in bed, she spent some time looking through the options in her system points store. Everything in there was useful at some level, but now that she had seen what an Uncommon Grade loot box could drop, it was obvious that there was room to upgrade everything.
Common grade weapons did roughly half the damage that Uncommon Grade weapons did.
But there was something else that she had noticed. The others could upgrade skills, but they were also getting more powerful as they adapted. There seemed to be some sort of hidden physical stats or levelling process that wasn’t listed in her System Interface.
So, it was either hidden, or she simply didn’t have access to it.
She also didn’t seem to have any more options for Class Skills.
There were upgrades to the store items in the final section, though she couldn’t afford them. A thousand points wasn’t something that would be easily upgraded, and it was a thousand points per category.
The obvious one would be to upgrade and make Uncommon Grade weapons available from her store when she had the points.
Very few had them yet, and the extra damage would be amazing.
Kalli stared at the last option on the final tab.
[Mystery Box] Just what it sounds like
Cost: 10 System Points
It was the only mystery in the whole system, and she had no idea if it was actually worth trying. It was ten points, which could buy a lot of food. But for now, she wasn’t too short on points.
It was better to know.
{Mystery Box Purchased} 262 Points remaining.
Kalli stared at the small black box floating in front of her. It looked like the antigravity gift boxes that her boss used to give gifts to other second generation rich heirs. They were cool party tricks, even if they could only hold a few kilos without falling to the ground.
Carefully, Kalli poked at the box, and watched the world twist around her as she was pulled into some sort of separate space.
It looked like the set of a game show, bright colours, flashing lights, and a gigantic prize wheel that extended up nearly ten metres. Every slot had an image of something on it, and a corresponding background colour.
White, Green, Blue, Purple, Gold and Red.
None of the slots were blank, which seemed like a good sign, but the red slots were either an ominous sign, or an indication that the best prize was not going to be easy to get.
She also noticed that there were no pegs to stop the wheel over the red spot, and there were white prizes on either side, which were almost certainly common grade rewards.
{Welcome, Coordinator Kalli De Marimgar. Please spin the wheel to determine your prize.}
