Elbows go out.
Chest goes down.
Hold that pose for a moment, and then reverse.
Leslie had hated doing intentional exercise in his past life.
It was time he’d prefer to spend either relaxing after work or catching up on a project.
Either his amateur and expensive attempts at working with a metal foundry, or his equally amateur and less expensive attempts to learn how to code.
He was not exercising terribly quickly.
His goals for this Saturday morning were flexible, especially after his incredibly depressing and distressing entry into this reality yesterday.
“Menu” The teenager muttered as he went back down.
–Party– –Quests– –Messages — — 1 Unread message!– –ERROR– “Messages?” He asked when he came back up.
It opened a secondary menu, where he selected the bouncing closed envelope.
–FROM: Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan!– –Only losers cry in the shower.
That was sad.
You made me sad.
Here’s a handful of pity GP, loser.– It was five GP.
Not a lot, but it was basically free.
It only came at the cost of his dignity.
–TO: Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan!– –You’re watching a thirteen year old kid while he showers?– He could’ve included more, of course, but did he really need to?
Standing up, Leslie started doing squats.
“Party.” The party menu opened, but it only had two buttons.
–INVITE– –DISMISS– Not terribly surprising.
Still, he clicked on Invite.
–Either select a nearby individual to invite, or input their name here!– Well, there wasn’t anybody nearby to test that with, at least not in his bedroom.
So he tried to input a name.
Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan!
–Pending– –Pending– –Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan!
has accepted your party invite!– Wait, seriously?
–Who dis?– Leslie wasn’t sure what to say.
He hadn’t expected to get this far.
–How do I mine for fish?– –Fkn noob– –Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan!
has left the party– –You have been blocked by Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan!– Leslie paused in doing his squats.
That was either really, really good.
Or incredibly bad.
Nothing for him to worry about right now, he supposed.
Probably going to bite him on the backside next time he dies though.
Well, nothing to do for it.
“Quests.” There were two options here.
A completed tab, and a pending tab.
He checked the pending tab.
Most of the options here were…
Less than savory.
Defeat twenty bandits.
Collect a dozen rat tails.
Those sorts of things.
Although Leslie noticed as he was looking through them all there was something missing from the rewards section.
Experience.
Most of them had a notice for a stat reward, including a notice that it was a one-time bonus for the repeatable quests…
But none of them offered experience.
And although he hadn’t paid much attention to it, he’d noticed an EXP bar under his name in the status menu.
Which meant combat was the only means of leveling up.
That was going to be…
Problematic.
Risk might equal reward, but he knew first-hand that the equation was never exactly equal.
Leslie picked two quests and pinned them.
–Quest: Saitama!
Someday– –Do 20 Pushups!– –Do 20 Squats!– –Run 2 KM!– –Reward: 200 GP!– –One time bonus!– –+1 Strength– –+1 Vitality– –+1 Agility– –Repeatable: Daily– That was a quest chain, it could be done every day and there were similar names for each part.
Completing the full set would add nine points to each stat the first time around, and net a solid nine-hundred gp every day.
The other quest he’d picked out was not glamorous in the slightest, the reward wasn’t fantastic, but he was pretty sure he could get some solid mileage out of it.
–Quest: Civic responsibility– –Pickup ten pieces of litter!– –Reward: 50 GP!– –One time bonus!– –+1 Intelligence– –+1 Wisdom– –+1 Luck– –Repeatable: Yes– There were actually a lot of quests like that, more than he’d been expecting.
Planting trees, cleaning parks and rivers, all sorts of nature related things.
Shutting down a coal power plant was apparently worth a jaw-dropping fifty-thousand GP.
Instant riches and rewards!
Just become an eco-terrorist.
He’d stick to exercise and trash duty.
Might take a month and a half, maybe two, but he’d have the same payout.
Leslie finished out his squats and headed to the kitchen.
For whatever reason they had a water dispenser, which was odd since there was perfectly good tapwater, but he’d figure that out later.
He stuffed yesterdays leftover chicken in his inventory, alongside a bottle of water, and headed out.
Apparently Leslie and his mom lived in a cul-de-sac near the outer edge of Gotham, just two blocks closer to Slaughter Swamp and they’d be in a trailer park instead.
It was easily five kilometers from here to the recognizable parts of the city.
Leslie was pretty sure he could jog the distance.
An hour later, Leslie was regretting jogging the distance.
“Hey kid, you okay?” A clerk asked him as he stumbled into a store, red-faced, soaked in sweat and struggling to breathe.
Calling the last kilometer a jog would be a lie.
A terrible, awful lie.
“I’m trying-” Leslie paused to inhale all too deeply, hands on his knees.
“To be less fat.” He hadn’t received any stat points for his effort, and no Running or Sprinting skill either.
“Well, good luck with that.” So saying, the store clerk went back to restocking the cold soda in the refrigerators next to the cash register.
Minutes later, when Leslie could no longer feel pain rising from deep within his lungs, he went to the back of the store.
Then back to the front.
Then back around the back, coming back finally with a small bag of catfood and a laser pointer.
“Ooh, gonna play with your cat tonight?” The clerk was actually pretty happy at the moment.
She’d been shadowing the boy as he walked through the store and he hadn’t bothered shoplifting anything!
“Nah.” He handed over the money for his things.
“I’m actually gonna recruit a bunch of strays to do my work for me.” The nice woman (Her name was Shannon) just stared bemusedly as he left.
It was hardly the weirdest thing she’d ever seen.
And the supervillains did most of their shopping at the retail chains anyway.