Apocalypse: Reborn System

Chapter 7: Goddess Blessed and Second Mission

 I look at the rewards and stare in open-mouthed shock. Lydia asks me what happened. It takes me a minute to process what I’m seeing, so I tell them we had completed the first mission part two and what the rewards were. “We can save so many people,” I say. “This is a miracle,” Oliver says. Lydia has tears in her eyes but is trying not to cry. Newt is looking at me intently. “What God or Goddess smiles favorably on you,” he asks.

I admit that I worship my Goddess Devina, who is the patron of fate, luck, and chance. Newt looks surprised and then starts laughing. “This makes so much more sense now. You are Goddess touched,” he says, “I thought maybe you were touched by the higher up Gods and Goddesses. Devina makes a lot of sense though. I pay my respects to Nueral, the main god of Magic.”

I ask him what he means. He explains that only someone the Goddess touched could travel through time. Nothing he has ever made or could make would ever be able to affect time. Not only did she come back in time, but she retained all her memories and there aren’t two of her in this timeline, which to him indicates godly interference. It makes sense if you think about it. The Gods and Goddesses interfere with mortal lives all the time.

I am honestly shocked, but it does make a lot of sense. I do ask him about the necklace and why it looks dull. He tells me, “It is probably how the Goddess was able to interfere in your life. That necklace is powered by a wish for survival, but that wish is limited to physical objects such as food and water or a weapon. The need for survival is what triggers the necklace. It doesn’t have enough power to do what was done. Yes, you were wishing for a form of survival, but my gift cannot affect time and space like that. She powered your wish and made sure there were no negative side effects, like you running into yourself and creating a paradox.”

“We need to get back on task. I also got another mission for survival supplies,” I say to them. I then list off what is listed as needing to be bought, so we head back into the mall and head for a camping/sports store, called Sports & Recreational. We grab some shopping carts and start loading up the necessary supplies. I also stock up on good brands of tennis shoes, track shoes, hiking boots, and snow boots, which are on clearance. I realized the System had us get clothes but not shoes. As we are browsing, I also see what else would be useful to have during an apocalypse. We picked up all the supplies. I even used the trunk a few times to pick up some extra items like boxed-up fishing poles, fishing pole supplies, inflatable rafts. I even managed to get a couple of boxes of ammunition. That makes me think about how we are going to defend ourselves, so we also go through the hunting section and look at machetes, bows, and arrows, what is required and necessary to own guns. When we were all done shopping, we had 17 carts full of items and the cashier had already called the manager over, who had called the owner.

“My, my what is all this for?” the owner, Mike Winston, asked in genuine surprise. He wasn’t expecting someone to purchase so much of his store. He started helping the cashier by bagging some of the items and has the manager get on a register to start checking out another cart. The manager can print out the receipt at the end to add to the first cashier’s total. That way, they can get the items checked out slightly faster. He calls for another employee to bag for the manager.

“Well, we are having a week-long trip that may turn into a two-week-long family reunion,” I say, “We are currently planning on taking the family on a small camping trip through the mountains and are trying to be thorough for both fun and safety. Do you have any suggestions for anything we may have forgotten?” I ask at the end.

He does a quick look over and then chuckles, “You forgot bug spray and sunscreen; you will need many bottles of each to go with this amount. Here let’s go back through the store. My cashier and manager will check stuff out for you.”

We wander back through the store, and we do pick up a few more items. What is odd is Mike also had a cart and was loading other items into it. We do pick up a lot of bug spray of differing kinds and sunscreens of varying degrees of levels. We also picked up rain gear both for the campsites and for humans. Then we headed back to the register where the cashier and manager were still checking things out. Mike let them know his cart was a freebie cart for making such a large purchase anyway.

He told Oliver to pull the covered truck to a nearby area so we could start loading things; he had recognized who Oliver was. The Gray family was well known in this area. They were considered business royalty; Mr. Gray made several million every year, so Mike knew the tab would be paid at the end. So, Oliver went to grab the truck and parked it near the back door, then came back in. We started loading the carts that had already been checked out. The total was in the double digits by a large margin. Oliver insisted on paying, and I let him because while I had $42,375 in my account after the shopping, we did. I don’t have enough money to pay for this specific trip.

The cashier finally got everything checked out and Oliver paid, then we finished loading everything. The minute it was loaded up, I hear Ding! “Status update, Items collected:

Camping Tents 150/50

Hand Warmers 2,000/500

Camping Lights 123/50

Compasses 70/20

Sleeping bags 225/150

Camping stoves 150/15

Match boxes 5,000/1,000

Water purifier straws 3,590/2,000

Knives and multi-tool 1,371/1,000

First aid kits 100/50

Reward: Base temperature maintained to your desired temperature between 60-80°F

I had looked because I knew for a fact that we had completed this mission, and I wanted to know what the reward would be. “Hell yes!” I shout out loud, which startles my group. I start laughing as I try to explain the reward while laughing. Everyone smiles but then Newt turns contemplative, “Why would you need this unless the weather will turn extreme?”

I realized when I explained things about the future, I had given the events of what had happened to me with other people. I never told them about the weird weather: the one and a half months of snow during all of April and half of May, the six and a half months' long rain from May to November, the scorching heat for three months from December to February during normal Wintertime. The insane flooding that happens during the six months of rain. That led the survivors to the mountains to be attacked by the infected when they couldn’t find enough empty houses on the mountains. Maybe we could figure out a solution to it this time around. The seven earthquakes that hit throughout the year following the unusual weather. The weather then kinda goes back to normal except summers are 120°F+ and winters hit -80°F+.

I finally told them about it and about why there were such massive food shortages. Since it snowed first, the roads all had black ice, so no one wanted to go out on foot, since anyone who did was attacked immediately by the infected. By the time the flooding happened, a lot of people had died, food had spoiled from not being tended or bought on schedule, and the few people who were able to had already scavenged what was available. No trucks had come in with new supplies, either not that anyone could have worked. All of March was leading up to the full-on infection outbreak, with random attacks. Stellar’s was attacked at the end of March. Oliver bought all the employees time to get out and run away, but he didn’t make it out. I remember getting home, going into shock, and breaking down bawling for the loss of my friend.