Devil App

Chapter 3

Where am I?

The smelly wind blew away the bangs on his forehead, revealing a young, confused face.

Jason had been so mesmerized by the marketing slogan of the Monopoly app that he had randomly clicked on any "Task."

He never expected to be instantly transported to another city.

The city looked like an apocalyptic wasteland from a science fiction movie, with crumbling skyscrapers, ruins, and dried blood all over the ground.

He could even make out shapes that looked like dead bodies under the ruins...

The scenery was very realistic. Could this be some sort of film set?

Jason hesitated about whether he should walk over to check it out when a line of pale blue text appeared in the sky.

[Welcome to the World of Terror.]

"World of Terror?"

Why did those words appear in the sky? It looked as if everything in front of him was a giant electronic screen, and he was a player trapped in a game world.

Nonetheless, it didn't feel like a game. It felt like very real.

He was pretty sure this wasn't a game.

After the line of text disappeared, some windows popped up, each with small numbers and words written on them.

[You are carrying out a "Difficult" task]

[Task Theme: Terror]

[Task Difficulty:★]

[Point Multiplier: 1.0]

[Task Publisher: Anonymous]

[Team Members: 1/7 Jason (logged in)]

[Jason's live chat has been activated. Spectators: 0. Bonus points: 0]

...

Looking up at the leaping text, Jason remembered something.

He had accepted a task from an anonymous user in the app, which had been rated as "Difficult."

There were four levels of tasks in the app: Difficult, Disastrous, Calamity, and Doom.

On top of that, each task had a different star rating based on its difficulty.

Jason could only accept the simplest one-star "Difficult" tasks, perhaps because he was a beginner and had zero points.

What was the point multiplier? The difficulty multiplier for completing tasks?

Team members? So there are other players in the game besides me?

Jason scrutinized the words floating in front of him and speculated about everything in the app.

What does live chat mean then?

Jason looked around, puzzled, but he couldn't see any cameras.

He remembered the task publisher was anonymous when he was lured into randomly accepting this task.

The task publisher’s profile picture was a clown mask. The clown’s smile looked really creepy from every angle...

"Is anyone here?"

Jason shouted at the ruins.

"Is anyone here?"

No one answered him. He could only hear his own echo and the cold wind howling through the buildings.

Jason felt a cold chill. He could not fathom how he'd ended up in this dead, desolate city.

Was it really the app that had transported him here? How could that be?

Or perhaps... Jason pinched his cheek.

It doesn't hurt.

So I’m dreaming?

Jason was a little happy at first and figured he would soon be out of this ridiculous dream, but then he suddenly remembered that he had a disease that made him completely incapable of feeling pain, which made his heart sink.

He couldn’t use pain to work out whether he was dreaming or not.

This situation was ridiculous.

The wind blew, causing a rustling noise which made his scalp prickle. He immediately looked around.

He saw five men and one woman under the deserted half-collapsed wall where he had appeared.

The six people looked strange. They were all dressed in black leather and had tattoos, ear studs, and lip rings. They looked exactly like street punks.

A tall bald man looked at Jason and asked, "What is this place?"

Jason shook his head and shrugged, suggesting that he had no idea.

The bald man stroked his tattoo-covered forehead, walked up to Jason and stared into the distance.

All he could see was the desolate city, ruins, and a gray overbearing sky that contained an unknown substance.

A white man, who was as thin as a monkey, sniffled as he spoke, "This can't be because of that app?"

Jason quietly looked at him. It was clear the thin man was a d**g addict.

Anyway, what the thin man said had spurred Jason's attention.

The app? Could it be...

Soon, the bald man’s words confirmed Jason’s guess.

"The damn app said I could get paid for tasks. I thought I needed to kill someone or steal something. I’m good at that... but what the f**k is going on now?” the bald man spat. “Is this a joke? What the hell is this place? Hollywood?"

Jason learned from the punks’ conversations that they had recently offended a powerful local g**g, which had driven their backs against the wall. The app, which was called Monopoly, had mysteriously appeared on their phones and lured them into this world.

The only woman in the six-member group, who was scantily clad and black-haired, was much quieter than her partners. Instead of cursing, she observed her unfamiliar surroundings like a wary cat.

Jason saw several names appear on his floating panel.

[Team Member: Michael (logged in)]

[Team Member: Steve (logged in)]

...

[Team Member: Zoe (logged in)]

It was clear that the woman calmly observing her surroundings was Zoe.

Suddenly, a voice and a line of text appeared in the sky.

[7/7… Welcome to the World of Terror. All the members who have accepted the task have arrived. Please collect your toolboxes in time to ensure that you can stay alive long enough to complete this task. The task is about to begin.]

It was a soft, slow female voice, but what she said made Jason’s heart jolt.

Alive long enough to complete this task? Was it a dangerous one?

Although Jason was quite hyper when he accepted the task, his memory was so good that he remembered the title of the task was “Do me a favor.”

Do me a favor. It sounded like it involved doing a small favor for the guy who published the task.

Was it life-threatening?

Jason’s life had been full of various threats and hardships for many years, so he'd developed a personality of handling every little thing with great caution.

Besides, he had been inexplicably transported to this weird place, so he was very tense, not daring to let go of any small detail.

Following the cue, Jason went to the starting spot, where there were seven toolboxes embedded in a waist-high wall.

The toolboxes were made of rusted iron and looked fairly ordinary. They didn’t seem to contain any particularly powerful tools.

Jason was slightly surprised to see a toolbox with his name on it.

Come to think of it, since the app had transported him to this place in the blink of an eye, it must have used some form of advanced technology that he could not fathom. Wouldn't finding out his name and carving it on this toolbox be fairly straight forward?

[Countdown to collect the toolboxes, 30 seconds. 29, 28, 27...]

There was a time limit to get the toolboxes?

Jason had intended to take the toolbox out of the wall, but the moment he touched it, it suddenly opened and a blue-white light flashed out of it and wrapped around his waist.

He looked down and found something that looked like a g*n bag attached to his waist. However, it was translucent and similarly electronic and virtual-looking.

He reached inside the g*n bag and felt something that actually resembled a g*n.

The moment his hands touched the translucent g*n-shaped electronic thing, which had originally been a blue-white light outline, it became physical.

Gunsights appeared inside his field of vision, and even 500 bullets appeared on the top right of his eye.

This...

Just as he was thinking about how unimaginable this was, a strange heat surged into his heart, making him extremely hot, and then quickly disappearing. The warm current seemed to flow into every part of his body and quietly become an invisible force.

He looked at the g*n in his hand in surprise. He had never held a real g*n, but he could tell by its weight and metallic smell that it was real.

It was absurd. Every part of the strange world before him was as real as it could be, and yet it was much like a virtual game.

As Jason held the g*n, his heart began to race and he noticed that the bald man and the others hadn't paid any attention to the reminder, and had no intention of touching the toolboxes.

They loathed following these so-called rules. Perhaps because they were used to being punks who weren't afraid of anything.

[10, 9, 8...]

“Hey, aren't you going to take the toolboxes?” Jason reminded them.

The bald man, whose name was Michael, turned his head around and grinned, revealing a set of dazzling golden teeth. “It’s just a trick. You shouldn't take it so seriously, coward. Wait here while I look for the guy who's playing tricks and give him a beating.”

"But…" Jason was just about to say something when the countdown ended and all the toolboxes on the wall instantly disappeared.

[And now, the task begins… Heh-heh…]

Jason looked up toward the source of a blood-curdling laugh. A big, b****y mouth had appeared out of thin air on the waist-high wall, which had previously held the toolboxes.

The mouth opened its dry lips and laughed in a weird manner.

[Heh-heh… Fear is always where you can’t see... Watch your back… Heh-heh-heh…]

Jason watched as the mouth slowly vanished. Recalling what it had just said, he suddenly felt uncomfortable and looked back subconsciously.

He saw a person running toward them in the distance.

His body tensed up and his knuckles went white as he clenched the g*n.

Michael kicked away the discarded garbage at his feet to clear a path, and strode forward barehanded.

He searched for a long time but couldn't find anyone. He became angrier and angrier, thinking he had been fooled.

Suddenly, he heard a child's cry from ahead. He took a closer look and saw a little, dirty girl who was around seven or eight years old. She cried as she ran in their direction.

She was being followed by a group of...

“People? I can finally see people!” the thin man called Steve said after sneezing for a while. His red, swollen eyes narrowed as he looked ahead with difficulty.

Zoe had sharp eyes. She concentrated on looking into the distance before she discovered that the little girl was running in panicked manner, and was being followed by hundreds of people covered in rags. They kept stumbling, but never fell down.

Zoe saw one of the people's chins fall to the ground with a click while attached to a piece of rotten flesh. However, they continued to stagger in line as if they were totally unaware of it.

A large part of another person’s neck was missing. His head wobbled so much that it looked as if it was about to roll off his neck at any moment. His eyes were blank and fierce, and a vague sound like a wild animal came from his throat.

The group of humans were all expressionless and unrecognizable, but their eyes shone with a manic hunger.

“No...” Zoe shouted, her face pale. “They aren’t people! They’re zombies!”