76: Living in a horror movie

‘All right. I don’t have all day to milk the dog here… The fact is, within 3 days, I’m going to need something big to make the coochie pop…’

Ben shook his head. “I can’t play it safe.” As a true gamer, he would go for the jackpot: the high level mystery box. He would bet on the higher chance of a legendary or epic drop. “I just hope I won’t regret this…”

Despite having decided, he needed a few minutes to gather the courage to follow through with it. He stared at the screen. “If it fails, it fails… If I die…I die.… No matter what happens, I’ve done more living this past month than I have my entire 18 years.” Taking a deep breath, Ben resigned himself to fate, but before he bought the item, there was something else to do.

He stood up and went to his jacket hanging on his chair. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a lucky clove cigarette from its pack.

[Lucky Clove Cigarettes(Item, Fine) x15 – Temporarily increases the smoker’s luck a little while smoking]

Even though it was only a little luck, Ben hoped it would make a difference. He put the clove in his mouth and lit it. After taking a few puffs of the green smoke, his eyes became firm, and he made the purchase.

A few seconds later, a new type of mystery box materialized in his hands. This one was a beautiful shining silver, branded with a matte black question mark. Only by appearance, the quality between this and the previous boxes was like the difference between night and day, heaven and earth, Hawaii and Hoboken…

Ben’s breath was heavy as he rubbed the sleek surface of it, as if he was appreciating a divine treasure. Only after a long time, he set the box down on the bed and backed away. He needed some distance so he wouldn’t damage whatever came out, whether that happen by his Jersey Shore fist-pump or grandpa’s fist-shake of rage…

*Exhale*

“F*ck it. Suicide Squad made 750 million at the box office. Death might be a blessing…” He opened the box!

When silver light emerged, Ben blocked his sight with his hand. He was too nervous to close his eyes. Yet, he soon wished he did! Because the box didn’t emit a bright flash! On his last epic, the flash was much brighter! The implication was horrible!

With red eyes, he screamed at the system, “I was kidding before! If I die, I don’t die! Don’t be cliche! That’s a better plot twist!”

As the light receded, Ben clenched his teeth, dreading the result. Channeling a young Brad Pitt, he cried out, “What’s in the box???”

A few moments later, his fate was lying on his bed in front of him: a tiny brown book about 1 by 2 inches in size…

Ben squinted hard, trying to understand what this thing was… He put out the cigarette, then picked up the book. He tried to open it, but the pages were so thin, even that was difficult.

“What is this??? A book for ants?”

“How can I be expected to read this if I can’t even fit my fingers inside the pages?!? The book has to be…at least three times bigger than this!”

After struggling for a while, Ben slid open the cover at last. The first page was almost blank, with only a tiny stick figure in the middle…and he was naked, with a massive erection the size of half his body…

“What the hell is this?”

Ben opened the next page. The stick figure was halfway through walking a step forward.

Next page. The figure finished the step.

Ben was losing patience. He started sliding the pages faster, and he soon realized what this was. “This is one of those flipbooks that shows an animation if you flip it fast enough.” Understanding how to read it, Ben held the edge of the book between his fingers and flipped through the pages at a decent speed.

Right away, Ben’s pupils dilated, focusing on this animated stick figure as he got off to a running start. In mere moments, with his massive erection swinging up and down, he became larger and larger. It was like he was planning to jump out of the page! That huge d*ck was flying at Ben!

“Ah!!!”

Ben was gasping for breath on the other side of the room. He had dropped the book, backing up in a hurry, not feeling safe until he was far away. “What demonic cartoonist made this?”

His eyes became narrow. “What is Seth MacFarlane again?”

“…A Million Ways to Die in the West wasn’t enough? He needed to unleash this on the world?!?”

With worry, Ben sighed. ‘Even though I’d like not to, I need to read the item’s data. He tricked me into watching The Cleveland Show spinoff…this couldn’t be much worse than getting r*ped by that devil’s dick!’

Ben approached the bed and picked up the tiny book. Taking a few more seconds to examine the cover, he frowned. It was wrinkled with a texture like dry human skin, and Ben swore he could make out what looked like a human face on it…

Remembering something, Ben gasped. “Please tell me this isn’t the Necronomicock…”

Although very uncomfortable, Ben put the dread aside, deciding to continue with the book. “I now understand how all those characters in horror movies feel. When you see such an evil book, you can’t help but read from it…even if it’s written in blood not to and there’s menacing music playing in the background…”

“Noone wants to be the party-pooper to end the plot there. The truth is anyone would prefer being hunted by a family of cannibals than a boring weekend in a cabin with one-dimensional friends…”

Ben set his resolve and looked at the book’s system description. “Whatever happens, I just need to become the final girl…”

[Divine Line Generator(Skill Book, Cursed, Epic) x1]

“…Epic is good, but what’s with the cursed part?”

[Cursed: There were some undesirable side effects, because it was self-published. May summon a very slow demon.]

“That’s from being self-published?!?”

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