As the fight turned from a battle into a rout and from a rout into a massacre, morale was high among the Awakeners defending Brino.

“Let's get moving!” the leader with the sword said. “There are still a lot of goblins alive. If we don’t kill it in a hurry, we may face a larger army!”

“Yes!”

“It’s an opportunity for us to level up here!” another group leader added.

It was at this point that the mood of the Awakeners shifted – from fear of losing the battle into excitement in taking part in a winning one.

“I need to level up, my strength is only 11 now,” an Awakener in leather armor said to her companion. “I can’t imagine how much stronger I’ll get if I can get my strength up by 3.”

“Do what you like,” her companion, someone with a jester costume and carrying a dagger, replied. “In a place like this, there is no police or law – power is the only thing that matters. Have to level up to survive.”

And, as it was with human nature, when people got stimulated, they became territorial.

The moment they realized that power was the rule of this world, and that only the strong survive, the Awakeners began to change. It was imperceptible at first, but it would only be evident after many more battles.

True to form, even some of the male Awakeners did what they did to gain some attention from a few beautiful female Awakeners who were also summoned in Brino.

But the ramifications of that would be dealt with in the future – suffice it to say that the seeds of future conflict have found fertile soil, and they were planted the moment the gates of Brino opened up.

“Goblins on the left, take them out!”

“Get them!”

The cry of a goblin as one of the archer’s arrows hit straight and true was just one of the sounds made as the rout continued.

And elsewhere, another part of the battle was heating up – literally.

“Blazing Wrath,” someone called, and in a flash of orange, another group of goblins were cut down.

As the battle grew fiercer, the young man who first leveled up among all the Awakeners was one of the fiercest fighters in the fray.

Liam was one of the few who gained an impressive skill and first learned how his skill worked.

His Blazing Wrath took on the form of a cloak of fire that he could wrap around a weapon. For an Awakener just starting out, it was extremely potent and useful.

For someone like Liam, whose enjoyment of the adventure was gaining levels and strength to rise above everyone else, this was just the first step.

Meanwhile, with the goblin scouting party nearly annihilated, another Awakener put down the rock he was holding, shook the goblin gore off his hand, and let out a roar of triumph that had the Awakeners around him puzzled.

“Winner, winner… chicken dinner!” Jay yelled.

***

First times can be difficult for some people.

Getting into a life-or-death battle wasn’t an exception.

When it’s kill or be killed, someone’s first time to hear screams, see blood? It took a certain type of person to endure that. Most don’t – they panic and shut down.

But the group leaders did a good job in coordinating the defense of Brino – nobody died.

And in the aftermath of their very first mortal conflict, with the adrenaline flowing in the new Awakeners finally dissipating, that was when the stress began to kick in.

“How can I live in such a place?”

“I want to go home...”

At the end of the battle, the field was littered with Awakeners who were angry, lonely, and those who just fell apart and burst into tears. Those were brought back to Brino and consoled by their comrades.

Jay, however, felt very different about this whole ‘mortal conflict’ concept.

More to the point, he found out that he didn’t feel any one certain way about the battle he was just in.

His first and only thought was shopping.

Left unsaid was his question, but why am I happy? Am I… sick or something?

Because Jay felt something different than the other Awakeners. Even the leader with a sword looked a bit disoriented when he saw him walking around, reassuring his comrades.

Anyway, Jay thought, I got a good number of goblins, but why didn’t I gain a level?

It was only then that he realized just how different he was from the other Awakeners.

Pretty sure it’s because I get points with monsters instead of experience.

To him, monsters were to buy things with, not experience points to gain levels with.

Whoa, he thought. This is a huge difference.

But instead of being discouraged or hopeless, the satisfaction of a job well done still lingered within him, unlike many Awakeners in Brino.

As he walked back to the town square, Jay noticed himself walking along with an expectant smile on his face, compared to the exhaustion some of the Awakeners. After taking a while to ask himself why this was so, he figured it out easily: leveling up wasn’t that important to him. Why?

He looked to the corner of his eye and winked at no one.

[Awakening Store: Beta]

As soon as he winked, the screen containing the online shop of this world unfolded before him, and his smile stretched even wider.

There and then, he decided that as long as this store existed, he wouldn’t envy or want anything else in this world.

Jay also observed other Awakeners and deduced that it seemed that no one else could use the mall, because at the start of this adventure, he noticed that all the Awakeners except him were holding weapons for their class.

Jay didn’t have a hard time figuring out from there that he was the only awakened person to shop here.

He rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

“Time to cash in.”

During the first battle with the goblins, Jay had gained 2100 points.

That meant – he defeated seven goblins.

Roughly a hundred Awakeners against an estimated five hundred goblins meant that every Awakener had to kill five goblins. Easy enough to calculate – Jay went over the Awakener’s average by all of two goblins, all while holding a rock.

He had to smile at how his nearly-crippling addiction to shopping pushed him to make that possible.

And now – here Jay begins to hear angelic choirs chanting again – it was time to buy package items using his freshly-earned points.

He placed the event package in the shopping cart. As soon as he tried to make a payment with the points he gained, a notice popped up.

[Please sign up for membership. Payments from guest members are also possible, but members accumulate loyalty points per purchase.]

And they also have loyalty points. Forget everything, I’m going for it. Signing up now!

He did, and opened up another notice.

The data entered was easy enough.

“Okay, put in the name 'Jay Kim’, put in ‘Shopping Addict’ as my Class,” he told himself, noticing the difference of the Awakening Store from a typical online shopping center.

More specifically, only his name and class were needed to sign up.

Well of course, you were taken from your world and dropped into Role Playing Game land, of course you wouldn’t need an address! Jay thought.

The “Sign Up” button seemed to glow as his finger hovered over it.

He didn’t even need to think; he just pressed it.