“Congratulations… We should play a different game next time.”

As the transparent woman vanished, along with the table and chessboard, Matt let out a long sigh. After a few minutes of recuperating, he complained “I used to like chess… Now I never wanna play this stupid game again.”

[Achievement Earned: “Arcana’s Favorite Game”. You won a chess match against your Private Server’s main AI. You have earned a new card!]

After 25 hard-fought battles on the chessboard, Matthew was finally able to win once and even gained 5 experience points for the achievement he earned. However, considering how difficult it was to win, he thought that it would have been easier to just fight to the death in Chaotica’s Coliseum.

[Summoner: Matthew Leblanc
ID Code: Trashmob-707
Rank: Unranked
Level: 6
Experience: 9/10
Mana: 6/6
Cards: 37
Description: A Player with zero skill, but a decent amount of luck. The kind of Summoner who makes other Players want to go out of their way to kill him.]

Of course, once he saw the card he received, he smiled and murmured “I guess I’ll have to play some more games with Providence later after all…”

[Spell: Arcana’s Favorite Game
Type: Passive
Rarity: Epic
Mana Cost: 1
Description: Arcana, the Eternal Goddess of Mana, Wisdom and Fortune. Although she does enjoy games of chance as well, her favorite has always been chess. It takes a keen mind and intricate strategies to defeat a powerful opponent in this particular game. However, in consideration of fairness, Arcana always lowers her own mental abilities to be equal to that of her opponent. This card sends the Summoner or one of their Summoned Heroes into Arcana’s Sanctum on Single-Player Mode, to play up to 100 games of chess against an Avatar of Arcana. As long as the Summoner or their Hero manages to win a single match, they will granted 1 experience point and 11 Mana points. Time within Arcana’s Sanctum passess at 1/1000th of Server Time.]

Matt snickered, whispering “The best part is that I don’t even have to play the games myself… Maybe if I get some Hero that’s a chessmaster, it’d be a lot easier too?”

[Since I am the one playing ‘Arcana’ in this situation, I do have a limit to how high my intelligence can rise. However, it is unlikely for you to find a chessmaster that is inherently better than I am… In fact, you would be better off trying to find someone who is so incredibly unintelligent, that I will be unable to function at their level. For example, you can be considered quite intelligent by human standards, yet you are also very bad at chess.]

“Yeah, I know, that’s basically what I was planning. Like the dumbest motherfucker in the world, who only knows how to play chess and nothing else…” Matt thought about it for a few minutes, but eventually shrugged and said “Whatever, maybe Mike is good at chess?”

[MC-727 has not played chess in many years. MC-777 however, was able to beat Arcana on many occasions.]

“Wait, are you telling me that I can get different versions of Mike?” Then he suddenly realized, “If there are that many versions of Mike, doesn’t that mean there are other versions of me as well?!”

[You are Trashmob-707, Matthew Leblanc. The other Trashmobs will have other names, appearances and skills… However, they share your weak, submissive and pathetic personality. They are often used as slaves, low-level servants and convenience store workers, due to their nature.]

“Wow, I can’t believe you actually went there. So you’re saying I’m no different than a slave? My ancestors weren’t even in America when there were slaves!” Matt was considerably upset.

[Although the backstory of the United States of America you live in has such events, the Server you played on only started at 1927… Thus, at least in the United States, there were no legal ‘slaves’ in the strictest sense. However, considering that forced conscription existed at that time, it could be said that all males humans had the chance to become slave-soldiers. Regardless, the slave-mentality is still present in all Trashmobs. Considering that there are thousands of them, and multiple other iterations of Trashmob-707, you are quite lucky to have been selected to become a Player.]

He sighed, then shook his head and grumbled “Okay, I’m just gonna leave this topic now before I get even more pissed off.”

Right when he was about to wake up, the last of his Mutant Pigeons died, while killing off one of the National Aquarium’s security guards. Fortunately, Matthew wasn’t paying attention, so he didn’t know that he had inadvertently killed some more innocent people.

[Summoner: Matthew Leblanc
ID Code: Trashmob-707
Rank: Unranked
Level: 7
Experience: 0/10
Mana: 7/7
Cards: 38
Description: A Player with zero skill, but a decent amount of luck. The kind of Summoner who makes other Players want to go out of their way to kill him.]

Of course, after spending a whole night without using any cards, his hand was currently full again. Thus, even though he did pick the “Arcana’s Game” pack, he couldn’t open it yet.

***

“Matty, wake up…” He opened his eyes when he heard his mother’s voice coming from his left. The whole house was still pretty dark, since there was no electricity and it was still winter. It would be a few more hours before the sun came out, though it was still cloudy and snowing regardless.

“Mom, are you feeling okay?” Matt looked his mother up and down a few times, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Aside from the fact that she smelled bad from not being able to shower, there was nothing unusual.

Anaishe smiled at him and said “I’m actually feeling better than I have in years… Don’t worry, I won’t turn into a zombie or anything ridiculous like that.”

“Oh, that’s great… Just, if you feel like you’re going to ‘turn’ or whatever, let me know, okay? I have a way to maybe save you? Hopefully…”

Although her son was obviously very concerned about her safety, Anaishe just giggled and told him “Don’t worry Honey, it’ll be alright. I won’t die on you that easily.”

“Okay Mom… I love you.” Matt smiled wryly, looking at the cards in his hand: Lesser Arcane Resurrection, Portable Gasoline Generator, Azrael’s Blacksmithing Manual and Arcane Storage Cube. Though he did send a few cards directly to the graveyard to get such a good hand, he was still amazed at how good his luck seemed to be… At least when it came to drawing cards.

Once she saw that her son was awake, Anaishe returned to the kitchen and continued cooking some curly noodles. Yes, it was pasta again, since there was very little else available in the house. The owners hadn’t been there in quite a while, so all their stored food was dehydrated like rice, ramen and spaghetti. Fortunately though, they also had various kinds of jarred sauces and a decent assortment of spices.

As he got up off the rocking chair, Matt stretched his body a bit and then shivered. Even with the candles, fireplace and stove, it was still extremely cold. In fact, the cold weather is part of the reason why the battles in Maryland and the northern states were so scarce. After the initial chaos, things seemed to calm down a lot.

Aside from getting something to drink and urinating, Matthew’s first order of business was to set up the generator. There were other houses nearby with similar portable generators, so he didn’t have to worry too much about attracting attention. Thus he went outside, near the garage and Summoned it under the awning. Then he found a couple gas canisters in the garage, which actually had gasoline in them. After hooking the generator up to the house’s power-grid, he turned it on and hoped for the best.

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