The First Store System

The woman had no energy left to speak, so she only glared at the village head, looking at her with cruelty in his eyes. The next moment, a grin appeared on her face as she looked at the man in rough shape.

Even though the man turned out to be the winner of the battle between him and the mother, it was no easy fight for him. He also had several injuries spread across his body, varying in their intensity.

The man couldn’t help but turn crazy as he saw the woman’s grin. He took a step forward, bent down, and punched the head of the woman. It was only the start, as he repeatedly hit in the same spot.

The man only stopped when he couldn’t feel his hands, while the head had now turned into a pool of blood. His eyes were still red from anger since he couldn’t remove the memory of that grin from his head.

The next moment, his eyes lightened as he remembered the third person on the scene. The battle between him and the woman had been intense, so he had no time to check up on the daughter.

“Damn it!” The man couldn’t help but curse in anger as the girl was nowhere to be seen.

***

“I need to run for mother,” A child continuously mumbled as she ran across this dangerous jungle.

“Thud!”

Suddenly, her tiny legs got caught in a tree branch spread on the ground, and she fell.

Her eyes couldn’t help but turn moist, but she didn’t cry. Her mother had told her not to stop for anyone, so she needed to run.

The child ignored the scratch on her knee as she stood up and continued running while ignoring the pain. The moist eyes started crying as the pain wasn’t something that a child of her age could bear, but she had no choice other than keep running.

From the day she had started understanding things, her mother had been teaching her about what to do when a man would arrive and begin battle with her mother.

The child knew she couldn’t let her mother down, so she continued running, ignoring the pain, ignoring the exhaustion, ignoring the hunger. Currently, only running was in her mind.

The child was none other than Maria, the first customer of the store. As Aakesh had set, the participants would remember nothing but their name and their goal in this world; Maria didn’t know about her identity. Since she was only a child, the memory of her goal hadn’t appeared in her mind, so she only knew her actual name, and currently was only a normal child.

While Maria was running from the man her mother had told her about, the other participants were doing the same. Since everyone had the same start, every participant was going through the same challenge.

But from this moment, every participant’s destiny would change since there wasn’t only a single way in the jungle. Some would turn right; some would turn left; some would continue forward so every participant would have a different story from this moment.

As for what was in store for Maria, neither she nor the people in the crowd knew. The same was the case for Aakesh. He was only the setter of the format. As for what would happen with participants, he had no idea.

Even though the participants would have different start from this point in the inside world, one thing was constant. They wouldn’t die. Their dying at this point would be grossly unfair for them since they didn’t even know what they were currently doing, and their goals for the contest also hadn’t appeared in their minds.

***

A few minutes after at the spot where Maria had fallen, the head appeared. His eyes shined as he noticed a blood mark on the ground.

The head bent down and rubbed his finger over the blood mark. The man couldn’t help but reveal a lustful expression as he licked that finger.

Since there was only a straight road at this point, the man didn’t have to think about which way to go, so he followed forward.

The man had only traveled around thirty meters when he came across his first crossroad.

“Damn it, couldn’t the injury be bigger?” The man couldn’t help but curse, as the scratch on Maria’s knee wasn’t big enough to leak a sufficient amount of blood and create a trail for the man to follow.

“Where could have that girl gone to?” The man couldn’t help but mumble as he had no idea where to go.

“Hmph, she is only a child, she would surely go straight,” The man muttered not long after and decided to continue straight.

But when his foot was about to land, he couldn’t help but stop since from the way the child had run right after the battle began, she was no idiot. Her mother had given her some teachings about these situations.

Thinking about that woman, the man’s injury flared up, resulting in his anger exploding like a bomb.

“When I catch you, I will make you see the worst of human nature,” The man cruelly uttered these words as he decided to go straight.

The worlds inside the towers contained many races of the Primal dimension. Since Maria belonged to the human race, she had taken birth in a human village, and the people around her were humans. Aakesh didn’t change the races of the participants, but he removed every race-specific talent from the contest, giving every race an equal footing to stand.

***

“Thud!”

Maria couldn’t continue running anymore as her body failed to follow her mental orders. Her body had already crossed the limit of what it could handle at that age, but Maria forced herself.

‘I need to run.’

It was the last thought in her mind, and soon, the world around her turned dark. Her body and mind were both exhausted, so she fell asleep right away.

***

“Damn it! Where could have that devil spawn gone to?” The man couldn’t help but yell in anger as he had been running for the past two hours, but he was yet to find that girl.

Even though he was an early Level 1 and stronger than ordinary mortals, it was not at that exaggerated level. His fitness was only twice the strongest regular human.