The awakeners who had taken part in the defeat of the Werecrocodile boss were looking at one of their hardest hitters smile one moment, and then take a step and collapse like a puppet with its strings cut the next.

A lot of them gasped with surprise, but one of them was already moving.

'I can't move.

Like, I literally can't move.

Even my head feels like it weighs a hundred pounds or something.'

'When Thirst for Power said it had side effects, they really meant it,' Jake thought. 'Holy crap, this drink really kicks back!'

Even though he was having a hard time pulling himself together from the side effects, Jake spent his time browsing the Awakening Store – he couldn't help it. Even in his state, he couldn't help but browse, especially since a lot of the items were newly added.

'Okay, four purchases for the day.'

'I think I may have overdone it a little,' Jake sheepishly thought. 'It's just like that last time when I had a credit card and smoked my bank account's bottom line so bad, I had to stop cold turkey for six months.

I was shivering like a nervous wreck during that time, either the companies or the law firms were going to go after me for it.'

He remembered going to online stores, filling up baskets with orders, then smacking himself in the face to keep from getting himself deeper in debt.

'I'm doing this too quickly.

I need to slow down.

Otherwise it's going to be me punching myself in the face and living in fear of collection agencies and credit card companies all over again.

Still, though..

The Black Label Awakening Store..

So freaking pretty..'

In Jake's eyes, he was in a brave new world: a premium line with items of better quality and price than what is normally available.

Commonly referred to as the 'Black Label', the Awakening Store was no exception to this.

It was unexpected for Jake, but after he had taken the charge for the Werecrocodile fight, it was what you'd call an extremely pleasant surprise.

As soon as the alert showed him that the Black Label Awakening Store was finally stocked with items, he gathered himself, took a deep breath, and made his first step into the premium line of the Awakening Store.

All coherent thought of his stopped as soon as he opened up the catalog.

'So beautiful. They should have sent a poet.'

Everything the Awakening Store had and more was given an even better visual treatment.

The pictures of each item were professionally taken and the details of each item were beautifully worded – truly earning the right to call itself the "Black Label".

It also went without saying that the prices for each item could be optimistically described as "exorbitant".

[Archdemon's Wrath: 10000 points

Skill Description: This is a skill that allows one to focus energy at one point, and then attack. Any physical or magical attack used in conjunction with this skill will have its attack power raised by a very large degree, since all your energy is gathered in one point. This skill is optimized for fighting single units. When raised to its highest rank, there will be no shields that can block this.]

'Whoa. Ten thousand points.

I could spend my entire Werecrocodile bounty on this skill alone.

But that would be impractical.'

As he continued to browse, Jake came up with one conclusion.

'Everything here is currently too expensive.'

[Monster Gourmet: 4000 points

Skill Description: Allez cuisine! Ever wanted to take a bite out of those annoying monsters? Here's your chance.

Item Recommendation : Cooking Set (Burner, Pot, Frying pan).]

'Okay, THIS is weird,' Jake said as he saw the skill that allowed you to take edible parts from monsters and cook them. 'Turning monsters into food items is good if you want to survive... but there's so many good things to buy! I'll go back to this after browsing further.'

He turned to the food section.

[Spicy Ramen: 500 points

Item Description: A ramen spiced with habaneros, ghost chili, and the tears of countless brave men and women who thought they could make it through this without going to the nearest glass of milk.]

[Potato Pizza: 1200 points

Item Description: This Italian invention consisting of a wheat-based flatbread, marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese and potato wedges, all delicately seasoned and oven baked to perfection is too good not to share with others.]

As Jake browsed the list of items for sale, Jake realized that he no longer had to worry about the food problem in Nohas – there was a veritable smorgasbord of delicacies on sale here, and all Jake needed was the points to afford them!

He was already thinking about what to buy rather than whether if he should.

'Not buying because of the expense? Ridiculous,' Jake thought. 'The greater the expense in getting the item, the greater the pleasure you get when it's finally in your hands. That's the high someone like me chases all the time.'

'And here, there is no such thing as credit limits. Fight monsters, acquire currency, buy stuff.

That is all.

But.. I already have MP due to my purchases. The question is, what should I use it on?'

He'd just finished making a list of things he wanted to buy once he was well enough to open packages, and was now looking through the list of skills that used mana points – MP.

'It is kind of counter-intuitive for the Awakening Store to do this kind of thing, kind of like putting the cart before the horse, or buying the coffee beans before buying the coffee grinder and coffee maker.. oh wait, that was me.'

He was just about to look at the next page of skills when a notification flashed before his eyes.

[The Black Label Awakening Store's inaugural event will begin in a few minutes!]

Despite his exhaustion, Jake Smithson's eyes were twinkling in anticipation of what items may come for him to buy.

***

The sun set on Nohas, the skies turning a bloody red before going down to black.

A fitting way of ending the day, given that the various towns in Nohas were scenes of death and devastation.

Cries of pain and sobs littered the landscape, as the outskirts of their towns were littered with the dead and the dying.

In a land area approximating the United States, there were around twenty tutorial towns there, so it was more or less the same throughout Nohas.. and the awakeners from all of them were ravaged by the Werecrocodile appearing.

It was less a fight and more a massacre.

But with more than three-quarters of their town's awakeners already slain and the rest wounded and exhausted, they braced for their end..

..only for the Werecrocodile to turn its back and leave, taking its goblin escorts with it.

The confusion of the surviving awakeners quickly gave way to relief at their survival, most of them collapsing as the tension of the day's battle left them, and the joy at being able to live another day filled them.

However, their relief would not last long.

The voice from the clouds spoke again.

[The Werecrocodile has lost interest in battle due to your weakness and has decided to withdraw to return later. Take this moment to recover and train yourselves!]

"I lived!"

"I'm alive!"

Many similar shouts of relief were made in the towns in Nohas, but the more experienced awakeners weren't quite as relieved.

"It's not the time to celebrate our survival," one of them said. "We have to get stronger, quicker. We don't know when that thing will come again.. time is a luxury we cannot afford. "

The joy the surviving awakeners felt was quickly dispersed by the reality that the Werecrocodile would return, and would fight for keeps this time.

"How do you kill such a thing?" was a question quite a lot of the survivors asked, recalling the Werecrocodile and falling into despair.

They couldn't imagine that there would be a new awakener or group of awakeners that could successfully defeat the monster.

They were not the only ones to make such an assumption, and nobody knew at this point that someone would take down Werecrocodile.

Except the people of Brino.

***

Though the awakeners of Brino were a bit shocked at the Werecrocodile's defeat, another group was perhaps even more disturbed at the monster's unplanned death: the back office of the Awakening Store's Nohas branch.

The Awakening Store carries out business in numerous dimensions, with different names corresponding to its appropriate role in whatever dimension it operates in.

Therefore, the branch in Nohas branch uses the name 'Awakening Store'.

Right now, the Nohas branch of the Awakening Store was in deep trouble.

"Check the logs, the access wasn't unauthorized."

"NOT UNAUTHORIZED? This guy has had beta access ever since he showed up here! How is THAT not unauthorized?!"

And all of this was due to someone getting to sample the store's catalog even before its formal opening.

The character's name: Jake Smithson – character class, Shopping Addict.

"Okay," Keldarian said, taking deep breaths as he began to do his job: unraveling the mystery of how this guy got so good, so quickly. "Do we have a list of open beta access codes that have been given away?"

Keldarian's assistant answered.

"No, none of our open beta access codes to the Awakening Store have been distributed."

"Then we need to look deeper. This guy is an anomaly: someone like him who has been around Nohas for so short a time buying that many products in a store he shouldn't have had access too yet?"

The concept of awakeners exists in many dimensions. Monsters, too. And yes, these monsters have a bad habit of attacking settlements regardless of dimension.

And across these dimensions, if you kill a monster, you get points – and this is why the Awakening Store was accessible to many different dimensions, it was the universality of the concept.

"How can someone collect that many points that quickly?" one of the analysts asked, while looking over the logs. "It doesn't make sense at all."

"Anybody with the open beta access code would need to do specific missions to gain points as reward. For hunting monsters, they get experience, NOT points. No wonder the first team reading the logs thought this guy was a hacker of some kind."

"These missions aren't easy," the third analyst said. "You need to gain levels to be strong enough to complete them. This guy's breaking the rules and the game balance itself. If this keeps up, we're going to be hauled before this dimension's Bureau for Better Business!"

"We could avoid a lot of the backlash," Keldarian's assistant said. "Since we've just finished implementing the early and mid-game content and researching the market, we haven't launched a formal opening of the Awakening Store on Nohas yet."

"Sounds good. So are we going to tell them it's a test server or a soft opening?"

"We'll choose the option that makes the most sense."

"If you see how much this guy has been purchasing, a soft opening is a better explanation.. even if we're running a test server."

"Even if the balance of power on this place in Nohas has already gone to shit?"

"Language!" Keldarian shouted from within his office. "I heard that! And yes, that's the best we can tell the Bureau out of a bad lot of alternatives."

He wanted to continue his explanation, but in a corner of the back office, someone screamed.

"BLACK LABEL SECTION OPENED!"

In the Nohas back office of the Awakening Store.. pandemonium ensued.

***

"Give me those logs!" Keldarian shouted as he shoved his way past coworkers towards where the hapless employee who made the announcement sat. "Move aside, let me through!"

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He made it in a few steps.

"Show me."

The employee pointed to the screen.

"Okay, how is this possible?!" he yelled out in consternation. "First, we have what the server recognizes as authorized access by someone without an open beta store access code, and now this? How the hell is the Black Label section open already within two days of our Nohas test server going online?"

Keldarian's assistant caught up to him with her own copy of the logs.

"This might answer your questions, sir."

She pointed towards a few lines.

"Nohas, Beginner Area 11, Brino.. Werecrocodile.. DEFEATED?"

Keldarian managed to save his consciousness.

However, he still looked silly for a moment, with his jaw hanging loose.

It took him a good minute to process everything that happened.

They opened the test server for the Awakening Store on Nohas.

Someone got in and was buying stuff like mad within 36 hours of opening.

Access to the Black Label was gained by a player within 48 hours of opening.

But for that to happen, the Werecrocodile needed to be defeated on the server.

Nobody in Nohas should be able to be defeat the Werecrocodile at that point, based on their extensive closed alpha and open beta tests before launching the Awakening Store here.

"How.. what.. can someone actually kill a Werecrocodile at this point?" Keldarian asked, looking like heaven and earth had collapsed on him.

"Check the purchase logs," the assistant said, taking charge while her boss was still in the throes of an anxiety attack.

"Got it. Purchase logs online. I see several purchases of Hidden Stat books," the analyst replied.

"Also, one of ours down in production forgot the bubble wrap," another analyst added. "We gave the buyer our standard compensation package. Thirst for Power is what we reward customers who spot packaging mistakes."

By now Keldarian had gotten over his anxiety attack.

"We goofed," he admitted. "With those hidden stats and the Thirst for Power, he'd double his defense and be able to get the Werecrocodile and its escorts to focus on him while his fellow awakeners picked them off."

"The questions now become, how did we get into this situation, and how do we get out of it? We can't go around spoiling our awakeners and make them think they can turn this game into a damned power fantasy!"

"Well, sir, based on the purchase logs, this player was focusing on package deals and those 72-hour events we were doing a dry run on our test server," the analyst added.

"Think about it," Keldarian said. "If this is him at the black label, imagine him if he gets to the gold label, or heaven help us, the diamond label! If the membership level goes up too, what next?"

"Then what can we do? Block his access?"

"If we do that, the Bureau's going to be on our ass like white on rice. That's not OUR job."

"What about his purchasing pattern? Anything that stands out?"

"The sample size is too small to make any useful analysis, sir," the analyst replied, "but when I looked at what he bought so far, he tends to favor event items that have a limited run."

"Okay. Okay. I got it," another analyst added. "I think we can fix this problem, cut it off at the pass before it becomes a catastrophe. Let's keep going with the limited run events, and keep the prices high."

"Are we talking about items that need a lot of points to buy or things that require other conditions aside from points?"

"Exactly!" the analyst said. "What do you think? Is it a good idea?"

"Okay. If he does make the time limit, price, and other conditions, what then?" Keldarian asked.

"If he does? We continue and escalate if we can. Right now, we have to pretend that nothing amiss is going on right now. We'll need to write a petition to the administrators that someone gained access to our Awakening Store test server when we haven't even given out the access code yet."

While Keldarian was enumerating the things he needed to do and his assistants were writing them down, the analysts were having their own conversation while looking at the anomaly they just discovered. "You don't think this will cause us to go out of business, right? I do not have any money saved," an analyst began.

"And that's why we have to come up with a good event," the other analyst said. "An appealing and functional event, one that will be hard for this guy to achieve."

"Exactly," Keldarian said, having finished his plan. "But remember this -- it's important to make it look like he can achieve it. That is one of the secrets of making a good event. If the event's circumstances are too ridiculous, he's not going to bother. If it's too easy, we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot. Do you know what to be planning for now?"

"Yes, sir!"

"All right. Hand in your proposals to my assistants before this day is over. Chop chop, people!"

Although the event that will hinder Jake Smithson from his passion has begun, the back office of the Awakening Store in Nohas has yet to plumb the depths of his desire for, and addiction to, shopping.

In other words, they ain't seen nothin' yet!