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The next few days after Jin had gotten the news that the zombie virus had escaped past the border, were spent in a daze. He simply couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe that there was an actual zombie virus on the loose and people were just going about, living their lives…
He'd immersed himself in zombie scenarios in preparation for the previous competition, mentally replayed all the games, and rewatched all the media for inspiration.
In his mind, there was not a single scenario in which a zombie virus ravaging a civilization did not end in the apocalypse.
He completed his tasks on autopilot, worrying about the fate of the world.
But the world simply kept spinning on its axis, if this world did indeed have an axis.
After a few more days, Jin came to a realisation.
The mortals of this world had no real transport systems. Even the richest of the rich could hardly afford to have a cultivator fly them around. On Earth, the virus spreading quickly made sense because of the existence of commercial flying.
In the cultivation world, the only people who flew were those already immune to the zombification effect of the virus.
So perhaps, maybe the world wasn't doomed? It was just patched? Occasionally, you would simply come to a village to find that it had been wiped out, its former inhabitants shambling about, moaning about brains.
In this world of cultivation, had there ever been a lack of wiped-out villages? The only thing that would change under these circumstances would be the cause.
Jin slowly tried to assimilate the reality that he was now living in a mild zombie DLC of the cultivation reality, at least until the issue was resolved.
After all, Flower had also told him that the researchers working on the virus had enough of the cells from that one immune soldier to generate, if not a cure, then at least a vaccine.
Of course not with that specific terminology. A cure would likely be referred to as the life-sustaining water droplet of the nine heavens, while a vaccine would be called something like the heavenly prevention of a thousand black tribulations.
Regardless, as days passed without the mountain suddenly being surrounded by a horde of zombies, which to be fair, without any demons to support them, wouldn't be any threat either, Jin gradually calmed down.
Somewhat.
"Jin, where's your bed frame?" Hashimi asked dubiously as she and Francis entered his apartment to finally playtest their final draft of the Helgen introduction.
The aforementioned man twitched and looked around suspiciously.
"Close the door," he hissed.
Hashimi entered and went over to the mattress, which was lying on a large square structure covered by a white sheet. As Francis closed the door behind himself, she lifted the sheet to reveal rows upon rows of stacked cans of food.
Well, it wasn't really cans in the proper sense. But rather wooden bucket-style food containers sealed off with paper tags to keep the content fresh.
Cultivators had ways of preserving ingredients so that they didn't go bad. Rather than relying on technology, however, a few seals could do the job just as well. The method was usually used by alchemists, so the craftsman of the commerce sector had been a bit confused when Jin had come with buckets of normal, if nourishing food and fresh water. But he'd listened all the same and taken the paranoid boys' money.
"Are these? Alchemical ingredients?" Hashimi asked dubiously, turning to Jin at which point her eyes googled. "Where are the chairs," she asked as she stepped towards the middle of the room to look at the three food buckets covered in white sheets. In the middle were four food buckets stacked in a square, representing a table.
"Don't be an idiot," Jin replied. "You can't eat chairs, I replaced them with stored food."
"You even replaced your wardrobe?" Francis said dubiously, looking at the large bookcase-like structure composed entirely of food buckets, in the middle of which were folded several of Jin's beige inner disciple robes.
"Don't tell anyone, this is a secret," Jin hissed. "People will get desperate, they'll steal."
"What's this weird roll of parchment?" Hashimi suddenly asked as she finished rummaging in the gap between the makeshift bed and the wall. She was holding what any modern person would recognise as toilet paper, the only difference being that it was instead a large roll of parchment.
"Leave that," Jin said annoyedly. "You came over to test the scenario, not to ransack my supplies."
Francis and Hashimi shared a dubious look before eventually shrugging and sitting down on the large sealed food buckets around the table on which the Illusion Room was placed.
"Who wants to go first?" Jin asked impatiently. They'd finally fine tuned this bitch. Now it was time to try it. Although, even if they found something, it was getting to the point where it would be better if they started working on the next part instead of refining this one. Other than switching up the dragon situation, they'd been experiencing crazy diminishing returns.
"Are you feeling up for it?" Francis asked, looking at Jin.
"You're the boss, boss," Hashimi added cheekily.
Jin looked at the two of them suspiciously. The Illusion Room could be exited if one's body was in danger, since one did have a sort of feeling of reality even in the depths of any scenario. But one couldn't really perceive one's surroundings. That was why it was generally inadvisable to use an Illusion Room in front of someone you didn't trust.
It was also why the library had an Elder guarding it at all times. Not only to protect the Illusion Room disciples, but also to assure protection to the inner disciples of other sects who came to pay for entry.
Jin was suddenly harbouring a suspicion. A suspicion that the two of them would ransack his apartment while he couldn't perceive his surroundings.
A venomous smile suddenly alighted on his features. "Ladies first," he said.
Hashimi for her part shook her head. "I always respect the elderly," she said self-righteously and bowed her head subserviently towards Francis.
"Beauty before age," Francis replied right back.
"Age before beauty."
"Youth before experience."
"Wisdom before youth."
"The dao before wisdom."
At this one, Hashimi suddenly frowned and shook her head. "But I'm less far along the cultivation path than you?" she asked, confusedly.
Francis gave a contented smile, reminiscent of the one you could find on a fat Buddha statue back on earth. "Not for long, Junior, the new wave always crescendos on the dissolving back of the previous."
Hashimi squinted her eyes at him.
"Alright," she eventually said, before unceremoniously slapping her hand on top of the room.
-/- Hashimi
Her world was dark and blurry, then she realised that she had to open her eyes.
The light greeted her not like an old friend, but like a car bomb in a Russian parking lot.
"Hey, you. You're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there." An unwashed-looking man sharing the bumpy cart with her said.
Hashimi opened her mouth, looked at the realistic dirt path they were traversing, the forest, the light, the Imperial soldiers marching at the right, left and back, protecting the prisoner convoy.
"Damn you Stormcloaks. Skyrim was fine until you came along. Empire was nice and lazy. If they hadn't been looking for you, I could've stolen that horse and been halfway to Hammerfell. You there. You and me, we shouldn't be here. It's these Stormcloaks the Empire wants," the horse thief said, looking at Hashimi.
Hashimi, for her part, simply yawned. In cases like this, it was important to test the ability of the scenario to conform to the standards they'd created. She tried breaking free of her restraints, but the ropes with which her hands were tied together were too strong. She knew for a fact, of course, that in this part of the scenario the ropes were unbreakable, whereas in the future, if one was strong enough, one would still tear them up with one's bare hands.
Her feet were similarly bound, but she tried standing up regardless. Before she could get very far, one of the imperial soldiers walking by the cart grabbed the ropes on her back and roughly pulled her back down. Then, for good measure, he hit her over the back of the head with the pommel of his sword.
"And stay down!" he shouted at her ringing head.
"Damn Francis, did you have to make the pain so realistic," Hashimi muttered through gritted teeth, feeling the blood trickle and seep down her scalp and mat her hair.
"Great, another crazy one," one of the stormcloaks next to her muttered. "Sheogorath will be pleased."
"Shut up, idiot," Hashimi replied harshly. Pain always made her cranky.
The Stormcloak huffed in offence and tried bumping into her. Unfortunately for him, even if Hashimi was metaphysically bound at the moment, she was still a cultivator who'd come into the scenario with her own body. The bump barely made her flinch.
"Weakling," she scoffed. Jin had designed the average mooks in this world to be around the level of a qi condensation stage cultivator. So, a bit stronger than a mortal.
Hashimi was almost in the middle of the foundation establishment stage, the maximum of which would be the cut-off point for enemies in this world. Jin had suggested this limit on attributes to make enemies technically vanquishable, skills and strategies being added to make any attempt harder, depending on need.
"You're strong, for a woman," a big blonde man with braided hair suddenly said. "What did they catch a redguard for?"
Hashimi stared at him blankly as the cart swayed left and right.
Her darker complexion made her fit in more with the people from Hammerfell, which they hadn't designed yet, but which Jin had said would have dark skin.
It seemed that even the data shards in the introduction had access to an appropriate amount of worldly knowledge for their position. The other one, who'd tried to bump her, currently trying to ignore it had ever happened, had also mentioned one of the daedric princes.
"Asking why the empire does stupid shit," Hashimi said derogatorily. "Why does a chicken lay eggs?"
The stormcloaks she was sharing a cart with exchanged surprised glances, before suddenly bursting into laughter. If their hands hadn't been bound they would have likely slapped her on the back.
Instead, all she got was another pommel to the back of her head. It seemed that the imperial guard behind her didn't appreciate the humour quite as much.
The repeated knocks made her lose concentration for a moment.
Soon they were in Helgen, getting dragged off the cart one by one.
When it was her turn two imperial soldiers took her by a shoulder each to drag her in front of the female captain reading off a piece of parchment.
"This one's not on the list," the woman said with a frown as she looked at Hashimi.
"Yeah, but she's a right bitch," the soldier holding up Hashimi on the left complained.
The captain stepped closer, looking the cultivator up and down with a frown.
That was a mistake, because when she did so, Hashimi suddenly rushed forward with her head and headbutted her right on the nose, ignoring the pain from her own head impacting the metal edges of the helmet.
The captain staggered back, clutching the red mess where her nose had previously been.
"You whore!" the captain shouted in a nasal tone, which was funny, because she didn't have a nose anymore.
The two guards holding up Hashimi dragged her violently to the ground, more of them coming over to beat and kick at her.
Hashimi simply accepted the beating, and it didn't hurt too much. These guys were weaklings. Her ribs barely cracked. It did hurt when one of the guys kicked her in her left boob though.
After she was properly chastised, face pressed firmly in the foul mud of the outpost town, the captain lifted her up by the hair and glared in her face.
"Fuck the list, to the chopping block with her," she snarled.
Hashimi spat in her face, or what was left of it at least.
"You were always going to execute me anyway, at least now I got something out of it," she said with a bloody grin.
The captain snarled and punched her in the face.
As Hashimi was being dragged off she shouted her last insult at the bitch that Jin had carefully created to be as annoying as possible, the asshole.
"Your mother never loved you, and nothing you do will make your father proud!" she shouted.
"Emperor's beard, woman," one of the guards, dragging her, muttered quietly. Hadvar, perhaps.
"Now her face matches her personality," Hashimi cackled.
"This one's crazy," the other guard complained. "They're not paying me enough for this."
-/-
AN: Skyrim is a big project, will need test runs and stuff while developing. Next chapter is still Hashimi's Helgen run through. Read ahead on Patreon ;)