"Sign-in complete. Reward: $1. Current balance: $1."
A faint blue prompt flashed in the corner of Ethan Cole's vision. His face instantly darkened.
"Seriously? One dollar? That's my sign-in system?"
Other people's cheat systems handed out super-serums, alien weapons, even legendary artifacts straight out of fantasy novels.
But his? His system gave him… a buck.
One. Single. Dollar.
"C'mon, man," Ethan muttered bitterly. "It's the end of the world out here! Even before the apocalypse, if a crumpled dollar bill hit the sidewalk, half the people in New York wouldn't even bother picking it up. And now? What the hell am I supposed to buy with it? A soda from a vending machine that probably doesn't even have power anymore?"
Yeah. The end of the world.
It all started a few months back. No one knew if it was a glitch in reality, a cosmic joke, or God finally pulling the plug. One day, Earth—once a planet of skyscrapers, freeways, and smartphones—was suddenly overrun with grotesque monsters.
Some of them looked like mutated animals—wolves with three heads, bears the size of trucks. At least you could still recognize those.
But the others… the others were just wrong. Things that defied physics. Shadows that ate light. Creatures with too many joints bending the wrong way. Things that guns, bombs, and missiles couldn't touch.
Cities collapsed within weeks. Governments tried to hold the line, but the monsters homed in on human presence like sharks smelling blood in the water.
And survivor bases? Forget about it. Hollywood lied. Shove a thousand people into a camp and it was like lighting a neon sign that screamed Dinner's Ready. Monsters swarmed those places until nothing was left but blood and ruins.
So humanity scattered. The lucky few formed roaming survivor groups, constantly moving from place to place. Stay still and you were dead. Keep moving, and maybe—just maybe—you had a chance.
Ethan was one of the stragglers, tagging along with a survivor convoy drifting aimlessly across the ruined highways of America.
At first, he thought he had struck gold. A system! A golden finger! The kind of thing only protagonists in novels got.
But then… this. A check-in reward of one measly dollar.
"Even if you gave me a hundred bucks, where the hell would I spend it?" Ethan cursed under his breath. "What kind of garbage system is this?"
And then—just as he was about to give up—another prompt flickered into view.
"System Mall unlocked."
Ethan froze. His pulse quickened.
"…Wait. A mall?"
Suddenly, he understood. The "dollar" wasn't paper money. It was system credit.
And if there was credit, there had to be something to spend it on.
The moment the thought clicked, Ethan felt his consciousness expand, like a blind man opening his eyes for the first time. A glowing interface appeared in his mind—sleek, modern, like some futuristic online store.
Rows of products hovered before him, neatly categorized with glowing price tags.
Rice – $2 / pound
Pure Water – $1 / bottle
Pork – $10 / pound
Fresh Vegetables – $5 / pound
Ethan stared, dumbfounded.
"…Holy crap. It's like Walmart's apocalypse edition."
Pure Milk – $3 / box!
Aside from the bottled water, which had a glowing Buy button beneath it, the rest of the items were grayed out—locked.
Ethan frowned."That's it? This is supposed to be a mall? Even a gas station convenience store has more variety than this!"
The system didn't respond. The interface just sat there, mocking him with four lonely items.
At the very bottom of the page, though, a faint message blinked:
Loading…
Ethan waited. One minute. Two. Five.
Still nothing.
"Don't tell me my system is a half-finished beta version," he groaned, pulling himself out of the mall interface.
Right now, he only had $1 in system credit. Just enough for a bottle of pure water. But wasting it now seemed pointless—especially when he already had a few supplies.
He swung his worn-out backpack off his shoulder and started checking inventory.
A pack of mushroom-flavored crackers—only three pieces left.
A couple bottles of murky water he'd filtered through a T-shirt.
Half a slice of bread with a patch of mold creeping across the crust.
He sighed. "Gourmet apocalypse cuisine, ladies and gentlemen."
Around him, the convoy was pulling off the cracked interstate into what used to be a rest area.
They called themselves The Horizon Team. A fancy name, but in reality, it was three pickup trucks, two motorcycles, and a scattering of beat-up sedans packed with scavengers like Ethan.
"Alright, folks—we stop here tonight," a middle-aged man barked, his voice hoarse but steady. He was one of the de facto leaders. "We roll out at first light. If all goes well, we should reach a small town by morning. Anyone planning to scavenge, get ready."
That announcement set off a wave of murmurs among the survivors.
"A town? Finally—I need real food.""Yeah, and real danger. Remember last week? Half our people died in the last scavenging run.""But what choice do we have? Starve out here instead?"
Ethan tuned out their voices, lost in his own thoughts.
One dollar a day? Even if I save for three days, I'd only have enough for a pound of rice and a single bottle of water. That's barely survival-level. I can't just rely on the system.
Scavenging was still necessary. Dangerous, sure, but unavoidable.
He stared at the moldy bread in his hand, then tucked it back in the bag along with the crackers.
"Forget it. I'll save it for tomorrow morning. If I'm going into that town, I'll need the energy."
His stomach growled, reminding him of the hunger gnawing at his insides. But tonight, hunger was better than weakness tomorrow.
Besides, when the sun set in this new world, moving around was suicide.
Better to stay hungry… and alive.