Hearse Survival: Only My Driver Can Talk

After dropping dead, I woke up inside a coffin.

I was dressed in funeral clothes and lying in a hearse, with a sharp-tongued driver beside me.

“You’re already dead. Follow the radio’s instructions.”

The radio said this was a journey to find burial grounds for the dead. The hearse reached a stop at night and set off again at dawn. It wouldn’t wait for anyone. Be late by even a moment, and you’d be trapped in the burial grounds forever.

Other people’s drivers were strange, grotesque monsters that couldn’t communicate. Mine could not only talk, but sometimes even gave me spoilers about the next stop’s rules. He told me to go to Sam’s when we reached the supermarket, and that got me out in time. He told me not to touch that basketball, and I watched as others got beaten up by a chicken mascot.

The newbie period lasted a month, with a wealth ranking held once a week. The first-place prize was a zodiac button to pin to your funeral clothes, granting +1 speed, +1 strength, hardened skin... Collect all twelve, and supposedly you could leave this world.

The hearse could be upgraded from level 0 to level 5, with new features unlocked at each level: storage for burial goods, an onboard system, private-message trading, and emergency recall. At level five, you could even change classes.

I touched the two buttons on my funeral clothes, picked up my shovel, and pushed open the door.

The newbie period was over. The real hearse journey had only just begun.

The name Shovel God of War would spread through every burial ground.

From the start, one coffin. You had to scavenge all your gear, and rely on the driver’s loose lips for information.