He was sitting by the roadside smoking when a pretty shopkeeper sweet-talked him into working at an internet cafe. Thirty thousand a month, six types of insurance and a housing fund, with meals and accommodation included. Then he died.
And came back to life.
A System had appeared in his head, calling itself the Underworld. It offered three voice-pack styles to choose from: funeral home, crematorium, and forensic autopsy room. Its favorite pastime was complaining that the Host's deaths weren't exciting enough, while casually dropping clues about how to stay alive.
[Every time you die, your reload cooldown doubles. Die seven times, and you're dead for real.]
[By the way, Sister Fang's leather coat has a birthmark shaped like a human face at the collar. It belonged to the previous Host.]
[Do your best!]
Even worse were the customers at this place.
A programmer with mouse-switch mechanisms growing in his finger joints, clicking with every movement. A woman whose ten fingers had been cut off at the knuckles, asking if he could help her press her fingerprint. A young man with no ear canals who could hear sounds that didn't exist. A little girl with transparent ankles, pestering him to play a game called Princess Adventure.
And the pretty shopkeeper, Sister Fang, had no skin at all in the mirror.
Was this internet cafe even a legitimate business?
