The coffee buzz from The Daily Grind had faded, replaced by the focused intensity of a man with a plan. Chris sat in his gaming chair, preparing. His [Scavenger Hunt] quest log glowed in his vision, the once-daunting requirement for steel now a tangible, achievable objective.
[- 15kg Refined Metal (Iron/Steel)]
He stared at the number, but it no longer mocked him. It was just a progress bar waiting to be filled. His mind, honed by strategic planning and late-night raids, began to map out the mission with a precision that would have terrified his high school guidance counselor.
Operation: Pothole Plunder.
Phase One: Infiltration. The primary objective is stealth. The resource node is located on a public street, a high-traffic area during the day. Any activity will draw unwanted attention, or "aggro," from local NPCs. Therefore, the mission has to be conducted under the cover of darkness. Wait until Misty and Pete are asleep, ensuring the household is in a non-hostile state.
Phase Two: Travel to Objective. Will need transportation. The family's beige SUV, while possessing the stealth profile of a sleeping elephant, is the only option. Will navigate to the coordinates identified on the community forum: South Kanawha Street, directly in front of the old movie theater... I think it is a bar now.
Phase Three: Resource Extraction. Upon reaching the target location, will use the [System Functions Library] to execute the [Extract_Material_From_Substrate] function. This is the core of the operation, hope it works. Will target the pothole and extract the embedded rebar directly into personal inventory.
Phase Four: Exfiltration. Once the loot is secured, will return to base, the Woody family home, with the acquired materials. Mission complete. Woot! Woot!
He went over the plan again, checking for flaws. It was perfect. It was elegant. It felt exactly like planning a late-night resource run in a survival game, a clandestine mission to mine a rare mineral spawn before the server reset. The absurdity of applying this level of tactical planning to what was, in essence, stealing metal from a public road, was completely and utterly lost on him. This wasn't vandalism. This was questing.
The hours ticked by with agonizing slowness. He had to endure dinner, a meal of leftover meatloaf that he barely tasted. He listened to Misty talk about her day at the court house and Pete complain about the price of lumber at Lowe's, all while his mind was on the upcoming mission. He felt like a secret agent, living a double life. By day, a mild-mannered, unemployed thirty-year-old. By night, a high-tech resource scavenger.
Finally, the house fell quiet. The television in the living room went dark. He heard the faint sounds of Misty and Pete getting ready for bed, the running of water in the bathroom, the soft click of their bedroom door. He waited another hour, just to be safe, scrolling through his phone in the dark of his room, the screen's glow illuminating his face with a pale, conspiratorial light.
At half-past midnight, he decided it was time.
He slipped out of his room, each creak of the floor under his feet sounding as loud as a gunshot to him in the silent house. He was a rogue in a dungeon, avoiding pressure plates on his way to the treasure room. He navigated the dark hallway, his eyes adjusted to the gloom, his movements slow and deliberate.
He grabbed the keys to the SUV from the hook by the back door, a small pang of guilt pricking at him. He was borrowing the family car for his secret activities. It felt like using his mom's credit card to buy a rare in-game mount. It was a necessary, if slightly dishonorable, part of the mission.
He slipped out the back door, the lock clicking softly behind him. The dark was thick, pressing in on him from all sides. The air was cool and damp, and the unnerving, high-pitched chorus of crickets was a constant background sound. In the woods that bordered their backyard, something rustled in the undergrowth, a sound that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
He unlocked the SUV, the thunk of the locks echoing in the quiet night. He climbed inside, inhaling the slightly musty smell of the SUV. He started the engine and backed out of the driveway, his headlights cutting a swath through the night, and set off towards the target.
South Kanawha Street was deserted. The shops were dark, their windows empty and lifeless. The old movie theater, a relic from another era, stood silent and imposing, its marquee now showing the name of the bar that now inhabited the building. It felt like a different town, a special, nighttime instance created just for him. He slowed the SUV to a crawl, his eyes scanning the road.
He found it easily. The SUV's headlights illuminated the jagged, ugly wound in the asphalt, a dark maw in the center of the lane. It was even bigger in person, a brutal, neglected piece of civic failure. He pulled the SUV over to the curb, about twenty feet past the pothole, and killed the engine. The sudden silence was broken only by the hum of a single, flickering streetlight.
He got out of the vehicle, the cool, damp air raising goosebumps on his arms. The street was empty. He was alone. He approached the pothole feeling like a miner approaching a rich vein of ore. He stood over it, its jagged edges sharp and clear in the pale glow of the streetlight.
He used his [INSPECT] ability again, this time on the physical object itself, to confirm his intel.
[Object: Pothole (Asphalt, Gravel)]
[Structural Integrity: 12%]
[Primary Components: Asphalt (Degraded), Compacted Gravel, Rainwater]
[Sub-component: Rebar (Steel, 8.5kg, Exposed)]
The HUD confirmed the presence of the material. 8.5 kilograms. It was a rich deposit, more than half of what he needed for the lawnmower. The risk of this midnight excursion had just paid off, big time. This was a critical success.
It was time to use the tool.
He opened the [System Functions Library] on his HUD. The interface appeared in his vision, a glowing, translucent blue window of clean, sharp text hanging in the dark air over the broken road. He scrolled past the function he had used earlier [modify_thermal_state], and found the one he needed.
[Extract_Material_From_Substrate]
He selected it, and the familiar, user-friendly form appeared. He began to carefully fill in the parameters, trying to stay focused.
[Function: Extract_Material_From_Substrate]
[Target_Object_ID: ]
He used [INSPECT] on the pothole again, and the field automatically populated with the crisp text: Pothole_SKanawhaSt_01. Perfect.
[Material to Extract: ]
A drop-down menu appeared, listing the available materials within the target object. He selected Rebar (Steel).
[Destination: ]
He chose User_Inventory from the options. The thought of having a pocket dimension capable of holding over eight kilograms of rusty steel rebar was a beautiful, game-like absurdity.
The form was almost complete. At the bottom, there was a small section labeled "Notes," with a single line of text and a checkbox next to it.
[ [ ] Note: Function includes a complimentary 'Void Fill' protocol to maintain environmental structural integrity. Uncheck to disable.]
Chris's eyes skimmed the note. His brain, conditioned by years of skipping Terms of Service agreements and EULAs, registered it as unimportant flavor text. "Void Fill protocol." "Environmental structural integrity." It sounded like technical jargon, the kind of setting you left on default unless you were a power user trying to do something weird. It had no bearing on his goal. His only objective was to get the metal. The fine print was for other people.
With a surge of giddy anticipation, a feeling of pure, unadulterated power, he mentally pressed the glowing [EXECUTE] button.
The air over the pothole shimmered for a moment with a faint, blue light, like heat haze off a hot road. A low buzzing sound, audible only to him, filled the air for a second and then faded.
A notification appeared in his HUD.
[8.5kg Refined Metal (Steel) added to Inventory.]
He felt a subtle, metaphysical weight settle into his being. The rebar was his. He had it.
A second notification immediately followed.
[Quest: Scavenger Hunt - Progress 8.5/15kg]
He felt a jolt of pure triumph. The progress bar had moved. The function had worked perfectly! He was a master of reality, a high-tech scavenger. He had come, he had seen, he had looted.
He turned to head back to the SUV, laden with the spoils of his successful quest, a grin plastered across his face. He was halfway to the vehicle when he noticed something strange in the beam of streetlight. He stopped.
The hole in the road was gone.
His triumphant grin faltered. He stared at the spot where the jagged, ugly pothole had been just seconds before. In its place was a patch of perfectly smooth, fresh, black asphalt. It wasn't a rough patch job; it was a seamless, professional-grade repair, the new asphalt blended so perfectly with the surrounding road that it looked like it had always been there.
He walked back and stood over it, utterly bewildered. He ran his sneaker over the surface. It was smooth. It was solid. It was, for all intents and purposes, a brand-new piece of road.
His mind replayed the note from the function form. "Function includes a complimentary 'Void Fill' protocol to maintain environmental structural integrity."
He had come here to mine a resource node, to exploit a flaw in the world for his own personal gain. But he had accidentally, in his haste to get the loot, left behind a perfect, professional-grade civic improvement.