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The Paypocalypse 4: The Cheat
🕑 Added 2025-07-26 20:33:19 +0000 UTC------
“The poor cannot buy happiness.”
President Golich’s Thought of the Day.
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“A cheat skill?” Martin asked, immediately seeing the similarities with his Employee Class. “You mean like a Perk?”
“Sometimes, sometimes not. The point is that DungeonCorp tests out ‘unique’—” Olivia made an air quote motion with her fingers, “—unfair advantages meant to give isekai’ed unpaid labor a competitive edge in other worlds. And due to the rules of system apocalypse playtesting gigs, you get to keep them.”
“Some cheats are niche, but they’re always useful,” Kenji said. “Some are so broken they propel their users all the way to Management in record time.”
Martin listened with some skepticism. While it sounded like a good path to wealth in spite of the risks, something bothered him about their story. “Do you have any cheat skills yourself?”
“No,” Olivia replied with a chuckle. “Would we still be here if that were the case?”
“Then why?” Martin asked. “If the exploit is so well-known, why haven’t you tried it yourself?”
“Because I wasn’t told in time!” Kenji grunted in what appeared to be genuine frustration. “It’s only available to people who haven’t yet bought another better Class for immersion, since they want ordinary people as testers! By the time I knew about the cheat, I had already purchased a Monk Class and blew my chance!”
“I was told about the secret, but didn’t really pay much attention to it and refused to even try.” Olivia scratched her cheek in embarrassment. “The thing is, I… I wasn’t willing to take the risk. I thought I could save money doing small, harmless gigs and eventually accumulate enough to buy good stuff. Succeed the long, but safer way.”
Martin could understand that. Most people would have balked at taking a mission with three chances out of four of dying, and elves could live a long time. Spending years working was probably a blink of an eye for her kind.
But in that case, why was she still an E-ranked employee?
“I guess it didn’t work out that way for you?” Martin guessed.
“No, not much,” Olivia replied bluntly. “E-rank gigs barely pay enough for us goons to save up. Since only the rent is free here, most of your money will vanish into day-to-day expenses or consumables. It took me a while to buy a good Class, let alone level it up. I’ve been here the longest, and I wouldn’t recommend it for shorter-lived species.”
Kenji nodded fiercely. “The problem is that you can’t receive better and higher paying gigs until you climb the Corporate Ladder, but to do that, you must invest in buying and leveling-up better Classes you don’t have the money for.”
“It’s a vicious cycle,” Martin guessed. As he feared, things in Hirestown weren’t so different from Earth’s job market. “A rat’s race.”
“Pretty much,” Olivia confirmed. “The only way to succeed here is to take risks, whether it’s taking dangerous gigs, sucking it up to a Union or Manager, or going into debt in the hopes of paying it back quickly if you’re truly desperate.”
The idea of cozying up to someone like Eddie or getting into debt right after earning himself a job left Martin shuddering, and the idea of having to suck up to others in the hope of maybe–perhaps–someday making it big disgusted him. He stared back at the gig proposal and reread it a few times.
“So if I accept this gig, I’ll be sent to a tutorial pocket dimension?” Martin asked for confirmation. “I… I suppose the return trip is pre-booked?”
“Yup,” Kenji replied with a short nod. “You’ll return here as soon as you complete it.”
“Fair warning, you’ll get penalties if you don’t return in time to fulfill your weekly mandatory gigs, like docked pays or the like, so you should try to complete the assignment as quickly as possible,” Olivia suggested. “I would suggest trying to blitz to the tutorial’s end and ignore all the side-ventures.”
“You say I should do a speedrun?” The idea bothered Martin, who liked to do a complete job both in games and real life. “Won’t that get me penalized?”
Olivia smiled at him as if he were a child who had said something very cute. “You’ll get paid the same whether you’re excellent or passable, so why bother? You only receive bonuses if a Manager is happy with your work, and they never pay attention to us E-ranks.”
“Surviving a sysapoc playtest is already going to be hard enough, man,” Kenji said. “Just focus on returning in one piece.”
“I see…” Martin cleared his throat. “Any suggestions?”
“Just follow the tutorial guidance and immediately put the cheat they give you to use,” Olivia suggested. “You look like you’ve already been conditioned by isekai media brainwashing, so you should fit in right at home as a target demographic. They won’t go easy on you, but they won't curveball at you either.”
“Hey, I’m not brainwashed, I’m cultured!” Martin immediately protested.
“Sure, sure, keep telling yourself that.”
“I’ve heard they always put in a superpowerful MacGuffin or piece of gear somewhere for people to find,” Kenji said. “I would try to grab that and then punch the tutorial's final boss in the face.”
Martin had expected as much. He gathered his breath and courage, then applied for the Apocalypse Beater gig. His body began to glow with a golden light the moment he did so.
“Good luck!” Olivia waved a hand at Martin as his world flashed away. “I hope you make it back.”
“Come back victorious, or not at all!” Kenji added, before scratching the back of his head. “Which is already a given now that I say it out lou–”
The apartment and everything around Martin vanished into light before his roommate could finish his sentence. He found himself back in an elevator nearly identical to the one he took to Hirestown, with a System screen flashing in front of his eyes.
Thank you for taking the Apocalypse Beater gig. For maximum immersion, most features outside of your starting Class (like the Buddyguard system and in-app purchases) have been temporarily restricted until the tutorial’s completion.
Welcome to this wonderful Dungeon Corp starting survey. To better improve our clients' situation in the next System Apocalypse, we must ask you the following question*:
In your opinion, which of these benefits makes you feel the most like a super special (and motivated) snowflake protagonist?
A unique (you know it’s not) and prestigious bloodline you’ve done nothing to deserve.
A totally weak Class that can be ‘cleverly’ abused by anyone with average intelligence.
An OP furry-compatible companion that starts calling you ‘Goshujin-sama.’
A cheat skill delivered to you by a voluptuous goddess for doing the bare minimum in life.
*The result may or may not influence the rest of your career. No pressure.
Uh… what a strange question. All the options screamed unfair advantages offered to protagonists in isekai or LitRPG media in general. Martin gave the survey serious thought, since he guessed this was part of the gig’s onboarding process.
He immediately excluded having a furry sidekick, since those could be hit or miss—not to mention that some of them might actually cause allergies in people.
That, and there was nothing worse than feeling overshadowed by, say, a talking dog.
A unique bloodline sounded cool, but not everyone would be proud of being a secret nepobaby. As much as Martin would be happy to learn his real dad was a sperm giving billionaire, part of him would also feel a bit guilty about owing everything to someone else.
The voluptuous goddess part was enticing, since it would have meant that the person deserved the cheat power somehow, and having a goddess around would be flattering… but there was only one choice that trumped it.
“I would say the class, because it would make me feel way smarter than I actually am,” Martin said out loud. “Which I think would apply to everybody.”
He suddenly wondered if screens could even hear him or talk back, but the message closed on its own and another replaced it.
Congratulations, hominid Martin! Your Earth planet has been selected for integration into the wonderful multiverse, where death, godhood, and eternal happiness are just around the corner! A tutorial sequence will now begin to show you the ropes!
Due to your unique affinities, the following Class has been assigned to you as your starting one.
Credit Cardmaster (Commander/Crafter): A very weak class because it’s only good at winning at life. Strength D, Agility B, Vitality D, Perception B, Magic A, Intelligence A, Charisma B, Luck S. Innate Perks: Grandmaster Card (Active), Gatcha Man (Passive). First level Perk: Credit Card Mastery I (Passive).
Grandmaster Card (Active): You can produce a limitless amount of temporary credit cards to your bank account, though they will disappear and deactivate within six seconds of loss of physical contact. Additionally, you receive a 5% cashback on all purchases made with them.
Gatcha Man (Passive): Life is a gatcha game. You gain a magical loot box every twenty purchases you make with credit cards. The contents and its quality is mostly random, but partly influenced by your Luck stat.
Credit Card Mastery I (Passive): You gain medium proficiency with all credit cards (x1.5 damage). Any credit card you use as a weapon becomes unnaturally sharp and ignores half of a target’s Vitality when calculating damage.
What the—what kind of ridiculous class was that? Did answering the survey somehow influence it?
Whatever the case, the Class equipped itself over his Employee Class in an instant. Martin could physically feel the shift, like someone putting him through a shower and a new set of clothes. The light around him dissipated, and a mighty burst of dry wind blew on his face.
Martin found himself in the middle of a Wild West town in the blink of an eye.
There was no other way to describe it. Houses of wood straight out of spaghetti westerns surrounded the plaza he had been teleported to, including a saloon, a gambling den, and some kind of sheriff station. The ground was brown dry, and the sky orange in color under the glow of an unnaturally red sun. The entry to a mine shaft of some kind was open at the foot of a hill on which stood by an old windmill.
The new Class also affected him. On one hand, Martin’s arms and legs felt a tiny bit weaker—likely due to Credit Cardmaster having lesser overall Strength and Vitality—but his sight had slightly sharpened. He could read the words ‘I love kangaroos’ written on a cistern and picked up on dust carried by the wind. Stats had a direct impact on his physical capabilities, and its perks were deceptively good.
Finally, he spotted a yellow arrow floating a few centimeters above his head.
Martin instinctively attempted to grab it, only for his hand to harmlessly phase through it as if it were a hologram. It immediately reminded him of a game’s quest marker. He turned his gaze towards the area where it pointed and quickly noticed an enormous redstone monolith standing on the horizon. A green aurora floated in the sky above it in blatant violation of all natural weather phenomena. Martin guessed that he had to reach that place to complete the tutorial.
Come to think of it, the rock looked a lot like Ulur–
“Mein emu, mein emu!” a shrilling voice called out from behind Martin. “I have found a hominid!”
Martin turned around to see two ostrich stormtroopers emerge from a street corner.
There was no other way to describe them. The birds were the size of men, with soft brown feathers, mighty legs, long necks, and a WW2 soldier helmet on their stupid-looking heads. One of them even smoked a cigarette.
Oh, and they had rifles.
Old rifles, more akin to muskets or blunderbusses, but rifles nonetheless. How they could operate them with their wings and no fingers was a complete mystery to Martin, and he had no time to ponder why as they pointed at him. He barely had time to jump through the nearby saloon’s doors and dodge the comically inaccurate bullet volley.
“You should have stayed in your savannah, you filthy monkey!” Martin heard them shout outside with shrill voices. “Justice for Campion!”
At this point, Martin realized that the gig’s description had been entirely correct. This tutorial was indeed based around the most dangerous place on Earth.
He had to survive Australia.
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A/N: you voted for this.
Anyway, I've decided to change the Skill stat to Perception due to the heavy focus on, well, cheats, skills and the like in this story.
Comments
Publius Decius Mus
Damn! Not the Emus!
Test Lord
So it's 4 chapters in and I think I'm comfortable enough to say this will Voids next hit.Payocalypse is sooo marketable
