Ari stood in front of his entire school of 1000 students, staring blankly with dead fish eyes as the principal continued to use him as a living, breathing example of the effects of bullying despite his protests and clear indication of not wanting to be there.
Despite the staff's warnings, the students kept talking and taking pictures, and Ari could only imagine how many group chats and Twitter threads had his beat-up face in them.
[Ding!]
[Bzzzz. Bzzzzz. Generate Some Buzz - Get at least 100 people talking about you at the same time. In person or online, the choice is yours. - Complete!]
[Current Rewards: 2 Stat Points & 1 Charm Stat Point ]
[Congratulations, Queen Bee.]
[You're popular.]
[🐝Bzzzz🐝]
Even as he completed one of his missions, Ari just stared blankly ahead.
'Who would be happy in this situation?!?!'
'This wasn't how he wanted to generate buzz about himself!'
With a renewed mindset that he would not make a decision when being bribed by delicious food, Ari vowed not to come to class again until his face was fully healed.
In fact, he would rather wear the weird snail face mask than walk around bare-faced.
At least that way, he could slowly gather visual stat points.
Actually...
Even though face coverings weren't allowed in school….wouldn't they make an exception for a "bullied" student?
At the flash of inspiration, once the assembly was over, Ari grabbed onto the arm of the principal and put on his most pitiful appearance as he pulled out the snail face mask.
"Principal Matador, sir, I actually went to the… dermatologist because of how bad the damage to my face was, and they gave me this snail mask to heal me. The dermatologist said that unless I wear it for 24 hours a day, I'll be scarred for life and that trauma will remain deep inside of my soul and every time I look in the mirror I'll hate myself, so if you could bend the school rules-"
"Young Man!" the principal clasped Ari's shoulder with his iron grip as he lowered himself to look him in the eyes.
Seeing that extra-large handlebar mustache approaching his face, Ari tried to lean back but was gripped even tighter and pulled into an unwanted bear hug.
"Of course, you may wear whatever you need to heal, and if the bullying persists, come talk to me and any of the faculty, we'll handle the situation properly and fairly, okay? You are not alone. We're all in this together. When one person is hurt, the entire community is hurt."
"Ah, yes…thank you for your help."
"We will get through this together!"
"Yes…of course!"
'Now, please let go! This hurts!'
Of course, Ari didn't say the last part out loud.
He kept a very thankful expression on until the principal released him.
Then he immediately went to the bathroom, wet the snail mask, and put it on his face before going to class.
Throughout the day, some students pointed and laughed at him, even taking more videos, but Ari just ignored them as he did what he needed to do.
'Bullying? Looking weird?'
'He didn't care about what a single student had to say.'
'He had no friends in the school due to being busy, and many of them had mocked him for being homeless and poor, but that was the extent of it.'
He just let it go through one ear and out the other.
To Ari, wearing the strange mask all day and gaining an additional point for his visuals was much more valuable than whatever people might say.
And in a city like LA, he might get some looks here and there, but most people would attribute it to Hollywood weirdness.
Ari spent his lunch in the library, continuing to research how to make music, even transcribing the car horn melody into a free online sequencer, and researching books that he could use to help him accomplish his goal.
From tomorrow on, he didn't plan on coming to class until Friday, so he told the school tutoring center that he no longer had the time to tutor, effectively quitting his last stable job.
Since he had decided to do the system tasks, he might as well do them to the best of his abilities with his full focus.
Of course, the teacher made a big fuss about the effects of bullying and invited Ari to come to her for help.
After dealing with that, Ari left school when it was over, going to the thrift store and buying replacement clothing and other necessities before heading back to the church on the city bus.
Once back, he practiced singing for an hour, then he practiced his toddler choreography for dancing for 3 hours until he finally completed the dancing repeat mission.
[Ding!]
[Don't Be A Slab Of Wood! Move Your Body A Little! - Dance the choreography of a song longer than 2 minutes 100 times! - Complete!]
[Reward: +1 Stat Point]
[Dance the choreography of a song longer than 2 minutes 100 times!- has been removed from the Repeat Missions Board]
[Current Rewards: 3 Stat Points & 1 Charm Stat Point ]
Seeing that he had finally collected 3 stat points, Ari smiled before speaking.
"Add all the free stat points to vocal and charm points to charm, please, and show me my stats."
[Vocals +3]
[Charm +1]
[Ariel Matisse]
[Vocals: A]
[Dance: F]
[Visual: F]
[Rap: F]
[Charm: E-]
[Skills: Picky Listener (B), Pen Pal (C)]
"Phew, now that those vocal stats are at a decent point, we need to work on the visuals. Snail snot mask, how much timing have you accumulated?" Ari tapped the snot snail mask to view the details.
[Reusable Snail Snot Face Mask]
[Deposited charm: 0.12]
"I need to wear this for 9 more days straight for another point, huh. Tsk."
After muttering to himself, Ari didn't bother taking it off.
In fact, he would never take it off except for when he showered.
He went over to the bathhouse with a notebook, pen, and his mask on. He wanted to see if any lyrics would come to him as he ate.
When he walked through the door, the bell chiming loudly, Granny Choi nodded approving.ly as she saw his mask.
"Good. Snail mucus is a medicinal face treatment to help smooth your skin. Go eat, then come clean."
"Okay."
When she saw the notebook in his hand, she paused before saying, "If you want, you can come do your homework here and bring your friends, too, like Grace and her friends."
"Ah…thank you, but-" Ari tried to think of a polite way to refuse her offer.
"Hmph. It's only an offer. I was just saying because grandpa makes good study snacks. If you don't want it, it's fine. Eat! And stop sneaking cash into Stevens' office to pay for food!"
"It wasn't me. It was the cleaning fairy."
"Lies!"
Quickly ducking the wooden spoon that appeared out of nowhere, Ari went to eat dinner, chat with Grace, clean up, and head back to the church to continue his music-creating, self-study, singing, and dancing.
And the next morning, he took the earliest bus to head to the UCLA music library.