novelraw Chapter 176: Redemption Quest
Chapter 176: Redemption Quest
<🎧 Song Recommendation: she goes by by where.t.at>
...
Once the jet landed at the airport, they were immediately taken through security checks. Three separate cars were already waiting for them, meaning didn’t have to share a ride.
Each of them got into their own car and was driven straight to the Grand Beverly Hotel.
When they arrived, they were taken to a private area where medical staff carried out the mandatory tests to ensure they didn’t have the virus.
Once the uncomfortable swabbing was out of the way, it marked the temporary end of them seeing each other. They had to go into isolation.
"Bye, Von! Good luck with your audition!" Sofie called out. She gave him a big wave as a nurse guided her away.
Harry adjusted his mask and shot Von a playful wink. "We’ll meet next time on the set, bestie."
"Good luck to you both," Von replied, extending his good wishes before a masked staff member motioned for him to follow.
The staff member led Von through the empty hotel hallways and stopped in front of a sealed door.
This was where Von would have to stay locked inside for the next three days.
"You can call the front desk if you need anything," the staff member informed him.
"Whatever you need will be dropped outside for you. Just wait until we leave before unsealing the door."
Von nodded. The staff member broke the seal on the door, and Von stepped inside.
As the door shut behind him, Von couldn’t help but feel like he was walking into a prison.
He dropped his bag and looked around, realizing that if he actually got the role of Aiden, this room could be his new home for over three months.
He walked further inside and found the room to be pretty decent. It was a far cry from his large master bedroom back in Pinecrest, but it made sense.
To keep everything fair and safe during the lockdown, every single cast member was entitled to a simple single bedroom.
Te room featured an average-sized bed that was really only meant to contain one person, a large mirror fixed to the wall, and a wooden desk set by the window.
When Von walked over to the desk, he saw a printed paper sitting right in the center, strictly informing him of his daily swabbing schedule.
Next to it sat a notepad, a pack of pens, a fresh box of face masks, medical-grade hand sanitizers, and a few other basic medical tools.
The room also had a clean personal bathroom as expected. Tucked neatly into the corner by the closet, he saw a rolled-up yoga mat and a pair of heavy dumbbells.
They were necessary items provided by the studio for him to remain in shape while casting, since the hotel gym was completely locked down.
Something else that stood out in the room, aside from the large mirror, was the floor space afforded to him.
It was clearly bigger than normal hotel rooms, giving him just enough room to pace around and rehearse without feeling trapped.
He grabbed the remote and turned on the large television, leaving it on a random news channel just to fill the dead sound of the room, before taking off his travel clothes and entering the bath.
Twenty minutes later, after Von was done washing off the grime of the airport and finally felt fresh again, he settled onto the edge of the bed. He opened his phone, thinking about phoning Emily to let her know he had made it to Los Angeles safely.
But at that exact second, his vision got completely blocked by a bunch of glowing holographic screens.
[You’ve failed your Daily Quest!]
[You’ve failed your Daily Quest!]
[You’ve failed your Daily Quest!]
...
[You’ve failed your Daily Quest 23 times!]
Von froze, his eyes widening in shock as the red notifications flooded his sight. Before he could even process the wall of warnings, a massive golden screen pushed its way to the front.
[You’ve unlocked a Redemption Quest!]
[Quest Name: Scenery Resonance]
[Description: You have neglected your daily physical duties for too long. To avoid the ultimate penalty, you must immerse yourself in your craft. The majority of the shooting for the movie you will audition for, "Perfect Ruins," will take place in the Westwood College campus. You must go there and connect with the environment.]
[Objectives: Rehearse your audition script at the Westwood campus for 12 hours.]
[Reward: 1,000 EXP]
[Deadline: 24 hours]
[Failure Penalty: Serves the penalty for every single quest you failed stacked together and doubled in duration.]
[Accept] [Decline]
"What the fuck," Von couldn’t help but mutter in absolute horror after reading the suicide mission the System had just given him.
Thinking about it now, he really did miss all of his daily physical training quests. During the days he was lying unconscious, he hadn’t done a single push-up or singing challenge.
He was honestly surprised that the System hadn’t reminded him about it all this while, making him assume he had probably just outgrown the basic quests entirely.
What he didn’t know was that the System was just waiting for the perfect moment to fuck him up the most. There couldn’t be a more fitting, disastrous time than right now.
How was he going to complete this when he was being strictly quarantined? Moving outside without a valid reason was practically illegal right now.
If he somehow got caught sneaking out of this hotel, not only would he be instantly disqualified from the audition, but he could face massive lawsuits from Leviathan for endangering the lives of others in the bubble and jeopardizing the entire production.
Von looked down at the [Accept] and [Decline] options hovering brightly before him in the quiet room.
They didn’t really add up to much of a choice. Choosing the latter was just a fast way to speed up the punishment process, and it also meant not having to face those penalties two-fold.
Anyway, he still had to complete this insane task if he wanted to be really free and be in the best shape for the audition.
"What did I do to deserve this?" Von sighed heavily, before collapsing backward onto the bed once more.
He tapped the screen to look at the long list of punishments. They weren’t easy either.
[Your body will reject all food for 1 day (Doubled: 2 days)]
[You will lose your voice for 1 week (Doubled: 2 weeks)]
[Loss of eyesight for 2 days (Doubled: 4 days)]
[Movement disability for 2 days (Doubled: 4 days)]
These were just a few of the 23 brutal penalties he had waiting for him. Declining the quest meant going blind, losing his voice, and kissing his Hollywood dreams goodbye for now.
"You’re not leaving me with any choice, right?" Von said out loud, speaking more to himself than the floating System interface.
Von had no choice but to click the accept button.
[You’ve accepted the Quest!]
[Congratulations! You’ve gotten a temporary buff: Viral Immunity]
[Grants full resistance to all viruses for 7 days.]
"Wow," Von breathed out aloud, reading that final line.
This was completely overpowered, especially knowing the dire conditions the world was currently in and the massive risk he was about to undertake tonight.
He had always blindly believed that a recovery pill from the shop would help him if he one day contracted the deadly H-19 virus, but he wasn’t eager to find out if that was actually correct.
And contracting the virus wasn’t only about himself. Even if he could survive it, it wouldn’t stop him from silently spreading it to the rest of the cast and crew in the hotel.
So, this sudden buff was an absolute lifesaver. He couldn’t get sick, and he couldn’t get anyone else sick.
"Okay. Now it’s about how I can get there," Von said, sitting up to think.
He knew how incredibly tight the security was. He couldn’t just open his hotel door, walk down the hall, and expect to walk out of the lobby simply.
There were security cameras everywhere outside in the corridors. Security guards actively patrolled the grounds, and the heavy lockdown curfew meant the streets outside would be heavily monitored. He needed a perfect plan.
Von rubbed his head, staring at the television screen, thinking of how to leave his room.
Then, a sudden, brilliant idea made a smile light up his face. He reached down to his chest, held his silver chain up, and whispered into the empty room.
"Loki, I need your help."