Poll World [LitRPG][Reader Polls]

(Free vote chapter for non-subscribers! Poll link in the author's note at the end!)

Gen inspected the new poll, based on her currently riding on top of Jasper, and the poll's name, the intent seemed obvious enough. LEO was very high on her shitlist, but Jasper's armored body was the opposite of cushioned and her butt was aching already. So, regardless of which option was picked, she was very excited for a saddle of any type.

Jasper was having a field day acting out the part of Godzilla as he smashed his way through the zombie-infested city, leaving a trail of devastation in his wake. She didn't tell him to knock it off for three reasons, first she felt bad for him accidentally getting pulled into the iguana blob, second outside the event he was miniaturized so he deserved a chance to be the giant one, and lastly she felt like if she told him what to do he might eat her.

Ding~!

Surprised that the polls resolved so quickly, she was relieved that there were no ties this time and wouldn't have to listen to LEO complain. She checked her inventory, the first received item was the dungeon core, what that was, she had no idea the the description was equally unhelpful. It simply read, "This forms the core of a dungeon."

She muttered to herself, "Don't you know you shouldn't use the word in the definition…"

Ignoring it for now, she looked at the second item. This one was marked as an event item like her blowgun, so it would disappear after the event was done, while the dungeon core was permanent. Its description read, "Speed demon saddle: VRMM VRMM!".

"What the heck…"

Leaning over to look at Jasper's eye, she said, "I'm going to try using a saddle equipment, I think it will make you go faster, or turn you into a car, it's hard to tell with LEO."

Not giving him time to object, she activated the saddle. Jasper was immediately covered in shimmering light like he was about to go through a magical girl transformation before returning to normal with one change.

Rather than the expected saddle, there was now a human-sized inverted cross vertically mounted on his back with restraints for her hands, feet, and head.

She gave it one look, "Nope."

Looking down, she saw Jasper giving her a judging expression.

"What? Ignoring any amount of sacrilege of mounting myself on a cross, this thing is literally a torture device!"

He started slowly bucking his back, and she felt herself sliding off his side. Reflexively, she reached for purchase and grabbed the cross. The restraining straps reacted immediately, coming alive like tentacles and grasping her wrists.

Yelping, she tried to resist, but they held her fast, even as the upper straps extended and grabbed her legs, hauling her feet to the top. The straps tightened, and she confronted her new reality of being crucified upside down by her hands and feet.

"Ummm, Jasper, a little help?"

He didn't respond as a shiver went through his body and red colored electricity arced across his armored skin. Without hesitation, he took off like a rocket, leaving her panicked wails echoing in the street.

Upside down with her surroundings a blur, she couldn't process what was happening, and she was pretty sure they crashed through several buildings and even flattened a horde of regular zombies. Whether through luck or some property of the demonic cross, she wasn't hurt when they crashed through concrete, but the blood and guts from the zombies had completely caked her.

Sputtering as she spat out a mouthful of rotten flesh, she looked around and saw they were in what looked like an industrial kitchen. She had no idea if this was an actual part of the normal city or just part of the event, but either way, it looked like the NPCs that had been running the place had left in a panic as half-prepared dishes and ingredients were strewn about haphazardly.

Some had burned already, but most of it was surprisingly intact. Jasper eyed the food hungrily, and the surroundings blurred again.

The chaos that followed left Gen reeling, and she really couldn't even stop to consider if it made sense to Jasper to be eating food when he was currently a zombie. His transformed state didn't appear to inhibit him as he drank down what looked like an entire barrel of queso before moving through a meat freezer with clinical precision, consuming every piece of food in sight.

His superspeed movements stopped for only a second as his eyes scanned the decimated kitchen looking for any remaining sustenance, finding none, the rollercoaster started all over again.

What followed was a food tour from hell as Jasper found and sampled every restaurant that zone 98 had to offer. Gen felt sick from being jerked around while stuck upside down, but also from the sickening amount of food Jasper had consumed. Even aside from him being a boss zombie, there was clearly something abnormal with LEO's iguanas, as he seemed to relish eating junk food, candy, meat, and even melted ice cream with equal amounts of enthusiasm.

Gen was never so happy to hear LEO's voice as when it finally rang out. As usual her body froze and Jasper's giant form halted mid-bite.

"Hello, folks! It's that time of day again! Quick recap for everyone, protagonists doing really swell, they had a slight hiccup with inviting the wrong person to their group chat, but hey, at least it wasn't a journalist! Annnywaay, now they've been burning through headquarters like it's on a fire sale, antagonists, you guys really need to step it up! Just because you're the bad guys doesn't mean you can't try a little teamwork!

"Zone 98… wow, yeah, that's something. Good thing it's quarantined, definitely nothing to worry about in there, protags, you've got this!"

Gen's perception blipped and she was back in her room laying in her bed. She sat bolt upright and locked eyes with Jasper who was laying next to her. He immediately tried scrambling away, but in her itty bitty room there was nowhere to hide.

Snatching him up in a hand, she swung open the door and started swinging him around like a ragdoll.

"HEY JASPER! DO YOU LIKE ROLLER COASTERS???"

She shook him up and down repeatedly while making sure he couldn't turn his head enough to bite her until she was interrupted by Morna's voice behind her.

"Umm, Gen, I don't know what happened, but even if he's your summon, there are still animal abuse laws in the city…"

Gen froze and locked eyes with Jasper, she could swear he looked smug. Turning her nose up in indignation, she dropped him on the floo,r ignoring him as she straightened her clothes. Around her, a dozen or so people were emerging from their rooms, having also just left the event, and she ignored them as she turned to Morna.

"He knows what he did."

Morna smirked and tapped her index fingers together as she said, "Does this have something to do with all the restaurants in our zone getting destroyed?"

"No comment."

Looking around, she saw Francine emerging from another door and waved. "I don't see Chuck, what are we doing tonight?"

Morna averted her gaze. "I actually have some plans already, so… you're on your own tonight."

Gen nodded and looked at Francine, "You want to explore the city?"

Francine looked a little awkward and replied, "Umm, actually I have plans too…"

Gen eyed Francine suspiciously. Francine also looked away, "I know you suggested not getting wrapped in anything too quickly, but… Todd seemed impressed with how I was negotiating for his group's assistance and told me they were doing a hiring event tonight where he could recommend me for a few positions…" Francine looked back at her, "He might not mind if you come too!"

Gen hesitated, she didn't want Francine to be overly dependent on her, so it was good they were networking separately, but… she also worried that this wasn't as good an opportunity as it appeared. Sighing, she reminded herself that Bo's and Francine's whole issue stemmed from being overly protective.

Declining Francine's suggestion, she waved her two friends off and watched them go.

She heard Morna complaints fading into the distance, "You want to join a corporate shit hole, but won't join my cul-- I mean club…"

Gen laughed to herself before pausing. She felt an odd feeling, this was the first time since being generated that she didn't have an immediate objective or someone else with her.

Looking down, she saw Jasper giving her an indignant stare and mentally corrected herself. Well, not exactly alone…

Squatting, she eyed him, "Do I really need to argue with you to convince you that you did something wrong?"

He turned his head to the side, averting her gaze, and she rolled her eyes. What was up with people not looking her in the eye today?

Sighing, she said, "Now I'm not going to keep score on everything, but I'm counting this as one in my favor. I'll forgive you, but you're going to have to pay me back at a time of my choosing."

He looked back at her, his whole body looking wary.

"I'm not going to do anything too crazy! Probably… my point is that for someone whose whole personality is shaped by a teamwork augment, you're a really bad teammate! Like, I'm not unreasonable, and I have my fair share of memories of binge eating! I can work with you on that, and being upside down wasn't so bad once I got used to it, but we need to talk about these things instead of just doing them!"

He stared at her for a long moment before bowing his head in what she chose to interpret as agreement. Extending her arm, she let him climb up on her shoulder before pulling out her phone and leaning against a wall.

If anyone nearby thought it was weird she was having a heart-to-heart with a miniature iguana, they didn't comment and continued about their business. Perhaps with LEO running the place, it really wasn't that strange in the grand scheme of things.

Flicking through her contacts, she shot a message to Chuck.

Gen: Just out of the event, Morna ditched me what are you doing

His response was a bit delayed, but after not too long, he responded.

Chuck: Working, can't hang tonight

Gen: Working? As what? I thought you did scenarios for money

Chuck: lol, I don't have enough viewers for that to be enough

Chuck: I'm a waiter at a sushi place

She frowned debating if she should ask him how many viewers he had. She'd missed her opportunity to ask him initially, and it was a little late to pretend she didn't know it was rude to ask…

Gen: How many viewers do you have? I'll tell you how many I have

Chuck: C'mon Gen my heart couldn't take it if you have more than me already I don't want to talk about it

Gen: I doubt that I only have 12… honestly I don't know why I don't have more. Like not to brag, but I kind of am stealing the show in the event right now and expected to go viral or something…

Chuck: …

Chuck: Yeah, I've got to go back to work. Bye.

Gen grimaced, seeing the conversation die. Does he really have less than 12? She felt a surge of guilt if that was the case, she knew averages amongst the new generated and she was only slightly ahead of them.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Both Morna and Jacob had way more than her, so she assumed Chuck would still be higher even if he was on the lower end.

Scratching her head, she messaged G2n.

Gen: What's the average amount of viewers someone has on this planet?

His response was surprisingly fast.

G2n: People don't typically discuss it as it's highly personal, but the guess is 20-30. The "average" is highly misleading, however, as very popular actors will have millions of viewers. The median is less than ten, with it not being rare to have not have a single viewer.

Gen frowned, she'd misread how the economy worked here, and it suddenly made a lot more sense why Chuck had to have a normal job.

G2n's info dump continued without prompting.

G2n: Generated are typically outliers and have more viewers, at least at the start. Most generated will lose 90% of their viewers in the first year. The only reliable predicter for having many viewers long term is the older your family line is. Viewers seem to like watching generations over time, so it's common for a child to inherit the viewers of their parents, additionally as actors can choose to become viewers after death, it is assumed old families literally have their ancestors watching over them.

Some of the social imbalances in the world clicked into place in Gen's head. Without having parents or any ancestors/viewers to inherit from, generated were inherently poorer than the average person. Genlings like Chuck or Aubrey were in a similar boat as their family lines were also minuscule.

She shot Chuck a quick message.

Gen: I'm sorry, I shouldn't have insisted. I'll try to make it up to you.

Chuck: it's fine I really am working

Not quite believing him, she focused on research for a bit longer as G2n was basically a free search engine.

Gen: I'm sure everyone wants to know, as it's an obvious question, but how does getting viewers work? I only have 12, and LEO basically gave me a shout out in a city-wide event twice. Shouldn't I get a bump in viewers?

G2n: Not as much as you'd expect. The viewer side of things is very hush hush so there's no specific data on their motivations, but the running theory is that they are exhausted. They've been forced to watch unending content since Reelity was made, and if it hasn't driven them mad at the very least, they're jaded at this point. Viewer growth is almost always extremely slow, and even when actors have made huge contributions, they rarely see an immediate growth in views. The prevailing "viewer strategy" is that retaining existing viewers is the most important goal rather than trying to find new ones.

Gen sighed, she hadn't been rich or famous in any of her memories, and she'd hoped that taking over a whole zone with zombie iguanas might do the trick…

Thinking about questions while she had G2n's attention, she asked.

Gen: I got a dungeon core. What is it?

Incoming call G2n…

Confused, she answered the phone, "What is it?"

"Gen, listen to me very carefully. These phones are not secure. I have an ability that allows me to redact information, and I've deleted your last message, but that will only slow them down. Throw away your phone and reach the edge of the city by any means. LEO will prompt you at that time. They are comi--"

The line went dead. She stared at it blankly for a second, seeing her chatlog with G2n on the screen. True to his word, her last message was missing.

She threw her phone in a random direction and started running, and immediately stopped. She had no idea where she was without her phone.

Dashing back to her phone that had cracked its screen after clattering off a wall, she pulled up the map app with her hands trembling.

Zooming out, she looked at her location within the overall city. It was roughly circular in shape, and she was on the southern side, but still a good distance from the city's edge.

Throwing her phone again, she took off running for real this time. The sky was darkening, but not quite set yet. With CJ's memories, she immediately oriented herself using the sun's location and started running south.

Jasper was gripping her shoulder tightly and holding still as her mind whirled. Who was coming? Did they just want to steal the dungeon core?

Why the hell was the free phone LEO gave her not secure? Did LEO set her up? Could you even steal something out of someone's inventory? Or would they just torture her until she brought it out?

Alfred had kept talking about laws in the city, but she hadn't gotten a chance to really drill into who was running things. Her first assumption that LEO was in charge was slowly crumbling. LEO directed events and maintained reality, but beyond that, it was actors running things, and if going to the police would help, G2n would've said that instead of telling her to run.

She was gasping for air due to her lacking cardio. Why did her viewers pick a dungeon core? What she clearly needed was the sci-fi gym as she was doing a lot of running lately and was getting sick of feeling like she was about to puke her guts out.

She saw a tram stop and cursed, without her phone, she couldn't use her transport pass to board the public transportation.

Slowing to a fast walk and trying to look casual, she kept moving. Without her phone, how would anyone even find her? She was basically just born, would they even know what she looked like? Her blue Venetian skin wasn't the most common ethnicity in Spotlight, but it was far from rare. She briefly considered using a remixer to change her appearance before remembering that, without her phone she couldn't pay the fee once again.

LEO had made a mentally accessible inventory why hadn't he done the same thing for a wallet or the phone itself, for that matter?

Her surroundings suddenly looked more familiar, and she realized she was back at the park next to the scenario gates. She briefly considered heading back to the orientation facility, but then changed her mind. If they knew anything about her, then they'd know that was the only place in the city she might run to.

Steering clear of it, she hurried through the park and spotted a familiar face. Rusty was on a park bench eating a sandwich while texting on his phone. He looked basically the same as the last time they'd met, maybe a year or two younger.

Debating their options, she hurried over to him and held out her hand, "Give me your phone, I'll pay you back."

He paused mid-bite into his sandwich and stared at her warily. Jasper hissed from her shoulder, but the effect was minimally intimidating with his small size.

"Hey, you!"

Turning, she saw three people hurrying toward her from the other side of the courtyard. They wore full-body golden combat suits complete with masks. Where their names or levels should have been, only ??'s were present.

"Fuck, the gestapo…"

She snatched Rusty's phone, which was thankfully unlocked as he was in midtext to Tonata. Running before he could protest, she heard more yelling from behind her as the trio started to chase.

She saw a trolley stop ahead with people getting on, and she rushed toward it, shoving Rusty's phone into the payment area.

Error. No transport pass purchased. Would you like to purchase one?

Cursing, she slammed yes on the prompt. She'd pay Rusty back, but he should really thank her. How was he planning to exist in the city without the transport pass?

The barrier on the trolley lifted, and she jumped on just in time for it to start chugging along. The trio fell just short, and she heard them cursing as they all pulled out golden phones.

Unsure what she was doing, she pulled up the map app and checked the trolley's route. Cursing, she saw that it was heading East and not getting her any closer to the city's edge. Desperate, she flipped through Rusty's contacts, seeing only a handful of names, clicking on Alfred's, she messaged.

Rusty: I'm being chased, please help. I'm at the Scorpion Oyster.

She'd chosen a random establishment a short ways south of where she currently was. Not waiting for a response, she threw Rusty's phone off the trolley and hoped she wouldn't regret it. Several other passengers gave her weird looks, but nobody stopped her as she exited the trolley at the next stop and started running to the Scorpion Oyster.

Hopefully, Alfred was at the orientation center, which was nearby, and he could help.

When she reached the establishment, she couldn't tell what it was, maybe a restaurant? On the front was a giant neon oyster with a small scorpion where a pearl traditionally would be.

Not questioning it further, she ducked into an alley and hid between a large trash can and a dumpster. The smell of rotten oysters was awful, and she almost vomited as she tried to control her gasping breaths, and the taste flooded her mouth.

After suffering through the smell and trying to catch her breath for less than ten minutes, she heard Alfred shout from out front, "Rusty!? Where are you?"

She scrambled out from the alley, and he saw her immediately. He was breathing heavily and looked concerned. "Gen? Where is Rusty? Are they after you as well?"

Her response was interrupted by another shout, "There she is!"

Alfred and she turned, and she saw a pair of golden suits running at them. They all looked the same, so she couldn't tell if they were new ones or from the same trio as before.

Alfred narrowed his eyes and stepped between them, "What does the consortium want? I am her orientation guide, and she is under my protection."

One of the suits stepped forward, his voice garbled electronically through the mask, "Out of the way generated. She's coming with us."

Alfred didn't budge. "If she's committed a crime, then it would be up to my discretion on how she is punished. If you want anything to say about it, you'll need to put in an adjudication request with the council. Until then, we're leaving."

Alfred turned to leave, and the man materialized a prismatic sword from his inventory and lunged at Alfred's side.

Alfred didn't even flinch, showing the same reflexes as when the taxman attacked him and the iron maiden appeared once again, swallowing the attacker. Gen blinked, the iron maiden looked different than before. Rather than intimidating black metal, it looked like it was made from wood.

The second goon rushed Alfred, and Gen felt a tremor as Alfred activated his fear ability, as well as his spatial freeze ability, halting the charge. She couldn't feel the freeze ability, but the fear felt significantly weaker, and she realized the reason. Outside of the event, Alfred was level 4, and that limited the power of his equipment and abilities. His higher level meant they were much stronger than her own ability, but he wasn't at full strength.

The ??'s above the consortium goon's heads didn't give any hints, so she couldn't tell if Alfred was out of his depth or not.

Alfred was sweating as he concentrated on the frozen man who was slowly inching forward. Garbled screams of pain were being heard from the wooden maiden, and several holes had appeared as the man inside was slowly chopping his way out.

Alfred shot her a glance, "Gen, what's going on? This doesn't look as simple as punching someone in the face."

Gen grit her teeth, not knowing if she should tell Alfred, as she honestly had no idea what was going on. Making her decision, she said, "I got a dungeon core."

His eyes widened, and evidently that was enough for him to understand the situation as he pulled out his gun and shot the frozen man repeatedly, only stopping when the ??'s above his head disappeared.

He turned to look at her, "Reach the edg--"

His words were cut off as something crashed into him, and Gen was blasted back by an explosion.

Coughing, she pushed herself to her feet, her whole body feeling numb as adrenaline coursed through her. Alfred looked bloodied, but somehow the explosion hadn't even knocked him off his feet. His glock was gone, and he held a shotgun now as he pumped shot after shot in front of him.

Through the smoke, she saw a dozen or so more golden goons swarming forward, all of them holding prismatic swords identical to the first attacker. Alfred threw a familiar red vial into their midst, and fiery flames spread over the group, engulfing them.

To her sides, panicked civilians were evacuating the establishment. Alfred shouted over the noise, "Run Gen! Reach the edge of the city!"

She shot him one last look, seeing a goon piercing his arm with a sword before she took off running.

Coughing as she struggled through the smoky surroundings and pushed her way through the crowd, she tried to keep heading South. It was too far to run with how fast they kept finding her, she mentally cursed G2n. If they found her this quickly, she might as well have kept her phone to begin with.

Options were slim, the obvious route was to just keep running South, but it was too predictable, and with how many people this consortium or whatever had to throw at her, they'd cut her off. She could try circling back, but it was even farther to go in any other direction, and she had no idea how they were finding her.

"Hello, Gen."

Jumping in surprise, she saw a woman standing nearby in a simple t-shirt and shorts, oddly she wore no shoes. She had black skin and silver hair. Her name was Yaris, and her level showed 1, but Gen took a step back as she sensed that might not be entirely accurate.

Yaris held still with a gentle smile on her face, "Don't worry, Gen, I'm not here with the consortium. I am here to help y--"

Her words were cut off as a motorcycle flew out of nowhere, crashing into her and sending her limp body to splat against a wall.

Unable to keep up with things, her eyes locked onto the new arrivals. The driver of the motorcycle was familiar, it was Hon, of all people. Obviously, outside the event, he was missing his UFO, but the motorcycle suited him. He was looking warily at the deceased woman's body.

"Are you sure it was okay to run her over? Wasn't that Yaris?"

The second person on the motorcycle stepped off, her expression blank. She had black hair cut into a bowl cut and coppery skin. Her name was Gen - Level 5. She was wearing a tropical Hawaiian button-up shirt with loose slacks and sandals.

She ignored Hon's question as she looked at Gen and said, "Morna says you might join the club, and Twen said you need help."

Gen nodded enthusiastically. She certainly needed help and an explanation, if that was possible.

The woman looked at Hon, "Take her outside the city's limits, LEO will handle it from there. I'll lead them away."

Gen wanted to ask a question, but abruptly her perspective shifted, and she was looking at herself. Looking down, she saw her clothes had swapped to the other Gen's, or more specifically, they had swapped bodies entirely.

Before she could ask any more questions, she felt Hon grab her and pull her onto the motorcycle behind him. Numbly, she watched the other Gen piloting her body wave them goodbye as Hon used his ability to accelerate the motorcycle dangerously fast.

Holding tight, she tried hard not to question the fact that she'd just been forcibly body-swapped and Alfred was probably dead. Hon didn't speak for once, and she was too shell-shocked to ask questions as he weaved between pedestrians and took shortcuts through alleys.

The distance to reach the edge of the city that had seemed insurmountable while running passed in the blink of an eye while on the bike. Buildings became less frequent and more decrepit the closer they got to the edge, only warehouses and other industrial-looking locations with no people around. The city limits were obvious as the land was immediately barren. It looked like a wasteland covered in darkness and something else… flashes of color like the land itself was having visual glitches that hurt her head to look at.

Hon turned off the bike and got off he was shaking slightly as he nervously said, "We're here."

Getting off the bike, Gen looked at him, "What do I---"

Her question faltered as a prompt appeared in her view.

Do you wish to activate the dungeon core and establish a dungeon? Y/N

Scared someone might appear to stop her, she immediately hit Y.

Congratulations, dungeon master, may your dungeon consume the world!

Ding~!