After returning from a 4-day retreat, here are the results:
Achievement unlocked: Massage (C)
Get naked and experience full body massage for the first time.
Achievement unlocked: Rookie Debtor (C)
Accumulate a debt of over 2000.
Achievement unlocked: Hotel Curse (C)
Check-in at a terrible hotel all alone for the first time.
Achievement unlocked: Hotel Blessing (C)
Check-in at a great hotel all alone for the first time.
Achievement unlocked: Strange Diagnosis (B)
Receive a diagnosis from a doctor that you do not agree with.
Achievement unlocked: Happy Question (B)
Be asked about the happy ending in the massage for the first time.
Achievement unlocked: Runaway (A)
Experience running away from home at least once.
Achievement unlocked: Fake Tourist (A)
Default to speaking in English language to the locals of your own country.
Achievement unlocked: Free Healthcare (A)
Received free consultation and drugs from a government facility.
Achievement unlocked: Sweet Examiner (A)
Get asked intimate questions from the attractive opposite sex who's currently giving you an intake interview.
Achievement unlocked: Psyched Phone (A)
Ask the psychiatrist to help charge your phone using their outlet before they start interviewing you.
Achievement unlocked: Homeless (S)
Live as a homeless person and sleep on the street at night at least once.
Achievement unlocked: Funny Dream (S)
Get abandoned by the homeless people you were sleeping with on the streets, waking up only to find yourself sleeping alone.
Achievement unlocked: Urban Pilgrim (SS)
Walk at least 15 kilometers within 4 days of visiting a city.
Achievement unlocked: Degenerate Gambler (SS)
Gamble your life and savings in less than a week and lose them all.
Achievement unlocked: Nightwalker (SS)
Remain fully awake the entire midnight and roam the streets.
Achievement unlocked: Familiar Hacker (SSS)
Get your anonymous chatting account hacked and used by your own family member, seeing all your nefarious crimes.
Cutscene unlocked: Cringe Reunion
A touching reunion that happens when you return home as a runaway.
Cutscene unlocked: Family Interrogation
A touching interrogation that happens when you return home as a runaway.
It's been an entire day since I returned home. Shame and guilt is creeping in from every part of my body. My anxiety levels are higher too. I feel like I should take the anti-anxiety and anti-depression pills that the psychiatrist gave me. Although I'm functional enough to work, I'm less motivated to interact and talk to people. It seems that talking to unfamiliar people requires a baseline level of happiness. Curiosity requires happiness. Unhappy people tend to have more restricted and limited forms of curiosity, if they have some. Right now, my curiosity demands that I experience the drugs at least once! Ugh, maybe I shouldn't have given them all to my mom.
I learned a lot from my experiences, I also get to experience new things. It's such a shame that I failed. I could have won if I pushed farther. But if I did that, I wouldn't be able to get the unique achievement of returning home. Not really, it's just an excuse. I could return home anytime I want. It's just, my initial goals are completed, getting a break from school and home and dropping out from school; and I see no reason to overextend when I've already seen my own incompetence in full resolution.
Aside from getting new experiences, I've managed to test a lot of hypotheses during my expedition. First of all, I'm not a god? At least not yet, maybe when only when I experience an extremely dire situation, a near-death experience, would I actually obtain a trigger event to grant me my latent superpowers. Second, I'm in a somewhat more advantageous position when it comes to negotiating with my family. It doesn't mean they'll care more, they'll only pay more attention. Ugh I feel like vomiting after saying that. Anyway, it means that they have no choice but to approve my decision to leave school after my stunt. Third, I don't seem to have any plot armor or luck that's naturally given to main characters. Lastly, my anxiety and personality remained the same even after being placed in a dire situation and separated from my family. But maybe being separated from them for a longer time, while in a stable environment, would give more drastic changes to my personality?
I have made plenty of interesting observations too. It seems my family is genuinely worried about me even though they're really terrible at showing their care. Additionally, even higher ranked cities in a third-world country does not seem to have any care patrols or syndicate patrols. It's really surprising. I thought it would be common sense and normal to have care patrols roaming the streets at night, waking up homeless people, interviewing them, and bringing them to better places to spend the night. It's so disappointing that there's no syndicate patrols either. At least, there should have been a group of organized crime kidnapping homeless people to either sell their organs or recruit them to their faction. There's neither of them, just how boring this country is?! I'll definitely add both care patrols and syndicate patrols to wherever city I'm staying in someday.
I think care patrols and syndicate patrols shouldn't be only active at night either. They shouldn't exist only in outdoors either. There's plenty of bored and vulnerable people everywhere, especially those who are waiting in lines, waiting for food, eating food, running errands, and walking in highways.Those who are walking in highways, should always be checked, assessed, and offered help as well. Either they are too anxious to ask for ride, too broke to get a ride, or too interesting that they love walking in highways full of speeding vehicles.
It would take a while to write everything I've learned and observed. For one, I seem to have a strange gait, gaze, and movements that people around me can somewhat sense that I'm different, in a negative way. How bothersome. Another thing, approaching and talking to people while they have already seen you wandering around with your backpack completely open seems to freak them out. Annoyingly enough, people can differentiate between normal voice, weird voice, and depressed voice. They already assume that depressed voices will ask them for help or take something from them, hence making them more defensive. It's such a vicious cycle. Sad people needs more help, but humans are less reluctant to help sad people than happy people. They're more distrustful of sad people than neutral or happy people.
This is why smiling is important. Now I'm extremely impressed at chameleons who can feign smile and confidence at a moment's notice regardless of how they're actually feeling. It's an S tier skill at least, I'll definitely make my children practice it someday. There's so many possibilities that open up to you if you can learn to perfectly smile whenever you want.
I've gained a lot of experiences fasting so I'm no longer feel dead just because I skipped meals once or twice. I've recognized the importance of food too, in how it changes the mood of people and improves their baseline level of happiness. It takes a baseline level of happiness, not just to talk to people, but also to do things. This explains the function of the neurotransmitter Dopamine, as well as why depression makes people feel and look lazy. When you're fasting, you'll need more water than usual. When you're in a cold or hot environment, you'll need more water than usual too.
What's really disappointing is that I've never tested the power of command in people. I keep having the ridiculous thought that if only I give people direct commands, they will automatically follow it. If only I can prove/disprove it, those thoughts won't bother me anymore. Whatever, I'll try that sooner or later.
Now that I've already tried the retreat, I won't be able to do that again anytime soon. I'll be stuck here for a while. What's worse is that I dropped out of school, so I won't have a set path for independence either. I could only try and get a job on my own, which would prove to be another challenge, at least it would be easier than the challenges posed by school.
Although my parents appear to not care whether I graduate or not, they seem to keep asking the question about why I wanted to leave school. It won't be surprising if they decide to sue the school or something, creating years long legal drama. I don't like dramas, but legal dramas sounds like it could be a little fun at first.
Although I may seem a lil smart, I'm actually an extremely ingle-minded person. All my thoughts and actions usually gravitates at one topic at a time. I seem to have a hard time adapting to new situations and being flexible. I don't like how I approach everything in life with rigid plans and measured steps, when reality loves breaking everything that's too rigid. Spontaneity requires a level of flexibility and adaptability that single minded brutes like me doesn't have. The only thing I'm good at is suffering, suffering dramatically, and learning from suffering. Every bit of intelligence I have are paid in blood. Still, seeing an autistic and anxious brute is rather hilarious in its own way.
Wait.. I just realized my worst mistake during that expedition is being too busy and not chilling! I should have listened to music, sang in the hotel room, and talked to myself more. If I did, then my baseline happiness level would have been higher, allowing me to do more serious and important things. The second worst mistake is not going to the fortune telling. There was a fortune teller and palm reader beside the park, I SHOULD HAVE GONE THERE BEFORE RETURNING! Not that I'll have any money left to afford it.
I've recognized my incompetence, thus I'll be more serious in practicing and working on my own weaknesses. I'll practice the casuals, formals, and remote controls. Not only I'll practice them, I'll also research several methods of applying them.
Hm it's very tough, the highway is gone. I'll be walking on the dirt road to independence. Fortunately enough, those who know the dirt road well can use it as a shortcut to reach their destination faster than the vehicles on the highway. Unfortunately, trying to gain information is one of my glaring weaknesses, in which I compensate by being skilled at generating information instead.
The staircase leading to the future have became even more foggy. Sigh. This game.. had become a ragdoll physics simulator? How exciting!