5 Chapter 4
[Branch Quest 1: Failed ...….. Penalty: None]
As soon as Oliver regained his consciousness, he saw a blue screen floating in front of him.
'I failed huh….no one ever mentioned anything about penalties though.....
I guess its good that I found it this way. It would be so bad if there was a secret death penalty. But FUDGE if the pain of dying wasn't horrible. It felt so real that for a second I thought that I was dead for real.'
|Welcome back Oliver. You did quite good in the tutorial. You were ranked in the top 25 percentile, |both in the amount of time survived and the number of monsters killed. Your use of melee weapon |was quite practical, not powerful or elegant, but still practical enough for survival. Your shooting was
|horrendous. You used 7 bullets on an average to take down one Goliath. You have been selected to |join the Advanced Melee & CQC Training, as well as, the Basic Fire Arms Training.
After a brief period of silence Grace continued again.
|It seems there's some change in the results. You will not be attending the previously mentioned |training programs. Someone will come shortly to talk to you more about this matter.
"What happened Grace?"
|Something did happen. I don't know about it though.
"I don't know if I should be happy that you didn't reply with a 'I can't answer', or I should be pissed off about that useless answer."
*Sigh*
"Whatever! Can you play songs in my head?"
|Yes, I can also play anything present on the internet including videos. If you close your eyes you |would be able to see the videos without visual overload. So, what would you like to hear?
"Hmmm….is there a band called Panic at the Disco?"
|Sorry Oliver, no results found.
"Well just play some latest upbeat pop songs then. I need to forget the soul wrenching pain of being eaten alive."
|Sure.
After listening to pop songs for a 10 or so minutes someone entered his room from the door that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. It was wearing a 3 meter tall yellow armor, almost a meter higher than his armor. The only visible weapons were two half meter long claws. But when the person turned around to inspect the room, Oliver found two machetes on the back side of the armor.
*Shing*
The face portion of the armor lifted up and Oliver immediately recognized the person.
"Hello Instructor Wolf! Nice armor there."
Wolf cracked a small grin and said, "I am starting to like you more and more kid. You can be calm enough to use your surroundings during a fight. You didn't back out until you were dead. You didn't waste time in decorating your room. And you certainly don't look like someone who was traumatized by the pain of experiencing death. Say kid, do you want an armor like mine?"
"It sure looks tougher than my armor."
"Cool. Then you are a member of Decapitation strike squad from now on."
....
*After a month*
The sun still hadn't fully crossed over the horizon yet, but the human army was full of vigor. Today about 80% of veterans would get an honorable discharge and the new members would take their place.
The front line fortress of the humans was bustling with constant activity.
The Fortress of Eryas, named after the human colony that sacrificed everything to keep the hive's destruction limited to their own planet, was buzzing with low hum of the teleportation device. New soldiers were being teleported in by thousands, and the veterans were being teleported out by thousands.
The combat engineers were running around the base with all their might, making sure that none of the heavy equipment being brought in gets a scratch. All the planes that had been recently manufactured were taking test flights to make sure that everything was okay.
Inside one of the barracks.
A group of 200 soldiers were chilling around. From their shiny equipment anyone could guess that these guys still hadn't steeped on the battlefield.
Some were chatting in small groups, others were telling jokes in front of small groups of people. A nice and relaxed feeling was flowing through the room.
Two soldiers were sipping a can of coca-cola and talking to each other.
"Are you nervous?"
"Hmm…I'm not nervous about dying, but I'm a bit nervous about it being my first mission in real life." The second soldier replied after caressing his chin for some time. "What about you?" He asked the other soldier.
"I'm not nervous at all. You know that I am an orphan, right? So, I have nothing to return to. My dad died fighting the hive, and my mother ran away with some guy and remarried. I have had trust issues since then."
"Damn! Your mother sounds like a total bitch."
"Maybe, but she didn't take any of the consolation money provided each month to the family of a deceased soldier."
"Are you sure? Cause I feel like she didn't take it because she couldn't."
"Man, that could seriously be it! But you are an asshole Oliver. When I said I had nothing to return to, you just agreed like it is a given. Can't you console me and say stuff like, don't worry bro we can live together after getting out of the army or something like that?"
Oliver stared deeply into Alex's eyes for a few seconds and said, "I don't know if you are serious or joking, but now I have one more not to leave the army. I don't want to spend rest of my life living with man."
Alex wasn't as much of a fool as he made himself look like. He quickly caught onto the words 'one more'.
"So that means there are other reasons you won't leave the army? Well, then I will follow you."
Before the conversation could become any more nonsensical it was interrupted by a sharp shout from Instructor Wolf.
"Gather around Decapitation strike squad! Our first mission will start soon. Oliver! Alex! It means you guys too." Wolf glared at the two assholes who were still sitting at the back and drinking coke.
"Captain we can hear you just fine from back here. Please continue." Alex replied back happily to the captain of their team.
Wolf wasn't very happy with Alex's answer…and she expressed it clearly. She looked into the eyes of Alex and Oliver and said in a calm voice, "Bitches I will give you one last chance. Come to the front right now or I will beat the shit out of you."
Oliver didn't want this "really exciting" day to have any more excitements, so he quietly and quickly walked towards the group. Alex hadn't anticipated that Oliver would defect so quickly and was completely stunned at the betrayal of his comrade.
Before he could think anymore about this matter though, Wolf decided that time was up, and screams of despair started ringing through the room....
While Oliver looked at the antics of his captain and maybe-friend Alex, he started reminiscing about the past month.
It was a really tiring month. Physical training, Anatomy lessons, and VR training combined together hardly allowed him to sleep for more than four hours each day. Thankfully due to high technological development the army had found a very good way to help the physical body of soldiers recover within those 4 hours.
Due to shortage of time the members of the Decapitation strike squad didn't even have time to eat proper food. They were instead injected with a serum called FTX-001. It contains all the necessary nutrients and vitamins for proper working of a human body, but barely takes a moment to enter the body and no digestion is required. Very essential product for people with shortage of time.
But the high intensity training takes a mental toll on the soldiers. It became especially prominent when recruits were training as a member of special forces like Decapitation squad. There were times when Oliver regretted using those rock clusters to survive a bit longer very much. He just wanted to be a simple soldier who kills hive creatures from behind the sturdy walls of Eryas.
Though it wasn't all bad stuff. He couldn't help but smile to himself when he remembered the thing called skills. Oliver had played some PC and MMORPG games when he was teenager. Although he had stopped playing them when he started university, but he was quite familiar with what the term meant. So, when he realized that he could gain and upgrade skills the child inside him was over the moons.
When he was eaten alive the 20th time within 24 hours of the first day of training, he got his first skill. It is called the 'Will of Steel'.
[Will of Steel (Level 2) –
Can completely resist mental attacks and illusions Level 2 or below.
Reduces the effect of Level 3 mental attacks and illusions by 80%.
Reduces the effect of Level 4 and Level 5 mental attacks and illusions by 50%.
Reduces the effect of Level 6 mental attacks and illusions by 20%.]
A pretty nifty auxiliary skill. But it wasn't that useful right away because as far as Oliver knew there were no hive creatures who could do mental attacks or illusion…..yet.
He had also obtained four more skills during the training.
[Military Melee Combat Art (Level 4) –
Increases damage by 40%.
Increase agility during combat by 40%.]
[Military Gun Arts (Level 2) –
Increase damage by 20%.
Increase shooting accuracy by 20%.]
[Armor operation (Level 5) –
Stamina consumed reduces by 50%.
Damage done by weapons on armor increase by 5% (Yup, its 5 and not 50).
Learning the operation of other armors increases by 25%.]
[Parkour (Level 4) –
Running quickly and efficiently has become a habit for you.
Stamina consumed reduces by 20%.
Running speed increase by 40%.
Reaction time decrease by 4%.]
All of the skills combined with the harsh training had completely changed Oliver. Whether it was physically or emotionally, he had become stronger. All his stats were around 2 when he had entered this god forsaken place. But now they ranged around 7, except his intelligence…it became 3.2 just recently.
'I should take a quick look at my status menu. I haven't looked at it in like two days.'
But before he could proceed with his actions though, Captain Wolf broke him out of his reverie.
She lightly dusted off her hands and started speaking, "As I was saying we have our first mission. three-fourth of the team, i.e. 150 of you, will be taking part in it. Our goal is simple – kill the enemy leaders. A million strong army of hive creatures will reach the fortress in approximately 3 hours. It comprises of 990,000 Goliath class creatures, 750 Armored Goliath class creatures, 250 Chimera class creatures, and 1 General class creature."
After hearing the number all the soldiers became quiet. It could be very easily imagined how tough the mission was going to be.
Captain Wolf didn't pay much attention to them though and continued speaking.
"As you know Goliaths are basically normal bugs on steroids. They are deadly but very easy to kill, so we will ignore them. About 30% of them are flying creatures. But we don't need to worry about that. Our air force has already set out to give them a blazing warm welcome.
Armored Goliaths are an evolution of normal Goliaths. They have better defense and it is hard for normal soldiers to kill them quickly. But it isn't impossible, so we will kill around 250 of them to lessen the burden on fortress defenders.
Chimeras are dangerous, mostly because of their unpredictability. They can easily climb over the defensive walls due to various adaptations, so they are an important target. We must kill all of them.
You guys don't need to worry about the general class, my squad will take care of it. If you see it…run away without thinking about anything else.
I will send your tasks, and exit route to your neuro chips right now. Take a look at them so that you don't die too quickly. Your entry route will be planned by your neuro chip while on the battlefield. If there are any unexpected changes in the battlefield then immediately alert me and I will tell you the new course of action. We will be leaving in 15 minutes. GO and get ready!"
After finishing all that she had to say, Wolf walked out of the room without a second glance.
Oliver moved towards the vending machine to get a bottle of water. But suddenly he heard a sound that he had started to like a lot. A short and pleasant bell sound was heard in his ear before the mechanical voice of AI-thingy took over.
[Branch Quest 2 –
Kill 5 Chimera class Hive creatures.
Kill 10 Armored Goliath class Hive creatures.
Reward – 10,000 SVP, 2 Skill points.
Note – Killing any more Chimera class creature will be rewarded with 1000 SVP. Killing any more Armored Goliath class creature will be rewarded with 500 SVP. Killing any Goliath class creature will be rewarded with 10 SVP.]
"Hey Grace, show give me a mental image about the task." And Oliver closed his eyes.
|Sure.
Within a second, Oliver was looking at a moving map.
|Oliver, all the figures marked yellow are enemies, but the red ones are your targets. There are 5
|Chimera class targets, and 10 Armored Goliath class targets. You will need to kill at least 400 |Goliaths to reach your targets. After contact, the mission shouldn't take more than 2 hours. If it goes |over that I will automatically send a distress signal.
'Sounds good to me. I won't be able to remember the map correctly, so do keep on providing me with info about my targets.'
|You don't need to worry about that Oliver. It is one of my main functions on the battlefield.
|I will project red dots on the all the creatures which will allow you to complete the mission in the |most efficient manner.
|Focus on killing things with a red dot over them and your mission will be complete.
'Cool. Grace you are such a lifesaver.'
|You are welcome.
*After 15 minutes*
About 150 3-meter tall armored soldiers rushed out of the Fortress of Eryas. The cold emotionless armors certainly added to the momentum of the brave soldiers.
They reached the enemy army very quickly.
The only yellow-armored soldier among them turned her head to look at her team.
"Soldiers fuck 'em up."
"Yes." A simple but thunderous response started ringing on the entire battlefield.
As soon as Oliver regained his consciousness, he saw a blue screen floating in front of him.
'I failed huh….no one ever mentioned anything about penalties though.....
I guess its good that I found it this way. It would be so bad if there was a secret death penalty. But FUDGE if the pain of dying wasn't horrible. It felt so real that for a second I thought that I was dead for real.'
|Welcome back Oliver. You did quite good in the tutorial. You were ranked in the top 25 percentile, |both in the amount of time survived and the number of monsters killed. Your use of melee weapon |was quite practical, not powerful or elegant, but still practical enough for survival. Your shooting was
|horrendous. You used 7 bullets on an average to take down one Goliath. You have been selected to |join the Advanced Melee & CQC Training, as well as, the Basic Fire Arms Training.
After a brief period of silence Grace continued again.
|It seems there's some change in the results. You will not be attending the previously mentioned |training programs. Someone will come shortly to talk to you more about this matter.
"What happened Grace?"
|Something did happen. I don't know about it though.
"I don't know if I should be happy that you didn't reply with a 'I can't answer', or I should be pissed off about that useless answer."
*Sigh*
"Whatever! Can you play songs in my head?"
|Yes, I can also play anything present on the internet including videos. If you close your eyes you |would be able to see the videos without visual overload. So, what would you like to hear?
"Hmmm….is there a band called Panic at the Disco?"
|Sorry Oliver, no results found.
"Well just play some latest upbeat pop songs then. I need to forget the soul wrenching pain of being eaten alive."
|Sure.
After listening to pop songs for a 10 or so minutes someone entered his room from the door that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. It was wearing a 3 meter tall yellow armor, almost a meter higher than his armor. The only visible weapons were two half meter long claws. But when the person turned around to inspect the room, Oliver found two machetes on the back side of the armor.
*Shing*
The face portion of the armor lifted up and Oliver immediately recognized the person.
"Hello Instructor Wolf! Nice armor there."
Wolf cracked a small grin and said, "I am starting to like you more and more kid. You can be calm enough to use your surroundings during a fight. You didn't back out until you were dead. You didn't waste time in decorating your room. And you certainly don't look like someone who was traumatized by the pain of experiencing death. Say kid, do you want an armor like mine?"
"It sure looks tougher than my armor."
"Cool. Then you are a member of Decapitation strike squad from now on."
....
*After a month*
The sun still hadn't fully crossed over the horizon yet, but the human army was full of vigor. Today about 80% of veterans would get an honorable discharge and the new members would take their place.
The front line fortress of the humans was bustling with constant activity.
The Fortress of Eryas, named after the human colony that sacrificed everything to keep the hive's destruction limited to their own planet, was buzzing with low hum of the teleportation device. New soldiers were being teleported in by thousands, and the veterans were being teleported out by thousands.
The combat engineers were running around the base with all their might, making sure that none of the heavy equipment being brought in gets a scratch. All the planes that had been recently manufactured were taking test flights to make sure that everything was okay.
Inside one of the barracks.
A group of 200 soldiers were chilling around. From their shiny equipment anyone could guess that these guys still hadn't steeped on the battlefield.
Some were chatting in small groups, others were telling jokes in front of small groups of people. A nice and relaxed feeling was flowing through the room.
Two soldiers were sipping a can of coca-cola and talking to each other.
"Are you nervous?"
"Hmm…I'm not nervous about dying, but I'm a bit nervous about it being my first mission in real life." The second soldier replied after caressing his chin for some time. "What about you?" He asked the other soldier.
"I'm not nervous at all. You know that I am an orphan, right? So, I have nothing to return to. My dad died fighting the hive, and my mother ran away with some guy and remarried. I have had trust issues since then."
"Damn! Your mother sounds like a total bitch."
"Maybe, but she didn't take any of the consolation money provided each month to the family of a deceased soldier."
"Are you sure? Cause I feel like she didn't take it because she couldn't."
"Man, that could seriously be it! But you are an asshole Oliver. When I said I had nothing to return to, you just agreed like it is a given. Can't you console me and say stuff like, don't worry bro we can live together after getting out of the army or something like that?"
Oliver stared deeply into Alex's eyes for a few seconds and said, "I don't know if you are serious or joking, but now I have one more not to leave the army. I don't want to spend rest of my life living with man."
Alex wasn't as much of a fool as he made himself look like. He quickly caught onto the words 'one more'.
"So that means there are other reasons you won't leave the army? Well, then I will follow you."
Before the conversation could become any more nonsensical it was interrupted by a sharp shout from Instructor Wolf.
"Gather around Decapitation strike squad! Our first mission will start soon. Oliver! Alex! It means you guys too." Wolf glared at the two assholes who were still sitting at the back and drinking coke.
"Captain we can hear you just fine from back here. Please continue." Alex replied back happily to the captain of their team.
Wolf wasn't very happy with Alex's answer…and she expressed it clearly. She looked into the eyes of Alex and Oliver and said in a calm voice, "Bitches I will give you one last chance. Come to the front right now or I will beat the shit out of you."
Oliver didn't want this "really exciting" day to have any more excitements, so he quietly and quickly walked towards the group. Alex hadn't anticipated that Oliver would defect so quickly and was completely stunned at the betrayal of his comrade.
Before he could think anymore about this matter though, Wolf decided that time was up, and screams of despair started ringing through the room....
While Oliver looked at the antics of his captain and maybe-friend Alex, he started reminiscing about the past month.
It was a really tiring month. Physical training, Anatomy lessons, and VR training combined together hardly allowed him to sleep for more than four hours each day. Thankfully due to high technological development the army had found a very good way to help the physical body of soldiers recover within those 4 hours.
Due to shortage of time the members of the Decapitation strike squad didn't even have time to eat proper food. They were instead injected with a serum called FTX-001. It contains all the necessary nutrients and vitamins for proper working of a human body, but barely takes a moment to enter the body and no digestion is required. Very essential product for people with shortage of time.
But the high intensity training takes a mental toll on the soldiers. It became especially prominent when recruits were training as a member of special forces like Decapitation squad. There were times when Oliver regretted using those rock clusters to survive a bit longer very much. He just wanted to be a simple soldier who kills hive creatures from behind the sturdy walls of Eryas.
Though it wasn't all bad stuff. He couldn't help but smile to himself when he remembered the thing called skills. Oliver had played some PC and MMORPG games when he was teenager. Although he had stopped playing them when he started university, but he was quite familiar with what the term meant. So, when he realized that he could gain and upgrade skills the child inside him was over the moons.
When he was eaten alive the 20th time within 24 hours of the first day of training, he got his first skill. It is called the 'Will of Steel'.
[Will of Steel (Level 2) –
Can completely resist mental attacks and illusions Level 2 or below.
Reduces the effect of Level 3 mental attacks and illusions by 80%.
Reduces the effect of Level 4 and Level 5 mental attacks and illusions by 50%.
Reduces the effect of Level 6 mental attacks and illusions by 20%.]
A pretty nifty auxiliary skill. But it wasn't that useful right away because as far as Oliver knew there were no hive creatures who could do mental attacks or illusion…..yet.
He had also obtained four more skills during the training.
[Military Melee Combat Art (Level 4) –
Increases damage by 40%.
Increase agility during combat by 40%.]
[Military Gun Arts (Level 2) –
Increase damage by 20%.
Increase shooting accuracy by 20%.]
[Armor operation (Level 5) –
Stamina consumed reduces by 50%.
Damage done by weapons on armor increase by 5% (Yup, its 5 and not 50).
Learning the operation of other armors increases by 25%.]
[Parkour (Level 4) –
Running quickly and efficiently has become a habit for you.
Stamina consumed reduces by 20%.
Running speed increase by 40%.
Reaction time decrease by 4%.]
All of the skills combined with the harsh training had completely changed Oliver. Whether it was physically or emotionally, he had become stronger. All his stats were around 2 when he had entered this god forsaken place. But now they ranged around 7, except his intelligence…it became 3.2 just recently.
'I should take a quick look at my status menu. I haven't looked at it in like two days.'
But before he could proceed with his actions though, Captain Wolf broke him out of his reverie.
She lightly dusted off her hands and started speaking, "As I was saying we have our first mission. three-fourth of the team, i.e. 150 of you, will be taking part in it. Our goal is simple – kill the enemy leaders. A million strong army of hive creatures will reach the fortress in approximately 3 hours. It comprises of 990,000 Goliath class creatures, 750 Armored Goliath class creatures, 250 Chimera class creatures, and 1 General class creature."
After hearing the number all the soldiers became quiet. It could be very easily imagined how tough the mission was going to be.
Captain Wolf didn't pay much attention to them though and continued speaking.
"As you know Goliaths are basically normal bugs on steroids. They are deadly but very easy to kill, so we will ignore them. About 30% of them are flying creatures. But we don't need to worry about that. Our air force has already set out to give them a blazing warm welcome.
Armored Goliaths are an evolution of normal Goliaths. They have better defense and it is hard for normal soldiers to kill them quickly. But it isn't impossible, so we will kill around 250 of them to lessen the burden on fortress defenders.
Chimeras are dangerous, mostly because of their unpredictability. They can easily climb over the defensive walls due to various adaptations, so they are an important target. We must kill all of them.
You guys don't need to worry about the general class, my squad will take care of it. If you see it…run away without thinking about anything else.
I will send your tasks, and exit route to your neuro chips right now. Take a look at them so that you don't die too quickly. Your entry route will be planned by your neuro chip while on the battlefield. If there are any unexpected changes in the battlefield then immediately alert me and I will tell you the new course of action. We will be leaving in 15 minutes. GO and get ready!"
After finishing all that she had to say, Wolf walked out of the room without a second glance.
Oliver moved towards the vending machine to get a bottle of water. But suddenly he heard a sound that he had started to like a lot. A short and pleasant bell sound was heard in his ear before the mechanical voice of AI-thingy took over.
[Branch Quest 2 –
Kill 5 Chimera class Hive creatures.
Kill 10 Armored Goliath class Hive creatures.
Reward – 10,000 SVP, 2 Skill points.
Note – Killing any more Chimera class creature will be rewarded with 1000 SVP. Killing any more Armored Goliath class creature will be rewarded with 500 SVP. Killing any Goliath class creature will be rewarded with 10 SVP.]
"Hey Grace, show give me a mental image about the task." And Oliver closed his eyes.
|Sure.
Within a second, Oliver was looking at a moving map.
|Oliver, all the figures marked yellow are enemies, but the red ones are your targets. There are 5
|Chimera class targets, and 10 Armored Goliath class targets. You will need to kill at least 400 |Goliaths to reach your targets. After contact, the mission shouldn't take more than 2 hours. If it goes |over that I will automatically send a distress signal.
'Sounds good to me. I won't be able to remember the map correctly, so do keep on providing me with info about my targets.'
|You don't need to worry about that Oliver. It is one of my main functions on the battlefield.
|I will project red dots on the all the creatures which will allow you to complete the mission in the |most efficient manner.
|Focus on killing things with a red dot over them and your mission will be complete.
'Cool. Grace you are such a lifesaver.'
|You are welcome.
*After 15 minutes*
About 150 3-meter tall armored soldiers rushed out of the Fortress of Eryas. The cold emotionless armors certainly added to the momentum of the brave soldiers.
They reached the enemy army very quickly.
The only yellow-armored soldier among them turned her head to look at her team.
"Soldiers fuck 'em up."
"Yes." A simple but thunderous response started ringing on the entire battlefield.
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