Pyrotechnics +70 (70).
Demo expert +70 (70).
Defusing +60 (60).
I watched sadly as my coins slipped away. The 1.4 million I had left wasn’t nearly enough to get me what I needed for Raptor or Fang. As I slipped into my new BRO-III outfit, I felt like I was about to hit the gas in some antique car — everything rattled and rumbled. And I remember when I thought this thing was the cat’s meow. Valkyrie found its way home, and I went back to leveling myself up so I could start living a reasonably normal life.
Just in case, I unlocked almost everything I’d had before, the only exception being rifle shooting. That was definitely something I could do without. Of course, just unlocking all the attributes and skills didn’t do much. It was impossible to get them up to where they’d been, as I just didn’t have the cash. I’d become a stripped-down version of the player I’d been not long before. And I wasn’t a fan.
Status table
Name
Mark Derwin, demolitions infiltrator
Coins
15830
Level
110 (0)
Titles and ranks
Title: Hero
Ranks: Bandit Bane, Lone Wolf, Stone Wall
Attributes
Strength
60
Closure
90
Stamina
40
Introversion
90
Agility
60
Perception
60
Resilience
60
Pyrotechnics
70
Demo expert
70
Regeneration
50
Concealment
40
Noiseless
40
Camouflage
40
Willpower
40
Fortress
40
Scanner
40
Cartographer
40
Hacking
40
Necrotica
10
Aeronautics
10
Coordination
10
Good eye
10
Skills
Device repair
50
Inner harmony
90
Pistol shooting
70
Defusing
60
Monster knowledge
50
Consciousness block
40
Device control
60
Trackless
40
Anatomy master
40
Detection
40
Melee weapons
10
Spatial perception
10
Hacking protection
10
Electromagnetic impulse protection
10
The worst part was that I was blind. Yes, I’d unlocked all the requirements for Raptor, though I was only able to get them up to level 40. To meet the requirements, I was going to need another 930 free points, or a veritable sea of coins. And all I had were a few droplets. I don’t even have anything to sell! In a moment of frustration, I checked to see if I could trade my damaged Ulbaron for coins, though the game just told me I had to completely restore it before it would take a look. I was getting pushed on all fronts, and there was nothing I could do about it. I’m just going to have to head in blind and rely on my new class as a damn infiltrator.
Suddenly, a wave of excitement hit me. Oh, right! There were mines waiting for me where the dungeon had used to be. Three mines and three remote controls would net me… Damn it, there’s that 50% commission, too… Selling them would only have gotten me a bit more than three hundred thousand. That little?
But it was time to make my move. Dropping Fang and Raptor in my storage, I ran off to collect the mines. No sense just leaving loot around. Although, that reminds me — what about those orcs I killed? They were only fifty kilometers away, and I didn’t think Tsarter would expect me to head north.
Chapter 6
THE LIST of top players in the location popped up on the screen, and I grinned. I’d lived to see the day where I’d dropped completely off it. And that’s perfect — nobody knows I’m here. Quickly slurping down some tasteless mush, I ran on, doing my best to stay away from the roads and villages. Thankfully, my map was working just fine. I wasn’t as blind as I’d thought, either. With my scanner attribute and my phone, I could “see” anyone within a radius of 40 meters, which was enough to jump farther away from the road when superior monsters were on their way by. They mostly ignored me. The players, who had their eyes glued to the ranking, didn’t know I was there. It was perfect for a newly minted infiltrator.
My fifty-kilometer forced march took all night. Olympic champions probably would have turned green with envy when they saw how fast I was going, especially given the fact that I was making my way through rugged terrain. And I only tripped and fell twice. But, of course, my 40 stamina points weren’t enough for me to keep that kind of speed up over the entire distance, so I had to take ten-minute breaks. A bit of food, and I was ready to dash off. Making it where I was going while it was still dark out was a must — the monsters weren’t as active at night.
The first rays of sunlight were just peeking over the horizon when I got to the empty meadow. My skirmish with the orcs had taken place about five kilometers from the edge of the forest, back two days before… Time flies! Just in case, I ducked down and stuck to the taller grass and little dips in the field as I moved forward. Better safe than sorry.
“When are they relieving us?” a disgruntled voice asked, scaring me nearly out of my skin. I was just a hundred meters away from my destination, and I’d just been getting ready to straighten up when I heard the question. But there was nobody on my phone screen. How are they here?! I missed Raptor — my spatial perception just wasn’t the same.
“Just sit there! It’ll be another hour,” a second voice replied. Okay, so there are two of them. At least.
“I’m hungry! And we’re sitting here like idiots. What’s he going to come back for? A few guns?”
“Both of you shut up! Orders are orders!” someone added angrily. Oh, there’s a third. And I think I even recognize it. Logr, the big orc who’d been sent to hunt me down. The hulk had apparently been punished severely if it had been sent there to guard some bodies.
Judging by the direction the voices were coming from, all three were sitting together, a little off to the side of where the battle had taken place. I crept closer and stopped to stare in surprise at the screen my helmet was showing me. My phone was streaming a beautifully laid-out network of traps. The entire field was so thoroughly mined that it was like they were expecting an attack from another reality. I counted thirty level three mines, though I was going to need to get even closer to be sure of the exact count. And I wasn’t about to do that. If the whole mess went off, nobody within two hundred meters would be left alive. And that’s all for me? I’m flattered!
Settling onto the grass, I got to work on the mines. The whole hour the player mention went toward figuring out how they were activated and finding the control center. As it turned out, there were two of them. One was not far away, presumably where the orcs were sitting, while I couldn’t reach the other. And that meant there was another cluster of fighters somewhere.
“Finally!” a voice exclaimed with relief.
“Where are you going?!” Logr barked, though nobody was listening. One of the orcs jumped up and waved. Two flying machines were heading in from the north, and the rest of the orcs got to their feet, as well. The trio, Logr and another regular orc included, showed up immediately on my scanner — they’d presumably been hiding behind some kind of device. I’m going to need to look into that.
“You lose!” Burut, another powerful player,
yelled from a distance. Logr spat a string of curses and slapped the orc who’d jumped up first.
“I’m going to get marked down because of you,” the hulk growled. “You’re on guard duty until the end of the game!”
“Commander, I just — ”
“Shut up! When we get back to the base, I’ll think up where to stick you so you never forget to obey orders no matter how many releases there are.”
The two flying vehicles hovered above us. An alien head popped out of one.
“Everything quiet?”
“I’m sick and tired of you asking that. Of course, it’s all quiet! Do you even check the ranking? Mark Derwin isn’t in our location! Do you have the next shift with you?”
“Easy, Logr, I have to ask,” the new arrival said in a conciliatory tone. “You know how it is — we all have the same rules.”
“Why don’t you come down here with your rules?” the hulk growled, though there wasn’t any more anger in his voice. Both vehicles eased their way to the ground, four fighters jumping out of each. It was time for me to make my move.
Fourteen players outfitted in level four armor were a force to be reckoned with. The only problem was that reckoning with them was much easier when it wasn’t a pitched battle or a well-planned ambush. They were alone, their guard was down, and they were just going about their business. But that was their fault. The first seven didn’t even know what hit them — it was time for them to spend some time reading unpleasant messages in the black nothingness. Two seconds in, their skulls were empty vessels with two holes in them. It didn’t matter what kind of equipment they had. There was no way it was standing up to a level 13 named weapon for long.
Once the first vehicle was clear, I turned my attention to the second. My targets were all right there. Four, including big Burut, dropped to the ground with heads split open. Only three were able to get down low enough that Valkyrie couldn’t reach them from where I was crouched.
And that was when my knowledge of disarming came in handy. The last hour had been well spent, and so I jumped up to dash right through the mined field. The path I could follow without triggering the explosives was highlighted by my helmet — I couldn’t have made a false step if I’d wanted to. They all saw my move, though that just led to their second blunder. Instead of firing away and hurling grenades, they covered their heads in expectation of the mines detonating. And that was their undoing. I didn’t even have to get close to the vehicle, clearing the area of the game owner’s players as I ran. Mark Derwin: 14. Orcs: 0. Onward and upward!
Always the optimist, I assumed the trio had let the rest of the orcs know they were under attack. It was a thirty-minute flight to where I was, which meant I didn’t have much time. A couple leaps took me to the second vehicle. Going as fast as I could, I stripped the orcs, driving away the realization of what I’d become. Looting came with the territory. And it wasn’t my fault the game played out in the real world instead of on a phone.
All the loot went into the vehicle. Hacking into the controls and getting it up and running was a piece of cake.
LTS-IV. Description: Modified flying transport. Maximum altitude: 30 meters. Maximum flight speed: 180 km/h. Number of seats: 10. Maximum load: 4000 kg. Protection: Universal force field (P-IV). Cost: 15000000 coins.
It wasn’t armed, though I was more than happy with the protection and flight speed. Performing the same trick with the second vehicle, I broke it down into parts and found myself 7.5 million coins richer. Fantastic! I definitely had enough to get Raptor and Fang back up and running. Also, that was a big step closer to Ulbaron. The only problem was that there were just fourteen phones — only the players who’d been lying in ambush had them. The corpses I’d killed two days before had all been stripped, the cheapest BRO-I outfits slipped onto their bodies with neither weapons nor helmets to their name. You guys really went all out. There was no point spending time on that crap, though I did go ahead and harvest the 43 level three thermal mines. At the last minute, I pulled out my phone. There was no point leaving the enemy even that little bit of loot.
You took the first picture of 44 dead players. 2640 coins received.
Finally, that was it. It had taken about twenty minutes to grab everything in the area — express loot service by Mark Derwin. But once I’d taken off, I remembered Grust and how proud he’d been of Swallow. A quick scan of the vehicle just in case nearly stopped my heart. They planted a bug, the bastards! Cursing, I was only too happy to turn it into dark dust. Well, they definitely know I’m in this location now. The orcs and Tsarter both.
It was time to go.
I decided to head where they would least expect me: the nearest orc camp, the one by the river. Everyone knew I needed to head south, which meant I needed to bide my time and do some more looting while there was still time left to bide. I wanted to take out the players who’d just gotten there, too. Really, the location could use some clearing.
I flew on for a good twenty minutes in an effort to put distance between me and the field. Once I finally got to the trees, I came in for a landing, sent the LTS to my virtual storage, and dumped a whole pile of items on the ground. Each orc had been equipped with three or four level four items starting at two hundred and fifty grand. And it was when my wallet got 7.8 million coins fatter that I started feeling on top of the world. Of course, I did have to sell half the mines, as well. Repairs and attributes were far more important.
But that wasn’t all. As I’d been going through the bodies, I’d found two interesting devices. They were small boxes that clipped easily onto your belt. Judging by their requirements, the biggest orcs were formidable adversaries — I’d gotten lucky to catch them at an inopportune moment. One of the devices got deactivated immediately; the other was sent to storage. There was no way I was going to sell them. And it was a good thing I’d gotten my hands on them, as I learned about one more thing I needed to make sure I always had on me.
Camouflage field PM-IV. Description: Creates a stationary camouflage field two meters across (activation time: 30 seconds). Disappears with movement. Completely blocks all kinds of radiation. Creates an invisibility field. 10 charges (8 remaining). To discover the field, must have level 50 perception and detection. Requirements: Camouflage (40), introversion (40), concealment (40), consciousness block (40), trackless (40). Cost: 2500000 coins.
The phones were next. As I’d already found out, orcs were impoverished creatures who only gave me 420,000 coins. And 180,000 of them came from Logr. On the other hand, the information the phones gave me was top shelf. The rank and file didn’t matter — there was nothing to glean from their devices. But the two hulks, as deputy commanders, had complete maps of the location with all the coordinates I needed. There was their headquarters as well as the three larva farms the orcs were assigned to guard. I knew where I needed to go next.
But before that, it was time for a quick break.
Raptor, Fang, and Ulbaron. There wasn’t enough to repair my armor — it was going to take a mountain of attributes and skills. Running quick calculations in my head, I sighed, disappointed in what had seemed like an enormous haul of coins. Okay, I’ll stick with the BRO-III. It wasn’t really giving me anything, anyway, as I was relying most on my universal protection. Oh, I need to buy a backup.
To use Raptor, I needed 930 attribute points, while Fang was much less demanding — it only took 360. Ulbaron, on the other hand, wasn’t just broken; it also meant I needed 1,230 attribute points even with the fact that I’d already gone a long way toward meeting the requirements. Five million went toward a syringe, three toward a level five universal protection, and a whole 7.4 toward a level five drone, my most expensive purchase.
Universal drone Flyer. Description: Fifth-generation flying vehicle. Range: 200 km. Flight speed: 200 km/h. Maximum altitude: 8 km. 10 integration slots. Built-in scanner. Built-in PM-V camouflage field. Requirements: Device control (60), device repair (60), agility (60), camouflage (60), introversion (60), concealment
(60), consciousness block (60), trackless (60). Cost: 7400000.
Raptor was fantastic at its job, only the range was limited to 130 meters. Everything outside that area was dark and mysterious. A problem, in other words. I couldn’t see where my opponents were hiding. I didn’t know how many there were. I didn’t know where to run. And I needed to maximize every minute I had before the game owner inflicted another penalty on me. Sure, it was tough to stomach the prices at level five, and I even had to pass on the cartographer, high-resolution camera, and universal protection, though I did have enough for an invisibility field and a scanner. The latter showed me everything alive and otherwise within a radius of three kilometers. Given the skills I had right then, there wasn’t a beast anywhere who was able to hide from me, be it a Tsarter fighter or my own reflection.
One thing I did change was the usual name. Mark-1 had served me well, but it kept getting taken out. There’s a jinx in there somewhere. Instead, I decided to stick with Flyer. It was new, and it also was pretty representative. For the same reason, I left the vehicle with the default name — LTS. I was going to be selling it anyway when I had enough to repair Ulbaron.
Pearl of the South (World of the Changed Book #2): LitRPG Series Page 8