Those messages had appeared in the log a few minutes before, but I hadn’t noticed them, for I had been too busy dealing with the two players in the pickup truck. The final message––the most important one––appeared not only in the log but also in my HUD for better visibility.
I brought up the map of the island. Once it appeared before my eyes, I spotted a huge circle above the map. The area beyond it was painted red. It was the Red Zone. If a player got in the Red Zone, he or she would be getting hurt until they get back to safety. I had learned it when reading the game guide yesterday.
As I looked at the map, the circle was slowly but surely shrinking. There also was a smaller ring within the bigger one. The inner ring obviously indicated where the bigger one would stop shrinking.
Looking at the map, I realized that after the Circle stopped collapsing, the thicket, the beach, and the wooden house I was in would be beyond the Circle. This whole area would be in the Red Zone. Which was why I had to get out of here ASAP.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have blown up the pickup truck. On the other hand, the way its engine compartment had crushed when the truck hit the tree, the car had been out of commission even before it exploded.
I scanned the map for a place to go to. There was a scattering of buildings not too far away. Had to be a small ghost town. The place was named Pineapple. As soon as I read the word, a thought flashed through my mind. I remembered that Jennifer and I had gone for the first date to the place that had had a word PINEAPPLE on its sign.
Another thought struck me. My girlfriend. Jennifer. She was playing the game right now as well. The intense gunfight with the two players in the pickup truck, as well as nervous minutes of survival in the thicket, caused me to forget about Jennifer. Yet as soon as I remembered that she had also decided to play Battle Royale Online, lots of questions flooded my mind.
Where was she right now? Was she still alive anyway? What if she was already killed? But if she was alive, how to find her?
I forced myself to calm down.
Assuming Jennifer was still alive, where could she be?
I looked at the map once more. The Circle continued to shrink. Even when it got to the inner ring, the playable––“safe”––area would way too large. No way I could check all the ghost towns and buildings on the island.
So how the heck was I going to find her?
Think, Jason, think.
Then it dawned on me. Pineapple. Of course. She would be there. If my girlfriend was still alive, she would survey the map at some point the way I had just done. And once she noticed the town called Pineapple, she would surely recall our first date. And then she would head for this place. That was for sure.
Suddenly, my vision blurred somewhat and all my surroundings turned reddish as if someone had turned on red lights inside the game. Although I already knew what had happened, I looked at the map again since it still hovered before my eyes anyway. My suspicions proved to be correct after I saw that the wooden house was in the Red Zone now.
Then I felt painful sensations spread all over my body as my HP started to shrink. I burst into a race, hanging the submachine gun around my neck on the run.
Once out of the house, I ran forward, my legs pumping. But all things considered, the pain was bearable and my character’s Health were shrinking slowly. When I finally got out of the Red Zone, my vision recovered and my HP no longer reduced.
I stopped and looked over my shoulder. The semi-transparent reddish wall kept on advancing. Yet it moved so slowly one could easily outrun the Circle without breaking a sweat. However, the rate at which the Circle collapsed would grow steadily as the game progressed. The same held true for the damage it dealt. I had taken little damage when being beyond the Circle, but at later stages of the game, I had better not to get in the Red Zone because its damage output would increase drastically.
I consulted the map once more. According to the map, I was standing within the inner ring, just at its edge. When the Circle shrank to the size of the inner ring, a message popped up in the log.
> Be advised that the next Circle collapse is due in 59min.
I jogged across an open field for a few minutes, staying close to dense bushes to hide myself in if necessary. All the while, I pricked up my ears for any sounds that might give away the presence of anyone in my immediate vicinity. Yet aside from the pounding of my feet on the hard-packed earth and my breathing, it was all quiet.
Eventually, I reached a dirt road leading to the town of Pineapple. The undergrowth bordering the road was thick. I jogged along the right shoulder of the road, hugging the bushes. I hoped to find some kind of vehicle soon. Without any means of transportation, it would take me way too long to reach the town.
A few minutes later, I heard a rumbling behind me. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw a car rolling down the road in my direction. The vehicle was still too far away for me to tell how many occupants were in the car. Better to get out of sight before whoever drove in the car spotted me.
Unfortunately, there were no trees I could take cover behind nearby. Still, thanks to the thick undergrowth on either side of the road, I could at least hide out. I dove in the nearby bushes, crouched, and reached for my submachine gun, ready to defend myself if spotted.
The growl of the engine grew steadily louder as the vehicle got closer and closer to me. I parted the branches in front of me and set about watching the approaching car. The vehicle bore a resemblance to a Jeep Wrangler. When the vehicle got within thirty or so yards of my position, I was finally able to make out the details. Looking through the windshield, I saw a player behind the wheel. There was no one else in the car except for him.
The Jeep kept jumping and bumping along the rough road. The player at the wheel seemed to be unaware of me. It was my chance to ambush him and get his vehicle. I had to kill him to get his car because there was no telling when I would find another one.
I brought my SMG to eye level and trained the gun on the approaching car, putting the driver in my sights. The car pulled almost level with my current position by now. My index finger slid into the trigger guard and onto the taut trigger.
And yet something prevented me from squeezing off a burst. Just like I had let go the shirtless man in the thicket because he had been no threat to me, I couldn’t bring myself to stiff the driver who was seemingly unaware of the impending danger that was about to happen to him. I knew it was stupid. You had to kill others in order to survive in this game. But I wasn’t a mindless killing machine. I was just an ordinary human and like any other person, I had strengths and weaknesses of my character. Taking out a supposedly innocent person seemed a terribly wrong thing to do. Especially, if they didn’t do anything bad to me.
The vehicle suddenly stopped right in front of me, kicking up gouts of dirt from beneath its tires. The engine stalled. A cloud of swirling dust obscured my line of sight for a moment. Then I saw that the driver’s-side door was open. There was nobody in the car now. Before I could do anything, the player who had taken cover behind the car stuck a big pistol around the front fender and started to shoot blindingly my way.
One of the slugs missed my head by millimeters. Another one passed so close to my right cheek I could feel its heat. I rose to my feet from my crouch and tore off. Then a wave of pain rolled through my body as a slug tore a furrow along my left side.
A message emerged in the log.
> You’ve just gotten a debuff!
A new icon appeared in my HUD. My eyes flicked toward it and I saw a piece of info pop up in front of me.
> Type: Debuff
> Name: Bleeding
> Description: Your Health is lowering at the rate of 3 points a second
> Remaining time: 00min58sec
Thanks to my having read the Game Guide, I knew that to stop the bleeding I needed to use an auto-injector. The problem was that I didn’t have any on me. I pressed my left hand over the wound, trying to stanch the flow of blood. It h
elped a little. The blood was still running through my fingers, but my HP was now reducing a tad slower.
Since the player still didn’t peek from around the car, he wasn’t aware that I was running away, so he continued to fire at the spot where I had been a couple of moments earlier.
I got to a knee and checked my UI.
> Health: 246/396
It was really bad. The debuff would wear off in fifteen seconds which meant that I would end up with about 70 Hit Points left. Dang it.
I should have whacked the player when he had been driving the Jeep. I had only myself to blame. My reluctance to stiff him hadn’t turned out very well for me.
Still not taking my eyes off the car, I ran along the shoulder of the road. After putting some distance between the car and myself, I stopped, turned to face the road, and dropped to a knee, hidden by a tangle of bushes.
I then lifted my SMG to eye level. Although I didn’t want to damage the vehicle too much, safety was my first priority.
I pumped a few 3-round bursts through the Jeep’s windshield. It crazed, then ruptured, spraying the cab with pieces of glass. Some of the rounds pinged off the hood while several others bored holes into it, damaging the engine. One of the slugs penetrated the player’s hand in which he held the big pistol.
> +50 exp
The player screamed in pain. The hand disappeared from sight.
With a few rounds left in my SMG, I ejected almost empty mag and stowed it away in a pocket on my vest. I wasn’t going to take any chances. I then pulled a full one from another pocket, inserted it into the well, and slapped my left hand on the bottom of the mag to click it into place. I then zeroed in on the Jeep Wrangler once more.
I started to fire 3-round bursts again, the bullets striking the vehicle frame and punching holes through the windows. Some of the bullets zipped through the cab of the Jeep, thudding into the seats, shreds of leather and stuffing flying every which way. Yet no notifications of getting exp popped up in my HUD, which meant none of my bullets hit the player this time.
I stopped firing. Nothing happened for several moments. Then I saw a rounded object flew from behind the car in my general direction. Tossed with precision, it arced through the air. I had barely leaped to my feet when the grenade detonated in midair, shrapnel screaming over me. My ears rang with the sound of the explosion.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted another grenade rushing through the air and took off running away. The player must have let the grenade cook off in his hand for a couple of seconds before tossing it because it exploded as soon as it hit the ground. I was lifted off my feet and hurtled a few feet to the side.
As soon as I dropped flat to the ground, I checked my UI to find out that I had less than ten percent of HP left. It was a wonder that I had survived. Perhaps I had been too far away from where the grenade exploded, which had saved my life.
Then I discovered that I no longer had the SMG in my hands; it was lying a few feet away from me instead. Also, my vision was now somewhat blurry and there was a new icon in my HUD. Yet I didn’t have time to check it out because the player darted from behind the car, leading with his big pistol.
He failed to spot me immediately in the thick undergrowth. Yet if I crawled toward where my SMG was lying, the player might spot me. So I pulled my pistol instead and brought it up to put the player in my iron sights. The movement caught his attention. He stopped abruptly and pointed his big pistol at me.
We fired simultaneously, the two shots sounding as one. His slug perforated the earth a few inches away from me, gouts of dirt flying up. Despite my somewhat blurry vision, I didn’t miss. My bullet struck the player smack-dab in the middle of his chest.
> +50 exp
The player panicked. He turned and started to run away, firing almost blindly in my general direction. I emptied the whole mag into the running player. Some of the bullets went wide, but a few others hit him in the legs, causing the player to stumble and tumble to the ground.
The slide of my pistol locked back. Having no more bullets for the handgun, I crawled on all fours toward my submachine gun. I snatched the weapon off the earth and trained it on the player. He had made a big mistake. Instead of finishing me off while he had a chance to do so, he decided to heal himself. Sitting on the dirt road, he pulled an auto-injector from a bag hanging by a sling over his shoulders.
Then he noticed me aiming at him and froze. Before he could do anything, I pumped a 3-round burst into the player’s head, blowing apart his eyes, nose, and mouth, the crimson spray of flesh erupting from his obliterated face.
> +100 exp for dealing critical damage
> +100 exp for the kill
The damage output of my SMG was only 75, but as told in the Game Guide, critical damage was a few times of a weapon’s damage attribute.
The player died almost instantly and a message appeared before my eyes.
> Congrats! You’ve just leveled up to level 4! You’ve got 1 skill point to assign.
The SMG at the ready, I checked my immediate surroundings for other threats, but luckily, there were no other players nearby. My eyes flicked toward the icon that had appeared in my HUD after the second grenade exploded.
> Type: Debuff
> Name: Concussion
> Description: While this debuff is active, your vision is blurry and you are unsteady
> Remaining time: 00min27sec
I stuffed the empty Newbie’s Punch into my waistband behind my back and pulled my T-shirt over it. After getting to my feet, I found out my head was spinning. I staggered out of the bushes and walked unsteadily toward the body. Dropping to my knees before it, I picked up the auto-injector he had been going to use on himself. A piece of info appeared in my HUD.
> Name: Auto-injector
> Type: Consumable
> Rarity: Uncommon (green)
> Level Requirement: None
> Description: Restores 300 HP and also negates all debuffs affecting you character
I pressed the needle of the auto-injector against my forearm where my skin was exposed and pushed down the plunger with my thumb. My vision was no longer blurry and my head wasn’t spinning anymore. I glanced at my UI.
> Health: 372/396
I then delved into the player’s bag. There were a few more auto-injectors, grenades, and extra pistol magazines inside it. I removed a grenade from the bag and looked at it.
> Name: Fragmentation grenade
> Type: Explosive weapon
> Rarity: Common (white)
> Level requirement: 3
> Damage: 235
> Effective radius: 5
> Time delay: 5
I took all the grenades out of the bag and attached them to my vest.
I then contemplated using another auto-injector to top my Health off but decided not to waste any more. At the rate my Health was regenerating, it wouldn’t be long before it restored itself completely.
I then picked up the player’s big gun, which looked like a Desert Eagle and checked its stats.
> Name: Violator
> Type: Pistol
> Rarity: Rare (blue)
> Level Requirement: 4
> Damage: 150
> Accuracy: 75
> Fire rate: 30
> Magazine size: 7
> Special quality: This pistol had a 30% chance of placing a debuff Bleeding on a player
Such thing as caliber didn’t exist in this game. Instead, all handguns were chambered for the pistol cartridge, all rifles for the rifle cartridge, and so on in this game. It meant that although my current pistol––the Newbie’s Punch––looked like a Glock 17 and the Violator bore a resemblance to a Desert Eagle, they both used the same type of cartridges.
So there was no need to keep the inferior level 0 Newbie’s punch. I pulled the pistol from my waistband and tossed it in the undergrowth on my right, then pulled the bag over the dead player’s head, slung
it diagonally across my shoulders, pulled a mag from it, and shoved it into the grip of the Violator. I also stripped a drop leg holster off the player, strapped it around my right thigh, and holstered the Violator. I then went through the player’s pockets but found nothing of interest.
After getting to the car, I swung the passenger’s-side door open and leaned over to look inside. I rummaged through the glove compartment for anything useful but came up empty. I slammed the door shut, dashed around the front of the Jeep, and slid in behind the wheel.
The hood was riddled with bullet holes, out of which gray smoke drifted up. Yet the car was still in working condition. The engine roared to life when I twisted the key in the ignition.
After consulting the map to get my bearings, I reached for the gearshift, put the car into gear and drove down the dirt street, heading for the town of Pineapple.
Chapter Four
I was gripping the steering wheel tightly, my eyes on the dirt road ahead. The dirt road was bumpy, filled with shallow ruts and holes, causing the vehicle to jump and vibrate as it struck each bump. I bounced so hard that the seat belt dug into my stomach. The vehicle seemed to be on the edge of breaking apart.
Sure, I could have slowed down a bit, but the Circle would begin shrinking again in about thirty minutes and the town of Pineapple would be outside the inner circle––that was to say, it would be in the Red Zone. Had to get to the town before it got swallowed up by the Red Zone.
The Last Player Standing: A Dystopian LitRPG Novel Page 6