I soon turned off the dirt road onto the narrow, barely paved road, which ran in a straight line across a grassy field to Pineapple. As I drove on, the car struck numerous ruts and bumps. This vehicle didn’t seem to be built for a smooth ride as I felt every bump in the road.
The vehicle bounced over the rutted ground for a while. Then a cluster of buildings came into view as I rounded a curve in the road. Had to be Pineapple. The ghost town was about a hundred yards ahead. I reached a relatively flat stretch of the road and pushed the brake pedal down, bringing the vehicle to a stop. There was no telling what awaited me in the town. Better be prepared.
So I brought up the Skill Tree and examined the third branch.
> Level 3 Branch:
> Skill #1
> Name: Sneaky 2
> Description: You footsteps produce 50% less noise and you are also less visible to other players when hidden somewhere or seen from afar
> Cost: 1 skill point
> Note: You cannot learn Sneaky 2 if you do not have Sneaky 1 unlocked
> Skill #2
> Name: Tactical Reload
> Description: Increases reload speed with all weapons by 25%
> Cost: 2 skill points
> Skill #3
> Name: Movement Speed 2
> Description: Increases Movement Speed by 10%
> Note: You cannot learn Movement Speed 2 if you do not have Movement Speed 1 unlocked
> Cost: 1 skill point
> Skill #4
> Name: Damage Resistance 2
> Description: You take 10% less damage
> Note: You cannot learn Damage Resistance 2 if you do not have Damage Resistance 1 unlocked
> Cost: 1 skill point
> Skill #5
> Name: Steady
> Description: Increases hip fire accuracy by 10%. Also, your movement speed penalty when you sighting down the iron sights gets ignored and weapon recoil with all weapons gets drastically reduced
> Cost: 3 skill points
Steady seemed an extremely important skill, but it requires not one, not two, but three skill points, whereas I had only one. Tactical Reload caught my attention as well, but it required two skill points. So I settled for increasing my character’s damage resistance. To learn Damage Resistance 2, I had to unlock Damage Resistance 1 first from the level 1 branch, which I did.
Since I didn’t learn any skills from the third branch of the Skill Tree yet, level 4 branch was still closed. Not that it bothered me much. Once I leveled up again, I would unlock Damage Resistance 2 and the branch 4 skills would be available for learning.
I pushed the accelerator, continued to drive down the road and soon entered the ghost town. It had about five buildings on either side of the street. Most of the houses stood one story high.
Although Pineapple was a very small town, it had plenty of places where players could be hiding. I scanned the windows for any signs of other players.
Then a muffled sound of gunfire reached my ears. As far as I could tell, they came from the three-story––the tallest––building on the left side of the street. Red and orange flashes of gunshots in one of the third-floor windows proved me to be correct in my assumption.
A troubling thought crossed my mind.
What if it was Jennifer who was in that building right now, fighting some players? What if they cornered her and she was about to die?
I pulled over to the curb at the side of the street opposite the three-story building. Pushing the door open, I darted out of the car and dashed across the street, the SMG at the ready.
I reached the opposite side of the street and forced myself to calm down a bit.
I knew I had to exercise caution, but it was a real hard task to accomplish. In my imagination, I could see Jennifer being assaulted by a gang of armed players. The thoughts that were going through my head did nothing to put me at ease. Instead, they prompted me to jump into action right away. Against my better judgment, I crashed through the entrance door into the lobby, making quite a din.
I saw a player standing at the stairs in the far end of the room and looking up the stairwell. The noise of the entrance door crashing against the wall caused the player to look around. When the player’s eyes met mine, he instantly spun around, bringing up the 12 gauge pump-action shotgun he held in his hands. The door rebounded back toward me as I raised my submachine gun to waist level. I pushed the door back with my left hand and dived for the floor as the player fired his shotgun.
Most of the buckshot went over my head, but some of the pellets caught me in the right shoulder, lowering my Health by about 10 percent. As I dropped on my left side, I triggered my SMG, sending 3-round bursts in the player’s direction. Some of my slugs caught the player in the chest.
He took off racing, blasting his shotgun on the run and racking the slide after each shot. Luckily, he was firing almost blindingly so no pellets hit me.
The player reached the opposite side of the room and busted through a door, disappearing from sight. I rose to my feet but omitted to follow the player through the door. For all I knew, he might be waiting for me to enter the room beside the door. At the point-blank range, his shotgun would kill me instantly.
So instead of going after him, I hung my SMG around my neck, pulled a grenade from my vest, and yanked out the pin on it. The only thing keeping the grenade from exploding now was the metal spoon that I was holding down with my fingers. When I relaxed my grip, the fuse would ignite and five seconds later, the grenade would detonate.
So I extended my fingers, letting the safety lever spring away from the body of the grenade with a soft cling. I silently counted to three, then tossed the grenade through the door. The grenade clanged as it hit the floor and then it exploded, sending thousands of ball bearings and fragments of the grenade’s steel casing flying in every direction.
I heard the player scream in pain. The screaming ceased as abruptly as it had started and a message appeared before my eyes.
> +200 exp for the explosion kill
> Congrats! You’ve just leveled up to level 5! You’ve got 1 skill point to assign.
I took a moment to bring up the Skill Tree and learn Damage Resistance 2. It unlocked the fourth branch of the Skill Tree, but instead of examining it, I closed the Skill Tree. There might be more players to deal with somewhere inside the building.
First of all, I dashed across the room toward the door through which the player had gone. His headless body lay in an ever-spreading pool of blood. I walked up to the player’s shotgun and picked it up. Its stats popped up in my HUD.
> Name: Equalizer
> Type: Shotgun
> Rarity: Uncommon (green)
> Level Requirement: 5
> Damage: 350
> Accuracy: 45
> Fire rate: 10
> Magazine size: 5
The shotgun had an 18-inch barrel, pistol grip, and no stock. It was the perfect weapon for close quarters combat. I racked the slide back far enough to see if a shell had already been chambered. It was there. The player must have reloaded the weapon after getting in this room.
I went through his pockets, found shotgun shells, and a few auto-injectors. I stowed it all away in my bag. I attempted to shove a shell into the loading port, but it wouldn’t go in, which meant that the shotgun magazine was full. I then left the room.
I went toward the stairs, raised the Equalizer’s stumpy barrel up the steps, and started slowly ascending. Although it was all quiet now, my gut feeling told me there were more players on higher floors. The further I ascended, the more vulnerable I became.
Something scraped against the floor somewhere above me, the soft sound the equivalent of the explosion in the otherwise quiet stairwell. Someone was on the stairs above me, that was for sure.
Crouching, I continued climbing the steps, one at a time, my eyes carefully examining the shadows for any sign of movement.
&
nbsp; The stealthy pad of foot on the floor reached my ears. Whoever was above me was close. Real close.
I reached the landing, stopped, and pointed the Equalizer at the stretch of steps descending from the second floor. Two players suddenly appeared on the stairs in front of me, submachine guns held tightly in their hands.
Players opened up with submachine guns, snapping off shots in my direction. Some of the slugs tore into the wall inches from my head. Dropping to a knee and raising the shotgun to shoulder level, I sent a load of buckshot into the throat of one player. The blast of the shotgun was almost deafening in the confines of the stairwell.
Blood gushed from the severed arteries in the player’s neck and his head fell to his left shoulder, still attached to his body by some tendons.
The second player gasped once as his now dead partner’s blood sprayed his face. The lifeless body of the first player tumbled down the stairs. His SMG fell from his hands and clattered down the steps. The body and the weapon came to a rest at my feet.
The second player panicked, which impaired his aim. The player squeezed the trigger of his SMG, stitching an irregular line of bullet holes across the wall above my head.
I racked the slide of the shotgun to chamber another round, steadied the weapon, and pulled the trigger again, popping off another shot. The 12-gauge buckshot leaped from the muzzle, spreading into a tight grouping and taking the second player in the chest.
The player grunted as a geyser of blood and flesh showered from the wound over the floor. The force of impact propelled the player backward out of sight. I wondered if the player was still alive.
The answer came a moment later when a message popped up before my eyes.
> +50 exp
> +100 exp for the kill
I racked the slide again. So far, I had fired two shots. As the shotgun magazine held only five, there were three rounds in the weapon. I took two shells from my bag and topped off the shotgun.
There was no noise above me now. Probably, I had stiffed everyone who had been in the building. Still, I had to be careful until I made sure there was no one else inside.
After going through the pockets of the two dead players and stripping them of ammo and auto-injectors, I checked the second floor. All the doors were open, but it didn’t necessarily mean the rooms were empty. As it turned out, no player was hiding on the second floor. I checked each room but found nothing of interest.
I returned to the stairs and started ascending them. Once on the third landing, I peeked around the corner. There were doors on either side of the corridor. At the end of the hallway lay the body of a dead player.
Who had killed him? Had the two guys I had stiffed a few minutes earlier wasted him? Maybe, maybe not. He might have been on their team. If that was the case, then there could be another player on this floor. Had to be real careful.
I rose from a crouch, stepped around the corner, and started down the corridor. I tried to tread very slowly and carefully, but the aged wood creaked under my feet every now and then, warning whoever might be hiding on this floor about my approaching.
I crept on, checking all the doors on my way down the corridor. So far, every room I had checked was empty.
As I was getting closer to the body, I noticed a trail of blood along the floor. It started from about the middle of the corridor and stretched all the way to the dead player at the end of the corridor. Looked like the body had been dragged a few feet along the hallway. But for what reason?
I slackened my pace, reducing it almost to a crawl. Something was clearly wrong. It was a trap, for sure.
There was a door on either side of the body. Those two doors were the two only ones in the building that I hadn’t checked yet. There might be a player in one of them. Had to be. He or she might be using the body as bait, hoping their opponent would overlook this obvious trap and, throwing caution to the wind, drop to their knees to search the body.
Eventually, I reached the body, the shotgun at the ready. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement on my right. A quick glance into the room revealed a player. Surprise, surprise.
He made no attempt to hide. He sat confidently, his back against the wall, his lips forming a smile. In front of him propped on a tripod was a belt-fed .50-caliber machine gun, the player’s hands resting on the grips of the weapon. I ID’ed the weapon as a Browning .50-caliber machine gun.
I leaped to the side as the player opened up. The roar of the huge weapon was almost deafening. The .50-caliber bullets shot through the doorway and then shifted to the wall as I dropped on my right shoulder. I was more than sure that just one such bullet would be enough for me to kick the bucket.
Dust and chunks of plaster showered me as the big slugs tore through the wall above me. The player inside the room kept up a steady stream of fire, shooting blindly, apparently hoping that some of the stray bullets would hit me.
I crawled on my belly along the corridor as the bullets continued punching holes in the wall. The player failed to realize that the huge holes he was making in the wall could work both ways. I rolled onto my back, put the shotgun on the floor next to me, and yanked the Violator from its holster.
So far, the player had fired all his slugs at chest level or above. Yet it wouldn’t be long before he started to aim lower. So I didn’t have much time. Had to carry out my plan real fast. When the player directed his fire a couple of inches away from my position, I sat up and moved to the nearest hole. Peering through it, I saw the player inside the room.
Unfortunately, the angle was wrong. I had to get to one of the holes that were closer to the door. I started crawling along the floor as the player kept on raking the wall with heavy gunfire.
I spotted the line of the newly created holed advancing on me as the player started to sweep the machine gun from right to left, firing through the wall at waist height. I dropped flat on my back as bullets tore through the wall above me. I waited until the player directed the gunfire a few feet away from my position and sat up again.
I peered through another hole. This opening offered a decent angle to return fire. But the hole wasn’t large enough to see through and shoot through simultaneously. I was about to move on to find another hole when the player noticed me. His lips curved into an evil smile as he started to sweep the machine gun toward me.
Trying to keep my cool, I committed the player’s position to memory and then stuck the barrel of my pistol through the hole. I angled the handgun at where I assumed the player was standing and started pulling the trigger, sending shot after shot into the room.
One of the .50-caliber slugs tore through the wall, missing my head by inches. A thought crossed my mind that one of the next bullets wouldn’t miss. I kept firing. When through half the magazine, I heard the player yell in a high-pitched voice and the roar of the machine gun ceased.
> +50 exp
I withdrew the Violator from the hole, holstered the pistol, picked up the shotgun, and leaped to my feet. I reached the door and looked around the frame. The player lay on his back. One of my bullets had taken the player in the throat. My bullet must have placed a debuff on his character, for he had clamped both his hands to the wound, trying to stem the bleeding.
I looked into the room on the opposite side of the corridor just to make sure nobody was in there. Then I returned to the first room and walked up to the wounded player. While still holding his throat with his left hand, he reached inside his shirt with his right. I instantly trained the Equalizer on him. Totally ignoring the shotgun aimed at him, the player continued to pull something from beneath his shirt.
He tried to say something, but all that came out was a gurgling sound. Blood kept on oozing between the fingers of his left hand.
His right hand finally came out from beneath his shirt, gripping an auto-injector.
I wasn’t sure why I didn’t finish him off. Perhaps because of his pleading eyes. But probably the reason for my hesitating was also the player’s
nickname. Vic Morgan. It was the guy who allegedly had been the last man standing in this game several times in a row. It was the guy whom I had met in the very beginning of the game on the roof of one building and who had told me not to trust anyone in the game.
The player pressed the needle of the auto-injector against his neck and pushed the plunger with his thumb. The bleeding stopped instantly and his throat healed up in no time at all.
Vic Morgan then sat up, his back to the wall behind him, his arms up in the air, showing his total willingness to obey.
“With the way you play, you got no business having won several times,” I told him. “That corpse you dragged over here was an obvious decoy. Anyone could have recognized it as a trap. And with the way you swept that machine gun of yours, you were way far from hitting me till you finally noticed me. Dude, you suck at this game. How come you’re said to have won several times?”
Vic Morgan recognized me as well.
“Please, don’t kill me,” he whined. “Don’t do this, man. Don’t kill me. I’m begging you. Don’t do this, man.”
“Why shouldn’t I?
“I gave you a piece of advice as you asked back there on the roof, didn’t I? Don’t you remember it?”
“Oh, I remember it, all right. I also seem to recall another thing you told me. ‘We’re enemies’. It was your words, not mine. So why shouldn’t I smoke you right now?”
Vic Morgan seemed to be on the verge of breaking into tears.
“Please, man,” he sobbed. “Don’t do it. If you kill me, I’m a dead man.”
“You bet your ass, you are. Just like anybody else when they dies. You get killed in the game, you won’t wake up in real life. Any player knows it.”
The Last Player Standing: A Dystopian LitRPG Novel Page 7