“Figures,” Vlad replied. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t need our help.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Has she given you only one machine pistol?” Vlad asked.
“Yeah.”
“Greedy bitch,” Vlad snarled. “She should’ve given machine pistols for all of us.”
“She’s only got one,” Nate replied.
Vlad parried his remark by saying, “But other colonists must have similar weapons. She could’ve asked them to give their guns to us for some time. It’s their asses that we’re trying to save here, after all.”
“We should be thankful that she’s at least given us one machine pistol,” Nate said.
“Somehow I don’t feel thankful,” Vlad said harshly. “After all, it’s you who she gave the gun to, not me. She even waited for me to leave her hut before giving her piece to you. That fucking bitch really doesn’t like me.”
Nobody likes you, I thought. And you have nobody but yourself to blame for that.
“Give me the gun,” Vlad suddenly demanded.
Nate just watched him for a moment. It was clear that he was not all that keen on giving the machine pistol to the Russian.
I had a pretty good idea of what was going on in Nate’s mind.
Vlad was both unpredictable and dangerous. He had almost killed me back on the space station. You never knew what to expect from him. Which was why Nate was reluctant to give the machine pistol to him. Sure, Vlad was already armed with a semi-automatic handgun, but if he was given the machine pistol, he would get a huge advantage over us. He was already dangerous as it was.
“Why should I give it to you?” Nate finally asked.
“Are you stupid or what?” Vlad asked. “Or you already forgot that I play as Damage?”
“So what?” Nate asked.
“Oh my gosh,” Vlad said as he rolled his eyes. “I’m a damage dealer here, so it’s me who needs to be armed with the most powerful weapons. Is it so hard to understand? You guys are so stupid.”
“If you’re so smart as you think you are, explain something to me,” Nate said. “Does it matter who is going to use the machine pistol? You are not going to do any more damage with that gun than any of us, aren’t you? Unless you’ve got some skills that can make that gun more powerful, of course.”
“Actually, I have such a skill,” Vlad stated.
Nate was not buying it. “Really?”
“Yes,” Vlad replied.
“And what exactly does that skill of yours do?” Nate asked.
“It turns my bullets into mini-grenades or something,” Vlad said. “Pretty useful skill if you ask me.”
Nate clearly did not believe him.
“Can you prove that you really have this skill?” He asked.
A smug smile spread across the Russian’s face. “You don’t believe me, but that’s okay. I don’t expect much love and trust from you, guys.”
Nate was silent, waiting for him to demonstrate some evidence to support his statement.
Vlad shrugged his shoulders and called up his Class Menu. A holographic screen popped up in front of him. The first branch of his Active Ability skill tree had three skills. The first one had already been learned. But it was clearly not the skill he had just told us about. The learned skill was improving the recharge delay of Vlad’s Active Ability.
Vlad tapped the second tab to expand it. The Passive Ability skill tree filled the screen. Its First Branch had two skills on it. None of them had been learned yet. He tapped on one of the two, and a piece of explanatory info popped up.
Name: Pyromaniac 1
Description: Every bullet you fire gets charged with dark energy, which results in them exploding upon penetrating your enemy’s flesh.
Status: 0/1
“See?” Vlad said with a smirk on his face. “Now you believe me?”
“You haven’t learned this skill yet, though,” I said.
He shot me an angry look and said, “I’ll learn it the next time I level up. I used my first skill point to improve the recharge delay of my Active Ability. But as soon as I level up, I’ll learn the Pyromaniac skill.”
“I see,” I said.
Vlad shifted his attention to Nate.
“So are you going to give me the machine pistol or not?” He asked.
Nate was still hesitating. He did not want to give Vlad the machine pistol. If he turned on us at some point for whatever reason, it would not be all that hard for him to deal with us with the machine pistol.
On the other hand, his Pyromaniac skill was very useful. If armed with both the skill and the machine pistol, he would become a force to be reckoned with. He would probably be able to easily deal with great amounts of overgrown insects. And according to Jennifer, there were lots of overgrown spiders to deal with.
“Come on, bud,” Vlad said.
“Okay,” Nate said slowly and with tangible reluctance. “I’ll give it to you.”
“Great,” Vlad said with a smirk on his face and held his hand out to Nate. “Can’t wait to use it on those oversized things.”
Nate did not reach under his jacket, though.
“I’ll give the gun to you but later,” Nate said.
“What?” Vlad asked, his smirk gone. “Why?”
“I’ll give it to you as soon as you level up and learn the Pyromaniac skill,” the British guy said.
Vlad was not happy with that.
“What if you waste all the ammo by the time I level up?” Vlad asked angrily.
“I’m not going to use the machine pistol,” Nate said. “I mean, unless we get ourselves in a fix.”
Vlad was clearly going to keep objecting, but Nate was not having it. He shifted his gaze to me and said, “Let’s go, David.”
I nodded and ignited the engine. The large off-road vehicle roared to life, and I guided it down the main street. It was not long before we were out of the colony. I twisted the steering wheel, angling the car to the forest.
We drove in tense silence for a minute.
“Does your Pyromaniac skill apply to your drone too, by the way?” Nate asked.
“How should I know?” The Russian barked in reply. He was still angry.
“Probably not,” I said. “Otherwise, it would be mentioned in the description of this skill.”
“You may be right, Davey-boy,” Vlad said. “But as you saw, I have only the First Branch of my Passive Ability unlocked. And there’s a digit 1 at the end of the skill’s name. So on one of the other branches that are currently locked, there has to be a Pyromaniac 2 skill that turns my drone’s bullets into mini-grenades too.”
“Yeah, probably,” Nate said.
The line of trees in front of our vehicle was getting closer and closer.
“Anyways, guys,” Nate said. “We need a plan.”
“What plan?” Vlad asked.
“A plan of how we’re going to go about doing our mission,” Nate said.
“We get in the forest,” Vlad said. “We find the lair of those spiders and get in. We kill every single nasty arachnid as we make our way into their lair until there are none of them left alive. How’s that for a plan?”
Nate shook his head. “I’ve got a feeling it’s not going to be that easy.”
“It’s just a video game, bud,” Vlad said. “You don’t usually make a plan to complete your quest in a video game, do you? So don’t be so obsessed with that.”
“As they say in the SAS,” Nate said, “proper planning and preparation prevents piss-poor performance. This is called the 7 Ps.”
“Never heard of it,” Vlad said dismissively. “And I don’t know what the SAS is.”
“The SAS stands for the Special Air Service, ” Nate said. “It’s a special forces unit of the British Army. And it is the best elite special operations force in the world.”
“Nah,” Vlad said. “The best special forces unit in the world is Spetsnaz.”
“Delta For
ce and SEAL Team Six beg to differ, guys,” I said, with a smile.
We then fell silent because we had just reached the line of trees. I stopped the off-road vehicle next to it. We studied the deep forest in front of our car for a moment and decided to continue on foot. The forest looked so deep, we were afraid our car might get stuck.
We climbed out of the Humvee and converged in front of the vehicle.
“It’s getting darker,” Alyson said, looking into the forest nervously.
“Yeah,” I said. “We should probably deal with those spiders before the night falls. It must be very dark in this forest at night.”
“Then let’s don’t waste time, guys,” Vlad said as he entered the forest.
We followed suit.
For the next several minutes, we just made our way deeper into the forest, constantly looking around, our pistols drawn and at the ready. We were not talking anymore. Even Vlad looked very serious now. While he was constantly saying that it was just a video game, deep inside, he was probably starting to change his opinion. However, he was refusing to admit it yet.
The forest was dark and scary. The brush around us was deep and there were lots of pockets of darkness. I expected huge spiders begin to jump at us out of nowhere at any moment.
If Nate, Vlad, and I were tense, then Alyson was downright terrified. The pistol in her hands was shaking. She was doing her best to stay as close to Nate as possible, her head constantly swiveling left and right.
“Take it easy, Alyson,” I said to her quietly. “It’s gonna be okay.”
It did not put her at easy at all. If anything, my lame attempt to cheer her up made the girl feel even more nervous.
She looked up at Nate as if seeking comfort or reassurance from him. However, he did not seem to notice her looking at him. He was peering through the trees, holding his pistol in front of him.
“Guys, there’s something up ahead,” he said and came to a halt.
The rest of us immediately stopped and looked in the direction he was staring.
“I don’t see anything,” I said after a second of staring in that direction.
“I don’t see shit either,” Vlad said.
“Are you sure you saw something?” I asked.
“Yes,” Nate replied. “I’m positive.”
I peered through the trees again, but all I could see were trees with long branches. It was really difficult to see anything through the deep foliage.
“Damn, guys, you are so scared, aren’t you?” Vlad said with a grin on his face. “You look like those dumb characters in a lame horror movie.”
He then let out a short laugh to show us how brave and calm he was. Only his laugh was not natural, revealing his own nervous state of mind.
We continued on. After we made a few steps, Nate suddenly stopped again and said, “I saw it again, guys. It appeared just in front of us for a second.”
I looked up ahead, yet I did not see anything except for the deep foliage.
“Your mind’s playing tricks on you and—” Vlad began but did not finish.
And I knew why.
About ten meters in front of us, out of the bushes climbed an oversized arachnid. That thing was awful-looking. It was about the size of a German Shepherd, with a bulbous body, long hairy legs, lots of eyes, and two nasty mandibles that look tough enough to snap a femur bone.
Also, when I looked at the creature more closely, a piece of info popped up above it.
> Name: Spider Warrior
> Level: 1
Beneath this piece of information about the creature, there was also its health bar. However, it did not display how many hit points the spider had. Due to that and to the fact that we could not see our weapons’ stats, it was impossible to tell beforehand how many bullets it would take before dying.
The arachnid just stood several meters in front of us, studying us as we were studying it. It then clacked its nasty-looking mandibles, which caused Alyson to squeal with fear.
Upon hearing the girl’s high-pitched cry, the arachnid launched itself at us. It scurried toward our small team surprisingly fast.
It was Alyson who brought her pistol up and opened up on the creature first. Half a second later, Vlad happily joined in. They killed the creature before Nate and I could even aim at it.
The arachnid dropped dead, yet both Alyson and Vlad kept firing at it, their bullets tearing into the creature’s body with sickly wet sounds.
“It’s dead,” Nate cried out. “It’s dead, guys! Stop shooting, you’re wasting your ammo!”
Alyson and Nate finally ceased firing. The girl still kept her pistol aimed at the arachnid.
“Is it really dead?” She asked, staring at the dead body with wide eyes.
“Looks like it,” Vlad replied as he walked to the corpse.
“Don’t do it,” Alyson said though it was hard to tell what was on the Russian’s mind.
He stopped next to the dead body of the overgrown spider and looked at it with disgust. He kicked it and when nothing happened, he looked at us and said, “Yeah, it’s dead.”
“Wasn’t it obvious it was dead?” I asked. “Did you really need to kick it?”
“Just wanted to make sure,” Vlad replied. “What’s wrong with that?” He then smirked and added, “Anyway, this thing wasn’t all that hard to kill, was it? This job’s gonna be a piece of cake.”
“Did you guys see its stats when it was alive?” Nate asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Me, too,” Alyson nodded her head.
“It was only level 1,” Vlad said. “No wonder we killed it so easily.”
“It also had a health bar,” I said. “I wonder how many bullets a spider can take.”
“It’s hard to tell,” Nate said, “but I think it died after the first several shots.”
“You guys wasted too many bullets on it,” I said. “We should go easy on ammo. We only have so many bullets on us.”
“I just wanted to make sure it wouldn’t get up,” Vlad said in his defense. “By the way, I’ve been given some experience points for killing that thing, by the way.”
“Me too,” Alyson said.
“How many points did you guys get?” Nate asked.
“Only seven,” Vlad said.
“I got three,” Alyson said.
Nate looked at her and said, “Looks like the exp for that thing was split between the two of you accordingly to the damage each of you dealt to it.”
“Yeah,” Vlad said, then looked at Alyson and added disapprovingly, “Since our guns are identical and I have no skills improving the damage I deal yet, we deal the same amount of damage. So my point is that you must’ve missed with most of your shots.”
Alyson lowered her head as she said, “I’m not good at video games.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Vlad said. “You really suck at it. You shouldn’t have even bothered to open fire on the spider. I could’ve killed that thing without your help. So why don’t you stay back and let us do the killing, okay? Busy yourself with keeping an eye on us instead. You’re a healer, after all.”
“Okay,” Alyson said very quietly as if feeling ashamed.
“And try not to make those funny, squeaky sounds of yours from now on, okay?” Vlad added.
“She just got scared that’s all,” I said.
“Yeah,” Vlad said. “I get it. But those spiders don’t seem to like such sounds. Neither do I, for that matter.”
Before anybody could say anything, Vlad wheeled around and strode deeper into the trees.
“Let’s go find the rest of them,” Vlad cried out to us over his shoulder as he continued on into the trees, not waiting for us to catch up with him.
“This guy is a piece of work,” Nate said.
“We really should put him in his place,” I said.
Nate shook his head. “Not now. We’ve got bigger fish to fry for now. Let’s concentrate on the job at h
and.”
And with that, we followed the Russian.
The deeper into the forest we went, the more overgrown arachnids we encountered. Most of them were warriors, so they just ran toward us. We killed them before they even got within biting distance.
Sometimes we encountered spider workers, too. They spat gobs of webbing from their spinnerets. So far, we had been lucky enough to avoid being hit by the nasty stuff.
The spider warriors died after two or three hits. The workers were weaker, so they took even fewer shots to go tits up.
Every now and then we slowed down to consult the map. The forest was deep, with plenty of high trees and bushes. If we had not been able to call up the map anytime we wanted, we would easily have gotten lost.
We were not sure where to find the spiders’ lair or how to find out the reason for their increased aggression toward the colonists. So we were just methodically combing the forest, taking out every overgrown spider we met.
I was wondering about something, and when things calmed down a bit, I asked Echo how come we could see a level of a spider when we looked at one.
Sure, it was a common thing in many video games, especially RPGs, but in real life, there was nothing like it. And since I was sure it was real life, and not a video game, seeing the level of spiders filled me with perplexity.
We immediately received a text message from the AI.
“When Jennifer Parker hired our organization, the area surrounding the colony had been scanned and all kinds of various creatures living there had been ranked in strength,” Echo explained. “This information was uploaded to the nanotrites in your bodies after you accepted the mission. So you can now see the levels of all the creatures living within the green area—your playable area, as you all seem to like to call it. I am sure you will find this feature very helpful. It will help you decide when to engage an enemy and when you had better not to. When you encounter a creature whose level matches yours or slightly higher than yours, you will know that you can defeat such a creature without much trouble. When you encounter a creature whose level much higher than yours, you will know that you should avoid engaging this creature for the time being.”
The Weaponized: The Complete LitRPG Series Page 14