Volper
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- “Wow! Why are you just sitting here, with such skills and knowledge?”
- You know, kid, I’m just tired. Exhausted, I would say. I’m sick and tired of running around, saving the ass of all sorts of idiots, and shooting mutants. I'm tired of all these squabbles, intrigues, and experiments. In general, I am living the rest of my days out.
- “I don’t understand, Sanych, you can still earn yourself more replications.”
- Do you think that I don’t have any permissions to replicate left, kid? Yes, I do. I still have them! That’s the whole problem. – Sanych got wound up, gradually raising his voice and practically switching to a scream. – Yeah, this fucking Server doesn’t let me go! I already cut the levels and whatnot and it does nothing. Only if I die a natural death will my permission to replicate be canceled. And I’m tired, just tired of living, and I want to say goodbye to my family and friends for the last time.
While saying the last sentence, Sanych had already calmed down and switched to a normal tone. Having poured us two full glasses, he handed one of them to me, and we drained them in one gulp, in complete silence. My curiosity was eating me up, how long has he already been lived, since he’s so fed up with life? Trying to collect my thoughts, I wanted to ask him this question, but the last portion of alcohol hit my head, and the world around me just disappeared. In the morning, I woke up in the same place. Sanych wasn’t around, and all the bottles of booze had vanished. Having risen and stretching my stiff muscles, I was about to go out when Sanych appeared. He was fresh and awake, as if nothing had happened the night before.
- Well, have you come to your senses yet? -
- “It seems I have.”
- Then why the hell are you chilling out, dude? Who will train up your skills and abilities for you? Quickly, to the range! -
No, I’m still gonna send him to respawn; he should suffer a couple more decades. Although… it would be better to hire a killer, and pay for a dozen murders, occurring every twenty years, and let this old bastard suffer a couple of hundred years more. That’s how I made my plans for revenge, while jogging in the direction of the training grounds.
CHAPTER XVII: Inquiries
My week at the range passed by so quickly. Sanych, in the end, gave me some discouraging feedback: He kept saying that I was so worthless and I couldn’t do anything, and I didn’t know anything, and so on, just like he liked to say about all other newcomers. But it was clear that he was simply afraid of a new wave of boredom, which would come soon. I was now sitting and sorting out my stats, trying to decide in which direction I should continue to develop my character. Yeah, I actually didn’t even know what I wanted. I’d gone into the virtual world, so as not to be completely frustrated before my oncoming death. I ran around a little and shot someone… So what?
Now what? I have enough of the local currency. Now, I will haggle a little with Carefire, angling for several exciting items, and try to squeeze a trophy replication capsule into my share, pick up a couple of sets of equipment for different purposes, or maybe a couple of sets to use for the growth of my stats, if something interesting should happen. That's it. I don’t even know what to do next. I don’t want to turn into a dumb grind machine, I have nothing to earn and win, and I was lucky enough to have made a fortune. I’ll at least check how my character is looking…
Name: Volper
Level: 15
Experience: 23845/8109790
Armor (average): 1
Life: 60/60
Hunger: 14/120
Thirst: 17/120
Fatigue: 7/60
Carrying weight: 7.2 / 60
Stats:
Strength - 6
Dexterity - 9
Endurance - 6
Perception - 9
Intelligence - 6
Mind - 1
Luck - 8
Charisma - 5
Skills:
Handling one-handed guns - 58%
Handling machine guns - 56%
Handling automatic rifles - 53%
Handling firearms - 61%
Handling one-handed energy pistols - 68%
Handling energy pistols, machine guns - 71%
Handling energy shotguns - 27%
Handling automatic energy rifles - 63%
Handling energy rifles - 93%
Handling single-handed pulse pistols - 72%
Handling impulse submachine guns - 78%
Handling pulsed shotguns - 67%
Handling automatic rifles - 41%
Handling rifles - 87%
Handling thermal one-handed pistols - 23%
Handling thermal pistols, machine guns - 35%
Handling thermal shotguns - 62%
Handling thermal automatic rifles - 27%
Handling thermal rifles - 82%
Handling knives / daggers - 54%
Handling energy knives / daggers - 62%
Handling swords - 2%
Throwing grenades - 69%
Shooting with both hands - 63%
Combat engineering - 26%
Explosives - 32%
Pitfalls - 32%
Optical sighting devices - 53%
Digital sighting devices - 76%
Dressing wounds in the field- 12%
Fast reloading of automatic weapons - 52%
Silent movement - 48%
Searching caches - 7%
Mechanical hacking of locks - 25% (further development is blocked until your status as a third-class specialist is confirmed)
Regeneration - 12%
Trade - 6%
Torture - 25% (further development is blocked until your status as a third-class specialist is confirmed)
Vivisection - 25% (further development is blocked until your status as a third-class specialist is confirmed)
Interrogation - 25% (further development is blocked until your status as a third-class specialist is confirmed)
Intimidation - 25% (further development is blocked until your status as a third-class specialist is confirmed)
Injury - 25% (further development is blocked until your status as a third-class specialist is confirmed)
Professions: -
Progress:
Step beyond – You’ve looked into the face of Death itself. Who are you? Are you lucky or you are just a loser? After all, not only have you looked into the eyes of Death, but It also looked into yours.
Executioner - There are no people who remain silent and keep secrets under any conditions, there are just poorly interrogated people. You have proven that, if necessary, you can get info out of anyone.
Awards:
The emblem "The will to live" - a triangular sign with a hand depicted on it, clutching a bloody heart in its fist
Every true warrior, after seeing this badge, will respect your will to survive. After all, the main goal is to survive, in order to fulfill the remaining orders.
Classification icons: [Expand]
Killed neural network owners:
Criminals: 2
Persons dangerous to society: 19
Personal account: 2 378 925 credit points
What astounding progress I’ve made in just a week! Still, now every new percent point will be like bliss for me. I have already reached my limits, brought with me from reality, for basic skills, although I’d thought there would’ve been much more. It seems that, due to the fact that I hadn’t applied my skills in reality for a long time, they’d deteriorated a little, or the criteria for evaluation are stringent. My thoughts were interrupted by a flashing mail icon.
Sender: Alexander Carefire
Text of the letter:
Need to talk. Urgently! Waiting at the base.
Quickly jumping up, I began to gather my things. I don’t know what’s happened with Carefire, but it seems that something serious has gone down, since he doesn’t usually send me such short messages with orders in them. Putting aside my set of armor, which I’d taken from the base of the bandits, I jogged along the corridor in the dire
ction of the elevator. I reached the office of Carefire in the administration building in less than three minutes. The commander met me, pacing nervously from one end of the room to the other. Seeing me, he immediately stopped and focused his gaze on me.
- Tell me, what shit have you stepped into?
- What do you mean?
“In ten minutes, an investigator is going to arrive from the Alfarome Internal Security Office. I'm trying to figure out which of the three options available to me I should take. First, if you aren’t guilty of anything, then we simply meet this investigator, and then give him a kick in the ass. Secondly, if you’ve gotten into some trouble, I’m facing the question: either I’ll give you time to run away, or I’ll detain you for a little while and give the order to take you into custody.
So, dealing with the mutants has finally become a problem. Krill did warn me that I should keep silent about meeting him. It’s just unclear how this investigator learned about the mutants. Damn, I remember that the robot was shredded to pieces by Krill, but a couple of turrets were left alone. And, it seems, the information about them got into the reports, so the security guards got interested. If it’s all just conjecture, then I don’t need to worry, I just have to avoid directly lying… Fuck, who knows how advanced the polygraphs are in here. Stop it. And if they have any proof of me helping the mutants, how can that be an issue for me? Maybe it's really worth getting away before it’s too late?
Damn it, my thoughts are too jumbled up. So, I first need to calm down and think clearly - what can they do to me? Yeah, they can't do anything, I constantly forget that this is a game, but I perceive it as the real world. Well, they can put me in jail, but I think it’ll just be for a short time. I think the devs wouldn’t have created prison sentences lasting several years, that would break the game for every criminal, surely. Phew, now I feel relieved. Well, let's look at this investigator in person.
- “Why are you silent?” Carefire was clearly starting to get nervous.
- Well, I was just wondering if I could have, unknowingly, done something bad. It seems to me that I couldn’t have done anything illegal.
- “Okay, then relax,” – the commander replied. Those feelings of nervousness and tension that had made him so alert have finally vanished. Until the investigator arrives, there are a couple of minutes to discuss other issues.
- Yeah, but I have a question. What about my problem with Carso? -
- “I don’t know,” he frowned at hearing my question. “The guys from the Centre said that they can’t help for the time being. They promised to include this issue in the trial. Then, if you're lucky, according to the court ruling, the Server itself will send you data about the decisions. And why do you care about those things, are they that good?”
- Well, the problem is that I don’t know. I haven’t seen such a thing before, the Server doesn’t provide any description on the neural interface and when the rifle was examined, it exploded with such force that I thought they’d put a couple of kilograms of synthetic explosives in it. -
- “So it’s your crap that exploded at the research center?”
- Well, yes, it is, - I couldn’t object to such an obvious fact.
- I agree; it’s better not to sell such things right away. By the way, about the trophies… Have you already decided on the list of trophies?
- When could I have had the time to think about it? First, I spent the whole week at the range, and today you pulled me out of bed. -
- “Yes, I’m not hurrying you, I just have a suggestion. I’ll have the capsule and all the heavy weaponry, along with the furniture and thirty-seven percent of the total production. The difference, respectively, will be paid to you.”
- Stop, Alexander, I want to keep the capsule for myself, - I tried to stop this quick-witted boy.
- No, Volper, listen to me! First, capsules can’t be personal property. Secondly, where will you put it? Thirdly, who will service it?
Looking at it like that, Carefire was right. But, damn, I’d really wanted to get hold of my own capsule. That would give me a great advantage. It would be possible to organize a small division and engage in mercenary activities, even conduct further raids that would be practically impossible to do alone. Fuck you, you can have the capsule, but I’ll squeeze something useful out of you, but what can be gained here isn’t clear ... Oh, I know.
- “Give me a couple of hours to think it over, and then we’ll get back to this matter. OK?”
- Deal! The investigator is going to be here any minute. His vehicle has just arrived.
While waiting for the investigator, we stopped talking for a while. I was making plans for the future. I really wanted to be able to do far away raids, because that could give me access to various interesting locations: the laboratories of corporations, research centers or even some kind of secret military bases or test sites with limited access. Given the estimated size of the fifth level, I doubt that all these locations could be in one place. But there are several things preventing me from exploring properly: there is no technical nor research support backing me up.
I have no desire to give all of this to a third party. Well, Carefire seems to be a good man, although this is also questionable, I haven’t known him that long, but at the moment, he seems better than the scientists from the corporation. Again, the question of transporting valuables from the cleared locations arises. First, you need something to take them out with. Moreover, they also need to be transported somewhere. This can be organized, but then another question arises - I don’t want to start a clan or any other organization. I don’t want to be responsible for other people's lives. I’ve had enough of that to last me a lifetime, two even. I’m tired of it. Yeah, I understand that death here doesn’t mean the end, but psychologically, I can’t stand going through it all again.
Therefore, I can invite only a loner, or, at most, a group of several people who I can trust with my life. My musings were cut short by the door that opened and the man that entered, wearing an official looking, dark gray suit of an old cut. Such suits had been popular in the 21st, maybe the 22nd century in the real world. This isn’t the first time that I’ve noticed the fact that here, in Alfarome, ancient objects can exist alongside high-tech equipment. The man who’d come in looked around the room with an arrogant gaze and turned to Carefire.
- Good afternoon, gentlemen! I am the special investigator of the internal security of Alfarome, Mr. Survaker. I’ve arrived on behalf of the governmental department dealing with the affairs of mutants, or, to put it more precisely, because of Krill! Well, let's see what can tell me: I would like to interrogate a replicant at this outpost, from a cast from the long-term storage archives. This replicated person was registered by a representative of the replication center under the name “Volper”. I demand that you, in the shortest possible time, bring this person in for interrogation. And until this person is delivered to me, please leave the office. I need to prepare for the interrogation. -
Okay, what the fuck? I wonder how far the crematorium is from here. In my opinion, this dandy would be easy to deal with it. I doubt I’d get a chance to try it, though, as I can see Carefire is already red in the face with anger. OK, I’m going to put on a show now.
- Don’t you know that it’s polite to knock on the door before entering? - I asked Survaker.
- “What did you just say?”
Oh, yes, I recognize that look, it means: "How dare you speak to me without showing me the proper respect?" The commander also stared at me. It seems like he’d expected a lot from me, but not something like this. Well, I will now put on a show, even if it’s for only one viewer.
- I’ll ask you again: “Don’t you know that it’s polite to knock on the door before entering?” No? Well, I guess that means I’ll have to teach you, - I continued, still sitting in my chair. -We move our hand like this and knock on the door from the other side with the knuckles here… - Carefire was shocked, but I had my usual expression. The investigator, on th
e other hand, had begun to blush. -After that, we open the door a little and ask if we can enter, - after concluding my demonstration, I rose and approached the investigator. - And now, let’s practice! -
I take him by the shoulders, turn him around and push him out into the corridor. Then I shut the door. Turning my back to the door, I take a step forward and step slightly to the left and stop, stretching my right arm to the side parallel to the floor, while lifting my left hand up in a “stop” gesture, facing Carefire, without letting him ask any questions. One, two, three, the door opens at once, and I turn back around.
- “What are you doing?” The investigator began shouting at me.
- Wrong! - I interrupt him, and then quickly slam the door closed in his again. Only this time I’m stopping him from opening it easily.
“Umm ... what was that?” Carefire asked.
- I don’t like men like him! So I’ve decided to teach him a lesson. -
- “You’ll get into a whole load of trouble.”
- Alex, what’re you talking about? I’ve done nothing wrong at all; let's look at how he’ll report on the situation. I asked him one innocent question. Not having received an answer to it, I simply shared the information that I had, and offered him a chance to practice, in order to master this skill. On his part, there hasn’t been a single word said about his unwillingness to do this. -
Carefire literally froze for a few seconds, and then he began laughing wildly, doubled over. To my surprise, nobody was trying to open the door anymore. Gently letting go of it, I went to the chair where I had been sitting before, and then took out a knife. I began to calmly clean my nails with the tip of the knife. Carefire, still laughing, looked up at me and started shaking even harder, slowly falling under the table.