Volper

by Ros Per

  At these distances, I don’t need it, usually, but now, the rifle, which is stored unassembled in a soft case and fastened to the right side of the backpack, is just what I need. Having unbuckled the case, I took out the parts of the rifle from it and proceeded to assemble the rifle. There were, of course, more interesting models in stock - with a greater firing range, with higher accuracy, and good rate of damage. But I liked this one, because it was possible to quickly assemble and disassemble it using several main parts, allowing it to be transported in a compact case, and, if necessary, assembled in fifteen seconds. I inserted the barrel into the receiver. Several turns, and special fixers tightly fastened it.

  This action took about three seconds. Two more seconds are for mounting a telescopic butt. From a side pocket, I pull out the longitudinal sliding bolt and drive it into place. Seven seconds have passed, and you can already shoot it, but that's not all. I take out another nozzle and fasten the threaded connection to the barrel. This is my trunk extension, and at the same time, a muzzle brake compensator with a slight effect of lowering the sound. Another two seconds are for mounting bipods and digital optics and then I put the magazine case into the rifle, and in the last second, I send the cartridge to the chamber. And here, in my hands, I have a beauty that’s ready for battle.

  Sniper rifle "Swift"

  Type: Combined energy-fire sniper rifle

  Ammunition: 9.19x61

  Places an energy shell on the bullet, causing damage:

  Kinetic damage: + 50-70

  Penetrating damage: + 45-60

  Energy damage: + 60-80

  Range: 1,300 meters

  Combat Rate of Fire (per minute): 30

  Modes of shooting: single

  Condition: 95%

  Weight: 2.8 kg

  Threaded cartridge "9.19x61"

  Kinetic damage: 35-52

  Penetrating damage: 38-47

  Condition: 100%

  Cartridge weight: 17.2 g

  I rested the rifle with the bipods on the edge of the building ruins, then used another precious second adjusting the height of the telescopic bipods so that it would be convenient to shoot without bending in an uncomfortable position. The soldiers carrying the wounded, in the meantime, had run another 150 or 200 meters, but the ones covering them had just started to retreat from the turn. The enemy wasn’t visible yet. A short mental message later - the grid of sniper skills opened in the lower part of the visible space.

  In mere fractions of a second, I go over the available skills and find what I need, activate the Rifle Corrections and watch my fingers run over the sight adjusting panel, making corrections for shooting and taking into account all the variables for the target that I am aiming at. This was much easier than doing it by hand, as Sanych had shown me. It usually took me 5 to 17 seconds for one new adjustment, manually.

  I’d gotten the skill only after the 23rd attempt, but now the skill would independently make all the corrections in two seconds. True, at the third skill level, the skill only lasts 15 minutes, but it gives a buff to my damage, increasing it by a fifth, if I don’t move. I freeze in anticipation of the enemy appearing in my sights, but for now, concentrating on my other eye, the one not looking through optics, I observe how, in the distance, the small figures of people are running in my direction. Some other figures appear around the corner.

  I focused all my attention on the image I was seeing in the optics and, with a slight movement of my hand, I aimed the rifle in the direction of the newly appeared bodies. Well, these are clearly not people, but something resembling the local bestiary. About a meter high, maybe a meter and a half, they were moving by slightly rolling on massive hind legs, which ended with huge, three-toed feet. These were used to stabilize their bodies, as they brought them forward.

  The front legs are atrophied and look like the beginnings of new, still growing legs. Their bodies were covered with some blotches; from such a distance, even through optics, it was difficult to see clearly, but they were very similar to horns. The muzzle was extended, in a cone shape, with narrow slits for eyes located on it. At the place where they should’ve had jaws, some tentacles were hanging down instead.

  (Picture: Cramber)

  I took all this in through my optics, for about three seconds, while my diaphragm calmed down after holding the breath on the exhale. At the fourth second, I aimed at the head of one of the mobs, which was running right in the middle of the road, and I gently pulled the trigger. A light push to the shoulder and a small shot sound signaled the beginning of the bullet’s journey toward its target.

  My eyes bugged out in surprise: I watched the monster getting up after that shot. It quickly shrugged it off and continued to run, but in the midst of the growths on its head, just to the right of the center of the forehead, a fresh trace from the ricocheted bullet was clearly visible. Damn it, it’s not a normal skull but the frontal armor of a tank! I won’t give up. I waited for the rifle to recharge, humming slightly as it did so.

  The indicator, located in the lower right corner of the sight, turned green, indicating that the energy circuit was ready, and I immediately fired another bullet. This time, the monster jumped over its own head from the bullet impact and became a lifeless carcass in the middle of the road. Casting a quick glance at the logs, I learned that I had killed some kind of creature called a Cramber. What an interesting beast: because of it, I now have seven percent of battery left in my rifle. And I’d taken only four spare batteries. Well, at least I’ve got an adapter for charging them from various power sources.

  In the meantime, the group of fighters split into two groups, taking up defensive positions in various places, hiding behind fragments of buildings that were scattered on the road. A little closer to me were the men who were dragging the wounded man in my direction, and bristling with weapons, trying to determine where the shots were coming from. But another two fighters, a little behind, about fifty meters away, tried to fight off the other monsters - two more accurate shots - minus two more targets. Moving the optics in different directions and making sure that there were no more monsters, I began to disassemble my rifle without haste, periodically casting my gaze to the side, where the dead monsters were lying.

  Looking around, I came out from behind my cover, and startled the guys who hadn’t come out of their covers yet. Boldly walking in the middle of the road, I raised my hand in a greeting gesture, after which, turning around, I went toward the opposite side. It was quite risky, of course, but I doubted that they would shoot me in the back. Just in case, I was walking, ready to, at any moment, roll to get out of the zone of fire. When they reached the nearest street, out of my sight, I relaxed a bit and felt relieved.

  Wandering through the streets, moving deeper into uncharted territory, bypassing clusters of various monsters, I did a bit of self-analysis - why had I interfered in that fight at all? Now, mulling it over, I understood that I’d just wasted my weapons. There’d been monsters, armored ones, yes, but not very fast. That group could’ve calmly fought them for quite a long time, diverting the attention of the monsters from the fighters who were dragging the wounded man, giving them the opportunity to get to the outpost. Even if they didn’t have a weapon capable of handling these mobs, they could’ve simply lured the Cramber mob up to the walls of the outpost, where the soldiers on duty would’ve simply killed it with their submachine guns.

  But no, I’d had to intervene, just like in the case of those fighters and then with Ellie. Although, no, in the situation with the baby girl, it would’ve been impossible for me to leave her in that dire situation; I would never have forgiven myself. Maybe I’ve just became much more sentimental with age, uh ... how to put it more correctly ... kind of sensitive? Damn, I can't even find the right word for. But on the other hand, what's wrong with that? I helped the guys, gave them the opportunity to save their friend, so I’d done the right thing, so to speak.

  Getting to the ruins of an old building, I stopped my prevaricating and began to
examine the district from the height of the third floor. That was the last floor left after the explosion. Everything lower was simply filled with a pile of debris of various sizes, forming a big hill on all sides of the building, along which I could easily climb. Yeah, a family of meat-eaters was walking with their offspring in one place. On the same side, about three kilometers from here, between buildings, there is generally a kind of amoeba hanging there, blocking any further progress. So, I won’t go there, I’d need somewhat bigger weapons to go through it. When I turned a little in the other direction, our eyes met.

  Two meters away from me, on the hill of debris, Krill was sitting and watching me. I didn’t understand how he’d gotten here, because when I’d climbed up here, he hadn’t been there, but now he’s calmly squatting in front of me, crowning the remains of the former greatness of this building. My first desire was to shoot the entire magazine case into him, but, remembering how he’d ignored my shots last time, I decided not to open fire. Making sure that I didn’t take any aggressive actions, Krill waved at me. Fuck yeah; a high-level mutant is sitting here, one who can turn me into stuffing in a split second, and he’s calmly waving a hand at me like that.

  - Hello. As I understand it, you’ve come to see me?

  In response, I saw an affirmative nod.

  - What for?

  He squeezes his palms and shakes them, mimicking a handshake.

  - Um ... You wanna thank me?

  Again an affirmative nod…

  - Ok, and why are you gesturing to explain things? You're a telepath.

  He grimaced in response and reluctantly shook his head. Then he pointed his finger first at him, then at me, and showed me an X with his hands.

  - You can't use telepathy on me, right?

  He nodded again. It’s strange, though, as I don’t seem to have any protection against telepathy.

  - Why?

  He rolled his eyes up, showing his annoyance, and began to count with his fingers in the air. Is this what he does to show that he’s thinking? Then he came up with something, apparently, and pointed at me.

  - Do you want to say that I'm being stupid? – No? Wow, what an arrogant guy! First, he came to me, uninvited, and now he’s trying to insult me.

  In response, he looks at me and runs five fingers along his face, as if he were wiping my stupidity from his face. I’m beginning to giggle. I just visualized this scene. The noobie of the human race is in the middle of the ruins of a building, and in front of him, there’s a high-level character from the mutant race, playing the old game "Crocodile" with the noobie. If you shot a video of us communicating – you would obviously get a couple of million views on the forum, guaranteed. Oh, I’ve gotten a little bit distracted; let’s get back to... mutants.

  - Try explaining it again.

  Sighing heavily, he nods his head and agrees, then again points his finger at himself, then at me, his head and then runs his finger along his neck.

  “You ...” - I express his gestures with words, or try to, anyway - “I will ...cut off your head ...?” What?!

  He shook his head, meaning no. Damn it, I hadn’t guessed it this time either. Okay, that’s my attempt number three…

  - Try saying it another way!

  Suddenly, a rather large rat jumped out to the right of me. Seeing this creature, I angrily pulled out my gun and shot a few bullets into her head.

  - Do not distract us from more serious things! - I roared in the direction of the corpse. – Don’t you see I'm busy! – And after turning to Krill again, we continued. - Come on, show me, I'm ready, I will solve your puzzle!

  In the span of three seconds, Krill looked at me and then at the corpse, then back at me, after which, again sighing heavily, he began to show me something with gestures. He pointed at his head, then put his index finger to his temples and knitted his brows.

  - Are you thinking? Or ... Remembering? No? - He frowned even harder and began to twitch his temples with his fingers. - Aaah ... Use telepathy! Well, damn, I would have said so at once. -

  Um ... In my opinion, after I’d said that last phrase, Krill became thirsty for blood, as evidenced by his murderous gaze, and not just anyone’s blood, but the blood of a specific target, the blunt noobie named Volper. I catch myself thinking that I am again being ill-tempered, and behaving like a teenager. So, calm down – take a deep breath ... and exhale ... everything seems to be alright. We must now concentrate and understand what he is trying to tell me.

  - Sorry, I got carried away, let's continue. So, we stopped at the fact that you use telepathy. The second piece of the puzzle - poking a finger at me - I, and what am I? – He points to my head. - Head? Another word, uh ... Face? No. Brain? Got it. You use telepathy, I have brains ... my brains, what? Scatter? It seems I understand. If you use your telepathy with me, my brain will just burst?

  He quickly nodded his head. It seems that my low mind stat has now played a cruel joke on me, and Krill has to pantomime in order to at least somehow communicate with me.

  - What did you want to thank me for?

  The silent scene lasted for a second or so, during which I imagined how he would now tell me all this with gestures and we, at the same time, slapped our faces with the palms of our hands. It looks like he’d had the same thoughts. Then, my idiot brain came up with a brilliant idea, but I had reason to believe that Krill would just kill me on the spot for not telling him this before.

  “Um ... Krill, will you promise not to be too angry with me? In response, he raised his eyebrow inquiringly, as if asking me to go on. “You seem to be a clever and experienced… man, you probably know how to write, and I have a tablet PC on which you can ... You could just type the text.”

  Krill slowly rose, climbed off the remains of the wall, walked a couple of steps to the side, where the wall was a couple more meters high, and firmly slammed his forehead into it, and then froze like that. After standing like this for a dozen seconds and, apparently, having calmed down, he turned to me and demandingly stretched out his hand, into which I put the tablet.

  CHAPTER XIX: Krill's Gratitude

  After Krill got his hands on the tablet, our communication became much easier. He’d just needed a device to type messages for me. Having quickly figured out how to use the tablet menu, he immediately began typing a message:

  “Follow me; I'll explain everything along the way.”

  After making sure that I’d read the message, he jumped off the building quickly and stopped at the beginning of an alley. And while I was descending, he leaned his back against the wall and quickly typed in a new text. Well, yes, if you compare his speed of movement and mine, he, waiting for me, can type not just messages, but also have enough time to type out an entire novel. When I got closer to him, he again thrust the tablet with the already typed out text into my hands:

  “I'll take you to an ancient research facility. The old wise man said that the things you find there could be very useful to you.”

  After I read it, Krill moved on, lightly jogging. I just had to follow him, thinking over the information I’d received. To begin with, there is a “Wise Man”, who, for some reason, is sure that I will find something interesting to me in this laboratory. Thus I have two more questions: how does he know what’s in that laboratory, and why does he think that it could be very useful to me? I am also concerned about the fact that Krill found me so quickly and how he even knew that I had left the outpost. He couldn’t have just been walking around the base for a week and a half, looking for me.

  Stopping abruptly, Krill slightly tilted his head, as if listening to something. Noticing this, I immediately took two quick steps to the left and crouched down on my right knee near the wall, smoothly removing the circuit breaker. The wall, near which I now sat, cut off at least one direction they could attack me from. I didn’t know what had stopped him, but now my eyes were running from side to side, carefully examining everything my eyesight could reach, and paying special attention to those places where the enemy
could be hiding.

  After standing in one place for a bit, Krill pulled his blades out from behind his back, which, after being released from the scabbard, abruptly, after just a moment, lit up with a greenish glow. It almost immediately expanded to five times the size of the blade, creating a kind of energy field around the swords, completely mimicking the shape of the blade inside. Slightly crouching, he moved the blades back a little, in such a position that the tips of these energy swords froze just a centimeter from the roadway. Krill's feet flashed for a moment with a bright light, which I didn’t have time to properly examine, but I managed to notice that he was somewhere in the violet color scheme, and he went off at high speed.

  Accelerating, gaining speed very quickly, he dived into the basement window to the left of the road, about a hundred meters away. Of course, he was very fast, but Sanych had much greater speed; I am amazed at such a thought, thinking about what hellish training and how many lives Sanych must’ve put himself through. Although I may be mistaken, I don’t know what percentage of his top speed Krill used now. After about half a minute, Krill appeared in the open again.