Aside from Nomad’s rare––blue––shotgun, all the other items dropped from the two players were uncommon. The armor Slim had had on was of common rarity. That explained why the player had been so eager to avoid engaging me and stayed behind his teammate most of the time.
I picked up all the loot and carried it to the nearest vending machine to sell it. Then I returned to the chamber and commenced killing mobs and gathering up resources, which spawned here and there every now and then.
My experience bar was steadily growing and soon I leveled up to 19 and then to 20. I assigned two skill points so the Deleting skill from the Building skill tree. I saved the remaining eight skill points for later.
After some time elapsed, Flynn texted me, “Have you created a vehicle yet?”
“No,” I answered.
“That’s a shame,” He replied. “We could’ve fought the night mobs again tonight.”
Flynn was still in the first location. Since he had neither created a vehicle of his own nor repaired our bus yet, he couldn’t make it over to the second location where I currently was.
“How long before it’s night?” I texted him. I had no conception of time in this cave.
“About an hour,” He answered.
I realized that I had to get out of the cave and build a house to hold out against the night mobs in.
I reached the nearest way out and split the cave. The sun was hovering above the western horizon and the sky was darkening. The air was getting chiller.
I decided to build a house not far from the entrance of the cave. Lifting my left hand, I looked at the crystal and brought up the Crafting menu. After selecting a Stone Brick, I saw the stats of the brick. I was already familiar with them so I let my gaze fall on the last line.
> (Do you want to create a Stone Brick: Yes/No)
After pushing the Yes button, I saw a static translucent, green 3D image of a stone brick appear before my eyes. It was surprisingly big, about 36 inches long 24 inches wide and 12 inches high. The brick followed my gaze. When I fixed my gaze on the empty spot in front of me, another message popped up.
> (Do you want to place a Stone Brick there: Yes/No)
After I agreed, an actual stone brick replaced the 3D image. I didn’t need to bring up the Crafting menu again to create another brick. After the first one had materialized, the 3D image of another brick appeared before my eyes. I put it next to the first one.
And so it went.
Soon four walls were finished. Then I used the Deleting skill to cut a doorway in one wall. I had already learned the Generic armored door skill so I created a door and installed it. Then I brought up the Building skill tree again and unlocked a new skill, having assigned three skill points to it.
> Name: Touchscreen lock
> Description: Allows you to create a touchscreen lock.
> The stats of a Touchscreen lock:
> Level: 3 out of 3
> The code is consisted of: 6 digits
After creating a touchscreen lock, I came up with a 4-digit code and keyed it in. Then I entered the house and shut the door behind me. There was plenty of room inside.
I then created the roof. Since my house had no windows to admit daylight, it was pitch dark inside. I utilized the Flare skill. The light from the Flare hovering above my head penetrated about 30 feet into the gloom. More than enough to see by.
A message emerged before my eyes.
> Attention! The night will fall in 60 minutes!
I commenced creating inner walls. When I was done, I wandered around the house, admiring my work. Each room had two or three exits so it would be impossible for mobs to corner me in.
Since there were about forty minutes remaining until the night fell, I decided to build a garage. I got out of the house and jumped to it. Since the garage was smaller than the house, it took me much less time to build it. After creating a garage door, I got inside, cut a doorway in the wall between the garage and one room, and installed another door.
Another notification popped up.
> Attention! The night will fall in 30 minutes!
I brought up the Building menu and unlocked the Builder skill.
> Name: Builder
> Description: Allows you to create a builder with which you can create and upgrade vehicles.
> The stats of a Builder:
> Level: 1 out of 1
> Armor: 100000
> Physical resistance: 175
> Fire resistance: 250
> Frost resistance: 250
> Corrosive resistance: 250
> Electric resistance: 250
Since I had enough resources on me, I created a builder at the far end of the garage. Then I unlocked another skill from the Building skill tree.
> Name: Armored chest
> Description: Allows you to create an armored chest in which you can keep your stuff such as weapons, armor, resources, etc.
> Required ingredients:
> 1. Metal: >100 (*)
> The stats of an armored chest:
> Level: 1 out of 1
> Armor: 75000
> Physical resistance: 95
> Fire resistance: 65
> Frost resistance: 55
> Corrosive resistance: 15
> Electric resistance: 45
> (*) Note: The amount of resources needed for creating a chest depends on the size of the chest. The smallest possible quantity is 100.
I created a chest and placed it along the wall where the builder was. Then I also created a touchscreen lock and installed it on the chest. Then I raised the lid and looked inside. A message appeared before my eyes.
> (Do you want to put an item in the chest: Yes/No)
After I pressed the Yes button, the page refreshed.
> Select:
> Armor
> Weapons
> Resources
> Other
> (Cancel: Yes/No)
I chose Resources. The page refreshed again and I saw a list of all the resources I had on me. There was a button at the bottom of the page.
> (Do you want to put all of your resources in the chest: Yes/No)
However, the chest turned out to be too small to accommodate all my resources. I created another one and stuffed it with the rest of my resources.
Another notification popped up.
> Attention! The night will fall in 20 minutes!
I walked over to one window. Using the Deleting skill, I cut a long thin opening in the wall. Through the opening could be seen the desert stretched far into the distance. I cut a few more openings in the other walls. When I was done, the last notification popped up.
> Attention! The night will fall in 10 minutes!
I checked on my ammo, stimulators, and vigors. Should be enough to last me for the night. If not, I would gather the consumables and ammo that mobs would be dropping after getting killed.
Flynn texted me, “I’ve just checked on the thread I’ve posted. Two players would like to trade with you. One of them––Cry––can give you a level 20 legendary pistol named Fire and Ice. The other––Unkas––offered you a unique level 20 biker outfit and a bike in exchange for your legendary shotgun. So what do you pick?”
However, I didn’t make up my mind. My unique Ice Volcanos was level 15 while my character level was already 20. Although they still dealt pretty good damage to both mobs and other players, I would soon have to acquire a weapon approximately matching my character level.
And I also desperately needed a good armor. I had on the rare level 15 chitin jacket, as well as uncommon level 18 pants and boots. Their stats were far from excellent for my current level. Which was why it would be really nice to lay my hands on the rare level 20 biker outfit Unkas had offered.
I couldn’t decide which item to choose. I wanted both.
It was then that an idea occurred to me. What if I tricked both the players into giving
me their items and keeping my legendary shotgun? But how to do pull it off?
Before I could come up with a plan, a message popped up.
> Attention! The night had just fallen!
I brought up the map, marked my home so that I could easily find it if I wouldn’t make it through the night.
Pulling my revolvers from their respective holsters, I prepared myself for the assault.
Chapter eight
I didn’t make it. The night mobs in this location turned out to be tougher than I had expected them to. They breached my house and soon it was swarmed with overgrown bugs. I was running around the building, doing my best to stay alive. Yet the mobs soon circled me in.
After reviving in a Resurrection Pod, I decided to expand my house by either adding more rooms or building another floor. I looked out the window to see that it was fully light outside. If a player got killed at night, they revived in a random Resurrection Pod in the mornings.
Before climbing out of the pod, I checked the Character menu and found out that I retained level 20. However, the experience bar had reduced somewhat.
After getting out, I consulted the map and ran for my house. As I raced across the desert, a message came.
“Did you make it through the night?” Flynn had texted me.
“No. You?”
“I did.”
Then he said that he was going to go offline to do some chores IRL and asked if I had already decided which player I wanted to trade with. I replied that I couldn’t settle one or the other and had decided to trade with both.
“I must have missed something,” Flynn texted me a moment later. “You got only one legendary shotgun, right?”
“Yep.”
“Then how are you gonna trade with both of the players?”
I replied that I was simply going to cheat the two players. I was going to swindle them out of their items they offered in exchange of my legendary shotgun. If all would go according to my plan, I would get the items without handing the legendary shotgun over to them.
Flynn didn’t like it. He had the reputation of being honest and he didn’t want to stain it. Then I told him that he always could blame me. In the end, I managed to persuade Flynn to lend me a hand with this by giving him my word that I would give him the legendary shotgun for his help.
As for me, I wasn’t afraid of damaging my reputation. For after Christine had enslaved me and made me participate in the Arena fight, I realized something. After the painful ordeal I had to go through, I had realized that in order to survive, I had to be vigilant and tough. Unlike all the other players, I couldn’t quit the game but could experience pain. Before now, I had tried not to alienate other players. Yet it hadn’t turned out very well for me. So with my having these issues, I couldn’t afford to be soft on other players.
I told Flynn what message he needed to relay to the two players. Before quitting the game, he texted me, “By the way, the game’s gonna be updated today. It’ll add the main quests and fix some glitches.”
I wondered if the upcoming update would fix me. I myself was something like a glitch.
Eventually, I reached my house. Numerous holes gaped in the walls. Some of them were big enough for a player to squeeze through. Had to fix them quick.
Entering the house, I found the dead body of my previous character. Luckily, no player had barged into my house so all my armor, weapons, and consumables were scattered around the floor. After retrieving my stuff, putting on the armor, and sliding the revolvers into their respective holsters, I headed for the garage.
The chests I had created last night were undamaged. The mobs hadn’t been interested in destroying them. I walked over to one of them, keyed in the code, and raised the lid. Since my house was made out of stone, I needed stone to repair it.
I took it, walked over to the breach in one wall, and fixed my eyes on it. A moment later, a message popped up in my HUD.
> To fix this, you need:
> Stone: 34
> You’ve got:
> Stone: 1289
> You’ve got enough resources for repairing it!
> (Do you want to repair it: Yes/No)
When I pressed the Yes button, the hole disappeared. I walked over to another one and went to work. Soon the house was completely repaired, all the holes fixed, and the doors reinstalled.
I entertained the idea of entering the cave and gathering resources while there were few players online. Or should I create a vehicle first? I weighed the two alternatives for a spell, but before I could reach the decision, Flynn went online.
“Hey,” He texted me. “Those two players already answered.”
“What do they say?” I inquired.
“Unkas accepted what you have offered,” Flynn replied. “Cry’s gonna accept it on two conditions. First, he suggested that it be him who chooses the place to meet at. Second, he’s gonna reveal what your rendezvous will be via a mailbox ten minutes before the meeting begins. But he’s gonna let you appoint a convenient time for the meeting.”
So Unkas had completely accepted my proposal. It was very suspicious. Either he himself was going to fool me somehow or he had taken appropriate measures to insure himself against a possible fraud.
As for Cry, it was obvious that he had decided to err on the side of caution and was taking measures to prevent himself from being fooled by me––the player he knew absolutely nothing about.
So I had to be really careful and make sure they didn’t turn the tables on me.
I asked Flynn to tell Cry that I agreed to all his conditions.
“So when are you going to meet him?” My friend asked.
I pondered on this awhile and answered Flynn.
“Okay, I’ll tell him,” He replied and went offline again.
I left my house and headed for the cave. Since it was still morning and there were few players online, I didn’t encounter other players in the tunnels. I heard the scarce sounds of gunfire from time to time, though.
I wandered around the underground tunnels, wasting overgrown bugs and gathering up various resources. I didn’t come across any bodies of dead players as most players must have held against the assault of night mobs inside their houses.
The experience bar grew slowly but surely. Now that the level of my character was already 20, overgrown bugs were too weak for me. I got reduced exp for the kills. After I created a vehicle, I should drive around this location to find stronger mobs in order to get more experience points for killing them.
A few hours elapsed. More and more players connected to the game. Soon there were going to be as many players in the cave as there had been yesterday. Since I had already gathered up quite a few resources, I decided to leave the cave.
Upon returning to my house, I created another chest and stowed away all the resources I had just gathered in it. Then brought up the Building skill tree. I still had one unused skill point. After examining the skill tree for a spell, I assigned the skill point to the skill named Fireplace.
> Name: Fireplace
> Description: Allows you to create a fireplace in your house. You can use it to keep yourself warm or cook food.
> Required ingredients:
> Stone: 350
> The stats of a Fireplace:
> Level: 1 out of 1
> Armor: 300000
> Physical resistance: 175
> Fire resistance: 250
> Frost resistance: 250
> Corrosive resistance: 250
> Electric resistance: 250
Once I had a crackling fire going, I squatted on my haunches next to it and cooked all the pieces of mutant bug meat I had gathered while in the cave. Some of them I immediately wolfed down. Then I entered the garage and walked over to the builder.
Time to create a vehicle of my own.
There were plenty of standard bodyworks to choose from. I took my time examining them. Finally, I picked one I liked the best
and created it. After creating the wheels and the engine and covering the bodywork with armor, I strolled around the car, sizing it up.
A message popped up in the log.
> Attention! The game will be upgrading in 30 minutes!
My car looked exactly like a Humvee. It was big, tough, and powerful. It met all my needs and requirements. I returned to the builder and brought up the stats of the vehicle.
> Name: ––
> Armor: 150000/150000
> Speed: 250/250
> Stability: 100/100
> Turbo: The vehicle has no nitrous oxide engine installed.
Aside from a turbo engine, which I was going to install after leveling up and learning the appropriate skill, my car was fully upgraded.
Time to mount a weapon on it.
I had the Simple machine gun skill, which I had learned in the Training location on the first day. Sure, this gun was mediocre, but I hadn’t unlocked other weapon skills yet, so I created the machine gun and mounted it on the car’s roof.
There was only one thing left to do. I came up with a name for my car, returned to the builder, and keyed it in.
Glitch Boxset Page 46