by Arthur Stone
If he knew a way to actually get to the crane.
Shots rang out. They were single shots from different guns. Frugality was commendable, but only possible in situations where slow, deliberate aiming was an option. So the creatures were making their way to the destroyed stairs, and being mowed down by players up above. These were potshots, targeted bursts, as if the soldiers were trying to win carnival prizes.
Less than a minute later, Cheater had to join the fun. One monster ascended the outside. It nimbly went for the position of his ten adversaries, monkey-like.
Then, it fell ten floors when a bullet hit it in the top of its head.
Cheater took out a few more without trouble, but then had to draw his high-caliber rifle in place of the machinegun. A powerful elite had decided to embrace the climb.
After that, he had to switch to his rifle roughly every minute. All the while he still could not devise an escape from the trap. The entire city block was packed with beasts. With all of the bottlenecks utterly full, their numbers swelled. Some were eagerly climbing the crane in their attempt to improve their position—putting a final end to Cheater’s ideas of using it for escape. Others had, for some reason, climbed the neighboring buildings. They were puzzled by the same problem Cheater had encountered minutes ago: how to get across.
Another ghoul fell prey to a large-caliber rifle bullet. He had needed to use Explosive Round with that one.
Cheater checked his mana meter and sighed silently as he deactivated Chameleon. There was no sense in burning energy to maintain ineffective camouflage. He would need plenty of mana at this pace.
Explosive Round was too greedy.
After finishing several creatures off with his machinegun, he took up the rifle again. Once the evolved ghoul in his sights had reached the twelfth floor, he knocked it down without needing to use any mana. The bullet may not have killed him, but falling from such a height would either finish the job or severely reduce his agility.
He activated Flash of Omniscience to verify that Benz’s people were not coming up any higher. He did not trust them—they could easily assume he had become preoccupied with shooting and come up to finish him off. Of course, they themselves were preoccupied, but it wouldn’t hurt their nerves to put a bullet in his head.
They did not seem to be advancing. It seemed they were in no hurry to tackle the master of the roof. The creatures were apparently struggling with the collapses from the explosions. Once they overcame those obstacles, though, the enemy players would have to retreat to the roof.
Unless Cheater evacuated the building before then, he would be fighting both players and ghouls.
After taking down a few more, he saw one monster so terrible that it might make atheists cross themselves. For a moment, he mistakenly thought the Trinity had arrived. It was a dire elite, but hardly an ultradire. Size-wise it was about equivalent to an elephant, and Cheater had encountered such monsters before.
This one was smarter than its predecessors. It did not immediately rush the building, but stayed in the distance to observe the actions of the besieged humans. So it made no moves to climb the wall, instead heading directly inside.
Two minutes later, the shooting increased dramatically. A grenade launcher joined the cacophony.
The radio provided an encore: “Cheater, did you see that one?”
“Yeah.”
“They don’t come alone. The Trinity might be coming. Get ready for some fun.”
He was already out of breath from continuously rotating among the three walls, firing every gun he had managed to collect from the first group.
After nailing another monster, he saw the dire elite fall from a window. It held a man in its embrace. They were intertwined, and the player screaming in pain and rage was trying to pierce the beast’s stone skin with a knife—and in response getting slashed by its claws.
Down they flew together, crashing into the thick crowd of ghouls.
This was unlikely to be the only loss they had suffered. Apparently those below were not doing too well.
Despite the deafening shooting, his sensitive high-level ears picked up an unusual sound.
It was an engine. Some kind of vehicle was approaching.
Was he imagining it? A tank convoy could punch through this crowd—but what would it do then, exactly? Who would risk such valuable vehicles in Trinitarian territory? How odd.
Such coincidences did not happen.
Note: High Perception bonus. Intuitive insight. There is a chance that you will be able to find out more by using the radio you claimed from an enemy.
He had planned to do that anyway. As unfamiliar as the walkie talkie was, the principles were clear enough. He could switch channels to contact various people within range. He could even choose to communicate one-on-one or publicly. As long as he knew how to properly change the settings.
Cheater had only ever pressed the ‘1’ button on the radio, to activate its saved frequency. Nothing else but the transmit button. Now, he began experimenting with other buttons, which caused him to stop shooting. This was, he believed, a more promising possibility.
The conversation he needed was taking place on channel 6. They were talking openly, without creating a secure channel. An unforgivable omission, since they certainly knew that several radios had fallen into the wrong hands. Everyone made mistakes, especially in such circumstances.
He did not recognize the first voice.
“—up to the turn. We will arrive in one minute.”
It was not just an unfamiliar voice, it was a strange one. That happened when the party was talking from the inside of a moving vehicle, and various tricks had to be used to reduce the level of interference.
“Alright, come from the west, and don’t you dare climb up higher. He’s not watching the west wall, but he’s on the roof.”
Now that voice he knew. It was Benz, giving instructions.
Cheater knew who they were here for.
He moved to the west wall, to the one held by Benz’s people. An amazing sight was approaching, in the midst of the street.
It had been commonplace in his past life, if that part of his memory was correct.
But here, it was not seen, especially with players at the controls.
Players did not fly helicopters. They operated short-range drones, at most. Flying yourself was too risky. The black clusters’ airspace boundaries were too unpredictable, too variable, and they could hit an airplane even though it was dozens of miles away from the nearest dead zone. Getting hit by dead cluster airspace was bad news. There was a difference between the electronics in a pickup truck dying and your controls freezing up at eight hundred feet.
Bots flew a lot, and they didn’t crash very often. No one knew why. The Nolds did not fear the black at all. Cheater had never heard of one of them crashing unless attacked.
Aircraft would be prone to crashes everywhere, and especially in border areas. Such places always had lots of dead and dying clusters.
Benz had a pilot on his side, and one willing to risk the flight through these crazy conditions. Not only had the man arrived—he was masterfully navigating the city at the lowest possible altitude.
Benz had planned this all out in advance. It was his emergency evacuation plan. Of course it was risky—but risk was better than death.
He applauded the man’s thoughtfulness. They had occupied Cheater with three of the walls so that he wouldn’t bother with the fourth. That was where the helicopter was coming from, readying a landing on the ledge below. The one his enemies were holding. By this point, the creatures inside had not reached this level.
The helicopter was unarmed, but it was quite large, and the whole group would fit. What was left of them, anyway.
Cheater did not have a seat reserved. They planned to fly off and laugh at the gullible idiot left fighting the whole borderland off on his own.
Cheater raised his heavy rifle, fired, and immediately hit the radio transmit switch, making his voice as o
minous as possible. “Good evening, pilot. Come up to the roof, or I’ll bring you down!”
The helicopter jerked as the Explosive Round slammed through it—but it did not fall. The pilot’s hand had trembled in surprise.
A hefty hole had just ripped through the safety glass right by his head—and through his seat, inches from his temple.
When there was no answer, Cheater continued. “Pull up now. I’m going to count to three. One!”
The copter had been maneuvering near the ledge, but now it turned slightly and began climbing.”
“Wrig, what are you doing?” Benz screamed.
“Sorry, boss, but I’m being held at gunpoint.”
“Dammit. Come get my team!”
“I can’t, boss. Cheater’s got his sights on my face.”
“Stop talking to him and come get me,” Cheater replied. Immediately!”
The first order was unnecessary—Benz said nothing more. He knew that the pilot would not change his mind. His life was utterly in Cheater’s hands. If the pilot took Cheater on board, he might survive the day. But if he didn’t, his bird was going down. Even if he did survive the crash, death by ghoul would follow in seconds. There was not a single spot where the pavement could be seen under the grumbling masses.
Unable to resist, Cheater shot down into them several times, taking out a few large beasts. That should give the pilot another hint alright. It was likely a terrifying idea to disobey a well-armed player who was waiting for your ascent and simultaneously enjoying casually fatal snipes at massive monsters below.
The pilot may be experienced, but the chopper was massive, and difficult to control. And he would be nervous.
The man was hovering now. “This is a dangerous landing zone; I don’t know if the roof will hold. This bird’s heavy.”
“Don’t land. Just come down a little more,” Cheater demanded.
The pilot obeyed, but at a worryingly slow pace. The shooting below had nearly died down. He did not know whether the creatures had gotten the players or they had rushed upstairs in a bid to take out the hijacker and recover their transportation.
Time was of the essence.
At last Cheater moved towards the copter, tossed his rifle and machinegun inside, jumped and grabbed the vibrating metal bars, pulling himself up.
He was on board.
Cheater had never been in a helicopter before, at least not in this life. He took the empty seat next to the pilot.
“Climb!”
“Where?” the frightened pilot asked.
“Just climb. Up. Get us out of here. Now!”
The roof began to recede as they rose. Beyond, he could see the ledge of the building where Benz had planned to have the chopper land.
Benz could not be seen. Only infecteds. Hundreds of creatures huddled there. So many that they pushed each other over the edge, with streams of falling fiends going down as their fellows struggled to join them.
Cheater had difficulty tearing his eyes away and pointed at the First Steppe. “That way.”
“Up?” the pilot asked, trembling.
“No, dammit, you can fly underground on the way for all I care, as long as I reach the steppe,” Cheater yelled.
“Going up high is too dangerous. We might get hit with black air.”
“I’ll hit you harder than any blackness ever could. Do it!”
The pilot complied with Cheater’s orders. They turned as they rose.
Then, the copter was hit—once, twice, thrice. Cheater glimpsed the edge of the roof. A player was firing madly from a machinegun. He hit quite a few times, but his Accuracy was comparatively poor.
Perhaps this was Benz himself. Abandoning everyone, he had rushed upwards to get his revenge.
Cheater was convinced that the enemy leader had done little but waste ammunition. The helicopter was so high that looking down took his breath away.
At that moment, however, an alarming red light began to blink on the pilot’s console, and electronics began beeping warnings.
“What’s that?” Cheater asked.
“Something’s wrong!” the pilot said, raising his voice for the first time.
Cheater oriented himself rapidly. “That way! Go that way!”
He could see his party’s markers there. They were not so far—the bird would reach the place in a moment.
But something really was wrong with the helicopter. Instead of obediently turning, it sharply lowered its nose. At the same time, its body began to vibrate so violently that Cheater’s teeth felt ready to rattle themselves into ruin.
“Fly that way!” he shouted again.
“We’re going down. We’re going down!” the pilot panicked.
The cockpit began to fill with smoke, and his nostrils detected the stench of burnt plastic.
The pilot was apparently not freaking out over nothing, and their flight would now reach its final destination.
Beneath them were fields, marshes, scattered ruins, and the bright tiled roofs of village houses. It was, as he was growing accustomed to, an incomprehensible jumble of assorted landscapes.
Cheater paid them no mind. Seconds remained until impact, and he had to survive.
Smile of Fortune was still in cooldown, preventing him from accessing its brief invulnerability. His only way out was a Shard of Invulnerability. It was a pity, of course—the item was valuable, and worse, he would be unable to use another one for a very long time. His most powerful trump card would be gone. What else could he do?
As he was reaching for it, he noticed something under the helicopter which offered a different option.
Water. They were over some kind of large body of water, and it looked deep enough.
Cheater did not examine it in detail. He did not take time to think. Luck was a capricious thing—it could change quickly. This was his only opportunity.
He leaped, and thanks to his phenomenal Agility, he could successfully clear the copter despite its chaotic spins on nearly every axis.
It was a perfect dive out of the door.
He regrouped in the air, preparing to enter the water feet first. But then he saw what he would, under normal flight conditions, have noticed before jumping. The reservoir was large, but Cheater simply had not had enough time to hit deep water. Instead, he was now heading for reed-covered shallows and a swampy coast.
He had no time to activate the Shard of Invulnerability.
Everything went black.
Chapter 29
Life Nine. Good Luck
He came to in an unusual fashion. There were no messages from the System informing him of his death. Nor was the priestly ability described to him, offering him the resulting choice.
He had not died.
Before he even opened his eyes, Cheater naively assumed his luck had extended beyond mere survival. He didn’t seem to be seriously injured. His limbs felt odd, to be sure, as though they were someone else’s limbs. That was a bad sign. But there was no significant pain. It was as if they were asleep, or maybe as though he had been brutally stunned and was waking up unevenly.
This was not surprising for a man falling a hundred feet from a careening chopper.
When he did open his eyes, he saw that he had hit the shallows. There was barely any water, but there was deep, thick silt. That was what had softened his fall.
Silt was everywhere: in his eyes, in his ears, up his nose. It filled his mouth. He had apparently swallowed it during his time unconscious.
By the looks of it, he had hit facedown and bounced onto his back. That explained how much his system had been pervaded by the stuff.
The bounce had also been lucky. If he had remained face down, he would have choked to death before returning to wakefulness.
Loss of consciousness was a serious symptom, so he made no hasty moves to rise. At first he restricted himself to minor actions only. Testing his physical capabilities. He could try to clear the sludge from his ears and listen to what was happening nearby.
When
he tried to move his arm, he nearly screamed. Unbelievable pain arced through his body. Every bone crackled into flame, every muscle was cut by knives, and every nerve was sprinkled with acid.
Cheater’s health was not doing as well as he had hoped. He might die here.
To distract himself, he opened the menu and viewed his character status.
Radiation: safe levels
Humanity: 23898
Injuries: one compound fracture, four simple fractures, damaged spleen, abdominal hemorrhage, trauma-induced pneumothorax, closed craniocerebral injury, spinal cord injury, extensive soft tissue contusions (see archived messages for more details on these injuries).