You were penalized free attribute points (70).
Current level: 271.
“Unlock named items for him,” I said, my voice exhausted. Handing over the levels had drained me. The process itself was simple, so simple that I hated having given up noa for it, in fact. Verloven unlocked yet another bit of functionality, that one labeled level transfer, and that was about it. Next, I selected the number of levels; sent them to Grust, who was the only available recipient; and doubled over in pain. It felt like I was being run over by a tank. Actually, it was almost on the same level as what I’d experienced the first time I boosted my strength. It took three hours for Grust to adapt to the changes, after which he started printing out syringes. I had to stop him — it was going to take too long to go from level 15 attributes to meeting the requirements of his level 13 rifle.
“Your request was approved,” Verloven said. “Grust can now collect as many syringes as he wants in the same block.”
“You’re kidding me! Why not just do that from the beginning?” my partner exclaimed. “Mark, how are you for coins? Got any to spare?”
“Here.” Three million hopped over to his account, and I turned back to Verloven. The function was stroking his new acquisition.
“Hey, you got anything interesting on you, function?”
“I don’t understand your question, Mark Derwin.”
“Damn it! There’s a lot I have to explain to you. Do you have add-ons for named items? Weapons, armor, accessories, anything. Or maybe, do you have named items themselves?”
“There’s the store…” Verloven still wasn’t catching my drift.
“The store doesn’t accept noa, and I just so happen to have three more units.” I decided to hold onto one of my stones just in case, pulling out the others. “Is that good enough of an argument to get you to dig a little deeper?”
The old man’s brows shot upward, though he quickly regained control. Glancing around, he whispered back.
“Yes, I have some things. What do you need?”
“Armor for Grust, binoculars for me, and an extender for the scanner. I don’t like how short Raptor’s range is.”
“Give me a minute.” Verloven’s eyes rolled back as he turned statuesque. I looked over at Grust, who was lying unconscious on a bench, his body adapting to whatever Swallow required.
“The armor and binoculars are fine, though there’s a problem with the scanner — there aren’t any named items with more range than Raptor.” It had taken the old man exactly a minute to run his calculations. “I can offer you flight drives for Grust’s armor or add power to Valkyrie. What about a grenade launcher? If you have two units of noa, I can throw in an invisibility cloak, the same one I’m wearing. Anything for noa!”
Damn it! I really could have used something powerful with area damage, and I had to think about it. Grust needed to fly; groups of monsters needed to be killed. And invisibility was key — I was lost without it. Of course, when the old man said the cloak cost 80 million, my enthusiasm quickly waned. I wasn’t going to lose two units of noa right there, and I definitely didn’t have that kind of change.
“Will you take coins for the grenade launcher?”
“Ten million,” Verloven replied immediately. “But you can just buy it in the store. It costs the same there.”
“I’ll take it!” I threw up my arms and pulled out the last noa stone. Hoarding didn’t get you anywhere in the game, after all. And while Grust was still alive, it couldn’t end. We’ll find another noa plant and pick up some more there.
“You’re full of surprises, Mark Derwin.” Verloven motioned to some servants, and they brought over the same kind of pirate chest Olsen had. “I’m glad we were able to come to an agreement. Here are your items!”
There was Ulbaron, an expansion for it, and two expansions for me. The expansions didn’t have names, just an explanation: Accessory for named item. While Grust was sleeping, I got to work getting everything ready. My mechanism repair skill made turning his armor into a flying fortress a piece of cake, after which I started tinkering around with Valkyrie. I declined the offer to change its name.
Valkyrie. Description: Universal automatic attack pistol linked to Mark Derwin. Current Valkyrie level: 13. Drum with 6 types of ammunition totaling 3900 rounds each. Ignores all armor types through level 13. Slows regeneration. Blocks 2 random abilities. Cannot be blocked in the game world. Range: 300 meters. Under-barrel grenade launcher that holds 13 plasma grenades. Requirements: Pistol shooting (70), agility (60), strength (60), monster knowledge (70), perception (60), resilience (60), device control (60), pyrotechnics (70), demo expert (70), defusing (60). Cost: 25000000 coins.
The additional feature necessitated some more injections — the two new attributes as well as the new skill needed a syringe containing 500 free points. Paying the million, I started working on my long-suffering armor. I’d already updated Ulbaron just recently, so it wasn’t too big of an issue.
Although, there were challenges… The device I installed, which came with 24x zoom, integrated with Valkyrie and my phone. Reticles, arrows, and some distance indicators appeared, none of which I understood. Sure, the zoom was fantastic. I was able to see a bird’s foot on the roof of the next building over, though the additional options were distracting. It was hard to focus. I assumed it would make shooting easier, but in that moment, it was tough.
The new suit took perception (60), good eye (60), and pistol shooting (70). That last one was presumably because it integrated with Valkyrie. The cost also jumped to 35 million, though I didn’t even pay attention to minor details like that. The syringe with 120 attribute points for good eye went into my leg. Finally, I was done, and pulling up my status table gave me a thrill.
Status table
Name
Mark Derwin
Coins
10844830
Level
271
Titles and ranks
Title: Hero
Ranks: Bandit Bane, Lone Wolf, Stone Wall
Attributes
Strength
70
Regeneration
60
Stamina
70
Resilience
60
Agility
70
Willpower
40
Necrotica
50
Cartographer
50
Fortress
60
Perception
70
Noiseless
40
Concealment
40
Scanner
50
Camouflage
40
Introversion
40
Hacking
70
Coordination
70
Aeronautics
70
Pyrotechnics
70
Demo expert
70
Good eye
60
Skills
Pistol shooting
70
Anatomy master
60
Rifle shooting
8
Consciousness block
40
Melee weapons
60
Trackless
40
Device control
70
Spatial perception
60
Device repair
60
Hacking protection
60
Detection
50
Electromagnetic impulse protection
60
Monster knowledge
70
Defusing
60
“Have you noticed that there aren’t really any electromagnetic weapons in the game?” Grust asked almost as soon as he woke up. He liked his Ulbaron, especially with the ability to fly, though his face fell when he saw the requirements running another few
million coins. Another four million left my pocket, and he printed himself out an enormous syringe.
“I’ve never really thought about that,” I said. “There’s lightning. Oh, and I have a skill — electromagnetic impulse protection.”
“Lightning is electricity. That’s different. And yeah, I know about the skill — I’m going to have to pick it up, too. But it’s strange! I checked the store, and there’s really nothing there capable of taking out electronics. No EMP grenades, no ammunition, nothing. That makes me nervous. They can use it on us, but we can’t use it on them.”
“Could that be because the owner is a robot?” I asked. “The general’s spawn are all metal, and the general is probably something like them. The game owner showed up on a ship, so why would it let us have weapons that could damage its home?”
“Mark, wait a second!” Grust suddenly jumped up and peered closely at me. “We can take the bastard out and stop the game! What do you have going on? I know about a military base where they were testing electromagnetic rifles. They were planning to use them on drones, but they’re perfect for us. What do you think?”
“I think we’re up to our necks as it is. And the first thing we have to do is take me out.”
Grust’s face turned into stony mask.
“Don’t worry, it’s just that another one of me showed up. Why don’t I tell you what happened while you were out of the picture? And then, we can decide what we’re going to do afterwards…”
You left the village. The hunt has begun.
Chapter 4
THE FEELING of complete helplessness was driving me crazy, and it took deep breaths to stay in control. It’s awful when you can’t do anything but still know you have to do something. As I walked through the forest, my eyes glued to Raptor, everything was quiet. All I could see were the other humans and Grust. The latter was a silent shadow pacing a hundred meters behind me. It had been an hour since we’d left the village, and nothing had happened since then. But that just made it worse — I was running out of time. There were still five hundred kilometers to go, and instead of flying off to look for the pearl, I was walking along trying to catch a ghost like some kind of idiot. Why did I have to get my camouflage and concealment so high? If I’d known I was going to have to fight myself, I wouldn’t have.
“Two hundred meters to the cache. You heading in?” Grust’s voice asked in my headphones.
“You go first. I’m going to destroy the thing, and you should get a level first.”
“Good call! Okay, cover me.”
My partner slipped past me and made it to the enormous boulder in the middle of the open field we’d made our way to. Even someone who knew as little about geology as me could recognize that it was malachite — green, glimmering, processed into a perfect cube. While the cache I’d found had been a fairytale oak, the second was more like a weight someone might use for a scale. You don’t get those perfect corners in nature.
“Done. Take it out.”
Grust retreated to the edge of the clearing, where he took up a defensive position. It took a while for me to force myself out of the woods. Hiding behind trees was one thing; stepping out with a target on my back was something different entirely. But it wouldn’t have been right to make Grust activate the spheres.
Slowly, listening to every rustle around me, I started in. My opponent was in no hurry to attack, letting me get all the way over to the boulder. It turned out to be twice as tall as me. Even just getting the bonus meant a quick flight up into the air. The chest was right in the middle, and I was about to jump forward when something stopped me. The whole thing was off. Something was there that wasn’t supposed to be. Flying a couple meters away, I circled the boulder, studying every side. Just a large, green stone. It was beautiful, the kind someone might make a chess piece out of, really a great piece of work. But I couldn’t figure out what was out of place.
Rapter was giving me the all-clear to move in, collect my loot, and activate the first sphere. Just in case, I flew another circle. Again, nothing. Grust let me work, understanding what was at stake. Finally, I edged closer and, as a last resort, activated my device control. There was nothing for it to latch onto, but still…
Remote control device detected.
Would you like to hack it?
The blinding explosion washed out the script on the screen for a few moments, and I finished reading it as I was hurled through the air. It was as hot as an oven. A wave of small rocks pelted my body, and the grand finale was something heavy smacking into my back. For a couple seconds, my consciousness faded, and I didn’t even notice when I hit the ground. What I did notice was that Ulbaron was flashing an enormous red exclamation point — its protection was dangerously low. Something — and not the explosion — had penetrated it.
“I see him!” Grust yelled happily, and I heard Swallow kick into action. It sounded more biting than a machinegun. Having a hard time concentrating, I tracked where the blue chunks of energy were flying, and my updated device automatically zoomed in. Valkyrie popped out of my arm; Grust’s rounds were joined by another pattern pulverizing the odd creature.
It was my opponent. From what I could tell, it was humanoid, though it had some extra upper extremities. Three or four, but definitely more than two. I recognized Ulbaron immediately — the named armor had a distinctive skin. With one hand, Raptor included, the monster was gripping a tree branch, while Valkyrie was trying to break through my protection from the other. And while I didn’t notice Fang, what I did see was that the creature’s pistol wasn’t adapted. My Valkyrie had a grenade launcher.
It took all of a split-second to recognize and process that information. Advanced perception really does work wonders. Ulbaron was down to thirty hits when Valkyrie jerked. The grenade launcher didn’t shoot quickly, pumping out just one grenade every three seconds, but even one plasma grenade was enough to send the creature flying off to the side. Grust straightened up and continued shooting. I couldn’t see it anymore, though that meant it couldn’t see me, either, and I was more than happy with that. My protection stopped dropping as precipitously as it had been. But as I rolled away, I heard Grust curse.
“It flew off… Damn it, that bitch! I wish I had that flying thing. You good?”
“I feel like a roast piglet,” I replied. At its current level, Ulbaron restored 13 hits every five minutes, which meant I was going to have to wait quite a while before I picked my next fight. Raptor flashed a few times to grab my attention. After I mentally tapped a few buttons, the logs showed up in my helmet. Are you kidding me? It suddenly made sense why things had gone south so quickly.
Each of my opponent’s hits had taken off six points of protection. The explosion hadn’t been that bad — the thermal burn and contusions had been taken care of quickly by my regeneration. But the creature’s direct attack had almost finished me off, as it had hit me nearly a hundred times. If it hadn’t been for Ulbaron at level 13, which gave me 650 defense, my adventure would have been over in the blink of an eye. Valkyrie’s rate of fire, from what I could remember, was 200 shots a minute. That meant my opponent had been shooting me for over thirty seconds… That’s terrifying, honestly. I could actually only count on 108 protection units rather than the listed 650. That damn general and its penalties!
“It took us a long time to get going, so it had a while to prepare. We’ll be smarter next time,” Grust said encouragingly.
“It’s going to take me half a day to be ready for the next time,” I muttered.
“What are you angry at me for? I buried almost a hundred shots in that thing, just one after another!”
“Plus ten shots from me… And a grenade. Still, it’s not dead, so the old man was lying. The bastard didn’t get all my problems.”
“It’ll die sooner or later. I tagged it with a tracker.”
“What?!” I jumped up, stunned by the news.
“You thought Swallow is worth thirty million just for fun? This baby’s got some meat to her! So
, yes, I know where that thing is, though I don’t have a map — it’s just flying around on a dark background. Don’t worry! We’ll be fine as long as we don’t make any more mistakes like that.”
“Here’s a map.” Sending him the map I’d downloaded from the general’s spawn wasn’t difficult. Just in case, I overlaid the coordinates of the remaining cache and the dungeon on it.
“Ah, that’s better,” Grust said cheerfully. “It’s right by the second cache. Waiting. Looks like it wants to pull the same trick, although…what am I telling you this for? Hold on, let me figure out how to share the picture with you, and you can see for yourself.”
A little while later, a red dot showed up to indicate where in the location our opponent was. I zoomed in on the map, finding the second cache also in an impenetrable thicket broken by an open field. And my reflection had taken up a position right at the edge of the field.
“Could it get rid of the tag?”
Pearl of the South (World of the Changed Book #2): LitRPG Series Page 5
