Volper Read online

  “Rackword” shoes

  Armor for: Feet / ankles:

  Kinetic: 2

  Penetrating: 3

  Thermal: 1

  Condition: 100%

  Weight: 1.2 kg

  "Saomi" trousers

  Additional slots: 4, pocket type

  Armor for: hips / knees / calves:

  Kinetic: 1

  Penetrating: 2

  Thermal: 1

  Condition: 100%

  Weight: 0.7 kg

  "Oyster" jacket

  Additional slots: 8, pocket type.

  Armor for: Torso / Forearms / Elbows / Upper arms / Shoulders:

  Kinetic: 2

  Penetrating: 2

  Thermal: 2

  Condition: 100%

  Weight: 1.1 kg

  "Clemor" gloves

  Armor for: Palms / Wrists:

  Kinetic: 1

  Penetrating: 2

  Condition: 100%

  Weight: 0.12 kg

  "Cargo"TM backpack

  Basic Slots: 2

  Additional slots: Connector for hydrator (not available), external system Molly.

  Volume: 18 liters

  Carrying capacity: 20 kg

  Condition: 100%

  Weight: 0.4 kg

  "SR-17" knife

  Damage: 5-7

  Overall length: 285 mm

  Condition: 100%

  Weight: 0.26 kg

  "PMK 428" pistol

  Ammunition: 4.2х8

  Range: 20 meters

  Effective rate of fire: 30

  Shooting modes: single

  Condition: 100%

  Weight: 0.42 kg

  "PMK 428" magazine case

  Ammunition: 4.2х8

  Amount of cartridges: 12

  Condition: 100%

  Weight: 0.11 kg

  Rifled cartridge "4.2х8"

  Kinetic Damage: 4-6

  Penetration damage: 2-3

  Condition: 100%

  Cartridge Weight: 2.4 g

  “The Hornet” submachine gun

  Ammunition: 4.2х8

  Range: 30 meters

  Combat Rate of Fire (per minute): 400

  Shooting modes: single, automatic

  Condition: 100%

  Weight: 2.4 kg

  The Hornet” submachine gun magazine case

  Ammunition: 4.2х8

  Amount of cartridges: 50

  Condition: 100%

  Weight: 0.23 kg

  After examining the attributes of the things, I was so mad that I just wanted to hang myself. Sighing heavily, I changed my clothes, put my backpack on, holstered the pistol on my right thigh, and the knife on my left leg – it was now quite convenient to take it out with both the right and left hand. Well, I’d had some difficulty readjusting the lower fastener to the link for the belt at first, but in the end, the scabbard sat well and comfortably. After filling all the magazine cases with ammunition and putting spares for the submachine gun into my breast pockets, I put an additional pistol in a special pocket on the gun holster. The I hung the Hornet around my neck with the barrel pointed down and adjusted its strap so that when I tossed it up on my shoulder, the belt wouldn’t press against the back of my neck.

  After changing my clothes, I decided to throw away the slippers that were left, so that they could be recycled, without a second thought. Jumping up and down a couple of times to make sure nothing was loose, I was already planning to leave, but then realized that I wouldn’t get far like this. Quickly looking through what they had on offer, I bought a reel of thin but strong cord, half a kilo of bandages and a spray bottle of disinfectant. By the way, I was very surprised by the absence of any elixirs or stimulating potions, which could immediately heal any wounds. After a moment's thought, I bought a 1-liter gas cylinder with a nozzle for directional fire and electric ignition.

  I had a bit of money left and so I bought some snacks, bringing the indicators for hunger and thirst to zero. Looking at the statistics of my weight capacity, I was pleased: almost fourteen and a half kilograms out of fifty available. I was disappointed only by the account status; there were only 13 credits left. After checking everything one final time, I decided that now was the perfect time to set off. I jogged to the nearest of the three gates and, after passing through the door with a group of players, went outside for the first time.

  The territory behind the perimeter welcomed me with the sounds of shooting coming from different directions and, judging by the sound, from different distances as well. But it seemed no more than five hundred meters away, maybe seven hundred. Looking around quickly and not noticing any danger nearby, I placed the cartridge into the Hornet in a hurry. I didn’t want to place any into the pistol, afraid to carry around a loaded pistol that doesn’t have a safety device – hoping to prevent anything embarrassing from happening to me. The players with whom I’d passed through the gateway fanned out along the streets in small groups, going in different directions.

  I figured that the streets in front of the gate were full of players, so I decided to move along the wall, going to the right of the gate. After passing about half way to the next gate, I noticed a narrow street, which went deep into the city, and I went down it. A creature jumped out from a heap of garbage and charged me after the first turn. I was quick in this new body, my reflexes once more sharp. My brain identified the potential threat just in time and I immediately began to roll to the left and, clutching the trigger on the Hornet, I fired it at a blurred shadow that flew by just a few centimeters above me.

  To my surprise, the creature didn’t even pay attention to the dozen or so bullets I’d unloaded into its belly. Pushing myself off the floor with my left hand and taking up a more stable position on my right knee, I was surprised to see, through the sight of the gun, that the monster was slowly, lazily turning toward me. I panicked and looked for some sort of salvation, as the name and level appeared brightly over the mob:

  Meat-eater, level 9

  Devs, are you nuts? What the fuck? A level 9 creature in the noobie zone? How can you even think of putting level 9 mobs in a zone for level 1 players?? At the time, while these thoughts were going through my head, my body acted automatically. Aiming down the sights at the head of the meat-eater, I started to fire in several short bursts. It didn’t like the bullets that I sent into its face.

  In two big leaps, he was literally two meters away from me and, straining his hind legs, he was readying himself to jump, aiming at my head. Moving back to the corner, I prayed to all the gods who’d told me to raise my agility almost to the maximum, and, turning my face toward the meat-eater, I yelled as loudly as I could, like a fresh recruit during his first battle:

  - Aaah, aaaahh, aaaahh, aaah, aaaahh, aaah!!!

  I went on shooting; I just bathed this creature in lead from my hip, holding the Hornet with one hand, while trying, with the other one, to get a spare magazine out my breast pocket. Meanwhile, I overwhelmed the meat-eater with bullets, all the while watching his life bar moving slowly down to zero. Now was not the time to save on cartridges, I couldn’t pause to adjust my fire, even if I had a way to do so. Either I kill this creature now, or, by the time it next jumped, it would send me to respawn. Without money, perhaps without ammunition as well, I would probably be stuck permanently doing social quests to save up for new equipment.

  After the first submachine gun burst, the meat-eater said goodbye to its front paw and, stumbling, he stretched out on the concrete. By that time, I’d already loaded a spare magazine case with my left hand and, taking advantage of this opportunity, quickly replaced the magazine, stopping the hail of bullets just for a second. But a few seconds were enough for this monster to act. It was clutching its broken leg, but it still dashed to the right and ran to the wall on its three remaining, healthy limbs. Jumping off the wall in my direction, it went after me, heedless of the bullets I continued to pour into it, while it was in flight.

  My agility helped me again: aiming for my neck, the c
reature ended up biting down on my left shoulder instead. It didn’t rip my head off, just ended up knocking me down and wounding me. Tearing off a good chunk of meat from me, the mob flew to the side. Due to the momentum, we’d been thrown apart in different directions on the concrete floor. Having difficulty getting back on my feet, I looked around to see where the meat-eater was and found the creature convulsively moving about, five meters away. The bar of its life was flashing, on the edge of being depleted.

  Approaching the beast on trembling legs, I pointed the Hornet's muzzle at the head of this monster and pulled the trigger. In response, I heard a hollow click, indicating the absence of cartridges in the magazine case. Spitting to the side, I took out a pistol, moving the bolt back with my teeth - well, what else could I do with my left hand refusing to cooperate? Getting the cartridge with difficulty, I fired the entire magazine into the meat-eater’s head. Having confirmed that the monster was dead at last, I sat down with my back to its corpse, only to be overwhelmed by system messages. Irritated, I minimized them to the tray, dropping them into the lower right corner, and began to treat my wound.

  With the help of a knife, the scraps of my sleeve and lots of cursing to myself, I strapped down my wound, quietly swearing because of the unbearable pain. Gee! I was really feeling how realistic this game is: even the pain couldn’t be compared to anything in the real world. With one hand, lots more swear words and the creaking of my teeth, I turned around and took out a spray bottle from my backpack, along with the bandages, and carefully tied off the wound. By the time I had finished giving myself first aid, my hits were frozen at a value of seven.

  Meat-eater

  Inserting the last of the armed magazine cases into my submachine gun, I turned around, carefully examining the surrounding terrain, paying special attention to places suitable for new mobs to be hiding. After I had made sure that there was no danger for me, I started to load a new magazine with bullets, looking around me every seconds, fearing for my life.

  If you were to go by generally accepted game mechanics, each mob has its own zone, but these devs had already shown that you could expect anything from them. It's good that, out of habit, I’d thrown the first detached magazine into an empty pocket; I didn’t have to search for it now. Taking the magazine case out of my pocket, I found seven cartridges were left. That’s real hardcore - 93 bullets had been used for one creature, no, wait, - 105, to be exact. I’d completely forgotten about the empty magazine in the gun.

  Well, I’d fired almost half of my ammunition, not much I can say about that. Well, I’d better collect my loot now and go back to the base, where it’ll be possible to dismantle the system and think about the eternal question: "What should I do next?" Fiddling with a half-filled third magazine case for the Hornet, I grimaced in displeasure and threw it into the bottom pocket of the jacket. If I encounter another monster, I’ll need the remaining bullets. 21 in my magazine case – it’s barely anything. I turned to the corpse of the meat-eater; I put my hand on it, waiting for the loot collection window to open up. Hmm, that’s strange, nothing happened, so I’ll send the request mentally:

  "Loot"

  “Collect loot”

  "Get the loot"

  ...

  ...

  I failed, even after many attempts. Do I need to drag this creature to the base myself? I won’t pretend it’s beneath me, I’ve done even worse things in my life. There are a lot of noobies in the game who’ll simply be unable to do what needs to be done. Still, carving it up right here is out of the question - God forbid that another creature comes across us while I'm working as a butcher. Damn, and the corpse is heavy when I drag it – around sixty or seventy kilos.

  Thinking it over again, I realized that I have a rope, well, not a rope, but a cord. Folding the cord over twice and properly tying it around the corpse left three meters of it hanging down. I made an impromptu harness at the other end, through which I put my right hand and head, placing the main load diagonally across my chest. This way, my hands remained free and the corpse could easily be transported by dragging it. Although my little rucksack got in my way… that was OK with me. Pulling up my socks, I dragged my dead meat-eater for a couple of meters. Well, I can handle it, I thought, I can get to the outpost if I take breaks. I felt acute pain from the wound on my left shoulder and the tension of the rope digging into me.

  And so, slowly dragging the carcass of an unknown creature behind me, I returned to the base, this time carefully examining any potentially dangerous places. Well, at least the devs hadn’t come up with the idea of introducing sweat and other physiological needs into the game, otherwise I would’ve been in trouble – it was so damn hot. Fortunately, I didn’t come across any other creatures as I walked back to the base, not counting a small group of players, around five people, who stared at me in astonishment as I entered through the gate of the outpost.

  The guard who was on gate duty didn’t even pay attention to me; maybe he’d widened his eyes in surprise or something like that, but the helmet didn’t let me see his face and emotions. But the other players did stare at me as I dragged my catch to the research center, and cracked jokes or dished out barbed comments:

  - Oh, look, you can be a slogger here."

  - No, he’s just fed up with the tasteless combat rations, so he’s caught something for dinner.

  - Bwa-ha-ha, this fucking noobie doesn’t even know he’ll get no loot for this.

  - Do you see that idiot lugging a corpse around? It’s heavy, isn’t it? I wonder if they’ll make him take it back.

  Well, they kept on talking and laughing, trying to ridicule me, saying that I'm a dull noob, that I don’t know shit, that I'm just wasting my time and so on and so forth. Out of all the players, only one group of three people was different, coming out of the research center building as I was entering it. I could see their levels –10 – and they were well-equipped compared with the other players. That group glanced at me with a very thoughtful look as I entered the research center, and I noticed that they began to talk about something. It’s fine by me if they decide to carry whole corpses back as well, but if they’re pros, then I should keep an eye on them. There was a small stand in the hallway of the building, behind which I saw two young ladies, who were apparently bored.

  - “Good afternoon!” - I told them.

  "I was told that the laboratories would pay me for the organs of some mutants. Can you tell me if they’ll take whole corpses as well?

  -"Um ... just a minute," one of them said, shocked.

  While the first girl tried to find something to say, the second one, judging by her thousand-yard stare, contacted someone via the neural network. In less than a minute, a disheveled man in yellow overalls jumped out of the door on the left. Not paying any attention to me, he moved to the girls and just asked "Where is it?" He received an answer in the form of two index fingers pointing at me. Turning around, he immediately rushed to me. On the contrary, I was mistaken, he completely ignored me again; he rushed to the remains of the meat-eater and, examining it from all sides, began to lament:

  - "Heartless beasts! They’ve spoiled such a specimen! What idiots decided to fill this poor mutant with lead bullets? – It ended up being too much for me.

  - "Excuse me," I said, but was immediately interrupted by the scientific psycho.

  - “And who are you?” - He immediately looked at the girls behind the stand. "Ladies, take this stranger out of the room, he’s interfering with my research."

  Upon hearing this, I couldn’t stand it anymore; I stepped over to the scientist and punched him in the face with my large hand. I don’t know what happened to me, maybe it was down to the emotional stress which I had experienced before. It was strange because something like that cannot happen at my age. I could’ve been affected by the stress of the first fight, or a strange hormonal flux, which, in theory, shouldn’t happen to me due to my old age. But what’s done is done. The scientist fell over; his hands spread out, and, apparently
, he lost consciousness. I could hear someone clapping in the distance. Turning around, I saw a young guy in tight, yellow overalls, which fit him perfectly, in contrast to the scientist on the floor.

  - "I’ve told him to mind his language, otherwise he would get punched in his face, but no, he didn’t listen to me, or as he’d put it: "These Neanderthals won’t dare lift a hand against me, because they are definitely not the sharpest tool in the shed and their minds can’t realize the importance of science and my contribution to it, " - the guy quoted the scientist, obviously mimicking him. – “Let's get acquainted, my name is Alfred, I’m a representative of this research center’s biological department.”

  -Hmm ... I’m Volper, very nice to meet you, Alfred. I apologize for my behavior, but I couldn’t tolerate the guy. This creature nearly devoured me, and your, umm ... let’s say colleague, here, kept talking about how this creature had been spoiled and so on.

  - Don’t pay him any attention, he’ll lie down for a little bit, and then come round and become almost a sane person, well, at least until he once more carries out any research...