It would be better if the beetle slowly crawled, then I would have managed to nail it from a pneumatic gun even at a remote distance. Although the option that it will fly, I also considered and planned in advance in this case to run back, taking the insect away from its other relatives, and then shoot it with a shotgun.
But what I did not foresee was the very high speed of the enemy's flight. There was no escaping from this. And what I definitely didn’t expect was the option that all the other field pests would also take off together and rush in a swarm at the offender of one of their brothers. Moreover, there were not seven opponents at all, as I assumed after scanning, but more than three dozen !!!
Shooting offhand at the wounded beetle and missing again, I removed the airgun and picked up the shotgun. I had to shoot almost point-blank, literally from two or three meters, but a volley of large shot from two barrels tore the approaching beetle to shreds!
Character Level 4 Reached!
Received three free skill points!
And here, with all the obviousness, the whole tragedy of the current situation reached me. I had just reached the fourth level, the progress bar to the fifth was still empty, so the quite possible death of the character would lead to the loss of the level, three free points and some of the existing skills. And at the same time, three dozen dangerous angry creatures were rapidly approaching me with a terrible buzz!
It was hardly possible to survive in this situation, but death is different. If I have time to do something useful in terms of leveling up the character and, at least by a hair, fill the progress bar, then during the revival I will lose practically nothing. This thought completely took over my mind. Surprisingly, I was not afraid of death itself at all. I was only afraid of dying stupidly.
I rushed to the road, wagging like a hare and dodging the bugs swooping down on me. I managed to successfully dodge two or three insects and kicked one to the side, but then I was knocked down by a blow to the back, while it felt like a red-hot knife was thrust into me just below the right shoulder blade.
The scale of life immediately sank by half. It hurts, damn it!
Poisoning! The duration of the effect is three minutes, the loss of health is 5 HP / second.
Bleeding! The duration of the effect is forty seconds, the loss of health is 4 HP / second.
That's it, it's death... I didn't have enough health points to survive the negative effects. Oddly enough, I was completely calm at that moment and had a clear goal in mind for the remaining seconds of my life: to take at least one opponent with me.
I rolled violently over my back, kicking off a beetle that was clinging to me, kicking another one away with a fist, and got back to my feet, shaking hands trying to reload the shotgun and spilling ammo into the tall shoots.
Would you like to choose the Evasion skill?
Would you like to choose the Sprinter skill?
Would you like to choose the Hand-to-Hand Combat skill?
Would you like to choose the Entomologist skill?
Yes, how sick of these obsessive suggestions with skills! Do I really have to read this spam even in the very last seconds of my life?! With a kick of my bare foot, I sent another beetle into the return flight, finally reloaded the double-barreled shotgun and met the next enemy, who rushed straight into my face with a coordinated volley from both barrels. Eat! Got it!!!
Shotgun skill upgraded to level 7!
At the same time, my face was splashed with some kind of smelly orange goo, but it didn’t matter anymore - I clearly saw that the progress bar was more than a quarter full. And then ... I suddenly felt good.
Healing effect applied.
Received an antidote.
Your wounds have healed.
I was just reading these messages running before my eyes, when suddenly I was deafened by the roar of shooting - someone just above my ear was mowing field pests from something large-caliber and very noisy. A green circle suddenly appeared on the mini-map directly behind my marker. Ally!!! And I was ready to put my head on the cutoff, that a couple of seconds ago no one was there.
Turning sharply, I buried my nose in a worn sheet armor plate with the emblem of the Second Legion. Looked above. Higher. More. An armored robot stood next to me three meters high and poured fire from a heavy machine gun in fear of scattering field pests. In fact, it wasn't a robot. The machine gun was fired by a fragile, dark-haired girl inside an armored robotic suit. This young beauty was not even eighteen years old.
Gerd Tamara. Human. Fraction H3. Level 78 paladin
Their! Without stopping shooting and leaving no chance for insects to save, this girl began to reprimand me:
“Who let you go alone at night, newbie?” And who gave you permission to waste scarce ammo?! - then the girl lowered her head, met my gaze, shuddered in fright ... and pierced my chest with a wide sharpened blade attached to the "right arm" of the robot, killing my Mosquito with one blow!
***
The world went dark. Then a bright red inscription appeared before my eyes on a black background:
Your character is dead. The revival will be available in 15 minutes.
Would you like to see the statistics of this game session?
I was so stunned by what had happened that I did not immediately even respond to the question asked of me. The inscription soon faded and disappeared, after which the lid of the virt-capsule opened. But for some time I lay on a soft bed and, staring blankly at the ceiling of the room, could not believe what had happened.
I was killed by an ally, and a member of the same faction... Why? For what? Have my actions in the game been viewed so negatively by the faction that my character has been designated as subject to immediate destruction? Am I a criminal now?
But at first, this same Tamara saved me from bugs and even cured me. What happened then, because of which her attitude towards me changed to the diametrically opposite one? And by the way, how purely technically she was able to cure me? She didn't give me medicine or give me any injections. Okay, it's not that important. A much more important question was what should I do now?
Since no one came to arrest me, I myself got out of the virt-pod and began to descend the spiral staircase from the fifteenth "corn". It was "night" under the dome - most of the searchlights were extinguished, due to which the huge space plunged into twilight. I saw sprinklers moving leisurely along the paths of the park.
Going downstairs, I did not find anyone who met. Nobody needed me, and even more so, no one was going to immediately arrest me. Having calmed down, I quickly reached the hostel complex and checked with the night attendant at the front desk where I should check in. A calm, pretty lady, who was not at all surprised at my appearance at three in the morning, found me on the lists, gave me the keys and explained in detail how to find the right residential building and room.
block on the third floor. A room for four, three beds were already occupied, one was empty. Among the sleeping neighbors, I immediately recognized all three guys with whom I came here under the Dome: Artur, Denis and Imran. Taking a towel, a soap dish and a toothbrush from my bed, I went to the shower room. And there, looking at himself in the mirror, he almost dropped all the objects he brought from his hands: from the depths of the mirror, a black-haired, neatly cropped guy with piercing blue eyes blazing in the dark was looking at me.
“Fourteen to seventy, Tyulenev is waiting for you,” a shaven-headed boy of about fifteen in appearance quietly pushed me by the shoulder.
Children under the Dome? I had not yet fully woken up and considered this a continuation of my chaotic dream. But no, the bald kid did not go anywhere and, standing near my bed, continued to wake me up. I suppressed a yawn and sat up on the bed, already looking around meaningfully. It was still dark outside, my roommates were still asleep.
- What time is it now? - except for the mobile phone taken away at the entrance to the Dome, I did not have a watch, so I was completely unaware of time.
“The beginning of the seventh,” the boy answered quietly. - The daylight will be turned on soon. Get dressed quickly and go to Tyulenev, he is a serious man and does not like to wait.
- Who is this Tyulenev, and where can I find him?
The boy shook his head reproachfully, as if I had blundered outright stupidity. Well, at least he answered my question in detail:
- Tyulenev - second deputy Radugin, head of the Dome. A very important person, the third person in the hierarchy of our faction. He is engaged in working with people and building an individual leveling plan for each employee so that the character brings maximum benefit to society. His office is in the administration building. Don't make Tyulenev wait, he's already in an irritated state today...
The boy did not answer my question about what exactly the high boss was annoyed about. He only made sure that I had finally woken up and understood the information transmitted to me, after which he quietly left the room, leaving me in ignorance and anxiety.
Although I already guessed what the manager in charge of personnel was dissatisfied with - my reckless and arrogant behavior! In order not to irritate him even more, I really had to get up, dress, and wash. I recoiled again, frightened, seeing myself in the mirror. Hmm ... The eyes remained blue-violet, sparkling, completely inhuman.
Five minutes later I knocked and entered Tyulenev's office. The chief in charge of personnel turned out to be an obese, almost immense middle-aged man, whose huge beer belly visibly rippled with every movement, despite loose clothes. It was somewhat strange to see such a fat man under the Dome - before that, everyone I had met here was different athletic fit figures.
“Sit down,” Tyulenev pointed to a chair near the table, “and tell me.
The chief himself frankly stuck his gaze on my face for several long seconds, openly studying my eyes, after which he chuckled merrily and looked away. I obediently took the chair offered to me, but I only specified what I should actually talk about?
The chief frowned and answered in a more formal and stern tone:
“One thousand four hundred and seventy, you received a complaint from the commander of the Second Legion, a highly respected player in our faction. Gerd Tamara reported that you were loitering in the game during the officially announced CTA (Call to Arms, “To Arms!!!”) and wasting rare ammunition to no avail. From myself, I want to ask: how did you even get there ?! Therefore, let's talk about your actions in as much detail as possible in order.
I had nothing to hide, my motives seemed to me bright and worthy. Therefore, I told about my desire to help the fighters of the faction and how I went into the "corn" and lay down in the virt-capsule. He described how he edited his appearance and changed his eye color, how he corrected the name, how he got acquainted with the characteristics of the character ...
“From now on, let’s go into more detail,” the fat man unlocked his computer and prepared to enter information about the new member of the H3 faction. - Strain your memory, remember the initial parameters of your character, I need for statistics,
Actually, I didn’t even have to remember anything, I already perfectly remembered the initial table of characteristics: Strength 12, Agility 15, Intelligence 17, Perception 19, Constitution 10.
“It doesn’t add up, you made a mistake somewhere,” the fat man objected, having driven in the numbers I had named. “Every novice of any race and profession always has a total of 75 stat points, but you only get 73…”
– And Luck Modifier +2, – I added, and the boss nodded in satisfaction – now the amount has converged.
- Well, a normal character emerges, without obvious distortions and sagging, - Tyulenev commented on my Mosquito. - What class did you get?
– Choice of: Geologist or Prospector. I chose the Prospector...
The complacency of the fat man instantly blew away like the wind.
- Error! An obvious mistake! - Tyulenev shouted and stood up abruptly, even dropping his chair at the same time.
Swaying belly, the chief went to the coffee maker. At the same time, he was worried about my choice and could not calm down:
“You should have come out and consulted with me at the moment of choice!” It is a pity that he ruined such a promising Geologist! With high Perception and positive luck, just what you need! Yes, we would have closed so many problematic points of our colony with such a Geologist! Instead, we got another useless dummy… We already have a “starship pilot”, a “space marine” and a “paleobotanist”. Now a fourth one has appeared in their team of useless ones, you will be laborers to take out the garbage and clean the ditches from dirt.
Extremely surprised by such a violent and emotional reaction from the boss, I timidly asked what was wrong with my Prospector?
- Yes, everything is wrong with him! cried the fat man, with nervously shaking hands pouring cubes of refined sugar into his mug. – The Prospector class is designed to work with electronic scanning tools. But we, the people, do not have such technologies yet! You see, Mosquito, our humanity has not yet discovered such high technologies and, accordingly, has not built these same scanners that Prospectors must work with. And I can't give you specific dates when such technologies will appear, and whether they will ever appear at all!
I nearly fell out of my chair at the shocking news. How is it "there is no necessary technology"?! Well, fuck the situation! And what am I to do now?! Work outside the profession, initially inferior to all other characters who work in their class? Apparently, Tyulenev had about the same emotionally irritated and depressed state - the boss sat gloomier than a cloud and, it seems, even lost interest in further discussion of my history and development path.
I myself just dropped my hands from everything that happened. But I still tried to calm down a little and told about my experience of passing the labyrinth, as well as the received five points of character characteristics.
- Five? - Tyulenev showed some semblance of interest in my story, silently listened to the distribution of attribute points and noted this in his database.
I expected reproaches or at least comments from the boss about the distribution of points, but the fat man did not react in any way. During my further account of the meeting with the Geckho diplomat, the night journey along the road, and the penetration of the arsenal, Tyulenev never interrupted me. Cosmolinguistics did not even comment on the taken skill, although I feared this moment in my history most of all.
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