LOG: Battle Recording removed. Battle records will be automatically deleted within 1 hour of combat unless specified otherwise.

What! Crap. No.

Was I being recorded all the time? As awesome as it was to record battles, that one was definitely going in the trash. And talk about invasion of privacy. Was it something that I would just have to get used to, or was it a feature to turn off? Damn this system, and damn Tasar for not telling me anything. I added that to the list of things to ask Tasar.

Although it did raise some interesting possibilities, maybe I could become some Livestream combat star or something. Was Twitch a thing in the Empire or on the System? Were there streaming channels? I could become a celebrity! Would I have to start doing a running commentary? Hell yes! I was going to be the first-ever Monster Fighting Streamer on Earth.

The reality was that I would have to improve my fighting style and technique.

As I sat recovering from my near death, I was amazed at the Grimclaw dissipating into nothing, as if a pile of ashes had been blown away. It left no trace of our battle except my blood all over the ground.

I started to take stock of my wounds, so I was also amazed at what I saw when I took the remains of my shredded shirt off. I still expected to see my guts spilling onto the ground and me bleeding out. Instead, I saw my skinny torso with some faint scar marks that were becoming fainter even as I watched. Even my arm where the devil cat had been chewing me like the guy everyone picked on at school, Craig, I think his name was, tucking into a bucket of fried chicken. You didn’t get between Craig and a bucket of chicken. He was relentless. I felt terrible not standing up for him now. Did that make me a coward? It was worse since I hated bullies. God knows Mike and I put up with enough at school. Focusing on the present, I watched in awe.

I re-read the regeneration skill:

It’s okay, I’ll be better soon.

Tier 4. (Passive 5MP/Min Active 5MP/Sec) Your very own trollish regeneration. Monitors your health, healing your wounds over time. Sends your healing nanites into overdrive to compensate for trauma. Will automatically move from Passive to Active when you take 10% of your health in damage or suffer catastrophic injury. Weakness and reduced regeneration are proportional to the damage healed. Does not cure death, complete critical organ destruction or some magical effects. It can reduce Bleed and other Damage over Time effects. Upgradeable.

I checked myself over and saw that I was nearly healed. I was still lying in the forest wearing bloody, shredded clothes. I think I fell in love with the skill. As I watched, the last of the wounds faded to thin white scars. They looked scary and impressive simultaneously, crisscrossing my stomach, arms and probably my back.

My arm had some little pin prick marks that faded away. I poked and prodded. It was amazing. If I ever met a person from the Followers of Redemption, I would kiss them. "It’s okay, I’ll be better soon" was literally a lifesaver.

I sat there covered in my blood and started shaking. I felt weak and low on energy. Fumbling through my inventory, I found some of the EnergiCrunch Bites and an EnergiFusion drink. EnergiCrunch Vitality Bites were foul.

Fuck this system shit. They tasted disgusting but made me feel better. After eating and drinking the equivalent of a tuna and bean milkshake, I had to rinse my mouth.

It was the last straw. I was almost in tears. My clothes were crap, my boots were still wet, and I was alone in the woods, which I hated. I was almost ready to head back to Tasar and tell him I wanted to go home. This was so not fun. I swear I didn’t cry. Well, maybe a little. Perhaps it was all the dust and bright light. I don’t know how long I felt a bit sorry for myself.

Then it hit me. My god, I am stupid. Inventory! I had even gotten some food out of it. Damn, I was so ignorant. It was like Julie said: I had to start being smarter.

I had some gear and skills, and I needed to be smarter. A lot smarter, really. I had been walking along playing this like a joke game, where I was invincible, given impressive stats, and in a tutorial, I had a 99% chance of surviving. I seriously thought that nothing could hurt me in this game-like tutorial. That stupid Grimclaw had been a wake-up.

It was time to get a little serious.

Getting my shit together took a bit longer than I wanted. I backtracked to the last stream I crossed, cleaned myself up, found a nice-sized rock, sat on the bank, and took stock.

It only took two beeps from the collar.

BEEP.

Return to your place of Incarceration to reduce and or remove bounty. System-sanctioned law enforcement officers have been notified.

It was a bit of a wake-up call to bring me to my senses. I had an Inventory. And in there, I had a legion kit.

I took the tactical gear out of my inventory. Then, I got dressed. I started with underwear. I was in the middle of the woods, and I had not seen anyone at all. I stripped after a look around. I was not sure if I was worried about people peeking or more Grimclaws, or even Tasar or the stupid System perving on me. He said something about recording. More things to ask about.

Eventually, I was clean and mostly dry, so I put on the full-length bodysuit – the under-armour. It was so cool. It came in a small plastic-like tube with a built-in zip that, when you followed the directions and held it against your chest, expanded to cover you from neck to foot.

Do you wish to integrate your NanoGuard ReconSuit: Under-armour?

Yes.

TUTORIAL: New Feature Accessed. You can customise the support, colour and level of protection in the new "Clothing" section of your HUD.

It was neck to ankle, down to my wrists. It is very comfortable, dark grey and woven from some lightweight elastic material. I didn’t have a mirror and was not vain enough to care, but I bet I looked hot. I felt pretty impressive in the skintight, padded in the right places, and bodysuit. I swear I didn’t flex and try to see my reflection in the stream.

I chose black and high protection in the new interface section. I also enabled self-cleaning, self-repair and increased comfort. It took energy to maintain, but I think I could cover that. I would never get clothing again that did not have self-cleaning or self-repair. The comfort was almost like air conditioning but also included the removal of sweat, dead skin and minor bodily fluids.

It was so comfortable.

Next I put on the tactical pants, they looked like what I thought standard combat pants should look like. The shirt and pants were black and dark grey camo. The pants were covered in pouches, loops, clips, sturdy belt loops and loads of pockets. Everything could be fastened down. I appreciated the thicker plates along the inside parts of the legs and groin. There was a standard white T-shirt, quite tight and stretchy. Over that went a long-sleeved combat shirt. The camo matched the pants and had just as many hoops, clasps, and clips. Some plates and padding were across the inside back, chest, and forearms.

It was not much, but I felt a lot better.

The socks were thick wool or wool analogue but lightweight and comfy. The boots were black mid-calf lace-up capped and the most comfortable boots ever. They adjusted to my foot and compensated for any walking issues that I still had. I was guessing that these had already been corrected between my Tier and high agility.

There was a silly bucket hat and a cap. We had been forced to wear bucket hats when I was at school, so I put the cap on and threw the bucket hat into the bushes. Never wear a bucket hat again was my motto from school.

There were a few other bits and pieces: rope, tape, some thick cord - not quite a rope, pens, paper, zip ties, fire starters, Velcro straps, a small clasp knife and some other stuff I had no idea about. There was even a collapsible shovel that I could not un-collapse. There were a few items I could use for weapons in a pinch - a hand axe and a machete. The kit also contained a small tent with, thank god, written instructions. The kit even had some rations. I knew what MREs looked like, and these looked very similar. There was also a large water bottle.

There was also a written note on genuine paper from Julie.

Your kit arrived. Not appropriate for an untrained Tirone, that’s you. You must join the Imperial Legion and complete boot camp to get the kit you ordered. I replaced it with standard combat fatigues—Tier 1, self-repair, self-cleaning. No weapons. Xarius, the Primus of the First Cohort - who are heading to Earth on integration, said you are definitely not getting weapons or your kit without training. I put in a combat knife since we have no idea what you are up to, and I think everyone needs a good knife. Your complete kit is here when you sign up. We expect you back soon. I added some ration packs, knowing how well you look after yourself. Well, look after yourself for me.

Julie.

I smiled and pictured her writing that. It almost made me cry again. Not again. I never cried in the first place.

Really.

I had someone I had just met who made that much effort for me for no more reason than they could. The cynic in me thought that what I did know of her, she probably charged me somehow. I didn’t really care, though. I thought it was a nice touch.

BEEP.

Return to your place of Incarceration to reduce and or remove bounty. System-sanctioned law enforcement officers have been notified.

While looking at my inventory, I took out the comms gear and the healing potions. I was not going to be calling them healing canisters. Then I got my favourite, the Thunderguard Flintlock Energy Pistols. I installed the comms gear, again just a few quick nanite injections. This time, I didn’t feel a thing. I waited for some notification for a while, then felt stupid for forgetting I had disabled all non-urgent ones.

The pistols' energy packs fit perfectly into my pants' pockets and pouches. I had a spare on each side. I clipped four potions onto my tactical vest, which had perfect slots for them. They kind of looked like grenades. I had to ensure that if I ever got grenades, I threw the right ones.

I daydreamed about being in a battle, shooting it out with some guys, and they accidentally lob a healing potion at me. I’d catch it, scull it, and then thank them before blasting them.

I put two brown, coffee-flavoured brews, marked Elixir of Energy and two clear Refreshing Water Feel Fine Flasks. I was going to save the Black Liquorice Reliquary of Recovery potions for someone else. Not only did I dislike liquorice, but I also had no idea what a reliquary was.

I knew the brown ones tasted like coffee because I drank one of the Elixir of Energy potions, and because I had not had coffee in a couple of days, they gave me an extra psychosomatic hit.

That left the pistols. The pistols came with a belt, and holsters clinched tightly around my waist and upper thigh. They were not a concealed weapon in any way. They were guaranteed to be perfectly sized and were balanced for my hands. I had enjoyed shooting them in the simulation; they looked like an old earth pirate pistol. Except they shout out some electro-plasma.

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Once I was kitted up, I sat back down and thought about my skills that would be useful in combat. I had not used my "Eye of City Watch" or "Mystical Eye" or whatever that was now, but I am sure it would be helpful soon, so I made a mental note to remember to use them.

Thunder Grip could have been beneficial with the stupid giant devil cat, the Grimclaw, although the laser eyes were incredible. That left my last three active skills, "Leet Parkour", which I had uncrippled and my stealth and invisibility. I couldn’t see much use for the parkour, but stealth seemed the way to go. They were both passive/active, which probably meant some bonus to stealth while in passive mode, but a huge increase when active.

They would suck mana, energy, or something when active for a short-term bonus. That was something else I had no idea how it all worked and Tasar had not given me any clues. He was a right bastard. At the moment, I couldn't see the specifics due to most of my HUD being disabled.

I sighed. Despite him being as mad as a half-cut snake, some of what he said made sense, maybe. I am sure that I’d work it out. That is what this tutorial was for. I made a note in my HUD notes section to ask Tasar about it.

That was something else I needed to sort out; what were mana and energy and what did they do, how does regeneration work? It could be significant, well crap, it was significant. Damn, I wished Tasar was not batshit crazy. I needed some more basic information.

I tried to activate my stealth.

Nothing. I tried again, saying this time.

"Stealth"

Nothing. Scrunching my eyes, I practised trying to enter stealth, feeling what the skill did and how the energy flowed through me. After some time of trying different faces and poses, I felt a slight tugging somewhere inside me, which I assumed was either energy or mana. I practised several times until I could enter and exit stealth without looking constipated.

Then I activated stealth and set off down the path again, being much more careful as I walked this time.

I was actually trying to be stealthy.

I wished I had purchased a proper melee weapon. I cursed the legion, Xarius or whatever, for not including guns and thanked Julie for the knife. It was just over a foot long in the blade. I cursed Americans. It was just over 30cm in the edge and had a quick-release sheath. I was metric, not stupid feet and inches. Who in their right mind measured things in feet? I have a foot was a ridiculous porn star statement if you used it as a measurement. Hey baby, I've got a foot long…. Anyway, whatever the knife's length, I just hoped I would not kill myself accidentally. It was damn sharp, which I found out after accidentally cutting the tip of my thumb off. Thanks once again to my very own trollish regeneration, I watched with fascination as it healed. I wish those stupid bully kids from school could see me now.

Imagining them walking towards me, I started practising drawing my pistols. I saw this awesome 90s movie where the cowboy spun his gun around his finger as he re-holstered – Tombstone, I think it was Wyatt Earp or Doc Holliday, either of them or maybe both did it. It looked pretty cool in the movie, but it was a load of crap in real life - or in this simulation or wherever the crap I was. Crap! My life right now was confusing me.

I practised for two minutes and nearly broke my finger several times trying to get it right. That led me to wonder if I would heal a broken finger. I was not quite game to test it out. Although my "OMG, Heal me, it hurts." did have an active portion to numb the pain, I hoped it wouldn’t hurt too much if I did try it.

I decided if I were to practice stupid stuff, I would not do it in the middle of a forest where I had just been ambushed by a devil cat and nearly killed.

BEEP.

Return to your place of Incarceration to reduce and or remove bounty. System-sanctioned law enforcement officers have been notified.

I was having a much better time and feeling much more confident as I walked along. I was actively avoiding the plants and animals, not seeing any animals. They were either scared of my beeping collar or the Grimclaws. Thanks to my new favourite boots, I even managed to walk through a couple of creeks without my socks getting wet. My stealth seemed pretty good for at least 10 minutes between beeps.

Things knew I was coming, but I was pretty sure I was hard to see. I was expecting to come across an outpost according to the new quest. I had to hand in the token I had, so I was watching for that. Following the path in the forest, it looked well-travelled, was not too overgrown, and even had old cart tracks.

Eventually, the trail led out into a clear meadow with a slight raise, with mid-calf high grass, patches of wildflowers and a large boulder in the middle. The boulder was slightly taller than me and looked lovely in the warm sun. The meadow was about the length of a school bus wide and was weirdly circular.

It looked like a perfect place for a rest, so despite not feeling tired, I decided to stop and have a bite to eat and see if I could improve my identification skills.

I yawned as I sat down, with the warm, pleasant sun making the cool shade from the boulder like a perfect place to rest my back. It was cliché, everyone knew not to rest in the perfect spot in the meadow, I’d get eaten by the rock or a tree or something. Tolkien had a lot to answer for. I made sure there were no willow trees or anything obvious around and sat back down.

I set my pistols out beside me, ready for anything as I sat down.

BEEP.

Return to your place of Incarceration to reduce and or remove bounty. System-sanctioned law enforcement officers have been notified.

Shit. Nice and relaxing.

I still felt the weird drain from my energy or mana, so I assumed stealth was still active as I set out my lunch on the grass, just as I heard some noises from the forest ahead.

Sleepily, I looked out into the forest. I had been walking all morning and survived a significant fight.

The forest was relatively light and sparse around the clearing; there were gaps between trees, and there was quite a bit of clear vision. Still, it was also challenging to make out much, as there was always some movement from the wind-blowing grass, branches, and shadows. I was just about to nod off when I was sure I had heard something. I was frozen in place, my eyes glued to the forest's edge where the noise came from.

Minutes passed. I was starting to cramp up from holding a still position when I saw another Grimclaw. It was slowly moving from shadow to shadow, sniffing its head and moving side to side. Now that I was not being eaten by one, I managed to get a good look at it.

It was my first good look at a real monster. I felt very weird. There was a vague feeling of panic and snapping of this new reality into my thought patterns. This was a monster. There were monsters. Monsters were real.

Shit.

At first, it looked like a giant black panther. Then, as I looked longer and closer, I could see where panthers were graceful and mighty hunters. These were just brutes, powerful killing machines. Its claws were about the size of my index finger, curved; from experience, I knew they were crazy razor-sharp. If a panther did steroids and then spent time at a gym, never missing leg day, and spent its spare time working out, it might get as ripped as these bad boys. The freakiest thing about it, though, was the head. It had a cat-like triangular head, but where the mouth should have been was a disgusting maw that reminded me of a star-nosed mole that a girl in one of my classes at school researched and did a presentation on.

It was Year 2, and I had nightmares about it for ages. Star-nosed moles were disgusting. Even now, they were ewww.

That with fangs. Its eyes were wide set and seemed to give off a red reflection from where I was sitting frozen. Its ears were flattened against its head, and its long tail silently swished back and forth.

I tried to identify it:

Minor Fickle Grimclaw (Chaos, Tier 2)

BEEP.

Return to your place of Incarceration to reduce and or remove bounty. System-sanctioned law enforcement officers have been notified.

Its head whipped around. At about the same time, we both registered that we had seen each other. A deep growl resonated from it as it crouched down, looking ready to spring. Not this time, sucker. I snatched up my pistol in my right hand and thumbed the trigger like in the simulation.

Nothing.

It sprang at me.

It cleared the distance between us in that one leap. I dropped the pistol and shouted "EYES OF FURY" with my gaze firmly on the creature’s head. Once again, my vision went white for a split second, and the Grimclaw’s head exploded. That did not stop the momentum. It continued, and I watched stupidly as it sailed right into me and knocked me off the boulder I was sitting on onto my back against another large rock. There was a sickening crunch.

I ignored the notification.

I sobbed as I watched my left forearm sit almost ninety degrees to the rest of the arm, which had been wedged against the boulder and the several hundred-kilo cat. Real tears, this time, flowed down my face as I winced in pain. Nausea.

I managed to get out from under the cat.

OMG, Heal me, it hurts.

Seconds later, the pain eased as my entire arm felt numb. Remembering that Mel Gibson movie where he reset his shoulder, I figured I should move the bits closer to where they needed to be. I nearly puked as I moved my broken arm back into position. I watched with horror and fascination as the arm healed. Even though it only took several minutes, it seemed like an eternity.

FML.

Once my nerves and heart rate were steady, I went back over the notifications.

DEFEATED: Minor Fickle Grimclaw (Chaos, Tier 2)

Experience Awarded: 40 x 100% contribution bonus: 40 experience. System Credits Awarded: 10 credits x 100% contribution bonus.

SYSTEM: 10 Cr. Credits returned due to fugitive nature.

Karma is Awarded for defeating the agent of chaos.

Do you wish to loot this defeated foe, Y/N?

Yes

Looting is set to Personal inventory.

1 Tier 2 Chaos Trophy added to your inventory.

4 Common Minor Fickle Grimclaw claws were added to your inventory.

1 Common Minor Fickle Grimclaw pelt added to your inventory. Complete, Good Quality

2 Common Minor Fickle Grimclaw steaks were added to your inventory.

Recording saved for 1 hour.

The Grimclaw faded into a puff of ash.

Delete recording.

Recording deleted.

Just what I needed: a reminder of my epic combat skills. There were also the post-combat jitters. I needed to learn not to shake so much after combat. It was embarrassing, especially if I was recording myself.

Hang on, I had spent quite some time watching others fail on YouTube. Embarrassing movies were quite popular, so maybe I’d be a TikTok sensation after all. Perhaps I could become a bumbling adventurer, mix it up with unintentional humour through abuse of my body and mind. Streaming me getting near killed a lot could make me famous. I know loads of people who would laugh at me falling off the rock and breaking my arm as the corpse of the Grimclaw landed on me. It was not quite the heroic streaming I had initially imagined. I needed to see if I could do an internal monologue over it so I didn’t break stealth and I could add some personality.

It was an option. It's not good, but at least I had a plan. Z.

Grabbing the pistol, I checked it over.

Step 1. Is it loaded? No idiot, it takes power packs.

Step 2. Put in a power pack, idiot.

Step 3. Safety Off.

I did a test fire.

I liked my pistols.

I worked out how to speed load the power pack and went from a minute to closer to ten seconds. I am sure someone who had Legion Training, certainly Xarius, could load one in under a second, but I had no manual or training. I was too busy shooting in the simulation, which had unlimited reloads.

I couldn’t find the manual, so no, as my professor said, no RTFM. And it would be no for the foreseeable future until I found the manuals and or a wiki. The low hum and vibration felt so much better out of the simulation. I worked out how to up the power. I took another test shot. I nearly needed a change of underpants. They were not called Thunderguard for nothing. The thundering boom made me almost drop the gun in fright as it echoed through the forest. But a beam of super white plasma shot out, followed by an arc of lightning that connected the pistol to the spot I had hit. Then, the poor tree burst into flames.

Nine more shots, and the energy pack was empty. The counter could have just had a number, not a bunch of bars you had to count, although it would be pretty easy to see when it would be empty. It was just not an easy counter. After the third shot, I found I could also adjust the volume. Go figure. It was at half. I turned the sound off. I practised putting power packs in and out until I could do it in under five seconds. I'm not quite ready for combat swaps, but between the two pistols and my "Eyes of Fury", I should be ok. I ate my lunch, cleaned myself up again, and then set off again. I had an outpost to claim some rewards at.

BEEP.

Return to your place of Incarceration to reduce and or remove bounty. System-sanctioned law enforcement officers have been notified.

After a few more BEEPs, I worked out I could nearly silence the beep by wrapping some of my shredded t-shirts around the collar. A little duct tape did extraordinary things, and there was not much duct tape could not do. I felt like MacGyver. I could hide the collar by wearing one of the baggy hoodies I bought from the Karmahouse Emporium. It was crazy uncomfortable but better than before.

I kept walking. I hoped to find this outpost soon as I hated the outdoors, and it seemed to be getting dark. I shuddered at how much I would hate forests at night, by myself, alone in the dark. As I was thinking about finding a spot to pitch my tent – which would have been fun in a not-fun way – the path opened into more expansive fields. Open fields. Farm fields.

Civilisation!

In the distance, I could see the walls of what I assumed was the outpost the quest had prompted me to find. I stood watching for a while. I could see people in the distance, and from what I could see, I was thinking Amish or something, old American West, maybe fringe planets in Firefly. I was just so happy to see people.

"Oi, who are you, and what are you doing staring at our farm?" a perfect British accent, which told me that someone was not speaking English and being translated, came from behind me.

I turned.

Fuck my life.

I had no idea where I was in the universe, and I had clones of the three bullies who chased me at school, looking at me.