I opened my eyes to the sound of an alarm, an incessant screeching beep that drilled holes into my skull. My hand fumbled around in search for the source of annoyance, patting my way towards the little-
CRUNCH
I’d just pulverized the cheap plastic alarm-clock under my grip.
“Fuck.”
Not the greatest of beginnings to what could be the last day of my life.
Staring at the ceiling, my eyes felt heavy, I’d barely slept a wink.
After coming back from all the preparations and events yesterday, I’d taken a long shower and… tried to sleep. To no avail. I’d just tossed and turned for what had felt for hours before finally passing out at some point or another. Now I felt as if I could do with at least another dozen hours of rest. Or maybe if I never got out of the bed, then the day would just end with nothing happening.
Shadow of a Doubt (1): Survive 7 days.
Progress: 6 / 7.
The system made sure to remind me I couldn’t stick around and wait.
Just one more day.
Nineteen hours.
Moreau’s communicator device remained inert no matter how many times I pressed on the call button. Meaning everything looked like it would continue as planned.
I went through the motions. Shower, nutri-paste breakfast, flavor packets, water. I packed everything, and… hesitated. Should I bring this with me? It wouldn’t do me any good out in the badlands. And yet, the thought of leaving it here also felt wrong. My gaze lingered on my father’s picture. What had been going through his head the day the B-class had shown up? Or had he not known until he was already out in the field?
If he’d known…
Progress: 6 / 7
The system rattled angrily at me, reminding me I’d already made it this far, there wouldn’t be any sense in being this morose when victory was right around the corner. Shaking my head, I slapped my cheeks a couple times and put my thoughts in order. There was a plan, and I was going to push it through. I made sure to organize everything that wouldn’t be necessary and coating it in what webbing I had left under the bed (effectively cocooning my spare clothes and food).
Then I turned to the largest addition to the room: A bright orange plexi-cardboard pallet box large enough Isia could’ve fitted inside if she curled up tightly. It’d been dropped off by the machinists yesterday, the box came with a convenient set of backpack-like straps (a last-minute request). The weight and bulk of the pallet-box made it awkward to carry, but with Strength 7, the largest challenge was keeping my balance if I didn’t walk bent forward.
The motel lobby was empty save a lone android behind the counter. “Good morning Grills!” I greeted.
She turned to look my way, holding up a piece of paper. “Voicebox currently under repairs. Please excuse the inconvenience.” It read, then it proceeded to pick out two other pieces of paper on the counter. “Have a good day!” and “‘Uh, five stars?’ - Axel Garcia.” Alongside five stars like what you’d see on an online review.
“Thanks… I guess?” I replied awkwardly, glancing at the counter and noticing there was only one more piece of paper. “What did you write on that one?”
Grills picked it up. “If you do not exit the premises within the next 10 seconds, you will be CLEANED.” The text was followed by a sketch of a mop underneath.
“Uh… well, hope you don’t need to use that one.” I chuckled nervously.
Grills quickly put it back down, and lifted the other two again. “Have a good day!” and then folded the other piece of paper so it only read as. “Axel Garcia.” Then began waving them both robotically back and forth.
“I… won’t be back today,” I said, even if everything went perfectly, I’d be out in the badlands at the stroke of midnight. No way to get back to the city until the next cargo haul. “So see you tomorrow?” The paper-waving continued without stopping or slowing down. I took that to mean she’d wished me for a good day.
I pushed open the heavy motel door, and the humid air hit me, thick and warm, replacing the cool artificial chill inside. Rain poured down, swallowing the city in sound, the heat wrapping around me like a damp towel. My clothes stuck to my skin immediately, and though I had a momentary concern for the content of my payload, I knew it was in no threat of rusting.
Breathing in, I welcomed the sensation, like a lukewarm shower I could bring along… even if it did taste mildly of burnt plastic.
The neon lights blurred into streaks, the air tasted sharp and metallic, sour with faint traces of something reminiscent of rotten candy, and there was no shortage of garbage floating about. But it still carried a strange freshness to it. Rainy days had been very rare in Frontier City 02, the place was too dry, the only clouds would be of smog and factory towers. There were plenty of either here in New Francisco, but apparently there was also rain.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Marching along the road, I hurried over to the bus-stop, joining others less-drenched citizens that had put on their weather-protection gear. I had to guess the rain-water, mixed along whatever fumes had lingered in the air, wasn’t the healthiest proposition.
But so what?
I found myself humming a little tune as I kept from taking any seat (and drenching it), traversing the dozen or so bus-lines as I made my way deeper into the city. And as I did, I got to experience the changes in the rain. In the third district, the scents and tastes that lingered were far more metallic and acrid, the layers upon layers of smog trapped within the confines of the gargantuan third wall brought down to stain everything it touched. The rain in the second district was cleaner, but with it came a thicker reek of ozone.
THRUM
The lightning struck the top of a building, its charge instantly harnessed and thrown into the electric grid. The sound made the ground rumble beneath my feet and the air vibrate.
All in all, it was the perfect day to fight.
----------------------------------------
“Are you sure you’re going to be ok?” Carl, the contraband pilot, asked. “You look like you’re about to fight a monster with your bare hands.”
I looked at him, trying to process what he’d just said. “I… guess I do, huh.” I replied, scratching my cheek. “I just might, actually, what with having to spend the night out here and all that.”
“Not that it’s any of my business, but there are better ways to throw your life away.” He replied, waving me off. “If you’re not here tomorrow morning, we’ll-”
“Here.” I handed him a data-chip before he could finish. “It’s the details of everything I know. If something does happen to me, then this should have you covered for any potential issues the speaker-system might create.” I’d loaded up the thing last night, it wasn’t like I had anything better to do while tossing and turning all over. “And if I don’t die, then we can move on to other possible options to improve production.”
“I… fine.” Carl snatched the data-chip. “And best of luck to you.”
“Same.”
I watched him finish prepping the cargo shuttle for the route back to the city, and waved them off when they left. Before beginning my trek down the production tower, I took a minute to appreciate the view from the loading bay.
The storm was in full swing, lightning and thunder rolling through the mountains and the deadlands, puddles, ponds, and streams running off every which way. The wind lacked any of the heavy metals from the city, carrying a freshness to it that I couldn’t help but enjoy.
I sent one last message through the pad Quinn had fixed up, informing the gang that I was going dark. If I succeeded… then they’d know tomorrow morning. This time, I would not make the mistake of bringing non-combat related things with me out into the wilderness. The bundle with the Bulstra was left here, I wouldn’t be able to use it effectively while transformed anyway.
That only left me with Moreau’s communicator and my brand new special shield.
Getting all the way down the tower was… a pain. With the boxy-backpack weighing more than I did, I had to clutch at everything just to make sure I wouldn’t lose balance and fall over a railing or something. So it ended up taking longer than expected before I was out.
The march from there towards the “three boulders where Shadow dropped her broken fork” was also longer than expected. For one, the rain had cut off my visibility considerably, and I wasn’t that familiar with the area. And at the same time, mud. So much mud.
By the time I’d gotten to the place, I was probably an hour or two behind schedule.
I’d have to make up the time by being a bit more aggressive in my hunt to load-up my stats and push them to their maximum. I’d done the math just to be sure on the expectations to keep in mind. At a potential +400 to a stat, +8 per second per AP spent, the increasing cost per mode, alongside everything else…
Whether or not I could push all the other stats high enough would rely solely on how many monsters I found. My rough estimate was that my growth-rate would plummet, by mode-(4), I’d need to kill a G-class just to get one more second of growth.
That wasn’t the only problem, however.
If I encountered a D-class at the wrong time or place, things could get ugly. I had my doubts I’d be able to properly handle a mid-range D-class monster on its own, let alone if there were other monsters nearby. And, needless to say, anything above that would be an immediate withdrawal from the battlefield, even the weakest C-class would flatten me without effort.
If I wanted to have a realistic shot at capping my stats, I would need to hunt E’s and F’s, while intentionally not taking any trait upgrades but rather the AP payoff instead. And even then, I had a hard time believing I’d be able to hunt enough monsters to push all my stats to their new limit. Not that I wanted to push them that far from the start. Preferably, I’d have some in reserve to use as self-healing once things went down.
In short, I had to consider carefully what stats to boost, and which ones would be less important.
Opening the box, I pulled out the four “smaller” shields that were each the size of my torso. The pieces came alongside several long tubes meant to reinforce the whole structure once everything had been assembled together… but I also realized the outside of the shield had been painted over. I frowned, not remembering anything of the sort in my commission request, and took the four smaller shields to create a bigger one.
One that prominently displayed the image of a hand raising the middle finger and “Fuck your Face” written in flaming letters underneath. There was also a rat standing atop the middle finger, holding both hands up in a similar gesture, and with a halo. The rat’s dual middle-fingers were flaming as well.
“Isia.” I sighed, trying to grumble, but not entirely capable of holding back from groaning. When had she snuck this on?
And how much did it cost?
Something to worry about some other time, I guess.
Hefting the custom shield, my legs sank into the mud all the way to their knees. I swore, glaring down at an issue I hadn’t planned for: weight and mud did not mix well. With my body definitely gaining some mass upon transforming, I could only imagine the problem would get worse, especially if the rain continued going.
Still, I tested it around a bit. The thing weighed about a third as much as I did, so even though I had the strength to swing it around, if I wasn’t careful, I’d end up throwing myself on to the ground. But other than that, and the slightly cumbersome size of the thing, it seemed to be very solid.
I’d get to test it out more thoroughly once I transformed and started hunting things.
Speaking of which: I couldn’t just approach this blindly. With the sheer number of possible stats, alongside the ever-increasing cost of each mode… I’d need to prioritize. Doubly so since it felt overall nigh impossible to fill out all stats to the brim.
I would start off with senses, aural-sight was going to be crucial for today’s hunt session as well as the encounter with Shadow. From there… Speed, strength, agility. I wanted to have “Master of none” before I went down durability+unbreakable bones, the malleability would likely prove crucial to my plan.
Closing my eyes, I focused, feeling the power flow through me.
It was time to hunt.