[Inbox:
> SYS: Challenge complete]
I opened the message.
[>> Challenge complete!
You’ve successfully completed your first challenge! [ Trust ]: You’ve proved your reliability by successfully defending your charge “Peter”. You’ve been awarded 3x Lootboxes.
Redeem?]
I redeemed the boxes with interest. There wasn’t much of a description other than that they were orbital munition drop pods. Despite that, I was aware of OMBDs. They were created by Arasaka as on-demand emergency resupply. They did not use it much as it was quite costly and it wasn’t good for dropping living things. The former did make it quite useful though.
Selecting the loot boxes in my inventory gave me a live-feed view of the area with a grid overlay and reticle. The moment I realized it was a live-feed, I tried to manipulate it in different ways to see if I could use it.
After two minutes, my results were as followed: I could zoom in down to what I estimated was a view 100ft above the ground. I could zoom out enough to give me a view to see 200ft in every direction. The reticle could also be moved above the viewable around. With 3 loot boxes, I decided to leave one in reserve. I summoned two with one being placed to land over the dead wolf on the river bank and the last one ten feet higher up the bank.
While we waited, I sent the wyverns to scout the immediate area
[WARNING! Orbital drops inbound, please proceed to a safe distance ]
I looked up and saw two balls of fire high above. Zooming it, they were the drops entering the atmosphere. The fires snuffed out a few moments later and 30 seconds later, jets of fire erupted out their bottoms to slow their descent.
The dead wolf exploded.
Parts of the wolf splattered outward in every direction the pod hit it spot on... I… Was unfortunately hit with bits of it. How much and where I refuse to speak of. The second pod touched a second after with less fanfare.
Before anything, I quickly washed off the unwanted meat confetti.
Turning my attention to the non-wolf splattering pod, I examined it. It was bulky, similar in size to an emperor if you stood it on its nose. It was bare metal with “ARASAKA” painted up its left side. A pull lever was inset on the side facing me. I pulled it down and the side popped out before it rose up to reveal the inside of the pod.
[Warning! Legendary lootbox opened!]
“Heh…” I reached in and pulled out a data pad.
[MANIFEST:
1x Zhengyi Tianshi MK3 controller.
1x Arasaka JKE-X2 Kenshin “Night Master” (High-Quality)
1x Free Service Coupon (ANY SERVICE)
10x Gold]
A Zhengyi Tianshi, or Angel of Justice, was the company’s rendition of that NUSA’s Angel of Death. While, yes, it sounds bad, in our defense; the NUSA did not want to sell us one. So we made our own. We had originally thought it would be quite the venture. Investors would have a cow, forcing us to sell units to other companies.
However, it turned out that it wouldn’t. Our R-n-D department, or rather I did. A few… shitty executives wanted to build it from the floor up. My Father, wanting to get me more involved, “voluntold” me to audit our catalog of items for projects that could be used for this. We had heavy high-altitude cargo planes. We have heavy and medium artillery. There had been a project just a few months prior about which ones could be plane-applicable when Militech had randomly put out a public request for new combat air vehicles of any kind.
The Zhengyi Tianshi MK3 was a large Cargo AV converted with modular compact artillery guns. Notably, 105mm and 40mm cannons were accompanied by a 25mm Gatling gun. And while, yes, the platforms themselves aren’t new technology, they are fed more potent rounds that almost double their damage from their 21st-century counterparts. With two different 105mm rounds, guided and unguided; with the latter being the stronger hitter, and the former being the more strategic, the 105mm cannon was versatile.
The 40mm fired also saw the introduction of guidance rounds. While not a big upgrade on paper in the technical department, it did make the accountants and soldiers jump for joy. No should be wasted as they would self-guide to their intended targets.
Lastly, the 25mm was reduced to an anti-personnel role. 25mm was quite a versatile round, but since both the larger rounds filled in anti-fortification and anti-tank roles perfectly, the 25mm didn’t need to punch into those categories. Thus, they were turned into fragmentation rounds. Metal balls, like fragmentation grenades, fragmented out in a violent and highspeed manner to rip apart anything within 10 meters. It goes without saying that 10 meters was stretching it on the kill radius, so anything past 6 meters came down to that person’s own luck.
But anything within 5 was good as dead if they didn’t have something between them and the fragmentation. Or stuck in an enclosed space.
While, yes, there are a lot of options out there that can fill this role. Scientifically, 25mm has been used so widely that the sound was enough to strike fear into soldiers across the world.
Similarly, it featured the standard anti-missile flares, heavy ICE, and thick AV armor. It wouldn’t last long taking direct hits, but given it was supposed to be a medium-range air support vehicle, it was safe to say that this wouldn’t be used in situations that – say – the opposition would have notable anti-air capabilities; or at least, they would be tied up or destroyed.
Honestly, even I said this thing would be quite a situational piece of equipment…
But hey, the research and development department needs a reason to exist and large broken organizations always buy weird and outdated platforms. Ours was just more modern than the next person’s.
Putting that aside, the next thing I was quite excited to see was the sidearm. It was a Kenshin. An Arasaka piece of equipment that bordered on industrial art due to its elegance. One thing I did envy about the Arasakas was all equipment was elegant to a fault. Even if it meant the loss of some functionality. My father, on the other hand, would tell our people to sacrifice elegance for functionality. It was pragmatic of course, and it was a view that followed him throughout life.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
I just… you know, a girl wants nice things once in a while.
Back to the point, the Kenshin was a small concealable tech pistol that had the ability to charge up and unleash a devesting burst that could pierce armor. Hell, it could pierce my door. They were also expensive weapons to purchase due to their abilities. I had a Kenshin in my personal armory. But not a Night Master!
A Night Master was a special edition of the Kenshin the Arasaka’s gave out on occasion. Be as it may with Arasaka’s design principles, the Kenshin for all purposes, was still treated as an industrial object. Matte coating, cookie-cutter internals, and bare minimum tuning.
The Night Master was different.
It still had the matte coating, but there was a scene outlined in glossy black as well. A blossom tree that rained petals down with a crescent moon by the barrel. The trigger was polished gold along with the breach. No doubt just a coating, but pretty nonetheless. Its grip was a hybrid-aggressive rubber. Aggressive groves in strategic places for optimal grip, but aside from that, it was comfortable in my hand.
To top it off, it came with a holographic red dot. Now this was my grip on the platform design itself. There weren’t sight attachment points on the slide like a normal pistol. No, it had to attach to a secondary device that held the side a few centimeters above the slide with the attachment points being on the side of the device just in front of the trigger guard.
And it did the Arasaka elegance Justice. Well… Because it was a custom Arasaka piece. Luckily for me, the ammo for the Kenshin was the same as my current sidearm. At that, I tossed it into my inventory along with that holster and attached the Kenshin with its own sleek hidden holster.
Moving along, we came to the last piece in the bundle, a service coupon. As stated, it’d give one free instance of service. A quick glance at the service lists I could use it on, I’d have to choose between the emperor and Yang. I chose Yang of course as the robot was an invaluable asset. That was a given.
Moving on to the next drop pod…
[Warning! Common loot pod opened!
MANIFEST
2x First Aid Packs]
[Warning Common loot pod opened!”
MANIFEST
1x Budget Arms Carnage]
----------------------------------------
An automated repair AV dusted off. Its thrusters sent dust swirling as Peter looked on in awe and slight terror as the newly repaired robot and I walked out of the dust cloud. Once the vehicle cleared the tree top, it disappeared from sight. Left was a mostly see-through shimmer and the sound of its thrusters winding up before it disappeared higher into the afternoon sky.
It took less than 10 minutes from the summon to it leaving for Yang to get repaired.
During that time, Peter tried to fret over the appearance of the AV. I only ended up waving him off. I felt like I’d gone 10 rounds with a robot boxing trainer, so I didn’t want to deal with him. It wasn’t important. What was important was the fact I have a wrecked SUV in the river that technically was still usable. Putting aside its internals, the front left axel had been snapped off either on contact with the stone wall or with the river… I leaned towards the river.
Regardless of all that, we were still stranded in the middle of this god-forsaken forest in the middle of a fucking monster-ridden valley.
I was by no means an expert fantasy monster. But I was sure that we encountered two groups in one day meant there was more where that came from. Joining the information present…
Yeah, we were in hot shit…
The good news was that the vehicle was storable in my inventory. I was able to remove it from the river and pull it back out on the bank. It also gave me a damage report on it while it was stored.
[Emperor (Custom) – Inoperable (Wheel damage)]
The vehicle was in the same state. Door ajar, water seeping out the cabin, and… Blood. Blood splattered the steering wheel. I turned to Yang, opening his view of me.
From the left side of my forehead and across my right cheek, an arched bruise had formed. Blood had semi-dried across my upper lip and chin. Heck, it stained my clothes.
“Fuck…” I cursed before closing the view and putting him back on guard duty.
I needed to get fixed up, but I turned back to Peter. I then noticed he’d developed quite a few bruises as well. I picked out the obvious options I could think of, and pick apart what could be feasible and what wouldn’t. Honestly, there weren’t any options I could think of other than “get the fuck out of Dodge”.
“Can you walk, Peter?”
“Yeah, I am just sore. It will pass.”
“Alright then. As much as I don’t like this, we’re going to have to walk.”
“Aye, I can do that. I may be old, but I’ve walked across this entire land with my two feet. I can do it in this state as well.”
“Let me grab some stuff then we’ll delta out of here.”
I didn’t wait for his response as I opened both the storage compartments to the SUV. The items inside were dry, but looked to have been tossed around from the crash. I checked each bag. Mainly, they were components to repair the weapons and the robots themselves. None of which I would need immediately. I moved onto the wyverns, checked their batteries and found them full. They would last a few hours on scout duty, so I activated them and closed the compartment when nothing else was found to be needed.
Moving on to the next compartment, I found a stack of first aid boxes and cyberware patch kits. I ignored them as I was well aware there was nothing I needed in them. My cyberware was beaten up but functional - at least for now. Thus, I’d ride it out until I could purchase a permanent repair. Patch kits were stop-gaps to prevent catastrophic failures. A system scan had returned that the damage done had been mostly superficial with a few major spots that could be ignored temporarily until we were safe.
As much as I’d prefer to repair them right now, I was a few points short on repair service. And patch kits were generalized with components that would become permanent repairs if we had access to the specialized machinist parts and technicians, but we didn’t at the moment. Tools. Materials. Just the logistics of it were different from just swapping out parts.
I needed a specialist.
Triaging the current issues, the first one was to find safety. I was not sure where Peter wanted me to go would be safe for me, but nonetheless, I didn’t have much of a say in the matter given our mutual divine friend.
Returning to our formation before, the wyverns took on a two-prong formation. They weaved in and around the trees while Yang protected our backs.
Storm clouds began to brew as we continued our forces march, bringing with it a unique… smell and feel to the air. The feeling of rain.
“Is there a place to shelter?”
“Why?”
“It’s going to rain.”
“No, we are nearing the edge of the woods. We will enter the Amberrose hills and it will be a short walk to the Fort city.”
“Fuck, I don’t want to be exposed to rain that long.”
“Is there a problem with the rain?”
“Yeah, it’s not good for you.”
“It is not? The rain is clean, and you can drink it. It is arguably more healthy than drinking it from the stream. But do not drink it once it’s touched plants.”
“Wait a minute— I — but — why can’t we drink it off plants?”
“The birds shit on trees.”