“Why are they shooting at us?” Onzaa asked.
“What do you think? Fuck! Because, just like you, they forgot to pump up their intelligence stat.”
“But there is no such stat in the game…”
The players were getting closer as the suppression fire did not stop. 7.62 caliber bullets crashed into the shelter, leaving behind smoking craters. Others ricocheted around. The glass on the second floor of the building broke and showered on their heads, but did not cause any visible damage. Ronnie and Onzaa shouted they were gamers, but the fortune hunters did not hear them over the clang of the moving parts of the machines. They were firing like crazy and insane warriors who did not know to retreat. They worked smoothly while the first trio reloaded the magazine, the second fired, and vice versa.
“AI.”
“At your service.”
“If I kill them, I won’t get another PK debuff, right?”
“Yes. You have activated the right to defense.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear.”
A glare of a lamplight flashed in Ronnie’s eyes. He looked at what was at the end of the street - the entrance to the familiar courtyard, where he spent many hours in the first days of the game, then opened the map, checked that nothing had changed, nodded to Onzaa and asked if he could run and shoot well, he replied he could not.
“Their accuracy is lame. Listen to me if you want to live. Run to that narrow alley,” Ronnie nodded toward the opposite houses. “I’ll cover you with fire. While you’ll distract them, I’ll have time to send three of them for a week’s long rest. As soon as they switch back to me, stick out and shoot, got it? We have the advantage.”
“What advantage?” Onzaa asked and narrowed one eye.
“We’ve got cover, they don’t. Ready?”
“No,” he said, his eyes flew open.
“Go. I’ll shoot at those who reload.”
Ronnie tightened the Barrett’s shutter, inserted earplugs in his ears, and when Onzaa ran headlong, he put the sniper rifle on the ground on bipods and pointed the muzzle at the players. The first shot, which shook the windows in the houses, took the first hunter out of the game, piercing through the chest. His body turned into ashes and scattered down the street. Two more shots—two more corpses. The players, as expected, started shooting at the column behind which Ronnie was hiding, and Onzaa, with trembling hands, brought the Browning muzzle around the corner - but did not look there himself—and fired at random and after hid his hand back.
Ronnie noticed this and spat dryly, and when two enemies reloaded their submachine guns, he decided not to test fate with such a partner and threw a fragmentation grenade and got up and rushed with a stone face into the familiar courtyard at the end of the street.
“Get down!” shouted somebody.
The hunters scattered and stopped firing. The explosion injured no one. They raised their weapons and began shooting Ronnie in the back. Several bullets flew just two inches from his head. When he reached the corner of the house, he took out a mirror and observed what would happen next. Onzaa threw a second grenade. The hunters jumped in different directions with new shouts and swearings. Instead of an explosion, smoke filled up the entire alley. Ronnie grimaced and continued to stand, unmoving. Onzaa looked up at the sky and saw a gap break out through the gray layer of clouds, all alone, directed to where the hunters were. He thought it was a sign from above and instead of running away, ran out to the center of the street and waited for the three dark figures to appear from behind the gray smoke. He tried to kill them before they noticed him, fired several shots, but the inept shooter was disconnected immediately after a long burst of ten bullets riddled his body. Ronnie laid out the Barrett on the ground and prepared to shoot, but he felt someone invisible approaching him, for the air nearby distorted and vibrated. The “camouflage” skill. It opens after pumping the “agility” stat above twenty. Ronnie shuddered and got up and pressed his back against the wall.
“I’m a player, not a monster,” he shouted. “Check through the HUD, if you don’t believe me!”
The assassin retreated. By this time, the hunters were getting closer to Ronnie. He picked up the mirror and saw them less than 30 yards away from him and spat and slung the rifle over his back and took out a pistol and ran into the courtyard and heard one of them shouting: “He’s here! He’s here!”
Ronnie climbed the iron, echoing stairs to the second floor and moved crouching along the inner balcony past the entrance doors. He sat down behind a small shelter of wooden crates and waited for the enemy to come closer. The door behind him opened with a creak and one resident ran out—in a wife-beater shirt, ugly boxers, and a cigar in his mouth - took out a Thompson machine gun and began firing in all directions. Ronnie jumped in the opposite direction, narrowly escaping death. The bullets scratched his right cheek, his left arm, and one flew half an inch over the top of his head. He fell on his back, his eyes widened, his breathing stopped, his hands gripped the handle of the pistol. Two short shots were enough to get rid of the additional problem. He crawled on all fours half feet back to the shelter, humming to himself. Those three from below heard the sounds of gunfire and looked closer and noticed their target and opened fire. Ronnie ran away, stumbling and covering his head with his hands. Fortunately for him, the stairs to the third floor were located very close. He ran into the inter-house corridors and disappear.
The players watched through the door' peepholes for what was happening, hiding in anticipation. First, they would hear shots, then one shadow would run past, followed by two more in a minute and a half.
On the third floor, on a small guest island created for spending time together, there were unfinished or damaged copper sculptures dedicated to monsters or ancient deities of the Earthly world. Some were missing arms, others were missing half of their heads, their lifeless eyes were oxidized, and their insides were rusted. The smell of dampness firmly held its position in this place. Ronnie hid behind a large shield of a knight standing near the wall and waited. Two hunters ran past without noticing him, and for their mistake, they received two bullets in the back. One survived and the last thing he saw was Ronnie’s grinning face and the muzzle of the Stechkin’s gun looking straight into his forehead.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
One left, most likely went around.
Ronnie went back into the inter-house corridor and reached the very end and knocked out the door of the last apartment and went inside. Empty. He ran into the bedroom and cracked the window open and saw the last hunter run out from around the corner, towards the emergency exit, not expecting someone to open fire on him from above. The first two shots flew by. He cursed and ran back, not understanding where they were shooting at him from. Ronnie set the automatic mode and exhaled and pulled the trigger for the third time. Three bullets with a delay of one millisecond escaped from the barrel of the pistol and hit the neck and occipital part of the enemy’s head. Before his body burned up like a straw scarecrow, leaving behind black ashes circling in the air, part of his brain flew out onto the road along with a nine-millimeter bullet. Ronnie holstered his gun and climbed up the fire escape at the end of the house, went down and ran away headlong. The streets replaced one another in his eyes, turning into a blurred picture on the easel of an impressionist artist.
“AI.”
“At your service.”
“Can’t you send a message to the players that they are shooting at the wrong person?”
“My apologies. I have no such authority.”
“Make a warning that there is a player look-a-like monster in the city. Let them check before shooting.”
“My apologies. I can’t do that either. I only can interact with you.”
“Fucking bullshit.”
Ronnie ran out onto the avenue and headed for the square, not moving far from the walls of the houses. The inner paranoid became more active than ever. Wind stopped howling. The timeless moment had arrived. All the players had gone somewhere. He activated the “detection” skill and noticed how a doppelgänger jumped from the roof of the house, right above his head, with the speed of a cannon shot, missed and destroyed the paved road a few inches away, plunging two hands into it, that morphed into two spears. Then the monster turned around and kicked him to the side, turned his hands into two large hammers and jumped forward three feet. However, this attack was not crowned with success. Ronnie jumped back, standing first on his hands, then on his feet, crouched down, took off his rifle and, without aiming, fired. The Doppelgänger tried to jump aside, but the bullet, flying faster than sound, pierced through its shoulder, leaving an enormous hole in its back, and disappeared into the sky like the last star.
It’s like it’s my twin.
They both froze. To their right, from a small chapel, every five seconds came the dull ringing of a bell, and from the inside, male and female voices sang in the church's sad choral singing to the sounds of the organ. Players of the initial levels looked out through small cracks in the curtains of their rooms and continued to watch the battle with bated breaths. The Doppelgänger’s shoulder began to regenerate. The wound healed, but not completely. Ronnie noticed shortness of breath, shabby appearance. The enemy had been fighting for days. There was a murderous lust in the eyes of the devilish creature. His breath exuded the eerie stench of hundreds of thousands of rotting corpses. Like a hungry super-predator born in the bloody womb of the mother War.
Ronnie focused, with a deft movement of his right hand pulled out of his backpack a small flask filled with green liquid, drank it. There were only six cartridges left in the Barrett’s magazine, there were more in the pistol, but it was unlikely to be effective. The Doppelgänger bared a double row of fangs of the upper and lower jaws and rushed forward. The ground was buckling under its feet. It seemed that the law of conservation of mass was still working. He jumped and disappeared, vanished into thin air. Ronnie used the “Furious Rhythm”, felt the muscles in his body tense up, overcoming all human limits. This was the first time he had to fight at such close range. The Doppelgänger, as expected, appeared in front of its copy and tried to tear him apart with its steel claws. Ronnie grinned angrily and blocked the blow with the barrel of the weapon, then he bent over and, in a U-turn, hit the double with the butt on the head. The monster screamed, lost its balance for a second. That was enough time to release a 12-gauge bullet directly into its head at a speed of 853 m/s. Bloody fragments scattered in all directions. Blood from the neck flowed in a geyser jet. The dead body fell on the road. Ronnie lowered his rifle, took out a scanning chip from his pocket and was about to insert it into the heart of the slain enemy, when its head grew back in two seconds, and it immediately changed its appearance to Nika, then to Bynahal, and finally to the emperor from the desert of Nepril. The sniper was taken aback, and the enemy jumped up and disappeared. Ronnie felt like he was on pins and needles. Looked around and decided to run. The action of the Furious Rhythm ended in a minute.
The temple singing was left behind, as was the sound of the bell, which seemed to accompany the souls of the dead to rest with a magical ringing. On the square, Ronnie heard a woman shout from behind him: “Wait!” He froze and turned his head and saw five people with aliases: WildDron (1st place in the military rating), Xenonna (3rd place in the military rating), Denzie (4th place in the military rating), Fremaho (5th place in the military rating), Umka (7th place in the military rating). All were members of a small guild of twenty six people called “666” in second place in the “Dominance” ranking.
WildDron laughed and spoke, stretching and, as if emphasizing consonants:
“What are you, a player?”
“No, a hallucination.”
“According to the photos, the monster looks just like him,” said Xenonna—a girl in her forties with long red hair, honey-colored eyes, pale white skin and in urban-type military camouflage “Flora”.
“You’re right, my dear! But players differ from monsters in that we can see their alias, level and parameters. In front of us is the famous Ronnie—the guy who overtook our Umka a couple of days ago.”
WildDron looked like a huge Santa Claus: a long white beard, clear eyes, the color of pine needles, a huge inhuman height and a belly so round that it could be compared to a perfect ball. The difference between him and the magical inhabitant of Finland was in his clothes: heavy metal armor of fine workmanship covered his body, his left hand held a huge 6.5 feet tall shield with the guild coat of arms, behind which a howitzer could hide, and in his right hand shone a two-handed sword Zweihänder with a double guard. Ronnie analyzed his parameters: strength 25—fifth modification.
“So the monster took the guise of a real player?” asked Denzie—the only black in the legendary const party, dressed in urban camouflage, turquoise eyes and a clean-shaven head.
“Judging by what we’ve seen, it may well be. Most likely, it’s a doppelgänger,” WildDron replied. “The game is fu-u-ull of surprises.”
In a short time, Ronnie analyzed the parameters of each of them and his eyes widened in surprise. Everyone in the const party, except the shooters, had a pumped-up magic stat. True... full of surprises. He looked at WildDron and noticed how the leader’s gaze changed. He swung his shield and let it go forward like a boomerang. The rectangular piece of metal cut the air with sharp edges and flew at the speed of a cannon shot. A heavy metallic crash sounded above Ronnie’s head. The shield bounced to the side and magically returned to the hands of its owner. The Doppelgänger in human form appeared ten yards away from Ronnie. All in black. On the head was a metal sakkat covering the face with a shadow. On the back was a cloak with spikes sticking out of it. The naked hands of the dead-black color clutched a long magic pole. The palms glowed with yellow fire. A barely noticeable hurricane was circling around the body.
Ronnie gritted his teeth and remembered where he had already met such an aura.
“You’re too close,” he said in a muffled voice and pointed the 64.1 inch barrel of the Barrett parallel to the ground. The index finger of the right hand touched the trigger with a pad. The monster caught the moment and jumped aside in advance, and disappeared. Two seconds later, smog engulfed the area. An old trick, Ronnie thought, ready to deflect the blow with the body of the weapon again. At the same moment, he saw an enemy pole in front of him, enveloped in a magical aura of dark red, lava-like color. Ronnie froze as if rooted to the spot, not taking his eyes off the tip rushing straight into his throat. At the moment of his supposed death, WildDron appeared from behind him and received the terrible attack, which bent the shield inwards.
“Stay behind me, boy,” he said. “We’ll deal with it.”