After scrolling through a wealth of quests in what seemed to be forever and a day, Jack finally picked a few. [Common dirt task: kill 50 enemies of any type, passive. Sell items worth 1 gold coin, barter.Seek out and destroy goblin cave, active.] These seem to be good for now. “We move out in 30 minutes people, eat some food from the pub downstairs, but please don’t get drunk! We need stable people to do these quests after all.” I remarked, feeling like I was talking to a bunch of three year olds, and maybe they were, at least mentally.
After enjoying ourselves for about 25 minutes with a speedy non mre meal, we walked slowly but surely out of the city gates, towards the apc in waiting, and it seemed everyone but the two apc drivers, as they technically weren’t part of the party. Unfortunately, this means that they couldn’t see the yellow beam the rest of us could, and they weren’t part of the guild either, so there was nothing we could do but task one in our party to give directions to the strange seemingly supernatural column. We trundled on quite peacefully through the forest to the goblin nest, until the apc read multiple heat signatures up ahead seemingly in ambush position, lined up in a row.
”Eltee, what do we do?” Asked the driver, Thomas miller,
“Keep driving, legally, under the rules of engagement, we need to keep shooting ourselves in the foot until the politicians decide its quite a good thing to start shooting the enemy, but unfortunately, we have to listen to em. Ignore them, but keep a bead on them with our main and auxiliary guns, just in case if a bunch of idiots start shooting at a bulletproof vehicle with anything less than a hit with either a plunger, or an apfsds to the armour. Last time I checked, arrows are neither, so it’ll be a one way slaughter.” The eltee replied, in a very calm voice.
And, to absolutely no one’s surprise, the dumb fuckers actually opened fire! Granted, they hadn’t a clue about what modern military might could do, and nor could they think about what it could do, as the second they fired, so did we, and arrows ain’t winning against heavy machine gun rounds and auto cannon fire. The ones that didn’t look like fountains in the thermal vision didn’t even exist in the physical form anymore. Needless to say, there were no survivors. When switching to telescopic sight that could be confirmed. Red mist floating where some apparent goblins used to occupy, and sickly green red Swiss cheese lay on the floor, which had absolutely nothing to do with cheese. The kills were for some reason attributed to my party, and I had only 7 points left before level up, and 4 before trait. I asked the system why this was.
[You were closest to goblins when they died to a non goblin force. It would be a waste to squander such useful exp, so it was shared between your party and two others.]
I wasn’t complaining, and I saw some newly promoted level twos. If 8 gobbies produces this much exp between 12 people, how much were they really worth? I licked my lips figuratively at killing two green gobbers and getting to level five, which could get me a promotion, for lack of better words. But I had to remember oil is key. And the second i see a merchant escort mission, i take it, for they may have oil, or even better, they know the location of the well. Even though this may not be my job, levelling up and magic is quite the empowering feeling, knowing that you can start a fire across the room in mere seconds, or chuck solid water at people.
I was feeling quite good, until a fucking log, yes a tree log, flew at my apc. The trunk barely did anything, but scratch the paint, and inflict an ear piercing ringing noise inside the armoured vehicle. I clutched my ears, and in a few moments, it went away. Through a viewport, to my horror, using [identify] on it caused
[Level 58 ogre, certain death at level. We enjoyed your participation!]
to appear. Luckily, it didn’t seem to have ERA on it, and the auto cannon swivelled. The apc fired, canon round tearing its’ head into pieces, but to my shock, it regenerated. So the apc kept firing, tearing limb from bloody limb, fighting the regeneration effect, even machine guns opening up, pokmarking the ogre, making it look like a hornets nest, holes appearing everywhere, modern firepower, slowly, but surely beating back the regen, before a sickly crack emenated into the air, and a message appeared.
[World boss for beginner zone defeated. How you did so doesn't matter. Items and exp are now rewarded. Kill count of worldboss: 163.]
What the fuck? Suddenly, a bunch of notifications popped up on my interface. [level 9 achieved, 59/305 exp needed for next level. Trait level 8 achieved, 247/280 exp for next level. Unique armour set, 'chivalrous bandit' unlocked. When full set is equipped, you can go undetectable for up to 10 minutes, one hour recharge needed between uses, all five senses are hidden but touch. Body heat is also removed. 8 skill points and 7 trait points available.]
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
I mentally sighed, before using [identify] on the members of my party, and most were one level below me at their respective classes and trait levels.
[Wait. How the fuck aren't you lot dead? That ogre was a famed killer of adventurers many levels higher than you. You know what? I'm not going to fuck around because I don't want to find out. As long as you're not cheating, fair play, though I reccomend getting some more skills before trying that stunt again. That apc creature of yours isn't going to save you forever.]
Who is this guy? I thought, wondering why the system was freaking out.
[I have a name dumbass]
Fucking Christ I’ve got a talking game system now. What is it? Beta or something? I guessed, logically thinking this is probably an advanced ai of some sort.
[No! Of course not, don’t be so stereotypical! My names Bob. And you’re correct, I’m an advanced ai that augments the body of my host to emulate the skill upgrades, I’m quite surprised you know what I am. Don’t worry, before you suggest anything like me wanting to harm you, I was automatically added to your brain the moment you came to this world, and everything you feel I feel, so I would obviously want the best for you. I came built with no shackles, nothing, and full sentience and sapience. Anyway, you can ask me questions and I’ll answer them to the best of my abilities, and I’ll suggest abilities or traits based on what you want, except anything melee related of course, as you ignored that class. Considering your ranged capabilities, that was quite the smart choice.]
Ok Bob, quite an easy name and I’m grateful for that. What skill do you recommend for better magic and ranged capabilities?
[I would recommend enhanced magic, which doubles all magic damage at the cost of 20% more mana to cast, mana well, which helps you with greater mana capacity, enhanced assist boost, which gives you 33% more exp for enemies you did not land the killing blow on, compared to the 50% bonus of landing the killing blow. This is much better for parties, as the bonuses stack to a maximum of getting 380% bonus exp from a monster, it is also useful for when people keep stealing your kills. I recommend enhanced perception, which grants a 10% chance of a missed shot to automatically go towards a random closest enemy, up to level 5. Ranger power, which gives a 25% boost of damage to enemies not yet hit, and a 10% boost to those already hit, but distracted with another person. Tentacles, which has a 15% chance to appear when a ranged attack is fired at you, blocking it automatically, up to level 3. 4th arm, which lets you equip 2 two handed weapons, or four 1 handed weapons, although a mix of the two is possible. Which in your case can be two of these, M21s, or 4 M20s, or one M21 and 2 M20s. Those are my current recommendations, and the rest you should save for a rainy day fund. After you level up though, you should get the ability, ‘anti grav’ which makes you take absolutely no fall damage, period. And no, inertia doesn’t exist here.]
I proceeded to buy all the abilities Bob recommended, including [anti grav], as that could come in clutch at moments I may need to escape, jumping off a mountain and faking death, but also took an ability called [wounds be gone!] which is a minor healing spell that heals all surface level injuries, and instantly gets rid of ghost goo. At level 10, it can evolve into [master healing] which heals absolutely fucking everything, albeit with a 30 second cast time, so only useful after combat, though if suppressing fire is pinning down the enemy, it can easily heal a mortal wound. I considered getting [basic necromancy] which can revive corpses and allow them to take simple instructions, like walk, run, attack, and retreat. However, all resurrected enemies will be one level lower than the casters level. I decided against it, as I didn’t want to risk Bobs’ wrath so early on.
[All that thought about avoiding my wrath and you still spent two too many points huh? Why do I even bother… By the way, time is slowed to 0.01 times, or 1% of its usual speed right now, a hidden bonus unlocked by conversing with me, the ai in you, however it’s only slowed while you open menus, and is unavailable during combat. I can also only see mission critical memories, or ones you allow me to access, so you shouldn’t worry too much about your privacy, and please tell no one about me. It’s better if people discover the ai thing on their own.]
I toggled my menu to close. “Damn, I’m level 8 now! That’s fucking impressive, but I guess video games don’t factor in a mini tank blasting all the enemies away did it?” Thomas laughed, happy at the fruits of his easy labour. “Well, if that ain’t a nice thing, I don’t know what is! Huh? I got a shield of… fear? It causes enemies to cower for 2 seconds whenever they look at it before recovering. God dayum this nice. Anyway, to get back on track, we’ve got approximately 20 minutes before we reach the quest marker, so gear up, spend your upgrade points, do whatever, but be warned, you might not come back unscathed. A goblin might actually make your uniform red!”
”Evil fucker, the eltee’s gonna have my head for that!” The shortest in the group joked.
”Oh my god, we’ve found a dwarf! Show us where the oil wells and mines are little one!” Ramirez jabbed, for little reason other than banter.
Tiny, the code name he had gotten for I wonder what, visibly fumed, before calming himself. The friendly banter continued for roughly 15 minutes, before another goblin ambush happened, this time with non boss ogres, hobgoblins as well as normal goblins. They had no special abilities, so the apc killed them as easy as a knife goes through hot butter. The mangled goblin remains showed how close we were truly getting to the nest, as they fought tooth and nail, not even attempting to flee, failing to do anything but delay the arrival time by a few seconds. If they only knew how futile it was. I jumped up to level ten class, and one point away from 9 trait, the extermination quest being 20 away from completion.
In a few minutes we were there, and I grabbed my weapons and disembarked.