Chapter 58: Position
Edited by: ArchmageNaoki, Deathbricks, Bunny, and Arthur300000
The aftermath of the bandit eradication consisted of a lot of work. Things were a lot simpler dealing with the group of bandits in the forest. In the city, however, there are so many new things I have to learn such as calling ambulances, returning stolen property, taking care of public safety, and cleaning up the battle site.
To make it worse, my platoon became listless as the buff wore off. It was like they were deflated. Most of their equipment was destroyed during their rampage. Seeing them staring blankly at their broken equipment with drooping ears made me feel guilty, so I let each of them choose one of the bandit's gear as compensation which quickly turned their sad faces into smiles. Even so, they still moved slowly like a sloth, so most of the work like turning civilians away was left to the eight guards that we saved.
Cocoa and Pristia also helped a lot since they took over the command center. They contacted all the related parties and told me what to do. Still, cleaning the place by myself was very troublesome, so I took a bit of shortcut. Sadly, I was scolded really bad by a sanitation team when they saw the bandit corpses inside the garbage bins. In my defense, I thought they were recyclable...
The tedious chores were finally finished around an hour past noon. Yet, my platoon still hasn’t recovered from the backlash. Moreover, because there are also prisoners, I can’t just call several taxies for them. In the end, I convinced the police officers who had arrived to take the bandits and us back to the command center.
“Don’t worry little miss. I will take care of it.” Mr. Policeman said with a smile. He’s a surprisingly nice guy. I stored all the trucks and the wrecked shuttle away and jumped into the back of a police van.
The ride wasn't as comfortable as usual. The back compartment of the police vehicle was damp and smelled funny. The windows around me are too high up and full of bars, so instead, I looked at the mini ducks, cockroach-sized ducks walking around in the compartment. I drop a piece of cracker on the floor and look at the ducks swarm the bread like what happened in the fish pond. However, Rina weakly told me to stop. She seems to be scared of them. That's strange, look at how cute they are. I might take some of them and raise them as pets, but I have to ask my mom and dad first. Oh, speaking of them, I still needed to tell them about Cocoa, so I wrote a letter.
From: Kuro Velvori <[email protected]>
Subject: Is it alright?
Date: 94754.17 1:14 PM
To: Catherine Velvori <[email protected]>
Dear mom,
I found a girl named Cocoa under a wreck in a ruined village. She was alone and had no one to rely on, so I hired her. Is it alright for me to keep her? She's small so that she can sleep in my room.
PS: I found some cute mini ducks, can I keep a few of them as pets?
Love,
Kuro
Attachment:
Cocoa's picture.img [1,456 KS]
Mini duck's picture.img [1,211 KS]
I attached the cutest images I had and clicked send. While waiting for mom to reply, some of those mini ducks began rubbing their faces against my boots and rolling around. They are really cute, but for some reason, my platoon shy away from them. I want to ask what’s wrong with them, but an e-mail notification suddenly appeared in my vision. It's the reply from my mom. Well, that was quick.
From: Catherine Velvori <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: Is it alright?
Date: 94754.17 1:17 PM
To: Kuro Velvori <[email protected]>
Dearest Daughter,
Good job rescuing her. (b~_^)b. Don't worry. I will make dad approve of her one way or another. Hope you come back soon.
PS: Put those ducks away, and don't forget to wash your hands thoroughly.
Love you more,
Mom
Not my mom too! Are these ducks really dirty? As I was inspecting Mr. Valentino the duck, the car was stopped, and the back door was opened for us to exit. It was only for a short time that we were together, but sorry, my home doesn't accept you guys. I said goodbye to Mr. Valentino, Mr. Givenchy, Mr. Diesel, Ms. Louis, and others. All of them are mini ducks though. I gave them another piece of biscuit and walked away.
My subordinates stumble back to the barracks to get some rest, so I wish them a good sleep and put the captured bandits in the jail. I will have my brother deal with them later.
"I'm back." I greeted Cocoa and Pristia as I arrived at the command room. Sophia is also there, she seems to have completed her assignment, but before I can say anything else, Pristia grabbed me and carried me to the bathroom. "Mom told me to wash you up thoroughly." She said.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
.
.
.
After a very long bath with my sister, I wobbled to the living room and flopped onto the sofa. Ahh, finally, a peaceful moment to myself. Most of the bathing time was used by Pristia to inspect every nook and cranny of me. She seems content that there was no damage. After that, we talked about the time when I was missing until I felt a bit dizzy from the heat. Is my cold resistance making me weak to heat?
The cold air in the living room cooled me off quickly. I shook myself a bit to vent off all the steam that was still trapped in the fancy girly clothes my sister dressed me in. Well, we just reunited a moment ago, so I let her have her fun. I picked up a remote control and turned on the television.
"Breaking news: After a long fight, the immortal class monster codename 'NV-082' was finally taken down by the army. General Holstine declared this afternoon that he only needs a few days to clean up its minions in the operation Neo-Blitzkrieg." The screen shows a black glob full of tentacles and a Cowkin in a military uniform. Then a video of tanks and airplanes launching missiles. Wow, they really have those things. Oh, aren’t those attack helicopters?
As the reporter narrated all the heroic deeds of their troops, Pristia placed a dish full of cookies on the table and handed me a bottle of chocolate milk. I stood up and chugged an entire bottle in one go while resting one of my hands on my hip. Phew, that hit the spot. As I sat back down on the couch and started munching on assorted cookies, my sister began to dry my hair. Ahh, I missed this feeling.
Cocoa and Sophia are still busy coordinating the city surveillance system and looking out for trouble in the background. I overheard Cocoa say something through the noise of hair dryer like: "A small group of monsters crossing west entrance, Lambda team it's all yours. Sophia, how many minutes left to change shift?" The big city has a lot of things to do, huh? As I thought that, the TV moved on to another news.
"At about 10:24 AM at Stonehaven research facility, Alphatrick City, there was an intense fight between the city militia and a group of notorious bandits called USRR also know as Under Sewage Rat Revolution. The fight lasted only a short period but caused severe damage to the surroundings. Here is the current feed." The scene changed to where I just fought. I thought I had already cleaned up all the blood and gore, but from the film, I saw that there are some guts and body parts still dangling on the trees. Well, they are stuck too high up for me to see it anyways. There was also damage to the roads and buildings nearby from explosions, crashes, and plasma balls. But those are the engineers’ job, not mine.
"Two trucks were screeching in then there is a flying pig, and WOOSH, and BANG-BANG-BOOM then a bad guy was sent flying." The reporter interviewed an elementary school student who saw the event. It seems that boy's gore resistance is high. I can understand what that boy said, but I doubt other people would get it. I wonder where the boy was hiding though. Uhmm, the two-tone cookie is also delicious. The warm air from the dryer also felt nice. Combined that with the warm sensation from the steam, it made me feel a bit sleepy.
"Soon afterward, the bandits were transported by local police officers and Innovation IV street will be re-opened for public use tomorrow." The screen displayed my platoon dragging their feet into the back of the police's van. Oi! That's my platoon, not the bandits! But well, if you look at how they are dragging themselves, it might have looked that way...
"Ohh, isn't that you, Kuro. Eh? What happened to your team?" Asked Aunos as he came out from the bedroom to watch the news.
"Ah, good afternoon Aunos. I used this spell on them." I asked Skynet to project the buff spell for him to see. Calling it a buff spell would lead to confusion in the future. Maybe I should name it.
"That’s quite a spell. It removes several targets' limitations and copies parts of the user's combat knowledge to multiple targets. I can see that this spell is quite useful to you. But the backlash seems to be horrible." Huh? Copy? Not improve? That's totally different from the Skyrim’s spell I knew. Well, the result is the same, but its mechanic is different. It seems more like my spells and my abilities were derived from Skyrim's specification, not the real one. Whoever did this seems to jumble the things from this world up and make it look like Skyrim's spells instead. It made me wonder what my dragon shout is... And what exactly is my origin? The more I think about it, it looks less likely that my body came from Skyrim.
"Anyway, don't use this spell on the same people more than once a week, otherwise their bodies won't hold." He said that and sat down next to me with a huff. His weight moved the air in the cushion to my side and almost flipped me over.
"Oi!" I protest. "Sorry sorry." He said and took some of my cookies.
"Oh, right, let me show you our current rank." Rank? What is that? He taps his tablet a few times and shows it to me. My team is at rank 18th out of total 151 teams. Not a bad position I would say. Uhmm, we got 14,680 points?
"What is this rank about?" I asked.
"This week’s assignment is a garrison type, so each team’s score was decided by what deeds they made. Here, your deeds of cleaning out bandits and recovering stolen research data gave us 8,000 points." He taps on our team name, and there is a list of deeds our team has done and their points. He still didn't answer my question though.
"I mean, what can I get from all these points?" As I asked, another entry appeared on the list. It said: "Eliminate a small group of monsters at the west gate, 70 points" Oh, this one must be from what Cocoa said a moment ago. How can they update this so fast?
"Well, if we are in the top three we will get a special reward from the academy. Also, those points will contribute to rank up our student class." I think I'm at rank 3B if I remember correctly. I pull my ID card out to check. Yup, its 3B. There are six more ranks to go until I became a full-fledged adventurer. And I need 4,000 points to increase my rank by one. So, I would need... How many points was it, Skynet?
[24,000 points, mistress. Deducting your progress in rank 3B, then the points needed would be 22,260 points. Also, for a four-member team that would be 89,040 points.] Oh, that is still a long way to go.
"Wait, can I use the deed letters, I got along the way here?" There is a letter from Mr. Bear at Fort Greyjaws. It was only 1,000 points, but a point is a point.
"Yes, you can as long as you are eligible to be rewarded by those letters." Aunos smiled. For some reason, I felt like I played into his hand again. It was frustrating, but since it's a win-win situation, I would be a loser if I'm stubborn.
"Here." I toss a letter at him. He gleefully scans a strange pattern on its corner. So, those multi-circular patterns are this world’s barcode, huh? However, as he finished, his face turned serious and looked at me.
"Kuro, did you give me the wrong letter?" He said. Huh? Oops... I accidentally gave him the unique monster's bounty letter... I looked at the screen, and our rank shot up to the 1st position.
1st Team Aunos 1,014,750 points
2nd Team Travis 24,220 points
3rd Team Stefan 22,920 points
Damn… Can I press ctrl+z here?