Mark was instantly alert. The howls had jarred him completely awake. At first, he thought it was just the normal sounds of a pack passing through, but as the howls continued, he could tell they were closing in on the town. He immediately grabbed his rifle and armor and bolted for the main room of the town hall to gather his soldiers.
They were all there, ready with their weapons and armor. Even Arlo had woken up and was ready for the fight that they knew was coming. Everyone else was now awake and most looked terrified, especially Trinity. Naomi looked like she wanted to help, but didn't have a way to. Mark nodded to his soldiers, and all of the lights in the town hall went out. By now they knew the town hall well enough to navigate by the scant light that was available, and if necessary they could turn on a red light so as not to ruin their night vision.
They quietly filed outside the town hall and formed up. Mark posted one man on each corner of the town hall, making a slightly larger square, with the town hall inside it. He and Arlo would serve as a floating reserve to strengthen whichever side needed. Once in position, they all went silent and waited for a wolf to show.
Mark desperately wanted to pull up his Town Management Menu to see if anything that had changed would help them in the fight. He couldn't risk pulling his attention from the surrounding, so he would have to do without. As he scanned, he noticed that the grass that surrounded the town hall was a detriment to this kind of defensive fighting. The wolves could easily sneak up within thirty yards of the town hall without him noticing. He decided then that trimming back the cover and concealment near the town would have to become a priority. Maybe if he was able to put defenses in place, he could justify turning the beacon on that would draw people here.
Movement in the grass stopped his train of thought, as he and the other two soldiers on his side focused on the spot they had seen. Mark recalled reading that you could detect movement better in your peripheral vision and switched back to methodically scanning over the surrounding grass for any more movement. The first strike did not come on his side, though. He heard a few gunshots from the other side of the town hall, but no screams of pain. He was still curious so he made his way around the tent.
He lay down beside Arlo and received a report. Arlo told him that only one had shown and that it had been driven off in only a couple of shots. The report was interrupted by gunfire from the side of the tent that Mark had just left. The same happened there, a wolf popped up for a moment, but once it was shot at, slinked back away into the grass. Mark was perplexed by this sudden change in tactics. All the wolves he had fought before had simply charged straight for whatever started attacking them. Now they were displaying some higher level of thinking, though Mark wasn't sure if he was just unfamiliar with how wolves hunted, or if this was something brought on by the integration.
There were a few more testing attacks by the wolves, but Mark had yet to think up a way to stop the wolves from doing so. He couldn't order his soldiers not to fire, as any wolves they hit during these tests were wolves that would be injured whenever the real assault came if it ever did. The amount of ammunition that had was a concern, so after the third, he was forced to order his men to hold their fire unless they had a clean shot. After the fifth attack, they had stopped completely, even the background howls that had been going on stopped. The night had turned completely silent, and Mark was beginning to get concerned.
One final testing attack came a few minutes later, and Mark had to resist the urge to go over to see if it was the true assault. He could tell by now, based on the number of rounds fired, that there had only been one wolf. His patience paid off as ten wolves tore from the trees and raced through the grass at a truly astounding speed. But by this point, Mark and his soldiers had adjusted, and precise bullets found targets in three of the ten wolves before they had even crossed half the distance. The wolves powered through the storm of gunfire and were nearly upon the three men. Mark yelled for Arlo to come over to this side to assist as one of the wolves slammed full speed into one of Mark's men. A sickening crunch could be heard as multiple bones were broken. Mark knew that he was still alive through some kind of link, but was clearly in no fighting condition. Mark emptied the rest of his magazine into the wolves closest to him, bringing the total remaining down to five.
At this point, Mark was running purely on instinct, with the adrenaline in his veins slowing everything down to a crawl. He unclipped his gun from his sling, and half a second later his combat knife was in his hand as he charged the wolf that had tackled his soldier. Colliding with the force of a runaway train, Mark drove his knife directly into the brain stem of the wolf, but he didn't know it was already dead. He grabbed the soldier's rifle and used it to keep the attention of the remaining four wolves. He managed to bring down one with the rest of the magazine that was left in the injured soldier's weapon, but it clicked empty as well and he laid it beside the soldier. When he glanced over, he saw that Will, his first citizen and resident medic, was spraying some kind of foam on the soldier's injuries.
When Mark turned back to the fight, he saw that Arlo had swept around from the side of the tent and taken out the last three wolves. Mark started to breathe a sigh of relief when something crashed into Mark faster than he could react. The breath was driven from his lungs, and powerful jaws clamped down on his right arm. A burning pain shot through his arm as razor-sharp teeth dug in. When his eyes refocused a second later he saw that it was a wolf, close in size to the bear he had fought. Mark reactively hammered his good fist into the head of the wolf. Unlike the bear, it seemed sturdier and was finally forced to let go as Mark had cracked its skull by the third hit.
The wolf seemed stunned and Mark rolled away as Arlo and the rest of the soldiers fired into its flank. Instead of piercing through, the bullets were stopped by the tough hide or only penetrated slightly. Will yelled to get Mark's attention and tossed him the can he had been spraying on the injured soldier. He yelled again over the gunfire and told Mark to spray it on his arm. Mark complied as his arm was still surprisingly intact, but bleeding profusely. The wound stung as the cold spray hit it, but the bleeding immediately stopped.
Mark looked back at the wolf and saw that the volume of bullets was finally managing to bring it down. It twitched one last time and Mark walked over and kicked it to Make sure it was truly dead. Arlo and Will walked over to take a look at the wolf. Will pulled a flashlight out and shined it on the wolf so that they could see it better. In the light, they could see that it had some kind of silvery sheen on its fur, likely the source of its increased defense.
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"You ever seen a wolf like this?" Will asked.
"No, but there are all kinds of new beasts out there now," Mark said.
"I checked my notifications, and it says it's something called a Steelhide Alpha." Arlo told them.
"It was way tougher than that bear we fought on the way here, but that makes sense based on its name."
"Why did it attack? It seems odd for wolves to attack people like this." Will asked.
"I think it attacked because of the wolves we killed yesterday. It could have followed the trail, but I agree, I thought it was unlikely an attack of this scale would happen. It even when straight for me as if it knew I was the leader. It's scary."
"Well, it's dead now. There probably won't be another attack tonight, or at least for the next few days since we were probably in this pack's territory." Will said.
"I agree, let's move the bodies away from the tent and stack them up together. We can burn what we don't cook tomorrow. By the way, what's that spray that you were using?" Mark asked.
"It came with my medic class. It's a coagulant spray. It stops bleeding but doesn't do much else. Pretty handy for something like this, but your man over there is gonna need some more intensive care, and I'm worried about internal bleeding."
"Go ahead. Thanks, doc."
Will had started to turn towards the downed soldier but stopped at what Mark said. "Why'd you call me that?"
"I'm not sure, just seemed to fit. Why do you ask?"
"I was an army medic before all of this and no offense, but I can tell that you aren't Army. It was just odd cause that's what an Army medic."
Will jogged back over to the injured soldier and pulled out a folding stretcher. Mark saw him start to carry him back into the tent but turned to help move the bodies of the wolves. Once the cleanup was done, Mark led everyone back into the tent to get some rest. He took the rest of the watch for the night and used it as an opportunity to see the numerous notifications he had missed.
[Land Navigation Lvl 2 -> Lvl 3]
[Skill Learned Tactician (Tier 0; Level 1)]
[Leadership Lvl 2 -> Lvl 3]
[Wolf Lvl 4 (5) Slain. Experience awarded. x100 Basic RES]
[Rifleman Lvl 3 -> Lvl 5]
[Commander Lvl 4 -> Lvl 5]
[Specialized Units Unlocked]
[Recruiting Lvl 1 -> Lvl 2]
[Leadership Lvl 3 -> Lvl 4]
[Wolf Lvl 7 (11) Slain. Experience awarded. x385 Basic RES]
[Rifleman Lvl 5 -> Lvl 6]
[Commander Lvl 5 -> Lvl 6]
[Steelhide Alpha Lvl 15 (F-Tier) Slain. Experience Awarded. x150 Basic RES]
[Rifleman Lvl 6 -> Lvl 7]
[Commander Lvl 6 -> Lvl 7]
Mark was shocked to see how much had changed since he had checked his notifications. He knew he had been putting it off, and the slight pulsing in the back of his head never let him forget, but it was quite satisfying to see all of his gains presented at once. The first thing that drew his attention was that jump in his Rifleman skill. He felt it had to be an error that he had managed to jump two levels at once. He blinked a couple of times, but it stayed the same. He thought back to what he was doing during that fight. He remembered that he had been especially focused on his shooting form, and that seemed to justify the skipped level. He filed away the information and moved on.
The next thing Mark noticed was that he had gained three levels in only two days. That seemed like a good pace, but he really had no way of judging it. He decided to ask Arlo what level he was to use as a guide for his own speed. He also saw that level five in Commander had unlocked specialized units and he was curious what that meant, so he focused on the notification.
[Specialized Units Unlocked]
Specialized Units allows you to allocate up to one-fourth of your total units to certain specializations. Current options: Medic, Automatic Rifleman, Grenadier.
This truly excited Mark. Something he was beginning to get annoyed at was the lack of automatic weapons. While it would decrease accuracy, the wolf assault on his town proved that he needed something with more firepower, or at the least, more men. Having reviewed all of the notifications, Mark eagerly opened his character screen.
[Status]
Name: Mark Anders
Race: Raxxor (C)
Class: Commander (Level 7)
Profession: Pending
STR: 18 DEX: 16 CON: 17 INT: 10 WIS: 10 CHA: 18
HP: 22/69
VP: 14/15
STA: 36/72
Units:
Rifleman: 4/28 (+1 per day)
Specialized Units: 0/7 Allocated
Subordinates: 1/3
Arlo Rollins (Soldier Level 5)
Skills:
Leadership (Tier 0; Level 4): NPC soldiers respond to all reasonable orders.
Rifleman (Tier 0; Level 7): Basic understanding of how to aim and fire a rifle including during combat.
Identify: (Tier 0; Level 2): Focus on a target to gain information.
Land Navigation: (Tier 0; Level 3): Basic understanding of how to navigate using a compass and map.
Recruiting: (Tier 0; Level 2): People are more likely to hear you out when attempting to recruit them.
Tactician: (Tier 0; Level 1): Battle plans that you make are more easily understood by people.
Titles:
Sergeant First Class (Rank; Class Specific)
Duke (Nobility Rank)
Progenitor Noble of Earth (Award; +1 to all stats)
Basic Resources: 730
Mark remembered that his character screen showed Arlo's level, and was slightly surprised by the difference. Other than the bear, and one pack of wolves, Mark and Arlo had been a part of the same fights. The main thing that drew his attention was that his Vitality Points had gone down by one. He remembered from the game that Hit Points were a measure of how much damage you could take before serious injuries were inflicted on one's Vitality Points. The Hit Points would regenerate fairly quickly while Vitality Points took much longer. He wasn't sure how the rate would work in the real world, but based on what Hit Points he had recovered since the fight, it looked to take around twelve hours to regenerate.
Next, Mark looked at his Specialized Units. When he opened the menu, it was a simple allocation menu where he could select how many of each he wanted. He started by choosing one of each so that he could get a better feel for how useful they would be. He received a pop-up that told him his Specialized Units would take priority in the spawn order.
He finally turned his attention to his Profession line. It still showed pending, and Mark had finally made up his mind. He had been hesitant to select it, but after the assault from the wolves, he knew that he needed to grow the town, and once he had defenses in place, he could turn the beacon on and help people to find his town.
As the first rays of daylight broke through, Mark selected the Mayor class and prepared to expand.