Chapter 3_Star System Book 1: Iron Will ( Apocalyptic litrpg)

“Whoo baby,” the alien says as he wipes the sweat off his brow. “This planet is hotter than I thought.”

I had ducked behind a rather large pine tree as I saw the silhouettes of 3 humanoid shapes appear in the light. After finding my hiding spot I got to see the three figures walk out, two men that are purple and built like the Rock, and female that could pass as human if not for the solid green eyes and the pointed ears. I instantly hated the men when I saw what the woman was wearing, thread bear clothes and chains on her arms legs they all converged onto a metal collar. The men, however, wore losing fitting clothing that reminded me of Aladdin, they were also armed with curved swords and a rifle of some kind.

“You think that the natives will be a good workforce for the mine,” the second alien said.

“I was informed. That we need to catch six to test that theory,” the sweaty one said a bit of bite to his tone. I had no idea how they could speak English, but I knew one thing, these men were some kind of slave catcher, and the woman was a slave herself. I saw the sweaty guy pull out some device and switch it on. “looks like there is's a town few miles up this creek. Hopefully, there will be some survivors.” I lean out to take a better look at the two men. The woman's eyes lock onto mine it's only for a fraction of a second, but she knows I'm here now.

“Okay will set up camp here give the system some time to adjust our bodies and then at nightfall we hunt,” the second said. I look to the sun; it would be about 4 hours till dark, plenty of time to warn the town about these guys. I start backing away ready to circle around them when I hear sweaty speak again.

“So who gets to break in the girl, the merchant said she's ‘Untouched’” cold anger runs through my body, yup these guys don’t get to live. I don’t hear what's said next and I don’t care at this point there kidnappers and rapist the two kinds of people I hate the most, the scumbags face flashes in my mind, and my vision turns red.

Skill Gained Vengeful Fury

I don’t read the message at all as I step out from behind the tree, the two aliens don’t spot me as I walk to the creek bed, they do however turn towards me when my feet splash through the shallow water. “Hey, Killa! it looks like we got the first catch of the day.” the second alien says as he sees me “this job is going to be easy if they just walk up and surrender to us like this one.” I reach the other side of the shore my hands clenched into fists; I stop in my tracks eyes bloodshot a full of anger. The second guy walks towards me “That's right guy, we're going to take you to a mine, you know what that is? Oh, it's great you be fed and clothed, and they have fun gam-” the alien's words come to a halt as my hand rushes forward and grips his throat. Only a gurgling sound as he tries to scream, his hands come up trying to pry my mine away.

“Goddammit Feli, I told you not to be stupid,” Killa says as he draws his rifle and aims at me, Feli struggles for breath and starts to claw and my arm. I leave my self exposed as Killa gets ready to fire, at the very last second Killa is shocked to find his friend Feli in the line of fire, the gun still goes off and beam of energy knocks Feli out cold. I grab Feli by the crotch heavy him overhead and toss the purple man at the other alien scumbag; they go down in a heap, and I'm instantly on top of both of them fist flying, punching holes in the two redneck aliens. Feli Hunt Defeated +2 AP +1 SP. Killa Hunt, First son Defeated +4 AP. I stand up blood-soaked and looking like death itself, looking down; I see a dagger in the side of my gut, how I did not feel that I don't know. I look over to see the woman who is wide-eyed and shaking.

“Hey, its okay” i say I turned to approach her and trip on something the world starts to spin and the forest floor rapidly approaches, and the world fades to black.

***

“John” a woman's voice calls me “John where are you john”I look around i'm standing in my backyard in front of me is a barbeque with 3 steaks on it, in my hand is a pair of tongs and I'm wearing a apron that says ‘may I suggest the sausage’

“Out the back” I call out, turning I see my sister coming out from the kitchen. She’s spent the day with Junior, and I smile as I see she’s spoilt him again. “You know you can’t just spend your money on my son right” she smiles back.

“Well what else is an aunt supposed to do,” she says placing a hand on her hip “plus he is just too cute to say no to.”

“Dad, leave Aunt Jesse alone she likes spending money on me,” junior says as he takes a seat at the outdoor table. “Plus it's my birthday remember” it is his birthday, but that's not right, this isn’t how his last birthday went. I look around again and realise I'm back in Australia, why am I here.

“Everything okay mate?” Mick asks as he comes from a side gate with a carton of beer on his shoulder. Looking around Jesse and Junior is gone, and there's snags on the barbie.

“No, its not whats going on?” i say looking at my best friend.

“Mate, you sure you okay, do you want me to call the doc,” he asks with worry in his eyes. The doc right, doctor Jimal, the grief expert. I look down to see my body covered in blood and a knife is sticking out of my side. I start to remember, this is the day mick and i find the bastard and buy plane tickets.

“Mick we can’t go to america,” i say

“Sure we can, go over there buy a gun - not to hard in america - hunt down the bastard and go wolf creek on his ass,” mick says, with a laugh.

“No mick we can’t go if we go to america we both end up in jail and he walks free,” i say tossing the tongs at a window.

“What you getting at, is this some kind of Final destination shit” mick ask as he pops the top of a beer “you know you lived through it and now you know what happens.”

“I don’t know everything is wrong, this house the barbeque you,”I say looking around, i see the woman with green eyes standing there silently yelling at me. “What, I can’t hear you.”

***

I awake to the sound of a crackling fire, slowly opening my eyes i see a canvas tent, and a message hanging in the air.

Fight Rewards

For defeating the Hunt Brothers of Omicre 5 thereby ending their family line, you have been awarded the following.

* Deed to the Hunt estate and all items with in the estate

* 2 stun rifles

* 2 Scimitars of good quality

* A Data pad (Tier 1 Dataworld Data terminal)

* The slave “Vira Lightword.”

* An S class space jumper {currently impounded}

* 14,678 Credits

* Misc Clothing and Camping/Hunting supplies

* The Title of ‘Hunter of the Hunt’

Mentally i close the notification, sitting up i find myself naked apart from a white bandage wrapped around my midsection, all semblance of the blood and mud been washed away as well. The tent is a simple ridge tent and the flaps are drawn open i see the night sky a crackling campfire and the green eyed woman cooking what appears to be a dog sized squirrel over the fire. She hasn’t noticed im awake looking around the tent i see a canteen, unscrewing the top i take a sniff, not alcohol, taking a sip i'm happy to find it’s just water and not some alien space drink. My parched throat is so happy to have the cool water running down it; it starts a coughing fit. After i manage to get that under control, i look up to see the woman staring at me, again wide eyed and scared. “Hi” i croak out, “did you um, bandage me up?” she gives me a small nod “Thanks, wear are my clothes?”, the woman doesn’t say anything just walks away out of view for a few seconds and then reappears with a bundle of my clothes, and hands them to me. “Thanks” noticing she still in the chains i frown, “let get dressed and then i’ll get them chains off, Okay,” I say softly. She doesn’t speak just nods and goes back to cooking. Getting dressed quickly and then stepping out of the tent i see that we haven't moved but the bodies of the aliens have been dragged away and their has been put into a crate near the tent. I walk over to it, rummaging around I find nothing that looks like a key for her chains. “Did they have anything to remove the collar?” i ask looking over my shoulder at the woman. She looks up from her cooking and nods again. “Can you speak?” i ask, she nods and then shakes her head. “If you can speak please speak,” i say.

“Thank you master, my collar and chains are keyed to the datapad” her voice is like honey, i blink staring at her in awe she has the voice of an angel. “Master?” she says looking at me with a confused look. I rapidly realise i've been staring abit too hard.

“Ah sorry, just you have such a beautiful voice” my face turning red. I look away back to the items, grabbing the datapad, it a square thing with a screen as big as my hand and 2 short antena poking out the top. Tapping the screen it turns on, but that's as far as i can get, of course, it wouldn’t be set to english how was i meant to free the woman now. “Can you read this?” i ask her as i give her the datapad, in exchange she gives me a plate of meat carved from the giant rodent, Heh, i've been eating prison food for the last 3 year i think as i take a small bite, its alright probably not going to replace a stake but it taste better than the ‘steak’ we got in prison.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Sorry master, it is written in the native Omicre language,” the woman says as she hands back the data pad i try to hand her her plate of meat back but she refuse to take it. “No master i will eat after you,” she says.

“Okay look enough with the master stuff, my names John, and i don’t plan on owning a slave” i say “now you obviously hunted the big beast, and cooked it yourself, so it’s your food!” i kinda yelled the last part, again trying to hand back the food.

“Yes Master,” she says taking the plate and starting to eat, tears start to well up.

“Shit, i'm sorry i didn’t mean to yell, look as soon as we get this thing into english or whatever the soon as you can go,” I say trying to put her to ease.

“Please Master, don’t sell me,” she says quietly flinching as she does.

“Huh? Sell you?, I'm not going to sell you im going to set you free” I say confused.

She looks up wide eyed at me and slowly shuffles away from me “No Master, Freedom is only possible viva one way” she says backing up again.

“And that is?” i ask confused as hell, why wouldn’t she want to be free?

“Death” she whispers, “I am a blood slave, master, these chains do nothing but restrict my magic and movement. I am bound into slavery by the system itself”

“Christ almighty?, so your a slave no matter what?” I ask “also what makes you a slave.”

“Yes master, I am a slave for life. And what makes me a slave is simple, everything I own belongs to the master, I can’t not hurt my master, and I have to do as order by the master.”

“Great,” i say solemnly “okay well, then no more master just call me john,” i say softly “also im not going to treat you as a slave, let's say you have free will to do as you please.”

“Yes mas- John,” she says.

“So tell, what's your name? And how can you speak english?” i ask

“Vira my names vira, and i'm not speaking english, it's the system it translates all spoken languages into the listener's native language” vira explains

“Okay, Vira it’s a pleasure to meet you,” i say, offering my hand for a handshake but she just pushes another plate of meat into it. Fine i'll eat the dinner she prepared it would be rude not to, wouldn’t it? “I'm going to probably zone out for a bit as i spend some points just bear with me for a second,” i say mental pulling up my character sheet.

John Woods

Strength

Class

Opportunist

Agility

Health

Intelligence

Stamina

Spirit

Mana

Charisma

Unspent AP

Luck

Unspent SP

Skills

Iron Will, Leap, Vengeful Fury

Not bad 7 attribute points a skill point and it seemed I unlocked a skill too, I pull up vengeful fury’s information.

Vengeful Fury

Only those who seek Vengeance can achieve this feat.

Vengeful Fury automatically activates, when the user wants vengeance.

The user gains 2x Strength and Agility for the duration, however, the user will also receive 2x damage for the duration.

Duration: Till target of Vengeance is Dead.

Okay, that is dangerous and powerful, so I was hitting those guys for what. I look back at my combat notifications, You hit the Feli Hunt for for 31 damage (26 physical damage + 5 spirit damage). I also hit them each about 10 times that's at least 300 health. “Wow” I whisper, I was fortunate that fight could have gone sideways fast. Whelp it didn’t so onto spend some points, i take some time thinking of how to divide up my 7 ap Ii spend 2 to get strength to 20 then i spend the last 5 on the spirit to raise it to 10. That would mean my punches will do 20 damage each. Okay, skills, I had swords now but it seemed stupid to switch for what I had already invested in so I decided to look at the opportunist skills. Strangely the opportunist skill were set out differently instead of a list it was a tech-tree, with branching paths, starting from 4 different skills.

Cheap Shot

Cost: 20 Stamina

Attack Deals 2x Damage if the target is not expecting the attack

That's not meant to be used that way

Any non weapon you use as a weapon deals increased damage based on the material of the item.

What does this button do

You have an increase chance of hitting the right button on a piece of technology.

You also have an increase chance to make the piece of technology unuseable.

Does not affect technology that you know how to use.

Weapon Specialist (Opportunist)

A Weapon Specialist is better at one type of weapon then all others. when picking this skill, you also choose a type of weapon. all weapons of selected type will deal 1.5x damage.

(Opportunist Variant) Only gets bonus damage if the weapon is of common quality or lower.

They all seem interesting but not right now. What i really needed was something to help me understand the data pad. After doing some quick searches a came across exactly what i was looking for, well i came across 2 skills that would work. The first was Techno Babble. This skill would allow me to understand ways to operate technology, it was set up in ranks which wasn’t odd technically all skills had ranks i just didn’t see them the first time. Each rank would allow me to understand a tier of technology there are ten tiers for each type of item the datapad was a tier 1 item so the first rank would allow me to figure out how to change the settings to english, the drawback is if it didn’t have an english setting i would be screwed. The other skill i found was Cultural Awareness that skill would allow me to understand different cultures, it could be taken an unlimited amount of times but each time i would have to select a culture and i would learn about that culture, in bits and pieces, there where 3 ranks to each culture, first was written languages, common phrases and slang, next would move on to the social structures of the culture and then final the economic structures of a culture. Again the drawback was that it would be a waste of the skill point to learn about 1 alien culture that i might never meet again, i didn’t know anything about the Omicre, they might be small or the might run the galaxy for all i knew, i need more information. “vira , what do you know about the Omicre?” i ask the alien who was slowly falling asleep.

“Not much they only joined the system about 7 cycles ago, unlike this planet they were naturally adopted into the system, and thus far have sided with the Valnari in their military campaign against the Dalnari.” Vira explained.

“Okay, few more questions, how long is a cycle?, Naturally adopted? Who the hell are the Valnari and the Dalnari? And do you think we will run into more Omicron technology or words?”

“Oh sorry, john forgot your new to the system. A cycle is about 3 earth years, don't ask me why that's what it is. The system is ever growing and spreading when it reaches a planet it naturally adopts them slowly increasing the mana leves of the planet over a few hundred years, earth however was forced into the system by Lord Titus Ranavon of the Dalnari, so the rapid increase of mana will cause havoc on the world, that's why your technology doesn’t work overloaded everything the system did. The Dalnari and Valnari are a cruel race of aliens the livelong look like frogs and come in two colours the Dalnari are blue and the Valnari are red, and as far as i know, that's why they hate each other. For your last quest no i don’t think we will run into any more Omicre, my former masters had to sneak onto the planet because its in Dalnari space.”

“Okay techno babble it is” john mutter and selected the skill. He hit apply changes and a rush of energy coursed through his veins.