As we walked through the streets using various alleyways and sometimes rooftops, eventually we reached our preplanned temporary base, a small house. We had decided to move the cars from our old base to the edge of the town before travelling on foot, carrying bags filled with food, water and the messages Ghost had made.
The sedan had been completely lost. The acid had eaten through one side completely, with a good amount eating through the engine block, rendering it completely useless. With the knowledge of the Acidmancers we now shifted our plans slightly, opting to go on foot instead of risking another car. This meant we would have to slowly fill the minivan and SUV by filling our bags and anything big would be dismantled on the spot.
It set us back a lot and while we found ourselves frustrated but since we couldn’t do anything about it we just took it in stride. The messages were a bit redundant but because we had two cars at the car lot that worked we planned to detour and acquire one. We decided to add an additional week to achieve what we originally wanted to do. We had discussed the possibility of doing this with the other three so we didn’t need to worry, but without a way to communicate with them we were worried they would be worried as well.
We moved as quietly as we could and breached the little house. Finding two Husks inside, we quickly led them outside before finishing them. One was a Crawler while another a normal Husk, both relatively easy to kill. Entering the house and securing the both exits, we used what we could, like old mattresses or sheets, to cover the windows and used a candle for light. Sitting down on the floor, I breathed out as Sheep and Winter stood over me.
“If I am to pass out make sure one of you rests while the other keeps watch.” Seeing both of them nod, I turn my attention to my HUD and bring up the advancement prompt. Steadying my breathing, I selected Y.
A sharp pain erupted around my abdomen, a feeling like I had been stabbed before everything went dark.
As if waking from a deep sleep, I groan as the feeling of pain all around my body washes away, a slightly refreshing feeling replacing it as my eyes flicker open to see Sheep standing over me.
“Sleeping beauty finally wakes up. It’s been two days, how do you feel?”
Groaning as I sit up, I look around for a moment.
“Winter is on the second floor keeping watch. We switched about an hour ago, I’ll go get her.” Sheep moves out of the room as I rub my eyes. Turning my attention to my HUD, I saw a new bar just below my health. A mana bar, showing 50 mana out of 50.
“Mana?” My mind still waking itself up, I yawn and stretch myself before looking closer at the System.
Sharpshooter Lvl 1 -> Sharpshooter Lvl 2
Mana Pool Opened. Potential: Excellent.
Spellcraft available.
Talents available.
Vision, Strength, Reflexes and Agility have all improved two fold.
Sharpshooter Lvl 2 Package Available.
Your abilities and talent as a Sharpshooter have further increased, along with becoming stronger. Vanquish your foes and sharpen your skill as a Sharpshooter, your foes will never escape your sight, no matter how far they run.
Sharpshooter knowledge is out there for you to find and acquire. Defeating powerful enemies may lead you to more knowledge.
Clicking on a prompt to collect the sharpshooter package, a long case appeared in front of me, followed by a strange stone tablet and a computer size box. Picking up the stone tablet first, the System came up with a prompt right away.
Spell Tablet: 1 Use
Spell: Hawkeye:
Enhance your vision further, allowing you to see further than possible, up to two kilometres in distance. Cost: 25 Mana to activate, 2 Mana per Second while active.
“A-a spell?” Blinking the sleep out of my eyes and rereading the spell once again, my mind started to finally catch up as I realised that I had magic! Not only that, but talents as well? The System hadn’t said anything related to gaining any talents and looking at this tablet I had to wonder what more could be discovered if the previous message is to be believed.
Hearing footsteps, I look up to see Winter and Sheep entering. Giving them a small nod as Winter quickly sat next to me, I explained what I had just discovered.
“Spells? Mana? Interesting, so we gain that at Lvl 2 of our Class? I wonder if our Jobs lead to magic and spells?” Sheep had a thoughtful one while Winter laid her head on my shoulder.
“Rubes, do you feel different?” Putting the tablet down, I flex my fingers slightly, though it didn’t exactly do anything to show me any difference.
“Perhaps a test outside will do? For the moment I feel really good, like I woke up from a really good sleep.”
“You did sleep for two whole days, Ruby.” Deven laughs as he looks at the tablet. “Going to use it? I’m curious as to what it does.”
Picking the tablet up again with one hand, the other being held by Rebecca, I called out to the System.
“System Call: Use.”
I felt knowledge of the spell enter my mind, as if teaching me how to use the magic in its most basic form. At first, there was a gap in the knowledge it gave me, about how to use mana, but then more knowledge flooded into my mind.
Entity: Midnight has yet to learn any spells. As this is the first spell she has learnt she will be provided with knowledge on how to utilise mana
I see, it’s not a controllable source but can be commanded to move for spells I have knowledge on. The spell taught me how to use the mana, the knowledge the System gave me is how to move the mana through my body. The tablet crumbles into dust in my hands. Moving mana with a thought through my body to my eyes, I used the spell.
My vision zoomed, as if in a speeding car, as it focused completely on the wall on the other side, seeing only a splinter of wood. I couldn’t see past the wall and noting that limitation I cancelled the spell as my vision returned to normal. Recalling that my vision had been improved once more, I look around in the dark room and find I can see even greater detail than before. For example, I could see the small hairs on Deven’s arms who stood about three metres from me if I focused.
Unfocusing my eyes with a shake of my head, I looked towards the long case and box. My hands moved towards the case, already knowing what is contained inside and opening the case I sharply breathed in, as did Deven and Rebecca.
“I’m sorry, but is that a fucking T3x?”
“T3x TACT A1, according to the System.” Pulling out the sniper, I turned it over carefully to see it is indeed the brand we thought. The icon at the bottom of my profile changed from my glock to the T3x and showed one out of nine bullets, meaning one is…
“Fuck, it’s loaded.” Not moving the sniper in the slightest, I watch as Winter and Sheep both quickly move, avoiding the barrel. Quickly unloading it and taking the magazine out, I checked the barrel and saw the ammo update to 0/0.
“It’s safe now. Why in the hell is it loaded?”
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“Note that down for when the rest of us reach Lvl 2.” Deven shook his head while Rebecca held her chin.
“Rubes, is there anything else?” Taking out a stand and a band from the case, I found nothing else. “So no additional ammo?”
“The box might have some.” Pulling the box towards me, I opened it and felt my heart tremble at the sight. Half of it is stacked with ammo, 260 REM bullets, and the other half of the box holds a scope, four fragmentation grenades and two smoke grenades.
“Fucking hell, the System or whatever gives us these items need to pack them more carefully. A single bullet and this house becomes a dead-zone.” We all shiver at those words spoken by Rebecca. Taking the ammo out I counted the amount and felt a bit overwhelmed.
“A thousand rounds. Generous.” Looking at the scope, I wondered if I should even bother equipping it. Leaving it for now, I took out the rest of the grenades carefully and found a utility belt at the bottom. “Oh thank god. Storage.” Just as I removed it, another message came from the System.
As you are the first to reach Lvl 2 in Sharpshooter and within the first fifty people to reach Lvl 2 you have been provided an additional package.
Telling the other two about this new message, I confirmed the prompt and another box appeared in front of me. Handing two frag grenades to both Deven and Rebecca while taking both smoke grenades for myself, I look at the additional box.
“I-it’s not more ammo, is it?”
Opening the box, I saw an oval blue stone on top of what looked to be a ghillie suit. Picking up the oval stone, I raised an eyebrow at what it provided.
Talent Stone: 1 Use.
Allows selection of one Talent from three choices, limited to your current Class Lvl.
Lvl Limit: 2
“So it lets you select a Talent as well? You’re certainly receiving a lot from all of this.” Rebecca sat down and held the oval stone. “It’s pretty.” I couldn’t help but agree, transparent and blue in colour made it quite easy on the eyes. She hands it back to me before turning to Deven. “We need to make it a top priority to hunt Husks. Getting rewards like this for being quick to get to Lvl 2 is far too much to pass up. Rubes, how many points for Lvl 2?”
Opening the Class System, I saw it had changed to include Spells and Talents. “Three hundred. The only road block will be types of Husks.”
“Now this is exciting. The ghillie suit will vastly improve your ability to snipe now that Husks have sight. Alright, we’ll change the order of what we do out here. Messages while hunting Husks is the way to go, then we’ll bring the cars in once we’ve hit Lvl 2 since we’ll have weapons of our own.” With us all agreeing, I used the Talent Stone.
Talent Stone Used.
Class Detected: Sharpshooter.
Please select from the following talents:
Right In Between The Eyes: Increases damage caused by headshots by 50% for each successful headshot. Stacks up to ten times. Your shots will use five mana per bullet passively.
Deep Camouflage: You are far harder to see, blending in with your environment. This effect is automatic and uses two mana per second. If using a ghillie suit this effect is vastly improved.
Long Distance Sniper Call: Every metre your bullet travels past 20 metres increases your damage by 1% with no cap.
“Fucking hell it’s like a video game.” Looking dumbly at the talents I could select, I informed the other two as they looked shocked.
“Percent increases to damage? It uses mana so how powerful is mana?” Rebecca frowned while looking thoughtful.
“Perhaps it’s mana specific to a Sharpshooter? If mana is that powerful, how strong will spellcasting be?” Deven shakes his head. “You have to move mana to use it, right? So how does it work for talents? Would it just use mana without the need to move it?”
“We’ll find out I guess. For now, let me think.” Rereading the talents, I close my eyes and visualise dozens of simulations in my mind, putting all the talents to use individually.
The first talent, the increase to headshot damage, would be insane against bulky Husks with large amounts of health. The biggest advantage to this is the wording, it didn’t mention the same target meaning I could get ten headshots on weaker enemies before drilling rounds at 500% more damage. I didn’t know what damage looked like numerically so I could only visualise what the expected damage of a bullet would do. The drawback is that it uses ten percent of my mana each shot, but if my mana increases this cost would become redundant for a very powerful talent.
Deep Camouflage, while not exciting, would provide me with a massive amount of survival, allowing me to hide easily for a short while, letting me get potshots off. The downside is not being able to control when it activates, meaning it would drain my mana regardless of if I need the additional camo.
Lastly, Long Distance Sniper Call is overpowered in every sense of the word. During full dives my longest shot had been nine hundred metres with the right conditions. Ignoring twenty metres means that the shot would deal 880% damage and due to being a sniper I would almost always average over 100% each shot easily. The fact it had no cooldown nor mana cost made this by far the best choice, the only downside being that I needed to snipe to activate it. Right In Between The Eyes is vastly superior in each scenario that involves short ranged combat, but looking at the future once we are well equipped and I can snipe from long range, Long Distance Sniper Call is by far the superior choice as I wouldn’t need to rely on long distance.
Selecting Long Distance Sniper Call, I smile with satisfaction as I explain my choice to the others, both agreeing it’s the best choice.
“Even now it’s the best option, you can sit at the back while we handle putting up the messages and take out threats while we’re hunting.” Deven nodded along as he spoke.
“Alright, get out Sheep. I’m going to change.” Shaking his head, Sheep leaves the room before I strip down into my underwear and take out the ghillie suit, which reveals more clothing underneath. A thin cotton shirt and long pants and thanking whoever gave me this box for their consideration I put the thin clothing on. The clothing I had on before was thick to help with the slight coldness but wearing that clothing and a ghillie suit would overheat me, so having the thin clothing would help a lot.
With Winter helping me put the suit on, I make sure everything fits, which surprisingly did, before putting the utility belt on, attaching the smoke grenades and filling up several pouches with ammo. Putting my glock into the holster on the utility belt, I stood there for a moment as a feeling crept over me that I hadn’t felt for a long time. I felt awesome, like I had just equipped a legendary item and couldn’t stop grinning.
I felt my cheek being poked before a giggle came from my side. “You look very satisfied.” Smiling at Winter as our eyes met, I poked her cheek back as she giggled.
“What’s the time?”
“I took over watch at sunrise and it’s been about an hour since you woke up and started playing with your new toys.”
“Perfect, let’s drag Sheep out and get started. I’m eager to test out everything, especially my new magic and strength.” Grabbing Winter’s hand carefully so as to not hurt her as I didn’t know my strength yet, we found Sheep waiting in a room over and discussed what to do. Our lineup would be Sheep and Winter taking lead with me following far behind, both of them trusting me with my sniping. Deciding to equip the scope before we left, I strapped the rifle behind me and we left the house.
In front of us is one of the more common sights in the town, a car. Deciding to test my strength, I approached the front of it, crouched down and lifted the front above my head, easily. Hearing Sheep and Winter gasp behind me, I slowly placed the car down to avoid making a mess and turned around to them.
“So I’m far stronger than I thought. I felt a bit strained once I lifted it completely, like lifting a heavy box and felt I could casually tip it over completely.”
“Could you pick up the car and throw it?”
“Can you throw a heavy box? No, it’s not that much strength.” Looking at my hands while answering Sheep, I felt excited but also felt worried as I usually did when this topic came up. If we are getting this kind of strength then we would be facing stronger enemies…well, we already knew we had to kill a dragon.
“Sheep, lead the way. I’ll follow from a distance as planned.” The two nod and start moving down the street carefully. As they walked, I kept my eyes on them and after two minutes started to follow, estimating the distance between us to be about two hundred metres. Holding my rifle while walking, I tested Hawkeye and got used to it. Mana regenerates at one per second but when Hawkeye is in use it doesn’t regenerate. Is regeneration halted for when any spell is in use, or is it only certain spells?
A minute to regenerate mana felt good, it meant I could scout and after a minute check another area. Seeing the two stop, I get onto the roof of a nearby building and look around. Realising I could scout far more from up high, I took a moment to check the surroundings as much as I could. The streets for the most part were obstructed by buildings but I could see everything around where Winter and Sheep were working.
Turning off Hawkeye, I raised my sniper and took aim through the scope, making adjustments slowly, taking everything including the wind into account. At the end of the scope is a Heavy, amongst a pack of other Husks. Watching the pack, which is the closest Husks to the pair, I noticed their pattern isn’t as expected. I had thought they would be stumbling around aimlessly, but now I’m taking the time to watch, it almost seemed like they were patrolling.
Ghost had mentioned this before, but it had been closer to the town’s centre, not this far out. Unscoping for a moment, I used Hawkeye once again and looked at another pack about a kilometre away. They moved in a similar pattern walking between areas, not deviating from the road. Looking towards the centre of the town, which is obstructed by various buildings and distance, I frowned slightly as my mind ran through what exactly lay in the centre of the town. Are these Husks protecting the town? And if so, what lies in the centre of the town?
Raising my sniper, I refocused on the Heavy group which is slowly heading towards Sheep and Winter and fired. The distance is about four hundred metres, giving the shot 380% extra damage. I watched through the scope as the Heavy’s head exploded, shocking me greatly. Quickly finishing the rest of the group, I unscoped and looked at my weapon, baffled.
“Just what the fuck can survive that?!”