27. The Battle's Remnant_Universal Game Theory

A system message popped up, almost as if to confirm that all of this was real.

Congratulations, you have gained a Level.

You have gained 653,224 Credits.

The first thing I noticed was that the old message about experience and levels gained had changed. The second thing was that eye popping number of credits I had gotten. I had to check: Including the 37 I had before, my new total was 653,261 credits. I decided to look though my entire character sheet to see if anything else had changed.

Aliases/callsigns: None

Body: Str: 38 Con: 57

Speed: Agi: 48 Dex: 70

Mind: Wis: 58(88) Int: 76

Recovery: Bod: 40 Sta: 61

Path: Technology

Level: 16

Classes: Computer Operator

Credits: 653,261

Soulbound: 16/80

4pt Computer

4pt Electronic Transmitter

4pt Limited Quantum Interference Interface

4pt Harmonic Disrupting Multiphasic Scanning Dagger

A generalized memory storage and computational device, essentially a robot brain. Can be optimized for size, power, or other parameters. (Class Option)

A catch all for most types of computerized control and interface devices for use with a sufficiently powerful computer. (Class Option)

A specific computer interface and control device unlocked through the higher category and discovery. Allows connection with other electronically based devices designed for interface capabilities, with higher levels making hostile intrusion easier and increasing the range of the interface (Class Option)

A specific computer interface device unlocked through the higher category and discovery. Allows the analysis of nearby objects molecular composition with higher levels increasing the range and the clarity of complex esoteric chemicals and chemical reactions. (Class Option)

A specific computer interface device unlocked through the higher category and discovery. Allows the analysis of nearby biological entities; including the genetic, physiological, and other less obvious aspects of the entity. Higher levels give more range, clarity, and allow for gathering more esoteric biological data types. (Class Option)

A specific computer interface device unlocked through the higher category and discovery. Allows the analysis of nearby abstract generated reality spaces, with higher levels giving more range, clarity, and chance to bypass hostile barriers to data acquisition. (Class Option)

A specific computer control and interface device unlocked through the higher category and discovery. Allows connection with other abstract reality generating based devices regardless of their design for interface capabilities, with higher levels making connection more possible and less prone to unreality bleedover. (Class Option)

A specific limited range quantum interface and influence device unlocked through the higher category and discovery. Higher levels increase the power and the range of useful signals that can be interacted with. (Class Option)

Abilities: 20/80

4pt Hammer Space

16pt Enhanced Senses

A safe area held within the soul that allows the transfer of items into and out of that subdimension. Can be bought up to the level that allows for the transport of a small spacecraft. (Class Option)

A Brain and nervous system upgrade that allow for mental control of any electronics implanted while allowing those electronics to have a degree of influence on the biological. (Class Option)

Gives the user superior senses, including the mental upgrades required to process the greater levels of information. Allows the user to actively utilize often unconscious senses, such as touch's heat sense, to gain information about the surroundings that might otherwise be ignored. (Discovered Option)

A body that has been genetically optimized for the Arcane Arts can now be yours, allowing for greater levels of Magical or Psionic use with less physical strain! (Discovered Option)

The very fabric of your soul has grasped more than most mortals could even imagine! This allows the student to do greater feats with no greater strain, greatly improving one's maximum power! Perhaps, in time, your power may grow to mythic heights! (Discovered Option)

Skills: 6/80

4pt Electrical to Magical Energy Transmutation

1pt Create Water

1pt Generate Electricity

Gives the user the skills to create operating systems to both control a computer and to allow the computer to control other things. Level effects the complexity of the control and the range of how complex the thing is that can be controlled. (Class Option)

Gives the skills to create items that a computer can use to control other things. Level determines the complexity of what can be a controlled target. (Class Option)

The Power of the Arcane and mundane collide a proof of how the Magical triumphs as it molds the world into whatever nature it desires! (Discovered Option)

The ebb and flow of liquids and their power are yours to command as you show any and all obstacles the power of the deep! (Discovered Option) (Limited from 16Pt version during the Tutorial)

Energy in its purest form, the very essence of reality, can be wielded or denied as you desire! (Discovered Option) (Limited from 16Pt version during the Tutorial)

That which reaches beyond the bounds of Time and Space, the very symbol of knowledge and the first grasps beyond it, is yours to direct at a whim. (Discovered Option) (Limited from 16Pt version during the Tutorial)

The Ephemerality of air is both the substance of the empty space between stars and the pressure that holds that emptiness at bay! It is now, also, yours to command! (Discovered Option) (Limited from 16Pt version during the Tutorial)

Energy in its most Physical manifestation, that which destroys all and yet gives birth to stars, becomes your tool to use as the plaything that it is! (Discovered Option) (Limited from two 4Pt versions during the Tutorial)

Well that was different. I had actual stats now, numbers that maybe made sense except for the one that didn't. What I really needed was a user manual to tell me things like what the deal was with that second number after Wisdom. Nothing else seemed to have changed that I could find. I would need to look into it more later. For now I decided to go check on the other people from the group.

Getting out was much easier and less stressful than getting in to the building overlooking the others. I could have gone slightly faster but I decided to try to keep up the habit of checking around corners and everything else that had kept me safe during the attack. Good habits, and all that. I had no way of knowing just how dangerous the rest of this Game was, but the army grunts I saw weren't acting like they were the cream of the crop despite showing far more power than I could normally face. The only conclusion I could draw from the experience was that either I was very underpowered or the armor the low level military were using was overpowered. Figuring out how to use the armor I had gotten, or if it even could be used with the giant hole I had put in it, became an even larger priority. Even if that was true, caution was still a good idea.

I got back to the group to find them looking over the stuff dropped by the soldiers I had taken out. Out of the three dozen of us that had started this round only five others remained besides myself. Donnie had apparently survived, which was good, but so had the mage who had passed out from overexertion. He was a fire mage, if I remembered correctly, but otherwise unremarkable. The super who had been throwing things did not and I decided to go over as soon as possible to where he had been to feel around and see if I could get access to any new superpowers. In fact, that was probably a good idea to try everywhere regardless. Was that morbid? I felt like that was a bit morbid? On the other hand he wasn't really dead and every good gamer knows that you always loot the bodies if time isn't a limitation. It wasn't like there were dead bodies lying around or anything.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

From within the smaller defenses three had survived and were in the process of climbing out of the enclosure rather than tearing it down. The first out was the early to mid twenty-something cosplaying as a magical girl with light magic. She seemed very tired but not nearly as much as I would have expected considering the strength of the magic that had been coming from her direction. Her name was Veronica something-or-other. I honestly hadn't expected her to survive. The next, currently at the top of the concrete circle and having trouble climbing down, was the healer. His name was Clark and looked like he was only barely in better condition than the guy who laid passed out on the ground. He was about as white as you could get without being albino and was having a hard time blushing every time he looked down at the magical-girl cleavage. The final guy was Dimitri who, despite his name, didn't look Russian at all and seemed to look more Western European like maybe a Spaniard? His superpowered ability to mold matter into different shapes had seemed like a party trick when he had used it to create funny little statues. It didn't seem like a joke anymore.

Mack was the first to see me from his place on the ground next to a pile of junk from the soldier who had almost shot him. He seemed to be resting while acting like he was really looking over what had been left behind. "You survived?" he asked. "We all thought you had been eliminated when you never came back. Were you the one who shot these guys with that giant gun on your back? How did you even get that thing?"

I shrugged. "I got it from one of the enemies that I found alone. I picked it up off of him after I stabbed him. It took me a while since they were chasing me but they were pretty clearly not the cream of the crop, if you get my drift." I held back a smile at their shocked faces and instead kept my bored expression. There is an art to friendly trolling that very few people truly appreciate. This was the 'too dumb and incompetent to live' but 'still succeeded where everyone else failed' bit. Sometimes you just have to stick to the classics.

Several people were staring at me and I looked back dumbly. It was Clark, the medic, who finally spoke up after dropping to the ground heavily with a grunt. That brought Magical Girl, er Veronica, back to his side to see if he was alright. He nodded toward her but refused to take his eyes off of me. "But... How???"

I gave him a dumbfounded look. "I took the pointy end and stuck it in the guy's squishy parts. You do know how to use a knife, don't you?"

Donnie gave off an exaggerated sigh and eye roll as the other three just stood there reflecting my dumbfounded look back at them. There was something of a stare off of the dumb, even as Dimitri climbed over the concrete protection he had created. My good buddy and pal was the one to ruin my fun. "Seriously, you have got to stop doing that to people." I gave him my best confused look but he was having none of it. "We are all really tired, would you mind being serious for a second?" Spoilsport, ruining my fun.

I sighed, I couldn't keep it up too much longer anyways. "My knife is min-maxed to he extreme and requires three other of my upgrades to even work like it does, but because of all that it can hit way above its weight class." There were some considering looks from the others and I continued. "Also their suits don't seem to increase their senses all that much and I have a way to look around corners and otherwise avoid them. I just avoided them till I found one that seemed to be by himself, then I snuck up and jumped him from behind." I rolled my eyes again. "Also, I really wasn't kidding about them not being the cream of the crop. Only one or two out of every six had any general discipline and even fewer seemed experienced."

They seemed to consider that for a moment before Clark spoke up. "So what do we do with all of this?" he motioned toward the piles of stuff lying around from the enemies I had taken out. "We should be able to use some of this?" He looked over toward me.

I shrugged. "The guns have limited energy and I haven't figured out how to recharge them yet. The armor is more complicated, but I have some hope it will be useful as well." I pointed over at the other boxes nearby. "The real gem here are the foodstuff and other miscellaneous junk. With the way the difficulty has been jumping up I doubt the guns will be useful in the next round, but maybe if the tank is still around?"

Dimitri spoke up next. "Right, I forgot about the tank." He nodded to himself, "We should also check to see if they left anything else behind. I'm sure one of us could figure out the artillery if we really tried." He seemed to be recovering faster than the rest of us, at least those who had worn themselves out, but he was also in the best physical shape of everyone who was left."

"What about Jeong?" Veronica asked with a somewhat shellshocked look to her face and a posture that was trying to hide her fatigue. "Is he going to wake up soon?"

Clark let out a sigh before picking himself up and moving over to check on the unconscious mage. He laid his hand on the guy's forehead before answering. "He just needs rest. There is nothing really to be done about that." Something in the pause or the delay of his words was jarring to me in a way that made me think he was hiding something. I glanced over at him but didn't make a deal out of it. He didn't sound malicious or angry, just reluctant. Fair enough, everyone has their thing.

With nothing else to do and everyone else resting I went over to sort through the stuff that had been left behind while trying to interface with as much of the equipment as possible. The guns were all different but they all had lower power outputs and a 'fire rate' slider I could adjust. One of them seemed like a shotgun or something? It had a AoE adjustment setting, so it might also be some sort of explosive? The other three nearby weapons all seemed to be machine guns of some sort. The armor was the same jumbled mess of random switches that the other one had been.

Clark was the one to take charge after he saw me looking over some of the stuff. "See anything good?" he asked. I could tell that wasn't what he really wanted to know. It came across more like 'how much of it will you take for yourself and how much will you leave for us'.

I gave him a look. "I already have all this stuff from the first guy I took down. The rifles are nice but they are more of a 'rapid fire' type than what I already have. Aiming with real life weapons is a lot more difficult than what I'm used to so I'm probably better off taking my time with a sniper than spraying one of those guns in every direction except at my enemy."

He looked me over, "Did you leave behind the armor? You aren't carrying your backpack either."

I hadn't actually been advertising my storage but I wasn't really hiding it either. I figured it wasn't that big a deal at this point and shrugged. "I have a dimensional storage. I only use the backpack because it is more convenient because getting anything out of the storage requires kind of 'feeling around' for what I want to pull out of it."

He looked back at all the junk. "How big is your storage? Big enough to carry all this stuff?"

I nodded. It was the size of a good sized walk in closet or a smallish room. More than big enough for all the stuff that had been left behind, even when accounting for the other stuff that was already in there.

-------------------

It took a while for people to grab stuff from the pile with the four awake people claiming one of the four available guns. The rest of the stuff, what they couldn't fit on their person, all got thrown into my storage.

None of them were too happy with Jeong due to how he had gotten overexcited early on in the battle and quickly pushed himself to exhaustion. As in, he had exhausted himself before they even retreated from the first contact with the enemy and had been hobbling along helplessly ever since. It was only luck and the fact that he never ended up near the fighting that saved him from death, but the rest felt like he was a burden. Not that most of them said it directly, and both Veronica and Clark tried to act like it wasn't so. But when the time to divide stuff up came nobody suggested that he get anything more than a little food and everyone was happy taking the weapons for themselves.

I couldn't even really blame Jeong for his actions. He tried apologizing and explaining that he got scared when the enemy was marching toward him but that only proved that his problem was a lack of steadfastness rather than intentionally causing problems for the group. It also wasn't like the guy who just up and left everyone when things started going bad. Bringing him up only made people upset. I wasn't sure it was a bad choice on that guy's part, as the group had been in the process of being overrun when he got out, but people's emotions didn't take that into account. At least he hadn't come back to confront what was left of the group. I wasn't sure what they would have done if he had.

My investigation of the area got me a couple superpower/genetic upgrades but nothing very exciting. Extra physical strength and another couple of magical power enhancements were not my idea of worthwhile investments. I couldn't even pick up the flight ability that the one guy had. And believe me, I looked.

Our approach toward the mortars found them sitting quietly, waiting to be used, but too large to fit into my storage. There was some discussion on if we should check on the enemy base but instead we decided to check back at the bunker. The near total eradication of the military group should make it safe to return and it would be good to see if the tank had remained.

We were in good spirits, myself included, until I saw the group already gathered back at the base. The primitive alien group had beaten us back and was forming an angry mob around the wreckage of some sort of equipment. And there, taking on a leadership position in the middle of the group, was the same VIP who had abandoned the military faction while running off with their best people.

27. The Battle's Remnant

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