This is boring. We have looted four full monsters and about two dozen lesser monsters by now. The camp has seen one attack. The bird who looked like some raptorial bird with metallic talons and beak has yielded a core and some affinity gems.
Ulrike and Dejan turn to me as I approach them.
P: Are we doing something wrong? Is it transport? Should we advance?
D: We stay right where we are without orders.
The Network fighter has good ears to overhear us at that distance.
NF: It is not your fault, baby wizard. You are not qualified to loot category 2 entities, yet this is a category 2 space. Most serious threats are category 2. Reinhard and Rademacher have cleared the category 1s only to create a safe zone. If we didn’t need somebody to open the aperture, you wouldn’t be here. Your inclusion for looting is an act of opportunism. A little loot is better than no loot. Now go back to your circles.
The machine gun on the hill opens up.
I am about to tell my people to delay start triggering the circle for the last rodents the military has brought in. They are turning shooting lesser monsters into a competitive sport. My fellow wizards are already at full sprint, which for one of them is up to olympic standards. I realize that the machine gun is firing towards us, as their target changes its destination to me. Something like the result of an unholy union between a rat and a gorilla is running towards me.
Please let me correct a fundamental misunderstanding here. Cautious and timid people are not cowards. A reluctance to take even small risks may or may not mean that people fail under fire. Potential danger and present danger are not the same thing.
You’d need to beat me senseless to get me to go bungee jumping or onto a roller-coaster.
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I empty a full clip of my machine pistol into his head. Thirty bullets. If you have my racial ability and fire while standing still and at a target that does not understand the need to evade a firearm, your bullets will impact a fairly small area. I have dug a hole in its head. I would have expected to blow it away. It seems that monsters are magically tough.
I just stand there with a blank face and switch magazines of my weapon. Dejan put his arm around my shoulders.
D: Are you all right?
NF: The baby wizard has claws. Just leave him alone for a few minutes. People like him go numb after great stress. I can sense it.
His tone is slightly amused.
We have hit jackpot with rat monster. It has yielded a core and a cube pulsing with white light alternating with full blackness in geometric patterns slowly crawling over its surface.
NF: That is a Might Essence. It is pretty characteristic.
U: This could make our soldiers much stronger.
NF: It could. We have an agreement however. This goes to the Network. I can understand that you want it. In your place I’d want it, too. But the times, they are achanging. Nobody knows how this is going to play out.
The base commander is shaking his head slowly. I think Ulrike’s lips are thinner than usual. She remains silent.
This is exactly the worst moment for Reinhard and Rademacher to appear out of nowhere. Literally appear, as in the place they are standing in was empty and without transition they are standing in it.
It is satisfying to see that many of our police men and women are not quite as tough as they like to claim.
Reinhard proclaimed: „We’ve killed the anchor. Pack up, loot the leftover and we get out of here.“
His gaze resting on the essence cube he makes a vaguely inquisitive sound.
Rademacher said: We’ll risk it. The reward is too good. We need a volunteer for looting a category 2. Who is the best ritualist of you three?“
There are times I’d be perfectly happy to be underappreciated.