Unlucky

The ruin tracker slams its head into the car. Making a hole through it while snacking on one of the patrol hunters. Making a hole through the truck sends everyone into a panic and shoots at it. The creature seems to be affected by the sheer amount of bullets that got pumped into its head.

GRWAAAAAG!!

It screams in pain, drawing blood. The enormous amount of bullets actually penetrate its thick skin. This agitates the monster even more. It tries to pull its head back, but it seems like the metal of the track made it stuck.

While it tries to get out of the truck, the hunters did not stop shooting it. Someone also got caught in the line of fire from the panic.

The bullet makes more injuries and more of its green blood flood the truck. hunters desperately shot at it until the monster stops moving. The hunters sigh in relief as the monster fell, but the crisis isn't over.

Ping!

The truck radar picks up two new signals, and the drivers became more panicked.

"T...There are two more ruin trackers on the way!"

"What!?!?!?! Where's the reinforcement?!"

"They're coming, but it will take some time!"

The passenger cursed their bad luck. Not only do they have a ruin tracker head stuck in the middle of their truck, but they also have two coming in their way. The situation seems hopeless, with the reinforcement being nowhere near them.

"If we can kill this guy, we can kill its brother!!"

"Yeahhh!!"

Some guy in the truck rallies up the rest of the hunter. They peek out the truck window and start shooting the ruin tracker. Velo learns that shooting in the same place can make them bleed. So Velo start focusing.

He focuses his shot on the front leg of the ruin tracker. He manages to land his shot in that general area. Because of the moving target and his gun with low power, it's still not enough.

Some guns are lying around as he looks around the truck. He guesses that these are the guns of the people who got eaten. He picks it up and shoots it. The power seems to be much more than his Fassa gun.

Along with a lot more kickback, the bullet accuracy is worse somehow, so Velo switches back to his Fassa.

BOOM!

At 100 meters, someone starts using a grenade. It causes the monster some bruises but also a lot of money for the thrower.

Velo shoots at the bruised area along with other hunters to get some lucky shot in. Every second, the life of the people there seems shorter. The ruin tracker continues to run at them, albeit at a slower speed. The barrage of bullets and grenades seems to work.

GRWAAAAAG!!

The ruin tracker scream in pain. One of them got its leg penetrated and send it tumbling to the ground, slowing its hunt. While the other one seems more agitated by the screams.

Velo didn't stop shooting at it. He wants to make sure that it can't get back up anymore. The other hunters switch targets after seeing that one creature is down. But the other one somehow closed in faster.

There are only 20 meters left between them and the monster. Velo's head was running fast with coming up with how to kill this thing. He thinks grenades would do the trick. So he uses his skill to pickpocket one of them.

The hunters that he stole from did not notice, partly because they focused him on the monster. Velo, observe how to use this thing from other hunters. He was ready to pull the grenade out, expecting the monster to jump and eat like they always do.

Velo pull the pin and was ready to throw it out. The other hunter had already moved out of the way. They don't want to get eaten like a few guys earlier.

The ruin tracker unexpectedly tackle the truck and Velo didn't throw the grenade in time. The time seems to slow to a stop as the truck gets flipped over to its side while Velo watch as the grenade left his hand.

Velo could feel the fear in all the hunter's eyes in the truck as the grenade touched the ground.

BOOOOM! BOOOM! BOOM!

The first grenade set off a chain reaction, killing all the hunters inside the truck instantly.

/////////////////////////////////

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

Velo woke up with an explosion of pain. He's in the healing pod. Usually, there's no pain in resetting with his verbal consent. The only time it causes pain is when he died.

"Welcome back, subject. It seems like you died."

"Ha... yea"

"The subject needs to be careful about...."

"Yeah yeah I know... Why can't you just pull me out when I'm about to die?"

"We can't interfere with the Chronus project without subject consent and we can't follow the subject around with your level of authority. Normally a Dumo personal would give you the Officer rank by now but there's no one available at the moment."

"Can't you just give me the rank?"

Velo is frustrated because all of his progress toward the merit shop system has gone down the drain. It didn't help that he just receive a huge amount of pain for his failure too.

"Technically, we can, but it would only be a proxy since a real officer rank would require 5 personal to confirm the rank."

"Then wouldn't the rank from a merit shop be a proxy, too?"

".....Negative"

"Why?"

The A.I. paused the response for 10 second

"We can bypass that."

"How...."

"Don't ask."

Velo felt a little uneasy with the answer. But he can't press on seeing that the A.I. doesn't want to answer more questions.

"So, can I still earn merit points from a description?"

"In most cases, no, but we will allow it for you. Be sure to be as elaborate as possible the more detail the points you'll get."

Velo retold his story of how he hitched the ride to O'ruma. The gang system there and how he killed most of its gang members. He described how the hunter's guild works and the current infighting of the Frenzy gang.

Lastly, he told that he choked a grenade throw and killed himself. Which he gets even more frustrated at his own mistake.

After telling that story, Velo can sense that the A.I. is laughing or it's just his imagination. Velo doesn't know.

"Calculating..... Congrats! You earn 1200 points for all the information you provide."

"That much?"

"Well, we did say we will give you the maximum reward possible."

Velo now thinks of how to spend these points. He thinks that he won't get enough points in this run anyway, so spending points would be best.