10 - Monster infestation

"Lisa."

"Mmm…"

"I'm afraid it's time, wake up."

About 5 hours after sundown, Tom woke up Lisa as he had spotted movement all around the caravan through the night vision function on his scope. While he could just start opening up and culling the gobs which were closing in from all directions, doing so too early or late wouldn't be preferable; if he started firing too soon, the group would scatter and he would lose his opportunity to collect points, too late and they might overrun the adventurers and his position.

"So what is going on?"

Rubbing her eyes to try and fight the drowsiness, Lisa quickly caught on to the current situation and started looking around as her eyes began glowing.

"... There's a lot…"

"Yeah, but don't worry, I got everything under control."

While Lisa could see the monsters closing in using magic, and Tom had his night vision scope, the rest of the adventurers had no clue they were being encircled, nor were they likely to believe Tom if he sounded the alarm.

"Could you hand me that magazine?"

"Mmm, what are those?"

Grabbing the magazine Tom had pointed out, Lisa didn't recognise the rounds loaded into it, instead of the ponty bullets she was used to, these were round and flat-ended cylinders.

"That's because they're special-purpose illumination rounds, remove your night vision magic, cover your eyes and get ready for things to get loud."

"Okay."

Doing as Tom said, Lisa covered her eyes as he stood up and pointed his rifle straight up in the air.

"CONTACT!"

Shooting a round straight up in the air, Tom averted his eyes as the illumination round split open to reveal a miniature flare attached to a parachute. At once, the night became day, and while some of the adventurers were temporarily blinded, others noticed the large number of confused gobs surrounding them.

"We're under attack!"

With the adventures alerted they started rushing outside the cover of the trade wagons, this enraged the gobs and with them also committing Tom removed the magazine with illumination rounds, fired the chambered flare and inserted a fresh mag of armour piercing incendiary as he went to work.

"Engaging hostiles!"

Wrapping the sling tightly around his hand, Tom aimed down the scope with his off-eye still open and used it to find his first victim. Guiding the scope to where he could see the gob's body, Tom rapidly adjusted the crosshair on the gob's head, closed his off-eye and squeezed the trigger.

(1.)

Before the corpse even hit the ground, Tom opened his off-eye again to locate his next target, finding it, adjusting his aim before shooting and searching for a new target again in a series of well-honed motions bordering the realm of muscle memory.

(- 13, 14.)

As monsters rapidly lost their head on Tom's flank they started slowing their advance, but because he still needed to keep the illumination up, he was forced to switch magazines in the middle of fighting as he once more pointed his rifle towards the sky.

"LUM OUT!"

"Watch out!"

In the little time Tom had taken to switch to illumination rounds and fire a single one into the sky, a gob about a metre tall with 3 arms and claws sharp enough to rip him to shreds had almost made it to Tom and was already mid-lounge at his position.

"Shi!-"

With not enough time to do anything else, Tom aimed centre mass and fired at the gob before moving out of the way.

"AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGH!"

Although the illumination rounds could hardly be considered lethal, the plastic cover hardly had time to split open before it hit the gob with considerable force, burying a few centimetres into it before the flare ignited and set fire to the monster from the inside. While it continued to writhe around on the ground and scream in pain, Tom quickly inserted a fresh magazine of API and chambered a round before the monster attracted any additional attention.

"Shut the fuck up."

Servicing the burning monster with a well-placed kick that launched it away from in and down from the carriage as he opened fire again.

(- 17, 18, 19.)

As he rapidly moved through targets, the crosshair and faces of gobs were starting to get burned into Tom's retina, of course, this phenomenon was nothing new, but he was slightly relieved that the creatures he snuffed out and turned into clouds of pink mist weren't human for once.

If nothing else, Tom was sure that the last things that would ever leave his mind were the burned-in images of the people he had destroyed the moment before and after they died.

As Tom went to reload, Lisa was already handing him a fresh magazine which he inserted before continuing his rapid and precise slaughter of monsters.

"We need help over here!"

While things were going just fine on the side where Tom was stationed and continuously suppressing the gobs the second they showed themselves, the adventurers without his cover were starting to get overrun by an enemy which vastly outnumbered them and attacked without regard for their own life.

"I'll rotate, handle this!"

"Okay! GO!"

Recognising that they were about a minute from getting overrun, Tom didn't hesitate to take the initiative and shifted from the flank where things were mostly under control to where things were rapidly spinning out of control.

(Shit, it's a fucking melee.)

Arriving at his new shooting position, Tom emptied his lungs to steady his aim as he started to figure out which targets to service in what order.

(Fucking hell, they just don't fucking quit do they!?)

Pulling back his spear which was already covered in grease, blood and guts, Simon retreated behind his shield, twisting it as it was attacked by a furry of claws to deflect them away as he struck with his spear again, keeping his writs about him he struggled to focus due to exhaustion. While his spear was normally easy to handle, it now felt like it weighed as much as himself, his lungs felt like they were on fire and all his muscles screamed out in pain.

Every single part of Simon's body screamed out in pain, it told him that the end was near.

(Shit!)

Right as Simon had a lapse in judgement, a gob chose to attack and while he was able to block such an attack under normal circumstances, exhaustion delayed him for just enough time for the attack to go through, or it would have anyway.

From one second to the next, the gob's face caved in and disappeared as a pink mist left the back of its skull as a shot rang out.

"Covering! EVERYONE, FALL BACK!"

Under normal circumstances, the adventurers would never listen to Tom's commands let alone advice, but now at the brink of a massacre they had no choice, and so they started steadily joining ranks as Tom dealt with the enemy backline and took shots of opportunity at closer targets whenever a line of fire opened up.

With the earliest rays of sunlight slowly starting to appear on the horizon, the last of the gobs finally started retreating, or at least the smarter ones did while the others were wiped out. Lowering his rifle in response, Tom could already tell that he had worn out the barrel on his M-909 and it would need replacement, but that wouldn't be difficult.

CORRUPTED_CREATURE(S)_DESTROYED

20.000_POINT(S)_AWARDED21.650_POINT(S)_AVALIBLE.

OBJECTIVE_STACK_SECONDARY_UPDATED:

NEW_SECONDARY_OBJECTIVE:_DESTROY_THE_CORRUPTED_CREATURE_DEN_NEAR_NEW_DALE.

OBJECTIVE_REWARD(S):

SA_P_CLASS_WEAPON_UNLOCK.UAV_LA_CLASS_WEAPON_UNLOCK.UAV_SUPPORT_MODULE_UNLOCK.AR_CLASS_WEAPON_UNLOCK.

OBJECTIVE_1.34%_COMPLEATED

END_OF_REPORT.

(20.000 points… That's a bit.)

Seeing far more points than he ever had before, Tom figured he had done something right and received a bonus as there was no way things lined up otherwise.

As his options for requesting new equipment had just expanded massively, Tom took a seat where he was, cleared his rifle, made sure it was safe and immediately started thinking about his options.

Well, he would have if he wasn't immediately surrounded by adventurers congratulating him for a job well done.

"Thanks for saving my life buddy, I seriously thought I was gone!"

"Yeah, if you didn't pipe up when you did we would all be dead!"

"Please let me buy you a beer when we get into town!"

Drenched in the smell of gunpowder and the crosshair singed into his vision, Tom really could go with some alone time, luckily someone had already noticed that.

"Okay, that's enough! Give him some space. Go see to the injured and make sure none of those monsters are just acting dead."

Breaking up the group of adventurers and getting them back to work, Ulf arrived with Lisa on his shoulder, letting her down as she quickly ran over to Tom.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just a bit tired… It takes a lot of focus to use a weapon like this."

Tom's choice of weapon really hadn't matched the engagement he just went through, if he had his hands on something like a squad automatic weapon and a 500-round box magazine, he could have made short work of the monsters without straining himself nearly as much.

(Using a DMR at this kind of range could be considered knife fighting… But it still worked out okay I guess.)

Letting Lisa sit down next to him as he massaged the bridge of his nose, Mike breathed out a deep sigh as Lisa dropped a bombshell on him.

"Can you teach me how to shoot?"

"... Why?"

Although Tom easily could teach Lisa how to shoot and kill as he had already taught her the basics, this would be very different. Teaching a person how to kill and giving them an easy-to-use tool like a gun was a recipe for disaster.

Either the person who obtained this tool of destruction would soon die because of overconfidence in their newfound tool, confusing it for skill, or, they would kill enough people to lose their own soul.

Just as Tom had.

"Because I want to be able to help you, and perhaps even protect you."

As far as reasons go, this was one of the better Tom had ever heard, but he was still reluctant.

"It'll be tough."

"That's fine, I'm tough too."

"Sure brat, say that again when you don't piss yourself running into a bear."

"WHA!-"

After calming down Lisa and helping with cleaning up the monsters, Tom and the other adventurers got a well-deserved 4-hour break before they set off in the caravan at first light. Having well and truly earned his spot in the convoy and spent his time with Lisa on top of one of the armoured carriages as a lookout while he maintained his equipment.

QURREY_COMPLEATE

STATUS:_AVALIBLECOST:_5.000_POINTSCONFIRM_PURCHASE_Y/N?

(Yeah, please and thank you.)

Focusing on the needed part he had requested, Tom felt the heat in his chest slowly dissipate as the requested part arrived. As the replacement barrel for his M-909 appeared out of thin air, Tom inspected it for defects before using the rim of an 8.25mm round to loosen the installed barrel which he simply tossed aside before installing the new one.

"That's quite the handy system."

Having watched Tom inspect, clean and then repair his rifle, Lisa figured out that the entire procedure was basically toolless, the only thing required was a brush stored in the butt of the rifle and a single round of 8.25mm ammunition.

"Yeah, they're made to be easily serviced, but in most cases, it is just easier to throw the entire thing away and replace it with something brand new.

"That's kind of wasteful…"

Seeing how easy the weapon was to repair, Lisa couldn't see a reason to just toss the entire weapon and replace it with a new one.

"War is wasteful, that's just how it is. But I'm not conducting a war so it pays off to maintain things like this."

Having finished replacing the barrel, Tom made sure the rifle was empty, then brought the M-909 up to his shoulder, aimed through the scope and found a particularly evil-looking rock and started tracking it before he dry-fired to make sure everything was okay.

"Your first task is to successfully disassemble and reassemble this rifle in under a minute; I've just shown you how to do it, so get to it.

"Okay."

Having decided to teach Lisa how to shoot and fight, Tom started her off by getting familiar with firearms, at this time he had no idea what kind of impact teaching Lisa would have.