Chapter 5: The First Quest
After taking a six-hour-long flight from Doko International Airport at Kinshasha, Congo. We finally arrived in Paris, France. Chris said he needed to meet with one of his colleagues here before we took another flight home. One of S.T.A.R.S. members Barry Burton.
Yep, it's positive boys, we will have a raccoon city ark sooner or later. God damn it!! I'm not ready yet!
If it just a simple zombie outbreak I wouldn't have a mental breakdown like this. There were mutant monsters roaming every corner of a city. What zombie type is the strongest? Zombie dog? Compared to a Licker how strong could it be?
There are three timelines that describe the demise of Raccoon City. The movie version, the original game version, and the remake version which I haven't played yet.
The movie was easiest because the only monster I would encounter would be Licker and Nemesis alone. The latter would gain conscience at the end of the movie.
The original game, while it was quite hard with several mutant monsters along with The Tyrant, Nemesis, and Birkin roaming the city, I believed that I could survive at least. Even if I don't know the city's landscape, as long as I stick with the protagonists, I could stay alive, right? Right?
No way, the protagonist is the one that encounters a dangerous situation the most. I have to stay away from them. Oh right, Aunt Claire was in college at this time and lived in another city. I'll ask when I met her later. And there's also S.H.I.E.L.D., I hope they could get involved later.
While lamenting about the future, Barry arrived to pick us up. Barry rented a car to pick us up, a brand new blue Pajero iO.
Along the road, they talked about their investigation on Umbrella's Paris Laboratory. I was sleeping in the backseat which was wide enough to lay down. Or that was what it seemed to them.
I was messing around with the system. I wanted to use Permanent Reinforcement skills. One thing that I knew is that, all my abilities didn't have cool down which is good. But there's always a sharp pain inside my head when using it three times in a row, hindering me to use the ability anymore. Maybe it was because my stats weren't high enough.
After brainstorming for ideas, I decided to just use it on my hoodie. I was confident that the hoodie would grant a bonus on defense. Besides, I always wear it every day, even in a hot climate country in Africa. It's comfy, practical, and covered my torso, arm, and head.
A white glow covered every part of the hoodie. Unlike before, the light shines brighter and longer. I peeked at Barry and Chris. They didn't seem to notice the oddity at the backseat.
After it faded, I checked the information.
[Blue Hoodie]
[Durability - 80/20]
[Grants Low resistance on impact damage, an automatic temperature adjustment, and access to one cubic meter storage in available pocket.]
[Number of permanently reinforced target - 1/1]
[The skill will be put in 24-hour cooldown]
What? Resistance in impact damage was kinda expected, and automatic temperature cool. But, cubic meter storage? What if I have multiple pockets on my hoodie, do they have a different storage system or shared?
Then I noticed the last sentence. Why does it have a cooldown when the other ability didn't? Well, I'll just think about it later.
I put my hand inside the pocket inside my hand. It felt kinda weird. While I could touch my body inside the pocket, the opposite side was hollow.
The ends of my lips raised so high. This feature had a wide range of usage possibilities.
I raised my supposedly sleepy body and leaned on the chair. Chris saw me waking up from the rear-view mirror.
"You awake? You must be thirsty. Here have a drink." Chris opened the cap and pass the bottle to me. It slightly wet my hand after touching the small dews around the bottle.
"After we put the luggage at the hotel, I'll take you both of you to lunch. You must be starving, right now." Watching me gulping almost half of the bottled water, Barry thought I was hungry. But it actually wasn't because I was hungry. After I use reinforcement on the hoodie I felt a strong headache piercing my mind. I didn't feel it before because of the excitement of getting the storage system.
"Thank you, uncle Barry. The food on the plane tasted horrible." It was true. It tastes like eating straight from the fridge without cooking it. Maybe different airlines have different food, but I could swear that the one I ate earlier was mildly insulting to the capability of a chef.
Barry laughed and pointed at a cafe nearby, "that cafe over there has a remarkable patisserie. We'll buy some soft cake or bread on our way back later."
I was looking at the cafe on the left side of the road we were passing. On the top of the entrance, they hung a plank with "Cafe Bleu" written on it.
But what I was staring at was not the cafe. Instead, it was a bearded man, sitting sideways and facing the road while he was on the phone.
Isn't that Jean Reno?! The French actor? Whoa, is this how it feels meeting a famous celebrity?
I kept looking at him even as the car already passed him and drove away. He was wearing a dark blue coat. I released the safety belt and keep peeking through the trunk window. Barry and Chris mistook my excitement for drolling on a pastry Cafe. They looked at each other and smiled. They planned to bring me there immediately after arriving at the hotel.
I sat back again at the seat and put on the belt. Excitement was clearly shown on my face.
"Are you really that excited?" Chris couldn't help but ask.
"Huh? Yes, of course. Isn't everyone the same?" Back in my last life Leon: the professional was one of my favorite movies.
"Well, not for me. I don't really like sweet stuff", said barry.
Chris chuckled and replied, "It's because it was, you're just too old for that kind of stuff."
I thought about their conversation. Hmm... Was Jean a sweet type of guy? Well, it's true that a grown-up man wouldn't fanboying another old man like me. Well, there might be some in my past, for example, me.
I heard the sound of a motorcycle speeding behind us and it overtakes us a second. The Harley didn't seem to have reached its max speed.
Isn't that Jean Reno?
He was driving like a mad man. I wondered why he was such in a rush. The sky suddenly got darker. The cloudy weather was getting worse I guess. But, I noticed that the cloud was moving too fast to be a cloud. Then I realized, it wasn't cloud but shadows.
Is there a Zeppelin festival?
But I doubted it. I felt a weak sense of Deja Vu. Just as I was going to peek outside, a blue screen popped up in front of me.
[Emergency Quest - Survive the Demise of Paris]
[Any creature that is as deemed part of the quest will grant experience to the user]
[Reward = One item and one special ability.]
[Optional Objective 1 - Find out the culprit of this situation and his primary goal]
[Optional Objective 2 - Stop the perpetrator from fulfilling his goal]
"Chris! Look up!" Barry exclaimed. He was shocked by what he saw. Something like that was not supposed to exist. Chris was also terrified by it.
Then I also saw them, huge monsters that resemble stingray. Their tail alone could reach around 50 meters. They flapped around the city. Far away, I saw smoke, fire, and explosions.
If you observe the stingray monster carefully you could see lumps sticking under them. It was a bunch of humanoid creatures dangling close to each other.
The humanoid creature was actually a four-legged zombie samurai. They wore a bamboo hat that covered the top half of their head and emits two yellow circles shaped light as if was their eye. They were the Genma Monsters.
The Genma came from a game franchise called Onimusha Series. If I'm not wrong, then this current predicament was Onimusha 3's storyline. The Genmas, led by one of the Demon Lord's general, Guildenstern was attacking Paris in order to gather souls for Nobunaga Oda's arrival.
In order of the series timeline, Nobunaga Oda was the current leader of the Genma Armies. His main objective was to transport him and his armies to the future. In order to do this, Guildenstern had put himself in a deep sleep for 500 years. Now that he was awakened, he must fulfill his order.
I was cursing inside my head when it suddenly happened. The dangling humanoid creatures under the stomach of the flying stingrays, jump down one by one, then in tens. Each of flying stingray shaped monsters could hold almost a hundred of them. All of them were dropping in tens at the same time.
The first one to reach the ground, dropped on top of a car, smashing the hood. While the driver panicked it drew a sword from the back of his waist and stabbed the driver. The car swerved to the left before it rolls and crashed to a nearby flowery shop, killing its owner and a customer instantly.
One of the Genma draws its sword mid-air and stabbed the neck of a running citizen, another jumps from car to car and slashed every time he lands. Others also started massacring by waving their sword crazily. With each slash, a head falls, a limb falls. People were cut into two, diagonally, horizontally, vertically, it didn't matter. Dying is the only result.
Not only zombie samurai, but there were also zombie ninjas that ran from wall to wall looking for a new victim. Instead of a hand, they have daggers.
There was all kind of hell creature roaming outside. A child-sized flying harpy would spray their victim with acid, melting their flesh and bones.
Several cars that already crashed began exploding one after another. Adding fireworks that celebrate the start of pandemonium.
The stingray still dropping genmas nonstop. People ran looking for safety. Police fired their gun but it was useless. Genma's body was too strong compared to humans. You have to empty your clip before being able to kill one or two genmas. But even if it died, another would take their place. In a way, it was better to die than resisting.
Our car was still speeding on the road, evading the Genmas that still falling and those that already on the ground.
"Chris, take out your gun!", shouted Barry while running over a Genma. After I silently reinforce the car, it could actually damage the Genma which is fortunate. At least the car could handle some damage.
"Nothing! I don't have it. What about you?" , Chris asked while holding on the belt.
"Glove compartment!"
The car suddenly shook, apparently, it just ran over a Genma harpy, successfully killing it.
[+10 exp.]
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone