Chapter 28: Dove
Chapter 28 – Dove
6 AM.
Misha received a pop-up message on her game menu.
<<You have completed the [Milky Way Government Education Lesson One]>>
<<Quest Rewards: 20 Additional Free Status Attribute>>
<<Additional Quest Rewards will be calculated after you come back to base with your loots>>
She did not pay attention to the message. Instead, Misha closed her eyes and maintained her MBR routines.
Her damaged spinal cord, broken ribcages, and many fractured bones had been healed. The rest of the innards still had traces of ruptured blood vessels, but they could be treated faster than the bones.
*Slurp*
Misha tongue flickered and took in another jelly into her mouth. The intensive use of Self-Regen skill depleted a lot of her hunger bar, which was down to 10% from 145% in the past two hours.
Despite the fact that the quest warned her that the jellies contained viruses, she ate them anyway.
Two blobs of jelly got into her stomach and raised her hunger bar to 110% again.
<<Warning, viruses in your system has increased>>
'I don't give a damn. My precious jellies are my life!'
<<Your [Desperate Struggle Quest] time limit has been decreased by two hours>>
'Doesn't matter. Extra skill level up is still worth it!'
<<The next time you eat consume another jelly, the quest time limit will decrease by four hours>>
"…"
Misha cried a bloody tear, 'But I want to eat more jellies!'
She closed her eyes and continued healing the remaining injuries. From her observation, she needed at least two more hours.
…
…
…
Dove's real name was Donovan, a student in the same school as Mia.
When Donovan was twelve, he played another VRMMO shooting game with a similar setting as this current game. Through a year of grinding and practicing, he became good at shooter games.
Because of his performance, a professional e-sport S-League team offered him a contract so he could play for their team, which he signed. For another two years, he had earned his reputation in a dozen of e-sport tournaments as an elite sniper and sharpshooter.
Although he could not earn a title of a champion, Donovan was skilled enough to maintain his status in the league and satisfied his company's sponsors.
Unfortunately, his parents did not agree with his career path. In the eyes of billionaire parents, earning a few million a year from a game was pathetic, comparing to them who made hundreds of million a year.
Since Donovan also had potential as a young esper, they forced him to enroll in Chula High and terminated the pro-league contract.
Though Donovan spent most of his youth in-game, he was still one of the genii in his generation, and he managed to squeeze into the school in the 10th class with the lowest score in the school.
And now, he was in a game that he was good at. Donovan wished that he could return to the league as a professional gamer by using this game and graduate from this school at the same time.
…
…
…
Meanwhile,
A pop-up window also appeared before Dove.
<<You have completed the [Milky Way Government Education Lesson One]>>
<<Quest Rewards: 20 Additional Free Status Attributes>>
<<Additional Quest Rewards will be calculated after you come back to base with your loots>>
Dove, who was patrolling on the edge of the crater, sighed a relief as he watched the sunrise. He did not forget to put all free status points into his AGI and DEX.
…
***************
Status
Name – Dove
Class – Unassigned Combat Class
Level – 38
EXP – 1,000/4,000
Free Attribute – 0
Attributes
STR – 110/1,000 (82.05%)
VIT – 106/1,000 (70.19%)
AGI – 300/1,000 (41.43%)
DEX – 300/1,000 (85.00%)
INT – 489/1,000 (0%)
WIS – 320/1,000 (31.61%)
Luck – 12/100
STM - 120/1000 (0%)
Skills
Sage Eyes – 15/100 (10.40%)
***************
…
Unlike Misha, who had been stuck in the Queen Egg's womb, Dove had been fighting everything that came into his way to scavage for food and weapon supplies.
With the addition of occasionally loot from dead bodies of other players, Dove secured enough ammo and supplies to survive.
Ordinary players would have died a hundred times over, but Dove made it through using his past experiences in shooter games. Combining with his AGI-DEX-built strategy, he could handle a hundred tattooed zombies by himself with limited resources.
Thus, his character level skyrocketed.
In the level ranking of all combat classes at the moment, he was in the lead, followed by Misha who was still at level 26.
.
Dove checked his status with a bitter smile.
"I did it the last game, and I'll be successful in this game, too!"
*GUU*
His stomach cried as his hunger bar had reached 0%. A timer appeared under the hunger bar, telling him that he did not have much time left until his character would die from hunger.
Dove looked up. Before him, remaining of two hundred tattooed zombies scattered on the ground. Dove's black short hair and his face were covered in black blood, and his clothes were soaked from his sweat and mixed fluid of monsters.
The last two hours were rough, but Dove made it through. None of the monsters managed to slip to Misha's side.
Black blood also covered a hand-made pickaxe, made of steel pipes and a long knife tying together, which Dove held it in his hand.
<<Beep>>
A transmission sounded from Dove's wristwatch.
[Misha, Dove, if you hear this, response]
Dove tapped the speaker button, "This is Dove. I'm alive. Misha is with me, but she's in a critical condition. We need help!"
[Affirmative! Stay where you are. We'll pick you up shortly!]
<<Bzz>>
The transmission was cut off, but Dove relaxed. He sat at the edge of the crater, continue watching the sunrise.
As he regained his breath from the long night fights, Dove saw something from the horizon.
A moving red tree with human limbs as branches!
'Another monster!? Wait, is that the tree that keeps tracking me the second day?'
Dove did not know. It was the very same tree that killed Pioneer King in his resting tent.
This tree also traced every player in the game that night, following them around to drain their blood, even from the corpses. It crossed path with Dove the second day on this wasteland and chased after him ever since.
The speed of the tree accelerated from a turtle pace into a running man pace.
'Damn it! If I hadn't used my grenades on that snake ...'
Dove regretted challenging the giant snake he encountered the first day. Because of it, he had wasted so many ammunition and grenades.
*RUMBLE*
The ground shook as the tree was approaching Dove at a high speed. Within the next 10 seconds, it would reach him.
*SHAAA*
As if the joke was on him, the very same snake he had challenged also appeared in another direction, rushing at the crater as well.
*KLUK* *KLUK* *KLUK*
A green egg at the size of two meters rolled to this direction as well. It was the other egg that was launched along with Misha's oval room.
Dove had a wry smile on his face. Seeing the situation, he thought that he should have expected it.
"Last minute rush? Well, I thought so."
Dove stood up with his pickaxe, getting ready for another bout.
"Bring it, punk!"
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
DamnPlotArmor
DamnPlotArmor Edited: A mistake has been made in this chapter. I actually wrote,
"Hundreds of tournaments"
It has been changed to
"A dozen of tournaments"
I'm so sorry. My stupid brain malfunctioned.
Chapter 29: The Raptor Squad
Chapter 29 – The Raptor Squad
*SHAAA*
Tama turned its mouth to the outside and hissed again. This time, it did not hiss at Dove, but something else.
Misha, who was self-regenning, felt the tremor from the ground. She knew that something was approaching her location.
She shifted her recovery concentration to the nerve and muscular system, planning to get herself on her feet first as the situation crying an emergency.
*SCREEEECH*
A sharp scream of a monster could be heard.
Tama shrank from the scream. It rolled back to Misha and hid in her cleavage, trembling in fear.
"Very courageous, Tama. What a reliable bodyguard …"
*Mew*
Misha glanced at the clock in the game menu.
6.01 AM.
The entire quest should have been over, and the army should have sent someone to pick her up. However, Misha knew that her situation was complicated.
She lost her wristwatch, which was the reason why Misha needed Dove's help.
Gritting her teeth and closing her eyes, Misha accelerated the MBR processing on the muscles of her legs and back. As long as these muscles and nervous system were partly healed, she should be able to stand again.
…
…
…
Dove dodged the lunge of the three-headed snake as he ran away from it toward the creepy tree.
The tree, however, thrust ten sharp roots at Dove from the front, aiming to screw him alive.
Dove sidestepped, avoiding the incoming root-spears. Because Dove dodged it, the roots penetrated the snake instead.
*SHAAA*
The snake hissed in anger and changed its target to the tree instead of Dove. The tree also stopped chasing Dove as it concentrated on sucking the snake's blood.
Running away from the two monsters, Dove attempted to get back to the crater and get Misha out of this place. He dashed back in full speed.
But the nightmare had not stopped yet.
<<Warning, your hunger has reached 0% for two hours>>
<<Movement penalty will be applied>>
"Not now!"
Dove could feel that his legs became sluggish as if he was running inside a water pool.
*KLUK* *KLUK*
The giant monster egg was rolling toward him. At this rate, it would catch him in a few seconds.
*SCREEEE*
The egg leaped into the air and bared its flower fangs, wanting to swallow Dove whole.
"RAHH!"
*POEK*
Dove swung his pickaxe like a baseball bat, hitting the mouth of the green egg at the side and sent it rolling. However, the wound that caused by the pickaxe regenerated in a few seconds.
As Dove wanted to finish off the egg, the red tree sent another batch of its roots at the egg and Dove.
"Greedy bastard!"
Dove rolled to the side, dodging the incoming five spear roots. On the other side, five more roots stabbed into the giant egg and sucked its fluid.
*SCREEE*
The egg did not give up. It opened its mouth and sprayed the green digestive fluid at the red roots, destroying them before it got sucked dry. While the egg was at it, five tentacle tongues extended and chased after Dove.
Dove continued rolling on the ground, avoiding another attack of the egg. However, one of the egg's tongues caught his leg.
He swung his pickaxe at the tentacle, which cut it and freed his leg from the monster. Not wanting to get killed, Dove got on his feet and kept running back.
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
Explosions occurred on the location where the monsters stood, but it also sent Dove flying.
The shockwave from the explosion destroyed Dove's eardrum and his sense of hearing and balancing. Thus, he collapsed on the ground in pain.
*VRRRR*
*BOOM*
Though Dove could not hear anything, he could sense that something large had landed. There were muffled sounds from the surrounding, but he could not understand them anymore.
...
"Cargo located! One is southwest of the crater, and the other one is in the center."
Five ten-meter-tall brown giant robots, which had a statue similar to a human, were a hundred meters away from the battle site of monsters. On their chest, an emblem of a raptor was engraved into the armor plate.
These robots were called AHMU, which stood for [Anti-Hydra Mechanical Unit], the specialist unit that used against giant mutants and Queen Eggs. They equipped with Anti-Corrosive Manyu Metal Shields and Angra Rifles, which contain special-made bullets that could negate the regeneration power of egg monsters.
The old outer look of these AHMUs filled with a brown and dark color on their armor plates. The chest of the mech was bulky as it contained devices and sophisticated cockpit within it.
The legs of the giant robots were in an awkward position at the first glance as it seemed the thighs were attached to the waist, but these legs could fold into continuous tracks which could be used in difficult terrains that normal mech legs were inefficient.
The five mechs walked toward the giant snakes, the red tree, and the two-meter-tall green egg while they pointed their rifles at them.
"RAPTOR five, use the AR-shell on the egg. RAPTOR two to four, HE-shell on the other two again. Provide me a cover after I secure the cargo."
"Roger!"
One of the mechs leaped forward and landed next to Dove. It knelt and scooped the ground under him with the mech's hand and carried him on its open-palm.
RAPTOR-1 leaped to the center of the crater and did the same with another hand of the mech. Misha and Dove now lay still on the palms of the mech.
"Cargo secured."
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
The four other mechs fired one shell each on the monsters, which turned them into fragments of dried woods and roasted snake. The egg also shattered to pieces, unable to regenerate again.
The pilot of RAPTOR-1 inside the mech leaned back. He pressed the intercom button, "RAPTOR squad to Scorpion Base. Cargo secured, but they're injured. Please prepare a medic team upon our arrival ASAP, over."
*BZZ*
[Scorpion Base to RAPTOR squad, how is the loot?]
The pilot's face twitched. He got annoyed that the base asked for the loot instead of worrying about the injured people.
"One of the cargo is resting inside the Queen Egg's cocoon. There are several virus gels in it, over."
[Good work. Take all of them back to base. Your mission is over.]
"… Roger."
…
…
…
Misha, who was lying on the palm of the mech, stared at her dreamt robot in a daze.
'Will I be able to pilot these cool guys one day?'
She did not realize that her sparkling eyes and her drools were noticed by the captain pilot of RAPTOR-1.
The captain laughed as he understood Misha's feeling very well. He, too, had drooled when he saw these giant mechs for the first time.
"Take it easy, lady. I knew that you're in the army. If you work hard, you'll be on my seat one day."
CREATORS' THOUGHTS
DamnPlotArmor
DamnPlotArmor
AHMU - Anti-Hydra Mechanical Unit
AR Rounds- Anti-Regenerative Bullet
HE Rounds - High Explosive Bullet
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
Ranking 
0 Power
stone 
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