Markus panted heavily and sat beside an empty table in the cafeteria.
"I…wow…I'd never expect it to work! I was sure I'll have to empty this damn revolver to finish it off." Markus exhaled sharply as he started to uncock his revolver he was holding.
He analyzed the surrounding area. Everywhere was filled with blood and corpses from both the players and the boss. The other player left alive was still in shock, trying to comprehend what had just happened.
Markus, still unfazed, instinctively ran to the boss's corpse to loot any useful remains.
[Pirate Commander (Lvl 5-X) remains:]
[-1x Small "AEGIS" Omni-Directional Personal Shield]
[- 1x ??? KSD]
[-1x Ship Key Card (unknown)]
[- 1x "Flick" RB-1X Dual Pistol]
"Another KSD, huh? Dave will have a field day with how many KSDs I have!"
After looting these items, Markus pondered again for a little while about his new stats. He sure got lucky today, he even reached level 3 from the kill istelf! This made Dave also bewildered since it would normally take a week to reach level 3 when progressing normally.
Markus then realized something: why not go explore the breaching pod that the pirates used? It may contain decent rewards? And so Markus went. As he walked down the hallways where the pirates and players fought, he didn't take a second of hesitation to loot NPC remains. He managed to obtain a handful of KSDs and credits from high-ranking NPCs, bolstering his obvious advantage against others of his own level!
He arrived at the cargo bay, in which he carefully maneuvered the live wires and stood in front of the opening hatch of the breaching pod. All he can say when he enters the pod is that it's decently huge, obviously to accommodate the boarding crew and storage. But as he was observing his surroundings, the system once again chimed.
[A new quest has appeared in your quest logs. Please open it for further information.]
"A new quest, huh? What will it reward me now? More loot that I'll be selling?" Markus sighed. All the loot he received from NPC corpses other than mission rewards is restricted to levels higher than him! The lowest one, a Tier 0 blue-rarity "Handmass" Rapid pistol, has a difference of 37 levels from his current one of level 3!
He got back to his senses after a while and opened the quest logs.
[Sub-Quest 1-1-X: Destroy the Stolen Shiplogs]
[Objective - The mission of the pirate crew is to steal your ship's shiplogs, which they trace to have information on the whereabouts of different hidden, valuable mining colonies, having their original goal of plundering them for profit. You have the goal of destroying these shiplogs as soon as possible, as they are currently being decoded by the existing system of the breach datapod. Either halt or completely disrupt their process to protect these important colonies.
Reward: 1000 VC. 1x random Tier 0 Grey-rarity skill. Trigger to next scenario
Time remaining: 10 minutes.]
Markus chuckled a little. This was actually an easy quest! If what he learned from walkthroughs online is still the same right now. This was actually a fun yet tedious minigame; it's a turn-based one that requires you to create "walls" to corner the computer virus and kill it, all done in a node-like pattern area. The quest gave him 15 minutes, so he could breathe a little more to find the computer terminal before he could start the hacking minigame. After 3 minutes of searching, he found the secret button behind some crates to reveal the holographic computer terminal. He immediately interacted with it and started the minigame.
[7 minutes left]
"Okay, and here we go."
…
[29 seconds left]
[Mission Finished. Rewards are stored in the holo-mail function.]
Markus was right that it would be more difficult than expected. But nonetheless, he managed to corner the virus towards the edge of the node pattern and killed it. He had to give credit to the computer within the virus for being so difficult to corner!
Now that the quest was done, he looted more generic items within the breaching pod before leaving; all he got were basic materials like food and ammo. He expected it to be like this, as they looked like contingency plans in case there was nothing inside the ship and they needed to survive for days before being rescued by allies.
[Next part of the scenario is commencing. All dead players will be resurrected in 5 minutes.]
"Oh wow, well, at least I don't have any problem defending and repairing the spaceship within this scenario! I hope they are ready for the next wave of pressure. Hah…" Markus thought to himself, the next scenario revealed itself as the usual "defend your ship" tutorial scenario from attackers. But for them, they don't have support ships fighting with them like others. This puts them in a difficult position, but entirely possible with the right coordination!
A proof that it was possible is when Markus read and watched the wiki information about a guild of experienced players named "UNIT," who did this insane feat. They let the friendly support ships die before doing their crazy coordination of blowing up the thrusters and targeting the cockpits of pirate ships one by one with the large cannon of the freighter.
To say the least, they had to do it within a pattern of ships just to be extremely effective! But they stated that you don't have to really follow their pattern, you can just mercilessly explode their thrusters and cockpits, and that'll work just fine.
The other player who survived the onslaught met Markus in the passenger bay. He was glad that he managed to catch him off guard with the boss's frenzied onslaught. Both exchanged in-game contacts and sent friend requests. They both sat in the passenger bay, waiting for the others to revive.
—---------------------------------------------------
Saechii_: How'd you do it? I'm surprised you one-shotted the boss immediately. Did you get lucky or something?
M04: Yeah, alotta of critical chances happened at the same time! The stacks were damn insane!
—---------------------------------------------------
Markus had to half-hide the powerful bomb combination for his own advantage. Dave advised him about this, as it would help him in the long run, in case another event needed to kill such bosses or explode things. But he was right with the crit chances, the stacks allowed him to actually one-shot the boss rather than dealing ⅛ normally with normal charges.
The players soon revived after 5 minutes and looted their own corpses to retrieve their personal belongings. Some thanked Markus for the surprise attack, others were slightly mad that he didn't attack sooner, and others didn't show it physically but hinted respect when Markus was nearby.
They now anticipate the next scenario ahead, and learn that it's the infamous ship defense scenario of the tutorial stage. People who knew the infamous event explained it to others, and all agreed to use this method to pass the scenario effectively.
—---------------------------------------------------
AEX_U: I'm forming the group that will control the smaller guns to tackle missiles and disrupt the small ships, who's with me?
SmhMyDog: up!
SoFunneh: up
ARCHTR33: sure.
#ORPVPBOSS#: 👍
1041213673693: Well, I'll be the one leading and using the larger gun for the said tactic, wh…
—---------------------------------------------------
Everyone started to take on roles, and the ship quickly got busy in terms of repairing and adjusting for the scenario. Markus never expected that everyone would straight up agree when they got a near-experience for a possible softlock on their progress. Their deaths gave them small heart attacks and weariness that they may never experience this crazy game everyone's talking about!
…
Half an hour later, the pirate ships warped suddenly without warning and issued the usual ultimatum: surrender and live, or die. Everyone received another mission quest, which is to kill all of these pirates. This new info abruptly halted the ship repairing quest, forcing everyone to play defensively and power up the ship's weaponry.
The players immediately agreed to fire at the cockpit of the leading ship with a sudden movement, exploding it into a fireball. Other pirates got peppered with point defense rounds, getting them caught off-guard and scrambling for possible coordination. One by one, the interceptors, frigates, and corvettes blew up into pieces, creating "fireworks" of debris in this pocket of space. Some tried to escape, but this gave the players an upper hand to easily track the enemies better, giving them an easier time to kill them effectively.
—---------------------------------------------------
1041213673693: Eat this!
[You killed a level 1 Pirate Conscript!]
1041213673693: EZZZZZZ
[ + 15 xp, + 20 VC, 100 VC bounty prize can be picked up in the C.O.R.E. Bounty Bureau once available]
1041213673693: Lol, the loot is generous! I might kill NPCs on the ground when it's this dam good!
(This comment is liked by 6 others)...(This comment is liked by 7 others)..
[SHIMAo7: Yeah, it's fun seeing these idiots die so fast, hahahahaha! I need MORE!!!!!!]
—---------------------------------------------------
Markus and Dave let out a laugh when they saw their chats. They sure are ambitious! Both would do better to see their determination remaining unchanged when they experience true struggle in killing NPCs. After all, this is just the tutorial, so it's obviously and intentionally extremely weak, unlike the raiding scenario that is.
The players under the "Maintenance" group started to pick up valuable wrecks in space using the tractor beams of the ship, which are used to further repair the obvious holes in the ship. This slowly allows them to soon cruise safely in sub-warp towards the planet, finally ending the pre-planet tutorial completely.
—---------------------------------------------------
M04: Are we all ready to finally warp to the planet? plz plz double check our ship's hull or we gon' die for nothin...
(This comment is liked by 2...4...8...18...39..)
AR_KOMB1NE.o7: Head of the Maintenance group, yeah, we are done here, all are double checked, hit it!
—---------------------------------------------------
The NPC Captain hit the warp button, making the ship rumble once again.
[The space tutorial has ended, congrats on passing it! Welcome to SS Online players.]