High Gear (3)
A chill ran down Shirone's spine and he turned reflexively. Only after moving did he realize.
'Sniper?'
It felt a little different from the real world, but his 11th sense was working normally.
Calculating the trajectory, Shirone locked onto the man perched atop a mountain of scrap metal.
Because he was only level 1, the AI popped the codename into his HUD just a beat late.
'대장내시경.'
The player with that codename noticed Shirone first, shouldered his rifle, and stood up.
"Dammit! What the hell is that guy? Did he get some weird perk? No way there's a perk like that."
Though he was level seven, he'd spent as much time in High Gear as many rankers. Unless there'd been an update he didn't know about, a level 1 couldn't dodge bullets.
'Unless he's one of those guys who can dodge in real life.'
But was that possible?
대장내시경, watching Shirone warily, decided to fall back.
"This'll stir up the Iron Homeland." As 대장내시경 spun and vanished the other way, Shirone shouted.
"Hey—stop right there!"
He pushed off the ground and leapt about two meters, but real-world magic wasn't usable here.
"Damn!"
By the time he reached where the sniper had been, the man had already disappeared completely.
Judging from the time it took, the stranger had been far faster than Shirone.
'A sniper right from the start.'
He'd felt it when he saw the piled weapons, but he couldn't figure out why.
'What do you gain by killing someone who just started? There's nothing to loot.'
That wasn't in any beginner tips.
"Alright, moving on!"
Shirone dropped down from the scrap heap, senses sharpened, and advanced.
Past the entrance, among wrecked frames, odd things scurried. At first glance they looked like rodents, but up close they were entirely mechanical.
The AR tagged them.
'Metalrat. A type of creature.'
Level limits left the data sparse, but he recalled what Fermi had said.
'Ah—kill those and level up...'
They weren't living creatures, which Shirone thought was convenient, and he raised his rifle.
The Metalrat's pattern was simple. It latched onto a large frame, gnawed iron for two seconds, then hurriedly shifted position.
"Huh."
Shirone found their mechanical evolution curious.
'They never stop moving to avoid predators. And they time their movement to account for ranged attacks.'
So two seconds was the golden ratio between feeding and survival.
'Move too fast and you can't eat; stay too long and you get sniped. If countless generations refined that balance into this pattern...'
Shirone decided on a hunting method.
'The moment it's biting the frame...'
He brought the sights up; the AI automatically corrected his aim.
His shoulder and wrist were off, but the sync finished and it didn't feel uncomfortable.
'Now.'
The rifle barked.
The level-1 AI didn't compensate for recoil, so only two of the four shots hit.
Keng! Keng!
A sharp shriek cut through the air as the Metalrat limped away. Shirone shifted his aim.
'Again.'
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Firing single shots to reduce recoil improved accuracy, and each impact pushed the Metalrat back.
Kreee—
A hole opened in its belly, a glowing fluid leaked out, and finally it stopped moving.
"Got you."
Info flashed in the AR.
The experience gauge surged and 103 EXP blinked.
'Up by a third. Two more like that and I level up.'
Riding the momentum, Shirone combed the area and quickly took down two more.
"Level up!"
A bright light filled his vision and the main AR page switched his level to 2.
"Bonus points."
Opening the status window showed +1 beside three attributes.
The AI itself didn't seem to change much, but he felt the power output increase in his body.
'Stronger now.'
It was unsettling that it wasn't his real heart, but the vibration was almost pleasurable.
"Nice, this'll be quick. Let's get to ranker." He was starting to understand why people got hooked on High Gear. Relishing the stronger engine, Shirone wandered freely through the Iron Homeland.
The creature variety wasn't huge, and none were tougher than the Metalrat pattern.
"Sweet—level 3."
After seven kills he leveled again and the AI unlocked a new function.
'Hmm, recoil compensation 20%. If I fire ten rounds in a row, two more should hit. But what's the selective option? Even at level 3 there's no change.'
He missed Fermi a little, but hunting was still more fun.
A sharp scrape of metal came from a dark corner. Shirone pressed his back to the wall, peered around, and saw a massive quadrupedal frame lying on its side.
Over thirty Metalrats swarmed the core area.
'That's a lot.'
The gnawing was deafening, and none of them left their posts.
'When they swarm they don't move. Or maybe that frame's hiding something?'
Only one thought rose in Shirone's head.
'Good XP.'
Thinking about the experience he'd get made his mechanical heart pound.
Now was the time. Shirone pulled a grenade.
'Pull the safety pin—'
He was about to follow the left-retina manual when someone suddenly popped up beyond the quadruped.
"Hey! You crazy?" A heavily armed boy glowered at him.
'파괴마신707.'
A Platinum codename.
As the Metalrats scattered, 파괴마신707 clutched his helmet.
"Ah, damn! They're all running! Hey, catch them! Experience's at stake!"
A red-haired girl hiding behind a scrap heap leapt out and shouted.
"Catch them? It's too late!" Unharmed, the Metalrats were so fast they slipped into gaps like cockroaches.
While Shirone stared at the grenade pin, a skinny man appeared across from him.
'That guy's Platinum too.'
His codename was '최강코드명.'
Aiming his rifle, he approached Shirone and spoke coldly.
"You trying to start trouble with us?"
"Huh? Trouble?"
"You tripped a trap. We worked to gather all this and you come to take it for free? Scummy."
At that moment 파괴마신707 arrived.
"Hey, 야훼2! This guy's serious! He's got a Platinum tag? Want me to make you quit High Gear?"
The girl said.
"Cut it out. The Tenman will be here soon. I don't want to deal with those guys."
Her codename was '데스공쥬.'
"Look… if I messed up, I'm sorry. I'll make it up however I can."
파괴마신707 shouted.
"Make it up? As if! You're a 생바이오. Guys, should we just kill him?"
최강코드명 shook his head.
"The loss would be too big. All the gear's free-issued; he probably doesn't have Galaxies. Let's take him."
데스공쥬 pointed at Shirone.
"Don't try anything and come along. If you die on purpose, don't expect to leave the start point."
Beginner tips warned that dying in High Gear could cost parts and Galaxies. It was a heavy penalty, but killing penniless Shirone would be pointless.
'This might actually work out.'
Shirone needed information to reach the city he'd promised Fermi he'd go to, so he followed them.
"God, it's a pain to leave the Iron Homeland. They should at least let us hunt."
"Try once more. With this guy we can rig a trap in no time."
Shirone asked, "Do you know where Atogram is? I was supposed to meet a friend there; maybe there's a way to make this right."
"Haha, you think we're idiots? We can't get to Atogram—that's why we do this. If I could go there, damn… restoring parts would be nothing."
"Why can't you go?"
데스공쥬 said, "The Tenman block it. It's awful. Why do the operators just stand by?"
"What's the Tenman?" 파괴마신707 asked, baffled.
"What do you even know? You shouldn't have been able to enter High Gear without knowing that."
"I got some help getting in."
최강코드명 said, "Someone sold me a code. Must've been pricey for 야훼2. That friend in Atogram? He's actually a merchant, right?"
"Uh, sort of."
파괴마신707 chuckled.
"Gotcha. Fine, I'll tell you your bleak future. Going to Atogram means they plan to auction off your codename. There are plenty of guys laundering codes under assassination warrants. But the problem is the Iron Homeland. It's the only place with a level cap, so access's blocked."
"What's the level cap?"
"Ten. Hence the Tenman. They set it exactly at level 10 and hunt beginners. If you try to grind, they show up en masse, kill you, and humiliate you however they like."
"Why do they do that? Locking newbies in a starter zone gets them nothing."
"Because it's fun."
파괴마신707 turned his head.
"Obviously they do it for fun. Anyway, there are too many of them for the three of us to break through."
"So this is the end for us?"
"Not necessarily. When new users gather, that's when they go full-scale. Or you wait until a major guild does mass code laundering. Then thirty, forty people enter at once; they're skilled and can push the Tenman aside."
Shirone twisted his mouth.
'Fermi, that bastard.'
Fermi had left out the most important detail and told Shirone to show up in Atogram by evening.
최강코드명 continued.
"There's one other way... but it's annoying."
"Huh? What way?"
"You do what they demand. They record it, and when your level goes up later they supposedly demand a huge sum of Galaxies to delete the footage. If that's true, they're not just doing it for fun."
데스공쥬 added, "There are rumors about the Tenman, but nothing to lose sleep over. Once you leave the Iron Homeland you never see them again. We set traps to level up in one go. If you hunt slowly, the Tenman show up and kill you."
파괴마신707 said, "You're lucky you kept hunting. You should've run into the Tenman ages ago."
"No, I met one at the start point. I'd just started and suddenly got sniped."
"A sniper, huh... Could it have been 대장내시경?"
"Yeah, that's him."
"Haha! Tough luck. That guy's got skill. So he was the one messing with us? Taking it out on us because the Tenman keep killing him?"
"I really messed up. And I didn't die. I dodged once and he didn't show up again."
"Dodged? Dodged what?"
"A sniper. It was close, but I avoided it."
Silence.
The three stared at Shirone blankly, then 파괴마신707 burst out laughing.
"Puhahaha! Full of hot air! What? You dodged a sniper? So you dodged bullets or what?"
"No, it was this creepy killing intent."
Reacting to that, Shirone threw himself down and rolled. Bullets rained in from all directions.
"Dammit! Tenman!"
Flat on their bellies, the three crawled for cover but it was too far.
'We're dead for sure.'
Yet despite the barrage, no one was hit.
"What the—"
Their eyes, glancing back as they crawled, widened in shock.
About eleven Tenman.
They were targeting only one person: 야훼2 was sprinting, unprotected, straight through the lines of fire.
'He really dodged?'
파괴마신707, trying to make sense of it, frowned and muttered.
"…Is this a bug?"