This Game Is Too Realistic-Chapter 562.1: Die For Daddy
According to the usual logic of games, stacking the most expensive gear on one’s body should have been the way to go, but Wasteland Online was a completely different story.
Whether gear, level, or the player’s experience, each was only one of the factors that determined victory in combat.
Overly realistic hitboxes and a physics system often filled battles with variables.
It was like rolling dice.
A veteran fighter had a higher probability of rolling a larger number, but a small mistake or a moment of hesitation would force a reroll.
If he could have reloaded a save, Ye Wei swore he would never have blown a million silver coins on an iron coffin to get played for a fool.
Though the OD-10 Dragon Cavalry was a kit for the Orbital Airborne Division, its lightweight design was only relative to the T-10 Champion. Its use case was airdropping into cities to coordinate with armor and even lighter infantry for urban operations, so the armor still had considerable thickness.
If he really wanted to parkour back and forth between skyscrapers, he needed a more mobile, much lighter special operations model.
It would have been even better with optical camouflage and chemical thrusters.
Ahem...
In the pitch-black shaft.
Jerking awake from unconsciousness, Night Ten spasmed like a corpse twitching on the elevator car roof and sat up from the dented steel shell, coughing.
"Dammit, finally made it up!"
Yellow exclamation icons flashed on his tactical visor, but thankfully the power components and mechanical structure were intact.
He flexed his limbs and confirmed the motors at each armor joint were running normally; only then did Night Ten exhale in relief and spring to his feet.
If the armor’s shock-absorbing liners hadn’t bled off part of the impact, that last fall alone would have sent him to the afterlife.
Thinking of that, Night Ten couldn’t help but break into a cold sweat.
A two centuries old antique, patched and repatched to this day, had fallen from fifty or sixty meters and still worked.
The technology of the Prosperity Era was seriously badass.
But that long string of yellow exclamation marks...
He would almost certainly need a major overhaul when he got back.
His consciousness had fully recovered, and the premonition of danger was crawling back over his heart.
Knowing he shouldn’t linger, Night Ten hopped down from the ruined elevator car and, relying on the brute force of his exoframe, shoved it aside.
He tore off the elevator doors and stepped into the corridor, catching the number B4 on the wall.
Well, hell.
This pit is deep!
He quickly found the floor map on the wall, wiped away the dust, and located both himself and the emergency stairwell.
"... Left turn at the corridor corner."
To be safe, he snapped a photo, but just as he was about to move, a faint sound suddenly reached his ears.
Hahhh....
It was like a beast panting.
Abrupt and eerie in the pitch-black corridor, it made every hair on his body stand on end.
Next came the creak of boots on dust, from the far end of the corridor, drawing nearer and nearer...
"Dammit... Light promised me a cheerful game, and now they turned it into a horror game."
Cursing, he slung the overly long-barreled Gauss sniper rifle to his back and drew the LD-50 carbine from his waist.
The enemy already knew he was here, so stealth was meaningless. He flicked off the safety and racked the rifle cleanly.
Just as he expected, the footsteps didn’t hesitate at all. The owner seemed convinced he had nowhere to run, advancing step by step like toying with prey.
He stared at the corridor’s end, and when the figure rounded the corner into view, Night Ten’s pupils tightened.
It was a green-skinned giant wearing a heavy steel helmet that nearly touched the corridor ceiling. Its broad shoulders occupied half the hallway.
Its knotted muscles looked like mounded granite, its right fist gripped a chainsaw half as tall as a man. More chilling still, the entire left side of its body from waist to head had been replaced by metal, and its left arm was fitted with a huge-caliber barrel!
Damn?!
A cybernetic mutant?!
Which heartless bastard performed surgery on this thing!
"Oru!"
The muffled growl sounded like a battle cry.
It also sounded like its name.
The guy seemed intent on a one-on-one.
Swallowing, Night Ten tightened his grip on his weapon, activated his speakers, and announced himself in his native tongue as well.
"Daddy!"
"Daddy..." Through the dark visor, Oru read the human’s panic and curled a cruel smile.
Those ugly human things had harassed them for some time, and he swore to cut this one into pieces in the most brutal way.
Paying no mind to the small pipe that Night Ten’s carbine looked like, Oru hefted his chainsaw and made a taunting gesture.
"... Well now, not even rattled by an exoframe?" Reading the provocation in that gaze, Night Ten’s brows lifted, and his finger decisively pulled the trigger.
Ratatata...
Gunfire boomed in the corridor as the LD-50’s muzzle spewed flame, bullets pelting one side of the passage like rain.
But the cybernetic mutant didn’t panic.
It planted the heavy chainsaw straight down. The blade that was two palms wide, became a shield, and the stream of rounds sparked and skipped across it.
Too weak!
Standing on its side, Oru stared icily down the corridor and bared a cruel sneer.
Too bad, the situation changed suddenly.
The human abruptly let the empty-mag carbine drop, snatched the Gauss sniper rifle from his back, and swung it around him in an instant.
Oru’s expression froze. From the cold, black muzzle, he glimpsed a flicker of electric arcs.
Charging complete...
When had he done it?!
"Die for daddy!!" A piercing sonic crack exploded in the corridor, the searing trail seeming to warp the air.
At a distance of less than 20 meters, everything happened in a split second. The high-velocity mass round blasted the chainsaw and the mutant together down the hall.
While he had hosed the green baboon with the carbine, Night Ten had already started the charging process. Almost the exact instant the last round left the carbine, he switched to the fully-charged Gauss sniper rifle.
At such close range, nothing should survive... Yet the ominous warning clinging to his mind still didn’t disperse.
"No way... it could still be alive?!"
With the capacitor’s cooldown only just finishing, Night Ten hit the charge switch again, intending to give the green baboon another round.
But almost the instant he pressed it, a deafening blast boomed from the other end of the corridor.
Bang!
A massive impact slammed into his chest, knocking him off his feet, causing him to stumble back.
Two more blasts followed. One blew apart the drooping door panel behind him, the other shoved him into the crumpled elevator car.
“Roar!”
Smoke curled from the huge barrel; bloodshot eyes burned with rage.
Struggling up by the wall, Oru grabbed the broken half of the chainsaw. No longer daring to underestimate Night Ten, he bellowed and charged the skewed elevator.
A few lead slugs couldn’t pierce an exoframe, but with enough force, he had no doubt he could mash the guy in the iron coffin into meat paste. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖
He no longer cared where this rat had come from, nor whether he was with the other little rats.
He only wanted him dead!
"Die!"
"Daddy!"
The half chainsaw smashed down toward the exoframe on the floor, but the thunk of steel-on-steel didn’t come. The chainsaw crashed straight through the elevator’s deck, its blunt teeth wedging in the bent, shattered metal plating.
His attack had been predicted.
The human in the iron suit rolled aside, dodging the killing blow, slammed into the car wall, and brought up the Gauss sniper rifle.
Of course the creature wouldn’t let that happen. With a sweep of his left arm, the club-like barrel swatted the high-tech rifle flying.
Bang!
Arcs flared and discharged; a blazing trail sliced between them and punched a big hole in the elevator car.
Oru bared a savage grin, released the stuck half saw, straddled the exoframe, locked down its joints, and shoved the fist-sized barrel right up to his throat.
But something Oru never expected happened.
Almost at the instant, perhaps a heartbeat before, he pulled the trigger, the exoframe beneath him raised its right hand, jammed the barrel down against its own chest plate, and clamped down with all its strength, nearly welding the barrel to its breastplate.
Oru’s face changed as instinct screamed danger from the human’s move, but it was already too late.
The propellant detonated; with nowhere for the energy to go, the chamber burst. Scalding sparks and charred flesh sprayed around the car.
Oru shrieked in pain, the remaining length of his left arm torn open and bleeding; blood and machine blurred together as he staggered back and crashed to the floor.
Night Ten’s chest plate buckled with a shallow dent from the slug’s kinetic punch. He grunted and slumped, not unscathed, but far better off than the fellow who had had his barrel welded to him.
"... Told you... Daddy’s your daddy." Grinning, Night Ten struggled to his feet and walked up to the mutant named Oru.
There was no signal in the shaft, so he wasn’t worried about a distress call, but considering a mutant’s cockroach-like vitality, it was best to finish it quickly.
Sensing death looming over him, Oru struggled to rise.
Night Ten gave him no chance to breathe. He yanked the combat knife from his belt and drove it hard at the eye socket.
"Roar!"
The blade jammed in the socket; Oru howled in pain but wasn’t dead yet, and he swung his right fist at Night Ten’s head.
The creature truly had absurd vitality. Even with all the injuries, he continued to struggle violently.
The helmet took a solid punch. Braced for it, Night Ten’s head only rocked slightly. Without pause, he hammered his fist down like a sledge onto the knife’s hilt.
Splat!
The dull shock of metal parting flesh and bone traveled up his knuckles. The blade, wedged in the skull, drove straight through Oru’s cranium.
Oru convulsed like he’d been shocked, then the electronic eye on the left side of his face rolled up, and he moved no more.
Worried the creature wasn’t dead, Night Ten added several more stabs. The elevator car was a wreck as the floor nearly soaked through with blood.
"Dammit... He had better be dead now."
Almost spent, Night Ten exhaled, let go of the motionless Oru, pulled the combat knife free, glanced around, and clicked his tongue.
