The rest of the group seemed to have more muted interactions Ezekiel Laurel and Katie just began hypothesizing what was contained in the different named Danger Zones Affina simply sipped her tea content to wait calmly until they were called
Hank shook his head then went out on his own For whatever reason he felt set on fire by the announcement Although he had been initially very lukewarm to the idea of leaving his town there was a fire in his belly now and it wasn’t the liquor
That afternoon he trained like he hadn’t in months gaining 20 Skill Levels in 8 hours Chest heaving he returned home just in time to receive a call from Alan
Looks like the Danger Zones are just Dungeons that are on Earth rather than in their own place with sped up time Alan said simply Ghost’s scanners indicate that the New Earth area we connected to extends at least 100 miles in every direction No sign of humans so far but there are the remains of cities That’s gonna be a lot of ground to cover but maybe we can recover some supplies
Hank said nothing waiting for the other shoe to fall He recognized this tone in his brother’s voice the leader of the UHF had bad news
still we have suffered a few small setbacks Alan continued as if this were the most normal thing in the world Which it was but if it was just normal setbacks Alan wouldn’t have managed it The monsters are a bit stronger than we anticipated Most of the monsters outside of our Zone are between 51 58 One of the 58 took 100 men including three Tier 5 Citizens to put it down Two people died
Both men were silent at that and the unspoken implicated they hadn’t even reached a true Danger Zone yet as far as they understood it
What does Ghost havta say Hank asked already knowing the answer
Everyone involved agrees that this was something of a shock after so many months of peace Alan responded But this is good We needed to be reminded that this is a struggle for dominance and humanity needs to focus to stay on top We’ve had it easy lately but we cannot relax Not when another Zone could connect to New Earth any day
Hank rolled his eyes How could another Zone compare with the preparations they had made But he said nothing It was a pointless conversation
After returning to the group and letting them know the news Hank suggested they head to a nearby Dungeon to get a sense of each other’s style in the field Everyone agreed Inwardly Hank was ecstatic that the punk kid had snuck off during the day at some time and wasn’t there for this talk So as a group they went to the Dungeon their first true training together
The Dungeon itself was Level 39 which was pretty impressive as far as Dungeons went but it wasn’t enough to challenge Hank Very quickly it became clear that the only one who was at a place where this was work was Laurel but she wasn’t a direct fighter to begin with Most of the benefits she brought were assistance for non combat matters
It did however give Hank a clearer picture of their party He was very clear on his own strengths and weaknesses He didn’t use explosives or plasma to attack large amounts of enemies nor did he have a railgun that could pierce any armor However he was confident that his Bullet Infusions could deal out a similar amount of damage even if his ammo was limited Besides that he was precise and focused very rarely did his attacks miss the mark
Meanwhile Ezekiel Ghosthound was much more like a long range high damage type His strange Pierce Skill was relatively inaccurate by Hank’s standards but it could rip a hole in most monsters and would knock back those it didn’t puncture He also could produce Mana Grenades that destroyed quite a bit when they went off
Katie was their tank as she had an exosuit similar to Mordecai’s But where Mordecai’s had been a powersuit with some energysuit features Katie’s was pure powersuit Her legs especially were greatly enhanced giving her the ability to leap across the battlefield to come to ally’s aid when it was necessary
Affina Yu moved unpredictably like a ghost It was hard to believe that the woman was blind with the way she shuffled rapidly from one foe to the other She only used that wooden cane to fight but as Hank watched he could see how the entire thing was slowly surrounded by impossibly hard jade mid fight letting her brutalize the weaker monsters
Laurel rounded them out possessing a whole kit of mass buffs and debuffs that she demonstrated for them When she received her Spirit Walker Class Ghost had speculated that it had been a holdover of being 1/16th Cherokee but Laurel had just shrugged She didn’t put much stock in blood but she wasn’t she about polishing her strange package of Skills into something highly desired in the entire Zone
Although she hadn’t been promoted from Tier 3 to Tier 4 yet many suspected it was only a matter of time
After they finished they came back and trained some more before each going their separate ways to focus on their own pursuits During that time Hank retreated to his shack out behind his house and began working on Infusing more bullets before they had to leave He had almost 50 but if the difficulty that Alan indicated was to be believed
Of course he could do this in the field But there an ambush would mean a ruined bullet and an hour wasted It was much safer to perform the operation here the peace and quiet
No sooner had he sat down than there was a knock on the door
You ready to talk about things yet Laurel asked
Hank wasn’t sure what exactly she wanted to talk about but about 5 possibilities sprang to mind and he wasn’t too keen on any of them No
Alright There was the sound of departing footsteps Then she turned and called over her shoulder and Hank could easily imagine the teasing smile on her face as she spoke But I’m not above bribing you with sex if that makes it easier Think about it
Hank shook his head That woman was just always surprisingly direct So much so that Hank found himself taken aback more often than not
But that was why he fell for her
Humming to himself Hank turned his attention to the Infusions He did it all through the evening and into the next day It was only around lunchtime that he pulled himself out of the shack pleased to have produced another 30 bullets These were powerful ones too some with variant effects based on the materials used in the bullet
Hank hadn’t realized it at first but the process of flooding the bullet with Mana that he used reawakened part of the monster’s spirit if a monster part was used in the bullet After he had discovered this he had been constantly experimenting but the lack of true threat made the efforts somewhat muted
But now with a mysterious army of monsters on the horizon Then Hank sighed Well not for a bit yet He had time No need to rush
This was a bad habit of Hank’s He needed to give himself some time allowing him to settle into things Generally he leaped first and asked questions later and that wouldn’t work here Not with the monsters being so high Level
A beeping noise caught Hank’s attention and he looked down His wrist communicator was receiving a call He frowned Only Alan ever called him and that was mostly on his cell If it was on the wrist communicator
What I’m about to tell you is strictly confidential Alan began his voice speaking of storms But it’s worse than we feared Expedition 1 ran into a group of three monsters all Level 65 Most of the plasma weapons couldn’t even hit them We lost 30 soldiers The worst of which the only reason we killed the bastards was Eric Todd the Demolitions Maniac blew himself up wounding two of them A Tier 5 Citizen died today
Alan fell silent Hank felt bile rising in the back of his throat and hung up Did he really need to make it about the Tiers right then What about the 30 other soldiers who had been torn apart by these monsters
Level 65
Hank’s eyes flashed half nerves have cocky adrenaline He wondered what that looked like
To his surprise Hank received another call around 14 hours later again to his wrist communicator Annoyed he answered it
Up and at em big bro Alan said his voice grim You are on deck We had reports starting about an hour ago that experience gains abruptly dropped off a cliff It took a while to confirm but Ghost’s long range scanner is up and running and sensed something is amiss But the real confirmation came from the Jade Prince he said he sensed another Champion out there