2 Chapter 2
After the disappearance of Raymond Robinson, the players could only glance around their surroundings with palpable fear.
One of the players took a tentative step forward. "H-Hey... Are you telling me that even with the Augmatrix removed, we still cannot get this augmented world cleared from our vision...?!"
The players around Haruki began to gasp in shock, some even trembled in fear.
"T-This has to be... some sort of joke... What kind of sick joke is this?!"
Haruki took a few steps forward and clenched his fist, his face seethed with rage. "Raymond... that bastard!"
"I think we should calm down, everyone!" a voice shouted.
Haruki turned around towards the source of the voice, and widened his eyes in surprise. "Joe...?"
Joe walked towards the middle of the park and looked around his surroundings at the confused players who were dotted near the middle of the park. "Fear not. If what Raymond has done really is true, then all we can do is leave this park and try to find the nearest police station. The NYPD should be able to help us."
"But... How? With this Augmented vision we have, how are we even supposed to find the police?" Haruki asked with a concerned look on his face.
Joe folded his arms with a serious look on his face and answered, "First thing is, we should leave this place before more monsters spawn in this augmented park. Then, we will search for a nearby police station."
A player, whose nametag was 'Andrew09', walked towards Joe and nodded. "I agree. As far as we know, Robinson has somehow made us feel real pain in this game. if we go to the nearest hospital or police station, I'm sure they will be able to help us out."
Joe turned around and faced Andrew. With a nod, he said, "I agree. Without further delay, let's get moving."
However, the other players were still in confusion. Most of them had already ran away from the park. Only a few remained.
That's when more monsters began spawning around the park.
Haruki glanced behind his shoulder and noticed the spawning monsters. "S-Shit!" he then quickly looked forward and warned, "Everyone, let's get the hell out of here! The monsters are respawning!"
This put the remaining few players who were in the park on edge. Joe simply nodded. "Haruki. Follow my lead, and let's get the hell out of here! I know the rough direction to the nearest police station."
And with that, Haruki simply gave a nod whilst having a serious look on his face, before running towards the park exit.
***
The other players followed suit. In the streets of New York, were a bunch of players running ahead towards the nearest police station, with Joe and Andrew in the lead.
However, the streets of New York were also augmented as well. The skyscrapers and buildings of Manhattan were replaced with medieval themed castles. It was almost as if they were in some sort of town centre.
As for the police station, it would take around one hour to reach there, since it was considerably far away from New York Central Park.
Currently, Haruki and Joe, along with Andrew and a few players who decided to join along, were running through the streets of the medieval town faster than a professional athelete. Somehow, the Augmatrix had enhanced their speed and agility.
But that didn't make much sense. This was Augmented Reality... yet, their physical bodies were being affected in a way that enhanced their physical capabilities.
Haruki was baffled by this whole thing. He remembered how ten minutes earlier, he managed to jump roughly around 12 feet into the air while fighting the Minotaur boss.
At the current speed they were running at, they would be able to reach the nearest police station in half an hour or fifteen minutes, rather than an hour.
As Haruki was running through the streets of the Medieval town they were in, he began to get short of breath. However, he had to continue running forward while following Joe and Andrew who were currently in the lead.
While Joe and Andrew were running forward, a few players were also running besides Haruki.
"How much longer till we reach the police station?" Haruki asked while still running forward.
Before anyone could answer the question, Joe and Andrew shifted from running to skidding on the ground in order to stop themselves from moving further.
Seeing the two in front suddenly stop running, Haruki slowed down into a jog before stopping as well. He huffed a bit before asked the two warriors in the front, "Hey... What's going on? Why did you stop? Did we reach?"
Joe and Andrew's backs were still facing towards Haruki and the rest of the players both behind and next to him. As visible confusion trickled out of Haruki, Joe took a step back and said, "Wait a minute... What the hell...?"
With a confused look on his face, Haruki looked past Joe and Andrew to see what they were talking about, and widened his eyes in shock.
Ahead of them, were three words crossing each other. The road on the left, the road on the right, and the road ahead, each road were connected to each other at one midpoint.
At the front, left, and right, were a bunch of wild boars.
Andrew smirked and lifted his right arm sideways, before using his imagination and thoughts to materialize a jagged spiky mace with chains in his hand. "More Monsters... This is going to be a pain in the ass, but we will have to get through them..."
Joe glanced behind his shoulder at Haruki and said, "Answering your question from earlier, we managed to get to the police station faster than expected..."
Haruki was surprised at this sudden development, as Joe continued, "I don't know what's going on... but ever since we activated this augmented reality game, our bodies are able to move a lot faster than humanly possible. Such a thing did not exist during the beta testing of Cardinal Factor..."
Andrew looked to his left at Joe and asked, "Police station is nearby you say? Then we better hurry." he then returned his attention back at the wild boars ahead of him. "Of course, we will have to take care of these monsters first."
Haruki took a step forward. "Or we can just ignore the monsters... We have no time to waste on them..."
It was no sooner than he said that, than a horde of boars arrived from ahead. However, these boars were different. Their fur was purple in colour. On top of them, were a bunch of men wearing default warrior armour.
Haruki shifted into his battle stance while positioning his sword for battle, as the players behind him followed suit. Joe and Andrew did the same.
"Surrender!" one of the men on the purple boar shouted.
The men's faces were distorted. Half of their faces was absent, with the exception of their skull visible. They looked like undead monsters.
Andrew gritted his teeth in anger, spinning the chains of the jagged spiky mace sideways. "Don't get in our way!"
And with that, Andrew charged forward in a fit of rage.
Joe was shocked at what he had just seen, his eyes desperately following after Andrew's action. With an extended hand out, he shouted, "Andrew! What the hell are you doing?! We need to work as a team!"
Andrew however ignored the pleads and proceeded forward while spinning his mace around in his right hand.
The men jumped out of the purple boars and grabbed something from their waists... some sort of mini crossbow with a stone button on it.
The man who was in the front line of the other purple boar riders raised his mini crossbow forward with both hands, and fired it, sending an arrow at an incredible speed towards Andrew.
However...
Andrew somehow was able to see the attack coming, despite the arrow shooting faster than the normal human eye. Using his mace, he deflected the arrow, much to the man's chagrin.
The man who had shot the arrow was shocked. However, he quickly regained his composure and began shooting more and more arrows.
As Haruki watched the battle unfold in front of him, he noticed that something was weird. This man who was fighting with Andrew was surely an NPC. Yet, his reaction and emotions seemed pretty real.
As more and more arrows shot towards Andrew, the player simply deflected all the arrows once again with his mace. Once all arrows were deflected, he jumped high into the air and yanked his mace backwards.
Once gravity started taking its natural affect, Andrew was descending back onto the ground from his high jump. However, he was above the man. With his mace yanked backwards, he pulled the chains forward, and smashed the weapon onto the undead man, instantly killing him.
The impact managed to tear the undead's body apart, causing blood to splash in numerous directions on the road.
Haruki gasped in horror at the scene he had just witnessed. It was almost like a scene from a horror movie.
The undead men who had just witnessed were shocked. Some of them even staggered back in fear.
Andrew had blood of the undead on his face and arm due to the impact of his mace crushing his opponent. He stared forward at the Undead and noticed their petrified looks. "Oh, what is this? You guys are nothing but monsters programmed by an AI... Yet, you're showing fear?"
One of the undead men shouted, "FIRE!"
Joe quickly glanced behind his shoulder at Haruki and urged, "Haruki! We have to back up Andrew! Come with me!"
Haruki nodded with determination, and ran forward with his starter iron sword.
The undead men began firing their crossbows at Andrew. However, the player managed to easily deflect all the arrows being fired at him with his mace.
"Andrew's amazing... How is he fighting so well?" Haruki wondered as he stopped running and readied his sword. He was currently around 15 feet behind Andrew.
Joe stopped his short sprint and arrived besides Haruki. However, before he could answer...
One of the arrows that were being fired managed to strike Andrew's right shoulder, which caused him to involuntarily drop his mace, causing the weapon to plummet onto the ground. The weight of the spiky jagged mace caused cracks in the ground upon the impact of falling down.
Andrew held his right shoulder in visible pain, as he gritted his teeth. Blood began to seep from his shoulder. The arrow that had struck him, shrunk into a small piece of some sort of metal, and got embedded inside his wounded shoulder. "D-Damn it..."
The undead men were reloading their handheld mini crossbows, and were about to fire it.
However...
Haruki jumped over Andrew and landed in front of the mace user, with his back facing him. The arrows had already been fired. However, Haruki raised his sword, and deflected all the arrows away, almost like a superhero!
Haruki himself was surprised at what he had just done. The arrows had shot towards him in a blur. And yet, he was able to deflect all of them. It was almost as if his reflex had improved drastically with the Augmatrix.
Joe arrived at Andrew's side and placed his hand near his wounded shoulder. "Andrew, you, alright?!"
Andrew collapsed on his butt and continued to clench his right shoulder. "I-I'm fine... Don't worry about me... I still have a lot of HP..."
As Joe sighed with relief, Haruki had managed to deflect all the arrows away, shocking the undead men.
Swinging his sword to his right, Haruki closed his eyes for a moment, before reopening them. "Special Sword Skill: Lightning Burst!"
Sparks of lightning formed around his iron sword, as she stared forward at the undead men with determination in his eyes. With a roar, he ran forward at the horde of enemies.
Upon closing the distance between him and the undead, he swung his sword, slashing one of the undead in half, and continued to deliver a barrage of sword slashes to each and every single undead monster that got in his way.
As he was taking out the undead monsters one by one, Joe shouted, "Haruki, move!"
Haruki stopped moving his sword and turned around in confusion. Upon turning around, he immediately knew what Joe meant.
Joe, with both hands forward, was charging up some sort of fireball in his hand.
Haruki quickly jumped out of the way, as Joe shouted, "Fire Element: Inferno Blast!"
And with that, Joe shot a humongous ball of fireball, sending it straight towards the undead, and hitting them head-on, causing a huge explosion in the process.
KABOOM!
The silver boars were killed in the process as well. As smoke began to emerge from the area of the explosion, Haruki landed back onto the ground from jumping away earlier, and stared at the explosion in awe. "So this is the power of a beta tester."
It was now obvious to Haruki. Beta testers had a head start in Cardinal Factor. Joe must have been grinded through the top and reached a high level during the beta testing phase itself.
The undead were dead, as ironic as it sounded. Haruki turned his body towards Joe who was currently using some sort of healing magic to heal Andrew's injured shoulder. With sigh of relief, Haruki was about to place his sword back in his scabbard, when he suddenly heard footsteps approach him.
Haruki quickly turned to his right and pointed his sword at whoever had tried to sneak up on him, his sword inches away from the enemy's neck.
However...
"W-Wait...! You got this all wrong!" It was an undead, and rather than attacking Haruki, he was covered with burn marks and injuries, along with a horrified look on his face. "T-This is not real!"
Haruki slowly placed his sword down and widened his eyes in shock. "W-What...?"
The undead slowly pulled something from his robe's pocket...a handheld transceiver. But wasn't this augmented world supposed to be mediaval themed? Why was a piece of modern technology in this world?
With trembling hands, the undead spoke into the transceiver, "Multiple officers down... W-We need backup!"
Those were the undead's last words, before collapsing on the ground, presumably dead.
The words hit Haruki like a struck, as realisation slowly crawled in the back of his mind. The undead was face first on the ground, his handheld crossbow fell down from his waist. On his waist, was some sort of holster. Putting the two and two together, Haruki widened his eyes in horror.
The undead men who had attacked Haruki and his group earlier were augmented NYPD police officers, and Haruki realized he had just killed a few of them in cold blood.
To be continued...
