Reality Hurts

The days pass in a similar manner, until the group decides they should start hunting E ranked monsters. While you'd think that the stat lines wouldn't fully follow through to reality, it's as simple as getting in a capsule and being measured. Thus, everyone's stats are classified as E, excluding their energy, which is only at F.

"Okay, so we're going to be hunting orcs today. All of us are in the low E range, so we shouldn't have any trouble with them," Lynna starts the conversation once we've finished our breakfast.

The group all replies with nods, and they pack up their things before calling one of the automated vehicles to take them out further than they've gone before. They soon arrive, and are greeted by an area filled with crisscrossing canyons, with only a few small shrubs growing here and there, their shiny bark reflecting the sunlight. Sen looks away from the red hued bushes, and they head into one of the canyons, thankful that this area is well mapped out on their tablets.

The canyon walls tower over them, striations showing throughout the walls as they continue, and here and there, they'll run into a group of F ranked hobgoblins, which are easily dispatched, Julie not bothering to use her arrays. After each kill, they're forced to stop for a while to extract the crystals from the monsters' hearts, which slows them down, but they've gotten quite good at doing so at this point, so it doesn't take too much time.

The group is all but inured to dealing with crystals at this point, having eaten enough for them to no longer care about the fact that it comes from within a monster's heart. Their trek deeper into the weaving canyons continues, and they eventually come across the first group of orcs. Sen finds it a bit odd that they're called orcs when they're closer to extra large hobgoblins, but figures they were named that way due to most fantasy orcs be close enough to them.

The group waits for a bit for Julie to set up her array, then charge at the monsters. The orcs aren't slow to respond however, and instantly turn to the group, swiping through the images Julie had sent ahead of the group. Sen swings his sword through the neck of the only orc with a proper weapon, a sword it had likely looted off of a dead adventurer. He ignores the blood that sprays upon him, turning to the next one and dodging the swipe of its long claws while removing the offending arm.

The orc reels back in pain, and Sen finishes it with a stab through the chest, before turning to the rest of the group, and noting that they've all finished off the rest of the orcs. Everyone lets out a breath. While the orcs had higher stats than them, they are also dumb, with no technique to speak of. It seems the pattern in game of monsters not being too much stronger than people of the same rank until around rank C will continue to be true in this reality. With neither skill nor a large strength advantage, the orcs are easy prey.

The group dissects the monsters for their crystals, as orcs don't have any materials valuable enough to bother collecting. The group has found out that the loot drops in game were echoed in reality, body parts of high rank monsters selling for astronomical sums, though still less than the crystals from the same monster.

The group finishes their bloody work, and continues on to hunt more of the orcs. They end up finding more hobgoblins than orcs, but they occasionally come across another group, wiping them out easily.

Once the day is about half over, which is less time than Sen is used to, as this planet has a twenty six hour day cycle compared to the thirty on Alpha, they all start to head back to their automated vehicle.

They're about halfway back, when Sen notices something off. He takes his weapon off of his shoulder he's been resting it on, not keeping it in its sheathe while hunting, and holds it in front of him. The rest of the group gives him a few funny looks, but copy him. Julie even sets up a quick array on the ground, but doesn't power it on quite yet.

The group simply sits there for a moment, but Sen doesn't let his guard down, and soon they hear laughter.

"Well, well, it seems the little rabbits aren't so keen to walk into the trap on their own."

A man steps out from behind a curve in the canyon wall, and another half a dozen people step out after him.

"What do you want?" Sen asks in a steely voice.

"That's quite simple, all I want from you is to hand over your crystals. And maybe a couple of the ladies for us to play with."

Sen bristles, he hasn't met a scumbag like this since his past life. The girls seem to caught between being angry and scared, but Sen is simply focused.

"That's not an option." Sen says.

"What happens if you get caught? We could just report you when we get back to the city," Jennifer says in a tone that's trying to belie her nervousness.

The man laughs again. "They don't care what happens out here. Besides, it would be our word against yours.Nobody will believe your words over those from Alliance. We'll just smash your tablets to make sure none of you are recording."

The group simply raises their weapons, the girl's arms shaking slightly.

"Go to hell!" Lynna shouts.

"Fine, do it the hard way."

The man who has been speaking draws his sword, and the rest of the men behind him take out theirs as well. Sen focuses on their drawing of their weapons. They all seem to a be a bit clumsy with their swords, which is surprising. They'd likely gotten into the fifth dimension through connections rather than having done well in the training tool that Sen still thought of as just a game.

As they slowly close on the group, Sen starts up his body enhancement, and leads in with a light strike to convince the one of the random men to block. Sen can see images of Julie appearing as his opponent bites the bait, and Sen simply twirls his sword upwards and slams it down from a different direction, empowered by Weight of the Mountain.

The man's head is crushed rather than sliced through, the brains splattering backwards, and Sen hears a short "Joe!" from one of his friends. The one who'd shouted the dead man's name charges in towards Sen, and clumsily strikes with all his force behind it. Sen simply sways to the side and removes his foot at the ankle, leaving him to bleed as he rolls on the floor in pain.

At this point, Sen looks to the girls, to see them all fighting in a nervous manner, not going in for fatal strikes. He lets out a breath. They don't have the experience with death Sen does, and are nervous to even harm another person.

Sen finishes off two more opponents quickly. While they have E ranked stats, it seems they had simply stolen the crystals rather than having farmed them themselves, as they are quite useless when it comes to using their weapons. At this point, Sen turns to the ones who are attacking the girls, noting that Julie's images have actually finished off one of the enemies, and Julie herself is looking extremely pale.

Sen cuts into the people attacking the girls from behind, quickly eliminating them, but when he gets to the one Lynna is fighting, Lynna has shoved her sword into his stomach, before pulling it out, and backing away in horror. Sen finishes off the man who's going to strike at her while she's confused, then very intentionally turns to the man she'd fatally wounded, and beheads him with a simple swipe of his sword.

Sen carefully turns to Lynna, saying a short "I killed him. It wasn't you."

Sen slowly walks for disabled enemy to enemy, finishing them off to the horror of the rest of the group. He then turns to the only remaining enemy, the man who had led the group, who is looking quite nervous at this point.

"You can't kill me! I'm from Alliance! They'll hunt you down!"

Sen snorts. "And how would they know I killed you? I just have to smash your tablet." After saying his bit, he stabs into the man, who looks down in terror and confusion as he slowly slips to the ground, sliding from Sen's sword.

Looking around, the girls are all staring at Sen in a mix of horror and shock. Jennifer turns to the side and vomits a few times, falling to her knees as she loses her lunch and simply continues to dry heave.

Sen lets out a sigh. While you can't steal crystals in game, here, they're free to be taken. He takes a step forward towards the girls, but stops when he sees Lynna step back as he does so. He lets out a sigh, and turns around.

He very intentionally takes his time as he searches through each of the dead men's backpacks for their tablets, and crushes them. Annoyingly, his normal strikes can barely harm the thing, and he's forced to use Weight of the Mountain. For good measure, he takes their crystals as well, noting that they have quite a lot of them. He isn't sure if they're all from robbing people, or if they'd actually been hunting, but he's not going to waste something he can use.

Turning back to the girls, Jennifer has stopped vomiting, while the rest of them are either sitting down or leaning against a wall, still in shock.

"They're dead. You killed them. I... I nearly killed someone." Lynna looks down at her hands, and starts to cry. Sen wants to comfort her, but with the reaction she'd shown towards him, he isn't sure she's not horrified by him right now.

"Sen, what was your past life like?" Xue asks, wondering about how he seems completely fine with the bloodshed.

Sen looks down. "I can't even remember how many people I've killed at this point."

Xue looks at him, before slowly moving towards him and giving him a hug. He holds her for a moment before letting her go. "I think Lynna and Jennifer need someone more than I do right now."

Xue nods, and turns towards Jennifer, simply sitting beside her, and begins to talk to her in a low voice. After Jennifer seems to have calmed down a bit, she turns to Lynna, and softly starts talking to her as Sen turns to Julie.

"Are you ok?"

Julie is taking deep breaths as she leans on the canyon wall. "I don't know. It needed to be done, but it's just… I never would've expected something like this."

Sen nods.

"Does it ever get easier?" Julie asks, looking to Sen.

Sen gets a sad look on his face. "It does. Not for a long time, but it does."

Julie looks down at that. "I don't want it to get easier. I never want to get used to killing someone!" She deflates a bit after her her outburst, and breaks into sobs. Sen goes to sit beside her, noting that at least she isn't shying away from him. He simply sits there in silence for a bit.

"It needed to be done though. People like that don't change. They're obviously from this 'Alliance', they'd simply have used their connections to cause us even more trouble," he eventually says. Julie nods in response, but her body still shakes from the occasional sob. He gets up, and goes to check on Xue. While she seems to be the most stable one, he doesn't know if she's simply good at hiding it.

Rather than ask her anything, he simply sits next to her as she's talking to Lynna, taking her hand in his own. She flinches a bit at first, but is soon gripping his hand very tightly.

"We need to get back to the vehicle," Sen eventually says, the sun starting to get low on the horizon.

Xue nods, and herds everyone up as they slowly make their way back to the road, Sen going a bit ahead of them to wipe out any small groups of hobgoblins that would likely be a problem for the shell-shocked girls.

As they arrive in the vehicle, they're all silent, driving back to the city in a morose mood. Once they arrive, they're not even questioned at the gate as they hand in the tax of ten percent of their crystals, and they're soon back in their apartment, everyone going to their own room.

Xue actually follows Sen into his room, and simply holds on to him for a while, occasionally shivering, before she slowly falls asleep, causing Sen to worry. Sen eventually falls asleep as well, though he's more nervous about having Xue in his bed rather than guilty over having killed some human scum.