2 1.01 A prey that wished to be slaughtered

The great war of 500years ago left most of the land on Tauras inhabitable. The land was poisoned with radiation. The factories of the old civilization still run like usual, signifying that for machines the war is never over. Same for the biological beast farms, who used carriers to hunt down any living organism which was used in creation for the chimera beast.

And both of these groups still fought for supremacy, the beasts were just following their instincts that were artificially cultivated in their bloodline by biologists, while the machines were following the orders of their dead creators, protecting countries that have long ceased to exist.

At present, even though most of the land remains unclaimed and dangerous to live on, the surviving humans living in war shelters have started to surface back to the world once again. In the last century, in pursuit of progress, they have ong occupied a huge amount of land already, creating various strongholds throughout the land of Tauras.

These strongholds not only acted as a defense from the dangers of this inhabitable planet, but they also acted as a focal point through which the new humans carry out constant attacks towards their enemies.

They also dream to reclaim their land once again, no matter the sacrifices they have to make, but the hundred years of experience has optimized their military structure and tactics they use, so it is not a far off that this dream will come true.

Facing gigantic war machines and towering meat behemoths, the humans have never backed down from any challenge on their quest. And that was true even then they discovered a new breed of humanity and mutants that have adapted to surface life. They eliminated those that posed threat to them, while assimilating and forming alliances with those that shared similar belief and understanding of the humans.

But suddenly one day, out of nowhere, a new breed of beings came into existence. It was as if they were born out of the void itself. All of these men and women had curiosity in their eyes and acted like complete idiots.

"Sir, new report from gate 2. There have been few accidents with these anomalous people and due to these accidents, we discovered something new about them. I have sent the report along with the footage to your tablet." In a slightly worried and surprised tone, Vanaras, who was a man with a contradicting look of a huge man with glasses, called out to the mayor of Riber city, pulling his attention to the tablet on his desk.

The mayor of the city was named Wilkis Riber, a thin old man with little meat on his body. When standing next to Vanaras who has an unnaturally huge physique, he looks like a twig and not even noticeable. But anyone who is not ignorant will never treat this feeble old man lightely. Wilkis was an astute leader with a sadistic streak, he used to be a normal soldier who was among the first to explore the new land that used to be humanity's home. And among that group, only he survived and reached the level he is at now.

Hence, Wilkis was not as worried as Vanaras over the existence of these new beings because he has just seen too much in his life. So he humphed a bit before picking up the tab and looking at the report.

Though the more he read the more surprised he became, the video file in the report even furthered his interest in these new anomalous beings, but a worry started to appear too.

The content of the video was short. It showed a man trying to force his way into the city again and again, but as he had ordered, none of the guards allowed them entry. Wilkis has put the place on lockdown since yesterday since the appearance of these weird beings started and he received the report.

And not much to his surprise, all four gates of the city had already been crowded with these people in gray clothes. These people didn't venture too far from there though, instead they kept trying to talk with the guards or asked all kinds of stupid questions. Some even seemed crazy as they randomly got into fights with each other and one among them was just licking everything he could find. A chaotic bunch like this will not be able to survive for long.

In the video WIlkis was watching, these people were doing the same, crowding around the guards who were checking the transport trucks at a slow pace that has affected the market in Riber city.

WIlkis can't let random events like this affect the economy of his city because of some stupid creatures who just looked like humans but acted stupid most of the time. And not like these beings were strong, the only reason he was worried about them was the weird way they suddenly appeared around the city. He only felt disgust toward them at the moment.

A feeling shared by the guards of the gates too, their job had already increased due to these people, but their constant harassment and disgusting habits affected a certain guard too much who in a bid to scare off the weird people shot one of them on the leg.

This sudden attack riled up not only the one who was shot, but others around him. Who suddenly became violent and ignored the gun and started attacking the guards with their weak and feeble punches and kicks.

The riot didn't go unnoticed by other guards and they fired at the rioting people without discrimination.killing all f them instantly and scaring the others who were thinking of jumping into the war.

But the video didn't end with just this, instead, it skipped to 2 hours later where a new batch of these bizarre beings arrived on the scene. But as he read from the report, these were the same beings who were killed in the prior shootout. And to solidify this claim there was also a line that told how these people's bodies had disappeared before the coroner arrived on the scene.

Wilkis understood what this meant, he watched how these re-arrivals maintained some distance from the guards this time, fearing the guns and the guards who wielded them. But the ones who were most scared were the guards instead, for they have seen the dead walk again.

"Interesting, these weak people seem to possess the ability to revive when killed and with all their memory intact too…" Wilkis contemplated, before turning his head to his assistant. "Vanaras, kidnap some of them and start a study on their physiology. Find out what they are." Wilkis ordered, showing some concern.

"Even though they seem weak, we can't assess their danger level this early on. Keep them in tight confinement and find those eggheads in the research department with full autonomy, I don't care what they do with these people, let them go crazy with experimenting, all I care for at the moment is results and learning what they truly are." WIlkis said while signing a wager and handing it to Vanaras while gesturing him to the door.

"Should we share this report with Thorn city? Even the Citadel will be interested in this new race of beings." Before leaving the room, Vanaras recommended some Glee. Riber city has not been the only city to experience the advent of these beings. Thorn city also had a similar experience. So if both the cities shared their understanding of these new beings they may progress in their understanding of these new beings.

But his request was denied. "Don't think those in Thorn are ignorant, they are better at biotech than us, they are probably dissecting the new beings as we speak and must have long informed the Citadel about it. And us not getting any message from either Thorn or Citadel just tells us what they plan to do. So reporting to the Citadel is not a priority, just focus on what is in your hand." The Mayor said after contemplation.

"As you command!"

*****

GrannyRussia: They just opened fire on me… dying is not that painful as I thought considering the realistic setting the developers have made. But I won't deny that it was a scary experience. I would suggest everyone try to die at least 1 time to experience it before the actual combat portion of the game starts, as it will be a lot more traumatizing if this happened during any missions when fighting the abominations of this game.

OnePunBoi: +1 to the OP, I was beside her when this happened, I thought they were enemy mobs when they fired at us out of nowhere. Me and many beside me also jumped to this conclusion and died by their hands. These guys are probably guards of the neutral zone; so don't mess with them unless of course you want to experience death and not lose any experience while you are at it.

KrankyFlesh: Well you guys got what you deserved, I don't think this game's AI is as simple as in other games. There is a post 2 hrs ago in the Thorn section about how they got a weird mission. Go and look that up before you retards do anything stupid again.

LadyMayfly: Kranky is right, the NPCs' reactions to us are too realistic, they are experimenting on the players and seem to be researching our bodies.

*****

EmperorOfHotdogs: Well I just noticed something odd….. but where is my dick and the butthole?…. How will I even shit?… This game has a survival mechanic and we need to eat and drink to survive. But where will I excrete?

MushroomTower: Are you some sort of scat lover?… this is a game, why will developers include this kind of system ingame?

*****

NoobsMan64: Stop trying to enter the city. There Is no need to do it, we can get quests from any NPC; so no need to search for a named NPC. I just got a quest from a truck driver outside, though it doesn't seem to be anything special, but he promised me that he will take me inside the city and some decent experience too.

So try talking to anyone outside the city instead of messing with the guards and dying.

HandSlave: What quest did you receive? The rations I got are not enough and I will die of starvation if I don't do something fast.

Monketron: +1 @HandSlave… What is the quest OP and how did you approach the driver? If you don't want to say it out loud in public we can talk in Dms.

Noobsman32: +1 as a same name brother, you need to tell us. What was the quest. I have been in this game for a whole day in game time. And after licking all the surfaces I can find, I need a new goal. I wanna taste the roads of the city.

Monketron: …

HandSlave: …

NoobsMan64: ...…. I DM me everyone who wants to know the missions, I won't speak about it in public…. At least not anymore…. I feel dirty having this name now.

*****

[NPC Quest system has been activated]

<<NPC Quest system>>

Give the players quest putting your own experience at stake, if the quest is successfully completed by the player, the quest giver will receive 2x experience back and a 10% of total experience that the player possesses.

Remark: The 10% exp bonus will only be counted from before the completion of quest, hence the exp they earn after the quest completion will not counted in the bonus exp calculation.

[Quest amount: 10/day]

It would be a lie to say that Girisia was not happy after reading the description of the system. The system activated when a curious player suddenly approached him and asked a very stupid question- "Today's weather is pretty great right?" The player said with a straight face ignoring the yellow acid clouds that were smothering the whole air around the city.

The weather was really not that great which caused Gisiria some regret. 'I shouldn't have gone outside… Now the whole city is on lockdown too.'

Going outside the city and watching his siblings from afar has bought him nothing but pain, frustration and a huge existential crisis. But now his fate can't be considered that bad now that he had found out about this quest system from this one sided exchange.

"The weather truly is a great weird boy. But who are you?... I haven't seen you nor your kind around these parts." Eloquent and noble words flew out of Girisia's lips as if it was natural, but his eyes told a different tale, eyeing the player in front of him like a prey. His voice and words conflicted with his look though, as he looked worse than a beggar but his words seem to hold authority.

And as Girisia expected, his words and the way he carried himself did have some effect on the player in front of him, he can see fire burning in his eyes.

'I struck gold!' The player thought. 'This guy is probably a hidden NPC in the early stages of the game, if I play my cards right, I can probably get some good stuff from him.' The player named IspoonMyselfDaily was hooked at once and it was not that Girisia needed to try hard, the current player population was pretty ignorant and thirsty for content. They didn't know how the quest system worked, the players were still treating Nirvana like older games. And Girisia who used to be in their shoes in previous life knew what tickles the fancy of a player the most.

"Sir… ah! we come from far off….. land in search of work. We stumbled on this great and beautiful city just…. 2 days ago. But the guards here don't even let us enter the city and our rations are going to end too." At the end of his bad made up story with lots of pauses and stuttering, Spoon put on a really pitiful look on his face during his explanation.

The sad and depressing emotions in Girisia's mind, concerning the future, were suppressed a bit after looking at the bad acting and badly fabricated story. His head felt somewhat light now, even the heavy atmosphere that was caused by the acid clouds above, lightened around him.

Hence with a somewhat smiling face that looked like the smile of a devil with his current appearance, he nodded; " Ah I can understand what you are feeling, when I came to this city as a young boy I was treated like trash too." Girisia stopped while having a self-reflection." Well nothing changed much since then as you can already see."

"So I know how you may be feeling at the moment. How about it, I can tell you about an area where you can get something to fill your stomach and even some fresh water, but I need you to do something for me." While mentioning this Girisia used one mission slot of his and placed all his 21 exp points as the reward for the mission as he inputted the conditions that he thought up after facing the cold breeze brought by the clouds and also as an experiment. He wanted to create a condition that is easy to complete with zero chance of failure.

While on the side after smelling the mission on the way, Spoon was glad to finally get some mission and a sense of progress; "Master it doesn't matter what kind of request it is, even if I can't accomplish it, I will be sure to give it a try." With the advent of a potential mission, spoon's way of calling the beggar in front of him changed too. He was sure the man in front of him was some hidden NPC, so calling him master won't be a huge matter.

Even Girisia was surprised that someone would call a beggar like him with worse clothes than his master. But ignoring Spoon's remark and use of the word master. "I knew you were a great boy. All I request from you is your clothes and I will tell you where to find basic sustenance."

'Huh??"

<<Mission: Clothes for the beggar>>

[Remark: The beggar that you met has asked you to give him your clothes.

Reward: 21 exp points and the knowledge of the food resources outside of the city.]

[Failure to complete the mission will result in negative affinity from the NPC and chance to get more missions from the same NPC will decrease and it may also affect your fame in the future.]

"What?"