2 A Farmer's Life For Me
'But first I should figure out this new system I was given by the moderator.'
He stood silent, trying to will out phrases that he thought could bring out another tab.
'Let's see, menu? settings? home? start? Hmm, nothing as of yet.'
'I need some help with this one, woah!'
Hanns' plea for aid was answered by the appearance of a box with its contents being a basic help sheet with information detailing items from control schemes to basic voice commands. He read through the page, skimming the first few words until his eyes were set on the words "Click here my friend!"
'Huh, seems like the moderator is still here.'
He imagined clicking on the option and after a few seconds of intense concentration, it finally happened. What resulted was an empty query box floating across his face with the words "let me answer what knowledge you seek" written.
'Hmm, what would I like to find out? I should ask the hardest one to answer right now and that would be the prospect of being able to use other vehicles from the other trees like the air tree.'
He pushed his intent into the box and a familiar voice from before echoed around him.
'You unlock more of your power by researching and buying the many vehicles present on your current tech tree!'
He went back to the help section of his system and found the page dedicated to opening the tech tree page. Hanns navigated through the various tabs he had just opened and found the details he was looking for.
[Dimensional Travel: Locked
Finish current match or unlock 100 unique vehicles
Current: 0]
'So it doesn't count free vehicles? I guess I should've expected that kind of thing.'
Mentally selecting the "aviation" section of the research tree page he visibly deflated at the newfound information.
'I have to unlock it first!? The first bi-plane isn't even free!'
[Aviation Tree: Locked
Pay 1,000,000 SL and RP to unlock
Notice: Not enough currency!]
'This is a blatant extortion technique, moderator!'
He had resigned himself to calling the voice that brought him here the "moderator" since calling it various synonyms for a godly being was too much for an atheist like him. Calling it a moderator just fit his vocabulary and the voice was content with it or at least he thought so.
Hanns continued on his information gathering by looking through the help section and scrolling past moderate amounts of info dumps written by presumably the moderator.
'Looks like I don't need to make a humanoid fill me up with shells or gas since it is unlimited as long as I have the currency to refill it every time. Though ammunition only refills after a "battle" happens so to speak.'
Hanns let his mind idle and all the while he kept on using his new metal body by testing out if he could nudge it in different directions. It took a while to get used to the delay from when he willed himself to move forward and back but he eventually figured out how to move properly.
The mechanical workings within his body chugged on as his tracked suspensions bobbed up and down on the uneven dirt present in the woods he was traversing in, practice made perfect, and getting the hang of his movements made sure that he could get used to his limitations like the line of sight, turret traverse speed, breaking power, how much incline/decline he could take and so on.
He stopped at an edge of a cliff overlooking a horde of black beasts below marching in thunderous melody with distant howls reaching the peaks of the cliff face. His engine roared to life, reflecting his current emotions as he let out a faint inward smirk.
He urged his tracks to rush forward to let gravity help his descent into the mass of beowolves. While his armor may be weak in the game, it would take more than a claw to punch through his armor plates. He was confident in his armor plates covering his body. Strong caliber machine guns or anti air guns could easily slice his armor like a hot knife through butter but beowolves that's another story.
He felt his engine turning hot as his exhaust let out a bellowing growl. He took one more step towards the edge of the cliff and felt his entire body fall forward. The beowolves below heard the ruckus and some turned their heads to observe but it was too late.
*THAG* *THAG* *THAG* *THAG* *THAG* *THAG*
The armor piercing ammunition that was used had no trouble sending droves of beowolves down to the ground. Each shot was followed by the sickening crunch of skulls and cracks of bones, their ooze-like blood sprayed out from the impacts in a flurry of darkened rain leaving only a gaping hole.
The beowolves tried their hardest to fight back but were only led on like sheep, they chased the mysterious vehicle slaughtering their kin only for it to speed away after taking shots at the condensed pack. Hanns occasionally ceased the actions of his tracks for him to stabilize his shots while returning to his machine gun attached to his body when he had to reload his main armament.
While in war thunder it could be seen as nothing more than glorified spotting apparatus, in the real world the burst fire he let loose became much more devastating and led to many of the beowolves lifelessly decaying on the ground.
Hearing the distinct sound of the magazine racking within his body he returned to his autocannon, making sure to target clumps of beowolves to maximize its piercing capabilities.
He heard his barrel turn to a cacophony of lights and thuds as the increasing heat crept up towards his body. The last of the smaller beowolves lay dead among the ground that soaked its innards dyeing it to a pitch black carpet before fading away into the air.
With another magazine ready he took a glance towards the towering behemoths taking step after step through its dead comrades. Their low growls were heard by Hanns but unfettered he readied his armaments for a tough fight.
'The alphas are here? I wonder how much RP and SL I can get from killing you.'
The first alpha lunged at his front plate only for Hanns to speed forward making the alpha overshoot its trajectory. Hanns let out a salvo of shells towards the back of the now exposed alpha. To his surprise, some of the shots were deflected by the bone protruding from its back while the rest lodged itself in its fur. Hearing another growl he quickly traversed into the distance and suppressed the other adversary with machine gun fire while waiting for the reload to finish.
The second alpha took a few hits but blocked a majority with his thick and more durable body. It took eight seconds of leading the two alphas until another magazine was at the ready. Learning its lesson the first beowolf tried chasing Hanns while the other followed from the opposite side trying to encircle him.
Sensing now way out to face some damage, Hanns led his tank directly towards the first alpha making sure to cover the charge with his stronger frontal armor.
'I don't know if this will work but I might as well try now that the situation is manageable rather than lacking judgment for future encounters.'
The fangs of the beowolf bore down on the front of Hanns. The sound of metal giving way to sharp teeth could be heard. The screeching was deafening but Hanns with the help of Gamer's Mind ignored the damage and pointed his turret towards the opened maw of the alpha.
'Gotcha.'
*THAG* *THAG* *THAG* *THAG* *THAG* *THAG*
The shots ripped its flesh and bones from the inside while its whelps were replaced with horrified gurgles, the alpha choked on the remnants of its innards and was left dead by Hanns who turned to the side to escape from the sudden weight that was left on top of him.
'Shit! Get off me already you damn oversized dog!'
Seeing its friend draped over Hanns it seized on its chance to kill the object that evaded it for so long. The beowolf leapt into the air and brought down its mighty claw to the unmoving object.
'ARGH! Wait, that didn't hurt at all.'
Feeling his shells reloaded he put round towards the head of the alpha beowolf while it desperately clawed away at the increasingly damaged left hull of Hanns. Either one didn't let up their assault but as three rounds became six and six became ten, it was obvious who would win this war of attrition.
The second alpha fell silent as the final round made its way through its weakened bone plating and went through its head. Hanns mentally sighed at the close call, hull damage wasn't new in war thunder but if he carefully positioned his tank to keep his vitals away it should make his survival better.
A part of his tracks finally gave way and broke in twain, falling to the ground with the rest of his left suspension following suit.
'There goes my left tracks. If I can believe what was said at the help page it should be fixed after the battle.'
[Mission Accomplished]
Air Targets Destroyed: 0
Ground Targets Destroyed: 91 / 1,112 SL
Enemy Kill Assist: 1 / 4 SL
Critical hits: 39 / 356 SL
Hits: 112 / 378 SL
Zones Captured: 0
Battle Time: 3:40 181 SL
Activity: 99%
Reward for winning: 506 RP 1086 SL
Achievements: 450 RP 512 SL
Total: 956 RP 3,629 SL
Modifications research: 956 RP
Vehicle research: 319 RP
Time: 4:00 Convertible RP: 896 RP
'Haah all that battle for 500 something research points.'
As Hanns scrolled through the breakdown of the battle results he eyed the medals he'd gotten and nonchalantly read through the results.
'Hmm, Adamant, First Strike!, Final blow!, Mission maker and all the usual for killing tons of enemies. Wait a minute.'
Spotting something peculiar on the achievements he mentally took a closer look.
'Intelligence? But don't you get that when I spot an enemy that a teammate destroyed. If so then who was my teammate?'
*CAW* *CAW* *CAW*
'Hmm? Damn crows must have been spooked by the gunfire, can't blame em. Now then let's see… huh there it is'
Hanns read the line in the battle report that was suspicious.
'Enemy Kill Assist: 1'
'Why on earth did I get an assist? Did one of these beowolves get hurt before?'
Hanns shrugged, forgetting the fact that he was a tank and couldn't do so. He turned his sights towards the repair that cost him.
'Only a bit over 50, not that bad.'
Not a moment later his tracks reattached itself to his suspension and bent metal returned to its former state as if no damage ever happened. Clicking on the modifications tab on his tank he eyed the options he was presented with.
'I have enough RP for five upgrades so I'll go for Parts, FPE, Tracks, a Horizontal Drive and The New Ammunition. That should do it.'
Once he had chosen the various modifications, his body suddenly began to glow a bright light as a set of extra parts for repair appeared all over and within his body, a fire extinguisher inside his hull, his head felt a bit lighter and new ammunition replacing the old ones.
'That was certainly a new experience.'
'Those alphas gave me not as many silver lions as I expected, I'll have to find many more packs to hunt until I can finally upgrade to a higher tier.'
Having nothing but his thoughts to occupy him for a while he shut off his engines and the loud idling of his heart(?) finally went silent as he continued theory crafting on how to maximize his time towards killing more packs.
Meanwhile far away from the clearing Hanns was in. A seemingly ordinary crow landed on some bushes, but what showed up after it landed was a man with graying black hair with red eyes and a stubble. The man shook off the leaves stuck to his person and leaned on a nearby tree for support. He stood silently as he gulped down another shot after shot from his seemingly bottomless flask that he fished out from behind him. A minute passes by as he recollected his thoughts before pulling out a device from his pockets and begrudgingly takes a look at the name present in his contacts list "IronWiener".
'I can't believe I'm talking to someone from Atlas especially with him but Oz said to ask him about this stuff.... Gah! Fine!'
Taking another gulp from his flask he finally presses down on the screen and brings his scroll up to his ears. The phone let out a neutral sound of presumably it dialing the person on the other side. As seconds passed by the tone of an accepted call emanated from the device as the man opened his mouth to talk into his scroll.
"We need to talk."
HANNS' BALANCE:
Silver Lions = 3,486 SL
Modification Research Points (Only available to current vehicle) = 113 RP
Vehicle Research Points = 336 RP
Convertible Research Points = 939 RP
Golden Eagles = 0 RP
