2 The Little Prince in The Ossuary (2)

# Journal, page 21, Camp Roberts

Food's running out. The last time the government sent relief supplies via helicopter was a week ago. There are too many places in need of help, but the number of aircrafts available is limited. The use of ground vehicles was discontinued long ago because of the risk of losing the supplies. It seems like the military here is still in touch with the U.S. government, but it's clear that the government is losing control over the California area. Hygiene products have long since run out of stock. People are becoming even more vicious.

The camp is already greeting late autumn, but we're still not prepared for winter. Not to mention food and water, we still have to look for ways to keep ourselves warm until the end of the upcoming winter.

The commanding officer summoned the representatives of the refugees and gathered their opinions. Apparently, the consensus was to organize a procurement team made up of volunteers. A former police officer, one of the survivors from San Francisco, was put in charge of the procurement team's management.

The volunteers will be given priority for ration stamps, so if the camp were to suffer a shortage of food, those who didn't volunteer will more likely starve to death. Still, many refuse to go out and have opted to stay inside the camp. They probably think it's better to die from starvation in a safe place rather than to be eaten alive outside. There's also the possibility that a food shortage won't occur, therefore, the U.S. military hasn't urged the people to participate in the mission. Dispatching unwilling people who refuse to listen to orders would pose an even greater danger to the mission.

「Player's Choice: Join the procurement team.」

But I'm different. If I were to become exhausted due to insufficient nutrition, I could die not from starvation, but other reasons. If that's the case, I want to at least struggle till the very end before I die.

When I went to the recruitment center to volunteer for the procurement team, Lieutenant Robert Capstone, one of the officers that happened to be there, dragged me out of the building. He was one of the soft-liners among the U.S. officers. Noting that I was the only one among the middlemen who didn't belong to any faction, he asked me if I was being left out because of my age. He also told me to reconsider my decision for he would spare me some of the ration stamps.

「AI Advice (Lvl 4 Insight): You can either accept or decline Robert Capstone's offer. If you accept, there will be an upward revision to the stability of the community and your leadership within the community. You may also gain favors from the soft-line officers. If you decline, there will be an upward revision to your will power, charm, and leadership.」

「Player's Choice: Volunteer for the procurement mission anyway.」

I thanked him for his kindness and refused his offer. I told him that I didn't want to wait helplessly within the camp's enclosure and that I'd rather make myself useful to the people in the camp.

Hearing my words, Lieutenant Capstone gave me a wistful glance and stepped aside in silence. He then patted me on my shoulder as I walked past him.

Good people do exist even in times of crisis. I'm glad there's still a person like him in this world.

# Procurement Mission, Camp Roberts.

The game worked as follows: The background story was provided to the player through visual footage, like videos and journals, but it differed based on presets such as nationality, gender, age, occupation, characteristics, and starting point, which the player had to enter beforehand.

Interestingly, the game would always provide players with different background stories even if players chose the same presets, and that's the reason why the boy was spending his time listening to the journal, which had been provided to him in the form of a monologue, even when this was already his 27th attempt at the game.

Except for a few cases, journals contained a lot of information regarding the setting of the game, so the boy had to take in as many details as possible. It should've been a boring task for someone who had already gone through this process 26 times, but thanks to the fact that the setting of the game became more and more sophisticated after each attempt, he found it rather interesting. In addition, the game projected the contents of the journal in front of the boy's eyes, as if he were watching the situation unfolding through the character's eyes, only, he wasn't the one in control.

But now that the journal had concluded, control was given back to him. The boy looked around. Underneath the dawning sky, rows of tents pitched with old muddy pieces of fabric were aligned along the fences.

Not far away, the boy heard a dull thud as he followed the hologram in charge of guiding him to his mission, a sound that he wouldn't have recognized if this had been his first attempt at the game. It was the sound of something sharp being stabbed into human flesh. And sure enough, as he the boy walked towards the direction the sound had come from, he found a woman holding a knife in her hands and a middle-aged man crouching on the ground while clutching his stomach.

With a clinking noise, the bloody knife dropped from the woman's hand onto the ground. The woman then looked around and found the boy staring at her. Startled by his sudden appearance, the woman stood frozen to her spot for a while, but soon, she walked up to the middle-aged man, took out some crumpled ration stamps from his pockets and ran away in a hurry.

The only thing the boy did in the face of this sudden event was to look at the scene with a frown. He knew that those who committed this kind of crime were usually underlings in a faction. If he were to follow her now, he might have to deal with the whole faction.

In this virtual world of 「Days After Apocalypse」, the greatest threat was, in fact, none other than the live humans. Humans do anything to survive. Even those of good faith would commit murder if forced to. This game was made impossible to proceed without killing others.

A system message, 「You have 77 unread viewers' messages. Check the message log to read the messages.」 was displayed at the corner of the boy's view. Actually, the notification had been flickering for quite a while now.

The boy opened the message log with reluctance. A translucent window containing several messages divided into three different tabs—general messages, system messages, and viewers' messages, popped up in the air. When he tapped on the viewers' messages tab, messages of various colors filled the boy's view.

「PrincessCattitude♡: Oppa, why aren't you chasing her?」

「MURD3R: Go follow and kill her! Thinking is for pussies, just do it! You MURD3R, therefore you are! A man's gotta kill and fuck! Who's the real man? You're the real man! How real? Goddamn real! Just don't touch her lower half cuz you're gonna need that to fuck her」

「Legend12: Dude u r fucking crazy lmaooooo do u even realize how young this kid is?」

「cashmere: I don't think the age restriction applies to people with afterlife insurance」

「VanDakhom: I see a moralfag」

「golden_spoon: Fucking morons」

The boy felt like he got struck on the back of his head. Of all attempts, this was his first time turning on the streaming service. He quickly closed the message window, but opened it again after a while and carefully inserted a message.

It didn't take him long to enter the message thanks to the 「Teletype」 module, which turned the user's thoughts into sentences in just a second and automatically translated them if there was a language barrier.

「Han Gyeoul: As I said earlier, I won't allow backseating. And please, watch your language.」

He then quickly closed the window.

The boy saw an explosive increase in the number of incoming messages, but he didn't dare to read them.

For some reason, the boy felt disgusted. The stone, which he had forgotten about, started rolling around, hurting his heart. The boy hurried his gait in an effort to disregard the pain.

Several missions were displayed inside the boy's field of view. This would be an important decision since things would change drastically depending on the choice he made here. However, the boy headed straight to a place that he had in mind.

There was a long line of military vehicles waiting at the destination. They were quite different from those he had seen in his lifetime. It was obvious since the game was set in the early 21st century, a bygone era.

The Control AI, which responded to the user's subconscious, displayed the names of the vehicles for him. At the head and tail of the line, there were jeeps named 'Humvee', armed with machine guns, and right at the center of the line were a couple of military tank trucks tagged as 'M978A2', presumably for procuring oil. The rest were normal trucks painted with camouflage patterns.

The traffic near the vehicles was being strictly regulated to prevent refugees from taking them. Right by the vehicles was a long line of people queueing to join the procurement mission. The boy also stood at the back of the line and patiently waited for his turn. Looking ahead of the line, the boy saw that the applicants were given bulletproof jackets, gas masks, and duffle bags after being frisked.

When the boy's turn came, the master sergeant grumbled with a disapproving look, "Too small! Are we really using a kid for this mission?"

"We're not the ones to choose, sir," the staff sergeant standing next to him replied bluntly.

Though the boy wasn't acquainted with the master sergeant, he was somewhat familiar with the staff sergeant who, after casting a side glance, continued, "Apparently, Lieutenant RoboCop is fond of him. He said he volunteered for this mission to be of help to others."

RoboCop was Robert Capstone's nickname.

"And you're buying it?"

"He doesn't belong to any of the refugee factions. He's fluent in English and seems to have learned some Japanese and Chinese recently. I'd say his language skills will be useful to manage the refugees."

Japanese and Chinese were skills that the boy had acquired by investing his experience points. Although others may hear him as if he were speaking different languages, it wasn't actually his own competence. It was more like an ingrained translator that automatically translated the words he spoke and heard. In an apocalyptic world where social interaction was an important factor, the ability to speak different languages was one of the most important survival skills.

"Boy, how old are you?" asked the master sergeant.

And again, the Control AI responded to the user's will and displayed some possible answers in front of his eyes. The answers that the AI provided differed based on one's intelligence stat, or the level of leadership-type skills such as 「Insight」「Detection」 and 「Deception」.

But the boy answered frankly. There was no need to lie anyway.

"Seventeen."

"Seventeen? Not twelve? Damn, you Asians look so young I can hardly tell your age!"

After another grumble, the master sergeant gestured one of his subordinates to inspect him. After confirming that the boy wasn't hiding anything, the private handed the boy the same items that the other applicants were provided with. The master sergeant then warned the boy not to take off the gas mask during the mission unless he was ordered to. There was no evidence proving that the epidemic was airborne, but there wasn't any that disproved it either.

After passing by the inspection station, the boy followed the path and went into the makeshift barracks. Once he entered, a soldier guided him to a seat next to the Koreans. Some of them turned around and greeted the boy. Though he didn't want to, he returned the greetings for it would do him no good to ignore them.

After waiting for the seats to be filled, Lieutenant Robert Capstone came up to the podium and made a gesture towards a soldier. Light shot out from an overhead projector and onto a white screen at the front. What appeared on the screen was a map. The lieutenant looked around at the refugees for a second and called some names. The boy's name was also called.

"If you were called, please come forward and help me deliver my words in your respective language."

When the boy and other people nodded, he tapped his finger against the microphone to draw attention and began to give the people a briefing about the map on the screen.

"What you are seeing here is a map of the San Miguel County. As you can see, it's not a big town. It had a population of about 3,300, but now there's no one left. Now, our first goal is to reach the only gas station in the town."

Right where his finger was pointing was the entry to the village from Route 101, and there was a gas station right above it.

"The convoy will stop here to fill up the tank trucks with fuel. Meanwhile, you will be split into two groups and move to other areas to procure supplies. The first group will be heading to a church located two blocks south of the gas station. Since it was used as a temporary shelter when the evacuation order was issued, there's a good chance of finding a considerable amount of supplies left inside the building. The second group will be moving a bit further away, four blocks north from the gas station there's a street full of restaurants and a flour factory. Since it's located further away from the gas station, there's a higher chance of encountering monsters, but it's also the place where we can expect the most to find food, so it's worth the risk."

The lieutenant then looked back at the people.

"So, as you've all heard, there's a greater risk of encountering monsters if you head towards the flour factory. I know you all have bravely volunteered for this mission, but I'd like to ask you one more time. If anyone wants to join the second group, please raise your hand."

The boy immediately raised his hand after interpreting the lieutenant's words. To the rest of the people there, it appeared that the boy had spoken only to himself as he raised his hand. People, including Lieutenant Capstone, looked at the boy with newfound interest. Because he was the only one who raised his hand.

System messages notifying him of upward revisions to favor continuously popped up for quite a few seconds. It seemed like he had earned more favor from the soldiers rather than the refugees. One of the messages even had the words 'permanent revision' in it.

「You have earned the favor of Corporal Elliot. There will be an upward revision to Corporal Elliot's favor. There will be a permanent upward revision to Corporal Elliot's favor. Unable to identify the specific figure.」

Relationships in real life could easily change. Even if two people became best friends, the relationship may not last forever. And just like in real life, the favor a person ingame held towards the player would also decrease over time or when hostile events occurred. However, a permanent revision was different, this figure would never decline no matter what happened.

The last sentence of the message put a frown on the boy's expression. The reason why the figures were unidentifiable was that he lacked the required level of Insight.

'It's probably only a little.'

The boy didn't suppose the deficit to be a lot.

"Anyone else?"

Lieutenant Capstone asked one more time, but everyone was busy watching the others' reactions. Although he had praised them for being brave, he knew that most of them were only here for the ration stamps. The lieutenant put on a sour face.

"I have a question."

The boy raised his hand, to which the lieutenant nodded.

"There's a limit to the amount of supplies an individual can carry with a bag. I think we could collect a lot more supplies if we were to use the trucks. Is there any reason why we aren't using them?"

The boy already knew the answer to the question. It would have been asked by another refugee if he didn't ask, so he did it just to quicken the process.

Lieutenant Capstone nodded at the boy and ordered a soldier to display the satellite pictures.

"Good question. That's actually the plan B for the mission I was about to explain, so everyone please pay attention. This is an image captured by satellite of the San Miguel County after the evacuation order was issued. Do you see these cars blocking the roads? This is the reason why we can't use the trucks. Some people ran into each others' cars due to the panic generated by the evacuation order. Only if we get rid of these cars, we'll be able to deploy the trucks. If you manage to do it, notify us via radio. But be aware that the noise produced when clearing these obstacles may attract the infected people. If that happens, we'll immediately cancel plan B and return to plan A, which involves personally carrying the supplies. The assessment will be made by the soldiers accompanying you, so please, do not act alone and follow the orders given."

The question period continued for a few moments in which Lieutenant Capstone gave sincere answers to all of the questions. When the session was about to reach its end, one of the refugees asked the most useless question: how many ration stamps would the participants get after completing the mission. For a second after hearing the question, the lieutenant had a lost look on his face, but he soon answered.

"We'll provide you with three days worth of ration stamps, but you may be rewarded with more stamps based on your attitude and performance on this mission."

As soon as the lieutenant finished answering, the sentence, 'The rewards may vary depending on the assessment of the accompanying soldiers' was added to the quest window.

Though it was something he had already experienced several times before, the boy couldn't erase the thought that it was a little unfair. If he were to get assigned to the team accompanied by a soldier with a racist character, there was a high chance that he wouldn't be able to get a fair assessment.

"If there are no more questions, we'll now begin the map exercise. The mission you have volunteered to participate in is dangerous. You must fully familiarize yourself with the surroundings in order to avoid panicking in the middle of the mission, thus preventing unforeseen accidents."

After Lieutenant Capstone finished his speech, several corporals came forward and gathered the participants to start the map exercise. Map exercise was a training that aimed to help the soldiers acquaint themselves with the geographic features of the operation area and the operation itself.

For players, this practice was also an opportunity to acquire a mini-map. However, not all characters could acquire the same mini-map from this exercise. Characters that had invested enough in intelligence points or learned the skill 「Map Reading」 could acquire a complete mini-map, while those who didn't would receive an inferior version that contained some errors and empty spaces here and there.

Chapter 2. The Little Prince in The Ossuary (2)