Air Superiority

A day after Operation Barbarossa…

Hanns had been grinding for while during the day Operation Barbarossa was being planned and executed by team RRYNBW.

A plane was flying overhead, its propeller slicing through the air while it flew across the sky. The continuous purr that its engine created sounded as Hanns cruised along a high altitude.

Movement far away caught his attention and he turns, letting the air rush around him while he aims. His flaps readjusted into combat and prepared for a fly-by, a quick pass and a fast getaway would be enough.

It's a beautiful day outside. Birds are singing, flowers are blooming. On days like these, Hanns was currently sending grimm to hell.

His dual mounted machineguns felt heavy, begging for their ammo to be unloaded into the living targets down below. He reduced the throttle, slowing down to stick more bullets in Hanns' enemies.

The grimm looked on as they heard the incoming Bf-109 F's engine. Their eyes meet the angular cockpit of the Bf-109. They screeched as they saw the threat, but it was too late, the first rounds had already left their barrels.

Hanns rained hell from above, creatures of grimm stuck to the ground could only watch as a hail of bullets mowed them like grass. The beam of tracer rounds left them with gaping holes all over their bodies.

An ursa major survives the first pass, wincing at its paws being severely damaged. Trying to retreat deeper into the woods as the airborne Hanns circled around like a shark in the water.

It hides beneath the tree-covered forest, hoping Hanns would forget its existence.

It hears the engines barreling towards it, the pack it traveled with was all killed in the second pass.

It hid among the trees, leaning against the bark. It could run, so the injured grimm did. Pushing itself with its injured front paws away from the Bf-109 but it was to no avail.

Hanns switched from machine gun fire to his dual cannons. The more powerful rounds had no problem going through the thick leaves from overhead. Hanns scanned the area as he confirms the deaths of everything in sight.

SL = 4,193,503 → 5,802,422 SL

VEHICLE RP = 1,632 → 174,723 RP

CONVERTIBLE RP = 982,192 → 1,303,381 RP

'I wish I had these numbers during my grind back on earth.'

Years of masochistic behavior like farming the entire tech trees of nations went back to Hanns' memories. Despite the costs of the tech trees, he would farm day after day. If only he had this amount of SL and RP every time.

Flying in a Bf-109 F definitely sped up grinding for Hanns. He was earning hundreds of thousands of SL almost every day, for the first time in his life grinding in warthunder that he actually had a surplus in resources.

He looked at the store, he skipped over to look at the general items but he was surprised that a lot of other people had the system in their own alternate worlds.

He wanted to get golden eagles for the express fact that there was something interesting he wanted to try.

'Oh, moderator please don't scam me again.' He prayed.

He prepared himself as he turned to the help page and saw a question available for him to ask. Mentally clicking on the ask button, he held his breath and talked.

"Moderator, can I get modifications outside warthunder?" Hanns asked nicely. The moderator had been a bit unruly for a while so he begged in his mind that the moderator would allow it.

1 second passed… 10 seconds passed… 30 seconds passed. The wind rushing around him was the only sound he heard as the silence continued for almost a whole minute.

Hanns was getting nervous, 'Moderator didn't get quiet like this when I asked questions.' he thought. Suddenly a notification sounded and he closed his eyes to check slowly.

As he crept up his vision, he could see the bottom half of the notification. The text shows white while he opened the rest of his metaphorical eyes.

*Ding*

'Please, let me have this moderator!' He crossed his fingers if he had one. He hoped that what he had planned would work.

[...]

[Yes.]

"GRAMERCY!"

His radio-sounding voice shouted as he flew through the air.

This meant the world because now he had confirmation from the moderator himself. He didn't even consider the fact that being in a multiverse meant he could maybe use stuff from the worlds he would visit.

He didn't take it seriously until he remembered that the moderator was there to have fun watching him. Fighting grimm over and over again would eventually get boring for the moderator.

'I wonder if I could get some ultra-metal to upgrade myself. Though I don't know how.'

Hanns can remember multiple shows and movies he watched where those types of things existed.

[Modifications need to be applied to you before they can be considered by your system as a part of you. There are exceptions to this and some will activate upon entering your inventory.]

'I see…'

[This will prevent incidents where you get damaged and cannot get repaired. Modified parts are more expensive to repair.]

"How much more?"

Hanns wanted it to be not too much, depending on what modification he got, it could get very expensive really quickly. It wouldn't matter too much if he didn't actually get damaged.

[If you have a repair cost of 10,000 then repairing a modified part will cost 10x as much.]

"That's fair, thank you, moderator."

10x price for a potentially powerful modification was a steep price, but just the possibilities alone could be worth it. He had the SL after all.

[Of course, my friend]

Hanns looked through the store and saw multiple things he wanted to buy but cringed at the sight of the prices people had set these things for.

'A paladin in this costs 1,000 GE?! I'd rather just steal one at that point!'

Hanns scrolled more to the bottom.

'Oh, meca-shift parts are only 100 GE…...per 0.5 kg?!'

The multiverse store was full of other people so it made sense that it functioned like a normal market but it made Hanns still mad since it was going to cost a lot for him just to buy things.

'The dream of an invisible tank will have to wait.'

Hanns noticed something at the store, a peculiar object that seemed out of place among the other technological marvels like mechs and transforming weapons.

'Is there someone really selling a scroll here for 1 GE? It was fully stocked too at almost 9999. Who's out there with that many scrolls?'

Hanns was about to close the window until he considered something.

'I could test this store out.'

Clicking on the converter he converted his SL to gain 1 GE

SL = 5,802,422 → 5,702,422 SL

GOLDEN EAGLES = 0 → 1 GE

He then clicked on the listings present in the market. He felt his mind press the button to buy the specific item.

GOLDEN EAGLES = 1 → 0 GE

[Notice: Item Upgrade Available]

[Apply?]

'Of course.'

His hud suddenly blacked out which meant he couldn't see because the hud covered his sight. After a few seconds of waiting the hud blared back to life.

*Ding*

[Map]

Description: Absorbing the scroll made it possible to access the map. You can now also look at your tank's status.

A new tab existed in his hud. A mini-map was present in the bottom right corner while his vehicle's condition was in the bottom left corner. It was reminiscent of warthunder's own map and vehicle condition UI.

'Hold on. Is that?'

Hanns noticed three sets of numbers being present towards the bottom of the map. It displayed 3 digits followed by 2 digits and another 3 digits.

'I remember those! I need to ask Blake if she still got those numbers from Merlot's lab.'

For now, Hanns was just about ready to return to go towards Vale he was nervous to hear the result of him pushing team RRYNBW to find out Cinder's involvement.

He flew away towards Vale, now using the combination of his map and compass present at the top. He passed the skies a few hundred meters from the ground casually looking at the front.

He couldn't turn his head around since the cockpit wasn't a turret which was troublesome for Hanns.

It felt like his neck was nailed into a single spot, not only that but his peripherals were way larger than before since he had eyes looking to the left and right.

He had a massive blindspot towards his back and under him while he flew. He would need to work on his spatial awareness.

Just as he considered those concerns, a trio of larger-than-normal nevermores watched down below. Using the trees to hide their bodies.

Their heads turned towards the engine running from far away. Hanns was heading towards them, not knowing that the group of grimm heard him approaching.

The nevermores screeched again, they look towards each other and turned their heads sideways to gaze at Hanns. Their red eyes bore down on the flying machine that Hanns was.

The first nevermore extended its wings, preparing for an attack while the others started to turn to the sky.

Hanns passed the nevermores, a sudden barrage of feathers came from behind as Hanns tried to turn and spin to dodge the feathers.

'Oi, damn birds!'

The nevermores started to chase Hanns while he tried maneuvering in the air for his first proper dog fight against decently sized grimm. He had met nevermores but he usually was the first to strike not the opposite.

He remembered a tactic in his world, he could use the superior vertical climbing of the Bf-109 F. The nevermores only had wings which meant that they would be slower at climbing altitude.

Hanns felt a feather strike from his side. He felt his left-wing getting heavy and looked at the hud to look for the damage.

'Shit, I've got a hole in my left wing!'

A feather had struck his left wing and it stuck out while Hanns started to climb up.

The nevermores tried to follow, it sent even more spear-like feathers toward Hanns. It was slower so the feathers missed. It went behind him since he was flying upwards now.

There was a lull in the fight as the nevermores tried catching Hanns going upwards but the distance kept on increasing and increasing. The nevermores not being able to reach him stopped its climb while Hanns started to turn around.

The nevermores saw the Bf-109 F's silhouette underneath the sun as Hanns started to face the nevermores.

Fearing getting retaliated on they all flee in different directions. Hanns felt the guns align and focused, he sent a mess of rounds toward the first nevermore.

It couldn't escape fast enough and was shot down in only seconds, the other pair grimm fly away while Hanns tailed them while they tried to flee.

Their speed was way too slow compared to Hanns, even with the hole. His speed increased when he dove towards the nevermore.

He blasted through the other grimm with machinegun fire while the other grimm turned to try and fight.

It could only look in dread as Hanns directly impacted its body as the propellers dig in its body and gets tossed aside while Hanns panicked.

'Uh, oh.'

The propeller broke from the impact, he needed to land quickly. One of the requirements for a battle to end while he used his warthunder system was that planes needed to land after a battle ended to repair.

He discovered this when he accidentally broke his flaps when he tried to test out aircraft tactics.

He spots Forever Fall while he glides down, using the remaining speed from his flight he tried to gently reach the runway he made with Neo.

The clearing was in view and he lowered his landing gear, forgetting that he was still technically flying fast.

The landing gear breaks due to being too fast.

'Shit, I forgot!'

Hanns may be playing for tens of thousands of hours but he still made mistakes.

He braced himself as the ground got closer, the belly of the plane gets shredded along the rough ground and he himself felt bits of his metal parts tearing away while he landed with no landing gear.

The trees were getting closer as the length of the runway got shorter as he traveled the distance left. He felt his speed go down just close enough.

His wings hit the edge of the trees as they tore away the entire right wing. He felt the entirety of his belly being mangled. He slowly comes to a stop, barely hitting the tree in front of him.

Hanns relaxed, 'Another happy landing.'

*Ding*

[You've got a hole in your right wing!]

'Goddamn it, moderator.'