3 - Cats on the prowl

"How much time is left on the quest now?"

[Ding! 01:23:55]

"Then this is going to have to be good enough… Load a High-explosive shell"

It was around noon now and Merlin had been preparing to wipe out the colony of Gutlings at the lake as his quest required, if he had not received a quest to wipe them out he would have done so anyway at some point, after all, he needed points to build out his tank fleet

"First to poke the hive, Fire!"

The high-explosive shell traveled through the air and hit the lake where it exploded sending a column of water rising into the air that came crashing down again a moment later

"Now we want to be seen, fire the DT! Load another shell High-explosive and fire when ready!"

The (Relatively) small tank fired everything it had towards the lake, machine-gun fire and 45mm high explosive shells rained down onto the lake slaughtering the Gutlings (Fish-midgets as Merlin called them) in mass, this, naturally, pissed them off and soon they stormed onto the shore of the lake and massed towards the BT-5

"A little closer… Set the tank in ¼ reverse…"

As the BT-5 began backing up slowly, the Gutlings primitive minds saw this as a sign of weakness and sped up despite their massive losses and soon entered within 5 meters of the front of the tank, then Merlin showed a smile and commanded in his mind

'Have at 'em! Panzer 1's fire!'

Not only one but two panzer 1's opened up, they were standing facing each other at around 600 meters with the BT-5 in the middle and caught the Gutlings in a crossfire and mowed them down with their combined might of 4 MG 13 machine-guns meanwhile the BT-5 kept backing up slowly, dragging out the line of Gutlings that charged onto the shore, soon however the Gutlings stopped coming and turned tail and retreated into the water of the lake, Merlin moved the 3 tanks closer and fired until they were about empty on ammunition when the system sounded out

[Ding! Quest complete!]

Merlin made the tanks stop firing and showed a smile as he did a fist pump inside the BT-5, then out of caution he made the tanks back up a bit before they opened hatches and looked at the carnage ahead of them Gutlings were turned into a fine 'grounded meat' from the machine gun fire and high explosive shells, Merlin did a quick sweep for survivors before he jumped out of the BT-5 and began picking up monster cores… Around evening Merlin had amassed 94 grade 1 monster cores, he showed a smile as he spoke

"Convert 94 grade 1 monster cores to points!"

Then the small pile of monster cores began turning to fine dust that blew off in the wind before the system sounded out

[Ding! 94 points added]

Merlin rubbed his hands together before he did some quick calculating in his head

'Alright, the tank I want costs around 25 points, I want two so that's 50 points… This means I have 44 points to burn…'

Merlin thought for a bit before he asked

"Hey system, you mentioned a gatcha earlier, how does that work?"

[Ding! The gatcha can be drawn with 1, 5, 25, 50, or 100 points, each point value has its own separate draw pool]

"Huh… Well here goes nothing, draw 2 times 5 points"

[Ding! 1 x grade 1 spare-parts granted, Ding! 1 x grade 1 spare-parts granted]

"Spare parts?"

[Ding! Spare parts can be used to instantly repair a damaged tank, but are consumed on use]

"Hmm… Okay, draw once with 25 points"

[Ding! 1 x M5 bayonet added to inventory]

"That sounds useful, wait I have an inventory?"

[Ding! Yes, view inventory now?]

Merlin nodded as he spoke

"Yes"

A transparent screen appeared in front of Merlin which displayed a mostly empty inventory, the only things that seemed to be in there was a single M5 bayonet and two gear-like icons with the number 1 on them, Merlin 'clicked' on the square with the bayonet in it, but nothing happened

"How do I remove items from the inventory?"

[Ding! Simply reach into the inventory and grab them]

"Okay…"

Merlin reached into the inventory and could suddenly feel the hilt of the bayonet and dragged it out of the inventory into the real world

"...Neat"

Merlin span the bayonet around a few times before while he spoke

"Draw 5 times with 1 point"

[Ding! 2 x Self-heating MRE added to inventory, Ding! 3 x Random tank parts junk added to inventory]

"MRE? Ah… Meal-ready-to-eat… THEN WHY THE FUCK DID I EAT ENGINE GRILLED LIZARD MEAT!?"

The system gave no answer, Merlin sighed before he stepped out of the BT-5, he had made a new camp upstream of the lake along the river out of fear of getting diseases from drinking the water that flowed downstream from the lake massacre as he poured some water into the self-heating MRE he had received from his inventory as he casually asked the system

"What does a Puma armored fighting vehicle cost? The one with the 50mm"

[Ding! 28 points]

"How about an M4 Sherman?"

[Ding! 297 points]

"Hmm… What about a Tiger 1?"

[Ding! 461 points]

"King tiger?"

[Ding! 518 points]

"...And how many points do I have at the moment?"

[Ding! 54]

Merlin sighed before he renewed his will to slaughter monsters to earn his dream of driving over the sand dunes in an M1A2 Abrams, a massive modern tank with a 1.500 horsepower engine, alas he had to make do with what he got

"...I do have the 8 grade 1 monster cores from before… Turn them into points,  then purchase a pair of Pumas, two 234/2"

Two tanks appeared standing side by side, they were not strictly tanks as they had wheels, still, the Puma or the Sonderkraftfahrzeug 234/2 was a so-called armored car with a length of a little over 6 meters, a width of about 2.3 meters, and a height of 2 meters and 10 centimeters, one was equipped with a 50mm cannon and a turret-mounted 7.92mm MG 42 machine gun, with a mass of only 10 and a half Ton and a 210 horsepower engine the Puma was light on its feet so to say, it was a vehicle built to do recon and hit hard while it was at it, which was exactly what Merlin planned to do the next day and with two of them he could survive even if one of them was taken out by some sort of monster, that night Merlin slept inside one of the newly summoned Pumas…

"Alright, Hansel and Gretel, let's roll!"

Merlin rode on Hansel while Gretel drove in front of him about 30 meters ahead, the names were taken from a story Merlin heard when he was young and was the only German names he could remember that fitted a pair of Pumas, as for the BT-5 and the two Panzer 1's they were made to guard the campsite and were set on auto kill mode while being set in a triangle formation around the campsite

"Ahh~ The wind feels nice…"

Merlin felt the wind on his face which he had stuck through the top of the commander's hatch on the top of the turret, while he looked around as the two Pumas cruised at around 40 km/h, soon Merlin spotted the first target for the two cat's hunt/scout expedition, it was a pack of horse-like monsters they had green-ish pelt and antlers on their heads, Merlin saw no reason to let the pack go now that he had found it

"Hansel, Gretel, slow down to 30kp/h, open up with the '42!"

At Merlin's commando the MG-42's on both cats opened up and fired at the pack of horse-like monsters, the MG-42 had an amazing rate of fire of 1.200 rounds per minute, the effect was as to be imagined… As it turned out the MG-42 weren't nicknamed Hitler's buzzsaw for nothing as they cut through the herd of monsters with ease, soon the two cats came to a halt and Merlin exited and began picking up monster cores, as it turned out they were grade 2 and so after half an hour of digging through mangled carcasses Merlin ended up with a total of 53 grade 2 monster cores

"Good, onwards!"

With the day still being young and before noon Merlin saw no reason to stop his recon/hunting trip, after spending half the day traveling around 50 kilometers Merlin had mentally mapped most of the surrounding area, Hansel and Gretel also proved worth the investment as they had hunted not only the pack of horse-like monsters but also a pack of wolves as well as a pack of big felines which were grade 2 and grade 3 respectively though the suspension on Gretel wore out doing the hunt of the felines so Merlin used one of the grade 1 spare parts to instantly repair it

'There's hardly any reason to use the 50mm…'

Then around evening, Merlin returned to the campsite that still was guarded by the BT-5 and the two Panzer 1's