'The environment is a little bland when compared to the multistory buildings, the blue sky, and green parks of Earth.' The buildings on The Silver Ring rarely exceed a height of 20 stories from the ground.'Speaking of the ground looks like sand covering most of the upper crust of the planet. I mean the concrete hides this feature when you first land on the planet but as the sky is a dull bronze color and as far as you can see there is sand. The breeze is super dry and some sand particles are mixed in it.'
I cataloged how the people behaved around my surrounding…'' Okay, almost everyone has a mask or hood covering their looks, now that I look back everyone on my team is sporting some kind of mask and a cover on their head. Maybe it is to protect their face from the dry sand but I think after noticing the tension in the shoulders of everyone in the team, they seem combat-ready.'
"Is something wrong?" My voice broke the tense silence and Alex almost reacted to my voice as soon as I finished the first syllable.
'That reaction speed is insane...'
"Buckle up! Troubles here!" With that short explanation he looked back to the road ahead and a team of 12 people were waiting for us there.
"Maze"
"Alex"
"What can I do for you today?"
"Leave the new kid behind and you can walk."
"Hardball it is then!"
'Maybe...that was the signal...fuck' As soon as Alex finished speaking everyone was already running to clash with the other team. 'Okay I get it you wanna look cool, but will you please explain your secret codewords...'
*sigh*
I looked at my team clashing as two members of the opponent team arrived in front of me. Both of them had swords and gave the impression of normal grunts. 'Inspect...'
[Name: Zeke Frost]
[Ability: Lightning Reflex (B): Have a superhuman reflex of 0.01s]
'An ability that should on paper completely suppress my speed burst ability...and what's this one...'
[Name: Lauren Whitmore]
[Ability: Paralysis(C+): Paralyse someone for 1s after each successful hit.]
'Yup that guy needs to go...'
"Alex...how serious can injuries be?"
Zeke and Lauren's faces turned ugly when I asked this to Alex, seemingly ignoring their presence. Alex replied while avoiding swings from an agility-ability user, "No mortal wounds..."
"Got it..." I equipped my suit, and daggers and burst towards the paralysis ability user. Zeke reacted quickly and tried to cover Lauren's retreat but both of them underestimated my speed. I arrived and slashed towards Laurens's wrist intending to take it off and getting rid of one variable entirely. As my dagger was about to cut off his wrist entirely, a bullet zipped passed me as I moved a little reflexively upon hearing the sound of a gun, and the result of my retreat was the wrist of Lauren was dangling, while his bone was sticking out.
[Stealth modifier- 0.1]
[Damage= 10000*0.1=1,000 HP]
Lauren groaned as he retreated quickly back towards the team sniper who just shot the bullet. I ignored Zeke in front of me who was on guard toward my speed and attack power and used Inspect on the sniper…
[Name: Jennifer Frost]
[Ability: Sharpshooter (A): Reflexively know the best time and place to shoot to achieve the best possible results.]
'...what ambiguous ability... How to counter this...Zoey can you show me a list of abilities to either increase my perception or decrease my reaction time'
[Assessing shop...Generating List...]
[Bullet Time (E+): 3200 coins- slows down the perception of attacks by 2x times for 10s.Cooldown 20s]
[Bullet Time (D): 15,000 coins- slows down the perception of attacks by 4x times for 10s.Cooldown 20s]
[Sharp Reflex (E+): 3500coins- Have a superhuman reflex of 0.1s]
[Sharp Reflex (D): 17000 coins- Have a superhuman reflex of 0.075s]
[The rest of the abilities exceed your price range at the moment.]
'...Why do you have to be so condescending? Do you know how hard it is to earn coins?'
[Yes Host]
'...'
'Buy Sharp Reflex (D)...'
As the warm feeling returned I could feel my body change. I could move around easier and change the direction easier than before. As I was feeling the changes in my body while also taking into account the movement of the sniper and Zeke, a sudden notification distracted me…
[Ping!]
[Your Sharp Reflexes ability has achieved synergy with Speedster. Due to the complementary nature of the reflex ability the effect of the Speedster ability is amplified.]
[Speedster (C-->C):- Passively Increases user speed by 4x->5x.]
'...what that's, okay that was a good windfall I never expected the system to take into account...'
I jumped back as a bullet pierced the floor where my foot was just a second ago. I looked back and flipped back again as Zeke swiped his sword at my legs…
'Okay, this much control over my body is intoxicating...'
Zeke and I went ahead and traded some blows as both of us now had excellent reflexes and my speed was far greater than him but with the help of Jennifer, he was able to match up and trade blows. After a minute of fighting the sword used by Zeke finally snapped and he instantly retreated. Jennifer fired some warning shots in front of me, so I didn't pursue as Zeke backtracked back to Jennifer's side. I looked back to the condition of my other teammates and everyone seemed fine handling 2 opponents at the same time. Alex seemed to be easily dealing with 3 opponents and still looking out for his team members.
As the battle continued I didn't join any of my teammates, I just looked back at Jennifer who looked like the team leader. She seemed to have understood the reason for the look, she seemed amused at a 14-year old looking back at her, seemingly telling her to call off the fight. She swept her hand at her watch and her team retreated slowly under her cover fire.
'...' The team regrouped back with Alex who seemed to be communicating with Jennifer. They seemed to have agreed on something and Alex turned back towards us and indicated to follow.
'...'
Alex walked towards the upper half of Zeke's broken blade and examined the cut. He looked at me for a second and because of the reflection from his glasses I was unable to see the look in his eyes. Alex just nodded and started walking towards a Big white building.
'...So much for a reaction', I followed the group while noticing the various injuries that the group suffered. Jack was the most banged up with multiple bruises on his face and body. Alex and Jenny looked like they had a little warmup and were just sweating a little bit. Stan had some cuts and bruises but looked mostly fine. Almost everyone was giving me strange looks because my battle power was way above my apparent age.
[Black Star Mercenary Group HQ discovered...Danger level High…+1000 EXP awarded]
'...'
Another day, another chap...I'll do a single chapter today because....among us!
Hope everyone is well!!
Peace!!
P.S-> Jane, Jenny, and Jennifer