Chapter 32 - A True Proponent of Gender Equality

Current Location: Ponderous Peat

This was bad. They had run into another one of Adrian Donis’ mind controlled slaves and she had just noticed them. From the glimpse he’d seen of the woman, it wasn’t anyone he recognized, let alone knew the name of.

Even if they did know her, there was also the chance that Donis was out in full force here, so trying any mind control breaking shenanigans would be too risky. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, it would have to be fight or flight as Ray had mentioned in their earlier discussion.

“Reisa,” Brent whispered, “Do you see anyone else or is it just her?”

“I cannot see any others,” Reisa whispered back.

Right, it was raid leader time. Brent’s heartbeat quickened. He needed to avoid even a single party member’s death, as unlike in a video game it was not something they could reverse. “Well uh,” he started, “Let’s try to keep quiet and-”

Bang! A yellow flash lit up the woman’s silhouette as she opened fire. She was dark of skin, and clad in a slim black and white dress.

“Never mind!” he yelped as everyone scrambled for cover. It was too late to avoid being heard.

Man, every time he’d gotten attacked here had felt more like a mass shooter incident on Earth than a “true” otherworldly battle. Why couldn’t they just fight slimes or goblins for once?

Bang! Bang-Bang! The firing rate was fast, but not on the level of a machine gun.

Weapon M870 Shotgun (5/5)

Brent had his shotgun out, pumping the slide. She was still far away enough that it might not be worth it to expose himself for a potshot, so he stayed put.

Bang! Bang! Wood splintered and dirt flew up where the bullets impacted, seemingly at random. Then… nothing. She’d probably stopped because she had lost sight of them.

Brent took stock of the situation. He was currently behind a moderately thick tree, and he was not alone. Cassie leaned against the bark directly to his left, breathing heavily.

They made eye contact, but said nothing for fear of attracting their attacker’s attention.

Out in front of him, he saw the edge of a backpack poking out from some shrubbery, probably Karisma. It was kind of a bad spot to be in, but moving might draw attention faster than just waiting.

He looked to his right and saw Ray behind another tree.

The man had his rifle out, and when he saw Brent he started gesturing, making rapid hand signals.

Brent frowned, as he did not understand any of them.

He started making some frantic hand gestures of his own, trying to communicate that he didn’t get it, or at least get Ray to slow down.

That turned out to be a mistake.

Bang! A searing pain erupted in his right hand as a round pierced through it.

Health 70/100

“AUGH!” Brent screamed, drawing it back in. There was a bloody hole going right through his palm! The pain and raw horror of the sight was so much that he dared not try to move or even touch his hand. He really should have thought twice before sticking his limbs out haphazardly.

The woman had no problems with accuracy, that was for sure.

Bang! Bang! This time she kept firing, having figured out Brent was hiding behind the tree.

Bang! The wood vibrated with every shot, and it felt like the body of the tree was cracking. Would it protect them, or could the bullets pierce through? Probably not, or he’d have gotten hit again. They just had to hold on, wait for her to run out of ammo.

“Nrrrgh!” His hand throbbed with searing pain, making it hard to think.

Bang! Cassie stared at his hand, pure fear in her eyes, and it was at this point that she lost her nerve. She broke from the tree and dashed away into the swamp.

“Wait!” he called, but she wasn’t listening.

Bang! A tree branch exploded into splinters in front of her, causing Cassie to flinch, and in the moment she was stationary the woman had her.

Bang-bang! Two shots struck the fox-girl’s body, and she face-planted in the dirt. As she did Brent thought he could hear the very faint sound of a bird’s tweet mixed with a child’s “oof!” that had accompanied his own fall days earlier.

Bang! Cassie jerked as another round hit her, still on the ground.

“No!” Brent shouted.

Tak-tak! Tak-tak-tak-tak!

Gunfire came from a different direction. Brent turned to see Ray peeking out, his rifle in steady hand.

All became silent, for the moment.

“Shit!” The man subsequently swore and spun back behind cover as shots began to rock his own tree.

Bang!

“She’s hurt bad, someone finish her off!” Ray called.

Brent couldn’t be that someone, as his hand had been shot to hell and he doubted he could even use a weapon in this state. The pain was agonizing, and he held back a scream.

No one was going to come in and fix everything for him, so he had to do something himself. Healing, I need healing. His whole body shaking, Brent tried to take his backpack off using only his left hand. He managed to get one strap off the shoulder, then the other-

BOOM!

The sound of yet another gun startled him, but he managed to get the other strap off and his pack hit the ground.

He heard the footsteps of multiple people moving, and saw Ray was repositioning while Reisa had appeared on the scene with an arrow nocked.

Fwip. Tak-tak-tak! BOOM!

The notification appeared in the corner of his vision.

Harry

[Mozambique] Usofa

Harry?

“We got her!” Ray called. “Check for others!”

Brent was surprised, though in retrospect he shouldn’t have been. Their attacker’s sudden demise was a big relief to him, but he still had a hole in his hand.

He opened his backpack. There were no Bandages inside. Ugh. He would have known that from an Inventory check. He almost facepalmed.

He was curious about how the fight had ended, so he came out from behind the tree.

The woman lay sprawled on the ground. Her body was half-illuminated by a spot of sun coming through a gap in the canopy, almost like a grisly spotlight. There were several nasty looking wounds on her back breaking up the zebra print pattern on her form fitting dress.

Harry stood over her with his shotgun pistol in hand, blood splattering his face and front. As he saw Brent approaching the older man sagged in relief, gun falling to his side as he leaned on a nearby tree for support.

“Oh boy… I really did it, eh?” Harry remarked, to no one in particular. Brent had a peculiar feeling at the sight, like something was tightening in his chest.

“I don’t see anyone else,” Ray reported as he returned from sweeping the area. “Uh… is anyone even checking?”

“Yes,” Reisa spoke up. Brent hadn’t seen where she came from. “I did not detect anyone either,” she added.

Ray nodded. “Clear!” he called out. “We’re safe, for now.”

Karisma was still lying in the bush. “Ack- oof!” There were a few grunts and some rustling as she got up and extracted herself from the bush, poorly.

She came over, bits of twigs and leaves still stuck in her hair and clothing.

They’d all sort of gathered around the corpse of the woman, and Karisma stared.

“So... she’s dead?”

“Yeah,” Harry replied wretchedly. “Got her in the back while you guys were keeping her busy.”

It definitely felt like a betrayal of his principles, though nobody decided to bring it up, not even Ray. Given the situation it wasn’t something to fault him for.

The novelty of the situation wore off, letting the pain from his injury take the forefront.

“Ngh- I need bandages,” Brent managed to get out.

“What for-” Karisma started, and then she saw it. “Oh crap, your hand!”

She took out a roll and moved to apply it when Brent had a thought, and waved her away.

“Just give it to me, I can do it myself,” he told her, and then pointed, “Cassie’s over there, I think she might be dying.”

Karisma’s eyes widened, and she gave him the item before rushing off.

He took the roll of white duct tape- sorry, Bandages- and pinned between his right forearm and stomach as he picked at the end of the roll. Fortunately there was no great trouble getting it out and he started wrapping the band around his hand. He knew that it didn’t actually matter where he applied the Bandages but it just felt right subconsciously to do it at the site of injury. Plus, in the event that the healing did not magically close up the hole he wouldn’t have to look at it. He really hoped that it did though.

That was what happened when he used healing items before, some of his wounds closed up or disappeared, but it seemed random which ones.

Health 75/100

Only five? Right, there was that arbitrary limit to how much they could heal. It honestly didn’t make very much sense.

The pain in his hand was not gone, but lessened enough that he could move it again. He poked at the bandages to see if the hole had disappeared, and met some resistance that implied it had.

There was still kind of a hole-y feeling there so he couldn’t be completely certain about that without uncovering it, and he didn’t feel like finding out.

39 remaining.

Hm, he had missed a couple there since the last time he checked the survivor count.

Ray was busy patting down the woman’s body, having rolled her over to the front.

“She’s got nothing, except for her gun and a couple mags,” he reported.

So it was the same situation as Cassie then; equipped with the bare minimum to kill, and sent out to die alone. Donis really had no concerns for his unwilling subordinates.

“It’s not much, but its yours if you want,” Ray indicated the weapon.

Harry shook his head, dislodging flecks of blood from his beard. “Nah, I’m good mate.”

Brent expected Ray to pocket the spoils, but was surprised when Ray turned to him first. “What about you?”

“Oh. Uh…” He wanted to accept, but it looked like another one of those long guns that his backpack had no space for.

“I’ll check it out, but I’ll probably just take the ammo,” he said.

He went to check on Cassie, and was relieved to see the fox girl returning to consciousness as Karisma spammed Bandages on her.

There was no telling how close she’d been to actually dying, as she’d taken a shot while bleeding out. If he’d taken a few more seconds to remember Karisma might have arrived too late.

“Uuugh,” Cassie shifted and groaned in pain, which seemed to be a recurring pattern with her.

“I couldn’t see anything from where I was,” Karisma admitted, “What happened?”

“She got shot in the back while running. Cassie, why-” Brent didn’t finish the question, as he realized it wasn’t much of a mystery why she did that.

He might have done the same in her place.

Wait, wasn’t he in her place though? Er, in a similar position anyway – young, inexperienced, high school student, the last part being a guess based on her uniform.

Just a couple days ago he was running scared from everything too. And now… he wasn’t exactly leading the charge, but he was holding his own.

“Never mind,” he said at last. “Are you feeling okay?”

“No. But I’ll live,” Cassie said in a dry tone.

“Hey, that was a pretty good distraction, fox girl,” Ray commented, walking over. “We were able to beat her thanks to you.”

“Ray,” Karisma warned.

“What? It’s true,” he replied.

“Can you walk, Cassie?” Brent asked, ignoring this other thread. “We should probably get going soon.”

Cassie nodded in response. “I’m, uh, sorry,” she added, looking down. “About earlier.”

Brent raised his hands. “It’s okay. I mean, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

Well, running like that had been a dumb idea, but she’d already paid the price for it.

“You didn’t get anyone else hurt, after all.”

Brent looked back and saw Harry still leaning against the bark, staring out into space. That had probably been the first time he’d killed someone. Despite having gone through a similar experience with Snello, Brent had no idea what to say to him, if anything.

Harry noticed Brent’s gaze, and brightened up.

“Hey, Brent. I guess things didn’t work out the way we wanted, eh? It’s alright, we’ll get ‘em next time.” He pumped his arm in an encouraging gesture.

“Yep,” Brent gave a faint smile back. The “next time” was going to be confronting Adrian Donis, and it was doubtful they’d be able to talk him into playing nice. Maybe he meant the time after that.

Anyway, if Harry said it was alright, then it was alright.

With that settled, he checked out the gun Ray had looted off the woman, which had a blue outline around it for the Uncommon rarity:

Mk12 SPR

Category

Sniper Rifle

Rarity Uncommon Damage 40

Capacity

20

Firing Modes

Semi-Auto

Attachment slots

Barrel, Optic, Lower Rail, Magazine Meant for designated marksmen, the Mark 12 Special Purpose Rifle packs a bigger punch than its fully automatic cousin. 5.56 NATO Category

Ammunition

Rarity Common

Quantity

20

Rimless cartridge used in many assault rifles and LMGs.

Hm, he didn’t have space to just take it, but perhaps he could drop his shotgun to make room. He was running a bit low on shotgun shells, and he already had some of that 5.56 stuff in a green box in his inventory.

He could keep the shells though, as they took up less space and he might find a better weapon that used them later.

The damage per shot was decent, but the main issue was whether he could actually hit anything with it. He checked with Ray.

“Oh yeah, the box thing says it’s a sniper rifle but its more of a DMR,” Ray attempted to clarify.

“O….kay?”

“You can try sniping with it, but it’s semi-automatic and has a decent sized mag, so if you keep pulling the trigger fast enough you can send enough rounds down range that at least one of them is bound to hit. It’ll be fine.” Ray shrugged.

The man seemed to be in an astonishingly helpful mood, even helping Brent with unloading the shells that were still in the shotgun, and set up the rifle.

With everything set, it was high time to get going.

This hadn’t been a coordinated attack by Donis judging by his absence, but the faster they caught up to the man the less prepared he’d be for the fight.

There wasn’t any concrete way of tracking him, but as a start they could proceed in the direction the mind controlled woman had come from.

After double checking with the Map, Brent led them southwards. After only a few minutes the trees parted, and they were presented with the vista of a wide open plain, and the angled wooden roof from earlier, part of a small building sitting next to a serpentine river whose water sparkled light blue.

They were finally out of the swamp.