Chapter 4

In the background of my regrets the system was trying to tell me something. When I finally gave it a glance I was surprised.

I actually leveled up!

[You have leveled up.]

[You have new titles]

“Fuck, trying to be cute and shit; how about you give me back my soldiers? “This wasn’t a game. Well at least for me it wasn’t. That arrogant bastard just keeps screwing me over and over. I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep for days; barely surviving on rabbits and wolves and some berries which gave us all the runs.

I mean he said this was tutorial. Who dies from starvation during a tutorial? That’s not how games work!

It can’t possibly get worse, right?

[999 Rabbit horde cleared.]

[Second wave in 7 days]

...

...

...

“Fuck.”

I got up to my feet and found where the stairs used to be and jumped down to the first floor. I walked through the remains of the door and stepped outside to get some fresh air. I smelled of blood and gunpowder.

And dead rabbits. They were every-fucking-where!

And the biggest problem I had was: Who was going to eat all of this?!?!

[You have a new message]

“Eh, who could it possibly be?”

[Good job with the whole business of not getting killed. Also because I’m such a nice person here is 500 points for keeping your limbs attached to your body. -Ares]

“FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! FUCK YOUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!! Fucking fuck; smug bastard go die in some war you noob!!!!”

While I was screaming my lungs out I heard a sound behind me. It was the sound of crumbling.

The building that I called home for these past few days collapsed onto itself.

...

...

...

I became a homeless person.

“FUCK! I dare you! Do it again! Come at me bro! Kick me while I’m down! FUUCK!” I was ready to cry but somehow a switch in my brain was flipped and I became a sea of calm.

To this day I still insist that my life isn’t a game.

I wasn’t immensely pleased with my situation so I turned to the system for help.

“System Status”

[Status]

[Store]

[Abilities]

[Map]

[Help]

Let's see, I should first check out my status and then summon something from the store.

“Status “

[Name: Erik Hartmann]

[Level: 2]

[Race: Human]

[Occupation: Ares' Champion]

[Health:10]

[Mana: N/A]

[Strength:8]

[Agility:9]

[Stamina:7]

[Intelligence:13]

[Wisdom:10]

[Leadership: 13]

[Abilities:3]

Titles: Champion of Ares, No Mana Freak, Natural Leader, Intelligent, Enemy of Rabbits

Points: 1506

“Finally! I got me some points!” Now let’s go on a shopping spree!

“Store”

[HQ]

[Army]

[Airforce]

[Navy]

[Logistics]

[Research]

Since I can't really go anywhere right now, I should try to fortify what's left of my position. Right now I need new engineers to fix my base and see what I can buy with my hard-earned points.

“Army”

[Buildings]

[Infantry]

[Recon]

[Tank]

[AT]

[Artillery]

[AA]

[Transport]

[Miscellaneous]

“Buildings”

[Barracks 100P]

[Support Weapons Center 100P]

[Motor Pool 200P]

[Tank Depot 300P]

[Triage Center 200P]

[Supply Yard 100P]

[MG Emplacement 30P]

[AT Emplacement 50P]

[AA Emplacement 50P]

I bought the barracks, the supply yard and the triage center. I can’t fuck up like last time. Everybody was going to have unlimited bullets and doctors at a second’s notice. I placed the buildings right next to the rubble that was my base. The facilities came fully staffed which was nice, at least I don’t have to deal with that problem. I also bought four machine gun emplacements to cover the four cardinal directions.

I spent 520P.

After that came the actual army.

“Infantry”

[Infantry 10P]

[Motorized Infantry 50P]

[Motorized Engineers 50P]

[Half-Track 40P]

[Officer 100P]

[Commandos 500P]

[Paratroopers 300P]

[MG team 25P]

[Mortar team 50P]

[Sniper 100P]

After thinking about it for a couple of minutes what I came up with was a single squad of engineers, 10 infantry squads, a sniper and a mortar team. I also spent an additional 10P on flamethrowers for the engineers. It’s going to be a hot day in hell.

I spent 300P. I was left with 686P

There were the usual magic circles and I was again blinded by the light. Seriously, someone needed to fix that shit.

My army magically appeared in front of me. It was much more impressive this time around.

I immediately started giving out orders before I get intimidated by the situation.

“Soldiers, we have a week of time to prepare for battle!”

“I will announce your assignments now.”

“Engineers, go fix my base. You have a whole forest at your disposal. There are no tree huggers for miles around here so you can go all out. Also create killing zones for the machine gunners in the four cardinal directions. You have sandbags, barbed wires, tank traps and mines at your disposal. If by the end of the week this place doesn’t remind you of Cambodia there will be hell to pay!!!”

“SIR, YES SIR!” Good, at least someone was paying attention.

“Infantry squads clean up the trenches, that will be your home for the immediate future. Also the rabbits are for breakfast, lunch and dinner so be careful and place sandbags where needed to make your position impregnable.”

“SIR, YES SIR!” It was less enthusiastic this time around, was it the rabbits? It was the fucking rabbits.

“The mortar team will find a position and mark the firing distances for the battle.”

“SIR, YES SIR!”

“As for our sniper, eh? Where is he? Oh, there you are. Well you can go and create yourself a vantage point. Create a small hill or something. There is plenty of dirt here for you.”

“SIR, YES SIR!” Seriously stop shouting! I’m already half- blind from all the summoning and now you want me to become deaf too!

“Dismissed!” Phew, finally I can relax. Good thing that I’m on this side of the orders otherwise I would have already keeled over.

I sat in front of my home and watched the soldiers go about their business. The best piece of knowledge I found out was that my soldiers can summon things by themselves in the supply yard.

I checked my status and immediately noticed my points trickling out.

It’s nice that I didn’t have to micromanage everything.

Dinner was uneventful but we had spices now so it wasn’t that bad. I seriously don’t know how I managed to survive here without salt and pepper.

Never again. If I have to, I will go to war for food. Nobody can stop me from enjoying my food!

Yes, that will be my new motto: If you want to eat, prepare for war!