Defending Earth (In the System Book #3): LitRPG Series Read online

  I left the note on the table before disappearing. My anger faded as I wrote, replaced by the knowledge that if the message was found, it meant that I was dead. It was a stupid but frightening thought. Memento mori, remember death. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t forget it.

  * * *

  I spent the next hour in a grove, trying to disperse the darkness with my torch, clutching a submachine gun, and waiting to be attached by a creature unknown to science. There was a highway nearby, so people lived in the area. The raven circled overhead, trying to spot the intruder, while Bri covered my back, but even with their help, all we could find were strange, bird-like footprints.

  It looked like the monster was small and able to fly, so I didn’t set up an ambush or wait for the ‘death squad’ to arrive, preferring to escape instead. Nothing happened in the allotted hour, so the mission was declared a failure, and I returned to my starting location, tired, sleep-deprived, angry and empty-handed.

  I could only hope that the unknown creature would soon be dragged back to its world or freeze to death in the snow. If not now, then later. If the weather forecasters were telling the truth, the coming winter was going to be a cold one.

  Chapter 7. The Team

  THE DECISION TO GO on a solo mission without prior approval from management turned out to be a mistake. It showed my irresponsibility and unwillingness to work in a team, to follow instructions, and so on and so forth. The fact that I wasn’t formally on duty at the time didn’t make a difference. The sheath of documents I’d signed had probably contained instructions for a situation like this. If the mission had been a success, I could have kept it quiet, but failure meant I that had to report it.

  Once it became obvious that the alien had escaped, I had to determine my location. The beacon I’d received in the last mission had been taken away from me, so I had to use my phone. The internet here was patchy but geolocation was set by the satellites so I didn’t have any trouble. I had been teleported to the Moscow Region, although I’d never heard of the nearby town of Ruza.

  It would be... wrong to go back to bed when a monster thirsting for human blood was flying around in the area. Despite all the pragmatism and the dozens of lives I’d taken, I still held on to such principles. As soon as I returned home, I contacted the major through one of the encrypted messengers and reported what had happened. I didn’t make up an excuse to explain the situation, but simply admitted my mistake and briefly described the reasons that had prompted me to take this risk. Then I went back to bed.

  Major Ilyin, it seemed, had spent the rest of the night on his feet. He certainly looked like it. “We’ll say that I personally authorized this operation.” The major sighed heavily and dropped the report I’d written this morning into the shredder. Its destruction drew my eye. “However, I hope such a thing won’t happen again, Lieutenant. You need to get used to the idea that you are now an officer and such tricks discredit the entire department!”

  Although the major ran the base, he was only a deputy, while the leadership team sat in Moscow. The head of the department had the rank of general, as was usual.

  “Yes, sir,” I agreed.

  “Okay,” his tone changed. “I can see that you get it. Sit down, take a pen and rewrite the report. The way it really was, but this time, do it right…”

  I sat down at the table and started my new essay. I mostly needed to change the very beginning, highlighting the major’s determination, wisdom and leadership role. It hadn’t been that long since my university days, but it felt odd to be writing by hand. Well, let’s consider it a punishment of sorts.

  “Now, regarding your little jaunt.” The major leaned back in his chair. “An alert has been issued across the Ruza Region, additional police forces have been dispatched, the local radio is playing a warning for the local population to remain vigilant. That’s all we can do for now. This isn’t the first such case, and your alien is relatively small and likely not dangerous.”

  The Hellhounds were also small in their base form, but I didn’t speak that thought aloud. The criteria by which missions were ranked raised some questions, but the bird probably only had the lowest level.

  “I don’t suppose you need me for the hunt?” I asked, holding out the new version of the report.

  “What would you do there, anyway?” The major grumbled as he started reading. “Leap through snowdrifts clutching a machine gun? You’ve noted the tracks and the terrain, plus, we have the photos. It might be worth sending you there as a lesson, but, well, you wrote a good report this time. Here, have a look at the personal files of the department’s players.”

  ...The search for the bird monster turned out to be fruitless. It had disappeared without a trace. Not the worst possible outcome.

  * * *

  There were currently eighteen players in the ranks. One had Level 3, nine had Level 2 players and eight had Level 1. Seven women and eleven men. There used to be more, but the recent missions had resulted in casualties and five had never returned. Three of them had perished in that Seventh Local Mission. Not even their bodies were found.

  However, all the victims were veterans and had divine patrons, so there was a small chance that they would be resurrected. Alas, only the gods knew for sure, and we still hadn’t established a clear communication channel with them. Even the priests had unstable access, while for the rest, the only way was through the temples. I doubted this was due to passivity or modesty, rather, the gods had some restrictions that didn’t allow them free reign in our world. The gods clearly weren’t going to voice them, so all this was my theory.

  I went through the deities. Most of the players had chosen Odin, Hera and, thanks to my notoriety, even Inti. Although, I’d made it known that I didn’t belong to his supporters before I’d left the fortress. The other gods were also on the list, except for the Great Seth. Apparently, the transformation had affected him more than the others, resulting in a god who was slightly unhinged and hence unpopular. Among the European players, at least.

  The horror story about souls for sale had worked poorly, with only three players deciding to remain independent. They could change their mind at any time. Establishing contact with the gods was a clear priority goal for the government, so perhaps someone would have to take the vacant place of a follower of the desert god. Nevertheless, I singled out this trio in my head. After my failure in the night mission, I had been given the minimum amount of time in the personal room, and the god gates had all remained closed. I wouldn’t have been able to communicate with one of the Seven even if I’d wanted to.

  Honestly, our adversarial relationship didn’t please me in the slightest. It had crossed my mind more than once that perhaps my desire to remain independent had been a mistake. After all, the goblins had lived like this for thousands of years and hadn’t suffered from it, moreover, they longed for the old days. How much easier would it have been if I hadn’t been unconscious for so long after the first mission? It was a piece of bad luck that had put me on this path.

  To hell with it… In any case, I’d placed my bets and it was too late to back down. Better to view what happened as an opportunity and act accordingly.

  Setting aside thoughts about the gods, I returned to studying the players’ personal files. Eighteen people, with four having magical abilities. It was quite a lot, considering the circumstances. First, only one out of seven was even offered Magical Ability at the start. Second, mages had little chance of surviving their first mission, and most would have been killed if not for the captured fortress. Third, it was harder for mages to level up, and even if they passed the first mission, they didn’t necessarily receive a combat spell.

  We had Eugene aka Spider, a third-level magician with Telekinesis, and three Level 1 witches, whose abilities were Freezing, Biolocation and Mana Stone Creation. I was particularly interested in the latter, even if the speed of crystal creation was low and limited by the witch’s reserve. Two hundred mana units. The owner of this valuable skill, Ksenia aka
Diamond, wouldn’t normally stand a chance, for her combat abilities were close to zero. Even her Level 1 Spear Fighting ability had appeared very recently, and only because the other team members had ‘chipped in’ with their experience points. The same applied to the sensor Natalia (Nata), even though her ability could be extremely useful in a team.

  Four mages… Five, counting me. Actually, all followers of a god possessed mana, but they couldn’t be considered full-fledged magicians since they lacked the appropriate skills. As practice had shown, the System didn’t offer a player skills that they couldn’t use, and Faith was awarded after the distribution.

  I looked through the names and brief descriptions of the skills: Walking on Water, Hair Armor, Familiar, Blood Control, Critical Points, Empathy, Pink Shroud, Leap, Thermal Vision, Partial Shapeshifting, Passive Increase in Stamina, Increased Life Expectancy, Acceleration and, finally, Instant Death.

  While the skills weren’t equally useful, a certain balance could be seen between their requirements, strength, distance, activation speed, control, rollback, duration and who knows what else. And yet half of these superpowers had no benefit to the state or to the players themselves. Some were actually dangerous to their owners. Considering how risky the missions were, it wasn’t surprising that all these people had quickly decided to cooperate with the government.

  * * *

  The department was in its early days, and many people, even entire divisions, were being reassigned to it from other organizations. This affected its centralization. Perhaps they should have gathered everything in one place, a military town like Krasnoznamensk, for example, but while this was possible with people, it couldn’t be done quickly with buildings and infrastructure. Plus, was it truly necessary?

  From what I’d read, this unnamed base formed only a small part of the new structure. It contained combat units, equipment, warehouses, training grounds, classrooms, and so on. Leadership, administration, the coordination and management center, as well as the call center, were housed in a Moscow skyscraper. There was a separate medical center, which I’d already visited, and a research and development institute, which I’d only heard about. Finally, branches and rapid response teams were going to be scattered throughout the country. Something similar existed now, but the units had been assembled from whoever was available and answered predominantly to their own senior personnel.

  “I think you all know Vasily,” the major introduced me by my nickname. Confidentiality was stipulated in the contract, so I was listed as ‘Vasily Vladimirovich Ivanov’ on all the internal forms. “From now on, he will be the commander of your unit. Please make him feel welcome.”

  “Thank you,” I nodded and stepped forward. “We’re all undergoing training at this point in time, so we can do without the unnecessary formalities. For starters, how about a little training session?”

  * * *

  The easiest way to gain respect in a team is to demonstrate your superiority in ‘specialized disciplines’. Although I’d earned myself quite the reputation, this was mostly before I’d come to the fortress, so even members of the second wave hadn’t seen me in action. Certainly not the people from later waves. For them, I was simply one of the Alliance leaders, someone they’d heard a lot about, which wasn’t enough now.

  They had gained the ability to bring firearms to a mission with my arrival, before that, training had involved bladed weapons. There was a whole set of high-quality replicas laid out along the walls of the training hall. I scanned a row of spears and chose a suitable one.

  “Who wants to go first?” I smiled amiably, inspecting my new... comrades? Allies? Subordinates?

  “I will!” The first wasn’t Evgeny the Spider, as I had expected, but Ahmed ‘Grozny’. He was a young Chechen man, about twenty years old, who possessed the Acceleration skill. He was one of the three atheists. Unlike the others, he wasn’t here because he’d offered himself up, but because he’d been caught and forced to cooperate. For a number of reasons. The fact that he had a very powerful skill could create certain problems in our hierarchy. Although Ahmed could maintain acceleration for only three seconds, and then dropped out of the fight, it was enough to deal with anyone. He was also a pretty decent Level 2 swordsman, whereas most people here only had the first level.

  “Fight!” proclaimed the instructor, who was acting as our referee.

  As soon as he waved his hand, I activated Overclocking. My intuition didn’t disappoint. Although I’d learned that the Chechen guy didn’t usually use Acceleration immediately, preferring to minimize the duration of the skill, he’d heard enough about me to not want to take any chances.

  Ahmed accelerated in the first second and was now running towards me at almost normal speed. Our skills cancelled each other out in terms of Perception, but he was still much faster physically. I started moving too... slowly, feigning surprise and trying to raise my spear, as if I couldn’t do anything more. Then, with one abrupt movement, I swept his saber aside and stepped out of the way, allowing him to race past me.

  That was the end of it, for Ahmed stumbled, lost his balance and fell, losing his wooden sword and almost crashing into the wall. It looked painful. I didn’t think he was seriously injured, but he couldn’t get up again.

  I switch off Overclocking, regretting a little the waste of a System skill. Recharging would take a day, and by using Overclocking for such a trifle, I was reducing my chances of survival, even if only by a tiny bit.

  “I declare the lieutenant the winner! Medics!” Paramedics rushed to Ahmed as he lay on the floor and, signaling that he was going to be OK, helped him to the bench. “Next!”

  * * *

  The subsequent duels were held in a ‘warm and friendly atmosphere’, allowing me to fully demonstrate how a Spear Master surpassed someone with a simple Spear Fighting skill. It also helped me to see it myself, since the undead weren’t the best opponents for this. Although these were practice fights, the blows were real and I let some of them connect because I wanted to evaluate the response to pain. In a sense, the training could be regarded both as a reward and as a punishment. Even though I held back and took their advantages into consideration, it was a beating.

  “Please be gentle with me. My bones aren’t as strong as they used to be when I was younger.” Evgeny the Spider, who possessed Telekinesis, was the tenth person to spar with me. He was in his fifties, his hair receding. Although he wasn’t wearing a mask today, it was him that I’d seen on the site yesterday.

  “This is just a training session.”

  Admittedly, he was good, even if he wasn’t good enough to beat me. In addition to the sword in his hands, he could also control two daggers. Even if he lacked the fine motor control, and his range was about three meters, the daggers made the task before me significantly harder. Of course, I could have gone invisible and finished the fight very quickly, but I decided not to rush and let him reveal his abilities in practice. He had Level 3, the highest in the group. Given his abilities, it wasn’t difficult to guess how a mage was able to advance so far.

  “There are rumors that you don’t serve Inti,” Spider broke the silence. “This raven of yours... it’s a sign that you follow Odin, right?”

  I hadn’t hidden my pet in the bag today, letting him fly around the base and spy to his heart’s content. Most people didn’t realize that the bird was intelligent. Even now, he sat on a bench and tried to suck up to one of the women. The short, plump one with dark hair. The one who could create mana stones. Legion had a sixth sense when it came to crystals.

  “I made a vow to keep it a secret,” I snorted. “If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.”

  “Hah,” he snorted in response. “Then I guess I don’t want to know. Incoming!”

  I stepped aside, avoiding the first dagger, deflected the sword blow with my spear, spun on the spot and blocked the second dagger with my hand when my opponent tried to bring it around from my blind spot. The telekinetic failed to hold it, and the wooden dagger flew
off in the direction of the audience. Okay, it was time to finish this. He wanted gentle, right?

  “Stop!” the instructor shouted. My spear tip froze next to my opponent’s neck. The last dagger hung in the air, the stab in the back abandoned.

  “Thank you for the duel. My master has no grievances against you. Whatever the reason for your words and actions, they caused him no damage. If you ever want to switch patrons, he will be waiting.” We broke up with a nod to each other. He was a decent fellow, and it was a pity that he’d chosen Inti. Despite the spoken indulgence, we may have to face other in a real battle one day. Perhaps the Sun God had forgiven Vasily, but he was unlikely to forget Cain.

  “Next!”

  The rest had nothing outstanding to offer. They lacked strong combat skills, and their weapon proficiency didn’t get above the second level. Although the attempt by Veronica aka Medusa to get me with her hair would have done credit to any horror movie. She had the right hair, too, reaching down to her waist. This again confirmed my theory that skills weren’t randomly distributed. A bald man wouldn’t have received such a skill.