NOVEL WEB Chapter 24
Chapter 24
After destroying another replication pod, Jake decided to take a brief rest. Having cleared out several floors of the high-rise building and demolished three replication pods, he felt fatigued and in need of a break. Seating himself on the floor, he leaned against the wall behind him. Placing his shotgun on the floor beside him, he allowed himself to relax. For the next few minutes, he rested. It was fortunate that the mutants on the upper floors never attempted to descend. Perhaps they hadn’t heard the commotion from the lower levels, or perhaps they were simply indifferent.
He took out his PDA to check the status of his mission.
Main Objective:
Replication Pods Destroyed – 3 out of 5
Additional Objectives:
Floors Cleared – 5 out of 10
Elite Mutants Killed – 0 out of 1
Jake was unaware of the enemy count on each level, but he could monitor his progress on the mission status screen. Each floor was more difficult than the last. The amount of mutants he had to deal with rose exponentially with each ascent.
Additionally, a new type of enemy appeared almost on every floor. On the first one, he had only walkers to worry about, which were the weakest. On the second floor, leapers joined the fray. He really hated them. While they weren’t particularly strong, they were swift and agile. They were somewhat smarter than the walkers too. Instead of rushing at him, they often attempted to outmaneuver him by flanking.
In addition to the walkers and leapers, Jake now had to deal with at least one shambler on each level. These were the most formidable mutants encountered thus far. They were covered in resilient organic matter, growing all over their bodies, making up a protective layer that soaked up some of the damage he dealt to them. Despite their durability, the shamblers’ sluggish speed allowed him to eliminate them before they could close the distance and pose a threat.
After taking a brief respite, Jake rose to his feet and began to search the floor for loot. In one of the rooms, he stumbled upon a Push scroll. He had already acquired multiple scrolls featuring the same spell on previous floors and even used the spell against mutants on several occasions already.
The first time he used the spell was when he got surrounded by a bunch of walkers and leapers. The Push spell turned out to be quite effective against them—it knocked the mutants off their feet with such force as if they were hit by an invisible sledgehammer. That spell affected several mutants at once if they were close to one another, which was another good thing about the Push spell.
When a shambler suddenly emerged behind him, Jake instinctively cast the Push spell for the second time. However, he quickly discovered that the spell was not as effective against a formidable foe like the shambler compared to smaller targets. The spell managed to make the shambler sway slightly, but that was it.
In the final room on the fifth floor, Jake discovered two additional items. The first one was a mana shard. It was even larger than a mana marble, and it gave him a generous 500 mana points when he used it.
The second item was a weapon mod that could be attached to his shotgun. When he scanned the mod with his PDA, he learned it was a proximity sensor capable of revealing the locations of mutants within a small radius around him. After attaching the mod to the left side of his weapon, Jake activated it and continued on.
When he reached the next floor, he found himself at the beginning of a corridor. The proximity sensor emitted a quiet beeping sound, and a few red blips popped up on its screen, revealing the positions of nearby mutants. They lurked in the rooms concealed behind the closed doors flanking both sides of the corridor.
As he made his way through the corridor, Jake methodically swung open each door, dealing with the mutants hidden inside every room along his path.
Finally, he reached the last door. According to the proximity sensor, there were quite a few mutants in the room behind the door. Since he hadn’t come across a replication pod elsewhere on the floor, it meant that it was either located in that room or possibly not present on this floor at all. Jake checked the pouches on his belt and was surprised to discover a grenade tucked away in one of them. He’d thought he’d used his last grenade on one of the earlier floors.
He slung the shotgun over one shoulder and retrieved the grenade from its pouch. Pressing the fuse button on the side of the grenade to arm it, he silently counted to three before cracking the door open and tossing the grenade into the room underhand. After swiftly closing the door and stepping back, Jake braced himself as a powerful explosion rocked the walls two seconds later. Glancing at the sensor’s screen, he noticed that most of the blips had vanished. However, a few mutants had somehow managed to survive the blast.
Suddenly, the door swung open, and a walker stumbled out of the room. Half of its upper body, including one arm, was missing, revealing jagged ribs protruding from its torn body. The nasty wound, which should have killed it, didn’t seem to bother the mutant much. It began to walk toward him in a slow, unsteady manner. Jake put it out of its misery with a blast from his shotgun. There were only three blips left on the sensor’s screen now.
He stepped into the room and was met by a horrible sight—gory pieces of mutants killed in the explosion were scattered all over the room. Two mutants were still alive but missing their legs. They began to crawl toward Jake as soon as they caught sight of him. He quickly dispatched them with two well-placed shots before shifting his focus to the cocoon hanging from the ceiling at the far end of the room.
Since the replication pod had remained unscathed by the explosion, Jake made his way across the room to destroy it. Picking his way through the torn pieces of dead mutants, Jake advanced toward the cocoon. As he prepared to take aim and destroy it, the pod suddenly unfurled like a blossom, revealing a fully-formed walker emerging from within. The mutant lunged towards Jake, but he swiftly dispatched it by blowing its head apart in a spray of gore. He followed up with a couple more blasts to obliterate the cocoon. Four replication pods down, one more to go.
The next, seventh, floor, didn’t contain the final replication pod, though. After eliminating all the targets in the area, he proceeded to the next floor where he successfully located and obliterated the fifth pod. His PDA notified him that he had accomplished the main mission objective and had earned 20,000 credits. As long as he remained within the high-rise building, the mission permitted him to complete the two additional objectives, which he intended to tackle next.
He then cleared out the next two floors and finally reached the final, tenth, one. Despite its heightened difficulty, he successfully eliminated all threats, accomplishing the first of the two additional objectives and earning an additional 30,000 credits. His final objective was to defeat an elite mutant waiting for him on the rooftop.
Beside the staircase leading to the rooftop, Jake noticed a vending machine and decided to browse its contents. He selected several Push scrolls and all the mana consumables it had in stock—one mana shard, two mana marbles, and a handful of mana beads. After adding these items to his cart, he reviewed the final price. Since everything sold in vending machines was hyper-expensive, after making his purchase, he would be left with almost no money remaining.
He wasn’t willing to cancel his purchase, though. On the rooftop of the building was an elite mutant that he needed to eliminate in order to fulfill the final objective of his mission. Unsure of what to anticipate from the elite mutant on the rooftop, Jake decided not to take any risks. He needed to equip himself with everything available that could assist him in battling the elite mutant. So he pressed the purchase button on the vending machine, and the screen displayed the words: THANK YOU FOR YOUR ORDER.
His PDA beeped, indicating that a certain amount of credits had been deducted from his account. A section on the front of the vending machine slid open, and a platform with his purchased items extended forward from within. Jake immediately utilized all the magic scrolls and mana consumables he had just purchased. He now had ample mana points to cast the Push spell multiple times.
After that, he topped off his semi-auto shotgun with extra shells and began ascending the stairs to the rooftop where the elite mutant awaited.