POWERLESS Page 7

  Ava took the note and read it to herself. Her light gray eyes widened when she saw his instructions. "Schmendrick, please take a seat and wait here. Gram has organized a party to assist you and the Reborn members will be arriving shortly," she said. The secretary dashed backed to her desk and started typing on her keyboard.

  Schmendrick saw a group of chairs lining a wall. Also, there were 2 chairs in front of Ava's desk. But she seemed to be busy at the moment and the boy decided to leave her alone. He walked over to the wall, picked a seat in the middle and sat down. While waiting in the lobby, he looked around the room. There was a window behind her desk and the sun was shining brightly. The aforementioned terminal to teleport to Rezdi City was on the corner to his right. A red circle was on the floor. The door he had used to leave the Intake Office was across the room facing Ava's desk. There was another door facing him and the teenager guessed that was the exit from the building.

  Ava did not speak to him again and he was fine with it. After all, he wasn't particularly social. Approximately 10 minutes later, the door facing him opened. A group of people walked in. There were 3 males and 2 females. All of them appeared to be older than Schmendrick and in their 20s.

  Ava looked up from her terminal and tilted her chin at Schmendrick.

  Wordlessly, one of the newcomers approached him. "I'm Desin. Gram put out the word that you've been assigned to exterminate weevils invading the granary. He asked us to help you in your quest. But when we're out in the field, I'm leading the group. Is that okay?" he asked.

  Schmendrick nodded. Each person appeared to be a fighter. And was armed with guns, swords, or daggers. "I'm fine with this arrangement. But I have 2 requests. First, I'm new and obviously don't know where the granary is. So someone has to take us there. Second, where can I get another dagger?"

  A woman raised her hand and Desin nodded. "Why would you need a dagger? A soul-bound dagger should be part of your starting gear unless something changed at The Noob Academy. I'm Leira, by the way," she added.

  Schmendrick saw a young woman with shoulder length blonde hair and her eyes hidden by sunglasses. Leira carried a rifle over her shoulder. She wore a short-sleeved white shirt and blue shorts over black boots. A strap was tied to her right thigh; it held a dagger. Her belt was adorned with throwing knives. "I'm ambidextrous," he replied.

  "Oh!" Leira understood immediately. She untied the strap and handed over her dagger.

  "Thank you," the boy said and strapped the dagger to his right thigh.

  "Now, let's go clean out the granary!" Desin raised his big fist in the air. His companions immediately raised theirs. The five looked at Schmendrick expectedly.

  Schmendrick slowly raised his fist, too.

  2.2 - Bug Extermination

  When Schmendrick exited the building, he was surprised to see a vehicle parked outside. It had six wheels. There was a driver's seat at the front and a passenger seat. There were neither doors nor a roof. The back resembled a truck bed. There were straps and handholds inside the box. The vehicle appeared to have been designed for a mixed utility to transport both goods and personnel.

  Desin sat in the driver's seat. He pressed his palm on the steering wheel and the engine motor started running.

  Wordlessly, his companions hopped in the back.

  Schmendrick tried to join them on the truck bed but Desin said, "No, sit next to me." The teenager obeyed and took the seat to Desin's right.

  "We're all in," someone said and Desin immediately drove off.

  Schmendrick looked at the road from the side. It was unpaved and dirt and dust constantly kicked into the air as the truck passed through.

  Desin glanced at the boy and said, "I bet you were expecting to walk to the granary. Am I right?"

  "Yes, sir!" the teenager replied.

  "Oh, Lord! Did Ruffus drill that into you at The Noob Academy?" someone else.

  When Schmendrick turned his head, he saw a skinny black man with a budding Afro raise his hand. "I'm Drey, his brother."

  The teenager replied, "You two don't look alike. And I thought our memories get wiped out when we are reborn in this world."

  "Yes and no," said an Asian looking man with his long jet-black hair tied in the old style of a Kung Fu fighter. "Memories of our past lives slowly return to us. My theory is that the disconnection or severance between our physical body and our soul when we come to Sanctum damages our brains. The separation between body and soul is what causes the memory loss. As our brains slowly recover over time, new neural pathways connecting to our stored memories are created and that's how we regain our memories. Oh, and I'm Fan by the way," he quickly added. "I was apparently a medical doctor in my past life."

  "I'm Nana," a shortly cropped, raven-haired woman with dark brown eyes said. She wore a loose-fitting red shirt over her petite frame and tight-fitting blue pants. There was a holster with a pistol on each hip.

  "Hopefully, you didn't forget that I'm Leira," said the blonde haired woman with the rifle and sunglasses.

  "What are your combat roles?" Schmendrick asked. "My Class is Thief and I'll be fighting the bugs with twin daggers."

  "Open the glove compartment," Desin requested.

  The teenager opened the panel in front of him. He saw a pair of spiked gloves.

  "I'll be joining you on the frontline with Drey, who uses a long sword," the driver said. "Leira is our sniper. Nana carries 2 pistols, as you can see. They will cover us."

  "I'm the field medic," Fan said. "I'll protect our shooters if the ladies aggro too many bugs."

  Schmendrick nodded. Depending on how fast the two women shoot, their damage output should be higher than the melee fighters and thus, draw more attention from the monsters. "What does this truck run on for fuel?" he asked. "I thought all the technology remained inside Rezdi City."

  "Good question," Drey smiled. "I was an auto mechanic in my past life. I helped build and design this truck from scratch. To answer your question, this truck runs on electricity generated by the wind turbines in the beach sections of the Recovered Land," he explained.

  "I see," the teenager replied. "I was offered maintenance work on the wind turbines in another quest."

  "That's an important quest," Drey responded with a nod. "The electricity generated by the wind turbines help power the computer terminals and our vehicles. If you don't mind, I would like to accompany you when you're ready to accept that quest."

  "Sure," Schmendrick agreed. He turned his focus to the weevil infestation. "Tell me more about the weevils. I'm sure you fought them already." He didn't know how far the granary was. But he expected the vehicle to arrive soon.

  "The young ones are the size of dogs," Leira said.

  "Dogs?" the teenager asked. "What are they?"

  "Oh, man!" the sniper gave him an incredulous look. "Somebody take over for me, please!"

  "Dogs are animals that have been domesticated in our old world. They live with humans as our companions. They walk on the ground with four paws and they are intelligent and obedient," Fan explained patiently.

  "Not my old dog," Leira chuckled. "Rolf never obeyed me."

  "How big are weevils?" Schmendrick asked. He wanted to focus the conversation on the enemies that he will be facing shortly.

  "The torso of a young weevil is maybe three feet long and one foot wide, excluding their long snouts. They have six legs. Their carapace is hard to penetrate with swords and knives," Fan continued. "They attack by using their snout, which is sharp at the end, to skewer you."

  "The easiest way to take them out is to jam a bullet or a blade through the eye and into the brain," Leira added helpfully.

  "You can also flip them upside down to immobilize them. Their underside isn't protected by their hard shell," Desin pointed out. "This should be a fairly easy mission, as long as we don't encounter adult weevils. They are much bigger, stronger, and faster. If we encounter an adult, we'll need to fall back and regroup."

  Suddenly, the truck stopped on the road.
On each side was a group of granaries. Each building was two stories tall, made of wood and raised a foot above the ground. Each granary was built a few yards away from the other buildings. There were five granaries on each side.

  "We'll have to check them one-by-one," Desin said. "Let's get out of the truck and figure out which granary has been contaminated."

  The party exited the vehicle.

  "If we put our ears to the walls, we might be able to hear the weevils moving inside the buildings," Schmendrick suggested.

  "Good idea," Drey replied.

  "Okay," Desin said. "There's six of us. We'll use Schmendrick's suggestion to see if we can hear which storehouse has weevils inside. Please raise your hand if you hear something."

  The group dispersed and each member approached a different storehouse.

  Schmendrick walked along the road slowly with his eyes closed when he suddenly felt a pull toward a granary to his left. With soft steps, he approached the building and put his ear against the wall. He heard faint skittering sounds from inside the building and raised his hand.

  Desin saw his hand in the air. "We got one. Let's check the other granaries," he ordered.

  However, the investigators heard nothing inside the other buildings and soon converged on the granary in question.

  When the group finally gathered in front of the door of the building, Desin said, "We're going to open the door and let the grain fall out onto the road. Our shooters will stay put and take out anything that leaves the door. Fan will stay with the two of you. When the grain stops pouring out, Schmendrick, Drey, and I will enter and kill any weevils hiding inside the building."

  "I'll open the door," Drey volunteered and approached the door. He pulled out his long sword and held it in his right hand; his left hand was on the doorknob.

  "Okay, here's our formation: The shooters will be on the left side. They'll blast anything that comes out. Schmendrick and I will stay out of their crossfire. Any weevils that manage to avoid the bullets will be handled by us. Drey will serve as a roadblock if Leira and Nana aggro the weevils. Drey, open the door on 3," Desin ordered. "1-2-3!"

  Drey opened the door and started to back away. He held his long sword in a fighting stance.

  The shooters were positioned on the left side with him while Desin and Schmendrick were on the right side, as ordered by Desin. Fan stood behind the shooters in order to give them a clear view of the doorway.

  Grains started pouring out of the opening. A few seconds later, the first weevil was at the doorway.

  "Fire on my command," Desin ordered.

  The two ladies waited.

  Soon, more weevils started skittering. A handful of them left the granary and started to approach the humans.

  "Now!" Desin yelled.

  The sound of bullets penetrated the air. Two of the baby weevils was shot through the eye and killed immediately. Two more ran toward Desin and Schmendrick.

  The teenager stepped forward and took on the bug to the right side, leaving the other bug for Desin to handle.

  The weevil rushed toward Schmendrick and jumped, its pointed snout aimed straight at his chest!

  The teenager sidestepped the spear-like appendage and jammed his dagger into the monster's vulnerable black eye. "-100% Vitality."

  The bug dropped to the ground. It spasmed once and went still.

  Schmendrick immediately pulled the weapon out. He turned and saw that Desin was beating his target to a pulp with those spiked gloves.

  Bullets continued to fly for the several few minutes and weevil corpses started piling up. Finally, the weevils stopped coming through the doorway.

  Drey approached the granary again. He put his ear to the wall to listen for the sound of more weevils inside.

  Suddenly, something slammed against the wall and the wooden boards broke off.

  "Argh!" Drey yelled.

  The party was horrified to discover that he had been pierced in the stomach by a weevil. This weevil which had just emerged was much bigger, easily the size of the truck parked nearby. The giant bug was swinging its head back and forth, seeking to dislodge the human body from its snout.

  "We can't shoot it and risk hitting Drey!" Nana yelled out in frustration.

  "Our priority is to pull him off the snout!" Desin ordered. "Help me, Schmendrick!"

  However, the boy ignored Desin's order. Instead, he ran straight for the weevil's head and stabbed his dagger into its eye, embedding half the blade. "-30% Vitality."

  The weevil screeched in pain and turned away to escape.

  But the dagger was still embedded and Schmendrick refused to release his hold. Instead, he pushed the blade all the way to the hilt and then he released the weapon. "-20% Vitality." The boy fearlessly rolled under the snout and pulled out his other dagger. He plunged it into the other eye with all his might. "-50% Vitality."

  Finally, the adult weevil stopped moving.

  Desin and Fan ran toward Drey and slowly freed him from the snout.

  Fan reached into his medical kit to pull out bandages. He pressed a thick stack of bandages against the wound; the bandages turned crimson immediately. "We need to go to the clinic," the medic said. Drey was losing too much blood!

  The two men lifted the body and gently put the unconscious Drey onto the truck bed.

  Schmendrick tried to help but Desin roughly brushed past the boy, refusing his aid.

  Desin quickly returned to the driver's seat and started the engine. When the motor roared to life, the vehicle zoomed along the road at its top speed. The drive back to town was made in complete silence.

  Drey was still unconscious and Fan sat next to him, keeping his hand pressed on the bandage to slow the bleeding.

  About ten minutes later, Desin parked the truck in front of a simple looking, wooden building. It was painted white with the sign of a red cross to the left of the door. It was apparently a medical facility.

  Fan and Nana lifted the injured man out of the truck bed and into the waiting arms of Desin.

  Leira opened the door and Desin carried Drey inside.

  Schmendrick saw a simple room with two handfuls of beds and paper partitions between them.

  An old woman saw the bleeding bandages on Drey's stomach and said, "Please put him on this bed," while pointing at an empty bed in the middle of the room. Once Drey was laid on the bed, she asked, "What happened?" She put on rubber gloves and slowly peeled away the blood-soaked bandages.

  "He was gored by an adult weevil," Nana answered.

  "Thank the Lord he wasn't pierced in the heart or lung," the healer replied. "I see a new face among your party. My name is Surfeia and I run the only medical clinic in the Eastern District of the Recovered Land."

  "I'm Schmendrick," the boy nodded. He had no clue what an Eastern District was but now was not the time to pester the healer with his newbie questions.

  "Hopefully, you won't be a frequent visitor, young man," she said. "I'm going to need all of you to leave. You'll only get in the way."

  The group obeyed and exited the clinic.

  Desin returned to the truck and sat in the driver's seat. "We need to turn in the quest with Ava," he said. Once the remaining party members took their seats, he drove off.

  2.3 - Return to Ava

  Unlike the previous trip, Desin declined to push the pedal to reach the next destination. The fate of Drey was very much on the driver's mind. Ten minutes later, he parked the truck in front of the administrative building.

  The party exited the vehicle and entered the lobby.

  Ava raised her head from her computer terminal to see who had entered. Her eyebrows rose when she saw a person missing from the party sent to exterminate the weevils. It was a starter quest and therefore, shouldn't have been dangerous. Especially to a high-level Reborn like Drey.

  Someone nudged Schmendrick in the back. The boy quickly walked across the room and took a chair in front of Ava's desk. "We have completed the mission to clear the weevil infestation from the g
ranary," he announced in a quiet voice. While the teenager was happy to complete his first quest, his excitement was tempered by the severe injury to his party member.

  Ava started typing on her keyboard. She had taken note of the funeral-like atmosphere in the room and tried to act professionally at this moment. The secretary pulled up the outstanding quests in the Eastern District of the Recovered Land on the computer terminal and went down the list until she saw Schmendrick's name. Next to the name was a green checkmark, confirming the party's completion of the quest. "The system has confirmed your completion of the quest. I will now distribute experience points to the party," she announced loudly so that his companions could hear her.

  Green text floated in front of Schmendrick: "Monsters killed: 1,250 points. Quest completed: 500 points. First quest completion in the Recovered Land: 500 points bonus."

  The teenager pulled up his menu screen and saw that he now had 9,500 experience points. He could advance to Level 7! Schmendrick decided to add the 20 attribute points to Mentality; it was now at 120 points. While he was tempted to add points to Physical because physical abilities seemed to be important in his new world, his gut instincts told him to raise Mentality instead.

  Ava saw the asterisk next to the boy's name. She mouse-clicked on it and saw the note from Gram. Ah! She remembered the crusty old man had mentioned something about a bonus for the boy and gave her a pouch for safe keeping. The secretary opened a drawer at her desk and took out a small pouch with Schmendrick's name on it. In fact, Gram had given it to her the same day that the party left the building. "This is the bonus reward that Gram had promised you," Ava said and handed the pouch to Schmendrick.

  The boy tied it to his belt. "Can I take the next quest from you?" he asked.

  "Sure!" Ava replied with a smile. A part of her was glad that Schmendrick was not going to linger in the subsidized housing and avoid questing again. From past experience, she knew that some new arrivals to the Recovered Land were shocked by how easily they could die while questing. In response, they would try to put off questing again for as long as possible--until they ran out of shekels to pay for room and board. Ava had a feeling that this boy had a tremendous personal determination and she was happy that her impression had turned out to be correct.