Chapter 6: Chapter 6
The wind rustles quietly through the tree's, as birds sing in the distance, and animals run through the underbrush, the primeval forest, untouched by civilization, despite being placed upon what was once New York.
I sit in a tree, completely hidden by the branches and leaves, my body locked in the same position it had been for the last 2 years, as I once again attempted the hardest mission I had ever been presented with, hunting the divine elk.
I had long since completed every mission for the trial, hundreds upon hundreds of times actually, from killing drakes, to hunting Fenrir's, so you may wonder why I say that hunting the divine elk was such a hard task? Well there are a lot of good reasons for this, the biggest one being that it could only be attempted between levels 50-100, yes, that means if you miss this mission, one it doesn't even tell you is required, you can't finish the trial, you have no Idea how angry I was when I was presented with the final upgrade to the safehouse, an upgrade to the farming section, something I never prioritized seeing as even the lower levels could grow enough food to sustain me, and I had long stopped being picky about flavor, did I realize this, because the final upgrade required the antlers of a divine elk, which you could only get before level 100, not just because the mission disappeared, but because the species went extinct, see things in the trial did not progress based on time, but level.
You could spend centuries at level 1, and the entire world would still be the same as if the apocalypse had just begun, similarly, you could reach level 100 in a day -an example, it actually took decades even at the fastest to reach this level- and it would look like centuries had passed.
The general rule being the higher level the harder things got, the divine elk broke the flow, not because they were powerful, far from it, the problem was how hard it was to hunt them, and more.
To start off, they were incredibly cowardly, and had an amazing memory, meaning they would memorize every single facet of a forest after their first time seeing it, and would avoid ANYTHING strange, including scent, and had an uncanny ability to know if something had been interacted with even months ago, as well as if it was an animal or a human, only approaching said objects the next year, after their full migration cycle, because yes, they migrated across the entirety of the united states, meaning they were only in one place for a very short period of time.
This meant that I had to set up shop a year in advance, and not move even the smallest amount, for the entire year, something I achieved by completely locking myself in place with a full body exosuit, getting my nutrition from IV drips that gave me the exact amount of nutrients required, meaning I never had to shit, and my piss was filtered into pure water before being given to the tree I sat on, similarly, I got oxygen through a complex machine I had attached to the tree, in exchange for the carbon dioxide I exhaled, and my purified piss, it was almost like I was one with the tree, like the algae and fungus that form lichen.
I was able to breathe only because the chest piece of my exoskeleton was distended enough to allow my chest to move.
I rarely slept, not willing to miss my shot, but when I did, I had covered the entire forest in more sensors than I could count, and any movement of any kind within proximity to me, would result in an injection of pure adrenaline forcing me awake.
I ignored the juicy looking apple in front of me, knowing that eating it would have wasted a year of patience, I comforted myself by promising to eat enough sugar to give a grown man a fatal overdose when I left, luckily despite this being a trial to unlock the survivor trait, I was actually able to use the trait in the trial, the trait offering the ability to perfectly heal from any injury no matter how severe, meaning nerve damage, brain damage, and lost limbs merely needed enough time to heal, and would leave no permanent damage, although for some reason any injury that killed me would leave a permanent scar on my body for all future lives, as if a lesson not to make the same mistakes again.
Due to this my body was covered in thousands of tiny scars by this point, not the big ugly ones you see after major injuries in normal humans, but the smooth thin ones you see after getting a particularly deep cut, in all honesty, I just looked like a cat owner if my cat was a panther, annoyingly, it seemed like the size, and location of the scar was determined by how embarrassing the mistake that killed me was, the larger the scar, and the more visible it is, the more embarrassing it was, with my largest scar, running across my left eye, being a result of me accidentally launching the entire Russian nuclear weapons stockpile in a raid on one of their abandoned bunkers. IT WAS AN ACCIDENT OK! How was I supposed to know the big, dinner plate sized red button that said "launch all nukes" was actually genuine, it didn't even ask for any confirmation or launch codes! It just fired! I thought those only existed in stupid tv shows and cartoons?
It was an embarrassing end to a 473 year long run, that's for sure.
My attention is pulled back to reality as a large, cancerous green, chimera of a creature walks into view, despite its name as a "divine elk" the only real part of it that looked like an elk was its antlers, no two divine elk looked the same, the only common features they shared were their cancerous green color, like the toxic sludge in hollywood, and their antlers.
It slowly comes closer, as I wrap my fingers tighter around the railgun in my hands.
Now for the second part of why it's so hard to hunt divine elk, they are so incredibly skittish, and their reactions are so quick that they will disappear at even the smallest movement, meaning I can't actually aim at them, so I have to figure out what area of the forest would be most attractive to them, and hope they walk perfectly in front of my barrel. This was actually the 57th elk I had seen so far in this herd.
Not only that, they can fucking teleport, not a very long range teleport mind you, but more than enough to escape me, luckily for me, it seems this elk had decided to make the worst decision of its life, and walk in front of the barrel of my gun, as I pull the trigger, instantly begining to move the moment the round left the rails, as the hardest part was about to start.
See, as if everything else wasn't hard enough, there was one, tiny, itsy bitsy problem, the divine elk were a hivemind, and despite them being the most skittish creatures on this hell of a planet most of the time, as soon as you killed even one of them, the entire herd would descend on you like a pack of starved piranhas.
My exoskeleton tore away from the tree, disconnecting from the lifesupport system within, as my body was flooded with enough performance enhancing drugs ranging from caffeine to cocain to kill a fucking blue whale, the survivor trait also removes most neggative side effects of drugs, and vastly increases the amount required to kill me. The servos and hydraulics in my exoskeleton screaming as it snapped tight to my skin, shifting from the prison that had held me in place for over a year, to a form fitting futuristic set of armor, as I close the 20 meter distance between me and the dead elk in a split second, my vibro knife cutting through the hard antlers like butter as I grab them and take off like a rocket, all before the corpse managed to hit the floor.
I hear roars and cracks behind me as the first divine elk materialises 100 meters away from me to my left, as I quickly activate the traps I had installed a year prior, when angered, the divine elk abandoned all self preservation, which while good for me in the fact I could actually kill them, also meant I had to deal with hundreds of angry suicidal elks as fast as supercars trying their best to kill me.
A small hatch in one of the tree's near the elk opening to reveal a small turret which instantly puts a hole through the creature, as I continue the sprint.
Now for the third to last reason this mission made me feel like whatever god made this owned the domain of sadism, the elks never stop chasing you until they are all dead, meaning I have to run for however long it takes to kill them all.
My body shoots towards the floor faster than a bullet, narrowly dodging a small elk chimera that shoots right through the air where my body had been just moments before, its antlers, an absurdly sharp bundle of blades, like a piece of macabre art, gleaming in the sunlight as it emits whistling noises. Before losing its head to a string of razor wire that had suddenly appeared between two trees. Actuators in my exoskeleton scream to push my body back upwards as I can feel the blood pool in my lower extremities, as I shoot back into a running position.
By now a horde had already appeared behind me, constantly growing as more and more elk streamed in from the far reaches of the forest.
Satisfied with the number behind me I stuck my left arm out, almost tearing the unfortunate tree I had used as an axis in half as I used it to instantly change directions, sprinting towards a large explosive trap I had prepared beforehand, one of many, as I laughed like a maniac, so glad to finally be moving again after sitting still for well over an entire year, even as I listen to trees splintering behind me and my arm screams in pain, the exoskeleton unable to fully protect it from the move I had just made.
Leaping over a wide river like a frog, my body flies 15 meters before I land in a roll, bouncing on my hands as I reach the end, landing softly on my feet as the river behind me detonates in a massive explosion, only barely managing to catch my fall as the shockwave hits me in the back, as I spin my full body around, running backwards as I show my middle finger to explosion, when my body flies sideways, metal bending, as I feel a cold pain in my chest '3 broken ribs.' barely able to take in the figure of a massive imposing elk, far larger than the rest, and the only one to actually look like an elk. 'Guess I got all the lackeys with that explosion, lucky.'
I present to you the final two reasons why this mission is such a masochist's wet dream. 1, say hi to the queen, the leader of this herd, and strongest of them all, who only decides to step in after you kill all the members of her herd. And the final reason of them all! She is completely invincible for 12 hours after her appearance! GOD WHO DOESN'T LIKE INVINCIBLE BOSS PHASES! I KNOW I DON'T!
(an, I hope you guys like this chapter. I loved writing it. I will be posting part two right after this one, just wanted to separate them into two chapters because this one is already getting kinda long and it felt like it would flow better as two chapters.)
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