Zrrrrrrrrrr...
As the transport freighter got out of the hangar deck and launched into space, Markus and the other players saw the vast number of stars around them. Most are in awe with the large beautiful light-blue nebula spanning atleast half of the cosmos infront of their vision .
The ship rumbled as it prepares to accelerate to sub-light speed to reach the blue-ish planet on the other side of the system from the station.
Its so far out that looks like a speck of dust even with the holographic magnification!
The ship prepared its thrusters for the sub-light warp, so Markus decided to temporarily walk out of the VR rig and talk with Dave again to chill out.
"Why'd not tell me the boring parts? Are you making me suffer?" Markus sarcastically told Dave.
Dave just grinned at him, "You'll see buddy."
Suddenly, both of them saw warning lights at the game's hologram. A hasty voice also spoke out coming from a support frigate beside the ship:
[WARNING, DANGEROUS PIRATES EQUIPPED WITH STEALTH TECHNOLOGY HAS BEEN REPORTED WITHIN THIS SECTOR. MUSTER UP ALL PERSONNELS AVAILABLE FOR POSSIBLE POD BREACHING OR SPACE COMBAT.]
Markus immediately sat back down at the rig,"HAH! KNEW this would happen Dave! Nowhere is safe even out here at the tutorial, you bastard!"
"Now you know!" Dave chuckled at him.
The ship powered down its thrusters back to normal operations, causing the surrounding fellow players to talk about what might happen. All of a sudden…
THUD!
"What was that?" A nearby player asked.
The ship comma voice powered up again:
"Breaching pods detected on cargo bay! Soldiers, prepare for combat!"
The sudden event caused now crept panic among the players.
"I thought we'd instantly be within the planet already!"
"What the hell is this? Another boring as hell scenario?"
"Time to shine boys! Who's with me killing those idiots?"
Suddenly, a new task appeared on everyone's mission board:
[Mission 1: Kill All Intruders! (Part 1 of 3)
-Rewards: 2500 xp, 4000 VC, 1x high-tier grey combat equipment.
Bonus rewards:
- If all completed this task within 50 minutes, + 800 xp and 1x mid-tier grey equipment.
- If one turns in a mysterious box to the officers, + 2000xp, 1x "RX-100" rapid-fire blaster rifle]
[Description: Kill all pirate intruders pouring from the cargo bay of the freight transport. Talk with officer NPCs to gather weaponry and equipments to proceed.
- Progress: 0/50 killed]
As soon this mission board popped-up, a horde of players suddenly became frenzy! They dashed to the armory area adjacent to the large cabin and pickup up all the civilan-level defense and offense equipments.
Once they finished wearing all the equipments, they all mindlessly rushed to the corridor and ran straight to the wide hallway leading to the stairs of the floor below.
Markus was bewildered at their sudden actions, he knew the gist of what will happen at this part of the tutorial.
[Progress report: 18/50]
….
[Progress report: 26/50]
….
[Progress report: 48/50]
[Progress report: 49/50]
….
[Progress report: 49/50]
The progress bar came to a screetching halt and stalled at 49 for 20 minutes straight!
"Why are they taking so long? Can't they find the final enemy? Must be possibly hiding on a crate elsewhere." Markus chuckled but he realized something.
Something much more scary that made Markus face showed terror.
"No. Nonononono. Don't tell me we got the 0.1% chance of the commander boss scenario!"
"This only happened once at the game and hardlocked everyone's progress when it happened, forcing those players to refund thr game!" Markus being unease after this realization, hoping its just his paranoia but it came true seconds later:
[VERTIXxX has been killed by Level 15-X Raiding Commander. Awating next scenario to revive.]
LyXus_ has s been killed by Level 15-X Raiding Commander. Awating next scenario to revive.]
01822722 has s been killed by Level 15-X Raiding Commander. Awating next scenario to revive.]
[DamnIs067 has…]
[Skybreak3r has…]
"Oh. Wow. They just encountered the unkillable boss, guess all of you are done for." Dave spoke with an alarmed tone.
Markus looked at Dave with much more horror as he knew something was so off to begin with on how generous the reward is for such a sinple task at their level. Guess now he knows knows why!
Other players who were also about to do the task also shivered in horror when players rapidly died at the notifications within the chatbox.
"I thought it's supposed to be easy?? Why did they die? Can't we just properly coordinate to kill the boss?" One spoke.
"Guess we better shut off all gates and build traps or we'd turn to ashes just like them!" Another one suggested.
Ping!
Just like the mission board earlier, another mission popped up:
[Mission 1-A: Place countermeasure defenses!
-Upon discovering the enemy is unbeatable, create defenses and traps around the ship in order to stall the progrees until a solution has been created.
Reward upon completion: 200 XP, 500 VC]
[Defenses placed: 0/40]
Everyone got into action and started to place barricade with corridors, adding explosives and other traps along the way.
…..
[Defenses placed: 0/40]
Hum!
[Defenses placed: 3/40]
Hum!
[Defenses placed: 12/40]
Hum!
[Defenses placed: 26/40]
Hum!
[Defenses placed: 35/40]
… and another notification popped up after another minute:
Hum!
[Defenses placed: 40/40, well done!]
[Everyone will received the aforementioned rewards.]
Markus further analyzed the situation, he started to think of possible solutions together with Dave.
"What did the original players who encountered this boss did to try killing it? I'm sure they had a way before going down from it."
Dave started to search up forums and discussion boards and came to a conclusion, "They said that exploding near its neck with grenades or explosives somehow made him slow down and scream in pain, losing rapidly his HP from bleeding and direct damage."
"Before they got softlocked, they managed to bring down to 2% hp, not completing as they only did this method extremely late when he's at the bridge corridor of the transport."
"All I can suggest you is to start buying up those unwanted "B-A1" explosives at the NPC officer containing concentrated explosion damage, similar to what they once used."
Markus agreed with Dave at this imminent solution and started buying.
Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Tin….
After buying 30 of them as the shop ran out of its only last stacks of grenade, Markus checked if there was such an allowed method to stack them into one out of curiosity. And there is!
He started to figure out Somehow, according to the crafting area, an invinsible option under the crafting butgon allows you can combine 10 of them into 1 larger grenade!"
"And those upgraded grenades? you can again stack them up!" Markus happily explained his findings to Dave, which Dave was little bewildered at this unseen mechanic within the tutorial.
He never dare to thought Markus would've came with such a current meta tactic this early!
Fortunately, since the original players oversighted this mechanic, Markus to have an opportunity within his very hands!
The result was an unstable grenade named "B-A1-X", having 8x its original damage of 20. Trade off being once concentrated at half an meter explosion, so he has to use it properly or he also done for.
Because he again stacked 3 times, the damage ramped up to 480!
He saw the grenade has an 300% critical damage just like bullets, but the catch is you need to hit it perfectly near a important part of the body.
He already knew that the back part of the pirate commander's neck is the weakest already, so he has a guaranteed chance to kill him!
"Let's play hide and seek for now, ill give it a nasty surprise it won't suspect! HAHAAHHAAHAH" Markus laughed as he once got into the armory again and bought the only available "HV-6" civilian blaster pistol.
He then checked the highest damaging round at the armory shop. He loaded the gun with 20 expensive civilian hollow-point rounds, sweeping his remaining 200 credits off completely. This left him in a sad note and with no more cash left.
But hey, it was worth the possible trolling he is about to commence against that guy!
And so his little trolling begins…