Chapter 485 (2/2)

“You’re right. All I’m trying to say is that when you make a decision regarding your country, remember your children, your future. If you take an oath, stick to it. Fight for that oath. Become the reason that other men feel emboldened to endeavor to become a hero. After all, do you want your children to dream of a place where words aren’t worth the air that keeps them afloat? Or do you want them to dream of tenacity and responsibility, of determination and destiny?”

The boys looked solemnly up at their father, committing the words to memory as best as they could.

Rick fancied himself as something of a poet. Which was probably why he had taken the barrel of a revolver, put it on his temple, and then slowly clenched his hand into a fist. The day that Hank found the body was three weeks before his 18th birthday. At that moment, he had a hard decision in front of him: report the death now, or wait the three weeks so that he would be allowed to care for Alan, who was still a minor?

Lost in his thoughts in the present, Hank reached down and ran his fingers along the cool metal of the revolver left to him by his father in the hastily scrawled will. It was not for the sake of sentimentality that Hank still used this revolver, it was due to familiarity. Even as a child, before the weight of his father’s life hung on the trigger, Hank was fascinated by its strange weight, its smooth gears, and motions.

Although he had rejected his spoiled brother’s plea that he assist with the third expedition, Hank was not a man who would easily reject an order from the President. They were currently at odds over what Hank considered a meaningless torture of a child, Hank knew that both were…. relatively defensible positions. He would not let it get in the way of his duty to his tiny, Zone-locked nation.

After all, Hank had learned his lessons of virtue by staring at the profile of Eastwood, silhouetted by the sunset; a man protects, at any cost.

And Hank couldn’t deny that a threat was coming. So he silently accepted the dossier from Alan, and took the short train from East Providence to West Providence, in order to meet the rest of the… group.

Like Alan had promised, expedition three was a relatively small force. East Providence would be supplying two individuals, but the second of which had not yet been chosen, as this was only recently approved. Ezekiel was West Providence representation, who Hank now went to pick up from the Containment Center.

Grimacing, Hank wondered whether he would need to put a few slugs of lead in this man before he would behave. The Containment Center was essentially a place where Classers who were too powerful not to be used against monsters and hadn’t committed truly heinous crimes were kept. Often, placing them there did more harm than good, as some of the seedier prospects spread their very negative attitude to other prisoners who had previously just had a short temper.

Hopefully, Ezekiel wouldn’t be too much of a blockhead. According to the dossier, he was an all-rounder, but specialized in stealth and long-range Skills. Hank read that and whistled.

Long range Skills usually referred to things that would have been traditionally considered as “spells” in the world before the System. Ghost made it clear that basically, anything was possible within the System, but he believed that Mana was much more efficiently used with the Mana Discharge Skill that people used to power their plasma weaponry.

The results spoke for themselves. A Level 10 Mana Bolt would stumble a creature briefly, but do no lasting damage to it, especially as its Levels increased. A plasma bolt fired by someone who had just obtained the Mana Discharge Skill would melt the monster’s head.

Of course, there were diminishing returns for the Mana Discharge Skill, especially over Level 50. The general populous just couldn’t get access to the guns that could utilize higher Levels of Mana Discharge; the technology wasn’t to the point that they could be mass produced. You needed to be at least Tier 3 before you could be considered as a useful individual to be given a prototype. Hank had just one such plasma pistol.

But in addition to the diminishing returns, there was also much less utility given by focusing on Mana Discharge. Hank’s other Mana Skills very quickly passed Mana Discharge, and he was now happy to simply use his old metal slugs to kill monsters.

Plus, Hank had seen a man open a hole in the ground the size of a house, just swallowing up 20 or so monsters. Then the ground had closed back up, and the screams of the monsters were cut off with a wet crunch.

“A real mage type, huh…” Hank said, flicking over to the other two dossiers. Mordecai Heath was a big man with the brain of a chihuahua. Twice in the past the two had fought, and both times Hank had laid the man out. But that was before Hank’s fall from grace, and now Heath had a state of the art Exosuit that made him look like a Decepticon.

The final member of their group was a member of the Temple on the Hill, which made Hank’s frown deepen. Not that he minded the people who swore allegiance first and foremost to their Zone’s Champion. If anything, the opposite. They were usually uncannily competent, which is why Hank had no choice but to be serious around them.

Sighing, Hank looked around. But unfortunately, he saw no attendants to bring him a drink.