Chapter 10 - Military Base (1/2)
Gray had fallen on his knees after getting a clipboard smashed over his head like the other guy. What truly surprised him though was how real the pain felt and how his character reacted like a human probably would instead of him just losing health from one of his statistics.
"Any more smart asses?" said Major Valen menacingly while he picked up another clipboard.
Everyone shook their head.
"Good, now I shall personally take you worms around the base! I'm not your Momma so I won't be holding your hand if you can't keep up!"
A few of the players laughed at that. Major Valen leaned in to those players and said "…but I will be your Daddy and beat your sorry asses if you fall behind!" while glaring at them.
As Major Valen took them around, he gave them quick introductions to the various important locations on the base. The hospital, mess hall, barracks, mech bay, officer's quarters, pilot barracks, and training grounds were shown in quick succession. All of the players kept up for the duration of the tour not wanting to test Major Valen's patience.
Gray was really interested in the mech bay of course, but it seemed they wouldn't get their mechs until later. Fortunately they could still use the simulators.
"This is a game, isn't using a simulator in a game kind of redundant?" Gray said to himself.
"To us it is, but to the NPCs the mechs are very valuable." The same guy that held Gray back from leaving earlier said.
"I guess that makes sense to them, but still, can't they just respawn destroyed mechs?"
"In a normal game, yes, but this game is truly realistic in that they need to be manufactured in a similar fashion to the real world."
"Makes sense" said Gray. "Oh, I never thanked you for stopping me earlier, my name is Gray!"
"I am Geoff, don't mention it, I just heard that it would be better to stick with the military in this game."
Geoff and Gray got along surprisingly well, both were laid back gamers after all. Geoff was the same height as Gray, but his hair was longer and lighter. Gray thought Geoff looked rather mature for his age and was probably looked up to naturally by younger people. As for interests, Geoff and Gray were in the same situation in that they lived in small cheap housing and spent most of their salary on games. Gray was glad he met a fellow brother in arms!
"Want to spar in the simulation? I've been itching to try it" said Gray.
"Yes! We are mech pilots after all!"
Gray and Geoff walked over to the area next to the mech bays that contained the simulators. Requesting a 1v1 from the staff on duty was quick and both climbed into their own simulator pods. Gray was expecting a generic set of controls that could be applied to all models of mechs, but as he entered the pod the only thing he saw was a pilot seat and neural link helmet.
"Huh, a true simulator in a simulated duel in a simulated game… all these layers of simulation are making my brain hurt thinking about it" said Gray as he placed the neural link helmet on himself.
Gray brought up the mech selection through the neural link's interface, he was looking forward to scoping out what the latest military hardware was he can take for a drive. Sadly for him it seems that you need to increase your rank to be able to try higher-tier mechs. "Makes sense, crawl before you walk after all"
Only one mech model was available to Gray and it had three variants of it.
"The Phalanx MK 01, also known as the noob mech I heard. Essentially it is a very basic mech and a level below the mechs we will be given later from being Diamond-tier, but they are excellent training mechs. It seems the 3 variants are basically just short-range, middle-range, and long-range."