The Age of Adaptation
The first thing that greeted the three of them was a nauseating stench so vile it seemed to claw straight up the nose.
If a mess of every kind of filth had been left to rot under a blazing sun and then scattered across the ground, it might have smelled like this.
"Ghk!"
Yoo Sung-jun, and the two beside him, wrinkled their noses as hard as they could. They hurriedly pulled on the air-purifying masks they had been told to wear in advance. For a brief moment, they were made keenly aware of just how precious clean air was.
"Hoo... hyung. Where's everyone else?"
"The marsh outside the pit. That was the gathering point. Let's move there first."
As he spoke, Yoo Sung-jun looked around.
There were holes everywhere, large and small, punched through the ground. Brown mucus clung thickly around them, and pale steam kept rising in wisps from all directions.
This is a pit the queen dug.
Yoo Sung-jun. No, Meteor had once faced the queen of the maggots.
She had been powerful enough that, although she never made it into the thirty-eight high-ranking Infector called the elite of Another Earth, she was strong enough that one could easily mistake her for having been right at the edge of that rank.
For a monster like that, digging a pit this size—big enough to swallow an entire hill—would have been child’s play.
Still, this is excessive.
It was even larger and deeper than the one from the game.
Down below, beneath those holes of every size, the creature and all her offspring were surely lurking.
"Jeyca. Keep a close watch on the surroundings, please. You should especially keep an eye on the holes."
"Because of the spoil worms?"
"You know about them?"
"I cleared this place once in the game. The synchronization rate was low there, so it was fine, but trying to step through here in reality is just hell."
With a pained groan, she went on walking. The stench might have faded, but every step made the squelch in their shoes feel painfully real.
Jeyca seemed to hate that part most of all.
Yoo Sung-jun looked at his younger brother.
Thankfully, Sung-hwan didn’t seem to be taking it too badly as he kept pace without much resistance.
"Hyung, how many people are gathering?"
"Ten. We're the last ones to join, so once we get there, we'll go straight into the operation briefing."
"No uninvited guests, right?"
He had heard about what had happened in the unfinished antibody theft mission. Yoo Sung-jun shook his head at the worried expression on his brother’s face.
"Go check. The support will tell us there are exactly ten people."
"Oh, yeah, there are. Still, someone could crash the party halfway through."
"If they're a crazy bastard, sure."
To even join, you needed at least one player in the party with over 200,000 cumulative points.
At this point, there weren’t that many users with points like that.
Trying to sneak into a joint operation just to go PKing?
"They’d probably make for excellent point fodder."
"Heh, I hope they at least have a good gun."
That was wishful thinking.
He patted his brother’s shoulder and started up the slope.
The pit was so huge that it took a full hour just to get out.
Still, because they had kept their bearings well, the marsh wasn’t far off.
I'm pretty good at transmitting, Sung-jun.
I wasn’t praising you.
I’m hurt. ( >д< )
It really did seem like she was always trying to announce her presence the moment she thought she might be forgotten even a little.
He shook his head and headed for the marsh.
***
Waiting there at the gathering point were two parties.
One party had three members, the other four.
Two men and women, apparently the leaders of each group, walked over.
"The Rotem party?"
"Yeah. Then you guys are..."
"Edgar, from America."
"I'm Hinawa Mariko from Japan. Just call me Hinawa."
Edgar was a black man whose build was no less imposing than Alexei’s.
Hinawa was a woman with a slight frame and black hair that fell all the way to her waist.
After the introductions were done, Yoo Sung-jun followed their guidance to the hideout.
It looked like a shack that had been renovated from one abandoned in the marsh.
An old, rotten, half-collapsed shack at that.
Edgar pointed inside at Yoo Sung-jun.
"It's cramped, so deal with it. This isn't a place you're meant to live in forever."
"Edgar. Where were we?"
"Hm. We were dividing up the squads for the operation."
One by one, they filed inside.
While they did, Yoo Sung-jun swept over everyone's armaments.
There’s no one with an Omega Suit yet. Most of them are in Force Suits or Absorb Armors. Well, that makes sense. You tough it out while upgrading your gear build toward those, then switch straight over to an Omega Suit.
Their equipment was pretty good.
Compared with what Yoo Sung-jun had purchased, it didn’t fall short in the slightest.
No wonder they were sitting on 200,000 cumulative points.
Of course, that applied only to the party leaders.
The gear worn by the members beneath them was around the level of Yoo Sung-hwan and Jeyca.
"Good timing. Rotem. Take this first."
The instant Edgar spoke, a hologram appeared before Yoo Sung-jun.
It’s a joint mission request. Accept?
Right. Mission sharing applies.
A joint mission was structured so that if just one person completed the objective, everyone cleared it.
Having received the acceptance message, Edgar pointed at the other two.
"You two party members should accept as well."
Yoo Sung-hwan and Jeyca, who had been quietly waiting, also received the joint request.
With that, the objective was shared.
"Good. That means we're all on the same boat now. Can I move on to the operation explanation?"
"Please do."
He kept his words short on purpose.
There was no point in dragging it out and getting in the way of the briefing.
He had never taken part in a joint mission before, but he knew that much.
"Our sniper went in as the advance team and figured out the pattern. Queen Spoil. She goes out hunting at fixed times."
"Usually around evening to night, right?"
"Oh? Rotem, you know about Queen Spoil?"
"I’ve fought her before."
"So you're a top-ranked Another Earth player. Then we'll understand each other just fine."
Edgar unfolded a map.
It was a surprisingly detailed terrain map.
He tapped the shoulder of the comrade sitting beside him.
"This is the terrain map of the pit that the map builder helped us obtain. He worked hard for it."
The sniper who had come as the advance team.
He was a gloomy-looking man.
What a sight, with half his face hidden behind long hair.
Yoo Sung-jun wondered just how good his skills were.
Though he still won’t be better than my brother.
His shoulders lifted of their own accord.
He glanced at Sung-hwan, and their eyes met.
He gave a faint smile and listened to Edgar’s explanation.
"We're planning to split into three teams. Queen Spoil isn't the sort to lay her eggs in just one place."
South, northeast, and finally northwest.
Edgar placed stones at the edges of the pit.
"The number of holes in the pit is proportional to the number of spoil worms. Rotem, you know that, right?"
"Of course."
"The places with the lowest density of holes are these three. We'll start here and look for the Death Spoil eggs laid by Queen Spoil. The first one to find them scans it with this and we're done."
Edgar pulled a scanner from his chest.
It looked like a barcode scanner.
"So in the end, the roles are divided up, but it still doesn't go beyond party play."
"That's about right. Now then, does anyone have objections to my plan?"
Edgar wore a satisfied smile.
He clearly thought the operation he had devised was perfect.
Waiting for a rank-six Infector to be absent—Queen Spoil—was, in its own way, a solid choice.
But he knew one thing and didn’t know another.
"Do you know what role the commander-class among Queen Spoil's spoil worm swarm serves?"
"Is that a quiz all of a sudden?"
"I'm asking."
"If so... command and amplification, I guess? The pheromones they release maximize the spoil worms' abilities, don't they?"
"That's the information that’s out in the open."
Yoo Sung-jun knew the hidden information.
Without his nature as an analyst, it was information he would never have dreamed of knowing.
"While spraying the pheromones you mentioned, they also disperse a liquid into the air when an intruder appears. It's colorless and odorless. Hard to detect. Why? Because of the disruptive substance derived from the stench."
"Oh? That's new to me."
"There are only a handful of people who know it."
In fact, one could count them on one hand.
Only Meteor, the one with the analyst nature.
It was information that could never be known by anyone with the same nature unless they had a synchronization rate of 99.8 percent.
"To continue, that undetectable liquid drifts through the air and evaporates the moment it touches a material. It transmits information to the queen in detail."
"Meaning..."
"If you’d gone with your original plan, someone would have had to be sacrificed in a timed attack."
Queen Spoil had excellent hearing. That was why, when battle broke out in her nest, she returned.
That was how most people would have understood it.
But the real reason was the liquid emitted by the commander-class.
"Huh... well, since this is reality, I can't exactly refuse to believe it. Rotem. Is there room to improve this plan?"
"There is. And the main force behind the revised plan is him."
Yoo Sung-jun pointed at his younger brother.
"Huh? Me?"
Sung-hwan looked bewildered, as if he had never dreamed of being singled out.
Seeing that, Yoo Sung-jun smiled.
"All you have to do is pull the commander-class out. Then I’ll have him clean up with a snipe. We go in after that. How about it?"
"Wait. Hold on. The distance from one end of the pit to the other is about 800 meters. If a commander-class shows up at the far edge, sniping will be difficult. Nine times out of ten, you won't be able to kill it with the first shot."
Edgar’s voice had turned urgent.
He seemed worried about the uncertainty of long-range sniping.
And rightly so.
If the target wasn’t killed in a single shot, the spoil worm swarm would pour out like a nest of wasps.
But the thing was, Yoo Sung-jun was certain.
He was certain his brother could do it.
He had already proven his shooting skills while carrying out missions together.
"I'm saying this because my teammate can do it. Let's decide quickly. Night will be here soon, and time is already passing."
Edgar, and Hinawa, who had been listening quietly, both swallowed hard.
A revised operation. Would it really bring the stability they needed?
The same thought rose in both their minds.
We need proof.
Rotem, a man who knew information no one else did.
Even so, this was their first time meeting. They couldn't trust him blindly. If he was wrong even once, the difficulty of the operation would skyrocket.
Edgar tapped his forearm with his finger.
He didn’t think long.
"All right. Since you're so confident you'll hit the target every time, I guess we need proof."
"Yeah. You may know him well, but we don't. I don't think we can hand the core of the operation over to one person when we don't know his nature or anything else."
"So you need certainty."
"Can you do it? We'll prepare something simple on our end."
"What do you think?"
At his brother's question, Yoo Sung-hwan swallowed a dry lump of saliva.
Nine pairs of eyes were on him.
Those gazes were mixed with strange expectation and distrust.
He could say, sorry, I'm not that much of a guaranteed hit.
His brother wouldn't get angry or disappointed if he refused.
But Yoo Sung-hwan knew this slight pressure came from the heightened attention, and his body, strengthened to level one, quickly brought his emotions under control.
His thoughts settled.
Yoo Sung-hwan’s clear, shining gaze turned outward.
Just as his brother had looked after him all this time, now he would look after his brother.
"Should I just go outside and do it?"
Yoo Sung-hwan stood up with his gun in hand.
***
At a distance from the pit and the marsh, there stood an abandoned city.
They decided to carry out a simple test there.
"I really don't get it. Where's the confidence coming from? Even for us, who’ve spent years sniping, hitting an 800-meter shot on the first round is impossible."
Rufer, the sniper from Edgar’s party, said while looking at Hasato, the sniper from Hinawa’s party.
He ran a hand through the hair that covered half his face, looking thoroughly displeased.
"The younger you are, the easier it is to act cocky. Wind direction, humidity, the size of the Infector, movement speed. On top of that, sniping has a dozen other variables you have to consider."
Hasato’s mutter drew Rufer’s agreement.
"Exactly. If it were a stationary target, fine. But this is a spoil worm. It's an Infector that doesn’t stop moving in the first place. Do you really think he can do it?"
"I can't. Even if his nature supports him, if the person himself lacks talent, it's impossible."
"I think so too. Reaction speed is one thing, but if your instant calculation is off, you won't even be able to pull the trigger."
Both men shook their heads.
Whatever the nature, this shot was a hard sell.
No matter how varied the natures in the world were, long-range sniping was the product of talent.
They simply took it as some hotheaded act by a kid.
They believed it was impossible, no matter what.
With mocking smiles, they watched Yoo Sung-hwan through their binoculars and laughed at every move he made.
"Clumsy. His stance is unnatural."
"He doesn't look like someone who has done much sniping. At this rate, he'll probably get smacked in the chin by the recoil instead of the bullet's target."
Then came the moment of proof.
"Then let's begin."
The instant Edgar hurled a sheet of iron the size of a pot lid to serve as the target...
Whish!
Thunk!
The iron plate, flying so low it was almost skimming the ground and blurred to the eye, suddenly halted. It spun back, scattering sparks as it flew away.
"...What?"
"Ha! Lucky shot. Did he study ballistics in a half-assed way or something?"
The first shot was dismissed as a fluke.
The second brought disbelief.
By the third, the common response was shock.
"My God..."
"He threw it faster than a spoil worm usually moves... Good grief. Rotem. You were right."
"I told you I was."
With a shrug, Yoo Sung-jun glared at the two snipers who had just been looking down on his brother.
Their expressions were a sight to behold.
They looked as if they had just witnessed something forever beyond their reach.
Feeling a little vindicated, he gave Sung-hwan a thumbs-up.
His brother took his eyes off the scope and gave one back.
That was definitely inside the trajectory, right?
With that test, Yoo Sung-jun had guessed at his brother’s nature.
He hadn’t said it yet, but he was almost certain.
A visual ability different from Appraisal Eye, one that read the path of a moving object one step ahead.
That nature was like wings on the back of a brother who already had a genius talent for shooting—no, like a rocket engine.
"Then now that we've got the direction of the operation, let’s share our abilities and move on to final preparations."
At Yoo Sung-jun’s suggestion, everyone nodded.
Now it was time to move into the operation for real.
---