HMMWV H1 Military Modified Type
Type: Vehicle
Quality: F (Purple)
Level: Lv1
Skill 1: Charge of the Dawn: Utilizes the pure steel front bumper for ramming, dealing up to 1500 points of Blunt damage to a single target. If impacting multiple targets, damage is divided equally among them.
Skill 2: Apocalypse Fortress: The vehicle body has undergone ballistic reinforcement and thickening, capable of withstanding damage from cold or hot weapons below 250 points.
Description: The military version of a renowned off-road vehicle, privately modified by Minami Rika. It boasts significantly enhanced power and defense compared to the standard model and has gained amphibious capabilities.
Despite both sharing the same F(Purple) quality rating, this HMMWV H1 Military Modified Type clearly had a different focus compared to the earlier Avenger 100 Amphibious All-Terrain Vehicle.
The Avenger 100 was smaller and lighter, emphasizing maximum agility and adaptability to complex terrain, sacrificing some speed and all defensive capabilities in the process.
The HMMWV H1 Military Modified Type, however, represented the opposite extreme. Its powerful engine and armored body transformed it into a veritable steel fortress. This came at the cost of some acceleration and off-road performance, but maximized the safety of its occupants.
One could only say both vehicles had their strengths. Fortunately, Natsuo didn't need to choose between them. Faced with two such specialized vehicles, each with distinct advantages and disadvantages, picking one would inevitably leave him yearning for the other.
Natsuo had just stored the HMMWV H1 Military Modified Type in his digital inventory space when a sudden, violent burst of gunfire erupted nearby.
Gunfire?
Was it illusion players? Or just NPCs from the world's storyline?
Natsuo sprinted back into the room, snatched up the USS Micro Recon Drone (now charged to 90%), flung open the window, and launched it skyward again.
The gunfire in the distance intensified, punctuated occasionally by what sounded like grenade explosions. His curiosity about the combatants grew by the second.
Fortunately, the drone was fast. Within moments, the battlefield feed appeared on his visual projection screen.
At a crossroads intersection two blocks away, roughly twenty individuals who were clearly illusion players were locked in combat with a massive white wolf.
A bearded man clad in ornate red samurai armor stood firm against the beast, wielding a spear and shield. His solid defense and perfectly timed interruptions stubbornly hampered the white wolf's attacks.
Flanking him, several players armed with various melee weapons constantly harassed the wolf with feints and strikes, creating openings for the others wielding assault rifles. Occasionally, they'd seize an opening to land a solid blow on the wolf's flanks or back.
The most striking figure among them was a tall girl wearing Fujimi Academy's distinctive white and green short skirt. Her deep purple hair whipped through sprays of blood and blade flashes. Her movements flowed like water, each strike possessing a deadly, lethal grace. Though she didn't strike frequently, nearly every slash carved deep, bone-exposing wounds into the wolf's thick hide.
The white wolf, wounded in multiple places, knew its situation was dire. Every time it tried to turn and break free, inexplicable green vines, thick as fingers, sprouted from the ground to trip it. Each stumble plunged it back into the relentless onslaught of the group.
While the wolf's fur provided strong defense, it wasn't the impenetrable armor of a tank-like creature specializing in pure offense and defense. Its true advantage lay in the high agility and mobility of a predator. With that advantage neutralized, its position became increasingly precarious.
"That white wolf... could it be the bossified version of Saeko Busujima?"
Natsuo thought the scenario's taste was rather heavy. First, the otaku Hirano Kota bossified into a black multi-barreled slime creature, and now the adorable little girl Shizuka Marikawa turned into a giant dog? Even a beast-girl with ears would have been more acceptable...
More importantly, why was Mitsurugi Kyouko's team here? Were they just passing through, or had they somehow discovered the exact location of Minami Rika's safe house?
The reason, however, became irrelevant to Natsuo.
He'd been racking his brain on how to raise the favorability of Mitsurugi Kyouko and Takagi Saya. Now that one of them had practically delivered herself to his doorstep, it would be downright rude not to give this Japanese team a proper "welcome" for their enthusiasm.
Grabbing the top rail of the perimeter wall, Natsuo vaulted over, landed, and broke into a full sprint towards the battlefield where the Japanese players fought the white wolf.
"What's this?"
The drone's altitude and angle had obscured it before, but now he saw it clearly. All four approaches to the crossroads had been blocked off by rows of simple metal fence panels. Thousands of zombies drawn by the noise were effectively trapped outside this makeshift barrier.
Without this setup, the white wolf would never have been reduced to its current, pitiful state of being slowly ground down.
Natsuo felt a flicker of surprise. These Japanese players know this kind of trick?
Within the illusions, any item could be stored using points for authentication. Yet, most players focused solely on attribute-bearing gear and items, overlooking the potential of common, unremarkable objects.
But in reality, such mundane items could often achieve effects comparable to high-level gear or skills. Like these simple metal fence panels. Costing mere thousands of authentication points, they effortlessly held back thousands of zombies. Achieving the same with a defensive skill would likely require something ranked C or higher.
Of course, such tactics required one crucial thing: a large team with the spare points to mass-authenticate such junk, knowing they might not recover it after use. For individual players or small squads, saving points for direct equipment and skill upgrades was far more practical.
Natsuo had been pondering how to sabotage these Japanese players trying to steal his kill without exposing himself. Seeing the four walls of fencing sparked a deviously perfect idea.
Why do it myself? I'm just here... passing by.
Fueled by a touch of malicious glee, Natsuo retrieved the Tank Mutagen Virus Alpha from his inventory. Spotting a lone male zombie nearby, he grabbed it by the neck and injected the entire vial using the attached needleless injector.
The moment the green liquid vanished, the conscripted zombie underwent a grotesque transformation. It ballooned in size and muscle mass with impossible speed, morphing from a skinny otaku into a hulking mass of muscle in mere seconds.
ROOOAAAR--!