Hoku lies on an unfamiliar hard surface. There's a Thud! that punches at his core, knocking him to his left.
He opens his eyes to the sight of an ostrich-like creature, dead, lying directly in front of his face. He winces at the sight of it as an uncanny smell creeps into his nose.
'Where the hell am I now?'. The hissing of the sand invades his ears. It wouldn't take long for him to realise that he was now riding in the back of the scavenger's sled.
He could hear the scavengers partying noisily to his left near the front of the sled. As expected, Baldervich is still the loudest of all of them.
The sled seems big, maybe about the size of a limo; it looks like a boat being driven through the sand at surprisingly high speed, if the rapid passing of various parts of the sandy landscape didn't make Hoku nauseous, the dead bird, and other hopefully dead animals sharing his space did.
He wondered how they even managed to track animals down in this endless dune.
Hoku tries to move his arms, but he notices that there are bindings wrapped around his wrists. He tries to pull them apart, but then the whole sled jumps up after running through an uneven part of sandy terrain, throwing him over again, this time to his right as he lay flat on his face on the cold, hard wood.
"System."
[Yes, user Hoku]
"I'm just happy to hear your voice," he whispered, twisting himself up to a better position.
[Please Do Not Fret, The Closest Signal is now 500 Netas Away]
Hoku chuckles to himself.
"You can turn back on the distress signal," he jeered.
[...]
"I guessed as much," he sighed with closed eyes.
[This Was An Incredibly Unforeseen Set Of Circumstances]
[I Assure You That These Criminals Will Be Reported For Compromising G-Angel Technology]
"You know I would've preferred to be told no, than being outright lied to by my own system."
"But I guess you were never really mine to begin with," he mumbled.
[User Hoku, Protecting GAngel-9 Interests Is Second To Your Survival]
[Had I Known That The Distress Signal Was Truly Being Tracked, I Would Have Deactivated It Without Delay]
"I wonder."
Hoku's attention suddenly turns to the scavengers after an outburst of laughter catches him off guard. He fully twisted his body to the right. There was a segment of wood cutting off the back area, letting Hoku hide and peek his eyes over, finally getting a good look at them. Six in total.
They all wore ragged, differing shades of beige desert clothes, aside from the man with the scratchy voice, whom Hoku caught a glimpse of during the scuffle with Guppy, he's wearing a black loincloth with white paint spread across his body in triangular patterns. He's bald and has a pretty creepy expression.
Baldervich, who gets recognised immediately through his distinct voice that dominates the air, is in a zig-zag patterned shirt that's split open down the centre, exposing his greedy gut. He has a dark red quiff pompadour that reaches the heavens and an unkept beard.
"We're eatin' good tonight, boys!" He exclaims.
The scavengers cheer.
Hoku looks over to the left side of the sled.
He sees Guppy facing away from him, working on the same machine from earlier.
Upon closer look, it seems like he has something else in his hand.
Hoku squints.
It's the can of Fanza.
'That little thief!'
He twisted a screwdriver into his machine, occasionally hovering it over the can, mumbling to the device, then repeating the process.
Hoku quickly touches around his pants; he's relieved to find that they apparently weren't evil enough to take his phone, though the ruler he was keeping in the back was probably long gone in the sand.
"HAR HAR HAR!"
Baldervich loud ass voice interrupts any trail of thought.
He shuffles across to the left side of the sled to where Guppy's working on his machine.
"I gotta say, not bad for your first take down boy."
"You really had us worried when you ran off like that, but I guess you really do got the balls to hang with us," he said, patting him on the back
He moves back to the centre and stands up, almost falling over, then quickly finding his footing, holding on to a rail.
Hoku hid a little further down, partially closing his eyes.
"Alright, we'll split the spoils this 6-way!" He announces to all.
"I'm the team leader, so I get the most."
"Kid, you get second dibs."
"Bones, you're third," he says, turning to the scratchy voice guy.
He then turns to the others.
"The rest o' you get scraps."
"Anyone got a problem?"
'Yeah, me,' Hoku thought. 'I don't consent to being split, asshole.'
'Besides, aren't you the dude who was busy making love to the barrier? Why d'you get the biggest portion?'
'What kind of shit is that?'
Hoku briefly looks at Guppy, who seems too preoccupied with his current activity to respond to the injustice, burying his head in his devices.
'Hmph, not like really care about defending some kid's honour, BAKA!'
"Baldervich, who evidently has an allergy to silence, decides to ingeniously answer his own rhetorical question."
"Hey, yus don't get a problem, right Gups?"
Guppy didn't answer.
"Hey! What's with you, boy!" He outburst, scuffing his shirt.
Guppy finally acknowledged the noisy scavenger. "Nothin'," he responded calmly.
Baldervich scoffed, but instead of walking away, he lashed out like a child without attention. He snatched the machine Guppy was working on and started parading it in the air.
"Hey, Stop!" Guppy pleaded. "Don't break it!"
He jumped up to retrieve it, but the back of his shirt was held in place by one of the other scavengers who was sitting to the far left, laughing at the whole thing.
Hoku now had a better look at the device that caused all his misery in the first place. It's like a little rusty grey Game Boy with a compass-like mechanism instead of a screen. It also has a speaker and two antennas at the top.
"Quit Crying, you're gonna make a new one, ain't ya?" Baldervich shouts.
"I-I still need it."
"Yeah, yeah, I ain't gonna break it."
"Don't, seriously, it's the first one that actually works."
"WORKS!?
He burst into laughter like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard.
"Ha! Now that's a good un."
"What about you, huh, ya got any jokes? turning his head to the device, pushing his ear to the speaker"
A brief silence takes over the sled.
"Huh?" He blurts.
Randomly, he started violently shaking the machine.
"Baldervich!" Guppy pleaded.
In response, the noisy scavenger raised a single finger for silence, keeping his ear glued to the rusted speaker.
[Gurp Hi How Can 1 Asist]
"There we go!"
"Go on, tell us a joke."
[Oh Th2s is easy, He, He, Ok How er So this Dragon Meets Up With a ''ah##a-caterpiller]
There's a long pause while the scavengers wait for the rest.
"What else?" One of the other scavengers asks.
[They All Died]
"What?"
[You Should Die Too]
Hoku smiled as he watched the bizarre display from the back of the sled 'You tell 'em' he thought.
Guppy practically flies across the sled to retrieve his machine as all the scavengers stare silently. Even Baldervich remained uncharacteristically quiet.
"Still working out the kinks," he laughs awkwardly.
Hoku ducked down once all the scavengers returned to their individual conversations again.
"Hey, you mentioned compromising G Angel tech before."
"Is that thing some kind of cracked version of... well, you?"
[Based On What Has Been Observed]
[It Is A Vastly Inferior, Primitive Attempt At Emulating GAngel-9 System Functionality]
'How did they even manage that?'
He glanced back up to the front of the sled, eyes shifting to each of the 6 scavengers.
"Let's see, what can I do here?" he muttered to himself.
[Shall I recommend A Course Of Action]
"You can, doesn't mean I'll follow it."
[You Received A New Item For Surviving An Encounter With A Scavenger]
"Wait, really?" he exclaimed, controlling the volume of his voice.
"What is it?"
[Dustblade]
[Rarity: Common
[Description: A Curved Blade Made Of Dunressa Metal. It Can Withstand Extreme Temperatures, Though It Is Brittle And Will Break Under High Levels Of Kinetic Stress.]
"A weapon."
"How big is it? I don't want to alert them."
[That isn't included in its description]
"Okay, it's in my inventory, right?"
[Yes]
"Can you bring up a visual HUD?"
Like magic, a blue holographic screen appears just above the block of wood he was hiding behind. The page was titled Inventory with square boxes below in a grid layout.
A huge grin grew on his face; if he weren't under pressure of discovery, Hoku felt like he could spend hours looking for ways to break the menu.
But a sudden thought killed his happiness.
"System, they can't see this right?"
[Unless you grant access to other GAngel-9 Knights, No One Else Can Interact With Your System]
"Alright," he said then, "is there a dark mode?"
The screen instantly switches to a black interface, littered with white words and icons.
He combs through the two items sitting in his inventory, eyes settling on the unfamiliar item icon. Dustblade looks like an oddly shaped dagger; the blade is squarish and kind of rough in texture.
"Okay. Summon Dustblade directly into my hands. Discreetly."
[Understood]
[Fabricating Artefact]
[60%]
[83%]
[100%]
He felt it drop and immediately closed his hand. Like that, he was grasping at the handle. He peered over his shoulder at the artefact. 'It's smaller than I expected, like a little pocket knife.'
'Perfect.'
Hoku started by positioning the edge towards the rope that tied his wrists together and started sawing away. It cut fairly fast. He retrieved his hands to a more comfortable position, but he wasn't finished yet. His next target was his legs. The wooden segment between him and the scavengers was tall enough to give him decent amounts of breathing room when it came to not being caught, so he carefully pushed his legs towards him and got to cutting. SNAP.
At last, he was free.
He shuffled back a bit from the segment.
"Move the menu right there," he whispered, pointing to the spot he had just moved from.
The menu teleported just in front of the wooden block. He turned his attention to the navigation tabs that sat at the top of the screen:
[Stats] [Inventory] [Missions] [Menu]
Hoku felt like he was back in his room playing some ultra-hard rougelike RPG.
He brought his finger up to the stats tab. Click!.
[Hoku Level 4]
[Strength: 2
Defence: 2
Speed: 3
Hex Power: 0
+ -
Unclaimed stat points: 1]
"Hex?"
"The barrier from before had something to do with that, right? What is it exactly?"
[Hex Is A Powerful Energy That Can Enhance, Manipulate And Create Natural Phenomena]
"Doesn't creating natural phenomena defeat the whole natural part?" He commented
"Either way, I guess it's like the magic system of this world."
Hoku stared intently through the partly transparent menu screen.
"System, what are the levels of the scavengers?"
[They Are Not System Users: They Do Not Have Levels]
[However, I Can Gather Data To Roughly Estimate Their Stats]
"Data, huh? Ok, what about Guppy? You should have more than enough data," he sulked.
[Guppy Strength: 3 Defence: 3 Speed: No data]
"Probably pretty skewed, but in the end, it's basically just regular dude vs a bunch've expert survivalists."
"Okay, I have an idea, it's pretty reckless though."
"First, I'll put the unclaimed point in speed."
"My biggest obstacle will be getting past this bird," he said, referring to the corpse behind him.
"Once I do, while they're distracted, I'll jump out the back and lie low in the sand."
"I doubt this sled can be easily turned, so even if they spot me, the plan won't necessarily fail."
"Then once they get far enough, I'll run towards the direction of the signa-"
"Who's planning on running?"
A menacing shadow loomed over him.
Hoku's eyes widened at the sudden voice.
"Baaaldervichhh, our little princess has woken up."