zaifyrRR
patreon
Chapter 45: Conscription
🕑 Added 2022-11-08 01:19:29 +0000 UTCSevs stumbled again. As he walked, his balances adjusted. It was almost like being on a boat and getting his sea legs. The more steps he took, the more comfortable he became. He tried a few martial arts moves, but they didn’t come easy. Taking a minute, he spent some time getting used to the fact that Sevs could walk almost normally again. Still, with a slightly unsteady gait, he began examining the room. He found nothing but smooth walls, floor, and ceiling. The corners between the cap of the hall being him and the walls were sharp, with no gap that he could fit a finger in. It appeared to be one piece of material. The ceiling had some light coming from it, but there were no visible fixtures. The top section of the hexagon was glowing enough to make the room easily variable but the shadows cast were weak. It was a little too tall for Sevs to get a closer look, so he had no idea how it worked.
Sevs worked his way up the corridor running his hand over each wall. He found nothing and felt no imperfections on the surface. After touching it for so long, he wasn’t sure it was metal. At least it didn’t really feel like one. It was a neutral temperature to the touch but not the same way that metal was cold. It also didn’t transfer heat the same. After resting his hand on one spot for over thirty seconds, the temperature hadn’t changed at all. So maybe instead of metal, it was some fancy polymer. That would explain the seamless construction if the thing was 3D printed. Though to make that, it would have to be some pretty advanced tech, maybe provided by the system.
Right now, there was no real easy way to tell. Sevs didn’t know how involved the system was in this world. It varied. Sometimes it was just the status screen and prompts. Other worlds had shops run by the system where you could buy anything pre-constructed by the system. This hallway seemed like it could very well be a system construction, but with a name like Tera 2.0 1202153, that would be too quick of a judgment.
After some time, Sevs made it to the other end of the corridor. He hadn’t found anything of interest yet and didn’t have much hope of doing so. So far, the only thing his exploration accomplished was to help steady him on his feet. But when he touched the visible line running across the middle of the door, the line split apart. The bottom half went into the floor and the top into the ceiling. Sevs looked at it and saw no indication of where the door had gone. He bent down to run his thumbnail across the place where the door had met the floor, and there was no seem he could feel.
When Sevs looked up, he saw a portly man sitting behind the desk, smirking at him. “You’re not going to find anything. I heard the tolerances are measured in nanometers.”
Sevs straightened up and took the man in. He was wearing a navy blue military uniform. It had some rank insignia that Sevs wasn’t familiar with. Suddenly, the system message about conscription made a lot more sense. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Sevs approached the desk.
“How was the tutorial? You look a bit old. Normally, don’t see someone looking a day over 12 coming from those anymore. You must be fifteen!” The man said conversationally.
“Life changing. Never had one like it. Stuck around for an extra couple years just cause.” Sevs left out that he was getting skill levels. “So what's the deal here?”
“Ah chill. Never had a tutorial that made me want to stick around, but to each their own.” The man shrugged as if he thought Sevs was crazy but didn’t really care enough to care. “So you got a bit of a raw deal. We all did. The world you dropped into is a war world. As in it is all war. There is pretty much nothing else here. In fact, there really isn’t even a world. Humanity has been reduced to space nomads hunted throughout the galaxy. Don’t ask me about it. It happened before I got here.”
Sevs winced. That made things hard.
The man continued, “But yeah, there is a bit of space for engineers but not much else. If you don’t have a warrior's build, you're going to have a tough time. Most people try to get out as fast as possible here it's not that hard to reach min deaths.”
It must really be crappy here. There were only three ways to leave the main world. First, by winning. If you can activate the synchronously and ascend. Second, you can get the not suited for ascension and leave, as there is no point playing past that. Or third, you can die a certain number of times and then choose to leave. That was the min death. It varied by the world, but a hundred was pretty standard.
“If you want to re-roll the airlock that way.” That man indicated to his left; Sevs shook his head. The man sagged in relief. He seemed to brighten noticeably.
“I have to ask, how many people take that option?”
“More than I would like. Maybe one in two. It's pretty bad out there but dying in space that much is not worth it in my opinion. Besides, this place has really grown on me. Been here almost forty years. One of the longest.” He stood to shake Sevs hand. “AY5465, Names Alex.”
“X77, Sevs,” Sevs replied as he took Alex’s hand.
“Ah, royalty, nice to meet you, Sevs!” Alex stood a little straighter. “So orientation. Since we are on a spaceship, everything costs money, even the air we breathe. So no freeloaders. Newcomers need to spend a tour on the front lines before anything. After that, your options open up. But for the next couple of years, you pretty much are going to be limited to military enlisted ranks.”
