Chapter 402 - Apache
Chapter 402: Apache
“Oi, how much longer is the quarantine?”
“Hey, you have no one playing any cards, one for 100 credits.”
“You’ve brought something to eat? I’ll buy it at a high price.”
After Feng Luo contacted Haruko, he went back out of the tent. With increasing number of players coming online, the surrounding quickly became bustling with activity.
“We arrived at the army last night at 11PM, calculating according to the time, we’d have to wait till after 11AM for the quarantine to be able to end.”
“It’s already been more than an hour since sunrise, many casual players who have yet to make sense of the situation probably would have been eaten by zombies the moment they came online. The more the delay, the more the population will decrease.” Worry and anxiousness appeared on Alarm’s face.
Relying only on the people of Veterans Tribe, there was definitely no guarantee in going up against the Roaring Dragon Mercenary Group and the zombies. They wanted to borrow the strength of the casual players who did not come online the day before to launch a counterattack. By being quarantined here, they could do nothing.
“Hm, what’s going on over there?”
Just then, the initially jumbled up noises suddenly became louder.
“What’s going on?”
“Looks like there’s an NPC coming over!”
Everyone looked up and discovered that a Federal NPC soldier with a Sergeant military rank on his chest had walked over to this region where their tents were.
“Hey, Sir. Could you help me and let me out in advance?”
“Sir, we’re all not infected, the T-Virus infection takes effect in three hours at most, if there was a problem, it wouldn’t have waited till now.”
“Hey, so are you letting me out or not?”
…
Noisy chattering sounded from the players.
Many were addressed as “Sir”– these people had all exchanged points for military ranks. In the game, players could use Medal Points to exchange for military ranks. From this period of time to the start of the War plot, resulting in a higher speed of earning Medal Points than before.
There were players who already got the Corporal rank, but most of them were currently still at the Private rank, and so had to address such Sergeant NPCs as “Sir.”
Of course, there were those who did not exchange for military ranks at all – they would address them however they liked.
However, this Sergeant NPC was not concerned about them and ignored all the military ranked players using all sorts of ways to get close to him, walking straight up to Feng Luo’s tent.
“Excuse me, may I ask if you’re Staff Sergeant Feng? I was ordered to fetch you out of here.” Said the NPC Sergeant, suddenly saluting Feng Luo.
There was silence, a sudden silence in the surrounding before a loud eruption of noise and questions.
“What the f*ck, Staff Sergeant?”
“No way, we have such a rad player here whose rank has already reached Staff Sergeant?”
The attention was more intense than before when they saw Dan Hen take out a pile of prizes.
Most of the Veterans Tribe players, including Dan Hen and his group, had all exchanged for military ranks. Up to now, the highest rank was Private, still a huge gap from Sergeant.
Staff Sergeant was even more out of reach, as the Merit needed for Staff Sergeant was two times that of Sergeant.
“Staff Sergeant?” Feng Luo was shocked as well before regaining his senses. This could have been Haruko’s help, making up a fake title.
“Yes, I am.” He said, playing along.
He did not say that he was really a Staff Sergeant, if he had really said it out, it would be awkward for him since he did not really have a military rank.
Although he had many Merit Points, they had all been used to exchanged for Agent points. It was not possible that there would be extra points to be used on exchanging for military ranks.
Now that he thought about it, he remembered that the Agent NPC instructors, Haruko and Nightingale, had military ranks – Haruko was a Lieutenant Colonel, now promoted to Colonel.
“Brother Feng, you’re really awesome!” Ultimate Heavy Armor’s eyes were sparkling, he had also exchanged for a military rank, but the rank was still just at Private.
It was really hard for typical players to earn Merit Points as they could only rely on doing missions.
Feng Luo could not explain, and could only shake his head with a wry smile. After seeing the faces of Dan Hen and the others, he suddenly thought of something and raised his head to ask the Federal NPC Sergeant. “Would it trouble you to ask if my friends, who are all uninfected, to be able to leave along with me?”
“Apologies, Staff Sergeant Feng, this case is special this time. Your friends just have to wait till the quarantine time is up, make sure that they have not been infected and they would be able to leave, but now…” Said the NPC Sergeant while shaking his head.
Feng Luo understood what he meant.
“Brother Feng, never mind about us, you go first.” Said Dan Hen.
Although he did not know why Feng Luo was able to leave in advance and whether if it was because of his high military rank, Dan Hen knew that there was no chance to leave in advance and participate in the counterattack against Silvermoon City after hearing what the NPC said.
“Sorry, everyone, I have something on and shall make a move first. I’ll head to Silvermoon City in a while.” Feng Luo said to the bunch of Veterans Tribe players beside him.
In the private channel, Feng Luo softly said something to Dan Hen, making Dan Hen’s eyes sparkle.
He then left with the NPC Sergeant under the doubtful and envious gaze of the surrounding players.
…
“Staff Sergeant Feng, this way please, the higher-ups have arranged for me to fetch you to the destination.”
About three minutes later, Feng Luo saw the transport vehicle arranged for him and heard what the NPC chauffeur said to him, a look of shock appeared on his face.
This transport vehicle was not a military vehicle nor an Energy SUV, but a military helicopter.
In front of Feng Luo was an 18-meter-long, four-meter-tall, military helicopter with fully covered in black and grey heavy metallic armor. It had a short wing on each side, on which each of it had a few small missiles hanging from the weapon mounting points.
More importantly, he was very familiar with the structure of this military helicopter. This was an Apache helicopter, the most mainstream military helicopter that came through from former America.
Feng Luo’s memory of the Apache was very vivid. There was crossfire once on a mission on Earth before when a teammate carried a missile on his shoulder and directly shot down an
Apache military helicopter sold to an Arabic country by America.
That time was of a certain extent came down to luck. One, that Apache was not considered to be the most advanced model, and two, because the pilot was too arrogant then, daring to fly so close to the ground to fire the machine guns. However, in a practical situation, it was not so easy to take down an Apache.
It was considered a heavy-type combat helicopter, the defense of its super-strong armor was able to hold against a short period of firing 23MM cannons, it could be described as a moving tank of the skies.
However, the Apache in War was still a little different in structure from the American one.
Feng Luo could tell that this thing should be fueled by Energy. In terms of weapons, it had more weapons than the Apache on Earth, with a more sci-fi feel to it.
Now that he had been exposed to the Desert Eagle, AK47, and Barrett, Feng Luo did not feel as shocked at the appearance of the Apache.
Before boarding, he turned back to thank the NPC Sergeant who had fetched him once more, then said. “Sergeant Aiken, other than those Adventurer friends of mine, I still have three employees under quarantine. If it is possible, could I please ask you to help me look after them, they are…”
“Alright, no worries, Staff Sergeant Feng, once the quarantine ends and there is no problem discovered, we will fetch them safely to a region of definite safety and inform you.” At this request, the NPC Sergeant agreed very quickly, probably because players treated NPCs differently.
“Thank you.” Feng Luo nodded at him, stepping up to the seat beside the cockpit on the Apache.
“Buzz!”
The close to five-meter long wings of the Apache started to spin at high-speed, sending the grass within a 10-meter radius rolling and flapping madly like waves, before rising into the air with a surge of power.
“Never did I think that I’d actually be able to have a chance to ride on an Apache in the game.” Feng Luo sat in the cockpit, looking down at the scenery getting smaller and smaller, and at the many players with their heads raised and looking up into the sky from the huge region of tents in the quarantine zone.
Every player who travels back and forth between the various cities in the game would have the experience of riding on large-type civilian passenger aircrafts, most players would probably have no chance to have such an experience of riding on a military helicopter.
Feng Luo, sat in the front beside the missile machine gun controls, and reached into his backpack, and took out a crystallized Chip and plugged it into the terminal on his wrist.
The Force Skill-Fusion Chip was able to “level-up” a skill into a Force Skill.
He had previously pondered for very long, and had felt that he was unable to decide, just which skill should be advanced?