Alpha Agent 2: A Cyberpunk LitRPG | Weak to Strong Progression Fantasy (A Progression Cyberpunk LitRPG Series), page 17
Dan took a few steps towards the strange rifle Vladimir had wielded against him. His HUD got to work scanning the weapon and within a few seconds, his eyes were fed its info.
Name: CM “Deathsheer” Nailgun
Manufacturer: Cresh Manufacturing (Kodak-Cresh Subsidiary)
26-round magazine
“Aftershock” armor-piercing bolts
Extremely effective against all agents, including energy shields
Description: An archaic assault rifle reserved for higher-ranked Kodak agents. Extreme stopping power and penetration exceeds conventional ballistics and will stop any agent in their tracks, even with energy shields. The ideal choice for Kodak agents for killing high-tier rival agents.
Dan crouched down and grabbed the rifle off the ground. He wasn’t ready for the heft of the weapon. The rifle was bulky in its dimensions. The length and thickness of the gun made it feel more like a light machine gun with a magazine size in the hundreds.
Similar to the ZK-77, the Deathsheer had dual bayonets sticking out the front and extending past the barrel. The pristine blades sported serrated edges, both larger and longer than the blades on the seventy-seven. Dan had no doubt which blades would be the deadlier between the two rifles.
The most striking feature of the oversized rifle was the weight. His HUD spat out the Deathsheer’s stat.
Deathsheer weight: 14.6 kilograms.
The magazine of the Deathsheer was positioned in front of the trigger guard. It was a box magazine similar to a light machine gun. He wondered why such a huge magazine for only twenty-six rounds. Then he remembered the giant projectile he had just ripped out of his shoulder.
He separated the magazine from the rifle and was shocked at the weight of the nails themselves. No wonder the rifle was so heavy.
Dan looked into the magazine and saw the “aftershock” armor-piercing bolts lined up inside the box. He winced at the thought of how fatal such projectiles would be had he not been wearing his armor. Even then, his armor proved not enough to completely stop the bolt from penetrating and shattering bones in his shoulder. His HUD spat out another message.
You have fought and survived a battle against a higher-ranked agent!
Bonus experience rewarded.
Congratulations!
You have reached Tier 1 | Level 18.
You have earned 5 stat points. You have a total of 10 stat points to spend.
While it felt good to see such messages highlight his accomplishments, Dan didn’t feel too hot. The use of the berserk mode to power through the pain of taking a bolt to the shoulder had taken a lot out of him. He was breathing heavily and the extreme pain and aches throughout his body were only beginning to wane thanks to the healing stim.
He tested out his left arm by doing basic stretches and flexes. While it was a miracle his arm was back in working condition, he wasn’t at a hundred percent.
Dan dropped the Deathsheer, walked back to the staircase and scooped up his Aero SMG off the floor. While he was curious about the strange Kodak rifle and was tempted to take it with him, he couldn’t afford to carry the extra weight. He needed to keep his loadout lean for the sake of the mission.
Dan ran down the hall, ready to take on more challenges Kodak would throw his way.
Chapter 25
Li
The route in his HUD led Li to a door that differed in appearance compared to the rest of the hotel rooms. Instead of the wooden finish on the suite doors, this door was entirely metal. Li could have called Tim to request access to it, but Li settled on a much simpler solution.
Li closed his fist and pounded on the door several times. He quickly crawled up the wall beside the door and waited. After a few seconds, the door opened and a man in business casual attire stepped out and looked both ways. Li saw the man was unarmed and hesitated. Li’s entire loadout was optimized for killing, and this was an unarmed man who was simply doing a job. But he was also an obstacle to his mission.
Dropping down, Li swiped out the man’s legs and then rolled into the room. The place was dimly lit and dominated by control panels and large monitors. He watched with a satisfied smile as he spotted one of the large displays viewing the camera feeds of the VIP floors. The footage was either static or simply frozen.
“God,” Li heard behind him. “What the hell was that?”
Li quickly walked back to the entrance and grabbed the man by the shirt collar. He pushed the man against the wall and slammed the door shut. He covered the man’s mouth with his palm.
“I need you to answer a few questions,” Li ordered. “Refuse to cooperate, you will suffer the same fate as the Kodak agents I’ve encountered so far. Are we clear?”
The man frantically nodded.
“Good. Tell me what this room is. I’d like to confirm my destination,” Li said.
Releasing his palm over the man’s mouth, the man took a few deep breaths before answering. “This is the security room. One of two in this hotel.”
“And I assume your job is to monitor the security camera feeds for the VIP floors?”
“Y-yes.”
“Okay then. Next question, you guys have a particular room where the Kodak agents hold collected or stolen items from their battles. Do you know where it is?”
The man’s reaction told Li everything. His eyes widened and he swallowed. The fear of what would happen if someone outside of Kodak learned of such a room overwhelmed him.
“If you know and are withholding this info out of fear for your employer, imagine this,” Li said. “I am an agent as well. I may not be from Kodak-Cresh, but I am no stranger to brutal torture. Whatever punishment your superiors have ready for you, I can easily match it.”
Li was bluffing. He wasn’t nearly as sadistic as the typical Kodak agent, but the man didn’t need to know that. Agents, regardless of their shard, all looked the same to the average citizen.
He watched as the man weighed the options. After a few more seconds pass, the man glanced over to another door beside them. “That will take you directly to the room you asked about. I'm not allowed through there without an agent escorting me. Everything they put into that room is strictly off limits to anyone who isn’t an agent.”
“Are there any guards within the room?” Li asked.
The man hesitated, but was quickly convinced by Li squeezing his neck. “There’s two agents on duty. That’s all I know. Please let me go. I won’t say anything.”
“One more thing. Do I need anything to access that door?”
“No, it’s unlocked. The fear of repercussions is enough that no lock pad is necessary,” the man said. “I heard one story a few weeks ago that a hotel worker was shot in the head in front of everyone for sneaking into that room and getting caught stealing something.”
“Interesting,” Li said.
“Will you let me go now?”
Li looked at the man with cold eyes and said, “You’re right. You won’t say anything. Because I’m putting you to sleep.”
He wrapped his arm around the man’s neck tightly. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a basic chokehold. The man didn’t resist much and eventually his body went limp. Li gently dropped the unconscious man on the floor and then looked at the door the man had pointed him to.
Before opening the door, Li walked up to the camera feeds to see if he could find any cameras viewing the inside of the room where the container was. Li spotted one of the monitors that showed the feed overlooking two agents walking around in a dimly lit room.
His HUD immediately highlighted the casket in the middle and confirmed the objective.
Container located. Marking a new waypoint.
The only thing that stood between him and the objective were those two Kodak agents. After he took both of them out, he would need to contact Angie to help him carry the container to the roof.
Li turned on his heel and walked towards the door that led to the room. Opening the door, Li looked down a narrow hallway that was about as tall and wide as the doorframe itself. Exercising caution, Li kept his silenced pistol ready and slowly walked through the narrow hallway. At the end, the corridor made a sharp ninety-degree bend to the left, which led straight down to another door.
Reaching the end of the hall, Li stood for a few seconds then slowly turned the knob of the door and opened it. He leaned through the opened door and tried to get a good look of the room. Li spotted the two Kodak agents walking around, seemingly in circles. Considering there wasn’t much ground to cover, he guessed that they were trying to make themselves look busy.
Li entered then quietly shut the door behind him and crouched low, making sure to keep his head below the numerous crates around the dark room.
Li spotted the security room near where he had entered. It had a space on top he could hide in. It was the perfect opportunity to gain the high ground and allow him to view the entire area without any obstacles obstructing him.
As Li slowly made his way through the cramped space, he occasionally poked his head above the crates to keep an eye on the two Kodak agents. He spotted a larger door across from the two agents, presumably where Kodak would haul in all the miscellaneous items and stolen goods.
Li reached the outer wall of the security room and glanced back at the Kodak agents one last time. Luckily, one agent had his back turned and the other was walking in the other direction. Li put his modified gloves to use and climbed the wall, reaching the narrow space in between the ceiling of the storage room and the top of the security room.
Performing a brief scan of both his targets, he ran into another problem.
One of the agents was just another tier one, albeit a tier one who was level twenty-four, borderline to the next tier in ranking. He had to assume that the agent was at least somewhat more competent compared to the tier ones he had killed so far. The second agent that came back from his walk became Li’s primary concern.
Agent: Andrew Geforce
Age: 26 M
Shard: Kodak-Cresh
Rank: Tier 2 | Level 29
Strength: 42
Agility: 30
Endurance: 31
Intelligence: 28
Healing Factor: n/a
This was the fourth tier two Kodak agent he had encountered on this mission, other than the asshole from the bathroom and the two Dan held a grudge against. Actually, Li hadn’t encounter many tier two Kodak agents in his career so far. And when he had, he’s been strongly advised to avoid agents of that rank at all costs. In a typical fight, no tier one was expected to survive, let alone win an encounter with a tier two agent of any shard.
Li was far outmatched in all physical stats. The agent guarding the container was simply stronger, faster and would have better reaction times than him.
It also didn’t help that Li’s left arm still wasn’t fully healed after his fight with the previous tier two Kodak agent, a fight Li barely won.
With these two agents guarding the container together, Li could not afford to make any mistakes. Even if he killed one, it would alert the other agent and the fight would become a toss-up of who the victor would be.
If Li had no backup, he had to determine what strategy could work to take these two out on his own. Li laid flat on his stomach watching, running through multiple scenarios in his mind. One particular strategy he had in mind was to use a concussion grenade to stun both agents. Li would then leave his hiding spot and rush in to gun down both of them, switching to his Aero’s shredder rounds to get the job done. But like every other scenario that he played through in his mind, that tier two agent was the wild card that made Li uncertain.
Kodak agents in general were more resilient to damage compared to the two other major shards’ agents. He questioned if his concussion grenade would even be effective at disorientating that tier two agent. He recalled a story a former squad leader told him back when he was a Hellhound about a high-level Kodak agent surviving two point-blank explosions from frag grenades without a helmet. The Kodak agent continued fighting even with shrapnel in his face before finally falling to overwhelming gunfire.
None of the scenarios Li ran in his mind were without significant risk. The question of how to deal with that tier two agent had him stumped. Li thought back to the training exercise Michael Cynosa had him and his team complete with their escape on the runaway train. After more thinking, he decided the tactics he’d learned from that exercise wouldn’t be applicable in this situation. Li had no space to work with. This was a cramped storage room filled with crates and other piles of stolen goods without much flat ground for Li to make fast movements. It also wasn’t ideal for luring either of the Kodak agents far enough in one particular direction. The lack of space simply killed any hopes of misdirecting his enemy.
It also didn’t help that neither Dan nor Angie were here with him. He was all alone against physically stronger and numerically superior enemies. This wasn’t about being a coward. Li was outmatched. If he got himself killed now, he would further compromise the mission on top of Dan being out of commission.
Li received a sudden notification on his HUD of an incoming call. It came from the last person he expected.
“Hey, it’s Dan. Are you still there, Li?”
“Affirmative. You picked a hell of a time to wake up from your nap,” Li said sternly. Deep down, he was thankful to hear Dan’s voice. The mission could still be salvaged. Dan could make his way to his position and they could deal with these Kodak agents together as a cohesive unit.
“Sorry about that. I’m fully recovered. My HUD has already given me a waypoint to your location,” Dan said.
“Good. I cleared a path by killing some obstacles in the way so you should encounter little if any resistance. I’m in the storage room where Kodak has the container. I got two guards in my position and I need some backup to take them out.”
“Nice work, Li. You’re the greatest.”
“Enough about me. What the hell happened to you?”
“I got a lot to explain,” Dan said. “I think it’s best that I show you what’s been cooking up on my end.”
Chapter 26
Dan
Dan walked up the final flight of stairs and emerged onto Li’s floor. The path of yellow chevrons on the ground led him down the hall to a door right at the end. He slowed down, constantly checking his surroundings. He could imagine a scenario where someone could open one of the hotel room doors and see him. He wouldn’t put it past a Kodak agent to be that devious and ambush him in such a manner.
“Li, you still alive?”
“What kind of question is that?” Li said. “I’m not the sort to take unnecessary risks. I have an enemy tier two in my position. I don’t have any death wishes.”
“Well, I’ll try to make this quick,” Dan said. He thought about how to explain his new powers to Li and that he could easily take care of both Kodak agents at once. “I hope I don’t sound like a lunatic, but something crazy happened during my nap.”
“Didn’t you say that you fully recovered?”
“I did, but when I woke up, I unlocked some strange new powers. I woke up to two dead agents in my room and I had no idea how they died.”
“That was the hotel room I unlocked with the keycard. I tried to put you there so that you can recover safely. I guess it wasn’t safe enough,” Li said.
“It’s all good. I’m still here, aren’t I?” The next part would be interesting to explain. From the short time Dan had known Li, the guy had shown himself to be a pragmatic agent who was always forward thinking, always pushing for a path to complete the mission. “Turns out, I killed those two in my sleep.”
Li didn’t respond for a few seconds, then finally said, “Run that by me one more time?”
“I woke up and my HUD notified me of two new abilities I just unlocked. I had another two Kodak agents investigate what the hell had happened to their two other buddies. I took care of them both, easily. I have something called a berserk and a glare ability.”
The few seconds of silence on the other made Dan curious about what Li thought about this new info. Dan reached the metal door where the yellow chevrons on the ground ended. “I’m at a metal door. Is this the room?”
“Yeah, it’s actually a security room. You’ll have to go through a small hallway to the left to get to the actual storage room. You’ll see the two guards guarding the container, and I’m up here on top of security watching them. Everything’s unlocked.”
“Got it,” Dan said. He lifted the handle of the door. True to Li’s word, it opened without trouble. Dan entered the dimly lit room and saw a collection of computer monitors and the rest of the workstation setup at the other side of the room.
He walked past an unconscious man who was sprawled out on the floor. He assumed it was a regular worker who monitored the security camera footage.
“I’ve heard of the berserk power,” Li said. “It’s exclusive to Kodak agents. Their higher-level agents gain the ability to significantly increase all of their physical stats in bursts at the cost of extreme strain on their bodies. Basically a controlled adrenaline rush. Fun fact, regular people can tap into their adrenaline whenever a dire situation calls for it. Ever heard of a mother lifting a car to save her kid who had been pinned underneath?”
“Yeah,” Dan said. He opened the door on the left and walked down the narrow hallway.
“As for the glare ability, I’ve never heard of it,” Li said. “But these new powers you have supposedly unlocked, I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“Challenge accepted,” Dan said.
“When you enter the storage room, be careful or you’ll get spotted the moment you set foot inside,” Li warned.
Dan bent his knees and slowed his approach towards the door at the end of the narrow space. Dan already had a plan on how to take the two guards out in quick succession.
He reached the door. “Li, tell me when the time is right to enter. I don’t want these guys looking in my direction while I’m opening the door.”
