The Special Status: A LitRPG Apocalypse Series, page 1
Elirm
The Special Status
Vladimir Gotleib
Lit Orange
Copyright © 2023 Vladimir Gotleib
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Translated by Sanja Gajin
Edited by Teodora Pecarski
Introduced by Lit Orange
Elirm 3
The Special Status
Bearing eternal guard at the origins of life and the world of the living.
After receiving a mysterious mission from the system, Ae and his friends passed the Test of Time, defeated their sworn enemies, and made their way to the capital of the Empire. A place where new adventures, clan wars, dangerous dungeons, and the best Dwarven cars are waiting for our heroes.
The number of enemies is rapidly increasing, but Ae has a powerful ally in his team — Gundahar, the former general of the undead army. A warlord of darkness, who has faced evil, but never lost his humanity.
Chapter 1
Attention!
You have gained authorized access to the following vehicle: Atlas Velnarin (model A-214).
You have obtained a co–pilot’s license.
Duration: 3 hours
You have obtained a master gunsmith’s license.
Duration: 3 hours
You have obtained a Dwarven mechanic license (rank 2).
Duration: 3 hours
...
You are under the effect of [Steel Heart Synergy].
+1,000% to the efficiency of the capacitor and involtational radiation storage
Excessive Voltage (passive) has been temporarily raised to level 3.
Improved Regeneration (passive) has been temporarily raised to level 3.
Lightning Rod (passive) has been temporarily raised to level 3.
Running diagnostics...
As soon as I placed my palm on the five-fingered indentation, a rigid ergonomic chair emerged from beneath me and adjusted to my form, holding my legs and body in place with sturdy, invisible straps. A moment later, a translucent control panel unfolded across the width of the windshield, flashing dozens of unintelligible symbols. I was about to reach for one of them when I suddenly felt a faint electric shock, as if a strict teacher had smacked my naughty hands with a ruler.
“Mr. Ae, please do not touch anything,” Val intervened. “I will take care of it myself. Your job is defense.”
“Understood.”
I didn’t know if my companions saw it as well or not, but at that moment technical messages started to appear right in front of my eyes.
The following abilities have been activated:
· Zimmerite Coating
· Anti–shatter Podbay
· Wheel Protection
· Modified Layout
· Mobility Improvement
· Engine Calibration
· Chassis Enhancement
· Turbocharger...
The alarms continued to sound as Val, still covered in dust and debris, began to vibrate and shake violently like a giant washing machine set to a thousand turns per minute. After Modified Layout was activated, hundreds of hammers, ratchets, circular saws, and hissing soldering irons could be heard from under the hood, returning the mangled body to its original state.
· Additional Gauge
· Camouflage Net
· Cabin Sealing
· Improved Ventilation...
“Get a move on, Optimus Prime!” Moses shouted, looking nervously out the window. “What are you doing?! They are coming down from the overpass! My grandfather would have been faster in his tarantass[1]!”
“If that is the case, your ancestor was an excellent mechanic and driver.”
“Rather, he was an adrenaline junkie with a bit too much vodka in him.”
“One moment, Mr. Moses. I am making some final adjustments...”
At that last sentence, the interior of the car lowered, shrunk, and tightened as if in a muscular spasm, thickening the shell of the vehicle and thus increasing its resilience. As the iron-wrought sculptures began to melt, they formed a thick layer behind and a wedge-shaped plow in front. The kind that would easily give any armored train a run for its money.
“Transition to combat mode complete! Maximum priority is given to passenger survival. Warning! Due to the heightened threat level, you are authorized to access the emergency kits.”
Cylindrical first-aid kits with colorful flasks slipped out of previously unseen niches. I hoped we wouldn’t need to use them. At the same time, I noticed that all of Val’s reports were duplicated by text messages in the lower left corner of my screen.
Herman Velor consumed Stone Defense (combat potion, x1)
Glas Estir consumed Third Hand (alchemical potion, x1)
Moses Dos consumed Monk’s Hood (alchemical potion, x1)
Loco Frieze consumed Berserk 3 (combat potion, x1)
Ilay Niotis consumed Last Communion (alchemical potion, x1)
Hangwil consumed Sugar Cane (food, x9)
“Man, he has more candy in his kit than my grandmother did in her purse,” Glas whined. “Can we switch?”
“Absolutely not Mr. Glas,” Val scolded like a tired mother. “Mr. Ae, you will now feel a slight discomfort.”
Click!
I winced in pain as I felt my palm, connected to the panel via the indentation, receive a series of pokes, as if additional electrodes had been implanted under my skin. Like bioelectric prosthetics with feedback technology.
“Herman.” Snapping out of it, I nodded in the direction of one of the surviving walls of the house we had crashed into, where a lopsided picture of a familiar blonde elf hung gingerly over the fireplace. “If that ain’t proof that karma is real, I don’t know what is. What a punishment from the universe for not liking humans 21A!”
“I hope she has insurance.”
“Attention!” Breaking expensive furniture and other surviving décor, Val made a sharp one hundred and eighty degrees turn and revved the engine. “Gentlemen, prepare for combat!”
Boom!
Something smoking and metallic, remotely resembling an empty teapot, flew at us through the hole in the wall. I noticed that the object was thickly coated with some kind of adhesive paste, obviously intended to stick to the car, but Zimmerite Coating did its job. The teapot hit the hood and simply bounced sideways, landing in the middle of the fireplace.
“Kinetic Absorption Dome has been activated” the system announced exactly one moment before the monstrous blast wave “dismantled” the crumbling house into a mountain of wood, stone, and dust.
There were startled screams and then sighs of relief. Tons of debris, bricks, and whole chunks of massive vaulting beams rained down on us again, but this time they were still in flight, rapidly losing speed, stopping within a millimeter of Val’s hull, and rolling to the ground like drops of water on a tarpaulin.
“Mr. Ae,” came Val’s dissatisfied metallic voice. “I implore you to be more attentive in the future and react faster to pop-up prompts. Unfortunately, I do not have enough energy to repel such attacks for a long time.”
“Give the man a break, this is his first time behind a wheel in, what, five hundred years?” Moses chuckled nervously.
“I would prefer not to be scrapped for parts, Mr. Moses, if it is all the same to you.”
BOOM! BOOM!
Two more homemade bombs flew in a high arc and landed on our right and left.
“Floor it!”
“EAT SHIT, ASSHOLES!”
The engine roared furiously, and Val took off like a jet plane, spewing a spray of debris, masonry, and... leather tatters and bits of skin and blonde hair.
“Ooops... Seems we ran over the lady of the manor.” Herman noticed it too, briefly glancing in the rearview mirror.
“It’s fine, she’ll respawn,” Glas said and almost choked on his own tongue in the next moment when the shock wave from two parallel explosions gave us such a speed boost that even Gundahar grimaced with displeasure.
“Mr. Ae!” Val shouted, weaving through the branching web of alleys and knocking down numerous garbage cans. “Once more, I implore you to pay attention to the pop-up messages!”
“I would if I could see them, Val!” I retorted, frantically scurrying around the screen with my panicked gaze, trying to find the necessary information among the pile of icons. “This ain’t an interface but a puzzle with a million monochrome pieces!”
“Upper right corner! The tab with the laughing dwarf icon!”
Without wasting another second, I “clicked” the tiny blinking button. At the same moment, I was filled with awe. I had to hand it to him: the car was armed to the tits with combat abilities. It wasn’t an elite cab, but a tuned, armored T17E1 Staghound[2]. Smoke Cloud, Failsafe, Coin Toss, Elimination, Kroshcher Blades, Rage — all this and dozens of other different abilities filled a good half of the screen at once. I didn’t have time to read them all, let alone study them in detail.
BOOM!
For the third time in the last fifteen seconds, Val missed a turn and de
molished someone’s porch with a newly built barbecue area. Despite a number of significant improvements, Val’s impressive size and weight made the car look like a loaded tractor pulling on ice. And if it weren’t for the spherical wheels that allowed it to spin in place without changing its trajectory, we would have destroyed at least half the neighborhood by now.
But at least we didn’t hit anyone. Except for the elf. That was a good thing. It was early in the morning, so most of the residents were still sleeping peacefully in their warm beds, unaware that a grandiose chase scene worthy of a high-budget Hollywood blockbuster was unfolding outside their windows.
At first, the turns and alleys changed so often that we couldn’t see the assassins following us. The clatter of hooves, the roar of engines, low-frequency explosions, and flashes of lightning and fireballs glinting in the rearview mirrors were the only indicators that we were truly being pursued. Some of them managed to reach us, but they didn’t do any serious damage. Which was odd. I doubted that all of these elite mercenaries had the aim of a Storm Trooper. And when we noticed that they were moving not only behind us, but also along two parallel streets to the right and left, our suspicions turned into certainty.
“Val, it seems that we are being driven like sheep!” I shouted as I saw the silhouette of a blue and black mechanical horse flickering between the buildings.
“No doubt about it, Mr. Ae,” he said, then turned right and braked sharply. “Look out!”
Beatdown has been activated.
“Yes!” Finally, I was able to react in time. The bonuses from Steel Heart Synergy made it easy to spend five hundred mana without breaking a sweat.
BOOM! BOOM!
Our rear wheels flew off as if they weren’t wheels at all, but a pair of giant cannonballs shot from a cannon.
Needless to say, the two bikers that peered out from behind the curve at that very moment were very unlucky. Neither armor nor magical shields could save them. Despite taking all the incoming damage, they failed to protect their owners from inertia. Their bodies were smeared on the wall of the nearest house like mosquitoes smacked by a rolled-up newspaper.
“Ha! Serves you right!” Herman rejoiced. “Fickfehler!”
“A what now?”
“It’s what we call a ‘fuck error.’”
“Look out!”
Minefield has been activated.
-300 MP
Smoke Cloud has been activated.
-200 MP
Jet Launch has been activated.
-400 MP
The engine roared again and we were thrown back into our seats. Too hard, I’d say, because I heard someone throwing up.
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” I groaned, feeling that the activation of four abilities in a row had burned my palm to the bone.
And yet, everyone’s faces were happy. The loss of two pursuers was gratifying, but what we hadn’t realized was that elite mercenaries wouldn’t be elite mercenaries if they got disheartened and retreated after losing only two members.
The backup came through the thick columns of smoke. Fast, sharp, and very strong. Like a slap in the face from the winner of the Iron Faces International Championship.
I wasn’t sure what I saw, but it seemed to me that a giant pendulum with a multi-ton runic hammer at the end materialized for a split second right above us. To quote Miley Cyrus: it came in like a wrecking ball. Unfortunately, there was no way to avoid it.
The world spun around us again. We weren’t thrown off the road like last time, but we were spinning clockwise. I could feel on my own skin how badly Val was damaged.
Soon, Val regained control over himself, and after a few spins on its axis, the car leveled off and kept going, but the overall speed dropped noticeably. The vehicle rolled onto its side, scraping the undercarriage on the pavement and showering the road with sparks. To make matters worse, judging by the acrid smell of burnt rubber and hardened metal, we were now trapped in a miniature gas chamber. But our troubles didn’t end there, because our pursuers did not think of leaving us alone. And while half of them exploded on the minefield, their friends on the right and left remained unperturbed and did not miss the opportunity to reward us with something particularly nasty. Lightning, fireballs, seismic waves, some red and black magical spears bursting from under the asphalt, tree roots tangling with the wheels, and ice walls growing in the middle of the road. The gloves were off. They even used ordinary weapons. Arrows, heavy crossbow bolts, and what looked like whaling harpoons with a long metal cable and a hook at the end hit us like machine gun fire.
“I don’t like it,” Herman grumbled, covering the side window with his shield just in case.
“You and me both, my big friend.” Glas nodded, choking on his Health Inhaler and cradling a broken arm.
The others actively expressed their displeasure as well, occasionally cursing, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. We were moving slower and slower by the second, and the obstacles were getting bigger and bigger. Finally, Val froze like a fly caught in a spider web.
The armored body trembled under the hail of enemy blows. The engine roared and shouted furiously, but the wheels just wouldn’t turn. Half of them were blocked by plant roots that had gotten under the spokes, and the other half were frozen solid.
Suddenly, the attacks stopped. The smoke cleared, the dust magically settled, and we saw a dozen grim figures flanking us on all sides of the crossroads. Nine of them were riding sinister-looking steam-powered motorcycles with multi-barrel launchers on their sides, and three more were riding all-black mechanical horses. Unlike normal riders, they didn’t use stirrups or saddles, but seemed to blend into the machines as if they were a single structure. I didn’t quite understand where this blind confidence came from, but I had no doubt that this trio was far more dangerous than the others.
As if to confirm my hunch, the closest of the cursed riders dismounted and slowly approached us. Dressed entirely in black, he walked with the confidence and calmness of only the most experienced and cold-blooded killers. Not a single emotion on his impenetrable gray face, not a single unnecessary movement, not even the slightest hint of theatricality. His long cloak billowed behind him, and a barely perceptible tremor shook the ground in time with his steps. There was only one detail in the man’s appearance that distinguished him from all the others: a gilded shoulder pad engraved with a bird of prey.
“Impossible,” Gundahar breathed out angrily. “He is still alive, the wretched beast...”
“You know each other?” Glas asked quietly.
“Nurda Ziar. Nicknamed the Undertaker. The last of the first hundred Pitohu from the east continent.”
“Judging by the colorful nickname and the fact that he’s still alive despite his profession, I would venture to assume that he had transported more than one hundred souls to the other bank of the river Styx. If not thousands. If he weren’t out to get us, I’d go shake his hand. That requires some serious skill and hutzpah.”
Gundahar remained silent, obviously fuming from the inside.
“It was nice knowing you, guys,” Moses sniffled, looking in the direction of the approaching mercenary and the strange-looking dagger that materialized in his hand. “Vlad, in case we don’t manage to get out of this and we are sent to meet our maker, I must confess before meeting you at the pearly gates: I stole that purple BoomBot figurine from you in the fifth grade.”
“I fucking knew it!”
“Gentlemen,” Val’s voice crackled with static. “I am saddened to see just how quickly you lose hope and I am offended that you underestimate my arsenal. I would have never received an AAA safety rating and the status of the best private transportation vehicle if I were so easily dismantled. Mr. Ae, if you do not mind, I would ask you to spend all the mana you have on activating the following abilities.”
I took a deep breath.
“Fine. But don’t blame me when I self-combust and you guys end up choking on my ashes.”
