Volper LitRPG Series

After checking the surroundings, I concluded that I was relatively safe. The next thing I did was check how my new body "worked". I started feeling excited after some warm-up exercises. There was no pain anymore, nothing hurt, and my new body obeyed my orders perfectly. Of course, I probably looked a little awkward, but it was justified since I still had to get used to my new body. After some time I'd fully. Then everything would be perfect, from how I moved, to my physical appearance in general. Then I decided to check out my surroundings a little better, and see whether I truly possessed all my five senses in this virtual world. I wondered whether they could be distinguished from real-world senses, so I had to check since I hadn't tasted anything edible until then and I hadn't really experienced any tactile sensations, either. It was just a matter of time though. It was necessary to be consistent so I couldn't screw up anything, because I had to live in this body for quite a while. If I had failed, then I'd have had problems with progressing further.

"Character status," I said.

The system didn't respond. I was baffled, how was I supposed to view my information? I tried again:

"Professions ... skills ... inventory ... character info!"

No matter what request I sent, there was no reply. It resembled reality so much. Well, I could only look around then - and I carefully started to do just that. I had on a light silvery T-shirt with long sleeves, pants of the same color and some kind of moccasins or slippers with a thin sole, of the same silvery color. The outfit had no pockets, and I couldn't find any kind of bag for storing and carrying things neither. There were only three possible outcomes: firstly, I would be a dumbass, and lag behind because I had no knowledge about elementary things; secondly, the starter kit would be somewhere near the place where I appeared, and thirdly, I would be given a starter kit later on in the game.

All three looked plausible. I was unable to check the extent of my idiocy at the time, but my stats required a more detailed analysis. After carefully inspecting the room one more time, I still couldn't find anything. I even walked along the walls and tried pushing all the suspicious tiles, but this, unfortunately, produced zero results. I even resorted to checking the pod but found nothing: there was only the automatic cover and a bed made from soft material.

After about twenty minutes of checking my body and the room I was in, I finally headed for the door, which occupied almost the entire opposite side of the wall. On the right, there was a display with a palm-shaped indent on it. Only a true dumbass would have had trouble figuring that out. I'd never considered myself to be one, so I boldly put my right hand up to the display. In response to my action, the door on the left opened softly. The cacophony from the outside almost deafened me.

"Damn, hey people, what the f***?"

"Let's see: who's come to the party?"

"HELLO?! WHERE CAN I SEE THE F***ING INFO?"

...

...

...

"Where can I get a quest?"

"Guys, what are we supposed to do?"

I could hear others asking questions, shouting or suggesting a course of action. Some were making up complicated solutions, or shouting offensive and abusive things, showing their discontent. All the noise began to irritate. I was happy about only one thing: if I was a dumbass, or just plain stupid, I wasn't the only one. Crowds of new players ran around or stood in the corridor, dressed in the same silver clothes as me. The corridor was about fifteen feet wide and painted the same dirty greenish color as my room.

In contrast to the walls, the floor and the ceiling were of the same uniform material, which resembled coated concrete. There were dome-shaped lamp lights on the ceiling, mounted every ten feet, giving off a soft light that was pleasant to the eyes. In the middle of the ceiling, there were small, light-emitting diodes, forming the shape of yellow arrows. There were a lot of doors lining the walls, all of them just like mine.

There was a sign with letters and numbers on the left-side jamb of each of those doors. The sign plates had only a few different symbols, which were apparently the numbers of the rooms. On the right jamb of each door, there was a panel familiar to me, with the palm-shaped indent in it. Looking at my door, I immediately noticed the number: "B - 3/27". I memorized it, just in case.

The door closed after I'd put my palm on the panel, and then I followed those yellow-light arrows. These LEDs were similar to an alarm system pointing to where the exit was. Such lights were usually used at military bases, but the lights in there weren't the typical multi-colored LEDs, which military bases used to direct specific units to different places by multiple colors. I reached halfway across the corridor and then I understood everything.

Although the corridor was long, there was a point in the ceiling were the lights met from two opposite directions. There I found a small arrow of LEDs pointing at a door, which was no different from all the others, except for the sign on it that said, "Elevator".

There was a crowd of players waiting for the elevator, and they could only enter it one by one. When the doors opened, I saw a place similar to a tiny room, about six by six feet. When a player entered the lift, you could see an energy barrier flickering in the doorway.

"Why on earth are we only going one at a time? There's enough space for three or even four people in there," I asked the player who was standing next to me.

"I haven't the slightest idea!"

"Most likely, it's done to protect players from PCs," Another player joined our dialogue. "Also, we haven't figured out yet whether it's possible to give someone permission to come into the lift with you."

"I see. Thanks."

"No problem."

After about three minutes, it was my turn to go into the lift. Inside, there was only a screen with floor numbers, with two columns of touch-s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e buttons, and you could scroll up and down the list of the floors. The right column was inactive -grayed out - and marked "Hangar", the left column was numbered and active. At the bottom, next to number one, was the sign "Hall." I realized I had nothing to do on the other floors, so I chose the "Hall" button. The lift first moved horizontally, which I found odd, but then promptly went down.

The atmosphere was slightly different in the hall. Directly in front of the lift, there was a wide, glazed door, about eighty feet wide. There were several lines of players waiting. In front of the exit stood a man in uniform, and from time to time, he would yell at players:

"Before leaving the replication center, I strongly recommend that you consult with the specialists of our center. The green light above the door shows that the specialist is ready to see you."

Some of the players, who had already rushed to the exit, stopped abruptly and began to look for the specialists. The smartest were already running along the corridors to the right and left, looking for the doors that were highlighted with a green color. I went along one of the corridors, and at the same time noticed that there wasn't just one elevator on the first floor. There were around 15 elevators, and each probably led to only some of the floors. Although, if you consider that my elevator first moved horizontally, then it most likely simply moved into an unoccupied, empty elevator shaft, allowing the use of elevators to be much more effective than it had been in the past where each elevator moved up and down in its own shaft.

Honestly, I couldn't understand why I should rush along the corridors as if I were an active-duty soldier in his first year being taught by an experienced sergeant. Over the course of about twenty minutes, during which I'd tried to find a free consultant, I was nearly knocked off my feet hundreds of times, being called a "newb", a "high school kid", an "amateur", and some other things like that. After wandering around for some time, I finally got lucky. Right next to me, a door opened and one of the players quickly left the room.

"Scram! You noob!" He shouted at me, pushing me aside, and rushed off in the direction of the exit.

"Well, well ... the tables will turn," I muttered to myself, going into the room from which the weirdo had rushed out. Just above the door, a green light was on.

I was quite surprised when I came into the room. Unlike the annoying, gloomy colors of the corridors, everything here was in shades of white, casting a bluish light that was pleasing to the eye. A short distance away from me, near the wall, a young, dark-haired girl with emerald eyes was sitting at her desk. She was wearing a white blouse, a dark brown jacket, and had a smile on her face. She looked at me with exhaustion in her eyes, which clearly said, "I'm fed up with all of you!" The game developers had done their best, indeed. She looked like a real human being, though she was obviously a non-player character. There was an accurate slang abbreviation for them, which gamers often used – "NPC".

The emotions evident in her facial expression, a small twitch of her eyebrow, her eyes slowly traveling over me – it all showed that she was examining my physique and appearance carefully. I decided to test how well the game developers integrated interactive and emotional components into the game. They promised that it would be impossible to tell NPCs apart from real human beings.

"Welcome to ..." she began, but I interrupted her immediately.

"Good afternoon, Miss! Sorry to bother you, but I'm looking for a replication center specialist."

"Err ... that's me, actually ..."

"That can't be true!" I interrupted her again, without giving a chance to collect her thoughts. "Such a lovely woman spending time advising us ordinary people; I can't believe it."

"Well ..."

"It's so nice of you to help us, the common people, learn about this world and give us the opportunity to enjoy your beauty..."

The girl was flattered and her cheeks flushed. I actually realized that, although she looked a little confused, the girl obviously enjoyed my words. I continued to express my admiration of her and shower her with compliments, carefully choosing my words, because, according to the history of the game, I was in a distant future. I couldn't know for sure which words and manner of courtship would still be used. I sweet-talked her for another three minutes. All that time, the girl was blushing and smiling. She was probably embarrassed. She lowered her eyes, running her fingers through her hair. When my courtship ritual was over, she jumped right out of her chair.

"Oh, I should instruct you and activate the neural interface!"

"Really?"

"It's very important!" she came up to me, grabbed my hand and dragged me over to the table, in front of which was a chair for visitors.

"Sit down, please; now I'll show you everything and tell you all about it!"

When I sat down on the chair, she ran around the table and started looking for something in the cabinet behind it. Without even realizing it, she'd exposed the 'lower half' of her body to me. She had an amazing a.s.s and her barely-there skirt also revealed her beautiful, slender legs and neat shoes with small, sharp heels. Eating her up with my eyes, I felt like a young soldier who would lay any girl with a pulse. I was astonished because I was feeling something that I had forgotten about for a long time and I hadn't really expected to ever feel again.

Well, to be honest, I was shocked. After all, I had started to feel the d.e.s.i.r.e to have s.e.x.u.a.l relations again, with all the ensuing consequences. In a word, I was horny,. and at my old age! I needed to calm down, so I took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. I'd wanted to check how realistic the NPCs are in here, and in return, I'd gotten s.e.x.u.a.lly excited. Although, given the level of realism in her reaction, they aren't just NPCs, but fully-developed artificial personalities, which meant that I should try to regard them as real people and treat them accordingly. There was a possibility that it would turn out good for me, too. While I was pondering all this, the girl took out some kind of device that reminded me of a swimming cap with microch.i.p.s.

"Here you are! Put it on, please, and relax. I'm now going to activate the neural interface for you, and then I'll start instructing you."

I took her small hat in my hand, and began to twist it, trying to figure out where the front and the back were. Smiling, the girl took the hat back and put it on my head, while almost burying me in her s.e.xy b.r.e.a.s.ts, which were, incidentally, around D size. Having put her device on me, she stepped back and began to make strange gestures with her hands in the air.

I was dazzed for a little while, but I felt alright again fairly quickly. Only now, a lot of icons and panels had appeared in my view. In the upper left corner, there were multicolored stripes; the lower left one showed which weapons were available. Meanwhile, in the upper right corner, a small image of the map appeared, and the entire bottom right part was occupied by different icons. In the middle, overlapping half of the screen, a message popped up:

Congratulations! You have completed the first task "Activating the neural interface ". Your neural network has been activated by the official representative of the authority, and you are now registered in the government network.

Reward: You can now use the interface

Yes! Now I understood why I hadn't been able to open the interface. Subconsciously, I began to feel worried, and I couldn't identify the source of my anxiety. I'd barely started to look for the reason for that when I heard the voice of the gorgeous specialist:

"It's ready! The neural interface has been activated; now we'll proceed with the instructions." She sat down on her chair and went on. "We are now in the building of the Replication Center, on the fifth level of the multi-level Alfarome city. Taking into account the problems of the past several decades, the government decided to extract a lot of spare replication prototypes from the archives, which aren't being used at present. Thus, the aim of the government is to increase the number of people and its plan is to, with the help of these replicant copies, restore the infrastructure of the fifth level. If this project proves fruitful, then, in the future, using the same method, we will restore the remaining lower levels. In connection to this, it was decided that we'd provide each replicant with a room in which they could be replicated for free for a period of seven days or for ten replicas. All the subsequent replication procedures are to be paid for according to the published tariffs. A thousand credits are also given to each replicant as an initial bonus. You'll also be receiving a file in which all the main structures of our stronghold have been marked. Be careful: the areas highlighted in red on the map are not patrolled by our Security Service; therefore, mortal danger awaits you, should you go there. Phew! It looks like I've given you all the important information."

I wondered if she'd learned all of it by heart or if there was a service note in her neural network from which she read it. I noticed that the girl was looking at me sadly; it surprised me, because she'd been cheerful and chatted on quite happily previously, but then a dramatic change happened in her mood.

"Excuse me, but what is your name? I'm Vlad ... oh ... Volper, and you?"

"Oh ..." her eyes widened and she covered her mouth with her hand, "I didn't introduce myself, did I?"

"No."

"Litara, - you can call me Lita for short."

"What a beautiful name! Tell me, Lita, why are you so sad?"

"Well, just like all the other replicants, you will now run away, yelling weird words!"

We kept sitting though, looking at each other. One second passed, two, five, ten; I couldn't stand the silence and asked her:

"Well? Have I already run away or not?"

"Apparently, you haven't."

"It's strange, because you, Lita, said that I would run away."

"And why haven't you?"

"Why would I do that?" I could barely contain my laughter.

"I don't know," Lita seems to have panicked at seeing the "wrong" me.

"Maybe while you're deciding on why I should run away you will answer a couple of my questions?"

"I will answer them with p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e!" She smiled at me. "If I know the answer, of course…"

"Tell me, Lita, what was the activation of this neural network for?"

"Well, how can you do without an active neural network? After all, it fully tracks your body, providing an opportunity for you to know everything about your health status, what skills you have acquired and much more. In addition, it's necessary for the sake of convenience - it renders your actions into numerical values and you can track the progress of your body. Most importantly, the server processes all of your actions, and the government immediately awards you with bonuses for completing tasks. Again, without a neural network, you won't receive a level of usefulness to the community, which directly depends on the tasks you perform and the amount of work you do which is useful to the city."

"I suppose that I won't be able to see the level of any creatures or mutants?"

"Oh, you will, for sure. In this case, the level of potential danger is displayed."

"I see, Lita. You mentioned that it's necessary to restore the infrastructure of the fifth level. So, do we need to do some construction work?"

"Well ... it is possible to do some construction work, but first you need to clear the territory of the threats - the fifth level became uninhabited about three hundred years ago. During all that time, various mutated creatures and gangs of criminals settled in there; in some places, Security Systems are still operating in an aggressive mode. Periodically, you can come across droids of different classes with busted settings, or else you can bump into mutated people who are hiding from the authorities. So, in order for you to begin the reconstruction work, you'll need to clear the territory, fortify your position there and only then can you start improving the infrastructure."

"…And what about the militia groups?"

"Unfortunately, they are all involved in stopping the mutant breach," Lita answered, sighing sadly.

"It turns out that we are just "meat shields" meant to clear the territory?"

"No, you are not! A lot of replication centers have been built on the entire fifth level on purpose. The authorities provided expensive equipment for human replication, and all replication procedures are carried out at the net cost of biological material so that you all shouldn't have to worry about your possible death."

"Then why can't the government replicate the military officers?"

"Unfortunately, the technology for creating a fully-operational, replicated copy was lost a very long time ago, and now we can only make changes to the existing ones. Also, replicating several times at once isn't allowed by the Server. The reason for that is unknown."

"Got it! So, you can only earn money by killing dangerous creatures?"

"Not necessarily. Almost everything that you can get beyond the walls of our outpost, you can hand over to different departments. For example, the bodies of mutants that haven't been studied much are gratefully purchased by laboratories in the scientific center; also, engineers there will buy various tools and instruments off you, whether they're totally unfamiliar or just different versions of existing ones. If you get a hold of armor or weapons, you can carry them to the store and sell them. You're sure to be offered a good price for them there. Besides that, if you're tight on money, you can pick up all the trash around the perimeter and take it to the administrative building; they buy it cheaply there and send it for processing. There are a lot of options for earning money, even without having any professional skills."

"Thank you, Lita, for such detailed information."

"Not at all. I'm doing my job here, although very few people are interested in something more than just basic information."

Given that I knew a pitifully small amount of information, I didn't even know what else to ask. To tell you the truth, I was troubled by the total control of the Server. The game developers had probably found a logical way for characters to be revived with this sort of setup. I had to say goodbye to Litara, promising to come back to talk to her, should I have any more questions. After I'd left the room, I stopped halfway down the corridor and began to study the interface layout. The map displayed a small area around me; perhaps it was limited to my field of view. After sending a mental request, the map maximized, showing everything in fine detail.

Almost all of it was covered with the so-called "Fog of War", which is usually used in the gaming industry to hide the part of the map where the player hasn't been before. The only thing that I found unexpected was the level and floor switch, although it was logical from the point of view of the gaming world, in which you need to be guided not only in the horizontal but also in the vertical plane. Minimizing the map, I looked at the icons. Here, too, everything was as I'd expected: character status, mailbox, friend list, and system menu. After opening the character menu, I immediately became engrossed in studying the basic stats, because, from time to time, some points give a clue about the possible evolution of the game in the future.

Character Status:

Name: Volper

Current level: 0

Experience: 0/250

Armor (on average): 1

Lives left: 50/50

Hunger: 12/100

Thirst: 17/100

Fatigue: 3/50

Maximum weight capacity: 0.9 / 50

Attributes:

Strength - 5

Agility - 9

Endurance - 5

Perception - 9

Intelligence - 6

Reasoning power - 1

Luck - 8

Charisma - 5

Skills: --

Professions: --

Personal account: 1,000 credits

When I focused on the "Armor" item, I could see a detailed description of all the parts of my body. Right now, everything except for the hands and the head had a value of "1", which had apparently been given to me by my starter kit. The rest of the statistics, no matter how hard I tried to open those items, were inactive. The bars in the upper left corner represented changing stats. The red line referred to life, the gray one was for hunger, the blue one for thirst and the orange one, surely, showed my fatigue level. Of all the bars, only life was already filled up, and the rest of them were in the process of being filled.

I was thrilled to see the two parameters: skills and professions. The problem was that there were hardly any descriptions for them, and the lines were empty. Why was that? As far as I could see, they were most likely going to be crucial for the evolution of the character, so there had to be a reason that they were included in the main statistics data. I needed to level up fast, and I was still falling behind the swiftest players. First, I had to find a store and get some shopping done and then I planned to try out my skills in action.

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