Deus Ex Machina

Chapter 10

“Anyway, Hezalom right?”

“Yes”

“Good, I actually need your help, we are having some problems with pest lately, and we need to exterminate some of them. Will you kill some of them?”

‘Oooh! A action quest already! Yes, this is what RPG is supposed to be!’

“Yes! I will be happy to do so!”

“That’s the spirit, Here is a sword for you and an armor gear. Why don’t you ‌hunt some mutated rats at south fields of just outside the Junk City, if you ‌manage to kill some of them, I will teach you how to make this baby right here”

Machina patted the battle suit beside him, in which Hezalom’s eyes twinkled as he saw it.

“Yes! I will go now!”

Hezalom snapped his fingers twice before running immediately.

Once Hezalom disappeared, Machina sighed and rubbed his face.

“It's really hard doing acting. Do I really have to do this?”

Machina sighed.

“Of course, we are lacking human resources, unless you could bring someone here to take your role then you are stuck here”

Link’s voice resounded in Machina’s ears.

“Well, whatever, any other players who entered the game?”

“Unfortunately none, they are not as curious as that guy called Hezalom, but looking at his enthusiasm and emotions, he seemed to have a lot of fun”

“That is good, but are you sure about them hunting a mutated rat?”

“...”

“Oy, did you really make them hunt without thinking?”

“Well… let’s just think its a lesson for new players”

“How wicked”

“...”

Hezalom was running towards his destination dreaming about what he was going to do after finishing this mission, it was a battle suit! He couldn’t help but imagine himself looking handsome as he has his own battle suit.

His eyes have been looking at the battle suit ever since he saw it, he didn’t just want being rude in front of the NPC so he could only glance at it from time to time.

Anyway, from his quest, it seemed like he needed to hunt 5 mutated rats, he then looked at the sword on his hand, it did not differ from a real sword, thankfully, Hezalom knew how to use a sword from doing kendo from a nearby dojo when he was young so he knows some of the basics.

It didn’t take long for Hezalom to reach the destination, it was a large field devoid of life, no trees, no grass, just a vast dry land with a lot of dust flying by.

“Huh? Where are the mutated rats?”

Hezalom looked around but couldn’t see anything, due to the dust flying around, he couldn’t also see that much so he proceeded forward, but just as he was to proceed forward, he suddenly saw shadow coming from the cloud of dust, it was a huge shadow.

*Swooosh! 

Hezalom noticed the movement and immediately raised the sword in front of him for the block.

*Boom!

A huge thing slammed towards him and sent him flying back but thankfully he didn’t lost his balance and landed on the ground.

“What the *Cough! that felt like I was hit by a huge hammer”

Hezalom stood up immediately and looked at the shadow looming over the cloud of dust warily, it moved forward until it finally showed itself.

Standing 3 meters tall, it has brown fur covered with a lot of dust, its appearance is no different from a rat, its eyes were red and its tails has fins all over it as if it was a spikeball.

[Mutated Rat Lvl. 1]

“Level 1?”

Hezalom couldn’t help but be dumbfounded as he looked at the information of the monster in front of him.

“You call this a level 1 monster!? This is a boss monster!”

*Swoosh! *Boom!

Hezalom dodged another attack from the monster and was able to narrowly avoid it by jumping and rolling to the side, he was being bombarded by a lot of attacks that he couldn’t do anything but run away.

“Goddamn it!”

Hezalom cursed before charging towards the monster but just as he charged forward, a powerful wind along with dust blew him off and made him lost balance.

“Even the environment is against me!”

He couldn’t help but curse and be amazed by how real this game felt, what came after that is another rolling and dodging the attacks of the monster but Hezalom felt that he was getting used to the environment and he was able to see the attack pattern of the monster.

‘A tail attack!”

Hezalom anticipated the attack and immediately jumped up, and sure enough, the tail swept past under him, using this chance, Hezalom charged forward with the sword on his hand beforfe slashing forward!

“Haa!”

*Slash!

-5

[Mutated Rat]

[395/400 Health]

“-5?”

Hezalom couldn’t help but freeze as he looked at the damage he dealt. He couldn't help but curse again.

*Boom!

The Mutated Rat swung its claws and killed Hezalom in a single attack.

[You Died]

Bloody words appeared in Hezalom’s eyes, and after those words disappeared, his body jolted and in the next moment, he found himself back in his room.

Hezalom looked around before looking at the screen in front of him,

[Respawn Time: 3 hours]

“What!? A 3 hour respawn time!? This is absurd!”

Hezalom felt angry as he looked at the long respawn time but he immediately calmed down after remembering how freaking awesome the game was.

The realism, the graphics, the intelligence of the NPC’s, it can be said that this game was very revolutionary! He couldn’t help but get excited once again, but there are still some confusion towards the game.

Why did the NPC call him an Eternal? Is that what the players are? Or they are different race?

And so out of curiosity, Hezalom searched information about Mechamagic on the internet and he was brought into the website of the game, entering inside, the first thing he saw was the summary of the game.

The universe of the game was placed on a magical world with advanced technology, but this world isn’t as peaceful, it was always on a threat of mutated monsters and outer invaders, and so the lord of the Junk City, Machina created a solution and with the help of a powerful artifact called World Core, he was able to summon the players/eternals to aid him from fighting these mutated monsters and invaders.

Eternals: Eternals are beings that were summoned from an unknown world, they are termed Eternals as they are immortal, they can still be killed but they will return back to the living.

[Game Developers: The game is still underdevelopment so there may be some bugs and sudden changes to the game, we appreciate the players understanding of this]

[Current registered Players: 1]

“Eh!? It's still under development even though it felt complete? I don’t mind that but why is there only a single player registered? And if I’m correct, that player is me”

Hezalom is confused, but looking at the game again, he remembered that he entered this game to report it in the first place, not everyone has free time like him, after all, a VR game that felt real has only 40 megabytes? What kind of joke was that.

No matter what technology this world use, its impossible to compress everything into that small file, Hezalom couldn’t help but sigh, he could only thank his luck for trying this god like game.

Just as he was thinking of something, his phone suddenly rang, which woke him up from his daze, Hezalom extended his hand and picked up his phone, he saw that it was a notification from the group chat of his Team.

[Val has finished updating guys! Come on its time to grind!]

[Finally! I am sure I will be able to climb to bronze today!]

[That’s the 69th time you have said that!]

[This time for sure!]

Seeing the group chat, Hezalom eyes shone in excitement! This was the team he had joined a year ago, and they may not have that many members and they are all in low elo’s, they were still playing together and loved playing games. He immediately typed on his phone.

[Bros! I found a cool game and you won’t believe how awesome it was!]

[???]

[Bro Heza, did you get hacked?]

[Definitely, his words is the same as the advertisements of shitty games on the internet]

[Heza, shut up and open your Val, we need one more member!]

Seeing their messages, Heza couldn’t help but feel angry, these guys!

[What I said is true! I will not play Val anymore! This game is the future of all games!]

[Heza really got hacked huh?]

[Just ignore him guys, let’s play, we need one more!]

[I’ll try calling Heza if he knows he got hacked]

Seeing that they didn’t really believe him, Heza couldn’t help but sigh in defeat, just as he was thinking of how he was going to convince these people, his phone rang once again and this time it was a call.

Looking it up, it was a caller named, Yetsuki, Hezalom knew this person as this was the person who said that will call him to tell him that he got hacked, this person is also the leader of the team and the highest skilled among them.

Heza answered the call.

“Heza, you got hacked!”

A female voice came from the other side, and she seemed very anxious, Heza could not help but sigh once again.

“I’m not hacked Yetsuki”

“Eh? Really? Then are you really quitting Val?”

“Yes, after playing that game, I think I can’t play other games anymore, its just too different, you can’t compare it to other games!”

“Heza, are you sick or something? If the game you are talking about is EdenRing, then we already knew about it, it has already won the best game of the year!”

“No, Yetsuki listen to me, this game is not EdenRing, its a new VR game called Mechamagic”

“A VR game? You bought an oculus?”

“No… I don’t know how to explain it, its much better if you try it Yetsuki, believe me, just try it”

“...”

There was silence for a bit before Heza heard a sigh from the other side.

“Okay, okay, I will try it, but if this game isn’t good as you said, you will treat me until I’m full”

“Of course!”

Hezalom answered confidently.