8

As the last word of my curse left my lips my entire world slowed down to a crawl. The benefits of having a high intelligence score was showing themselves once more as my mind began running at a furious pace; processing all the sensory data from my body at such a rate that it gave me a form of bullet time.

I watched as the lasers from my cobbled together tri linked hell guns instantly impacted the near immobile ork at the front of the column in a shower of blood and gore. Above his head was just just his name, level, and HP bar with no numerical values on it. Ork Boy Level 8, just a level EIGHT ork with physical stats at least 3 times higher than me. They truly are living bio weapons. I had let loose with both guns aimed at it's head as judging from the incredibly high Constitution stats it would take multiple hits to take out all of its Health Points. This was actually going to be the first time I was going to be fighting another living being since I got into this universe. I was fortunate enough to somehow avoid any confrontation back on Golgotha so while it did keep me safe it also left me woefully in the dark regarding the combat system of my System. I already figured out that this Gamer System was not a one for one match for the one from the manwha, but I still did not know the full extent of the changes and all the ways to exploit it.

One way it was the same though was the fact that Observing equipment like weapons and armor did not provide me with a damage or armor rating so I actually had no real way to test out the damage or damage resistance of an item. I knew from reading the Ciaphas Cain novels that las pistols could kill orks with head shots and lasguns could blow off limbs with a single shot so I stayed cautious and did not try shooting myself in the foot or something in case the sci fi weapon was somehow strong enough to instantly kill me since my whole body was essentially a giant hitbox. A downside of the Gamer System is that while you could be vaporized with a giant whole in your chest you still would not die or be at less than 100% as long as you had a single Health Point left. It also meant that an attack anywhere on my body was essentially the same as long as it brought my HP down to Zero. Though that might not be true for my head as that might count as a critical strike or something. In short if a weapon strong enough to kill me in one hit touched me anywhere I would die.

Now that was because I had the Gamer's Body skill, but how would HP work with others? They did not have the Gamer System or the skill to live life like a video game. So just how would damage and HP actually reflect in a real fight? They had stats like me, so was their toughness and health like how the system represents me? Oh I hope not, but I was soon about to find out.

The ork boy at the very front of the mob charging down the tunnel, overly large muscles scraping the edges of the walls, breaking off pieces in showers of dirt. He was wearing a breastplate of scrap iron, with most likely a squig leather pants, and lugging a large scrap axe, dragging it against the walls. His mouth was wide open mid roar showing his multitude of sharp crooked yellow teeth, while his eyes burned red with rage and bloodlust. Every bit of him was large, intimidating, and radiating power. It looked like nothing could bring it down with its thick leathery skin clad as it was in thick metal scraps.

I was immediately surprised as he was instantly gunned down as two trio of highly energetic red beams impacted his head and caused it to pop like a balloon. His HP bar above his head going from full to empty faster than even I could see. His death was confirmed as I heard the Ding! of a notification. I did not see a indicator of how much damage I did as my mind raced to adjust my strategy as it seemed I had grossly overestimated the actual difference between my weapons' and the enemies' stats.

One hand tossed a gun into the air while simultaneously the other began aiming at the position the ork's head would be behind the one I just killed. My free hand began to enlarge the inventory screen that I opened in front of me and push it flat against the ground. Once done it reached back up and caught the trio of duct taped hell guns even as the first ork's corpse was halfway down to the ground. Time to see if my inventory could accept items I did not drop in myself and if corpses counted as items.

I activated Sprint closing the distance between me and the corpse just enough so that the corpse would land square in the inventory screen. As I did so I pushed my right hand up and over the falling body and let loose another trio of high energy blasts at the head of the ork behind it, a grin slowly forming on my face as another Ding! was heard. If all the orks were this easy to kill with a hellgun, then this was survivable, and this meant I could level up really, really quickly with the sheer amount of orks I could bait into coming at me one at a time and the amount of exp they gave. I still had to be careful though, if they decided to bombard me with explosives or their warmachines then I would have no chance of survival. I was no space marine.

The fact that I was underground should make that a moot threat, but I did not think that ork boys could fit down here either, orks would find a way. Also they are mad enough to use explosives in a confined space such as this and while the power armor should protect me from the concussive forces I was not going to take that chance. Hell, the flash gits would be the greatest threat funny enough as they just had to aim straight down the tunnel to bombard me with DAKKA. I really should have curved the tunnels when digging them, curse my rush job.

Speaking of ranged threats I mentally open up the crafting menu and quickly craft myself a Rosarius that I immediately equipped, that would keep me safe from ranged attacks and explosives and any ork psykers.

I watched as the first ork I killed finally landed on top of my inventory screen my smile getting wider as I saw it slowly sink into the screen and disappear. YES! That meant I could clear the tunnel easily without having to move the bodies and I could recycle them and their gear for more resources! They were walking loot and experience bags! Wait, loot. Did I have a loot system? Did they drop loot!?

Looking down at the inventory boxes on the screen on the floor I noticed nothing new on the screen other than the ork corpse and its weapon. Are you kidding me? My Gamer System did not have a loot function! I mean sure there was no option in the options menu to control auto loot, but I thought that meant it was stuck on either auto loot or manual looting not that it meant there was no loot at all!

No money! No rare equipment! No skill books! No Outside Context Problem items I could use as trump cards! No healing potions! No mana potions! So many things now out of reach!

My vision tinted red as the realization that I only had the gacha system and the infrequent quests it gave where I had to give up the quest rewards for a gacha ticket in order to potentially get such items! Even then I had no guarantee it would even give me those kinds of items as I refused to give up my quest rewards so far for the tickets due to my low luck making it unlikely for me to get anything good. I thought back to the stat points I had hoarded up to now, should I use it all on luck?

No, I might need it to survive this fight, I might need more strength, health, speed, or even wisdom. I might need the luck too if things get worse.

I channeled my anger into killing the orks in front of me one after another.

Pop!

Pop!

Pop!

Pop!

Ork heads popped one after another as I rushed towards the charging xenos. The right hand aiming with near supernatural precision taking down the orks with single volleys each while my left grabbed and pushed them straight down to disappear into my inventory screen. Greenskins died by the dozens as every one of them was decapitated via hellgun strikes. Boyz, gretchins, snotlings, and squigs charged at me in a endless wave. I had to stop several times to reload my guns one handed while the other one kept on killing the incoming greenskins. The drain on my stored resources to keep making more charge packs was going to be untenable at this rate, better to save the guns and try melee instead. If the hellguns could kill them with headshots then the adamantium shovel could kill them as well.

I quickly inventoried the emptied hellguns, pulled out my shovel, and proceeded to decapitate the ork in front of me, his eyes unblinking in confusion as it watched its own body disappear even as I charged towards the next ork in line. My shovel became nothing more than a streak of darkness accompanied by whispers of wind as it rapidly sliced through the defenseless necks of the orks that stood in front of me as they were just simply too slow to react to my strikes and those that did have some form of armor fared no better. The shovel's sharpened adamantium edge cut through their scrap armor like water quickly sending them to join the others in my inventory. I advanced step by step with rage in my heart at the lack of loot even though the System kept helpfully giving me Dings! confirming my experience gains.

While killing the orks I entered a bit of a trance state as my body knew what to do from all the levels in Melee Weapon Mastery, I could instinctively wield my shovel like it was a weapon and not just a regular hard shovel. I could anticipate the attack, defense, and movement of the orks from just their body language and muscle movements. I knew how to defend, parry, and attack for maximum effectiveness while maintaining economy of movement. I never really had this kind of feeling from using guns with Ranged Weapon Mastery, but this required me to use all my muscles and using techniques I was forced fed by the data slates. Before I had learned all the skill I needed to fight in CQC, but now I actually KNEW how to fight in CQC.

The fighting also gave me some perspective. I was just above peak human. I was nowhere near the levels of space marine in stats using the orks for comparison. They could match and in some cases outmatch the orks in stats, but they also had the skills and experience of combat veterans supporting them as well along with equipment of the highest quality. They could massacre orcs by the dozens before being brought down in a straight fight. They were beings on such levels that only 100 of them were needed to take over entire planets. They were also overwhelmingly outmatched by the enemies of the Imperium. Daemons, Necrons, Tyranids, Dark Eldar, Eldar, Orks, Krorks, C'tans, GODS, normal psykers,and numerous xenos races that could turn space marines into lunch easily.

I was nowhere near strong enough to survive a single run in with any of these foes that were to the space marines, as the space marines were to the Orks, like how I was currently to them, and they could be literally anywhere I go. At any time Chaos could unleash a warp storm and flood the world with Daemons unending, or a Dark Eldar raiding party could assault the planet and take me to Commoragh as a slave or worse. At any moment the planet could be an awakening tomb world, or some stupid Eldar Farseer would drop a army on top of me to prevent some stupid vision where I would fight them only to make me hostile in the first place. Tyranids could shut down Warp travel and consume the planet I was on, though that last one was a relatively low risk considering they have yet to properly enter the galaxy. Genestealers were still a dangerous threat however, considering they ate Terminator Space Marine Veterans for lunch.

In the end, I was too damn weak, and I hated it. I hated being so damn afraid. I died once already and now I was even more scared of dying since I knew what awaited me here after Death. I had a System now, I should be able to overcome anything, but here I was fighting in the tunnels against a endless army because I was too damn afraid to stand out and be more active in growing stronger.

Well no more, I was going to kill every single one of these greenskins, loot their bodies, devour their experience, and become a damn physical god that even the C'tans would give a nod at. I was going to become strong enough that I would not have to be afraid of anything else in this galaxy, not Inquisitors, not Xenos, not Chaos, nothing! With rage filling my veins I decided here and now I was not going to keep running from all of my problems. If my problem was a lack of strength, then I was sure as heck gonna fix that right here! Right now! And thank you Orks for your donation to my cause! I will kill every last one of you!

With that final mental declaration the world paused and a Quest appeared.

QUEST CREATED!

FOR TOO LONG HAVE YOU RAN AND HID FROM THE DANGERS OF THIS GALAXY!

NO MORE!

NO MORE SHALL YOU RUN!

NO MORE SHALL YOU HIDE!

NO MORE SHALL YOU FEAR!

NOW YOU SHALL WALK DOWN THE PATH OF POWER!

NOW YOU SHALL FIGHT BACK AGAINST THE ENEMIES THAT PLAGUE YOU!

NOW YOU SHALL TAKE YOUR DESTINY INTO YOUR OWN HANDS AND MAKE YOUR OWN FATE!

GOAL: ACHIEVE ABSOLUTE STRENGTH AND SECURE YOUR PLACE IN THE GALAXY AND PEACE OF MIND!

OPTIONAL GOAL 1: DEFEAT THE CHAOS GODS

OPTIONAL GOAL 2: DEFEAT THE NECRONS

OPTIONAL GOAL 3: DEFEAT THE C'TAN

OPTIONAL GOAL 4: DEFEAT THE TAU

OPTIONAL GOAL 5: DEFEAT THE ELDAR

OPTIONAL GOAL 6: DEFEAT THE DARK ELDAR

OPTIONAL GOAL 7: DEFEAT THE ORKS

OPTIONAL GOAL 8: DEFEAT THE TYRANIDS

OPTIONAL GOAL 9: REVIVE THE EMPEROR

OPTIONAL GOAL 10: RESTORE/REVIVE/RECOVER THE PRIMARCHS (I-XX)

OPTIONAL GOAL 11: REPAIR THE IMPERIUM

OPTIONAL GOAL 12: BECOME A GOD

REWARDS: ???

PENALTY: A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH

ACCEPT OR DENY?

I immediately accept and get back to work murdering greenskins with a single thought on my mind.

'I will become Strong' I then proceeded to use the skill I never thought I would use, but there was no better time to grind it.

"Berserker" My vision became Red and my ears filled with nothing but Screams.