Reboot: Mechanic

Chapter 14: Camping Site

Walking in an open field with no sign of life, Shi Tian was gradually diminishing the distance between him and the safe zone city, Gearits. The journey was quite arduous because humans could not be spotted, but monsters were literally everywhere.

Almost every 20 minutes or so, there would be some monsters popping out to ambush him or straight-up attack him in the front. Luckily, the bullets in the guns that he looted from Yolanda were of help, and the monsters aren’t at the level of Tenceloras.

The bullets were able to penetrate their soft flesh and directly kill them. Of course, that was on the premises if he was a sharpshooter, to begin with. His inexperience in shooting a gun had cost him most of the bullets to go to empty space, wasting the ammo and nearly his life.

“Yolanda might have supplied herself a lot, but with the amount of ammo I’m wasting, the cartridges are almost done and not many magazines are left to be reloaded.” Shi Tian murmured in bitterness.

Although he was able to remain calm and collected at the sight of monsters appearing left and right, that doesn’t mean he would automatically turn into a sharpshooter.

Shooting another bullet at the monster, Shi Tian was barely able to hit it to kill the monster. That was the final monster of this ambush, allowing him to take another breather.

What was worse was the fact that his reloading speed was at the extremely slowest moment possible, mainly because it had to all be done by one hand.

The difficulty of taking out the magazine and replacing a new one was high, and occasionally, Shi Tian would fail to tug the magazine in properly, causing the pistol to malfunction.

Just now, Shi Tian failed again to reload properly as the magazine fell to the ground. “Having one arm gone is really annoying.”

Going down on one knee once again, Shi Tian struggled to pick up the magazine while holding the pistol in the kneecap. It was a struggle that one shouldn’t have, but what could he do?

After a few minutes, Shi Tian managed to reload the pistol. With the pistol reloaded and ready to be fired for another round, Shi Tian didn’t rush to advance forward.

Instead, he went to a discreet corner to check up on his status. Killing these monsters might seem like a waste of bullets, but it was needed because he had discovered that his level would increase when he killed some monsters.

Thus, he was killing these monsters even if he knew his ammo was running low. There were many instances where he could have simply avoided them but chose not to. The monsters that he chose to avoid are those big and tough beefy-looking monsters.

Looking at his status, Shi Tian saw his level was now 5, a pretty good progress in his mind. His health point had also gone up to 80 despite the injured status, and his stamina rose by 10, making it 35 now.

However, the most important aspect of his status wasn’t these changes. It was the free attribute points that he could use now which was 6 points. Without hesitation, Shi Tian immediately used all 6 points on dexterity, making it an overall point 8.

Dexterity is a stat that deals with the skillfulness of performing tasks, especially with the person’s hands. Hence, having to struggle so much to reload a magazine, Shi Tian knew this was his current biggest weakness.

And sure enough, with his dexterity stat increased, he could vividly feel his efficiency in the left hand improved.

At the same time, he truly wished to smack his head for not doing this earlier because he could have saved himself some time and embarrassment from having to reload in such a long time.

‘The next time I level up, I should increase my intelligence. I’m overestimating myself too much and should learn to be humble.’ Shi Tian made a mental note to himself, reminding him to not be arrogant.

Luckily, this problem was found quite quickly. Otherwise, it would have been disastrous if he had remained ignorant and overconfident in himself, which would have resulted in his inability to commit a certain action when needed.

Sometime later, Shi Tian stood up and began to walk toward his destination again. Though, unlike previously when he would actively search for weak monsters to kill, he would try his best to avoid them.

His level had increased by a lot, but he wouldn’t know how many monsters he needed to kill to increase his level. Compared to some role-playing video games where there are experience bars for the players to see, this was real life and death meant the end of it.

Instead of risking his life to figure things out, Shi Tian decided to play it safe and conserve the ammo he had left. Holding the pistol slightly, Shi Tian saw a few monsters lurking around the streets, mindlessly searching for something to chew and scratch.

It was a good thing their detection skills were hideous, so Shi Tian was able to wait patiently for the monsters to go on about their way before sneaking up ahead.

Just like that by being discreet and treading forward carefully, Shi Tian managed to close the distance between himself and Gearits city. 𝚘𝚟𝚕．ｔ

And when he got closer to see the city from afar, the next scene astonished Shi Tian thoroughly.

Ironically, numerous tents were set up outside Gearits city, which prompted Shi Tian to become suspicious. A city that could protect them from most of the danger yet there were actually people camping outside of the city.

There were only two deductions that Shi Tian could come up with on the spot. Either they are mercenaries similar to the one he had met and was on their way to do a mission, or they were ineligible to enter the city and were forced to camp outside.

‘Most likely it’s the latter. The government was already a scumbag considering what I had to go through, so why would they protect the weak and poor?’ Shi Tian sneered inwardly.