It was a no-brainer choice for Misha. She picked the hunter division without much thought.

Since she was a player, she could resp.a.w.n upon death. The threat of the death rate did not intimidate her.

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"Eh!?"

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"…"

It had become official. Hydra Faction was a hardcore mode.

'I shouldn't play this mode for too long. What will happen if Tama and I die in this game? What if I can die for real in this world!?'

Misha opened the system menu, planning to log out and report her finding to her grandmother ASAP. To her horror, the logout b.u.t.ton was disabled again.

There was also a note.

[Until you complete the tutorial quest, you cannot log out.]

'This is getting out of hand. Is this a death game!?'

Without many choices, she gritted her teeth and followed after Mr. p.i.s.s to the hunter division.

…

When she got to the division, Misha could see the familiar faces.

Crystal and Thorn were there.

"Huh? Missy, what are you doing here? This is the hunter division, you know?"

Mr. p.i.s.s pa.s.sed Misha's doc.u.ments to Crystal with a smile, "The girl you rescued wants to join you. Well, she's under your care again."

Crystal shrugged and took the papers. She glanced at it to check Misha's status attributes.

"200 INT and 200 WIS?"

Misha sighed as she thought that Crystal would not believe her like the receptionists in the center.

"What's your real INT and WIS? Is it over 300?"

"Eh?"

"You're from Mafdet's training center, so I figure your status should be quite high. Can you tell me about your real stats? I need to check if you are suited for which role with your current condition."

Thinking for a bit, Misha received the papers and corrected her status, including her real INT and WIS.

Crystal whistled as she reread her attribute values.

"You were in the air force, right? Do you want to pilot a jet?"

Misha shook her head and glanced at the broken mechs that Crystal and her crews were disa.s.sembling.

"Oh, your goal is the mech?"

"Yes."

"Well, that can be tough. Most of our workable mechs belong to the main forces. The ones we have are all custom-made, and they have owners."

Misha sulked. The road to her dream was impossible in this game.

"But we do need a wingman for this a.s.shole. Hey, Chacha! How about it, do you still want a wingman?"

Thorn had a wry smile on his face when his boss mentioned the word [Wingman].

"Are you serious, chief? She hasn't even changed her cla.s.s! Her status is also abysmal. She won't even be able to fight against a grown egg!"

"Aside from you, all hunters with mechs are more productive than you, lazy b.u.m! Instead of using your gels to hire more workers or buy resources from other bases to build mechs for your squad, you dumped all of it into weeds and asked for my help when you're broke. Now, it's time to pay some of the debt. Be Misha's nanny and teach her the rope, or pay me back my 300 red gels!"

"It was 100 when I borrowed you!"

"You stole rockets, AP sh.e.l.ls, and components from the hunter's central supply. The value is 200 red gels."

Thorn cried. In the end, he accepted the task from his boss.

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'Zeris Squad?'

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'Oh!?'

Misha had checked about the faction relations.h.i.+p levels. It began from the lowest to the highest,

Nemesis,

Hostile,

Hate,

Ignore,

Indifferent,

Acquaintance,

Casual,

Friendly,

Trust,

And Loyal.

There were other branches for the romantic routes for players who sought an in-game relations.h.i.+p with NPCs, but Misha did not pay attention to the information.

For now, she was only one step away from the tutorial goal.

'Joining the hunter division is the right choice!'

*Mew!* *Nom-Nom!* (Of course! Let's work hard to for the red gels!)

'Your head only fills with jellies and food, Tama.'

…

Thorn guided Misha to his responsible hangar, which only had one broken mech inside. It was Zeris One, which had rescued Misha from the Raptor squadron.

The leg parts were being repaired by a dozen mechanics. Looking at the work of the technicians, Misha felt it was cute.

Each of the crews had tentacles growing from their back, and all yellow wiggling limbs of the eggcats were carrying tools and helping the others on the site.

A crew was using a brazing tool with the metal joint while his tentacles held the metals and the face mask for him. Another mechanic was fiddling with the micro-muscle fibers. At the same time, his tentacles with eyeb.a.l.l.s stared the small tissue components in the mechanic hands from a different direction, giving him the vision from other angles.

Misha looked around if there was any spare part that they could use to build her mech. To her disappointment, Thorn had not stored any backup unit or component.

'Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d.'

*Mew!* (Kai is poor!)

Thorn turned to Misha, "For now, I'll teach you about the survival basics on the wasteland. In the next two days, it will be our squad's turn to deploy to hunt for spoils. I'll get you ready before then."

"So, both of us will go out?"

"Not just us. There will be other squads from the main army. You will have to travel with the other infantry units though since we don't have enough mechs for both of us."

"Oh, no co-pilot feature?"

"Nah, my Zeris One is custom made, so it only supports one pilot. We'll have to collect parts to build you a new one from scratch."

...

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To become a proper pilot of the Zeris Squadron, your squad needs to build a mech for you. Unfortunately, your captain is a downright hobo, and he is poorer than a bankrupted man who has borrowed from a loan shark.

You can't expect a weed-addicted captain to be your sugar daddy since he can't even solve his debts. You need to gather enough resources to build your AHMU or a mech of your preference with your own hands.

A long and hard road awaits you.

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- Gather all components or at least 10 red gels.

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- Zeris Two Insignia

- A t.i.tle

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1. Required components or gels may vary depending on your mech design. You can check the list or evaluate your mech design with the head mechanic in the base.

2. You can obtain components by robbing from the local governments or raiding cities. Enjoy your pirate life!

3. You also can gather at least 10 gels to buy a brand new mech from another base or other squads instead of building one from secondhand parts.