Alpha Agent: A Post Apocalyptic LitRPG

Li

The route Li had set in his HUD led him to a door that differed in appearance compared to the rest of the hotel rooms. Instead of the wooden finish on the suite doors, this door was entirely metal, and that made it stand out. The yellow chevrons led right beyond this door. Li could have called Tim to request access to this door, but Li settled on a much simpler solution.

Li closed his fist and pounded on the metal door several times. He quickly crawled up the wall beside the door and waited. After a few seconds, the metal door opened and a man in business casual attire stepped out and looked both ways. Li saw the man was unarmed and hesitated. Li’s entire loadout was optimized for killing and this was an unarmed man who was simply doing a job. But he was also an obstacle to his mission.

Dropping down, Li swiped out the legs of the man and then rolled into the room. The place was dimly lit area dominated by control panels and large monitors. He watched with a satisfied smile as he spotted one of the large displays viewing the camera feeds of the VIP floors. The footage was either static or simply frozen.

“God,” Li heard behind him. “What the hell was that?”

Li quickly walked back to the entrance and grabbed the man by the shirt collar. He slammed the man against the wall and slammed the door shut. He grabbed the man by the mouth and covered it with his palm.

“I need you to answer a few questions,” Li ordered. “Refuse to cooperate, you will suffer the same fate as the Kodak agents I’ve encountered so far. Are we clear?”

The man frantically nodded.

“Good, tell me what this room is. I’d like to confirm my destination,” Li said.

Releasing his palm over the man’s mouth, the man took a few deep breaths before answering. “This is the security room. One of two in this hotel.”

“And I assume your job is to monitor the security camera feeds for the VIP floors?”

“Y-yes.”

“Okay then. Next question, you guys have a particular room where the Kodak agents hold collected or stolen items from their battles. Do you know where it is?”

The man’s reaction told Li everything. His eyes widened and he swallowed. The fear of what would happened if someone outside of Kodak learned of such a room overwhelmed the man.

“If you know and are withholding this info out of fear for your employer, imagine this,” Li said. “I am an agent as well. I may not be from Kodak-Cresh, but I am no stranger to brutal torture. Whatever punishment your superiors have ready for you, I can easily match it.”

Li was bluffing. He wasn’t nearly as sadistic as the typical Kodak agent, but the man didn’t need to know that. Agents, regardless of their shard, all looked the same to the average citizen.

He watched as the man weighed the options in his head. After a few more seconds pass, the man had an answer.

“I saw them carry in something that looked like a funeral casket,” the man said. He glanced over to another door beside them. “That will take you directly to the room you asked about. Even I’m not allowed through there without an agent escorting me. Everything they put into that room is strictly off limits to anyone who isn’t an agent.”

“Are there any guards within the room?” Li asked.

The man hesitated, but was quickly convinced by Li squeezing his neck. “There’s two agents on duty guarding that casket. That’s all I know. Please let me go. I won’t say anything.”

“One more thing, do I need anything to access that door?”

“No, it’s unlocked. The fear of repercussions is enough that no lock pad is necessary for that door,” the man said. “I heard one story a few weeks ago that a hotel worker was shot in the head in front of everyone for sneaking into that room and getting caught stealing something.”

“Interesting,” Li said.

“Will you let me go now?”

Li looked at the man with cold eyes and said, “You’re right. You won’t say anything. Because I’m putting you to sleep.”

He grabbed the man by the neck and wrapped his arm around the man’s neck tightly. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a basic chokehold. The man didn’t resist much and eventually his body went limp. Li gently dropped the unconscious man on the floor and then looked at the door the man pointed him to.

Before opening the door and heading into the room, Li walked up to the camera feeds to see if he could find any cameras viewing the inside of the room where the container was. Li spotted one of the monitors that showed the feed overlooking two agents walking around in a dimly lit room.

His HUD immediately highlighted the casket in the middle and confirmed the objective.

Container located. Marking new waypoint.

The only thing that stood between him and the objective were those two Kodak agents. After he took both of them out, he would need to contact Angie to reach him and help him carry the container to the roof.

Li turned on his heel and walked towards the door that led to the room. Opening the door, Li looked down a narrow hallway that was about as tall and wide as the door frame itself. Exercising caution, Li kept his silenced pistol ready and slowly walked through the narrow hallway. At the end, the hallway made a sharp ninety-degree bend to the left, and the hallway led straight down to another door.

Reaching the end of the hall, Li stood for a few seconds and slowly turned the knob of the door and opened it. He leaned his body through the opened door and tried to get a good look of the room. Li spotted the two Kodak agents walking around, seemingly in circles. Considering there wasn’t much ground to cover, he guessed that they tried to make themselves look busy. Li quietly shut the door behind him and and crouched low, making sure to keep his head below the numerous crates around the dark room.

Li spotted the security room near where he had entered and a space on top of that room for him to hide in. It was the perfect opportunity to gain the high ground and allow him some space above his enemies to view the entire area without any obstacles obstructing him.

As Li slowly made his way through the cramped spaces, he would occasionally poke his head above the crates to keep an eye on the two Kodak agents. He spotted a larger door across from the two agents, presumably where they would haul in all of these miscellaneous items and stolen goods for safe storage.

Li reached the outer wall of the security room and glanced back at the Kodak agents one last time. Luckily, one agent had hisback turned and the other was walking in the other direction. Li put his modified gloves to use and climbed the wall, reaching the narrow space in between the ceiling of this storage room and the top of the security room.

Performing a brief scan of both his targets, he ran into another problem.

One of the agents was just another tier one, albeit a tier one who was level twenty-four, borderline to the next tier in ranking. He had to assume that the agent was at least somewhat more competent compared to the tier ones he had killed so far. The second agent that came back from his walk became Li’s primary concern.

Agent: Andrew Geforce

Age: 26 M

Shard: Kodak-Cresh

Rank: Tier 2 | Level 29

Strength: 42

Agility: 30

Endurance: 31

Intelligence: 28

Healing Factor: n/a

This was yet another tier two Kodak agent he had encountered on this mission, other than the asshole from the bathroom and the two Dan held a grudge against. Actually, Li didn’t encounter many tier two Kodak agents in his career so far. And when he did, he was strongly advised to avoid agents of that rank at all costs. In a typical fight, no one was expected to survive, let alone win an encounter with a tier two agent of any shard. Li knew he was simply far outmatched in all physical stats. The agent guarding the container was simply stronger, faster and would have better reaction times than him.

It also didn’t help that Li’s left arm still wasn’t fully healed after his fight with the previous tier two Kodak agent, a fight Li barely won.

With these two agents guarding the container together, Li could not afford to make any mistakes. Even if he killed one, it would alert the other agent and the fight would become a toss up when it comes to who the victor would be.

If Li had no backup, he had to determine what strategy could work if he had to take these two out on his own. Li laid flat on his stomach watching these two, running through multiple scenarios in his mind. One particular strategy he had in mind was to toss a concussion grenade and stun both agents.

Li will then leave his hiding spot and rush in to gun down both of them, swtiching to his Aero’s shredder rounds to get the job done. But like every other scenario that he played through in his mind, that tier two agent was the one wild card that gave Li uncertainty.

Kodak agents in general were more resilient to damage in general compared to the two other major shards. He questioned if his concussion grenade would even be effective at disorientating that tier two agent. He recalled a story a fromer squad leader told him back when he was a Hellhound about a high-level Kodak agent surviving two point-blank explosions from frag grenades without a helmet. The Kodak agent continued fighting even with shrapnel in his face before finally being gunned down from overwhelming gunfire.

None of the scenarios Li ran in his mind were without significant risk. The question of how to deal with that tier two agent had him stumped. Li thought back to the training exercise Michael Cynosa had him and his team complete with their escape on the runaway train. After more thinking, the tactics he learned from that exercise wouldn’t be applicable in this situation.

Li had no space to work with. This was a cramped storage room filled with crates and other piles and trash heaps of stolen goods with not much flat ground for Li to make fast movements. It also wasn’t ideal for luring either of the Kodak agents far away enough in one particular directions. The lack of space simply killed any hopes of misdirecting his enemy.

It also didn’t help that neither Dan or Angie were here with him. He was all alone up against physically stronger and numerically superior enemies. This wasn’t about being a coward. Li was aware he was outmatched. If he got himself killed now, he would further compromise the mission on top of Dan being out of commission.

Li received a sudden notification on his HUD of an incoming call. It came from the last person he expected.

“Hey, it’s Dan. You still there Li?”

“Affirmative. You picked a hell of a time to wake up from your nap,” Li said sternly. Deep down, he was thankful to hear Dan’s voice. That meant the mission could still be salvaged and Dan could make his way to his position and they could deal with these Kodak agents together as a cohesive unit.

“Sorry about that. I’m fully recovered. My HUD has already given me a waypoint to your exact location,” Dan said.

“Good. I cleared a path for you by killing some obstacles in our way so you should encounter little if any resistance. I’m in the storage room where Kodak are guarding the container. I got two guards in my position and I need some backup to take them out.”

“Nice work, Li. You’re the greatest.”

“Enough about me, what the hell happened to you?”

“I got a lot to explain,” Dan said. “I think it’s best that I show you what’s been cooking up on my end.”