Everything around me went blurry. My vision swam in and out of focus. I could hear faint shouting above me—Jane, maybe David—voices muffled by the ringing in my ears. My health bar plummeted—down to a mere 5%.

  Fucking hell.

  I placed my hands over my body, focusing on my health bar as it slowly began to regenerate. The searing pain from the explosion was still fresh, but I could feel the healing process kicking in. With a grunt, I pushed myself off the asphalt, the world still spinning slightly as I tried to regain my bearings.

  Before I could get far, a harsh tug pulled me to my feet. I barely had time to process what was happening before I was being dragged away from the road, away from the chaos. The next thing I knew, I was being propped up near a tree, the rough bark pressing against my back.

  Case stood over me for a moment, scanning the area before giving me a quick thumbs-up.

  Case then raised his hand. David threw him an ammo for the MAAWS he was carrying on his arm. Case caught the ammo as if it was weightless and put it back inside the launcher. He then ran again to the moving danger.

  David then looked at me, he sighed, “Well, that’s close enough to dying, I guess?”

  I replied, “Huh?” My ears were still ringing.

  “Never mind, can you help me with these guys?” David asked. “I need you to regenerate their wounds. Use the stim on your bag if you run out of psy.”

  As I approached the nearest soldier, I focused on the psy-energy within me, drawing from what I had left. I placed my hands over his injuries, feeling the familiar tingle as the healing energy flowed out. His deep gashes and bruises started to close, the skin knitting itself back together.

  I moved methodically from soldier to soldier, repeating the process with each one. They remained unconscious, their wounds steadily healing under my touch. As the blue energy bar in my vision continued to deplete, I injected a psy stim into my body, feeling the familiar surge of energy. It was enough to get me through the last of the regeneration work.

  By the time I was done, all of the soldiers’ wounds were mended, and I even managed to reconnect a few shattered limbs that had been severed in the battle. They were breathing steadily now, no longer the broken, lifeless bodies they had been moments ago.

  Just as I finished, a massive explosion ripped through the apartment building we’d just come from. The shockwave rattled the ground, sending debris flying in all directions. I barely had time to react when a figure emerged from the dust and smoke—Jane, with a woman in tow.

  The woman didn’t look like a typical prisoner. She was wearing a military uniform, but the lack of combat gear on her body told me she wasn’t one of the regular soldiers. The way she carried herself, with an air of quiet confidence, made me suspect she was someone important. But who? And why had Jane brought her here?

  “Are all of them taken care of, David?” Jane shouted.

  “All accounted for, Jane,” David replied.

  Jane jumped down from the third floor into the ground. If she could survive an explosion from an IED, I had no doubt that she could make that kind of jump. She approached our group with the woman near her.

  “Is Case done?” David asked.

  “Pretty much it, the road is clear, he’ll be coming back soon.”

  “Jane, how about you summon your tank and I summon my IFV?” David asked.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Jane added.

  Then, all of a sudden, two vehicles appeared on the road. One was an M1 Abrams, and the other was a Boxer armored vehicle. It seemed like the Boxer would be used to carry the troops through the carnage, while the Abrams would absorb the damage from the enemy’s armored vehicles.

  However, the two vehicles looked strange. The M1 had a larger cannon than usual, and the Boxer featured a turret pulsating with radiant energy with a large tubular shape and a lens on the end of it. It wasn’t the regular configuration for the gun, at least as far as I could tell, but my knowledge of this world was limited.

  “Ain, tag along with me. I need someone to man the 30mm autocannon turret,” Jean said, climbing into the tank's interior.

  Without asking any questions, I simply followed suit. The tank had three hatches, all located at the front. I climbed through one of them, and that's when things took an unexpected turn.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Instead of the high-tech machinery I had expected, I was greeted with a surprisingly simple interface. The compartment was dominated by a massive monitor, and a VR goggle rested on the seat. The tank's seat itself was positioned far from the rest of the interior, almost isolated from the other sections. The controls were just as simple—a single joystick, an XBOX joystick to be exact.

  When I said isolated, I meant it literally—it felt almost claustrophobic, with metal walls lining both sides, a far cry from what I expected in a regular tank. The space was so separated that I couldn’t even see Jane inside.

  “Em… what?” I was speechless, but nevertheless, I jumped into the tank.

  The health bar on my vision turned gray and the heart icon was replaced with a gear icon, showing the total health of the vehicle. I wore the VR goggles and closed the hatch. Suddenly, it shifted to a third-person view of the tank.

  "Alright, welcome to my tank," Jean said, "This is the solo kit, which cost nearly 300,000 UC. Get a feel for the controls—some people prefer a mouse and keyboard, others a joystick. Just try to get the hang of it, Ain."

  I moved the 30mm cannon with a joystick, it moved just as if I was playing a game. I switched to thermal, giving the black-and-white view of the tank itself alongside the area surrounding it, giving me a better view all around.

  Then, the Abrams began to move forward. With the tank being in the third-person view, and the fact that I could see everything with intense clarity was already an insane fact. However, I still couldn’t get myself to remain calm.

  How exactly does this tank work? Does it just take damage at face value—like an RPG does 20 damage, a cannon does 28, and so on? Or is it more realistic, where, if the tracks get disabled, it’s game over for the whole thing? I wasn’t sure, but I was more of the first term.

  After all, despite being thrown from a building, and shot in the torso countless times, my only concern seemed to be my HP depleting, not any real complications. I had no limbs broken or separated from my body, only mild sting and blood sipping out of those holes.

  However, the rest was straightforward. If I saw a white human silhouette through the targeting system, I knew to pull the trigger. The 30mm autocannon would rip through anything, and no cover could protect the enemy from its wrath.

  "Visual on enemy T-55, 180," David transmitted over the radio.

  I watched as the tank turret smoothly rotated, aiming toward the target. With a thunderous crack, the cannon fired, sending a sabot projectile streaking toward the enemy's position at incredible speed. The impact was catastrophic—the T-55’s armor buckled, and a massive explosion erupted, hurling the tank's turret high into the air.

  But then, a new wave of fire erupted from the surrounding buildings and skyscrapers. Soldiers, taking cover in those buildings, unleashed a barrage of small arms fire, peppering the tank and the APC with bullets. RPGs streaked through the air, one hitting the tank squarely on the side. I braced myself for the damage assessment.

  A slight beep echoed in my ears as the tank’s health bar dropped by just 5 points.

  “Wait… that’s it?” I muttered, surprised. The RPG’s impact had barely made a dent. My eyes flicked to the HUD, double-checking the numbers. Sure enough, the tank’s damage was almost negligible.

  “What are you expecting? Our tank to blow up?” Jane asked. “Of course not.”

  “That’s my first reaction too at first, anyway, fire at those assholes, Ain!” David shouted through the radio.

  “Copy that.”

  I pointed my 30mm autocannons at those white spots on top of the tank and fired away. The continuous stream of bullets from the autocannons went straight through each and every one of the enemy’s cover, killing them instantly.

  One of the soldiers was hit directly in the body. The force of the impact sent him tumbling backward, and the rocket he was holding detonated in a spectacular explosion. It sent debris flying and created a burst of fiery light that lit up the scene from the top of one of the nearby buildings.

  However, multiple banging and clanging still hit our tanks, thankfully, there was no damage done yet at the tank, and the health of the tank, strangely enough, was slowly regenerating. In the middle of the carnage, my thoughts wandered somewhere else.

  “Where’s Case?” I asked.

  Jane then answered, “Case found his own way, always, just worry about us, girl. We still have five kilometers to go.”

  I continued the carnage, firing the autocannons at the incoming hostiles. The best part was, that it felt like the autocannon had an endless supply of ammunition—at least, it seemed that way. The only thing that could stop me was the overheating mechanism, which kicked in sooner than I’d liked. The barrel of the cannon grew red-hot, and the cooling systems kicked in with a loud whirring sound. It didn’t take long for it to cool down.

  The convoy continued its way through the torn city, eventually arriving at the forest on the edge of the town, overgrown with vegetation with barely any sign of humans in there. However, we continued to push through. At least, we didn’t find any thermal signature as the tank moved through the dirt path located in the forest.

  The convoy had reached the outskirts of Bravo’s position—a small camp nestled in a valley between two ridgelines in the middle of the forest. There were merely three JLTVs inside the camp, and I saw nothing else but five temporary camps.

  To make things even stranger, there were only three people left inside the camp—and all of them were women? Not only that, but they were women with cat ears and tactical gear. I blinked twice, unsure if I was seeing things. The last time I checked, the soldiers here were a mix of the usual grim-faced guys, but this was definitely... something else.

  The guys we had rescued earlier were mostly the usual “sausage party,” as I had come to call it. Gruff soldiers with a similar look, all hardened by war. But now, here we were, looking at three women who looked like they stepped right out of a fantasy game—cat ears, sharp eyes, and tactical gear.

  I glanced at Jane, who was walking beside me, but she didn’t seem to notice my confusion. She was used to the weirdness by now.

  “Alright, get out, we’ve arrived,” Jane said.

  [Exiting Combat: +18,000 EXP]

  [Level Up: 10 → 13]

  [72 Status Points Available]

  [16 Skill&Perks Points Available]

  Now I get triple the amounts of points? Nice.