In a small one bedroom apartment there was a girl lying asleep on a single bed, but from the girl's expression, the dream she was having wasn't very good. Even though she was sleeping fitfully, it was still possible to see how beautiful this girl was: long, soft red hair, white and very smooth skin, which showed that she took great care of her appearance, both with hair hydration and skin creams.
Underneath her covers was a very attractive body. Even though she was wearing loose pajamas to sleep, the curves of her body were quite visible. If a man were seeing this, maybe he wouldn't dare speak, lest she wake up and spoil such a beautiful sight.
But from the girl's furrowed brow, it was possible to tell that she wasn't having a good dream. In a few seconds she jumped out of bed as she screamed.
"Rosemary!"
Scared, the girl looked at the ceiling of her house, confused, reasoning what she was doing, until she understood that everything had been just a dream.
"Damn, I dreamed of Residual Devil again…" The girl sighed as she understood what had happened.
It was now 2:00 pm and she had still been sleeping, which showed both that her sleep quality was very bad, and also that she had stayed up late before going to sleep.
This girl's name was Caitlyn, but if someone on the internet were to see her, they would recognize her as Amoura, the new F-Rank Streamer who had become relatively famous in town recently for being the first Streamer to play Residual Devil. From a widely unknown girl who livestreamed to just 200 people in the beginning, to a famous streamer averaging 3-5k people watching her play recently, Caitlyn felt her life had changed a lot. In fact, the amount of money she had made on the livestream yesterday was enough for her to pay this month's rent!
Thinking about the game that was responsible for making her famous, Caitlyn was very grateful to Residual Devil and Electronic Arts, the developer that was developing that game, but there was also a bit of anger mixed in for making it so hard for her to sleep, as she continuously dreamed of Rose and the zombies she had to fight in the game.
Giving up on trying to stay asleep, Caitlyn decided to wash up and get ready for the mission she had today. Because of Residual Devil and the improvement she was seeing from the game, Caitlyn had already reached 810 Marksmanship Points the night before, which qualified her to try participating in a Rank E mission. While Rank F missions paid an average of $200 per mission, Rank E missions already had an average payout of $1,000 per mission, which was a big change for her. Her monthly expenses were around $1,500. Considering that she did 10 missions a month, she could only earn $2,000 normally, which was barely more than enough to pay the bills and support herself, but now that she could participate in Rank E missions, if she maintained the quest average, she could receive at least $10,000 every month, which would improve her quality of life by a lot!
Of course, with the increase in income she would have, there would also be an increase in risk in missions, which was already common for players. The kill rate of the missions weren't low, but Caitlyn was confident she could pull it off, especially with the points she scored on the virtual marksmanship test she took.
Glancing at the time, Caitlyn saw that it was almost time for her to head out and she began outfitting her quest accessories: black military boots, green cargo pants, reinforced belts, and a green camouflage tactical shirt. Above the shirt was a protective vest for slashing attacks, a black mask that went up from her neck and covered her nose, and a black cap that held her hair in a bun.
What stood out the most was the gun she carried on her waist and the briefcase she was holding with just one arm, which protected an assault rifle. Unlike Amoura, the beautiful and sweet game streamer, presently she was Caitlyn, the Rank F player who would do an experimental mission for Rank E in assault weapons and was prepared to kill. This personality difference might have seemed glaring to ordinary people, but for players it was their way of separating reality from the missions they were participating in,m so their mental health wouldn't deteriorate too quickly.
As for Caitlyn, it was also a good way to disguise her appearance. Despite wearing looser clothes and a protective vest, it was still clear the size of her breasts and ass were far above average, which was not a very useful set of traits to have in a place as dangerous as the missions they were undertaking. This wasn't because the monsters would get horny at the sight of her or anything of that nature, but because she didn't have full confidence in the player partners she would have, who being in an isolated and lawless place, might try to do something nasty to her.
That's why Caitlyn was always concerned with hiding her body and appearance as much as possible, leaving only Amoura to be famous because of her beauty, while Caitlyn was known only for her professionalism and for not talking much.
The place where players met to assemble for missions was the Sandstone Bay military base. There they would meet their mission partners, and plan how tasks would be distributed. As usual, Caitlyn was leaned up against the wall in the corner as she listened to the other players decide their tasks.
Discovering that their mission would be to deal with a group of Zombies caused Caitlyn's eyebrow to rise in surprise, something no one noticed.
Upon learning their target, a man with a sword on his waist commented, "So are we going to deal with Residual Devil in real life?"
Hearing what the man said, out of the group of 8 people, 3 other people reacted and laughed. "I just hope that a zombie doesn't jump up and rip my fingers off."
"Haha." The man with the sword and 2 other people laughed at this, leaving the other 3 confused. While Caitlyn also understood, she just didn't react.
"What do you mean by that?" A woman holding a large spear looked confused.
"Don't you know about Residual Devil?" the swordsman asked in surprise.
"No, what is it?" The woman asked, confused.
Seeing that not only was this woman confused, but also the other two Players did not understand in addition to the quiet woman leaning against the wall, the swordsman soon explained about the game.
"Residual Devil is a game that a rookie Developer from Harrington University released a few days ago in their biannual contest. Despite being an F Rank game, this Developer was quite the genius, creating a much more interesting story than any of the books I've ever read!" a man with a big shield on his back said excitedly.
"Hey, not only is the story good, I managed to train my swordsmanship a lot there, despite dying a lot..." The swordsman said, a little frustrated, which made the eyebrows of the 3 players who didn't know about the game rise up.
"Did you die in a Rank F game?" the woman asked.
"Don't underestimate Residual Devil. Even the weakest monsters in the game have high F-Rank strength. And since I could only use a small tactical knife, it was difficult to deal with the monsters at such close range without dying. But the training was pretty good for a Rank F game," the swordsman explained, "When I used my sword again after training in the game, it was as if I had spent the whole time training in a Rank E game, which surprised me a lot."
The other players were surprised, as even the other Rank E players who knew about Residual Devil were unaware of this, as their main weapons were not firearms, knives, or swords.
Looking at the woman with a pistol at her waist, the swordsman thought of something. "You must have enjoyed training in Residual Devil more than I did, right?"
Caitlyn was taken aback by the man's sudden question, but she quickly nodded in agreement without saying anything else.
Realizing that this woman didn't like to talk much, the group put the game talk aside and went back to focusing on the mission. With all roles delegated, they got on the bus that took the players to the city gate where their mission would take place and began to concentrate, stabilizing their feelings so that they wouldn't affect their judgment outside the city gates and cause the death of anyone.
A short time later they were already riding some rented motorcycles through the forest outside the city to get to their mission site. Their identities had already been proven and they all left their useless belongings in the city, both cell phones and Caitlyn's suitcase were left, since outside the city there was no cell phone signal and holding the Assault Rifle by the shoulder strap was much better than in the suitcase, which she only did within the city for safety reasons.
They soon came upon a small town that was abandoned many years ago, which just so happened to be their destination. There has been no problem in this region for a long time, but just a few days ago something new was detected by the military.
"Let's stop the motorcycles in a safe place. From there on, we'll go on foot." The team captain, the man with the big shield, spoke in a serious voice over the radio, totally different from the cheerful and relaxed voice he had when talking to the group about Residual Devil.
Hearing the captain's command, the other players also stopped their motorcycles in the safe place and started walking.
In a low voice, the captain explained to them the reason for the decision, "Since the city is being attacked by zombies, they are most likely very sensitive to sound, so we should make as little noise as possible.
"Previously, the cemetery of this city had already been destroyed so that something like this would not happen, but apparently another cemetery was found under the main mansion of this city, probably a tradition of some rich family that their family members could not be buried next to the rest of the city. Unfortunately, a virus of some sort found these corpses and turned them into zombies. Apparently the strength of these zombies is at low E Rank, but these zombies have also turned other weaker monsters into zombies as well, which spawned some more F Rank monsters, so stay alert."
Hearing the captain's explanation, the other players nodded their heads again as they maintained their battle formation. The captain stood in front with his big shield, and next to him were the swordsman and a woman with a big ax. Behind them were two more people with bows, a man and Caitlyn holding guns, and at the end there was a woman with a wand.
Although firearms were quite powerful against Rank F monsters, the effectiveness of them against Rank E monsters was a little lower, which made Rank E players transition to using bows, which with the skills they learned and when using Mana , could do much more damage, leaving firearms only for novices. Of course, there were also magical firearms that did the same damage as bows and with more practicality, but such equipment was so expensive that only very rich players decided to invest in them, while the rest just decided to use bows.
Caitlyn swallowed hard as she looked at this small, destroyed town. But when comparing this town to the village she was used to frequenting in Residual Devil, her nervousness quickly subsided.
'This town is much less scary than the village. I'll just do what I usually do in the game and everything will be fine…' Caitlyn mentally said as she comforted herself.
What she didn't expect was that the improvement the game caused for her would be much greater than she imagined!
//NunuNote//
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