A Black Market LitRPG

The seat in the driver’s cab jostled as the arctech wagon rattled violently, the wheels rumbling over an uneven road. It was clearly made very recently, a simple road built through a small valley for convenience’s sake rather than out of comfort for anyone using it. The wagon commander had already lost count of how many times the driver had to swerve to avoid potholes and slopes of mud, loose from the torrential rain.

Suddenly, the entire cab jerked hard while the wagon came to a complete stop, , nearly causing the commander’s head to slam onto the dashboard. “Shit! Move!”

The guards of each of the five wagons kicked into action, spreading out in a ring around the convoy, guarding it as the commander stepped out to see a landslide that had blocked the road. Machine guns swivelled to face the cliffs, mounted on modified wagons that served as the front and rear guards.

“Fix the road now! Radio in the engineers nearby!” The commander ordered two of the guards, who clambered into the back of the wagon, speaking rapidly on the arctech radio. He turned back to look at the size of the landslide, which had blocked nearly two-thirds of the road.

“Sir, they say it’s going to take five hours for them to arrive!”

“Ridiculous, we have to make it to the Ocra forward camp in three! Start clearing out the rocks!”

The guards quickly grabbed whatever tools were on hand, immediately beginning to shovel the rocks and shift them out of the way. They propped up the remaining section of the landslide, ensuring just enough space for an arctech wagon to move past.

Throughout the next hour, the commander remained tense, with a third of his men on a continuous lookout, scanning the ridge of the valley for any potential ambushes. There was supposed to be a patrol squad here guarding the valley… where the hell did they go?

“Sir, the wagon can fit through now!”

“Then let’s get moving!”

The convoy rumbled into life again, the machine gunners keeping a tight watch for anything suspicious as they squeezed through the gap. The underlying tension permeated everyone, beads of sweat trickling down their face as they did not dare even to wipe it away, eyes focused ahead and around them.

Soon, they were out of the valley, entering a spare forest that marked the beginning of Ocra’s territory. “We’re one and a half hours away now; pick up the pace!” The commander ordered the radio but noticed that the arctech radio was crackling instead, with no response from the other drivers or guards in the convoy.

Instead, the deafening sound of an arctech wagon blowing up rushed through the cabin of the commander, prompting his driver to slam the brakes, halting the wagon.

Before anyone could even move, a barrage of pellets pelted all five wagons, blasting them and riddling their metallic armour with holes. Yet another brilliant arcia explosion erupted as the fuel tank was ignited, the friction causing the arcia energy to burn wildly, its blue flames lapping while guards cowered in the cabin, hoping the wagon was sturdy enough to withstand the incoming gunfire.

The machine gunners tried to fire back but were sniped in the head with pinpoint accuracy.

“Get out there and return fire, you idiot!” The commander urged the guards in his wagon. “Those Versian cowards dare to ambush us!”

The guards tried to fight back but were heavily outgunned and forced to take cover in the back of the wagon, unwilling to risk returning fire.

“This is Supply Corps platoon 5, under heavy fire; request backup! Thirty kilometres south of Ocra!” The commander desperately spoke into his arctech radio, but there was no response nor any inkling of feedback. We’re being jammed as well!

Soon, the machine gun fire finally abated, prompting the guards to peek out from cover and fire back and the tree line.

Instead, a fully armoured arctech knight platoon bearing the insignia of the Versian Military rushed forwards, firing back with rifles and handguns. The fierce gunfight was harrowing, with pellets threatening to pierce right through their hearts.

Morale began to plummet in the convoy, and many of the guards were unwilling to fight. There was a reason why they had been placed in the Supply Corps, but little did they know it was as perilous as the frontline.

A shaken guard gripped his rifle tightly, flinching as another pellet pinged off the armour of the wagon, the sparks right next to his body. “No, no, no, like fucking hell, I’m going to die here in the middle of nowhere. My daughter needs me!”

His squadmate slapped his shoulder. “Hey! Focus and cover your angle! Otherwise, we’re all going to die he-“ Instead of words spoken, teeth and brain tissue were flung out as a machine gun resumed fire, penetrating through the armour and tearing through the squad mate’s head, ripping it apart.

“AHHH!” The shaken guard panicked, rushing out from the wagon in the complete opposite direction, hoping to escape the ambush. Instead, he earned himself five bullets in the body, his vision spiralling as he crumpled to the floor.

The road was a complete mess, the wagons riddled with holes and with a pittance of guards left, the guards tried to convince the commander to give up.

“Sir, we should surrender! There’s no point giving up our lives!”

“And be taken prisoner by the vermin of Versia! Never! If you cowards won’t do your duty, then I’ll –“

A mortar strike landed right next to him, blowing up his body and causing him to scream in pain, half of his body torn right out as the ends of muscles and tendons were scorched black, his arm already blasted to pieces.

“WE SURRENDER! WE SURRENDER!”

The remaining guards waved whatever white cloth they had on hand, causing the gunfire to stop.

A loudspeaker bellowed from the tree line where the armoured arctech knights were still waiting in cover. [DROP ALL YOUR WEAPONS NOW AND STEP OUT WITH YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD!]

The sound of clattering guns was prominent, with the remaining guards all complying with the order.

However, the moment they were exposed out front, they were shot in the head immediately with no hesitation at all, their brains drilled through by the spiralling pellets as they fell in shock, the surprise evident on their frozen faces.

A squad leader from the Versian knights motioned forward with his hand, ordering the knights to secure the wagon convoy. “Replace the mines in the road. Arm them once we’re done shipping off the supplies.”

As if on cue, a separate train of arctech wagons approached them, with workers leaping out from the convoy and grabbing the surviving supplies. The entire operation was done in just ten minutes, with the knights moving back out with the new convoy.

Instead of heading towards Versia, the convoy was aimed at going back towards Raktor instead. They travelled down the same road and path, eventually leading towards the valley.

This time, there was a Yual patrol squad on duty, watching the valley. But as they saw the approaching convoy that was clearly not the Supply Corps, they instead ignored it, allowing the convoy to pass through unimpeded.

“Who’s that convoy? Why aren’t we stopping them?” One of the newer members of the patrol squad asked the leader.

“Don’t ask too many questions, boy, if you still got family back at Raktor that you want to see.” The leader remarked before his eyes were drawn to a shimmering glare high up in the sky. It was like he was looking at a completely different patch of sky, but it was just this one blob. “Weird. It looks like the sky is…”

A metal projectile suddenly shot forth from the shimmering blob, impacting the front cab of the wagon and immediately killing the driver, the twisting projectile shredding through his spine as the wagon was knocked off course, spiralling and crashing right as it blocked the recently cleared landslide. It forced the entire convoy to stop, with the armoured knights immediately getting out and scanning the area.

“Where did the shot come from?! Machine gunners!” The squad leader roared.

“Above!”

“Huh?!”

Suddenly, a human shape fell from the sky, crushing the rear-guard wagon and blowing up the flowing arcia fuel in an instant. The dazzling blue flames erupted and lapped at the edges of the valley, bits and pieces of metal fragments tossed into the air while the human walked out of the fire, a heavy rifle in his hand aimed right at them.

“What the…?” The knights were all confused, with the squad leader squinting at the human that just fell from the sky, trying to examine his armour. The arctech armour was shoddy, and it looked like it had just been repaired recently. But how did he survive the fall?

“Fire!” The squad leader ordered first, following a modus operandi of shoot first, bury later. The knights surrounded the man and blasted him with everything they had.

This is My Turf!

The bullets failed to reach Kyle, even a grenade that blew up right before him, nothing able to slow down his advance as he charged right towards them, firing rapidly with his own rifle.

A machine gunner tried to swivel the mounted gun down to aim right at him, but instead a glob of acid suddenly fell onto him, causing him to let go of the rapidly dissolving machine gun. Additional globs of acids splashed across, totalling the wagon’s engines completely while avoiding hitting the supplies.

Kyle brandished a lighting sword the moment he got close enough, slashing and dicing through them with the Accelerate skill.

What the…? Kyle didn’t slow down to think, focused on wiping all of them out.

The Yual patrol squad at the top of the valley saw the entire battle play out before them, watching as Kyle singlehandedly killed the entire convoy. “We got to get out of here! Now!” The leader urged the rest of his squads, who had their gaze locked onto Kyle.

“Where do we go?!”

“Anywhere but here! If that man finds out, we’re here; we’re dead!” The leader frantically said as he tried to flee, but as he turned to face the forest, there was already another man there aiming right at them with another handgun, shooting them right in the head.

The patrol squad that was caught off-guard was immediately killed without a chance to resist. “All clear on the ridge, boss,” Feldon spoke through his radio as he used his feet to flip over the dead leader, checking his body.

Down on the ground, Kyle already had the squad leader by the neck, choking him and checking his body for any self-immolating engravings or any form of poison by which the squad leader could commit suicide. “Good work. Check their bodies for any signs of gang tattoos or relations.”

“So they really weren’t the Versian military…”

Kyle and Feldon were already planning to hit the shipment but were soon aware that there was another force attempting to ambush them as well. Kyle lifted the squad leader up, who struggled against the grip around his neck. “Who hired you? Who do you work for?”

“Fuck you twat. Don’t even think about getting away scott-free.”

Kyle punched the guy right in the chin, knocking him out and tying him up with whatever metal bars were around.

A stealth hovercraft quickly flew in, landing in the middle of the valley while Kyle and Feldon loaded as many supplies as they could onto the hovercraft as well as both of their stealth hornets, before flying back to Desham.

So the major gangs of Raktor are ambushing Count Leon’s supply chain? But why? Kyle left the bodies there while he held onto the restrained squad leader, his head already covered in a sack to prevent him from seeing anything.

“Looks like we’re not the only traders profiting from this war…”